Oswald swung his pike in wide arcs, desperately trying to keep the soldiers at bay, but with the dust all over him, he couldn’t use any magic. Panic seized her. They would kill him too, but not before they tortured him again. Celia pulled the knife from her holster.
As Oswald whirled and ducked, stabbing one of the Throcknell soldiers, another pushed Celia up against a tree.
An oddly familiar smell hit her. Something murky—decaying leaves, moss, and blood.
The soldier smiled, thrusting her hands over her head and smashing them against the bark. She grunted, dropping the knife. “I always wanted to get my hands on the great whore’s daughter. I’ve heard you’re a wild one. Your mother was the same when they had her in the prisons. Did everything she could to save her life. Didn’t work.”
She trembled with anger as the soldier leaned in, sniffing her neck. Just over his shoulder, she could see Mariana fending off a soldier using flames, but there were more coming. Celia would have to deal with this herself, and right now, she was shaking with rage.
The smell hit her again: blood and mouldering leaves, like the bottom of a grave, and no less revolting than the soldier. The woodwose is here. Her body screamed at her to transform, but she was still covered in magic-smothering dust.
The woodwose’s murky scent ignited her with raw electricity, sending white-hot fury through her veins, just like it had before, when it had made her wild with bloodlust. Suddenly she was glad the soldier was close.
He had no idea what was about to hit him.
She head-butted him, knocking him back, and snatched the knife from the ground, bringing it up through his ribs and into his heart.
Another soldier swung his pike, but she swerved in close, plunging her knife into his neck. Blood sprayed over her, a sweet metallic scent. She wanted to spray the trees with red, to drink it like wine. Someone moved behind her and she whirled, ducking as a pike swung overhead. She jammed the knife into the soldier’s groin.
Her mind blazed hot like a star. All around her was prey, moving and pulsing hot, delicious blood through veins. These people had raped and murdered her mom. They wanted to do the same to her. She smashed her foot down hard on someone’s head, listening to the glorious crack of bone…
Something yanked her back, and she whirled, her knife ready to strike. But glacier-gray eyes stopped her. “Celia!” Oswald was white as a sheet, holding his hands out like he was taming a wild dog. “Celia. He’s dead. You killed everyone.”
Her entire body shook, and she looked down at herself—at the streaks of gore that soaked the lavender wool.
51
Tobias
Standing atop Estelle’s throne, Tobias drew a deep breath of briny air, painfully aware that this would be one of his last. Fiona was coming for his neck. But before he would give his life to her, he would burn the Throcknell army to the ground.
Gripping a pike in both hands, he listened to the earth rumble beneath him. A sword hung at his waist. It seemed as though the entire Throcknell army were storming up the hill—a thousand men at least. The werewolves formed a line in the common, some transforming. Others remained in human form, gripping copper-plated weapons. Thomas, Alan, and Estelle stood nearby, pikes ready.
Fingers tightening around his pike, Tobias felt a rough hand grasp his chin, yanking it back, and a knife at his throat. Seven hells. Some of the Throcknell soldiers, cloaked by invisibility, had come for him in advance. Dropping his pike, he struck out with his elbow, cracking the ribs of an assailant. He felt a sharp pain as something lanced into his back. Another thrust of a blade ripped through his kidney.
He was being stabbed, and he couldn’t even see his attackers.
As his heart hammered, he could feel himself bleeding out. Someone jammed a knife through his ribs and yanked it out again. He gripped his chest, blood pouring through his fingers. He couldn’t breathe.
So this was how he’d die. Better than eternal hellfire, but he needed to see Fiona one last time—even if she wasn’t the same. An unseen spear lanced his gut, and he could feel his pulse begin to slow, his skin growing icy.
Tobias’s eyes widened, and he stared at the night sky, until something interrupted the view—moonlight glinting off metal. Thomas stood above him, slashing his pike into unseen soldiers, the air filling the groans and gurgles of dying soldiers. Alan fought by his side, cutting through the invisible soldiers, and Tobias glimpsed the blood coating their weapons before his vision started to go dark.
Someone was shouting his name, but his body had grown frigid, Emerazel’s fire all but snuffed out. His hand drifted over a gaping wound between his ribs. His body had been ripped open by Throcknell metal. An odd sense of calm washed over him, and he stared at the pinpricks of light in the night sky. Was this what it felt like when Mother died? And Eden?