When the chestnut mare charged the fae, Charles felt a moment of stunned disbelief. There was no reason … and then he saw Joseph. It was an old Indian trick, hanging off the side of your horse so you could get close to your enemy.
He spared an instant of admiration. There was nothing Joseph couldn’t do with a horse. The horse landed on the fae, both of them equally surprised by it. And the fae’s hold on Charles weakened.
He pulled himself to all four feet, snarling silently with the effort. As Joseph stuck his knife into the fae’s back, Charles took two stumbling steps forward as the magic released him—just for a moment. Then the magic was back and his body was once again unwilling to follow his command.
But the fae’s hold wasn’t as strong as it had been. He couldn’t pay attention to the way Joseph was lying on his back, blood foaming from his nose and mouth. Charles had to get to his feet, had to kill the fae while it was still down.
The chestnut mare ran up toward Joseph, stopped about ten feet away, and then snorted, gave a half jump sideways, and trotted off again.
Joseph had severed the fae creature’s spine with the knife. As Charles dragged himself closer, he watched it try to reach the blade. But Joseph had, by luck or intent, found a place it couldn’t get its hands. The flesh around the knife moved as though there were something under the mottled and bumpy green skin that was both repelled by and attracted to the steel.
The fae gave up trying to reach the knife. Instead it focused on … Mackie. It levered itself up on its arms and began crawling toward the helpless girl at a speed roughly twice what Charles could manage.
The chestnut mare whinnied shrilly and galloped between the fae and the girl. She’d been running all over the place, so Charles didn’t pay her any more attention than the fae did. Until she did it a second time, blasting past with more attitude than speed, ears pinned and feet hitting the ground with extra force.
She did a pretty little rollback, her left rear planted in the sand as she rotated her body around, crossing her right front leg over her left in approved reining style. Then she trotted back across the fae’s path, her tail flagged over her back, her head up, and her tiny ears sharply forward. She did a rollback in the other direction.
And this time she planted herself between Mackie and the fae, pinned her ears flat, and ran past it. She snaked her long neck down, snapped her teeth at the creature, spun, and caught it with a nasty full-force kick right under its shoulder blade.
The fae let out a high-pitched cry, falling away—and the mare was back. This time she struck with her front feet. She pulled the fae underneath her and stomped it twice before hopping over it and bolting away with a triumphant squeal.
She came back again, snorting and side-passing until she stood between that thing and Mackie. Then she flipped her head in the classic warning that meant go away or die. She half reared and squealed—like a mare protecting her baby. Protecting Mackie.
Anna didn’t need to go to the house. She could feel Charles in the barn and she sent Bella that direction. The big mare was laboring; by Anna’s reckoning they’d run about four miles. But she ran willingly through the dark doorway that opened into the arena, and she cleared the huge arena fence by six inches.
Anna kicked both feet free of the stirrups then and jumped off as the mare gathered herself to keep running. She took in the scene of the arena in one comprehensive look: Mackie down, Joseph down, two werewolves down and unmoving, Charles on his feet but not by much, and the fae thing: huge, hideous, with a knife sticking out of its back. It was going, slowly, after Mackie. The only thing in its way was a big red mare.
Anna had no weapon, so she aimed herself at the knife sticking out of the fae’s back. She put one foot on its back and grabbed the knife. She twisted it until the blade was parallel to the creature’s spine. Using the strength of the wolf, she dragged it, still embedded in bone, up the body of the fae. At first the flesh healed behind the knife and it was hard to keep her balance because the fae wallowed and writhed underneath her. But as Anna continued dragging the knife forward, the healing slowed and then stopped and so did the fae’s motion. Its stillness deceived her and as she approached the creature’s head, its neck elongated, allowing it to bite down on her bicep. Anna just shifted her grip to the hand with the good arm and forced the blade all the way up until the point rested inside the fae’s skull. The fae was still again. Limp. But Anna remembered the rapid way it had healed itself at first, remembered Brother Wolf telling her that fae were tough. She took a better hold on the now-slippery handle. She thought about Mackie, about the bodies littering the arena sand and those that had been stacked in the hot attic of that little house, and she cut the monster’s head all the way off.
As soon as its teeth released her arm, she flung the head all the way across the arena. As quickly as it had healed its spine, she wanted no chance that it would repair the damage she’d done.
The body buckled unexpectedly, and Anna lost her balance at last. She rolled right underneath the feet of the chestnut horse, who reared and bolted away to join Portabella, who was standing, head down, on the far side of the arena.
Brother Wolf landed on the fae’s body and began savaging it. All that she could feel through their mating bond was a red haze. The other wolves were getting up, none too gracefully. Joseph didn’t move.
About that time, Mackie sat up and began to scream. Anna managed a half run, half hobble toward her. She wrapped her arms around Mackie and turned her, gently, because one arm was bent wrong, so that the child was facing away from the monster who’d tried to steal her away and the other monster who was trying to destroy the corpse.
“Charles,” she said, but the wolf continued his attack on the dead fae. “Brother Wolf? I need you.”
The wolf froze, let out a single savage growl, and then changed. Charles stood atop the dead thing’s body looking as clean and collected as he had when they’d left the house this morning. He wasn’t. She could feel his white-hot rage, his need to destroy. That he’d come to her call while feeling like that …
Well, she loved him, too.
“I have Mackie,” she said. “You need to check Joseph.”
Anna had come. When she cut off the abomination’s head, he and Brother Wolf would have howled in pride and triumph. But he didn’t regain his ability to do that until the deed was already done.
Brother Wolf thought the creature might still live. Very old fae could live for quite a while without their heads. He was determined to make sure that it didn’t survive its beheading. Charles let him out to do what he wanted.
That thing had killed all of those children. They’d died horribly and very, very slowly. If the spirits of the dead joined Brother Wolf’s savagery, he was inclined to allow it.
Until Anna called him.
She sat in the sand holding Mackie against her.
“Check Joseph,” she said.
First he went to her. She’d taken damage, but the wound in her arm was already healing over.
“I’m okay,” she told him. “Mackie will be okay. Listen to her healthy lungs. Go check Joseph.”
Charles knelt beside Joseph. To his surprise, the old man was still breathing.
“Dead?” Joseph asked in a breathy whisper.
“It’s dead,” Charles told him. “You severed its spine. It won’t be killing any more children.”
Joseph’s eyes closed and he concentrated on breathing, not that it was doing him much good.
“Maggie?”
Charles closed his eyes, too. When he opened them, Joseph was looking at him.
“Thought so,” he said. “Will see her soon. She’d be happy to die for our girl.” A half smile crooked his lips. “I hear she’ll be fine.”
“Good lungs,” acknowledged Charles. Mackie was still screaming.
“Better’n mine,” agreed Joseph with a smile. “Give knife to Max.”
“I will,” Charles said.
“Show him. Show.”
“I’ll show him how to use it. As I showed you.”
Joseph nodded. “Good. That’s good.” He took another painful breath and then grinned. “It was fun to be … to be me again.”
Charles sat beside him, holding Joseph with his eyes while his ears told him that Hosteen and a whole slew of other people were accumulating in the arena. Mackie quit screaming. Kage sat on Joseph’s other side. Joseph couldn’t talk anymore, but he held out his hand and Kage took it.
Charles had known this moment would come, ever since he’d understood that Joseph had no intention of becoming a werewolf like his father. Every moment spent in his company had been a moment closer to this. Had it been worth it in the face of Joseph’s death?
He thought of all the experiences they’d shared. He felt the huge hole that Joseph’s death was carving in his spirit, a hole that was even now filling with pain. Had it been worth it?
“I am so grateful to have had you as my friend,” he told Joseph. He would not have given up any of those times to avoid this pain of separation, let alone all of them. Yes, it had been worth it.
Eventually the arena got quieter. Max came and said good-bye. Kage got up, put an arm around his son, and left. Hosteen sat down in his place. Anna came and sat close to him.
Joseph tried to say something to Hosteen, but he didn’t have the voice. The hand that Charles held was very cold.
Hosteen said, “I love you. I will miss you. I am so proud to have been your father—and prouder to have been your friend. You have enriched the world with your spirit, my son. Don’t be afraid to let go.” He kissed his son’s forehead, and then, like Charles, settled in to wait.
Night fell.
Joseph took one breath. Let it out. And then he took no more. Charles opened his mouth and let Brother Wolf howl his grief.