Page 45 of Exiled Heir

Maybe it would be enough.

The other howls approached, the wolves who weren’t a pack closing in on their alpha. I leapt forward, reaching to grab at Jesaiah’s throat with my claws. They raked through his fur, leaving split skin and blood behind.

I pressed the advantage, slamming into him with my shoulder and pushing him back. It was a mistake. He might be old, but his age only meant that he had survived this long as an alpha.

As I grappled, using my human hands with wolf claws to tear at his pelt and skin, he used his size and weight to bear me down. The howls were getting too close. A single wolf might be able to catch a careless rabbit, but wolves who hunted in packs could take down a stag in his prime.

I lunged forward again, and he took a half step back, his nose and twitching eyes focused on me. I was an idiot.

He was waiting for everyone else to get here.

This wasn’t a pack, but he was running it like one, or as close to one as he could get. The best way to form a pack, the way that kept every member together like glue, was to hunt together. Whether that was running down a lone deer in the woods or the time my entire family had spent an hour searching for the missing Monopoly shoe piece, a common hunt was the best way to make disparate wolves into a common pack for the rest of their lives.

Well. That left me with a couple of options. Either I killed Jesaiah and then had to explain to Cade why I had killed the consort of his seneschal, or I ran. Waiting for the rest of the pack to arrive wasn’t an option.

They wouldn’t let me fight Jesaiah one-on-one. As soon as they got here, I would be dead.

Jesaiah growled, taking a few steps forward. The part of me that was an alpha, the part of me that wasn’t about to let anyone tell me my place in the hierarchy, wanted to fight.

But even though I had claws and strength, I couldn’t shift.

Turning, I ran. I looked over my shoulder, and Jesaiah was pursuing me. I needed to slow him; I needed to stop him if possible. How could I do that?

Bending, I grabbed a fallen branch, stripping it of leaves and twigs as I sprinted. In one movement, I broke it in half.

Without giving myself time to think, I turned, heading directly toward him. Jesaiah pulled up short, jerking back in surprise, and I used that, swinging the branch until it hit his exposed legs. He didn’t have time to avoid the impact, and I felt the branch crack against one of his front legs, although he managed to rear back before it hit his back ones.

Then I was running again, tossing the branch to the side and sprinting forward. I tried to orient myself. Where had the farm been? Where had the road been? How could I get back to the house?

But I could hear the other wolves, their howls getting louder as they approached us. I went left and heard Jesaiah gaining on me, so I moved in the opposite direction. Where was theroad?

I plowed into something that seared my skin, and I screamed, leaping back in desperation. There was nothing in the air. No buzz, no fence I had missed. But when I looked at my forearm, the skin was mottled red as though I had run through a fire.

What did I hit?

Reaching forward, I pressed my hand into the air and felt an invisible barrier.

When Cade pressed his magic on me, it felt like millipedes, like a thousand feet crawling over me. Even the cleaning spell had only felt like ants crawling over my clothing.

This burned. This felt like knives slicing through the air, ready to cut me open if I tried to press through.

The wards.

The House Bartlett ward that encircled the property. How could I have forgotten? Was that Jesaiah’s plan? Drive me to the wards, kill me here so that it would look like I was trying to escape?

No one would protest if he did that. No one would ask questions. He would be able to keep his little pack that wasn’t a pack.

Jesaiah limped through the brush to my left, dragging one of his paws. I ran along the wards, but my two feet had nothing on his four, and he slammed into me, sending me flying backward. I screamed as the wards tore up the back of my shirt, slicing at my skin.

Scrambling up, one of my hands flew backward, through the wards. I pushed up, ready to run, but hesitated.

Throughthe wards? I hadn’t felt any pain. No pain meant…

There was a hole.

Swearing, I moved back to where my hand had gone through, bracing before I pressed my palm through again. No pain. I yanked my arm up, finding the top when my arm started screaming in pain. The hole was small.

Jesaiah was right behind me. Screwing my eyes shut, I made the quickest calculation I could. The other wolves were too close, Jesaiah right on top of me.