“John Handly?” Adam thought he recognized the voice. The hoofbeats grew louder.
The howling grew more chaotic. Zeus seemed ready to bolt. In the next instant, Adam spotted John. One look at his face told Adam something was wrong.
“Have you found her?” was the first thing out of John’s mouth.
“Her?”
“Then you haven’t . . . ?” John looked more frantic.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Adam held Zeus steady but barely. The pack sounded closer.
“Her Grace,” John breathed out quickly. “We was riding to Pointer’s, and Atlas bolted. No reason to, just bolted. She ain’t that good a rider yet, and I’m afeared she might’ve been unseated.”
“Persephone?” Adam could manage no other words.
“And with the pack soundin’ so close and angry—”
“Persephone!” Adam shouted, his panicked call dancing in the thick emptiness around him.
“She ain’t been answering, and I’m afeared something must’ve happened.”
“Don’t say that,” Adam snapped. “Persephone!”
The howls had dissolved into aggressive barking. Adam had a horrible feeling, one he refused to even put into words. “I think we need to find the pack.”
“I’ve been thinking that myself.” John sounded as worried as Adam felt.
He wanted to bolt, to charge, but the fog made it impossible. He could only guess which direction the barks and howls came from. The fog rendered his senses unreliable. Then he heard a sound that chilled his very blood: a horse, obviously in pain.
It was his dream come to life.
“I heared it, too, Yer Grace.” John must have seen Adam tense. “We’re getting closer.”
Adam’s heart pounded. The growling and snarling and the sounds of paws on crisp snow were now echoing at them from all sides. They were surrounded.
“Persephone!” Adam called out.
The pack answered with a fearsome chorus of howls.
“There, Yer Grace!”
Adam snapped his head around, first toward John to see which direction he pointed then in the direction of his finger.
Atlas, bloodied and breathing hard, stood not far from them. Persephone was not in the saddle.
Adam looked frantically around, inching closer, not wanting to push the pack into an attack. As he approached, Atlas snapped at him. Zeus shied back but continued his approach at Adam’s command. Atlas assumed an aggressive stance, something Adam had never seen him do—his docile nature was one of the reasons Adam had approved of him as a mount for Persephone.
In a flash of fur, a wolf darted across Zeus’s path. Atlas immediately switched his aggression to the snarling newcomer. A second wolf came from behind, and Atlas kicked out at it. The horse shifted, and Adam understood the reason for the horse’s behavior.
Kneeling on the ground just behind Atlas was Persephone. She held a large tree limb in her hand the way a warrior of old might have hefted a club. She swung it at a shadow that instantly became a wolf. Adam drew Zeus up just as the wolf lunged.
He reacted automatically. His pistol smoked before he even registered that he’d drawn it. The wolf lay unmoving at Persephone’s feet. The rest of the pack seemed momentarily startled into a retreat.
“Hand her up, John,” Adam instructed swiftly, John having dismounted already.
John helped Persephone to her feet. Adam saw in an instant that she was injured. Limping and sagging, she barely managed the few steps to Zeus. John helped Adam pull her into the saddle in front of him.
“Take Atlas’s reins,” Adam said.
