“I must or the Other will go on a rampage. I cannot control it.”
A cold flush washed through him as he recalled the massacre in the glade.
“That is all I have time to tell you.” Zev turned away. “Let’s go, Dyna.”
Cassiel glanced back and forth between them. “Go where?”
“In the forest,” she said. “I have to chain him to a tree.”
He glared at Zev. “You have her do such a barbaric thing?”
“I have to,” she cut in defensively. “Zev can’t touch the chains. They’re made of silver.”
He looked down at the ugly mound of metal. The chains were an exact match for the odd scars marking Zev’s body.
Dyna riffled through her satchel and pulled out a vial. The one with the murky substance she had fed Zev when he was poisoned with silver.
“What is that?” Cassiel asked.
“Wolfsbane. It helps to subdue the Other.” Dyna gathered the chains and headed with Zev toward the woods.
Cassiel rubbed his face and exhaled heavily. “I shall accompany coming.”
He took a stick from the fire to use as a torch and walked ahead before he could question the decision. He was morbid enough to want to see what the Other looked like, and he needed to be sure it wouldn’t harm Dyna while being restrained.
No one spoke. Their steps crunched over fallen leaves, and their breaths clouded in the chilly air. The forest darkened with the descent of the sun. The shrubs chirped with crickets and mice. An owl hooting overhead, an audience to their somber march.
Zev stopped in front of an old elm tree, with a strong trunk and thick protruding roots. “This one.”
Dyna dropped the chains there and set down the vial by her feet. Her hands shook as she untangled the mass and gathered the pair of manacles. She wound the long chains around the tree once. Then she stood in front of Zev, not looking at him.
“It’s necessary,” he said.
“It’s unbearable.” She strangled the chains tight. “But I gave you my word.”
Zev held out his hands as a prisoner would. She unlatched a manacle and enclosed it over his right wrist. It clamped shut with a loud clang. He cried out and fell to his knees. His skin sizzled against the metal, smoke rising from beneath.
Dyna bit her lip, her face crumbling. “I’m so sorry.”
Cassiel cringed, trying not to inhale the smell of scorched skin. Zev endured this each month?
“The next one,” Zev said through his clenched teeth. He lifted his free, limp hand. Once she attached it to his wrist, he would be secured to the tree. “Hurry, the moon is coming.”
She quickly unlocked the second manacle. Zev’s head jerked upright and he looked past her, his eyes flashing yellow.
“What is it?” Dyna spun around.
Cassiel scanned the dark woods. All three of them holding still and silent. Nothing moved or made a sound, but goosebumps prickled across his arms.
“Something is there,” he said under his breath. He dropped the torch in the mud and whipped out his flaming sword.
A black streak burst through the trees and tackled Dyna to the ground. Her scream rang in the woods. Cassiel stood frozen in place at the sight of the wolf on top of her, teeth bared in her face. Dyna didn’t move, her wide terrified eyes fixed on it.
“No, Tasnia!” Zev shouted at it. “Look at me!”
The wolf did and snarled viciously, drool seeping through its trembling teeth.
“I know you’re angry,” Zev said shakily. He held out his chained hand to the wolf pleadingly. “You want revenge for Owyn and the others, but my cousin had nothing to do with it. Please, don’t hurt her.”
