Page 25 of Wolf Trial

If they had the nerve to mount an attack, or to send another orienteering group into our forest, we’d rip them apart. Well, Lainsz would rip them apart in a fit of rage; I doubt Verne and I would get close. He was feral when it came to the slayers.

“Over here,” Verne shouted, and I pushed my body faster, Lainsz grinning as he did the same, anticipating blood spilled.

When we caught up to Verne, he was crouching on the leaf-strewn floor, the moonlight filtering through the thinning trees at the edge of our lands silvering his dark hands as he lifted them helplessly. His eyes were so wide, the whites dominating, and I skidded to a stop at the sight of that true, utter terror in his eyes.

There was a body broken on the ground beside him, and it didn’t take a genius to work out she must have fallen from the jagged edge of the hill above. Well, fallen or been pushed.

“Great,” Lainsz muttered. “A fucking body to dispose of.”

“Well,” I remarked, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’re not bored now, are you?”

CHAPTER 15

VERNE

“She’s not dead,” I said, my fingers twitching as I fought the absurd urge to brush bark-brown hair from the unconscious woman’s face. “Broken, and dying, but not dead. Help me get her up.”

Leander rushed to support the young woman as I lifted her off the cold ground. Shit, it was freezing today. Cold enough that her lips had turned blue and frost clung to her hair. It clung to Leander’s brown hair too, making the blue tips look even icier.

“Thanks for the help,” I quipped at Lainsz who stood off to the side watching with his arms crossed over his muscular chest. His face was as sharp-edged as his expression, and every bit as unyielding as his mercy in battle.

“I’m not touching a fucking slayer,” he said coldly. “Leave her here to die.”

“Come on, grumpy,” Leander tried cajoling him as we turned, by unspoken agreement, and began to tow the prone woman towards our cottage. “Not every slayer is like the monsters who killed—”

Lainsz’s ferocious growl sent birds screeching as they shot from the treetops, fleeing the predator that our packmate undoubtedly was.

“Right, right,” Leander muttered. “No talky, no touchy.”

I let them bicker as we carried the woman through the forest, her weight considerable but nothing to two wolf shifters. There was something about her, and not just because the forest was speaking to us. I looked away from her, but my eyes returned of their own will. I tried to readjust my grip, but my hands wouldn’t let go.

I was glad to get her back to the cottage, but the sluggish whisper of her heart was a far cry from a healthy heartbeat.

“She can’t die,” I said in a hard voice, and couldn’t explain why the idea was horrific. “We have to save her.”

“Fuck that,” Lainsz spat, and turned his back to us as Leander and I spread the woman’s body out on the plush green sofa.

“She’s turning blue,” Leander said, biting his bottom lip. “If we’re going to save her, it has to be now.”

“Save a fucking leech,” Lainsz spat without turning.

“She’s not a vampire,” I murmured, brushing hair back from her face to get a better look at her.1 “She’s human.”

And yet that tug urged me to keep her this side of death, to hold on and refuse to let her cross. And the forest had yet to stop whistling, howling, warning. Human, but important. No, more than important. Essential. My blood beat hard, powering through my veins at a rapid rate as I assessed her injuries, pulling her hair back to see the matted blood on the back of her head. She must have hit in on a rock when she landed.

For a moment, all I saw was white. My breath tightened, short with a rage I couldn’t explain.

“That looks bad,” Leander said, shocking me out of it. “Verne, we’re probably too late.”

“Good,” Lainsz grunted, though he drifted closer to inspect the gouge in the back of her head, the blood that had clotted her hair in places. “Looks like someone hit her on her head. Or pushed her with enough force that her skull cracked.” His upper lip curled. “The leeches are monsters, even to each other it seems.”

“She’s human,” I repeated, my thoughts coming in rapid fire. She was too badly injured for a healing rune, barely clinging to life. Yet the thought of her crossing that final threshold into death had the white rage returning.

Not a fucking chance. This woman would live.

My wolf paced inside my skin, a low growl filling my head, and I startled at his presence, at his insistence. The woman must live. If she died, he’d go feral. I blinked, giving myself a second she didn’t have, digesting the information.

“Her heart’s slowing,” Lainsz pointed out, though the sharp edge of vicious glee had left his voice. “Is she even a slayer? There’s not much muscle definition on her body.”