The wolf did not move.
She rolled to her feet so slowly it took her nearly a full minute before she stood upright. Creeping, she slid her feet through the snow, inching toward the horse, barely feeling the fiery cold burning the exposed skin above her worn leather slippers. Her heart felt swollen with ice and shuddered as if it would explode when she reached the mare and crouched down slowly. The smell of blood caused her to gag and her mouth to water, the fresh carcass still radiating a glowing heat.
The wolf lowered its head to its paws.
Evelyn slid a hand beneath the satchel’s ice-stiffened flap and grasped blindly until she felt the hilt of her blade, as cold as her own skin. She withdrew it from the bag slowly, slowly.
“’Tis not for you, lovely,” Evelyn crooned when the wolf’s ears pricked, praying the beast would not charge her before she had removed the satchel. She sawed clumsily through the strap holding the bag to the horse and dragged it to her, clutching the dagger to her bosom.
“There—that’s it. That’s all.” Evelyn stood, wanting to sob. Her salvation was in her own hands now. “The rest is yours, as I promised.” She began to back away.
The wolf raised its head with a low growl and Evelyn froze in place. But the animal was looking past her, deeper into the copse of pine.
Then Evelyn heard the soft crunch of snow behind her. She spun around.
No fewer than five more of the beasts ringed the copse—all gray in color and smaller than the black behind her, but still large and deadly. They watched her greedily, long tongues lolling out of their mouths and running with saliva.
Live meat. Fresh. Warm. Hungry, hungry…
Evelyn’s throat closed as images of her body being ripped open like the mare’s filled her mind. Fear unlike any she had ever known paralyzed her so that she could not have commanded her legs to move had she a place to flee.
She was trapped in the thick stand of trees.
The boldest of the newcomers hedged toward her in a swift, side-to-side motion and then stopped, as if taunting her. And this wolf had a different air about him—an awareness like a sinister fog that seemed to slither over the snow and swirl about Evelyn’s ankles. An old, old beast, grizzled and scarred, his bloody intent clear in his soulless eyes.
Run? Will you run?
The animals behind the leader began to whine and Evelyn heard her own wild squeal of fear squeeze past her throat.Oh, God,she prayed, at last able to address her maker now that she was mesmerized by the long fangs, the curled, quivering lips.Please make it quick.
The wolf leader pounced with a snarl and Evelyn closed her eyes.
She was knocked sideways with a cry, and the sounds of hellish screams filled her ears. But when no teeth sank into her flesh, her eyes snapped open.
The black wolf was entangled with the gray, their forelegs locked around each other in a writhing, blurry mass of teeth and fur.
Another gray leapt onto the black’s back, fangs bared, eliciting a bone-shuddering squeal from the larger animal.
Evelyn knew it would only be a matter of seconds before she, too, was attacked. She scrambled backward, her knuckles still clenched around her dagger and the satchel dragging through the snow, and then she was somehow off the ground and running—flying—through the forest away from the frenzy behind her, mumbled sobs bubbling at her lips as her breath roared in and out of her nose. Running, running for her life.
The life the black wolf had spared her. But why? Why? Yellow eyes glowed in her mind.
Evelyn ran for what seemed like hours before she saw the slope ahead—rounded, snow-covered ground that swelled away into a view of distant trees at midtrunk. How far was the drop? Two feet? A score? And what lay below? A forgiving bog? A frozen river, punctuated with jagged boulders?
Evelyn did not know, nor could she stop. She barreled toward the brink and prepared to leap.
She was still two yards from the precipice when she fell through the very earth itself, and the darkness swallowed her scream.
Chapter One
December 1077
Conall MacKerrick trudged through the shin-deep snow of the wood, his eyes scanning the white powder for animal tracks, his heart heavy and weary in his chest.
Hopeless.
He glanced only briefly at the pronged indentations of a small deer track—the hoof mark was soft at the edges and half filled with fresh snow—that animal had passed hours ago. Pursuit would be pointless.
Conall slogged onward.
