“I wanted you to choose this,” Rose said tiredly. Then she kicked the Old Man in the face with a booted foot, hard enough to snap his head back. Jack heard Gregor’s low growl. He reached out and grabbed his shoulder to hold him in place. “But you are still a stubborn, stupid bastard, so we’ll do it the hard way.”
She wrapped the lead around her hand. The knots in it dug into her flesh, and she hauled Da to his feet. He choked on the collar, and it was the dog who snarled—a quiet, angry sound in the back of his throat. Of them all, it was the one who’d spent time on Rose’s leash. Jack growled back at it.
“Wait,” he said.
“Since when do I obey you?” Gregor growled, although for once, the anger in his voice wasn’t for Jack.
The Sannock reached the hill and stepped out of the storm, their hair frosted into elflocks and sharp, unsettling smiles on their mouths. It seemed strange to hear the snow crunch under their feet. The horned Sannock bent his head, and daggers of ice dripped from its antlers like a crown.
“We’re too late,” it said. “Fenrir cannot be put back to sleep.”
“That’s why we don’t let her wake him,” Jack said.
The Sannock’s chuckle was a mean squeeze of humor. “Once it’s done, it can’t be undone. A throat slit can’t be sealed back up by regret, and the bitch has none anyhow. She’s ready to split, and the end of the world will hasten with what spills out of her.”
Jack glanced at Rose’s belly. The Sannock might have meant that literally. She’d strapped her belly up with strips of badly cured leather, but blood seeped through in dark, crusted stains. Whatever was in there wouldn’t come out peacefully.
“We came this far. I’m not going back without blood in my throat,” Jack said. He glanced at Gregor and, for the first time, didn’t see his own face. “We get to Rose. That’s all that matters.”
It wasn’t a plan. There was no point. The Sannock evened the odds a bit, but not enough. They might get to Rose, but they wouldn’t go home.
Gregor knew that too. He nodded grimly and then looked up, to pick out Nick’s dark shape through the dense clouds—the closest to a goodbye they might get.
At least Jack had Danny here, part of him, at least. He pulled the dog into a rough hug and buried his face in its fur as it panted and leaned into him. It licked his face with a wet swipe that drenched his ear.
“You need to take the baby back to Bron,” he told the dog. “I need you to promise.”
The dog pulled back and leveled a steady look at Jack. There was more humanity in its gaze than there usually was, the complexity of grief and understanding. It nodded and then butted its head under Jack’s arm as the dog took control again.
There was no more time. Jack turned to the Sannock. He didn’t know them, and he couldn’t trust them, but he still had to use them. They were all he had.
“I assume you know how to fuck up wolves without a how-to,” he said.
A pale Sannock smiled. Her teeth were nearly translucent, matching her floating hair, and something black and awful wriggled with interest behind her lips.
“Yes,” she said without opening her mouth. Her voice was beautiful. “That we can do. I will not even add a tally to your debt.”
Jack snorted. “I think we’ve paid enough.”
She gave him a flat look, and the smile slid from her face. Her beautiful voice was full of venom as she said, “Never.”
It would have been a better threat if Jack saw any way out. He shrugged the wolf back on, the clarity of it welcome as fur and focus settled over him. The Wild surged around them and the storm with it, snow so thick it was like a curtain, and the dull thud of hailstones as they dented the ground.
Jack ran between them… most of them. He could feel the dull heat of a bruise under his skin and the itch of blood in his ear where one had caught him, but it would pass.
The Sannock caught up with him and then past him. The first prophet they reached died without a sound. His eyes were wide and surprised, the last thing he saw a smiling, gray-toothed woman who tore his throat out with a hook on the way past. His blood spilled out on the ground, and Jack ran through it.
Another prophet fell, but not in silence. He had time to yelp, and the element of surprise was lost. Jack grimaced, lips drawn back from his teeth, as they yelled and cursed in confusion. He lunged at a shadow in the snow and slammed into one of Rose’s monsters. It staggered backward, caught off-balance, and Jack sank his teeth into its front leg. The infection-bitter taste of its blood filled his mouth. He bit down to the bone and clamped on until he could feel the muscles strain against their moorings in his jaw. The bone snapped and he shook his head to shred the flesh that held it in place.
The monster howled and toppled over to writhe in the snow as its leg gave way. It would heal, but not in time. Jack dodged the snap of its jaws and ran past it. The baying of the dogs spun around the hill, and the Sannock howled with surprise as they rediscovered pain. Out of the corner of his eye, as Jack got to his feet, he saw Gregor stagger as the prophets harried him.
A harsh caw sounded from above, and the bird dropped down. It hooked its beak into a seam in the prophet’s skin and tore away a thick layer of wolf…. Gregor laughed raggedly in satisfaction as the bird swooped away with its prize and the prophet choked back to humanity.
“So you brought your brother after all, Gregor,” Rose yelled, her voice cracked and raw. “A shame it’s too late. I found another way, and I don’t need you anymore. But kill him anyhow. Maybe I’ll give you a wolf just to be kind.”
Jack curled his lip. He’d spent his life with one eye on his brother for betrayal, and Rose thought he’d be shocked at the idea Gregor couldn’t be trusted? That was the baseline of their relationship. He knew this wasn’t a trap despite that distrust, because the only thing deeper in Gregor than his mean streak was his pride. Gregor would doubtless do a lot to get his wolf back, to be able to challenge Jack again on equal footing again, but he wouldn’t accept help.
All her taunt had done was help him narrow in on her location. Jack followed her voice through the snow.
