“We need to leave soon if we have any hope of reaching the lair in time,” she said to dispel the sudden tension in the makeshift campsite, while Lothar finished cooking the strips he’d prepared to take with them.
Evelayn glanced up at the brilliant blue sky, toward the sun, which had broken free of the tree line. Its light glinted off the snow, making the forest glisten and sparkle, as if the dying trees and decay-strewn earth had been remade out of diamonds and crystals during the night. Though she didn’t enjoy the cold, she had to admit there was an icy beauty to winter. She could see why Dark Draíolon loved it so much, especially since they didn’t get cold as easily. But an eternity of it? With no spring or summer? Even diamonds lost their luster if they became too common.
They had to get her stone and her power back.
They were a quiet group when they finally broke camp. Lorcan kept glancing at Evelayn, trying to ascertain if she really was healed enough to withstand the rest of the journey. But other than an occasional wince or sharp intake of breath, she gave no indication of the pain she was in.
He walked over to where she stood, staring to the northeast, as if she could part the forest and see straight to the White Peak. “Are you sure you can run?”
She startled at his voice. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“I remember you telling me once that we always have a choice.”
Evelayn turned to look at him, her eyebrows raised.
“I listen to you more carefully than you think.” Lorcan studied her face, his gaze lingering on her lips for a beat too long to go unnoticed before lifting his eyes to meet hers. This close, he could see the indigo ring rimming the outside of her violet irises. His hands twitched at his side, longing to reach up and brush her hair back from her cheeks, to cup her face and—
He cut off the thoughts before they could progress any further. Already his body had grown warmer, his heartbeat faster. Could she scent his uncertainty and desire? She hadn’t turned away … and last night, she’d calmed at his voice, at his touch, when nothing else worked. Was it possible—was there any hope—that she could come to care for him?
“If you wish for us to accompany you on this ill-fated journey, stay away from my queen.” Tanvir’s angry voice cut through the trance she seemed to put Lorcan under with little to no effort.
Lorcan slowly faced the other male. “I don’t wish for you to accompany us. In fact, nothing would make me happier than for you to leave immediately.”
“Well, since your happiness is the last thing I’m concerned about, I believe I will stay after all.”
“I asked you to leave. And I don’t ask twice.” Lorcan let his power rise in his body, the threat of it audible in his voice, and the scent of it undeniable—a reminder of who held the control between them.
“If you force me to leave now, I will just turn around and follow you as I did before. You don’t have time to keep trying to scare me off.” Tanvir’s hand fell to rest on the hilt of his sword.
“Don’t try my patience any further. I have been lenient with you until now.” The power he’d summoned simmered icy hot in his veins, demanding release, along with his anger. Tanvir had pushed him one too many times. Perhaps he’d made a mistake in letting him escape last night.
“Lenient?” Tanvir laughed. “You tried to kill me last night.”
Now it was Lorcan’s turn to laugh, a harsh, barking sound full of derision. “You honestly believe that? If I’d wanted you dead, trust me, you would have been.”
“Stop it!” Letha jumped in front of her brother when he moved to yank his sword out of his scabbard.
“We don’t have time for this.” Evelayn placed a hand on Lorcan’s arm, pulling his focus back to her. Her gentle touch and calm voice helped cool his ire, but Lorcan’s power still ached to be released. “Let’s continue on. If he follows us, so be it. But we’re wasting time arguing with him.”
It was her use of “us” that broke through. She’d placed herself squarely beside him—a partner at his side, with Tanvir opposing them—in that one seemingly small word.
“Fine,” he agreed. “But now that we are no longer alone, I am going to scout ahead. Lothar”—he turned to his brother—“please stay by our queen until I return.”
A flicker of confusion crossed his face, but Lothar quickly agreed. “Of course,” he said, stepping up to Evelayn’s side.
Lorcan looked at Tanvir one last time, making sure to wait until the other male grudgingly met his eyes. “And you stay away from her. Or you will find out what it means to have exhausted my patience.”
“I’ll make sure of it,” Lothar assured him.
Lorcan let his piercing gaze linger for a moment longer on Tanvir, until he was satisfied that the other male understood how serious he was.
Finally, he turned back to Evelayn. “Will you be able to run without my help—at least for a little while?” He asked quietly enough that none of the other Draíolon would have been able to catch what he’d said, even with their acute hearing—except perhaps Lothar, who stood on her other side.
“I hope so.”
His gaze dropped to her throat, to the thin red line that curved through her previously unmarred skin. Though the wound had been cleaned off to the best of their ability, her hair, cloak, and tunic were still crusty with dried blood. Despite all the eyes on them, and his own wariness about her feelings toward him, Lorcan lifted his hand and gently pressed his fingers against the line of stitches. She shivered beneath his touch, with a soft gasp of surprise. Lorcan let his eyes close for a moment, directing his power to his hand, letting it flow from him directly into her wound.
“That should help,” he said, pulling away, hoping she didn’t notice the huskiness of his voice. Then, in the blink of an eye, he shifted into his hawk form and took to the skies, winging away from the group of Draíolon who stared after him in varying degrees of shock.
LORCAN HAD FLOWN INTO THE DISTANCE AT AN UNBELIEVABLE speed at least an hour before, leaving Evelayn alone with the rest of the Draíolon, as they ran through the snowy forest. Her throat still burned with the memory of his touch—and the surge of power that had rushed into her body, diminishing the pain in her neck even further. She hadn’t begun to tire yet, despite the injury and her lack of conditioning, and she could only attribute it to Lorcan and all the power he’d given her.
“You’re doing remarkably well,” Lothar commented from beside her, his feet striking the ground stride for stride with hers.
“Yes,” she agreed, “but only because your brother keeps sharing his power with me. You have to tell him to stop it. He’s going to—”
But she cut herself off when Lothar stumbled and nearly fell. “He’s doing what?”
Evelayn reached out to steady him, but he yanked his arm away, quickly regaining his footing, and they continued forward. The rest of the group seemed content to let them lead, running behind them. She glanced over her shoulder to see if any of the others were close enough to listen in, but Letha and Ceren were next, talking to each other, and Tanvir ran behind them—as far away from her as possible.
“Evelayn?” Lothar prompted. “Are you certain that’s what my brother is doing?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“He’s siphoning his power to you?”
“Yes.”
This time, Lothar reached out to grab her arm, yanking her to a stop. “That would only be possible if … By the Dark,” he cursed, sudden realization dawning on his face. “You’re Bound to my brother?”
“What’s going on—why did we stop?” Ceren looked at Evelayn first, then to Lothar, who stared at her in unadulterated shock.
“Look out!” A sudden shout from Tanvir was all the warning they had before he leapt at Evelayn, slamming into her body and knocking her to the ground.
She cried out in pain, as the stitches in her neck pulled at her skin and her head collided with the cold, hard earth. The snow only softened the impact slightly.
/> Before Evelayn could open her mouth to yell, something flew through the air right above them. Lothar shouted in alarm but seemed unable to lift his arms. Spider silk, she realized. That’s what Tanvir had saved her from—but it got Lothar instead. And then a creature, half arachnid, half female, lunged out of the forest at them on her remaining four legs with an unearthly shriek.
As a hawk, Lorcan flew at speeds he could only dream of in his Draíolon body. The wind surged around his wings, lifting him up ever higher into the sky. There were times when he longed to stay in this form, to escape the pressures of being king and the other worries that constantly beset him in exchange for the weightless oblivion of the bird.
But as he dipped his wing and banked sharply to head back the way he’d come, he realized today was not one of those times. He’d needed to escape for a moment, needed the freedom of the wind and sky—and he’d also wanted to make sure no other unexpected visitors awaited them—but he was already eager to return to the Draíolon he’d left far behind. Well, to one Draíolon, if he was honest with himself.
One of Máthair Damhán’s stipulations had been for him to convince Evelayn to Bind herself to him, and he’d succeeded, despite the curse the Ancient had also required of him—to keep her chained to her swan form every day of the year except the seven of Athrúfar. Until this year. And now, the longer he spent time with Evelayn, the wider the crack in his heart grew, leaving him far too vulnerable to her and the way she made him feel. Was that part of the Ancient’s plan as well?
As he soared back, he scanned the forest ahead, his already keen eyesight immensely more powerful in this form. Every tiny detail opened up to him, even from heights far enough above the earth to allow him to fly among the clouds. Winter made it even easier to spot movement of any creatures—large animals, tiny rodents, and Draíolon alike.
Lorcan had recovered more than half the distance back the way he’d come when he finally spied the group of Draíolon running through the forest. They were still quite a distance from him, mere specks on the horizon, but a wave of relief washed over him and he slowed his flight considerably. They were headed in his direction, so he allowed himself the slight break to bolster his strength once more, in preparation to siphon some of his power to Evelayn, as she no doubt would be tiring by now.
He did a lazy loop through the air, taking a few minutes to simply enjoy the sunshine on his back and the wind in his feathers. When he was in his hawk form, it was an interesting mix of animalistic instinct and Draíolon awareness and rationale. When he let himself relax, the instincts grew stronger, pushing away the consciousness. He became more hawk than king.
Some time had passed when he straightened out again to check their progress, expecting the group to be drawing fairly close to him by now. But Lorcan was shocked to realize he’d lost sight of them entirely somehow. He searched futilely for a moment, before a burst of light to his left caught his attention.
There. He spotted them once more, but the tiny heart of the hawk raced in his breast when he realized the light had been an explosion of Lothar’s power. Lorcan soared toward them with a burst of speed that turned the woods to a blur far beneath him, all his focus on the figures in the distance, heading the wrong direction, rushing away from something … And then he saw it. Or, rather, her.
With his hawk sight, he was able to see her missing legs and her arachnid body. It was the daughter he’d gravely injured and sent back to Máthair Damhán as a message of his own. How had she found them—and why?
Lorcan was closing in on them when something else snagged his attention. From the north, there were more animals moving through the woods toward the group. No, not just animals. More of Máthair Damhán’s daughters. A handful of them of varying sizes, scuttling through the snow on their many legs, pincers clacking in anticipation of the fight ahead.
He redoubled his flapping, picking up speed until the wind whistled past him. When he got close enough, he plummeted into a nosedive, barreling through the air with such speed and force that the wind became a shriek in his ears along with a cry he recognized, even as the bird.
“Lorcan!”
The daughter had only a split second to turn her head toward the sky where Evelayn pointed, and then Lorcan was upon the spider, his beak puncturing one of her eyes while he used his sharp talons to destroy as many of the others as possible. The creature screeched in agony, reaching up to claw at him, but he was already gone, taken to flight once more. He headed straight for Evelayn, who had fresh blood running down her neck.
In a swirl of smoke he shifted back mid-flight and landed on his feet beside her, spinning to throw out a shield that blocked all the Draíolon from the creatures that were closing in on them. None of the others realized how many of the enemy surrounded them yet.
“Go!” he shouted, jerking his head to indicate where. “I’ll hold them off.”
“Them?” Lothar repeated, as Evelayn simultaneously asked, “Go where?”
“There are more coming,” Lorcan said, gritting his teeth as the creature threw her ruined body against the shield of swirling darkness he’d created. “We can’t make it to the border without fighting all of them, and I’m not risking you getting hurt again. If we retreat into the Undead Forest, they won’t follow.”
“The Undead Forest?” a female screeched. He wasn’t sure if it was Ceren or Letha.
“You can’t be serious.” Tanvir stepped up beside him, holding a sword dripping black ichor, the creature’s blood.
“Do you have a better plan? We can stand and fight, but there are only two of us with power, and the closer we are to the White Peak, the stronger they are. And more numerous.”
Tanvir ground his teeth in frustration but backed off. “Fine. We retreat. And then what?”
Lorcan scented the others moments before he saw them rushing through the trees toward them. They’d fanned out into a semicircle so that he had to draw upon more power to widen the shield protecting them.
“There’s no time—run!” Lorcan shouted, even as the creatures split into two groups and rushed to both edges where the shield ended.
Tanvir finally listened, turning and sprinting back to the others. “Go, now! To the Undead Forest!”
“I’ll help you.” Lothar was suddenly at his side, but Lorcan shook his head.
“No, you go and protect them. I’ll hold these creatures off as long as I can.”
He could scent Lothar’s frustration, but his brother did as he asked, just as Lorcan knew he could always count on him to do.
There were no natural blockades to use, no way to permanently impede the arachnoids’ progress. Lorcan could only continue to send the wall of darkness farther and farther away from his body, hoping to stop the creatures long enough for Evelayn, Lothar, and the others to gain the distance they needed to reach the Undead Forest before Máthair Damhán’s daughters caught them.
Evelayn’s lungs burned, and her neck throbbed with every pounding beat of her heart. She could feel hot, sticky blood on her skin, soaking into the collar of her tunic. The others were all ahead of her, including Ceren. Only Lothar stayed by her side, even as she began to slow, her muscles screaming in protest. Behind them, Máthair Damhán’s daughters shrieked, the clacking of their pincers and the pounding of their many legs on the snow-crusted forest floor audible as they tried to outrun Lorcan’s shield to reach their prey. She glanced over her shoulder to see the shield still growing, but he couldn’t possibly hold it much longer. Even Lorcan had limits to his power—didn’t he?
“Hurry, Your Majesty,” Lothar urged from beside her.
“Evelayn,” she panted. “Just call … me Evelayn.”
“Evelayn,” he amended, “you have to go faster.”
“I’m … trying …” But even as she said it, she stumbled on a half-buried rock and, with a sharp flash of pain through her ankle, nearly crashed to the ground. Evelayn tried to push forward, but each step sent a stab of pain through her left leg. “Give me … some po
wer …” she gasped to Lothar, holding out her hand as she half ran, half limped forward.
“I can’t.”
“Please,” she begged, wincing with each step. “Just a little.”
“That only works with Lorcan because you are Bound to him!”
“What? But … I thought …”
Lothar looked behind them and his eyes widened, the scent of his concern turning to rancid horror. Evelayn twisted to see what had caused such a reaction and everything in her went cold. Two of the creatures had made it past the shield and were headed right for them.
Lorcan sent a blast at the faster of the two, but she was far enough away that she easily dodged it.
“Go! Just leave me,” Evelayn urged, even as her palms turned slick with sweat and her stomach to lead.
Instead, a rush of power washed over them. Lothar was enveloped in a swirl of smoke and emerged the massive snow bear. He planted his paws on the snow and roared ferociously at the daughters, a deafening threat that left Evelayn’s ears ringing. They both stopped momentarily, seemingly rethinking the idea of attacking such a massive predator, but then continued toward them.
The terrifying bear looked at her with those same gray eyes she knew and tossed his head toward his back, then bent his front legs to lower his haunches within her reach.
“You want me to ride you?”
He gave a short, impatient growl.
There was no time to question him; it was her only hope of escaping oncoming doom. If only she could have shifted as well, she would have taken to the skies, out of reach.
But she couldn’t.
Instead, she quickly scrambled on top of Lothar’s muscular back and grabbed patches of the thick white fur with both hands. The moment she was settled, he took off, nearly tossing her from his back. Evelayn threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing him as tightly as possible with both of her legs. For such a large animal, he moved with incredible speed and grace, loping through the forest and easily catching up to the other Draíolon.