He went down on one knee, swore, and forced himself back up.
“Gull,” Somerset repeated. A Wolf grabbed the axe from the woodpile in one hand and swung it at Somerset’s head. He set his shoulders, twisted his hands, and snapped the shackles around his wrists. The ends of the leather ties dangled as Somerset grabbed the handle of the weapon in one hand as it came down. The sharp edge of the blade scraped his cheek as he twisted the axe around and drove the butt of the handle into the Wolf’s throat. The Wolf staggered backward, mouth open as it tried to suck in air. “Why didn’t he come to you, to Ket? Why me?”
Stúfur took his eyes off the Wolves. He gave Somerset a quick, suspicious look.
“Hecame to you?”
“Yes.”
Stúfur looked baffled, and then he shook his head. “Liar!” He kicked out hard and got an incoming Wolf in the gut. The Wolf was thrown backward but dragged black-thorn claws down Stúfur’s leg as he went. “You fixed the race once; put your pick on the Sleigh. Now you fancy yourself a Saint-maker.”
That wasn’t true. Somerset could, at least, be sure of that. Did Stúfur believe it, though, or did he just say it to cover his own sins?
“Don’t be—” Somerset cut himself off with a grunt as one of the Wolves tackled him. They went down, the ground hard under Somerset’s back and the sour stink of mortality breakdown sticky-ripe in his throat, and the Wolf grabbed his head in one hand. Sharp fingertips pressed against Somerset’s scalp and squeezed.
The pain crawled in red from the corners of Somerset’s vision. He gritted his teeth and grabbed the Wolf’s throat to return the favor. His fingers dug down into pale skin, and he felt the things give under his grip with a cellophane crackle. The Wolf’s eyes bulged, and white spit decorated the corners of its mouth.
Before he could find out who would break first, the short, sharp retort of a gunshot interrupted him. The Wolf let out a curdled yelp of pain as the bullet smashed through its forearm. It ripped skin and cracked bone, and the Wolf’s grip on Somerset’s skull went limp.
He dug his fingers deeper into the Wolf’s throat as he scrambled to his feet. The Wolf slashed at his face, but Somerset tilted his head back so the claws just scraped the side of his face.
Ket was on his knees in the snow, a Wolf’s hand around his throat.
Stúfur kicked out a Wolf’s knee and carved open another’s chest. The serrations in his knife caught on its ribs, and he lost his grip on it as the Wolf staggered backward. Another took its place, a well-worn garden fork gripped in one hand, and rammed it into Stúfur’s stomach.
Shock widened Stúfur’s eyes as the Wolf shoved him backward until the tines of the fork dug into the side of the house and pinned him there. He reached down and grabbed the fork to try and yank it free, but he couldn’t get the leverage.
Somerset tossed the Wolf into the snow and turned to look at Dylan, who stood with a gun gripped in one hand.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Dylan’s face was ashy as he looked around at the slaughter. “I don’t know,” he said, then swallowed noisily. “It was all I could think of.”
The tangle of Somerset’s emotions felt like they were going to crack his chest. He wanted to let his temper out. It would make him feel better to shove Dylan against a tree and yell until his voice cracked, to empty all the hot, barbed rage onto the other man. At the same time, Somerset hadn’t thought he’d see Dylan again, and he wanted to pull him into an embrace and keep him safe. He didn’t want Dylan to look at him the way he did the Wolves.
It was new. Somerset couldn’t untangle the two urges, so he distanced himself from either temptation and turned his back.
“Somerset…” Dylan protested, but then his voice trailed off.
“Stay,” the Wolf who’d pinned Stúfur said.
The rest of the pack, the ones who’d picked themselves up already, laughed. Stúfur kicked the Wolf in the thigh and spat at him. Give him his due, Somerset thought dryly, he was an unpleasant little bastard, but he’d committed to it.
The Wolf left the spit on its face, unbothered by the insult, and turned to look at Somerset. He braced himself and then realized that he was wrong. The Wolf wasn’t looking at him, but past him.
“Where is it?” the Wolf asked. “We kept our side of the bargain. Your turn.”
The urge tohurtDylan surged, the pressure of it almost painful behind Somerset’s eyes, pushing the softer feelings down. At the same time, a sickening feeling of disappointment curdled in his stomach. He should have let the Wolves have the human, he thought sourly. Dylan was their natural prey, after all, and it would have saved Somerset from feeling like this.
Somerset tried to tell himself that it would have just made him feel even worse.
He called that a liar.
“It’s—” Dylan started to say.
“What happened to Santa?” Somerset asked. The Wolf looked at him and then dismissed him with a flick of flat, red-orange eyes. He took a step forward to get the Wolf’s attention back and pointed out, “You won. It’s time to gloat.”
The Wolf scratched a scab on his shoulder as he considered that question. Then it grinned.
