“That is part of what I healed you of. Her influence is not like mine. She seeks power and domination through war. That is why you are here, attacking us.”
He was silent for a long moment, his expression stormy.
“Why then did you heal me? I am a great warrior, capable of killing any male who stands before me.” He looked down at his hands, saw the blood there, and pressed them down to the forest floor as if what he saw there pained them. Was his memory coming back?
The vial in my pocket seemed to buzz, and I looked down at it. Was this the moment Kari had been talking about?
It buzzed again, and I pulled it out. “I think this is for you. For your memories.”
I passed him the vial, and he glanced at Brielle for confirmation. She nodded, and he uncorked the little vial, then downed it in one trusting gulp.
He gripped the sides of his head, releasing a pained cry. “No, no! It can’t be true.”
I grabbed Brielle, pulling her back as he began to thrash. “You’re lying to me! All of you!” When he glared up at us, his eyes glowed green with his wolf. His lips split in a snarl, canines already elongated as fur began to sprout along the backs of his hands, where wolf’s claws already dug into the ground. The leather bindings on his armor began to creak as his shift took hold, threatening to snap.
“We need to leave, Brielle. This isn’t going our way.” I sent Shay a pointed look, and she grabbed Brielle’s wrist again.
“Not yet. We almost got through to him,” Brielle hissed. “Bran, I promise you, we’re telling the truth. The only way to stop the war, the killing, is to end it with Narcissa. It’s been over four hundred years since you were last awake, and you’dremember. You were put into magical stasis to stop her last time. This time, only you can stop her. You know what’s right. I saw the goodness in you when I healed you. Please, don’t let her corrupt you again. You can fight it. Youcan, I know?—”
Bran roared, his wolf bursting out of his flesh, and then his form warped, and the world was nothing but light as Shay flashed us back to the castle.
Chapter 70
Valens
No matter how hard we fought, it wasn’t enough. We were all in wolf form, charging ahead like the tip of a spear, but the enemies just kept on coming, and while we were good enough fighters as a unit to survive, the ones at the front who’d followed us were dropping like flies. The harpies I’d seen in the pixie camp had joined Narcissa’s side, and they harassed us from overhead, gouging at our backs and flanks with their daggerlike claws and hideous beaks.
The scorpions had also joined her, their eyes glowing red with her influence as they charged us, stingers whipping lethally every time we tried to grab one of them. One nearly gutted Reed, but he changed forms, half shifted somehow into a horror-movie wolfman as he battled back the stinger with humanoid hands.
Lightning cracked overhead as Fiona began to pepper the field with stinging rain and howling wind to beat back the harpies, but still, we couldn’t get to Bran.
A feminine cry from my left drew my attention, and I spun to help whoever it was. But when I found her, it was too late.
Dakota, one of the maidens. Blonde hair plastered to her head with the rain, a hole in her chest the size of a scorpion stinger. Her eyes were vacant, glossy, as her blood mixed withthe mud she lay in. I didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t stop fighting to take her with me.
She was gone. I was too late.
Elodie would be crushed, but I was selfishly glad she’d chosen to hang back. I didn’t want her to see this, to live through this hellscape.
People had fallen everywhere I looked, and we were starting to lose ground. Whatever power Narcissa had, it was potent. These people fought with no concern for their own lives, no reservations, and each fighter’s strength seemed to be amplified, as if they fought for three men, not one.
Dirge howled in pain, and I saw that his back leg had been broken, paw dangling limp and useless.
Shit.
We needed to retreat. Dirge might have been immortal, but that didn’t mean the rest of us were.
Dakota certainly wasn’t, Goddess rest her soul.
As awful as it was to admit, we were losing this fight. Badly.
Retreat!
The order came mentally, and I recognized Kane’s thundering voice in my head.Retreat! To the castle!came a repeated order a moment later.
Fuck. This was it. We had lost.
We turned and ran, all the while Fiona covered us with lightning strikes, harrying our pursuers with a sixty-foot tornado just to give us a chance to get away.
