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The breeze picked up, pushing the single white lily off the table. In the distance rumbled the faintest hint of a growl.
13
Talia
Though the ground was entirely flat, my feet still found things to trip over in my haste to reach the tent. The second time I tripped, I fell all the way to my knees, scraping my hand against the small pebbles in the dirt.
An arm scooped under my shoulder and lifted. Rafael urged me forward, all the while staring at something behind us.
“Get inside,” he warned, his body tensed for a fight. His right hand held the hilt of a jeweled dagger.
I scurried into the tent, but as I slid between the canvas flaps, I cast a glance back at Rafael as a massive wolf emerged with a cloaked rider on its back. Its rider lifted a blade over his head and let out a growling battle cry. I screamed.
My eyes widened in admiration. Rafael stood eerily straight and still for a man facing a monster. He then lifted his hand.
I clutched the canvas over half my face, and watched without taking a breath as Rafael raised a hand toward the wolf. It was the same movement I’d seen my father use countless times with unbroken horses.
The wolf slowed, closed his frothing mouth, and sat down. The rider screamed in rage as he lost his balance and fell to the ground.
Rafael descended on the man faster than I’d ever seen a man move. He bent over the cloaked rider, holding his jeweled blade against the man’s cheek. Then he squatted down and pinned the man’s cloak into the ground.
The wolf, meanwhile, sat with his tongue lolling to one side of his mouth, breathing fast and looking more like an oversized pet than the fierce creature it seemed just moments ago.
The man on the ground writhed and cursed. “So you can tame them all now?” He thrashed out, but Rafael stepped casually out of the way. “Just not the beast within, eh?”
Rafael kicked the man in the ribs.
Hector ran onto the scene, a thin sword in his hand. He raced to the fallen rider, stepping between them. He pressed the sword tip to the rider’s throat.
Rafael looked at the wolf and spoke another soft command I couldn’t quite hear. The animal bolted from the clearing into the night.
Then, to my horror, Hector stepped aside, allowing Rafael to rip his knife from the earth, before both men backed away from the rider. The man scrambled up, but Rafael and Hector trained their blades on him.
“Go,” Hector commanded.
The man in the black and yellow robes dissolved in a shimmering column of smoke. I yelped and cupped my hand to my mouth. Rafael turned and walked toward me. He gently tugged the canvas from my clenched fist and let himself into the tent, edging around me close enough that I could feel his heat.
I followed until I stood staring at him inside the tent. Alone.
“The Hunter tracked your scent.” His eyes darted toward the unmade bed. “You should have kept the flower.”
Walking over to a vase holding a bouquet of the white lilies like the one he had offered me in Puerta, he pulled one out and smelled it. “These mask our scent from the Wild Hunt.”
I frowned. “If you’d mentioned that, I would have been more careful to hold onto it.”
Ignoring my comment, he added, “Fortunately, he came alone. If he’d had another Hunter with him, our only course would have been to run.”
“But you tamed that wolf so easily.” I took an involuntary step toward him.
He stuck the flower back in the vase and turned narrow eyes on me. “What appears easy to you came at a great price.”
The edge to his voice stopped me in my tracks. I’d thought of him as safe, but this man was dangerous too. Only, for some reason, he’d chosen to protect me. I was unaware he’d moved toward me—or maybe I’d stepped closer too?—until he spoke, startling me from my near trance.
“We must leave. He will return. And when he does, he won’t be alone.”
14
Rafael
