A soft scraping of metal, coming from the front door of Bastien’s apartment.
I didn’t understand. Why had we waited for them to come for us? Why hadn’t we left sooner? I wanted to ask Bastien, but now was not the time. He hurried my feet into my boots before gripping my waist. He hurled me over his shoulder, even as I realized that he was already equipped with his belt and satchel, which hung over his other arm. He darted with me out of the bedroom, along a corridor, past the armory and into a sitting room. I was immediately struck by how cold it was in here, and how… breezy.
I realized that the windows were open and—
Oh, God!
With alarming speed, Bastien had already leapt up onto the window ledge. The next thing I knew, he had leapt out, clinging to the frame with a single arm, the other pressed around my body. I dangled over Bastien’s back, face downward over hundreds of feet of sheer, jagged mountainside. I felt like I was going to vomit.
From the inside of the apartment came the creaking of the front door swinging open.
Bastien let go of the window frame. I could not strangle my scream as we went hurtling downward in a freefall. With a jolt that winded me completely, he caught hold of an overhanging ledge, and with one hand, he began to lower us down more slowly, rock by rock, ledge by ledge, like a gorilla. What is this werewolf?
Growls echoed down from above us. Arrows sprayed from the window, whizzing past our ears, even as I wondered how wolves could shoot arrows without human hands. However they were managing it, the shafts were falling hard and fast. This only made Bastien increase his already breakneck pace down the mountainside, dodging right and left to avoid being hit.
As we finally touched down on a grassy mound at the base of the mountain, I exhaled a sigh of relief. He set me down and shoved the satchel and belt into my hands. His limbs began to billow and sprout fur. His clothes ripped off him. He resumed his wolf form. Collecting the satchel and belt from my hands and holding them between his teeth, he nudged me onto his back before launching into a bound toward the nearest line of trees.
I just had a chance to glance back up at the mountain before we disappeared through them. Nobody had made any attempt to climb from the window and follow Bastien. I guessed that they would be making their way down through the castle right now in order to emerge from the main exit. But we had already made too much headway for them to have a chance of catching up with us now. Especially as Bastien zigzagged through the woods, making me disorientated as to which direction, exactly, he was heading in.
Perhaps half an hour passed before he felt confident enough to stop. His ears stood erect, his eyes wide and glistening as he listened and sniffed the air. Once again, although I’d been sitting squarely on his back the whole time, it felt like I’d run the distance myself.
He lowered himself, allowing me to slide off him and relish the feel of solid ground beneath my feet. Catching my breath, I looked at him and asked, “Why? Why did you wait so long to escape? You said we’d leave the moment the sun set.”
He frowned at me, as though the answer was obvious. “Because you slipped off to sleep,” he said. “And from the look of you, you needed as many hours as possible.”
I gaped at him. I really, really don’t understand this wolf.
Grace
I was not sure how many hours we had been traveling when Micah finally stopped again. We had arrived at the bank of a river. The group was crowding at the front, staring down at something on the ground. Heath and I slid off Jeriad’s back, hurrying over to them to get a closer look. Arwen and Brock followed us too.
There were bloodstains smeared all over the grass. And then there was a bloody object that looked horrifyingly like an ear. The ear of a werewolf.
“This blood is still fresh,” Micah said, sniffing. “Which is a good sign.”
“What? Whose blood?” Vivienne stammered.
“Oh, it’s werewolf blood, don’t worry. Some incident took place here, obviously. I scent at least four different wolves in this clearing.” He paused and moved around a bit more. “Victoria and the man’s scent picks up again over here. Deeper into the trees. Which means they must have escaped… We need to keep moving, but while we’re by a river I think it would be wise to stock up on water and rest for a quarter of an hour. We don’t know when we’ll next get the opportunity.”
Everyone agreed that this was wise. We headed to the water and knelt, lapping up the crystal water and refilling our bottles. I also washed my face and hands.
A hand closed around my uninjured shoulder. Heath hovered over me.
“Will you be my accomplice?” he asked in a low voice.