Page 12

There was no time to appreciate the fresh air outside the cave or the warm rays of the early evening sun.

The snapping and snarling of the Arbor hunters drowned out the lazy birdsong, and my own breath rushed in my ears.

Julia was just ahead of me, and I nipped at her heels to urge her on.

We had just enough of a lead that the Arbor hunters weren’t quite at our heels, but it wouldn’t be long before they caught up to us; they knew the terrain, and they didn’t earn their reputation as the best hunters in the Nightfire archipelago for nothing.

If nothing else, they’d chosen a location toward the north of the island for their auction, so it was a sprint rather than a marathon to get us to the Argent bridge.

An hour, maybe less, to the bridge itself, and another half hour to cross, and we’d be home free.

I could hear the hunters behind us, but they hadn’t moved to flank us, weren’t spreading out to cage us in, and I couldn’t tell if it was their mistake or if they simply had a different strategy in mind.

I couldn’t afford to rely on them continuing to lag behind. We had to lose them.

Nipping at Julia’s left flank, I dove into the thickest part of the forest, hoping to lose our trail among the trees.

It was hard going through the thickets and brambles, and it slowed us down, and I prayed I hadn’t made a mistake.

I could no longer hear the Arbor hunters behind us, and maybe that meant we’d lost them, but maybe they knew exactly where to head us off.

It didn’t matter. I’d made the decision now, and we had to stick to it.

We continued battling north through dense trees and thick undergrowth, and when we finally emerged, the bridge was in sight.

The space between us was flat and exposed—a primitive road winding through the grass, with more vibrant green forest surrounding it.

Setting off at a sprint, we raced across the grass, panting, victorious, and so, so close.

A flash of white fur in the corner of my eye.

A flash of brown. Shapes were emerging from the forest at the edge of the grass: one, two, three, four, five, six Arbor hunters converging between us and the bridge, hackles raised and teeth bared.

If we wanted to get across the bridge, there was no option but to fight.

Putting on a burst of speed, I left Julia behind me—I couldn’t let her engage, even with her newfound magic, she was far too vulnerable for the kind of fight this was going to be—barreling toward the waiting hunters.

I met them at the tree line, the first going down easily, caught between my jaws before he had time to dodge out of my path.

I felt his bones crunch between my teeth, and I flung his body to the side.

My first attack may have lasted only a few seconds, but that was all the other hunters needed to prepare their own.

A brown wolf charged straight at me, his muzzle scarred and teeth bared, while a pair of black beasts snapped at my back legs.

I kicked out behind me, striking one in the face, before I dug in my back paws and leaped right over the brown wolf’s head, landing behind him just in time to turn and sink my teeth into his hind leg.

The brown wolf yelped in pain, and I hurled him aside, ready to face a new attack.

This time, the remaining four stuck close together, coming at me in a great rush—the only way to bring down a wolf as big as I was.

For every slash of my claws and snap of my teeth, there were two from my attackers, and it was all I could do to keep them at bay long enough to prevent them from sinking their teeth into my jugular.

My claws slashed across the muzzle of one of the black wolves just as a set of teeth sank into my right hind leg.

I whipped around, sinking my own larger teeth into the offender’s flank—he released me with a yelp, and I released him for only as long as it took to reposition and bite down again on the side of his throat.

This time, there was no yelp, only a gurgle as his legs gave out beneath him.

When I lifted my head, there were teeth inches from my face—and then they were gone, in a rush of black fur and a vicious snarl.

The two wolves tumbled to the ground rolling over one another until the hunter was on his back with Julia above him.

She had caught him at the joint of his forelimb, and he struggled to right himself as she slashed at his face and chest with bared claws.

Her wolf was like a force of nature, utterly without mercy, but there was a reason I hadn’t wanted her to fight.

On her blind side, one of the two remaining hunters was coiling, ready to strike, and I wouldn’t reach them in time to save her the way she’d saved me.

Even as I started forward, the final hunter sprang between us, blocking my path.

I snapped for his throat, but he was fast, ducking low to avoid the sharp bite of my teeth.

I tried to leap over him, needing to reach Julia—she was on her back, desperately swiping up at the hunter looming over her—but the hunter beneath me was ready for it.

He went for my underbelly, his claws raking long red lines down my torso.

The cuts were shallow, but it was enough to slow me down, and he grabbed my back leg with his teeth as soon as I landed.

Again, I whipped around to deliver a bite of my own, but he was too quick.

Dropping my leg, he dodged out of range, turning to join his Packmate on top of Julia.

I couldn’t let that happen. With a ferocious snarl, I leaped after him, landing on his back with both my front paws. He crumpled beneath my weight—even as my claws dug into his back, his legs were buckling and his ribcage cracking under my paws.

There was no victory in it: even as I felt the life leave the body beneath mine, I watched the last Arbor hunter pick up an already limp Julia in his jaws and throw her hard against a tree.

The smack of her head against the trunk reverberated through me, and she shifted automatically as she slid, naked and bloodied, to the ground.

My vision went red. Lunging forward, I was nothing but a hurricane of claws and teeth, and when I was done with him, the final wolf barely resembled a wolf at all.

My wolf was still baying for blood, but the Arbor hunters were all dead at my feet, and there were far more pressing matters to deal with.

Wrestling my skin back, I ran to where Julia was lying at the base of the tree, her dark hair covering her face, matted with dirt and blood.

“Julia. Julia, look at me,” I begged, cupping her face in my hands as I turned her face to mine. The side of her face was red with blood, her bright blue eye in stark and beautiful contrast as she blinked blearily up at me.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, and her frown was so familiar that I could have wept with relief.

“Disappointing, I know,” I said. Scanning her body, she had a few shallow cuts and bruises, but nothing obviously worrying other than the wound on her head. “You just need to put up with me until we’re over the bridge onto Argent, okay? You’re got to stay awake.”

There was no way she didn’t have a concussion—her eyes were barely focused—and if I knew one thing, it was that you didn’t let someone with a concussion lose consciousness.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Julia snapped, contrary to the last. It was going to be a whole different battle to get her across the bridge, but I was going to win that one, too.

“Okay,” I said gently, hoping she was just woozy enough for this ploy to work. “Okay, have a little nap. You must be tired.”

“Fuck off,” she replied immediately. “I’m not tired.”

I didn’t know whether I should be grateful that I got exactly the response I needed, or worried that she was so out of it she didn’t even remember the past thirty seconds.

“I’m going to pick you up now, alright?” I told her. I didn’t want to move her, but it was the only option. We had to get across the bridge. Predictably, she tried to fight me on it.

“I can get up,” she insisted. This time, I wasn’t going to humor her.

“You absolutely cannot,” I said. “Here we go.”

Hooking one arm under her back and another beneath her knees, I lifted her up against my chest. To my surprise, she snuggled up against me, smearing blood over my skin.

“You’re warm,” she mumbled, soft and sleepy. It made something flutter inside me, but there was no time for that. She couldn’t go to sleep.

“Hey, hey, what about that escape we pulled off in the cave, huh?” I said, louder than I would have liked to, as I picked my way around the dead Arbor hunters toward the bridge. “You were amazing.”

“I was?” she asked, groggy and confused.

“You had the whole cave in darkness, remember?” I prompted. Did she not remember the cave, either? Mercifully, she smiled.

“Oh yeah. Wouldn’t have had to do that if you weren’t such a bonehead. We were nearly home free.”

“He shouldn’t have touched you,” I grumbled. I knew I should have held it together, but even the memory of his hand coming down on her ass, the lascivious way he smiled as he hit her, had my wolf ready for fresh blood.

“Stupid,” Julia chided me, and there was no way to defend myself. If I hadn’t given us away, we’d never have had to fight our way onto the bridge. She would never have gotten hurt.

“Stupid,” I agreed, and she hummed, pleased. I could feel her trying to snuggle down to sleep again, and I squeezed her thigh as hard as I could. The resulting glare was far less piercing than usual, but it was something, at least.

“Remember when you bet me that I couldn’t climb the tree in the Lapine square faster than you?” I asked, figuring that the memory of her past victory would keep her alert. To my dismay, her reply was muted.

“Mmm. You said it wouldn’t be fair to take the bet. Arrogant.” At least she was still insulting me, I supposed.

“You had to rope Caleb in to convince me,” I prompted, and Julia huffed out a half-hearted little laugh.

“It was hard, too,” she said. “He thinks you’re always right. Good thing he has me to set him straight.”

“You tore up that thing like a little squirrel. Left me in the dust.” When she didn’t respond, I asked, “How old were we?”

“I was thirteen. You were eighteen,” Julia told me.

That sounded about right. Only a year into being Alpha and barely a grown man, I’d been very conscious of anything that might be seen as “childish”.

Climbing trees had definitely been off the list of acceptable activities, but Julia had always made me stupid.

“I was impressed… and a little embarrassed,” I admitted, and Julia blinked up at me, eyes wide with surprise.

“Really? I thought you hated me for that. I was—I was so sad.”

“Sad?” I echoed. That couldn’t have been what she meant: Julia didn’t care what anyone thought of her, least of all me.

“Had a stupid, stupid crush on you,” she confessed. Her words were slightly slurred, and I knew she would never have said any of this under normal circumstances. Listening felt wrong, but there was little else I could do. “Thirteen-year-old me would be, like, so excited that we’re married.”

My wolf growled, low and pleased; I should have changed the subject, should have dropped it and forgotten about it, but instead I asked,

“What changed?”

“You’re an asshole,” said Julia, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Perhaps, to her, it was.

I looked down at her, preparing to—what, apologize? It didn’t matter what I’d been going to do, because Julia was no longer looking at me. Her eyes were slipping determinedly shut, heedless of my squeezing her thigh or saying her name.

I picked up the pace of my steps. We were nearly to safety, but if she died in my arms halfway across the bridge, it would all have been for nothing. It felt like an eternity before the Argent sentries came into view at the end of the bridge, and I raised my voice, desperate yet relieved.

“This is Ethan Cain. I need a ride to the Alpha’s residence, and I need a medic. Now!”