“What did you do to me?” I growl, my wolf swirling with my demon side, both of them in tune with each other. I’m not sure if this growing alliance between the two sides of my soul will continue, but I don’t fight it.
“You need my help,”she says.“You will never make it through the Forbidden Lands without my assistance. The deepest dark is approaching.”
“The deepest dark?”
She peers at me.“There is only darkness in the Forbidden Lands. It is always night here, but the darkest part of night is the most dangerous. You will not survive on your own.”
I exhale my building anxiety. I’m exhausted. Injured. My protective suit is torn. I’ve figured out at this stage that this wolf has somehow connected herself to me—the silver slash and her voice in my mind are undeniable elements of a connection I’ve never experienced before. Now, for some inexplicable reason, she’s offering to help me through these wild lands.
A part of me is screaming that it’s the very definition of bad judgement to trust a mammoth wolf who has marked me without my permission—for reasons I don’t understand and can’t possibly know—and could literally tear me to pieces within seconds.
But a larger part of me accepts what she says. I can’t survive this place on my own—not if the worst dangers are still waiting for me—and with my soul screaming for my own demon wolves, it seems that I’ve found a short-term substitute.
I hope it’s short-term anyway. The silver mark on my palm isn’t filling me with a ton of confidence, but I have too many other things to worry about right now. The silver mark is future Nova’s problem.
“I need to make it back to Zilron,” I tell the wolf, who continues to watch me with her unblinking eyes, her chest rumbling.
Her continuing growls are disconcerting, given that she’s allied herself to me—until the realization strikes me: Her animosity is not directed at me.
Since she appeared, nothing has attacked me. I haven’t heard rustling in the canopy above me. Nothing has moved beneath my feet. No creeping plants or hungry souls have darted out at me.
I can only surmise that she’s the one keeping the souls and creatures away from us right now.
I take a chance to tell her more: “I’m caught up in trials I don’t want to be part of. I need to make it back to the capital city as fast as I can or my family will remain in prison.”
It’s a lot to speak aloud. A lot to carry. But I won’t give up. Not unless I’m dead.
The wolf’s gaze doesn’t falter.“I tasted your royal blood. I know these trials you speak of. They are the reason the cracks that were appearing in the ground at our feet have momentarily closed.”
She lifts her head a little, considering the trees around us, her focus briefly distant.
“It’s at least three days to Zilron at a fast pace, and you are injured,”she says.“But if I carry you, you will be disqualified from the Elimination.”
“I can make it,” I say with determination, pressing the rune again to bring my tattered suit back. Some protection is better than none. “My sisters are waiting for me. My sistersandmy demon wolves.”
And Roman. The one demon who lingers in the back of my mind, even when I have no time to be thinking of anything other than survival.
“How many demon wolves are you bonded with?”
I have no doubt she smelled my demon wolves when she sniffed me before, but now it occurs to me that maybe that’s the reason she didn’t kill me on the spot. I don’t know enough about the history or nature of demon wolves, but they could have an instinctive loyalty to each other. At the very least, it makes sense that, as a demon wolf, she would be curious about the others I mentioned.
“Four,” I say. “Temple, Ace, Luca, and Blitz. They’re my pack. My family.”
Her head inclines just a touch, and I can’t get a read on her expression like I might have with my wolves, whose emotions I’m attuned to.
All she says is:“We should go.”
It’s my turn to nod, and I’m already spinning in the direction in which I saw the glow of Zilron from the tree’s vantage point, but I’ve barely moved one step forward before the wolf’s growl grinds me to a halt.
“Not that way. You’ll pass through the territory of the boggart.”
I’m not sure what a boggart could be—but it doesn’t sound good. Even so, any path through these wilds is going to be dangerous and I need the fastest route.
“From what I saw, this is the fastest way, though?” I protest. Now that the shock and awe of finding a demon wolf out here is wearing off, the need to get moving and back to my sisters is pulsing inside me like its own heartbeat.
“How fast are you dead?”she asks.
Great, the wolf is a smartass. She must be related to Ace, whom I swear at times is sarcastically calling me a moron.
