My shades started snarling and howling behind the stag, driving it into a frenzy. Frantic, the stag turned toward the rock formation.
The night mares held back just long enough for the stag to get closer to the rocks before they surged ahead, cutting the stag’s path off to the left.
Eclipse barreled across the field, joining the glooms and neatly pinching off a gap between the boulders and the cats—who couldn’t move as fast as the night mares—blocking the right side.
Flanked, and with no way to run, the stag backed into the rocks, its hide twitching and quivering as it struggled to catch its breath.
Behind us, the baying of the other monarch’s hounds grew closer.
And this is where the danger begins.
I slipped from Comet’s back and shoved my prism into my right glove.
It was bulky and made the glove uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to have to worry about holding it with what could possibly come next.
“Easy, boy, easy,” I called to the stag, hoping against everything that my natural magic for animals would be able to calm him despite the scare we’d put him through.
The stag stamped a foot and shook his head, his dark eyes glassy with fear.
“How could they do this to you?” I murmured as I took a few steps closer to it, my hands held up to show I was unarmed—which would help if the stag was as smart as I suspected it was.
I thought my Court was bad. These bloodthirsty monarchs are a new level of horrid.
With a perfect sense of timing, Fell and Birch popped out of the trees.
I heard the creak of wood, and I activated my prism and threw up a barrier.
An arrow pinged harmlessly off the surface.
“Leila, that’s cheating,” Fell said tauntingly. “You’re breaking the rules.”
“I was unaware you actually cared about that sort of thing, sinceyoubroke the rules by shooting at the prey Ihave cornered,” I said.
Fell and his hounds cantered closer to us, and I eyed Muffin and Whiskers, who were slowly closing in on the stag.
“Easy,” I warned them.
“Perhaps,” Fell called out to me. “But you can’t stop another monarch’s hounds or animals from approaching with magic,” Fell said. “You are about to lose control of the prey anyway.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” I said sweetly.
I waited until the hounds—who were now baying so loudly I couldn’t have heard anything the King of Autumn said—were about a horse-length away before I shouted. “HOLD!” I yelled, putting every ounce of strength I had in the command.
The night mares, glooms, and shades screamed, hissed, and snarled as they swung around. Facing out of the formation, they snapped and growled at the hounds.
The hounds pushed forward—driven by the bloodlust Fell had stupidly predicted inmyanimals.
Patches smacked a hound in the face with enough force to send it sprawling.
Larry—more than double the size of the hounds—grabbed another by the scruff of its neck andtossedit.
Two hounds tried to rush Nebula, and they narrowly avoided being crushed when the mare stomped at them.
The glooms screamed—their throaty howls made the hounds whine and turn away.
Even the sun stallions freaked. Birch almost fell off his as it burst sideways, fighting to get away from my pets.
“How?” Fell demanded as he fought to control his sun stallion. The way he glanced behind him as Solis and Verdant popped out of the woods underlined just how aware he was that the stallion’struemaster was watching.
