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“Which isn’t an option after all,” she replied in a quiet voice, “as we’ve discovered.”
Lifting a hand slowly, he stroked her cheek, dark emotion in his eyes. She leaned into the caress, craving his touch and the silvery-cool soothing that suffused her. With him so close, his beautiful mouth was near enough that she need only cross a breath of distance to kiss him. He was watching her lips, too, the energy fulminating between them, molten with building heat.
“Veronica, I—” Gabriel broke off and leapt to his feet.
Crossing two strides to the door, he threw down the bar just as the latch moved. “Hunters,” he snarled, drawing his sword. The door jerked and rattled against its hinges. Something thumped on the roof, jerking their gazes upward.
Nic ran to the porthole, belatedly aware of the hunters’ feral and unsavory taint on her senses. “I see two, no—three more. And another crawling onto the deck.” A snarling face popped up, fangs clashing against the glass, and she shrieked, jumping back and crashing against Gabriel, her heart pounding.
“Are you hurt?” His arm came around her, pulling her safe against him.
“No.” She tried to catch her breath. “Just startled.” How shehatedthose things.
The hunters pounded on the door.Boom boom boom.
“Stay here.” Gabriel pressed the enchanted silver blade into her hand. “If any of those things make it into the cabin, stab it with this. Anywhere will do. You saw.”
“You need it to destroy them.” She tried to hand it back, but he stepped away.
Boom boom boom.
“I’ll disable them, then we can use the blade to clean up.” He bared his teeth in a savage grin. “The manual chopping method has its advantages.”
Wood overhead splintered with a crash—and Nic squealed as a clawed hand punched through. Gabriel snarled and swung his sword, neatly chopping it off. The hunter howled, and outside, Vale screamed in equine agony.
“Stay inside. Let me out, then bar the door behind me,” Gabriel ordered, poised at the door, sword at the ready. “Wait for my signal.”
Boom boom boom.
“Now!”
Nic lifted the bar. Gabriel yanked the door open and charged out, skewering the hunter that had been pounding on it. She slammed the door and barred it with shaking hands, then whirled to face the splintered hole in the cabin roof. The hunter was still up there, biting at the wood, tearing at it with both hind paws and the remaining front one. Fragments of wood and bloody spittle rained down. It paused in its snarling efforts to thrust its snout through the shards of wood, pushing its way through. Nic swiped at it with the blade. Fruitlessly, as even the small cabin was taller than she could reach.
The hunter did jerk back, however, turning its head to eye her. “Lady Veronica Elal,” it crooned, almost politely. “You will come quietly.”
“I am Lady VeronicaPhel, in the company of my wizard and husband, Lord Phel,” she informed it loftily. “You will desist in your hunt.”
“You are an outlaw and as ssuch cannot command uss,” it hissed. “We ansswer to the Convocation. Yield and come quietly.”
Vale had stopped screaming, and Nic couldn’t hear anything but the sound of waves slapping the hull and the cries of seabirds. The barge shimmied, turning in the waves and dipping enough that she had to steady herself against the wall. Gabriel’s magic was no longer pushing them along, the barge bobbing at the mercy of the natural currents. Hopefully that meant he was preoccupied, not incapacitated. She had to get out there, but she didn’t want this thing tackling her from the roof as soon as she emerged.
“All right,” she said. “Come on in.”
“You will come out.”
“I don’t think so.” She ran a hand over her braid as if it were elegantly styled. “It’s raining, and I don’t want to mess up my hair.”
“You will come out and come quietly,” it insisted.
“Not too bright, are you? I have no intention of leaving this cabin.”
“Then you will be dragged out.” It yanked its head back and grabbed the ragged edge of the ceiling hole with long claws, tearing at it. Nic moved out of the way, clutching the enchanted dagger and preparing to strike. She could kill at least this one. Behind her, the glass in the porthole shattered, and she ducked, covering her head like a ninny. The hunter above tore away a board with a roar of triumph, and another shoved its snapping jaws through the porthole. Nic tightened her fist on the dagger—a strike anywhere would do—and plunged the blade into the soft black nose tipping the hunter’s snout.
With a strangled howl, it jerked back—nearly pulling the blade from her hand—and then shattered into gobs of goop like the others had.
“Ha!” she shouted in excited victory. Not so helpless in a fight this time.
Her head snapped back, the grip on her braid painfully yanking her backward, nearly off her feet, and the stink of rotting meat made her gag. Claws raked her neck as they seized her collar. “What’ss thiss?” the hunter barked in her ear. “Where are the hunterss who collared you?”
