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I leap. The beta shifter knocks me from my course, and we land in a tangle of limbs. I tumble him, getting a lock on his throat. He rakes me with his paws, but I am bigger and stronger, and I taste blood as I snap his neck.
“Call the dogs off! I can’t get a fucking shot!”
“Just fucking shoot!”
Another crossbow bolt whistles past as I barrel into the second shifter. And another.
Pain, sudden and sharp, takes my back leg from under me. I snarl, head whipping around, and launch for the bastard, taking his crossbow and arm in my jaws before he can knock another bolt. His horse and I crash to the forest floor on top of him.
Before I can turn, another arrow pierces my shoulder, slamming me into the ground.
“Ride!”The shout goes up. “Ride now!”
I try to rise, but the pain rips a howl from my chest as I must watch them ride out.
Twisting my head, I close my jaws around about the length of the arrow in my shoulder and, stealing myself, rip the barb out.
My next howl is long and mournful and filled with agony and failure.
I have another arrow in my hind leg, but it snaps off when I try to pull it out. Fuck! I cannot shift. The pain is maddening but not deep enough to prevent movement.
I rise, panting. Around me are the bodies of four soldiers: a horse, a hound, and a shifter.
Too many yet live, including the shifter who can guide them.
Lifting my snout, I howl once more.
Aston will know that they are coming. Ignoring the pain that permeates my body, I take off into the forest at a run.
* * *
Freya
Aston flings me up into the saddle before swiftly mounting behind me. But as he wheels the horse around, I hear another wolf howl.
That sound is like being doused in frigid water. It is all visceral pain, and I know instinctively who it belongs to.
“Lor,” I say.
“I know,” Aston snarls. “We cannot linger here.”
I sob as Aston urges the horse, and we take off at a gallop along the snowy path, chased by the bay of hounds and another mournful howl.
A flash in the trees to the right. I see wolfhounds and a flash of dark fur—a wolf shifter, and mounted soldiers.
“There she is!”
As we charge the narrow forest path, I cling to the horse, trees whistling past on either side. Yet I sense hopelessness when our horse must bear two, and theirs carry only one.
They are catching us, flanking us, then surging ahead to cut us off.
Aston unsheathes his sword.
A great wolf leaps for the front riders. Dark gray fur with cream flashes to his snout and underbelly, one I have not seen since I was a girl, only so much bigger than my memory.Lor!
They land with a great crash against the ground.
A rider moves to cut us off—our horse dances to the side, and a clang rents the air as Aston and the soldier clash swords.
