My hand tightened around the token—and I finallynoticedit.It weighed the same as it had in The Rain, just a regular rock with carvings.No glow.No magic.
The spell had nulled it just like it had nulled my blood.
I celebrated that little victory for half a second, then I hurled it at the wolf on the bank with everything I had in me.
The token hit his muzzle, and the wolf snarled, more in anger than pain.I reached into the creek to search for more ammo.Found a good-sized rock just as he leaped into the creek.
Water sprayed into the air, temporarily obscuring him.The moment I saw his head again, I slung the rock at him.
Another hit, just above his right eye this time.
He kept coming, but the bulk of his body was in the water.The current slowed him more than it did me.I widened my stance.Waited.
His flank angled downriver until his paws met the rocky bottom.I stepped to my left and watched him struggle, vaguely aware that wolves were closing in behind me.I wouldn’t be able to escape that way.I wouldn’t be able to dart past the bastard splashing before me.But Iwouldtake him down with me.
He made another leap through the water, lost his purchase again, and I shot forward, throwing my body on top of his.
I weighed just enough to send him under.He tried to spring back up, but I wrapped my legs around him.Claws pierced through my jeans, my skin.He twisted his head to bite.Stupid.He inhaled water.Then he truly began to panic.
He clawed and rolled and slammed my back into a rock.I stole an extra breath of air and held on, letting the current drag us away.
His teeth clipped my arm.I ignored the sharp, stinging pain and threw my weight to the side.My boot dragged across the creek bottom, and I was able to pivot us, able to get his head facing downriver.Gripping his fur tight, I searched for a killing boulder.Saw the perfect one just ahead.
I pushed off the creek bed again.
Perfect.
His head hit the rock straight on.Hit it hard.
Too hard.His shoulder slammed into my jaw, and I gasped in a mouthful of water.I shoved away from the wolf to find my footing and drag some much-needed air into my lungs.
My boots found the silt-covered bottom.I started to stand.
But the wolf’s body slammed into my knees.I went down, pitching sideways, hands reaching out to protect myself.The creek flowed too quickly though.I was going to hit—
Someone pulled me from the creek.I coughed up water until we reached the bank.The man’s arms didn’t loosen.
I moved my shoulders, a signal saying I was okay and needed some breathing room.
The man tightened his arms.I finally focused on his unfamiliar face, on his gold-rimmed eyes, on the fact that he wore no clothing.He was one of the stray werewolves.
The growls of his companions surrounded me as they closed in.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Myshiveringbodyforcedme awake.My muscles cramped, and the ground beneath me was hard and lumpy.
It took a minute to realize my eyes were open.I was in some place with no lights and no windows.
I reached blindly to my left, felt a wall of stone.My fingers slid down to the blankets?Or clothing?Something was underneath me, softening the hard ground.
My throat was almost too parched to swallow.I’d fought the werewolves as hard as I could, and now I was sore all over—my ribs bruised, my wrists aching from being wrenched behind my back, my throat raw from shouting.Scrapes burned across my palms and elbows where they’d dragged me, and every bone in my body felt like it had been gnawed on.
I felt the bandage around my right arm.It hadn’t completely healed from the attack at my apartment, but my left arm was bandaged too.My neck…
I reached up.That too had been covered.
My curse interrupted the dead silence.Ihadbeen gnawed on.Astrid’s spell had worked, but in the worst way possible.It had nulled Garion’s token and, if Melissa’s reaction and the bites covering my body were anything to go by, it had also nulled me—nulled my blood.
