With a grunt, Jack landed in the snow. He made himself stagger up onto his paws, each breath a stab of pain down his bloody side, and growled a challenge at the thing. It squealed and rubbed its ruined face into the snow. As it looked up, a bloody frost crusted around the hole he’d left on its face. The blood-rimmed bulge of its eyes glittered with spite as it lumbered toward him.
“Wolves!” someone yelled, panic in their voices. “The wolves are here.”
Shauna’s da, a sable-brown wolf big even in the dire-sized pack, went through the chain-link fence instead of over it. It came down on top of some of the prophets who were still human-shaped, and the rest of the Pack trampled them underfoot as they stormed the prophets’ den.
It didn’t take long. Kath, sleek-furred and silver-gray, went for the hamstrings. The prophets who dropped behind her, enraged or screaming, she left for others to clean up. It had been a hard winter, the Old Man was still lost, and not all the Pack had fallen in behind Kath. Some of Lachlan’s wolves weren’t there, and the ones that had traded camps had torn ears and chunks of fur missing. If the prophets had rallied, ghoulish and alien as they pulled patched and rotten wolves over their bones, they could have made a fight of it.
Maybe not a long one.
They didn’t. Prophets were cowards and killers, oathbreakers and perverts. A few of them had hammered their flaws into horrors, but without a Rose or Job to rally behind or kidnapped children to hide behind, the prophets weren’t suited for conflict. Even magic and stolen skins couldn’t change that.
They broke and fled on lame feet, the ripe stink of carrion trailing behind them whether they fled into the storm or into the Wild.
Jack snapped and snarled at the bulldog to keep it hemmed back from the fight. His ribs were broken, sharp against his lungs as he twisted and jumped, and the vision in one eye was smeared gray and red from a claw that had scraped down his face. The bulldog had signs of wear too. Thick strips of flesh hung from its shoulders and gut, left to bleed as the monster’s body repaired more important injuries to throat and bone. He’d ripped off a strip of muscle from its cheek on the last pass, thick as gristle between Jack’s fangs, and the grotesque jaw hung stroke-slack on one side. Tendon and skin writhed like worms as the prophet’s curse worked blindly to reshape the monster into something that killed easier.
Gray and black fur blurred through the compromised vision in the corner of Jack’s bad eye. He thought it was backup and wasn’t sure if he was grateful or resentful that they thought he needed it. Then the wolf barreled into him, breath sour as rancid cheese, and they tumbled over each other as sharp fangs tore at Jack’s ears and thick ruff.
His first suspicion—always read—was that it was Gregor, but even if Jack’s brother had his wolf, Gregor wouldn’t try to kill him now. It would be a fair enough fight when that happened.
Lachlan.
The mouthful of fur that Jack ripped from Lachlan’s throat was dry and matted. It stuck to his tongue and the roof of his mouth, annoying and scratchy. Lachlan landed on top of Jack and used his weight to pin him down.
Snow hung between them like smoke as Lachlan peeled his lips back in a snarl, teeth dull against the bright red of his mouth. His breath was hot enough to steam and more even.
There was something wrong with him. Jack wasn’t sure what exactly, half-blind and his brain fogged with blood lust, but he didn’t question it either.
A massive paw swung out of the snow and slapped Lachlan off Jack’s chest. The huge wolf yelped like a puppy in surprise as he was flung into the air. Then the monster screamed, and the sound gargled out of its loose throat as it lumbered after Lach. Bad wolf or good wolf, it didn’t matter. The prophets might have twisted their monsters into caricatures of the wolves, but they couldn’t tell them apart.
Jack huffed out a wolf laugh, and his bloody tongue dangled out of his jaws as he rolled onto his feet. He shook himself and quickly ducked his head to scrape his paw over his eyes and peel away scabbed blood and dead flesh so he could see—more or less—again. There was still a taint of pink to the world, and the cold burned his face, but his peripheral vision was back.
His legs trembled with exhaustion under him. Whatever reserves he’d scraped together since Rose peeled his skin off were gone. He shook his head and found more from somewhere as he went after the monster.
It was easy to track them. Blood and a trail of churned, stained snow. Until it wasn’t.
The trail stopped cold, between one step and the next, and the scent filtered away on the wind, just like the site of Job’s bloody slaughter back in Durham, where he’d stepped away from guilt and into the Wild.
Footsteps crunched behind him, and Danny nearly ran into him as he dashed through the snow. He stumbled to a halt and crouched down next to Jack. His breath steamed on his lips as he gave Jack a concerned look and then turned his attention to the straight line division between there and gone.
“Was that Lachlan?” he asked as he put his arm over Jack’s shoulders. His fingers twisted in the thick hair of Jack’s ruff. The gesture pulled at the fresh wounds hidden under the mats, but Jack ignored that. It was worth the discomfort to be able to lean into the embrace and sigh out his weariness.
He folded his wolfskin away and knelt in the snow, naked and stippled with ruined ink and fresh bruises. Blood scabbed his skin over almost healed injuries. Danny hissed in concern as he gingerly prodded at the edges of the deep punctures bruised into Jack’s shoulders.
Without the wolf, the simple pleasure of the embrace fanned out into something more complicated. Familiar and sweet, a dull hint of desire twitched under the dull weariness of the fight It was layered over with need and fear and, unfair though it was, anger.
“Saved by a dog,”he heard Bron’s voice hiss inside his head.“I’ll tell everyone that.”
Let her.
“It was him,” he said. His lip curled in contempt. “The new Numitor that was.”
Danny rubbed his hand over his face, and his nose wrinkled as he squinted. “He couldn’t do that,” he said. “Lach could hardly touch the Wild.”
Jack snorted and pushed himself to his feet. “And prophets used to be toothless, and monsters were for stories,” he said. “It’s the Wolf Winter, Danny, things change.”
He offered Danny his hand and hauled him up out of the snow.
“No,” Danny said. “You don’t get it. Lach couldn’t touch the Wild at all without another wolf’s tail to chase. Why do you think he hated me so much? He was practically a dog. He only made it as a wolf by the skin of his teeth. The Wild’s not gotten strong enough to change that. Has it?”
