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Aktor bellowed and pushed off from the ground. His furs flapped around his thighs as he kicked at the stranger’s leg, sending him crashing to the ground beside him.
The stranger was back on his feet a blink later, almost as if the shadows pouring from his flesh made him less substantial. A foe that wasn’t real.
Aktor swung at the stranger’s face.
The stranger’s chest heaved with breath as shadows thickened around him, pooling from his skin like a dark mist, draping a black cloak over him, granting him strength that didn’t seem real. “I’ll kill you for this.”
Aktor looked over his shoulder just as the shadows swirled enough to allow a piercing glare from the moon to strike the grass. Something glinted in the shoots.
His spear.
Aktor launched himself at it just as the stranger stumbled, his bitten arm held close to his body, his eyes turning milky with fevers.
A haunting wail of a wolf’s howl sliced through the night.
The stranger straightened, his gaze looking to where the howl had sounded. With a heavy breath, he tripped toward me and grabbed my wrist. Pulling me to my feet, he panted, “Come. I need to get you away from here.”
His skin was ice cold.
Tiny bolts of lightning shivered from my blood to his, and the mark on my hip burned. He sucked in a breath, his gaze dropping to his own hip, hinting he felt it too.
I nodded.
To what I wasn’t entirely sure.
Squeezing my hand, he turned to run—ready to claim me like he’d promised he would the moment we’d met.
A quiet whistle caused by flying feathers was all the warning we had.
Aktor’s spear struck the stranger right in the side, clattering with its decorative beads and feathers as the arrowhead vanished into flesh.
“No!” I screamed.
The stranger bellowed and fell.
Our fingers tore apart.
Shadows thickened, swallowing up the night until the moon vanished and the grasslands were no more. A blur of earthern skin as the stranger soared to his feet, defying his weakness, wounds, and fevers. With a savage snarl, he ripped out the spear, broke the shaft over his thigh, then vaulted toward Aktor.
The two men went plummeting to the ground.
No words were shared. Just snarls and grunts as fists punched and legs kicked.
In the blotting darkness, I struggled to see who won. I couldn’t track the chaos of limbs to help.
Another wolf’s howl shredded the night just as a feral battle cry sounded from behind me. I ducked and tripped to one knee, my head still lightheaded from Aktor’s strangulation. The pounding of unsteady feet crashed past me in the dark.
I caught a glimpse of Kivva as he ran toward the two battling men, his arms above his bloody head, his staff poised high.
“Watch out!” I yelled, my stomach shrivelling with fear.
The stranger didn’t hear, victory pouring off him as he wedged his knee into Aktor’s back, holding the chief’s son in a chokehold, repaying him for what he’d done to me.
Kivva leapt the final distance, swinging his staff with all his power.
The carved end thwacked hard against the stranger’s temple.
The shadows spluttered and thinned, and for a terrible breath, the stranger’s smoky, silvery eyes met mine.
They met, they held, and then they rolled back in his head and closed.
His body crashed to the side just as every shadow and shade winked out.
Gone.
No more.
Leaving the air crystal clear with pooling icy moonlight.
No...
I clamped both hands over my mouth as he stayed still.
Still as death.
No, no, no...
Aktor shifted onto his knees, coughing and rubbing his throat. Kivva stumbled toward his friend, blood coating his chest, more blood pouring from his nose, pressing his forehead to his staff as he struggled to stay upright. The two Nhil hunters shared a glance before glowering at the lifeless body of the stranger.
My heart tried to wing through my ribs. To grant life to the man who’d saved me. Who’d fought for me...hurt for me.
“Don’t touch him!” I yelled, rush-tripping toward them.
“Finish it, Kivva,” Aktor coughed, grunting with effort as he clambered to his feet. Narrowing his eyes, he searched the grass. “My knife is somewhere near.”
“I don’t need the knife,” Kivva muttered, moving to stand over the sprawled, slack-jawed man. “My staff will do.” Raising the wooden weapon above his head, he gritted his teeth and fought for balance. Whatever fight he’d had with the stranger had been vicious and bloody.
His crimson-streaked chest flexed as he prepared to deliver a killing blow.
“No!” I leaped for the end of his staff. “Don’t!”
“Do it.” Aktor balled his fists. “Now.”
Kivva sucked in a breath, his arms bunched.
The staff came swinging down.
My fingers stung as I grabbed the polished wood, only for it to rip out of my hands. “No!”
A blur of silver and midnight fur erupted from the tall grass, leaping through the sky and colliding with Kivva. The Nhil hunter went flying to the side, his staff spinning through the air to stab into the earth. He grunted as he landed on his back and then went still.
