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He frowned but didn’t object, sheathing his sword and guiding his horse to Amethyst’s other side. Her eyes flitted between me and him and then her attendants, though her hold on the reins didn’t relax. I used the small moment of calm to close the scant distance between us and open the saddlebag just behind her left hip. I didn’t bother to look at what piece of clothing I pulled before draping it over my lap. Her cheeks flushed as she looked down at it and then back toward the rest of the group.

Vincent took the fabric without comment and then turned toward the pathway we’d already traversed, tying the slip to his stirrup without lowering his sword. Tegan joined him a moment later, and the two of them continued back down the road, guiding the urgul away from the larger group. Right on cue, a cackling cry came from the forest to my left.

They were starting to circle.

With a curse, Arden turned away from Monique and mounted his horse, doing the same with the piece of clothing he’d taken from Monique’s bag. One of the standard guardsmen rode with him in pursuit of Vincent and Tegan.

That call came again, closer than before. It was echoed a moment later behind us. At least none had attempted to cut off the road before the group. The omegas, servants, and pack horses still had the opportunity to get away without risking bodily harm.

The remaining three standard guardsmen closed in around the convoy that would continue on. I slowed Torin and then brought her to a stop altogether, allowing Amaria to take my place beside Amethyst. She grabbed the lead rope from me without issue, looping it through her own horse’s halter in mirror of my own setup. Even as the group continued on and those staying behind to distract the urgul turned their focus to the trees around us, I couldn’t manage to pull my gaze away from Amethyst.

She looked over her shoulder as Amaria and Heath guided Elyssian farther down the path. Her gaze landed on me without error, the gray of her eyes piercing even at this distance. Rapacious, unrelenting need rushed through me between one breath and the next. My scent pulsed out from me—the wisteria dominant over the pine—thick enough to obscure the smell of the snow and the lingering odors of the horses. My gaze sharpened, the details of the pine trees growing clearer as my body reacted. Color brightened her cheeks for a moment before her entire face paled and her eyes widened in fear.

With the convoy now some distance from me, the markers of life that must be the pack of urgul came into clarity all at once. Seven that were large enough to be the beasts in the forest. None of them in front of me. Even as I felt them, one disappeared as a cackling cry cut off.

“Callum!” Phillip called from behind me.

The beast sprang from its cover in the trees to my right, a mass of spotted brown fur larger than most wolves and claws designed to rip into its prey. Both of its tails curved over its back, the ends that held the swath of barbs sharper than most sword points flared wide. Instead of pulling one of my blades, I wielded my magic, giving it an outlet. All of my frustration and fear and resentment flooded through my veins as I let my restraint on my abilities drop away.

The trees nearest the urgul whipped out, the limbs stretching until they wrapped around the beast’s back legs. It lost its footing, falling forward and rolling twice from its momentum. One of its tails, the end heavy with the deadly sharp barbs, lashed out. I urged Torin away a moment too late. The tail wrapped around her leg just below her knee. Her calm shattered, and she reared back, trying to break free of the damaging hold. I slid from the saddle, one of my daggers already in my hand and slicing downward. The branches of the trees holding the urgul down rippled, responding to my flare of anger. I let them tighten on the beast even as it cried out, its need for food now overshadowed by its drive to survive. Phillip didn’t hesitate, sinking his sword deep into the beast’s side in a clean strike. The urgul’s bright light in my mind, the part of me able to sense living creatures, snuffed out.

When I looked toward where Amethyst had been, the path was empty, only the freshly-turned snow evidence they’d been there at all.

I forced myself to focus on the threat around us, shutting away the look of terror she’d held as the urgul first attacked. With a heavy breath, I pulled the barbed tail off of Torin, using a bit of my magic to patch the cuts. I was nowhere near as good as Reuben, but it would be enough to keep her from hurting once we worked to rejoin the others.

Several of the beasts’ calls came from behind me, but there were no shouts of distress, so I trusted Vincent and the others were capable of handling those that circled behind. Phillip adjusted his horse, his eyes scanning the trees immediately around us. Closing my eyes, I focused on the pulses of life, those pinpoints, even as I let my magic release from the trees and allowed them to return to their proper state. A pinpoint moved faster than the rest, drawing closer with each second. Not even a minute later, a second urgul leapt toward me. I raised my dagger, letting it slash the side of the urgul as I moved out of its immediate path. It cried out, different from the hunting calls they’d been making. Both of its tails lashed toward me. I dodged the first, but that left the second free. The barbs scraped down my arm, drawing blood almost at once. The warm liquid soaked into the sweater’s thick fabric, the ribbons of red visible through the slashes now in the fabric, even as the urgul’s pinpoint of life faded.

“Damn it,” I muttered.

Phillip laughed. “That’s what you get for being on the ground.”

Rolling my eyes, I swung myself back into Torin’s saddle and cleaned my dagger on the ruined sweater. It’s not like I’d be wearing it again once we got to Wolfrest and I had the chance to clean up. Phillip moved with me, nearly in sync with my thoughts, and then we were rushing toward the others and the four urgul still fighting.

20

AMETHYST

After the initial rushed retreat where the horses seemed to run flat out, snow churning enough to wet my shins, the group slowed marginally, letting the horses that only carried packs set the pace for the rest of the group. My heart stayed in my throat the entire time, my breath coming in short pants even as I tried to pretend I wasn’t scared out of my mind. Every time my thoughts started to calm, the sight of that strange beast leaping for Callum filled the empty space. It had looked like a hyena, its back legs shorter than its front and dark spots along its back. Four yellow eyes had sat in the center of its face, one pair above the other, and its fangs were longer than any I’d ever seen—including the skulls of tigers we’d seen when we’d gone to the zoo in Phoenix a few years ago.

The fear rose again, choking me.

I couldn’t hold back a shiver—entirely separate from the trembling the cold caused—from racing down my spine as I remembered the bulbous end of the tails on that thing.

Tails. Two of them, moving much more like a cat’s than a hyena’s. Because that made just as much sense as Joseph being a fox, I supposed. I couldn’t help but look toward where he rode in Hugh’s lap in front of Heath. His eyes were bright and watchful. His tongue lolled to the side when he noticed me watching him. For some reason, my cheeks flushed. Hugh glanced over his shoulder, and I dropped my gaze to Elyssian’s mane. I swallowed down a noise that felt perilously close to a panicked whimper and tightened my hold on the reins again despite the freezing temperature, my knuckles whitening.

Amaria reached across the small space separating Elyssian and her own brown and black horse, circling her fingers around my wrist. Her words from yesterday night, when she and Shelby had sat with me after the group had dispersed following the simple dinner, rang through my ears.

Ask us about anything that’s different from your Arizona that makes you uneasy.

I hadn’t really understood why I’d need to figure out anything about this place if Callum was so sure Sloane and I would be able to get back home, but now my curiosity was slowly bubbling to the surface. It was slower, thicker than Sloane’s carefree inquisitiveness, and I didn’t really like the way it felt. It burned my throat like the worst bottom shelf rum.

It wasn’t until Amaria handed me a small bag full of those lemon grapes, the sun nearly behind the trees and the clouds nonexistent, that I finally allowed myself to ask anything at all. Even still, I started with something smaller.

“What are these called?” I asked, holding up the lemon-grape.

Amaria smiled. “Limellos. They grow on large shrubs that are often cultivated into privacy hedges in the northern cities. They store well, so they’re common during the winter months.”

I took a small bite of one of them. And then the larger question fell off my tongue, no more than a whisper.