The poor animal lurched, but I didn’t have to open my eyes to know there was no way forward. We were surrounded. The horse jerked and danced in terror, unstable on its slender legs.
There was another howl of pain from one of the creatures, another squelchingthumpas it fell dead to the ground.
But it didn’t matter how many Alastor killed. It wasn’t enough.
I can help.If I took off the pearls, if I let the essence build up under my skin, I could blast these wolf-beasts to nothing. I could save us all.
I released my death-grip on the horse’s mane, sitting up just enough to bring my hands together.
“What are you doing?” Alastor said, then grunted as he shoved one of the beasts off him. “Get down!”
His elbow pressed into my back, shoving me forward again, but at least my hands were beneath me now, and I tugged at the knot holding the pearls around my wrist.
Suddenly our horse surged forward, finding a path through the creatures and making a run for it. Desperately, I grabbed the saddle as Alastor leaned forward, urging our mount to go faster.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he told me.
“Why?” I asked.
He pressed nearer as our horse leaped over some obstacle, and when the animal landed again, Alastor’s mouth was even closer to my ear. “The vulgen will tear men apart. But they…lurewomen.”
He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t want him to. I’d felt it—that curious longing when I’d looked into their eyes. I shuddered to think of what might have happened if I’d been allowed to succumb to that ache.
Vulgen.A fitting name for such chilling creatures.
“Can we outrun them?” I asked.
Alastor’s only answer was another curse. There was a strangled growl as he knocked one of the beasts aside and urged the horse faster.
And then there were hoofbeats beside us. And Radven’s voice, cutting through the snarls and the pounding hooves.
“Take her to the ridge. I’ll hold off the rest for as long as I can.”
Alastor didn’t respond. But I felt his legs move as he dug his heels into the sides of the horse.
“Wait,” I said. “I can help if I—”
“When you’re gone from Therador, they’ll get tired of dying and flee,” Alastor said. “But as long as you’re with us, they’ll keep coming.”
“Were they sent by the Circle?”
“No,” he said curtly. Then, probably realizing I was going to ask more questions if he didn’t elaborate, he added, “I don’t know what they do with women, but once they’ve caught a scent they want, they’ll hunt her day and night.”
I didn’t need to know more.
I could hear Radven’s curses behind us, hear the growls and the snarls and the yelps as he fought off the beasts that remained. These brothers were skilled, yes, but against so many…
Alastor trusts him, I reminded myself, knowing he wouldn’t have left his brother behind otherwise. It was just like the way Radven had trusted Alastor and Octavian to fight and survive when the three of them had rescued me from Laitha.
But that didn’t keep the knot from twisting in my stomach as our horse leaped through the trees. Behind us, the keening of the vulgen was growing fainter, but it was relentless, the echoes following us as the ground began to slope upwards beneath us.
I wrestled with the string of pearls all the way up the slope to the top of the ridge, and the knot finally came loose as the ground flattened out beneath us again.
Alastor yanked on the horse’s reins. He was out of the saddle even before the animal had come to a complete stop.
And he pulled me down after him.
“Open your eyes,” he ordered. “We have to do this quickly.”
