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But maybe she could do it without killing the brave red wolf.
Chapter 5
Aerial Battle
Liliana swung down on her silk line, swooping at him out of the darkness with her right forearm blade extended. First, she had to blind the wolf-kin completely and make sure he didn’t shoot her.
She caught both his hands with the blunt side of her arm blade. She could have taken his hands off at the wrists with the sharp edge and ended their fight very quickly, but she chose a riskier path that might not end in anyone’s death.
The werewolf’s gun and knife flew out of his hands. The light didn’t go out. The gun tumbled across the pine needle–strewn ground and came to rest behind a root, making an island of white light in her second eyes’ ocean of nameless colors.
Peter Teague shook his hand where she’d probably bruised it. “Anna, we don’t have to do it this way.” The wolf-kin drew his sword. He pulled out another of his many knives with the other hand. “Just come with me, quietly. No one has to die tonight.” His footsteps were grounded and careful.
She could tell by the way he kept his feet low that he was unaware of the trip lines. He was also nowhere near them. She sprang the trap too soon. He still had several steps to go before he hit the web.
Nerves.
It was too late to correct her mistake.
Liliana jumped off a limb and caught another dangling silk cord, kicking her feet to swing faster in a long, graceful arc.
She had missed this feeling of freedom as the cold night air whooshed through her hair. It felt like flying. Just as it had back in the circus when she performed, exhilaration overwhelmed fear.
She extended her bare feet in front of her as she swung toward him, intending to knock the wolf down and hopefully cause him to lose another weapon.
The wolf must have smelled her, or heard her skirt flapping in the wind. He sidestepped and struck out with his sword.
Desperately, Liliana arched back as the sword blade swished over her body close enough for her to feel the air move in its wake. The heavy steel blade twanged against her silk line, parting it barely above her fingers.
As her line jerked, then went slack, Liliana twisted and managed to land on her sore feet. Her heart pounded in her throat. Even virtually blind in the dense forest on an overcast night, the werewolf came within inches of killing her.
The wolf-kin spun to face her general direction, sword and long knife held at the ready.
Liliana swallowed. She breathed deep and slow to steady her racing heart and keep from giving her position away.
He clearly couldn’t see her, but his head tilted slightly as he listened, waiting for her to move or breathe too loudly. He sniffed the air.
She had been all over this area setting her trap. Hopefully, that would confuse his sharp nose.
As silently as she could on her icy, sore feet, Liliana moved. The pine needles, cones, tree roots, and rocks made her steps tentative and painful. It was probably a good thing her kind weren’t prone to tetanus. She hopped up delicately onto one of her low lines to get above the forest floor, wishing she hadn’t left quite so much clear space between the trip lines. The familiar feel of her silk under the soles of her feet soothed them. Her steps steadied on the fine thread.
“Anna, it doesn’t have to be this way,” the red wolf said. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”
“I do not wish to answer your questions. Not as long as you ask with blades in your hands.”
The wolf oriented on her voice and shuffled blindly toward her, sword held high, long knife gripped like a second shorter sword in the other hand.
She bounced on the taut silk line under her toes, sprang up, and caught one of dozens of dangling lines. She scrambled hand over hand as quickly as she could. Just as the wolf passed beneath her, Liliana lifted her feet.
He held one hand out in front of him, searching for her by touch as he passed less than a foot beneath her.
That should lure him well into the web. Now, to close the trap.
Liliana dropped behind him after he passed, but she landed on a small twig. It snapped under her weight.
In a panic, she dropped flat to the ground as the wolf spun around.
His sword sliced the air blindly where she had been a moment before.
