Arwen cleared her throat. “Would you and your pack escort us to Death Mountain? We can pay you.”
The woman looked at a wolf behind her and something unseen passed between them. “We will take you to the base of the mountain. We avoid politics whenever possible,” she said.
That was an interesting comment.
Avoid politics… were they some rebel pack that lived outside of government rule?
“Thank you,” Arwen said, and then began to rifle through her basket for clothes and shoes. Once she was bundled up, the wolven woman shifted back into her wolf form without a word. The pack broke up and about a dozen of the wolves formed a V, pointing the way, and we walked inside of it.
Once we’d been walking for about an hour, Arwen slipped closer to Kailani and I. “None of the other kings besides Lucien have spoken to Axil since they were young boys. We don’t know what kind of situation we will be walking into here, but if anything goes wrong, get outside and I fly us home.”
We nodded and I found myself wondering what could go wrong. Lucien had spoken to me of King Axil like a beloved friend. He told me they sent letters over the years and remained on good terms since their yearly retreats stopped.
“Lucien speaks highly of King Axil. Said he would not hesitate to help us,” I told them in an attempt to put their minds at ease.
Kailani looked sideways at me. “Then why were we told Arwen would be shot out of the sky?”
I chewed my lip. Good point. Only the dragon king or queen could shift into a dragon. If he’d told his men to shoot a dragon out of the sky, he would be knowingly killing the king or queen.
I lowered my voice to barely a whisper, the loudest sound being the crunching of our boots on snow. “If need be, I can protect us with my wind power. We will be okay.”
Arwen looked at me with unease. “Do you know the power the wolf king holds?”
I swallowed the lump of trepidation lodged in my throat at her tone. “He can shift into a very large wolf?”
Arwen chuckled. “The king of the wolves can take over your mind and render your wind power useless.”
My mouth went bone dry. Take over my mind? But… “Are you sure?”
Arwen gazed at the lead wolf who we’d spoken with earlier. She was watching us and simply gave a single nod. Great, she’d heard our entire conversation.
“Yep,” Arwen confirmed.
Oh fae.What had we gotten ourselves into?
* * *
