Sage tossed a look over her shoulder, and Leah could see the consternation wash over her when she saw Leah. She’d really thought she could outrun Leah. She wasn’t the first person to underestimate Leah. Most of them were dead.
Her mate was the only person who truly saw her. He might not like her—Leah knew that, and it didn’t bother her. Much. But Bran Cornick appreciated her skills and her strengths, and he respected her. He didn’t truly respect many people. She would make do with that.
She increased her speed, narrowing the distance between them. Even Bran would be surprised that it was she, and not his son, who killed their traitor.
She was barely a hundred feet short of Sage when she felt a shivery light in the pack bonds that told her one of their pack had been gravely injured. Who? She slowed her approach, letting Sage’s lead grow again, as she searched through the ties that bound her to her pack.
Charles.
How did Charles get hurt? It doesn’t feel like magic, so it isn’t an effect of whatever Sage threw in his face. She had been a werewolf a long time, and she knew how to read the bonds. This was a physical hurt, grave enough to mean death.
A bear roared its triumph—from the direction of Jericho’s cave. What in the world made Charles take on a bear when we have a traitor to catch?
She set one foot down and pivoted on it. Sage would have to wait.
No, it would not hurt her if Charles died. She didn’t like him, and she’d never made any bones about it. He was sullen and silent, and she was more scared of him than she was of anyone, not excluding Asil.
But if a death of another wildling would hurt her mate, the death of his son would do far worse. And though she knew Bran did not love her, knew that love had no part in their long-ago bargain, it didn’t matter. She loved her coldhearted, flawed bastard of a husband and mate with all of her selfish heart. If she could save Charles, she would.
And wouldn’t Charles just hate that. She smiled widely as she ran, sweeping up Asil and Juste in her wake with a gesture of her hand.
? ? ?
CRUMPLED AGAINST A tree, Anna looked up at Wellesley with tears in her eyes. “He’s hurt,” she said, too frantic to wonder if Wellesley would even know who she was talking about. “He’s hurt. Nothing can kill it. Only a holy man or fire—and Charles has neither.”
Instead of answering her, Wellesley gathered the five-gallon can and found the lighter where it had landed when she fell. Anna scrambled belatedly to her feet, feeling dizzy and light-headed, though the pain had dimmed a little. She couldn’t tell if it was because Charles had tightened down their bond or because he was losing consciousness.
But pain meant he was still alive, and if he was still alive, there was no time to stand around. Save mourning for when it was too late to do anything.
“Get me there,” said Wellesley. “I can help.”
And that’s when she actually looked at him and paid attention to what she saw.
Sometime between when they’d left him at his home, tired but whole, and now, he had resettled his person. This man was no harmless artist. Here was the man who had survived slavery of the worst sort, who survived a curse for nearly a century and emerged sane. Such a man could command armies—or a slightly battered Anna who had a skinwalker to kill.
Despite the pain that drifted to her through the mating bond, Anna allowed herself a little hope. She took off again, trying to build her speed back up to where it had been. She didn’t quite succeed—she’d twisted her ankle pretty good, and even with the increased healing her werewolf gained her, it hurt. Wellesley caught her elbow twice when she would have stumbled.
Eventually, though it was probably only a couple of minutes, the pain faded, and she resumed her breakneck pace. They passed Jericho’s cabin. Charles was still alive—even if their bond was so quiet it scared her.
? ? ?
SHOTS RANG OUT. Anna hesitated—who was shooting? Charles didn’t have a gun with him. Shaking off her surprise, Anna ran to the trail where she’d left him, but the fight had gone downhill and into the trees.
She and Wellesley scrambled down until they could see over a second, even steeper, drop-off to the battle royal below.
Charles was crumpled in a heap, and Leah, Asil, and Juste were fanned out between him and the bear. Leah had a gun in one hand and a wicked-looking knife in the other. Asil had a bladed weapon somewhere between a knife and a short sword in length—it was dripping blood.
Juste threw a fist-sized rock at the bear’s head. A major-league pitcher couldn’t compete with a werewolf for speed or force. The bear tried to get out of the way, but the rock hit it in the head with a crack that knocked it off its feet.
Anna would have plunged down the hill, but Wellesley caught her arm.
“Wait,” he told her, his eyes on the bear. “I need you to stand guard. She will try to stop me when she notices what I’m doing.”
She pulled her eyes off Charles and turned them to Wellesley and demanded in a voice she barely recognized as her own, “Are you a holy man?”
“Are you asking if I can end this creature? I am the last descendant of the holiest family in my clan. The earth speaks to me. Can I end this creature?” His smile was fierce. “I don’t know, but I have dreamed of trying for a very, very long time.”
Wellesley pulled out a cloth folded into a pouch that smelled of garlic, chili, lemon, and some unfamiliar things. He crouched and gathered old leaves, dried grass, and a few sticks. He quickly cleared a space of anything burnable and used the fuel he’d gathered to build the makings of a miniature fire, dumping the spice mixture on top of that.
Below them, Leah put three rounds into the bear—and Juste hit it with another rock. Of the two bullets or rock—the rock seemed to do the more damage. But it was light-footed Asil who made the killing stroke—leaping on top of the wounded bear and sliding his blade between its shoulder blades and through its spine.
Wellesley knelt on the ground and, though Anna had brought him five gallons of gasoline and a barbecue lighter, he lit the fire by holding his hand over it and murmuring a word that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. He closed his eyes and began to sing—more of a chant, really—in a liquid language she’d never heard before.
She looked around for something to help her defend him—and ended up piling up stones of an appropriate size. Juste’s rocks were proving effective—and she knew how to throw a baseball.
It was too bad, she thought ruefully, that she wasn’t witchborn. The gun would probably be a much better weapon than—
“You have something that belongs to the skinwalker,” said Wellesley—chanting the words in the same rhythm he’d been using so that she almost missed that he was talking to her.
“I have this,” she told him, and pulled the gun out of the back of her waistband.
He didn’t open his eyes, just inclined his head. “Please place it in the fire,” he asked.
Anna eyed the fire. The gun was made mostly of metal—and Wellesley’s fire wasn’t that hot. But she didn’t argue with him, just slid it cautiously into the fire.