Page 65 of The Unseen Hour

We weren’t going to fight our way out of this.

Not with a couple of small knives, in any case.

We needed another solution. My mind raced like Pellix through the fields as I struggled to find any way to help us.

If only we had the stallion with us. Pellix could run faster than any animal I’d seen.

“Pellix. That’s it! Pellix!” The idea was so far-fetched that I knew it might get us both killed. Still, I couldn’t let Orion die while I ran away.

“Celia!” Orion yelled as the smallest bear moved in my direction. He swiped at it, and it redirected its attention toward him. “Run!”

“Hold on, Ry,” I whispered, ducking into the branches. They scratched at my clothes and skin while I tried to stay out of sight. When I passed around the lightest-furred great bear, it raised its snout, sniffing the air.

Don’t see me. Don’t smell me, I beseeched silently.

It turned its head and ran toward Orion.

Not what I meant.

I found a tree with decent handholds, and an open area underneath it, and got to work. Climbing was much easier in trousers than it would have been in a dress and corset, and my muscles had been built from my hikes with Orion, time in the garden, and even carrying our food back and forth from the Meadow.

I didn’t need to reach the top of the tree. I just needed to be taller than the bears.

Then came the part that really required bravery.

Below me, barely visible through the leaves, Orion screamed. He stumbled back into view, his right trouser leg in tatters and a sickening crimson coating the material.

“Over here! This way!” I yelled at the creatures, keeping one arm tight around a branch and waving the other furiously.

Two started toward me, but the largest kept its attention on Orion as he backed away. Ry’s right leg gave out, and he fell against a tree. The great bear swiped, and Orion threw himself, dragging his weight by his arms, to get out of the way. He slid behind another tree, creating just a few seconds of confusion as the largest great bear looked for its prey.

“Come and get me!” I shouted again. I broke off a small branch of the limb I clung to, beating it against the tree to keep the eyes of the two other great bears on me.

The smallest one slammed its front paws against the tree trunk, standing on its hind legs and snarling so I was staring down into a mouth of saliva-dripping fangs.

The other, with its russet fur, was circling the tree.

Thank both gods that I’d spent all those hours riding Pellix around the ruins.

I’d never attempted it from a tree, and my feet weren’t as steady as they had been on a thick bit of stone, but it was this or a dead Head Shade. One of the bears lumbered just underneath my branch.

“Now!” I yelled as I jumped from the tree, plummeting toward the snarling beast. I landed on its back with a thwump, and scrambled to get ahold of its fur. It was much larger than Pellix, and without being able to get my legs around its sides, I began to slide.

“No, no, no!”

“Celia!” Orion screamed, and his voice was followed by the sound of cracking and splintering wood as the biggest great bear took another swipe at him, splintering tree bark.

I dug my heels in, trying to fix my awkward angle.

The great bear roared, rearing back.

I screamed, clinging to it.

The smallest bear had noticed me by that point. It swiped out a paw, and it was only because of the beast’s movements beneath me that I was twisted out of its path. Instead, the great bear underneath me was hit by its pack mate’s claws. It plunged back onto all four legs with a bellow.

Both creatures forgot me for a moment, snarling in each other’s faces instead.

Seeming to sense something amiss, the largest great bear roared at the other two, turning its head and making its way over.