Lou’s face twisted in horror.
“The village, Gévaudan, is due south from here. We will give you a head start.”
“How much of a head start?” Beau asked, eyes tight and anxious.
She only grinned in response.
“Weapons?” Lou asked.
“He may keep the weapons on his person,” Liana said. “No more and no less.”
I quickly tallied my inventory. Four knives in my bandolier. Two in my boots. One down my spine. Seven teeth of my own. Though I prayed I wouldn’t need them, I wasn’t naive. This would not end well. It would end bloody.
“If any of you intervene in the hunt,” her little brother added, looking between Lou, Coco, Ansel, and Beau, “with magic or otherwise, your lives will be forfeit.”
“What about Morgane?” Coco asked quickly. “If Reid wins, you’ll ally with us against her?”
“Never,” Liana snarled.
“This is bullshit!” Lou advanced toward them, hands still lifted, but I caught her arm. To my surprise, so did Beau.
“Little sister,” he said, eyes wide as the wolves closed in around us, “I think we ought to play their game.”
“He’ll die.”
Coco’s eyes darted everywhere as if searching for an escape. There was none. “We’ll all die unless he agrees.” She looked to me for confirmation. Waiting. In that look, I understood. If I chose not to do this, she would join me in fighting our way out. They all would. But the cost—the risk—
As if pulled by an invisible force, my eyes drifted again to Lou. To her face. I memorized the curve of her nose, the slope of her cheek. The line of her neck. If we fought, they would take her. There were too many of them to kill, even with magic on our side.
They would take her, and she would be gone.
“Don’t do this,” she said, her distress palpable. My chest ached. “Please.”
My thumb brushed her arm. Just once. “I have to.”
When I turned back to Liana, she was already halfway through the change. Black fur covered her lupine face, and her lips curled in a horrifying smile. “Run.”
The Wolves Descend
Reid
A sense of calm enveloped me as I entered the swamp. South. Due south. I knew of Gévaudan. The Chasseurs and I had stayed there the night after our werewolf raid—the night before I’d become Captain Diggory. If I remembered the terrain correctly, the river that powered Gévaudan’s mill flowed into this estuary. If I could find that river, I could lose my scent in the waters. Traverse them into the village.
If I didn’t drown first.
I glanced down. The tide was rising. It’d soon flood the estuary, which would in turn flood the river. The current would be dangerous, especially while I was laden with heavy weaponry. Still—better the devil I knew than the devil I didn’t. I’d rather drown than feel Blaise’s teeth in my stomach.
Hurtling around the trees—taking care to mark each one with my scent—I doubled back, diluting my trail as much as possible. I dropped to a crouch. Loup garou were faster than regular wolves, faster than even horses. I couldn’t outrun them. The water was my only hope. That, and—
Clawing at the ground, I scooped handfuls of mud and slathered them onto my skin. My clothes. My hair. Beyond strength and speed, the werewolves’ noses were their greatest weapons. I needed to disappear in every sense.
Somewhere behind me, a howl shattered the silence.
I looked up, the first knot of fear making me hesitate.
My time was up. They were coming.
I cursed silently, sprinting south and listening—listening—for the telltale rush of water. Searching for thick trunks and hanging moss amidst the other muted greens and browns of the forest. The river had taken shape within a thick copse of bald cypresses. It had to be near here. I remembered this place. Each landmark that rose up before me refreshed my memory. Jean Luc had stopped to rest against that gnarled trunk. The Archbishop—stubbornly clad in his choral robes—had nearly fallen over that rock.
Which meant the cypresses should be right . . . there.
Triumphant, I raced toward them, slipping through the trunks as another howl sounded, breathing a sigh of relief as I finally, finally found the—
I stopped short. My relief withered.
There was nothing here.
Where the river had been, only a cluster of ferns remained. Their leaves—brown and dead—fluttered gently in the wind. The ground beneath them was muddy, wet, covered in lichen and moss. But none of the riverbed remained. Not one grain of sand. Not a single river rock. It was as if the entire river had simply . . . disappeared. As if I’d imagined the whole thing.
My hands curled into fists.
I hadn’t imagined anything. I’d drunk from the damn thing myself.
Around me, the trees’ branches rustled in the wind, whispering together. Laughing. Watching. Another howl pierced the night—this one closer than the last—and the hair on my neck rose.
The forest is dangerous. My pulse quickened at my mother’s words. The trees have eyes.
I shook my head—unwilling to acknowledge them—and peered up at the sky to recalculate my bearings. South. Due south. I just had to reach Gévaudan’s gate, and the mud on my skin ensured that the werewolves couldn’t track me by scent. I could still do this. I could make it.
But when I stepped backward—my boot sinking in a particularly wet pocket of earth—I realized the glaring flaw in my plan. Stopping abruptly, I turned to look behind me. My panic deepened to dread. The werewolves didn’t need their noses to track me. I’d left them a path of footprints to follow instead. I hadn’t calculated the soft terrain into my plan, nor the rising tide. There was no way I could flee for Gévaudan—or the river, or anywhere—without the werewolves seeing exactly where I’d gone.
Come on. My heart beat a frantic rhythm now, thundering inside my head. I forced myself to think around it. Could I magic my way out? I instantly rejected the impulse, unwilling to risk it. The last time I’d used magic, I’d nearly killed myself, freezing to death on the bank of a pool. More than likely, I’d do more harm than good, and I had no room for error now. Lou wasn’t here to save me. Think think think. I wracked my brain for another plan, another means of hiding my trail. As shitty as Lou was at strategizing, she would’ve known exactly what to do. She always escaped. Always. But I wasn’t her, and I didn’t know.
Still . . . I’d chased her long enough to guess what she’d do in this situation. What she did in every situation.
Swallowing hard, I looked up.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Wading back into the cypresses, I heaved myself onto the lowest branch.
Another.
The trees grew close together in this part of the forest. If I could navigate the canopy far enough, I’d break my trail. I climbed faster, forcing my gaze skyward. Not down. Never down.
Another.
When the branches began thinning, I stopped climbing, crawling slowly—too slowly—to the end of the limb. I stood on shaky legs. Counting to three, I leapt onto the next branch as far as I could. It bowed precariously under my weight, and I crumpled, wrapping my arms around it with deep, gasping breaths. My vision swam. I forced myself to crawl forward once more. I couldn’t stop. I had to move faster. I’d never reach Gévaudan at this pace, and the wolves grew louder with each howl.
After the third tree, however, my breathing came easier. My muscles relaxed infinitesimally. I moved faster. Faster still. Confident now. The trees still grew thick, and hope swelled in my chest. Again and again I leapt, until—
A splintering crack.
No.
Spine seizing, mind reeling, I swiped desperately at the nearest branch, hurtling toward the ground at alarming speed. The wood snapped under my momentum, and sharp pain lanced up my arm. The next branch smashed into my head. Stars burst behind my eyes, and I landed—hard—on my back. The impact knocked the breath from my throat. Water flooded my ears. I wheezed, b
linking rapidly, clutching my bloody palm, and tried to stand.
Blaise stepped over me.
Teeth gleaming, he snarled when I squelched backward—eyes too intelligent, too eager, too human for my liking. Slowly, cautiously, I lifted my hands and rose to my feet. His nostrils flared at the scent of my blood. Instinct screamed for me to reach for my knives. To assume the offensive. But if I drew first blood—if I killed the alpha—the werewolves would never join us. Never. And those eyes—
Things had been much simpler when I’d been a Chasseur. When the wolves had been only beasts. Demons.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.” Head throbbing, I whispered, “Please.”
His lips rose over his teeth, and he lunged.
I dodged his strike, circled him as he pivoted. My hands remained outstretched. Conciliatory. “You have a choice. The Chasseurs will kill you, yes, but so will Morgane. After you’ve served her purpose. After you’ve helped her murder innocent children.”
Mid-charge, Blaise stopped abruptly. He cocked his head, ears twitching.
So Morgane hadn’t told him the intricacies of her plan.
“When Lou dies, all of the king’s children will die with her.” I didn’t mention my own death. That would only fortify the werewolves’ resolve to join Morgane. “Dozens of them, most of whom don’t even know their father. Should they pay for his sins?”
Shifting his weight, he glanced behind as if uneasy.
“No one else has to die.” I hardly dared breathe as I stepped toward him. “Join us. Help us. Together, we can defeat Morgane and restore order—”
Hackles rising, ears flattening, he snapped a warning to stay back. Revulsion twisted my stomach as his bones began to crack. As his joints popped and shifted just enough for him to stand on two legs. Smoky fur still covered his misshapen body. His hands and feet remained elongated, his back hunched. Grotesque. His face contracted in on itself until his mouth could form words.
“Restore order?” he snarled, the words guttural. “You said the Chasseurs will”—he struggled to move his jaw, grimacing in pain—“kill us. How will you defeat them?” Neck straining, he rescinded his teeth farther. “Can you kill—your own brothers? Your own”—another grimace—“father?”
“I’ll convince him. I’ll convince them all. We can show them another way.”
“Too much—hate in their hearts. They’ll refuse. What—then?”
I stared at him, thinking quickly.
“As I thought.” His teeth snapped again. He started to shift back. “You would watch us—bleed—either way. A huntsman—through and through.”
Then he lunged.
Though I dove aside, his teeth still caught my arm and buried deep. Tearing muscle. Shredding tendon. I wrenched away with a cry, dizzy with pain, with anger. Gold flickered wildly in my mind’s eye. It blinded me, disorienting, as voices hissed, seek us seek us seek us.
I almost reached for them.
Instinct raged at me to attack, to protect, to tear this wolf’s head off by any means necessary. Even magic.
But—no. I couldn’t.
When everything is life and death, the stakes are higher, Lou said, chiding me in my memories. The more we gain, the more we lose.
I wouldn’t.
Blaise readied to spring once more. Gritting my teeth, I leapt straight into the air and caught the branch overhead. My arm screamed in pain, as did my hand. I ignored both, swinging back as he rose to snap at my heels—and kicked him hard in the chest. He yelped and fell to the ground. I dropped beside him, drawing a dagger from my bandolier and stabbing it through his paw into the ground below. His yelps turned to shrieks. The other wolves’ answering howls were murderous.
Arm dangling uselessly, I tore at my coat with my good hand. I needed to bind the wound. To stem the bleeding. The mud on my skin wouldn’t mask the scent of fresh blood. The others would soon smell my injuries. They’d find me within moments. But my hand refused to cooperate, shaking with pain and fear and adrenaline.
Too late, I realized Blaise’s screams had transformed.
Human now, naked, he wrenched the knife from his hand and snarled, “What was his name?”
Frozen Heart
Lou
My footsteps wore a path in the ground as I paced. I hated this feeling—this helplessness. Reid was in there, fleeing for his life, and there was nothing I could do to help him. The three wolves Blaise had left to guard us—one of them Blaise’s own son, Terrance—made sure of that. Judging by their size, Terrance’s companions were equally young. Each of them stared at the tree line, giving us their backs, and whined softly. Their rigid shoulders and pinned ears said what they no longer could.
They wanted to join the hunt.
I wanted to skin them alive and wear their fur like a mantle.
“We have to do something,” I muttered to Coco, glaring at Terrance’s dark back. Though he and the others were smaller than the rest, I had no doubt their teeth were still sharp. “How will we know if he reaches Gévaudan? What if Blaise kills him anyway?”
I felt Coco’s gaze, but I didn’t look away from the wolves, longing to embed my knife in their rib cages. Restless energy hummed beneath my skin. “We don’t have a choice,” she murmured. “We just have to wait.”
“There’s always a choice. For example, we could choose to slit these little imps’ throats and be on our way.”
“Can they understand us?” Ansel whispered anxiously from beside Beau. “You know”—he dropped his voice further—“in their wolf form?”
“I don’t give a shit.”
Coco snorted, and I glanced at her. She smiled without humor. Her eyes were as drawn as mine, her skin paler than usual. It seemed I wasn’t the only one worried about Reid. The thought warmed me unexpectedly. “Trust him, Lou. He can do this.”
“I know,” I snapped, said warmth freezing as I whirled to face her. “If anyone can out-beast the Beast of Gévaudan, it’s Reid. But what if something goes wrong? What if they ambush him? Wolves hunt as a pack. It’s highly unlikely they’ll attack unless they have him outnumbered, and the idiot spurns magic—”
“He’s armed to the teeth with knives,” Beau reminded me.
“He was a Chasseur, Lou.” Coco’s voice gentled, so unbearably patient that I wanted to scream. “He knows how to hunt, which means he also knows how to hide. He’ll cover his tracks.”
Ansel nodded in agreement.
But Ansel—bless him—was a child, and neither he nor Coco knew what the hell they were talking about.
“Reid isn’t the type to hide.” I resumed pacing, cursing bitterly at the thick mud coating my boots. Water sloshed up my legs. “And even if he was, this entire godforsaken place is knee-deep in mud—”
Beau chuckled. “Better than snow—”
“Says who?” His eyes narrowed at my tone, and I scoffed, kicking at the water angrily. “Stop looking at me like that. They’re equally shitty, okay? The only real advantage in the middle of winter would be ice, but of course the dogs live in a goddamn swamp.”
Howls erupted in the distance—eager now, tainted with unmistakable purpose—and our guards stood, panting with feverish excitement. Terrance licked his lips in anticipation. Horror twisted my chest like a vise. “They’ve found him.”
“We don’t know that,” Coco said quickly. “Don’t do anything stupid—”
Reid’s cry rent the night.
“Lou.” Eyes wide, Ansel swiped for my wrist. “Lou, he doesn’t want you to—”
I slammed my palm into the ground.
Ice shot from my fingertips across the swamp floor, the very ground crackling with hoarfrost. I urged it onward, faster, faster, even as tendrils of bone-deep cold latched around my heart. My pulse slowed. My breathing faltered. I didn’t care. I stabbed my fingers deeper into the spongy soil, urging the ice as far as the pattern would take it. Farther still. The gold cord around my body pulsed—attacking my mind, my body, my very soul with deep and boundle
ss cold—but I didn’t release it.
Vaguely, I heard Coco shouting behind me, heard Beau cursing, but I couldn’t distinguish individual sounds. Black edged my vision, and the wolves in front of me faded to three snarling shadows. The world tilted. The ground rushed up to meet me. Still I held on. I would freeze the entire sea to ice—the entire world—before I let go. Because Reid needed help. Reid needed . . .
Frozen ground. He needed frozen ground. Ice. It would . . . it would give him . . . something. Advantage. It would give him . . . an advantage. Advantage against . . .
But delicious numbness crept through my body, stealing my thoughts, and I couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember his name. Couldn’t remember my own. I blinked once, twice, and everything went black.
Pain cracked across my cheek, and I jerked awake with a start.
“Holy hell.” Coco dragged me to my feet before slipping on something and plummeting back to the ground. We landed in an angry heap. Swearing viciously, she rolled me off her. I felt . . . odd. “You’re lucky you aren’t dead. I don’t know how you did it. You should be dead.” She struggled upward once more. “What the hell were you thinking?”
I rubbed my face, wincing slightly at the sharp scent of magic. It burned my nose, brought tears to my eyes. I hadn’t smelled it this concentrated since the temple at Modraniht. “What do you mean?”
“Ice, Lou,” Coco said, gesturing around us. “Ice.”
Thick, crystalline rime coated every inch of our surroundings, from the blades of dead grass, ferns, and lichen on the forest floor to the boughs of cypress in the canopy. I gasped. As far as the eye could see, Le Ventre was no longer green. No longer wet and heavy and alive. No. Now it was white, hard, and glistening, even in darkness. I took a step, testing the ice under my foot. It didn’t yield beneath my weight. When I stepped again, checking behind, my footprint left no impression on its surface.
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