Page 196 of Red Rooster

A white blur crashed into the prince’s side. Focused on Nikita, caught off guard, Vlad tumbled into a wingback chair that splintered on impact. The white blur was on top of him.

And it wasn’t a blur at all, but a shaggy white wolf, snarling furiously.

“Sasha!”

Nikita leapt up, gun forgotten in his hand, every ounce of concentration and energy arrowing into one goal: get Sasha the hell away from Vlad. Which wouldn’t be easy, because Sasha had Vlad’s sword arm in his jaws, savaging it.

Nikita reached out in a moment that seemed endless, slow-motion. He grabbed for Sasha’s thick ruff, intending to drag him back.

Vlad grabbed Sasha’s face with his free hand. Nikita saw fingertips go for eyeballs, heard Sasha’s whimper, and VladshovedSasha off of him. No, heflunghim. Sasha tumbled across the floor and slammed into a low coffee table with a sharp lupine squeal of pain.

The sound tugged at Nikita. Every last bit of him wanted to run to Sasha, to shield him, pick him up, check that he was alright. But he couldn’t do that, not yet, not with Vlad still a threat, getting to his feet, dripping blood all over the carpet and holding his sword in an unflinching grip, gnawed-on arm or not.

Throughout it all, from first glance to the last strike, Vlad had been expressionless and unemotional. Nikita was just something to be dealt with, calmly, rationally. But now, as he lifted his sword, Nikita saw the first flash of rage on the prince’s face.

He raised his gun.

And stumbled back from a sudden, searing wall of fire.

It was so hot, Nikita gave up on keeping his eyes open and tucked into a fast roll across the carpet. When he came up, squinting, he saw the mage at the helm of the fire: a very young redheaded girl, face gone white with strain.

The fire roared, then flickered, caught, retracted.

She gritted her teeth and made a low, anguished sound of frustration. She couldn’t hold it much longer, he understood.

“Thank you, dear, that’ll be all.” Val – a bedraggled, shaggy, rag-clad version of the polished prince who’d appeared in Trina’s grandmother’s living room – strode past the last flash of fire, a sword of his own in-hand. “I’ll take it from here.”

Vlad muttered something dark in Romanian.

Val answered in kind.

Light sparked along blades as swords came together with a sharp ring.

Nikita didn’t bother to watch. He scrambled across the rug and dropped to his knees beside Sasha, still in his wolf shape, curled up with his legs tucked, eyes shut, whining quietly.

“Sashka.” He stroked his fur, but got no response.

“Can you carry him?” Lanny asked from above him. “We need to go.”

“Yes.” And he gathered his wolf up in his arms.

~*~

Fulk had left their bedroom with his sword in his hand and his heart in his throat. Chaos meant one thing: the rescue attempt was underway. And he knew, with a certainty that made him feel sick, that only someone with sword training and preternatural strength had a prayer of getting between Vlad and the doomed rescuers.

He’d reached the portrait gallery when a man dressed all in green crashed through one of the soaring windows and rolled into a ready crouch, one hand braced on the carpet runner, the other on the butt of a handgun.

Not a man, but a wolf.

He stood up slowly, eyes trained on first the sword in Fulk’s hands, then Fulk’s face. His brows rose up until they disappeared into the glossy dark curls that fell over his forehead.

“Le Strange?” he asked.

And that was when Fulk noticed he wore green.Lincolngreen.

It had been a long, long time since he’d bumped into one of Locksley’s boys, but he’d been left with an impression. If memory served, this one was Scarlet.

“Are you one of Sasha’s people?” Fulk asked.