I grabbed the strap of her shoulder quiver and yanked her toward me. The blade in my right hand came up to her throat.
I had her. I godsdamn had her?—
A howl cut through the trees. It pierced the pounding of the waterfall like a knife through ice. It echoed toward the back wall of the cave and caromed back at us.
Fear. This spot stank with it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Faunand I stood facing each other, my sword at her throat and the point of hers still piercing my left shoulder. We stared at one another as the howl resonated.
I could see it in Faun’s eyes. I was sure she could see it in mine.
We were afraid of each other. We were afraid of death. We were afraid of the kind of death we would face. She was like me. She was more like me than anyone else in this place.
I didn’t want to kill her. It was the last thing I wanted.
We didn’t speak, but our eyes did. I nodded, and so did she. I lowered my sword as she yanked hers from my shoulder.
The pain was worse this time. I dropped my sword and clamped my mouth with my hand to stifle my scream as my blood splattered.
The howl sounded again, closer. Faun turned toward it, swicking her blade free of my blood. She sheathed it and drew her bow. “Get up, coward.”
Not me.Him.
Her partner had dropped against the wall of the cave and sank to a crouch. At her words, he gathered himself and staggered upright. His knees trembled through his leathers.
I turned toward the mouth of the cave, to the veil of thunderingwater. My left arm hung limp, and my sword wavered in my offhand. I hoped Dorian was nowhere near—at least his death might not be this violent. Maybe when I died, he would only fall asleep and never wake up again.
The howl sounded a third time, closer than ever. It rang in my ears, a wincing noise, and it sounded like it was right on the other side of the waterfall.
We three stood there in the faint lavender light, waiting with our weapons in hand. Faun had nocked an arrow, her partner slower to do the same. I would have drawn my own, but one of my hands was useless.
It didn’t happen at all how I’d expected.
Silence fell—a silence so thick beneath the water you’d think the Hunt had forgotten about us. Perhaps they had. Maybe they’d caught wind of another, more potent fear?—
A shadow appeared beyond the crashing waterfall. It loomed, growing, until it became hulking. Then it broke through in a spray of silvered droplets, maw open, a pair of canines as long as my head visible in the soft crystal light.
A wolf. Its fur gleamed as white as the moon.
It landed dripping inside the cave. It was twice as large as me, its eyes two enormous drops of night. Its claws tapped and scraped on the rock as it slid to stillness.
A wolf of the Wild Hunt. Gorgeous. Terrible. Made for violence.
Two of Faun’s red-fletched arrows flew, one after another. They should have gone straight into the wolf’s head, but they passed straight through the creature as though it were immaterial and clanked against the stone of the far wall.
I stared; my legs felt like ice, right up into my spine. I’d never felt defenseless in my life, not wholly. Not like this.
If their arrows didn’t even penetrate the creature, what use was my sword—my bow—my knife?
The wolf’s snarl made all three of us flinch. It spun on Faun and her partner, lifted its head with a howl that echoed off the walls ofthe cave and back at us. A mind-rending sound, a pain like I’d never felt. The three of us dropped what we held and clutched our hands to our skulls. Faun’s partner fell to his knees; Faun and I somehow kept on our feet.
Another form burst through the water. A second wolf, identical to the first. It landed with a wet skid, claws screaming grooves into the stone.
The two of them stood wide-stanced, teeth bared, one with black eyes on me, the other before Faun and her partner. They didn’t attack, but they didn’t move, either. When Faun’s partner tried to edge on his knees toward the cave’s mouth, the closer wolf stepped forward with a snarl like a slap.
They were keeping us pinned. Pinned and waiting for something.
