Toward me.
His wolf eyes scanned the clearing quickly, checking every face.
Checking everyone who had arrived.
Then his gaze slid past my shoulder.
And stopped.
Right on Rendel.
Keegan froze.
And that was when the Priestess struck.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Keegan went still.
It wasn’t the kind of stillness that comes from calm. It was the other kind, the dangerous one, that came from horror. The moment when someone sees something they never expected, and the world stutters for half a breath.
His eyes had landed on Rendel.
That was all the opening the Priestess needed.
Her hand lifted.
It wasn’t quick or dramatic, just a small movement through the fog, as if she were brushing something invisible from the air.
Behind her, the shadows shifted.
They had been drifting back a moment before, loose and scattered, like smoke after a fire. Now they tightened all at once, gathering themselves.
Then they came screaming back across the clearing.
“KEEGAN!” I yelled.
The first shadow hit the ground exactly where he’d been standing a heartbeat earlier. Keegan twisted aside just in time, his wolf body moving with the kind of speed that made your eyesstruggle to keep up. Dirt and leaves exploded into the air where the thing struck.
Another shadow caught his shoulder as he turned.
He staggered half a step before snapping around and tearing straight through it with his teeth. The creature burst apart like smoke under pressure.
But it didn’t matter.
There were too many of them.
They came pouring through the trees from every direction at once.
Bella lunged forward with a snarl and slammed into one midair, sending it spinning into the underbrush. An orc barreled straight through another with a roar that shook the branches overhead.
Still, they kept coming.
One slipped past Bella. Another darted low through the grass.
And that’s when the mark on my shoulder flared.
It wasn’t a slow burn, and Luna’s wrap stopped working.
