The battle lasts only a handful of minutes. The final soldier falls to Cratos, whose jaws close around his entire skull. The man’s screams cut off abruptly as Cratos bites down.
Then, everything is silent. The birds are gone.
Slowly, the woods start to whisper and creak as if they’re letting out a breath.
Noemi relaxes her shield, as does Meryn. The shadows she summoned part, and the sun comes back out. She loosens her protective hold on Saela.
She’s behind her sister, so she can’t see what happens—but I do.
Saela’s eyes dilate enormously, swallowing up her irises. Her gaze—undeniably hungry—is locked on the blood-soaked ground, on the bodies.
Meryn’s not fast enough to tighten her grip. Saela rips from her and moves with inhuman speed.
“No!” Meryn shouts. As if she could stop it.
The little girl falls on the nearest corpse. She latches on and tears at it with her hands. I have an iron stomach for gore at this point, but even I’m a little queasy as the sounds start. Gasping, sucking,gulpingsounds.
Saela looks like a starving animal savaging prey.
Meryn and I make eye contact with the others at the same time. Venna and Noemi are staring in shock, their expressions a mixture of revulsion and disbelief. Venna’s hand rises to cover her mouth. Betrayal flashes across Noemi’s face.
Fuck.
22
MERYN
Venna and Noemi have the grace not to scream. Within moments, I can tell they’ve both done a quick calculation—I’m not shocked or scared, and neither is Stark—and have schooled their faces back into neutral expressions.
I’m overwhelmed by all of it. My fear for my sister, the vicious spilling of blood, the terrible truth finally revealed to my friends. My body and mind are both wrung out.
And I’m aching from the rejection. Soldiers, who should’ve beenmysoldiers, whom I felt a duty to take care of—rejecting me full stop. How many like them are out there? How many more have deserted?
How many people refuse to recognize my rule because I’m a woman? And how can I ever win their loyalty if they’re withholding it over the most central, unchangeable part of me?
“We should do something about the bodies,” I say in a daze, as if my sister was not feasting on one directly in front of us all. “It’s not right to just… leave them here.”
Anassa chimes in, “We wolves can dig a shallow grave and bury them. That should suffice.”
I agree with this, although a part of me smarts. Despite how despicably these men behaved, they were people with families or friends—just as my father was. That they won’t come home—that no one will ever know what happened to them—will hurt someone, somewhere.
All four of the wolves start to dig and bury. Meanwhile, Saela finishes up her… snack… and seems like she’s in a disoriented stupor from the meal.
This is the first time she’s tasted human blood since the day she turned. I wonder if it’s doing something different to her.
She pulls off the body and crawls back toward me. She looks like a nightmare—her hands and chin and clothes soaked in scarlet gore, her gaze unfocused, hair matted and slick with blood. Venna’s face twists in a way too complicated to read.
I hurry toward my sister and help her stand, mostly carrying her back to the edge of the clearing. Then I sit her down against a tree, where she promptly falls asleep.
After I’m sure she’s safe, I take a couple of quick strides over to Noemi and Venna.
“Would’ve been useful information to know we had a Siphon traveling with us before we departed the castle,” Noemi drawls, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Her beautiful face is slightly pinched in irritation, and she stares off into the distance where Stark oversees the wolves’ work.
Venna’s gaze cuts me to the quick. Her eyes are hard, flinty. “How long?”
Nausea roils in my stomach. “Ven—”
“How long, Meryn?”
