His shadows softened when he cast an amused look in my direction. I lifted my chin in greeting before sidling up beside him.
The pack had caught up. I could see them moving between the trees that lined this road. Behind us, the city reached towards the sky. If we could get further away, the pack would lose their cover among the trees.
I opened my mouth to tell Ryder. Before I could say anything, a wolf leapt at me. Teeth bore down, sinking past skin and ripping into flesh. I hissed. My knees buckled beneath me. The rush of blood over my skin reminded me that I would not heal this.
The wolf dragged me down to my knees. Hitting the asphalt jarred my bones. I struggled away from the wolf but couldn’t get away. Without my hound’s senses, I couldn’t tell who had caught me. The wolf was a blur of brown and grey.
More wolves poured out of the woods to surround Ryder. There were fewer wolves than I originally thought. This wasn’t the entire pack. Alvin’s supporters had been moving so much that I thought there were more of them. I spared a thought to hope that no one had brought that poison with them again.
Ryder grabbed ahold of the muzzle of the wolf trapping me. The wolf tried to bite down harder on me, but couldn’t fight against Ryder’s grip. The sound of snapping teeth embedded itself into my mind as Ryder clenched his fist around the wolf’s muzzle. He threw the wolf to the side before kneeling to cradle me in his arms.
Behind him, the wolves rushed us. Ryder straightened and glared at the shifters. The clouds rumbled in warning. The wolves skidded to a halt. Their eyes were wild as they looked to the clouds above.
When I turned my gaze on Alvin, my heart stopped. I flung myself from Ryder’s arms. He protested, but I ignored him as I ducked under his reach. Alvin stood, a hundred feet away, with a sadistic grin on his face. My father knelt on the ground at Alvin’s feet. Dad lifted his head, but Alvin palmed Dad’s scalp and forced him to face the ground once more.
I ran without thinking. My heart hammered and sent more blood pouring down my chest from the bite wound in my shoulder. What could I do? I didn’t know, but I was going to try.
Cerri and Ryder called my name. I couldn’t stop, though. My father might have been an asshole, but he was still my father.
Alvin’s grin widened. I could see the whites of his eyes as his excitement overcame him. His grip on my father’s head tightened. I’d run right back into Alvin’s trap. I would hand myself over again, though. Alvin knew how to manipulate me. I’d shown him what I was willing to do for those around me.
Damn my stupid bleeding heart.
Why couldn’t I have been cold and unfeeling? Why couldn’t I walk away to save myself?
I never made it to Alvin, though. Ryder appeared before me. He held out his arm to stop me. I opened my mouth to argue, but desperation gripped my throat tight. Ryder’s hand hovered in the air over my shoulder. He hesitated at the sight of the blood then let his hand fall back down where it curled into a fist.
“Let me handle this,” Ryder said.
The medallion around his neck flared in the dim light. The smell of flowers and earth danced on the air. I stumbled back into Cerri, who’d caught up to us.
“Beryl’s power,” Cerri whispered, awestruck.
Ryder
“If you want to play dirty,”I said, “then you can’t be mad at her when she asks for help.”
My beast clawed at me from the inside and demanded to be unleashed. I would not be the first to shift, though. I would hold myself together and wait for Alvin to be the first to make a move. Weak and sniveling as he was, Alvin would be the first to break.
The Lakesedge Alpha drew a blade from the sheath at his waist and bent to tuck it under her father’s chin. My beast poured power into me. I leapt forward and closed my hand around the blade. Its edge bit into my palm, but I didn’t flinch.
Alvin did.
He jerked back, startled. I ripped the knife from his hand and tossed it to the side without breaking eye contact. He didn’t run, but I could see how he wavered. He swayed as the excitement bled out of his eyes to make room for fear.
His nose wrinkled. He leaned in and said through clenched teeth, “At least I don’t have to get on my knees for a fae whore.”
The words threw me off for a moment. Alvin reached behind him and pulled out something I couldn’t see. I jumped back to put space between us before he could attack. I saw nothing in his hand, though.
What had he done? I didn’t have time to find out. I pushed forward to get him away from Ness’s father. I made the first attack. Alvin ducked back, out of the reach of my swing. That forced him to take a step back, though, so I kept swinging until he was away from Ness’s father.
Ness rushed to her father and helped him back onto his feet. Alvin’s wolves moved to leap on them, but Ness’s voice rang out.
“No!”
The wolves stopped in their tracks. Their eyes glazed over. Once again, she’d used her arcana without giving a full command.
I didn’t have time to ruminate on her lack of control. Alvin swiped at me. The air around his clenched fist rippled as though he held something sharp and invisible in his grasp. I jumped back, but the invisible weapon tore at the front of my shirt.