Rufus’s hands fluttered in an odd, agitated movement. Without warning, he shifted into griffin form, bounding into the air.
“Rufus! You’re not supposed to…” Honey trailed off as the griffin flapped unsteadily out of sight. She sighed again. “We’d better go after him. You kids should know by now that it’s against camp rules for you to go anywhere alone.”
At least Rufus seemed to be heading toward the center of camp rather than away. Halfway across the fields, she discovered why. Rufus came charging back, running rather than flying now. The rest of the pack were hard on his paws.
Or rather, most of the rest of the pack. By now, Honey didn’t have to count heads to know when one was missing.
“Where’s Ignatius?” she asked.
“He’s, uh, busy,” Finley managed to get out, in between gasps. All the kids were wheezing as though they’d just sprinted all the way from the lake. “But we had to come find you! Because, um…”
“We have a surprise for you!” Estelle interjected. “In the, uh…”
“Dining hall,” Archie said, simultaneously with Flora’s confident: “Art building.”
Honey narrowed her eyes at them. “This surprise seems to be as much a mystery to you as it is to me.”
The kids exchanged panicked glances.
Honey sighed. “Does someone want to tell me what Ignatius is doing right now?”
“Nooooooooo,” Estelle said, drawing out the word. “Not really.”
“Please don’t be mad at us, alpha.” Beth twisted the end of her long red braid. “But we can’t tell you.”
“We couldn’t even if we wanted to,” Archie said earnestly. “Ig wouldn’t tell us his plan. Just that we had to keep you and Buck busy while he did it.”
“Is this why you led me out here?” Honey asked Rufus and Claire. “You were trying to distract me?”
Rufus hung his head, feathers drooping. The chameleopard shuffled her paws, looking as hangdog as the griffin.
“Don’t blame Rufus and Claire,” Flora said staunchly. “They were just following Iggy’s plan. He said we had to stop you from leaving the camp.”
“Please trust us, alpha,” said Beth. “I know it looks bad, but everything’s going to be fine. Ig swore he could fix everything.”
“If we can trusthim,” Estelle muttered.
Honey’s stomach sank even lower. “Tell me what’s going on. Right now.”
Before any of them could reply, a shadow swept over their heads. Honey looked up, and her blood turned to ice.
A vast, bat-winged shape dove toward the camp. The dragon circled, letting out a deafening, furious roar. Its scales glittered gold in the sunlight, bright as polished coins.
“Kids,” Honey breathed in horror. “What have you done?”
CHAPTER40
For once, Buck was regrettingnotbeing naked.
The sauna was fucking hot, and not in the good way. It was pitch black inside too, so that even his freakshow vision couldn’t make anything out. Though this was possibly a mercy, as Ragvaldhadstripped off.
“Pretty sure this isn’t listed as an optional activity on the schedule,” Buck muttered, trying to find a way to sit on the scorching earth floor without toasting his own ass. “Since when did this camp have a damn sauna?”
“Since I arrived.” There were slight scraping noises, as Ragvald did something with the stone-covered firepit in the middle of the small, round hut. “Building it was the first thing I did on your shores. Though I could not believe there was not one here already. The sauna is the heart of any steading. How else could arguments be settled?”
Buck took shallow breaths, lungs burning. He’d been in cooler firestorms. The familiar acrid taste of wood smoke stung his throat, stirring up decades of memories. If this was meant to be relaxing, it was failing miserably.
“So, what now?” His shirt was already sticking to his back, and they’d barely been in this hellhole for five minutes. “We just sit here and sweat?”
