Ellie whimpered. Behind Gregor, among the row of dogs, a chain rattled, and a man made a low, strangled sound of protest. He looked around, past the prophet behind him, to see the strange dog cuffed to his feet.
He registered that and glanced at Jack to make sure he’d seen it too. He had, and his jaw was set unhappily. Before Gregor could pick the expression apart, the prophet behind him cracked him around the ear.
“You look at her,” the prophet ordered over the ringing in Gregor’s ears. “She wants you to see her.”
Gregor exhaled and reluctantly turned his attention back to the patchwork woman of scars and stolen skin. He could see her, but his brain didn’t question the belief in her beauty. Some Sannock skin, he supposed. The myths of them claimed they were beautiful, yet when he saw the remnants of them in the Wild, they’d been mismatched, none of them just one thing entirely.
In Rose’s grip, Ellie gulped audibly and choked out through her pinched jaw, “I fought… no, I chased him. He got away from me.”
Rose snorted. “How did he do that? He’s all leg now. And I taught him what happened to boys who can’t run fast. But you’re a wolf. How did one lanky boy get away from you?”
Ellie hesitated. She tried to turn toward Lachlan again, but Rose didn’t let her. “He… he turned into a bird.”
“Crazy bitch,” Lachlan blurted. “She just doesn’t want to admit a human got away from her.”
Rose finally let go of Ellie, who staggered back and wiped her face on her sleeve. Then Rose reached out for him. She patted the air blindly, and Lachlan moved under her hand, a shudder of something going through him as she gripped him.
“No, he does that,” she said pleasantly. Then her fingers tightened, dug down through the wool sweater to dig into flesh and muscle. Lachlan staggered under the pain but managed to throttle the whimper that tried to escape his throat. She dropped to a guttural growl. “And do I look like I’d have a human grandson?”
Lachlan choked out a strained “No” and “Sorry.” Rose finally let him go with a shove. He staggered out of the way, blood dark as it stained the cable knit of his sweater, and nearly into the heavyset, flush-skinned monster. Its growl was a thick gargle of a sound in its throat, and Lachlan jumped away from it.
“Nicholas will find me,” Rose murmured to herself. Her eyes flicked over Gregor, and she tightened her lips behind the stolen ones. Her voice was bitter as she grudgingly admitted, “Or he’ll find you.”
Gregor spat at her. It hit the freckled mask and dripped down onto her shoulder. She backhanded him, her knuckles like a bag of dice, and only the prophets behind him kept him on his feet. Gregor’s ears rang with a brittle buzz as they dragged him back upright. He could taste blood in his mouth, and his cheekbone throbbed with the hot pressure of a fractured bone.
“Do not let it slip your mind,” she told him coldly. “You are not what you were. Nor am I.”
Gregor shook his head—the wash of red-tinged nausea drowned out the drone in his ears—and spat the mouthful of blood onto her. It speckled her face, a bright addition to the faded freckles, and the beautiful/hideous mask slid for a second.
The prophets cursed and kicked him in the backs of his knees until they gave way. He went down hard on the stones, and the prophet grabbed a handful of hair and yanked his head back. Rose found his face with fumbling, uncertain fingers and dug her thumbnails into the soft skin under his eyes.
“Leave him alone!” Jack yelled at her. There was a sound of scuffle, a dull crack of bone on flesh and muscle that ended with a grunt and a stifled whine of pain. Gregor didn’t need to look over. He could smell his idiot brother’s blood on the air. “What the fuck do you want with us anyhow?”
There was a pause, and then Rose pulled her nails out of Gregor’s flesh. He felt blood run down his face like tears.
“I want what every new bride wants. To get to know her new family,” Rose singsonged mockingly as she stepped backward. Gregor licked his own blood off his lips and watched as she pulled the sweater tight across the front of her body with both hands. The cable knit stretched over her stomach where it swelled, drum taut and round, over skinny hips. She looked like a snake that had swallowed a pig. “And to get your blessing for your new brother. The Numitor’s true son.”
The prophets threw back their heads and howled, triumphant and deranged. A few of the dogs were carried away enough to join in, their undying loyalty to Jack forgotten in the moment. Lachlan’s wolves looked at him for a guideline on how to respond, but he looked as poleaxed as any of them.
“The fuck it is,” Jack spat out as he recoiled back a bloody, confused step.
Gregor threw back his head and roared with laughter. He laughed until the prophet at his back choked him on it, but even with a knee in his back and metal cut into his throat, he sniggered.
“My brother?” he rasped as he hooked his fingers into the collar. “More likely a rat crawled up in there and died.”
The wolf rippled under Rose’s face. It bristled, moldy gray fur patched with stolen bits and grafted skin, and bared yellow, chipped fangs. The stolen skin sprouted fur too, dandelion white and matted, but whatever it was made the pelts around it wither and go dry.
Rose sucked in her breath and the stolen wolves, stuffed the change back into her bones. The stolen face had frayed at the edges, torn where the stitches held it behind her ear, and she had to hold it in place with one hand.
“You don’t need to give your blessing,” she said from behind lips that had slid out of place. “I can take it just as well, but ask your brother if you want to spend any longer than necessary under my care. Take them to thevaletudinarium.”
The hospital. But wolves didn’t need hospitals. Anything that they couldn’t heal from, they either died of or lived with. Gregor had never heard another wolf talk of a hospital, but as he was dragged to his feet and beaten around the head until he shuffled forward, he doubted anyone was in the mood to answer his questions. As he edged past the monster, he supposed that he’d find out soon enough.
THE THINGsnarled at him, and thick strings of pus and blood hung from ruined gums as he passed. Its stink scraped on his nerves, dug down into his guts where the same infection festered, but he ignored it in favor of one last hard look at Rose.
Once upon a time, Nick had loved that raddled old witch, whatever was left of her between the grafted wolf and the Sannock skin, and now Nick had to live with the knowledge that he’d only ever been meat for her ambitions.
One day Gregor would kill her for that.
