Page 30

The second time, Emil had barely been able to give us enough warning as three kùsu had barreled through the trees.

Luckily, they had been in hot pursuit of some swamp deer they’d managed to flush out of the brush.

My heart had pounded rapidly as Kieran, Alaric, and I held ourselves flat against the trunk of a large tree while the twenty-foot-long insect-like beasts had scuttled past. The sounds of hundreds of legs moving across the forest floor while rain pounded around us would likely give me nightmares for weeks.

If Draven were here, he would have been able to use his earth magic to feel their approach far in advance.

I’d tried to use my magic a few times, but I hadn’t been able to consistently sense anything, and most of the time, it was a feeling that there was something there but nothing more.

It still felt odd to even acknowledge that I had magic, considering I couldn’t feel it most of the time.

So far, the only time I’d been able to use my earth magic was when I’d been desperate or angry—usually both. I’d just have to hope that I’d be able to rally it if we were in a near-death situation. No pressure.

In the meantime, I was using my senses like the others were doing to detect danger, which was difficult because of the storm doing its best to drown everything out. It was why we’d had so many close calls; we’d only detected the monsters seconds before they would have found us.

A blinding flash struck a tree fifty feet away from us, and the smell of burning wood filled the air while thunder roared across the sky.

Summer thunderstorms were common, but this seemed more violent than normal.

Or maybe it was because I normally enjoyed watching the storms from the safety of my room in a stone fortress and not traipsing through mud and undergrowth while dodging all the monsters that prowled the night.

Currently, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Not that long ago, it had been a torrential downpour. We were damn lucky we weren’t in an area prone to flash floods.

“Shit,” I heard Severen say. His wife let out a torrent of swear words seconds later.

I closed the distance between us to stand next to them as I took in what had caused their reactions.

Oh. Apparently our luck had run out, because a river raged through the forest ahead of us. Given that Severen and Celestina had led us this way, I assumed it wasn’t supposed to be here but was a creation of the storm. Maybe a watershed or a small creek that had been overrun by the rain.

“We could swim across it?” I suggested just as several large trees tore through the water, smashing into everything in their path. “Or maybe not.”

“We’ll have to double back,” Celestina called out as the storm decided to kick it up a notch. “The ground gets higher to the east. We should be able to cross there.”

I nodded and started to back up but froze when I felt it. The wrongness I’d been feeling all night intensified, like the forest itself was screaming at me to . . .

Run .

Without second-guessing, I lunged forward, darting to a tree with a thick trunk for cover and pulling Alaric and Kieran with me.

Then I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Roth duck behind a large, rotting tree log, Taivan and Desmond ushering them to safety.

Whether they were following my lead or had also sensed something, I didn’t know.

When I peeked around the tree, I saw Severen and Celestina had vanished as well—only a few trembling tree branches gave a hint as to where they had gone. The Harker rangers were also nowhere to be seen.

Three howlers slithered through the trees and stopped to sniff the ground. Horror drenched me, and I had to bite down my tongue to keep from swearing out loud or screaming.

As if sensing my fear, one of howlers swung its head my way, and I quickly pivoted back behind the tree, a tremble racing through me.

It had no eyes because the howler was fucking dead. All it had were empty sockets surrounded by clumps of fur and rotting flesh.

I’d seen a lot of fucked-up shit in Lunaria, but something coming back from the dead? That was a new one.

Alaric and Kieran both looked around the tree only to pull back with shock-laced grimaces. Clearly, they weren’t fans of this new type of monster either.

“Samaraaa,” a voice rang out. Even through the rain, I recognized it. Demetri.

Everyone went still. Gold flooded Kieran’s eyes as his bloodlust rose while Alaric’s eyes flashed turquoise but quickly returned to their normal light green as he pulled a long, curved dagger from the sheath at his thigh. Kieran’s sword was in his hand a second later.

A smile curved at the corners of my lips, and I saw it reflected on Kieran’s and Alaric’s faces.

Sure, we were deep in a Lunarian forest with three undead beasts hunting us down, but Demetri was here too.

I didn’t know how, but I assumed he was responsible for our walking-corpse friends.

He also likely had some Moroi rangers with him.

None of that mattered though because Demetri was standing less than twenty feet from me.

He wouldn’t be walking out of this forest alive.

I didn’t care how many fucked-up nightmares I’d have to kill my way through—Demetri’s death was mine to claim.

My fingers closed around my daggers and silently pulled them free from the thigh sheaths.

It was fitting that his blood would be the first to bless my new blades.

First, we needed to know exactly how many others he’d brought with him. I gave Kieran and Alaric a pointed look and mouthed, Stay . Both of them gave me murderous looks in return but didn’t try to stop me when I stepped out from behind the tree.

Demetri loved the sound of his own voice. Might as well let him dig his own grave too.

I sauntered forward, twirling my daggers casually in my hands a few times before stopping a few feet from where Demetri stood behind the undead howlers that were just standing there, unmoving.

Each one bore a leather collar with embedded sapphires.

I’d missed that before on account of being shocked by their existence.

What type of magic could bring something back from the dead? And how had Demetri learned of it?

“Like my new pets?” he drawled from beneath his dark cloak.

Most of his face was hidden, but his full mouth was curved into a smirk.

“Turns out Velika had quite the treasure trove of Fae artifacts. We have no idea what most of them do, but these ones seemed pretty self-explanatory. The howlers make excellent tracking hounds, even if they smell a bit.”

“I give you credit for attempting to find a creature more vile than yourself.” I studied the beasts once more.

Howlers were canine in shape, but they were taller and leaner than lycanthropes.

They were built to run for miles on end.

These ones were skeletally thin. In fact—I squinted—yep, I could see their bones in places.

A small amount of pity welled in me as I took in the creatures.

Sure, howlers would rip me to shreds in a heartbeat if they could, but they were just predators trying to survive in a land of monsters, and they were pretty low on the hierarchy.

It felt wrong for them to be used like this.

Life in Lunaria was often cruel and heartless; they deserved to find peace.

My gaze lingered on the collars again. They were faint and hard to see in the dark, but two glyphs were carved into them between the sapphires.

Death. Awaken.

I held back my shudder and turned my attention back to Demetri. “They won’t win any beauty contests, but if I had to choose between them and you, it’s not even a question. Undead hounds all day. You remain the most vile of the Heirs.”

Demetri’s smirk blossomed into a smile. “Oh, I’m not an Heir anymore, my pet. You’re looking at the new Head of House Laurent.”

A dozen rangers stepped out of the dark forest, swords gleaming in the moonlight, to stand in a formation behind Demetri. All of them bore the Laurent crest on their tunics.

This time, I wasn’t quite able to hide my disgust, so I just leaned into it and sneered at Demetri. “Killing your own mother might be a new low, even for you, Demetri.”

Because there was no way Marvina Laurent had willingly handed over power to her son. That woman had ruled her House with an iron fist. It was all she’d cared about.

Demetri let out a cold laugh. “Come now, Samara. Are you really so upset about it? If you think she treated you badly to your face while we were married, I promise that what she said about you when you weren’t in the room was far worse.”

Not surprising. In many ways, Marvina represented everything that was wrong with the Moroi.

She was arrogant and cruel and believed that the Moroi were inherently better than the Velesians and Furies.

If I’d had to place a bet on which Moroi had been most likely to seize control of the Houses while wielding a mind-controlling crown, it would have been her.

I supposed the joke was on me that it was my own aunt who had proven to be the true villain.

I didn’t mourn Marvina’s death, but the fact that Demetri had murdered his own mother was still all kinds of fucked up.

A branch in the tree—the one I was fairly certain Roth’s parents had climbed up—trembled slightly.

It was behind Demetri and his rangers, so they didn’t see it, and the rain swallowed up the sound of any movement.

There were likely more Laurent rangers than just the ones I could see.

I needed to buy the others time to take them out—hopefully quietly—so we could deal with these ones.

As much as I wanted my revenge against Demetri, I wouldn’t claim it at the risk of my friends.