Page 67 of Ascendant King

I growled and ran on.

When we reached the edge of the woods, the houses that made up the estate were dark. No lights lit the windows, even though afternoon had already fallen to dusk. When I strained my ears, there weren’t any voices breaking the silence, nothingexcept the harsh panting of the mages and the whines of anxious wolves.

We crept down the street, awareness tight on our surroundings. Cade walked beside me, his dark lines of tattoo springing from shadow to shadow. He didn’t catch any danger, which made every step that much more anxiety inducing. If the mages weren’t setting up defenses, then they must be confident in their abilities.

Or they were leading us straight into a trap.

Cade looked down as though he could read my mind. He shook his head, and I knew he meant that everything was clear. Brushing his hand over the fur on my back, he scratched briefly.

The street led straight to the main road where all the storefronts were. I paused at the top of it, disliking the shadows, the only light from a waning moon. There was nothing, no movement. Still, I growled.

“Me too,” Cade murmured. “Isaac, I’ve been checking, but I don’t see anything. Can you make sure?”

Isaac stepped forward, Lily right beside him. Their magic spread out, bouncing from object to object, painting the entire street orange and pink. When it was done, they both shook their head.

“I don’t feel anything magical. You think…” Isaac squinted. “Do you think that they abandoned the estate when they heard we were coming?”

Even as he voiced the question, the doubt was clear. No one would abandon a perfectly defensible location, not when they had the advantage of time and the ability to prepare for us.

I shook my head, needing to focus. Moving forward, I jogged down the street.

Somewhere nearby, Ghost Pack wolves waited. They looked at each other, no one speaking, arrayed themselves on the stepsof House Bartlett. One tried to ask but was shushed by the silence of the eerie, empty house.

No. That belonged to someone…somethingelse. I forced my attention back on reality. The asphalt under my paws was warm, even in the evening. A nearby sign creaked as the wind blew it.

I was here. Cade’s fingers briefly touched my fur again, and my entire mind focused on that. He wastouching me.

My fur stood on end as we walked all the way to House Bartlett. Under every step, I expected to find a land mine or some other painful trap. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

The lack of any defenses slowed us so that by the time we reached the house, it was almost midnight. Every light in the king’s house blazed on, brilliant yellow that turned the wolves on the steps into shadows.

Ghost Pack was there, exactly as I had seen them in my mind. They stood, scattered over the large stone steps. The front of House Bartlett at midnight was a familiar sight, almost identical to how I’d arrived here when pretending to be Cade’s consort.

A gravel driveway was framed by open lawn, small shrubs and decorative plants lining the drive. In the dark, the light clung to the white of the marble stone steps leading up to the front door. We stopped at the edge of the drive, and I counted ten wolves.

That was impossible. Ghost Pack was one of the largest packs in the state. Where were the rest?

As my eyes trailed over the wolves, half of them were shifted, half of them in their human form, I didn’t see Miriam. At the top of the stairs, one of the wolves yelped, turning it into a howl that echoed, bouncing off the emptiness of the streets we had just walked through.

The door opened, Miriam facing us, and then she threw it wide, and the rest of Ghost Pack poured out.

I started forward, sprinting. Finally, some enemies we could fight.

We crashed into Ghost Pack, and the only way I could tell who was Los Santos and who was Ghost Pack was by scent. I grabbed hold of the nearest wolf, my teeth digging into the fur at his neck. He turned his head, trying to snap, but Nia seized his back leg, pulling him off-balance. When he was on the ground, Gabe dove in, ripping his teeth into the wolf’s neck, and then the three of us moved on to the next wolf.

Ghost Pack had gotten fat on their success, losing their hunger for a fight. They didn’t attack like a pack, and we overpowered them. The ten on the steps were already taken care of by the time Miriam and the backup had shifted.

I lunged toward my sister, but a massive wolf stepped in between us. I recognized him.

Benji.

I hadn’t even seen him come out, but now he was in front of me, and I pulled back, not wanting to run into him, because something silver crawled over his fur. He growled, and the lines caught in the moonlight.

Magic.

He wore the magic of the wards on his fur, which should have been impossible. Cade had told me over and over again that a mage could only give power to their consort, and there was no collar on Benji’s neck. I couldn’t see him bowing to any mage, especially not Lynn, whose entire existence had been erased by her devotion to the wards.

He should have been exploding, his flesh torn apart, but instead, he leapt at me, slamming his face into my side. I felt the impact like a freight train.