Page 101 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers
It’s two on one, and the other two linger at the sides of the copse like hounds eager to lap up the scraps of a fresh kill. One blow will end me, but it won’t end at that. I know it won’t. Excitement seethes off them and poisons the chill air, choking me of my last breaths.
They’ll make this hurt.
Terror swallows me up, and the grass crunches beneath me as I fall back. Rowan berries stain my hands red as I grasp at the low branches.
But I won’t lie down and die. If they want to kill me, they’ll have to kill me with a blade in my hand and every ounce of strength scraped from my bones.
A scream rips from my throat. Bitter fury overpowers me, and I hurl my blade with the last bit of feeling left in my hands. It buries to the hilt in the ribs of the first assassin who came at me, the one with my knife’s slash in her arm.
She staggers, falling over on herself just a few feet from me. I manage to snatch the knife from her stilling chest, eyes blurring at the pain in my hands.
The second assassin steps over the corpse and stalks closer. So close, I can see the malice shining in crystal-blue eyes beneath her hood.
“Just close your eyes,” she whispers, as if the words are a kindness. “It will only hurt for a moment.”
“Good advice,” a savage voice snarls.
The second assassin sputters.
Steel blooms through the front of her throat in a burst ofcrimson spraying across me, and she falls to the ground in a heap of stinking iron and salt.
What—?
Wolf rips the hood back from his dark hair, throwing his cloak to the ground. Blue steel flashes. He dodges the sharp stabs and ducks and twists of the two uninjured assassins left, but even together, they’re not a match for him.
Wolf moves without a sound, one leg kicking out to slam into the shorter assassin’s knee and buckle it. She goes down hard, a furious shout wrenching her face into a grimace as her kneecap twists behind her leg. He doesn’t waste the opportunity. He just rips the dagger in his left hand across her throat, and blood pours out over her front.
Horror surges at a sudden blur of movement approaching from his side.
“At your left!” I call out.
Wolf twists and flips the dagger, slamming it into the chest of the fourth and final assassin, and she sucks in a gasp.
He kicks her onto her back. Catches the blade in his right hand, and offers it to me.
“End this,” he says with searing intensity, eyes on the dying assassin. “Now.”
Pain colors my entire world, staining patches of black and blinding lights across my mind. There’s no pushing past it. But I crawl toward them anyway—claw myself forward by inches. I swallow down the pain. When I reach her, the assassin’s skin is already gray, blood trickling from her lips. But I pull her hood back, lock what’s left of my rapidly blackening sight on her pale eyes, and bring the knife to her neck.
“It’ll only hurt for a moment,” I spit through shaking teeth, and press my blade across the fading pulse beneath her ear.
The last assassin seizes, then stills.
Ringing buzzes in my ears. My mouth fills, sour and acid, and I fight the urge to vomit.
Wolf’s hard hand grips under my shoulder. He pulls me up on shaking legs and loops one arm around my waist. “We need to move. The gardai will have heard the shouting.”
“I screamed and they never came.”
His gaze burns mine. “Are you surprised?”
Pain turns the world fuzzy. Burning in my side, scorching up my hands.
I can’t see straight, and the rowan copse blurs with brown dirt, with the feel of grit and gravel crunching underfoot. Everything shifts around me, and all the feeling in my legs goes cold and numb. A dull ringing thrums a steady din in my head.
“Fuck,” Wolf rasps, catching me, and time slows.
My head finds hard, warm leather. The soft relief of smoke and sage fills my lungs. I fight to move away from him, but my muscles won’t obey. Something rough but gentle brushes along the length of my cheek, like the stroke of a thumb…
