Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FOX
The next morning before they packed up camp, they passed around the roasted nuts and fruit they’d gathered during their hike, and Fox tried to savor the small amount of food.
The rations with the army had dwindled over the previous few days as well, so his stomach was already used to the familiar pang of hunger.
Fox was wrapped in the extra furs he’d been given, but even still the icy morning air sank into his bones.
The group spoke animatedly, though no one bothered to bring Fox into the conversation. He sat off to the side, watching the others in their comfortable camaraderie. Even Clarita and the shapeshifters seemed to slide into the group with ease.
After they’d eaten, they packed up quickly, everyone eager to get to the dragons now that the army was breathing down their backs.
Sofia spent the morning walking with Javi, her hands waving as she presumably caught him up on the past week, and Fox tried not to let his jealousy show.
He kept his eyes on his own feet, focusing on the burning in his lungs as they moved higher and higher through the foothills.
Sofia wasn’t specifically avoiding him, but they barely spoke, despite the long hours of walking.
Sometimes he looked over at her and saw a distant look in her eyes and knew she was speaking with Chalia.
By the third morning, they’d left the foothills behind, officially hiking up the first pass into the mountains that would, in theory, lead them toward the dragons’ nesting grounds.
The snow on the ground had thickened from a dusting to a few inches, and each morning they woke up to a fresh layer.
Despite sitting as close to the fire as he dared at night, Fox couldn’t remember what it was to feel truly warm.
His toes ached from the wet snow, even as the tip of his nose burned with the heat of the fire.
The warm flames never managed to soothe the cold from his bones.
“Chalia says we’re still at least a week’s walk and the second pass is the hardest,” Sofia said, sitting beside him. He startled, realizing they were the first words anyone had spoken to him all day.
He looked around at the group and saw the sagging of the shoulders and the clouds of breath fogging the air, despite the large fire they’d built.
“It’s only going to get colder from here,” Fox said, watching his own breath swirl in the air.
“I’m worried about everyone,” Sofia said, voice barely a whisper. She held her face perfectly neutral, eyes scanning the others to see if they were listening.
“Have you talked to Javi or Micael?” He hadn’t meant for the words to sound bitter, but he heard the tinge of it in his voice sneak out all the same.
“No,” she said. “They’ll just shrug it off and say we have to keep going.”
“They’d have a point.”
“Chalia says once we get to the second pass, there are barely any trees. We’ll have to find caves to sleep in, and it will get harder to build fires.”
Fox felt his body shudder at the idea of being colder.
“You want to fly up to the nesting grounds,” he said, watching her face carefully.
He noticed the guilt in her expression. “It would be safer to let everyone rest down here while I speak with the dragons.”
“We,” Fox said.
“I won’t ask others to go with me. Chalia doesn’t know what to expect with our reception.”
“You’re not asking me. I’m telling you. I won’t let you go alone.”
“What are you whispering about?” Javi’s voice wasn’t loud, but the night was quiet and all eyes turned to them.
Fox saw the way Sofia blanched.
“I think a few of us should take Chalia up the mountain to meet the dragons,” Fox said.
Javi’s eyes narrowed. “Is this some scheme to run back to your friends?”
Fox rolled his eyes. “I ran off with Sofia and a dragon in front of another soldier. There’s no going back to them. But some of us are going to die if we do this for another week. The mountains will only get worse as we get higher.”
“You don’t make decisions here,” Micael said.
“But he does have a point,” Sofia said. “Chalia says the second pass is worse than this one, and I know I’m not the only one feeling the cold and exhaustion.”
“We can talk about this in the morning when I’ve had time to think,” Micael said.
He turned back to the fire, signaling an end to the conversation.
Sofia looked at Fox with a pained expression and he reached out, squeezing her knee. He hadn’t expected to earn their trust so easily. He’d done nothing to prove himself. His chest ached with the knowledge of just how alone he was.
That night, Sofia set her furs just a little closer to Fox’s, and when he rolled over in the middle of the night to wrap his body around hers, she didn’t pull away.
Fox woke in the dim dawn to a howl.
He was on his feet in an instant, his hand at his belt before his next breath. But he was weaponless, and his hands only found air.
“Here,” Sofia said, shoving a dagger into his hand before he could open his mouth. He looked around, his muscles tensed for action. The clearing was gray, barely illuminated with the coming dawn. The others moved around him, retrieving their weapons and standing at attention.
For a moment, they all stood frozen, their breathing the only sound in the clearing. The snap of a twig had everyone’s heads swiveling, and Fox saw a shadow darting somewhere between the trees—there and gone too quickly to truly register it.
A shuffling of footsteps to the left had Fox turning, and another shadow seemed to slip between the trees. It wasn’t human. It was the only thing he was sure of, and the realization sent ice down his spine.
A guttural snarl broke the silence, and Fox turned as a giant wolf leaped out from the bushes, directly at Clarita.
Sofia threw her dagger. It sank into the wolf’s side, but the blade did nothing but draw its attention. The wolf turned, readying to lunge at her as an arrow caught it in the neck. Javi had another arrow pulled a second later, bow taut and ready to fire.
Chalia roared from the shadows, and all eyes turned as she came bursting through the trees, jaws snapping at another wolf as it scrambled away. With a sickening squelch she sank her teeth into it and wrenched it side to side until the wolf went limp. She looked almost gleeful at the sudden attack.
A dozen more wolves ran into their clearing, one with blue eyes fastened on Fox.
It vaulted toward him. The small dagger in his hand felt useless against the giant creature, but he lashed out at the last moment, twisting his body away from the claws as he did so.
The blade sank into the flesh of the wolf’s side and hot blood sprayed.
Before he could celebrate, the creature had turned back on him, jaws wide and teeth gleaming with saliva.
Fox retreated, tripping over the furs from Sofia’s bed and going down hard on his back even as the creature lunged.
He pushed the dagger up and forward into the wolf’s chest, kicking its body away with all his strength.
The wolf went limp and fell. The dagger slipped from his hand.
He laid on the ground for only a moment, his back aching, the blood on his hands turning cold.
He pushed himself up despite the pain. Just a few yards from him, a wolf paced in front of Micael as the man swung his sword in sweeping arcs, keeping it at bay.
A small group of resistance members huddled behind him.
Javi’s mother held a dagger, but Fox could tell from the way her hand shook that she barely knew how to use it.
Micael was the only thing standing between them and the wolf’s jaws.
Fox studied the way he wielded his blade, fast and sure, and he realized he’d underestimated the man.
He may have moved as if everything hurt him, but when he needed to fight, he was a man decades his junior, clearly trained from an early age.
In fact, from the looks of it, he could very well have been trained by the king’s men.
He didn’t think Micael would appreciate him asking about that history, however.
A snarl to the left caught Fox’s attention, and he saw a third wolf coming up behind Micael.
Fox jumped forward without thinking, pushing the man to the side, just as the wolf lunged.
They went stumbling, and the wolves clashed together.
But their confusion only lasted a second as both wolves turned on them.
Micael’s hand trembled as he reached out, trying to grab the sword that had fallen a few feet away, but Fox knew he wouldn’t be fast enough.
This close to the man, he could see the pain pinching his face.
He didn’t turn into a different man. He simply fought because he needed to.
“Sorry,” Fox said, half-climbing over the man as he grabbed the sword and swung it back around.
He ignored the bright flash of fear in the old man’s eyes as he twisted and plunged the sword into the first wolf’s chest. He pulled it out and swung again, beheading the second wolf before it had a chance to attack.
Blood sprayed across his face, warm for only a second before the bitter wind turned it icy on his skin, the head of the wolf rolling across the ground.
Breathing hard, he looked back at Micael long enough to see the man was fine. The man gave him a stiff nod of acknowledgment.
Fox grabbed the small dagger from the man’s belt with a soft thanks.
A dagger in one hand and a sword in the other, he ran toward Sofia and Javi.
They were a few yards away, fighting off two wolves, three dead on the ground nearby.
They were winning, but the two wolves left were still fighting hard, lunging at every opening.
Blood was weeping from a wound on Sofia’s arm.
Even as Fox watched, the paler of the wolves dove to the right, drawing Sofia’s and Javi’s attention as the second wolf pounced at Sofia from behind.
His teeth were already painted with blood as he opened his jaw.
“Sofia, move!” he shouted as he threw the dagger he’d stolen from Micael.
It spun through the air and plunged into the wolf’s thigh.
It wasn’t a perfect hit, the knife not well balanced, but it was enough.
The wolf stumbled with a snarl, and Fox brought the sword down across its neck. When the wolf dropped, silence fell.
Javi stood over his own kill, looking at Fox with an expression torn between disgust and gratitude. He eyed the blade still in Fox’s hands and looked back at Micael with sudden fear. The old man was sitting up and clearly breathing, and Javi let his shoulders slump in relief.
“You’re welcome,” Fox said, dropping the sword on the ground and turning to find Sofia. She was standing, a hand wrapped around her upper arm where blood dripped between her fingers.
“Let me see it,” he said, trying to be gentle as he clasped her forearm and pulled her fingers away. The slice was clean and not too deep. “It won’t need stitches, but we should wrap it.”
Her skin was hot beneath his palm, and his finger swept back and forth across her inner elbow, the movement automatic.
But he was all too aware of the way her breath hitched, her chest rising and falling at the contact.
He swallowed, looking up to see her watching him with wide eyes.
Her lips were slightly parted, and his eyes studied them for too long, mouth going dry.
“I should…” he started after a beat, struggling to swallow.
He grabbed the hem of his shirt to tear it, but then Javi was there, stopping him with a hand on his arm. Fox stepped back from Sofia quickly, as if guilty of something, letting her arm drop.
“We have bandages,” Javi said, a small smirk on his lips. “You can keep your clothes on.”
Fox, cheeks gone pink, gave a tight smile.
He focused on the blood leaking from Sofia’s arm.
The cut itself wasn’t deep, but out here in the woods, even Fox knew how fast a small wound could turn dangerous.
That was one day he’d listened carefully in training.
Treating wounds always seemed like a useful skill in his household.
Thanks to Chalia, most of the group had gotten away with only a few minor wounds. She was also the reason they only had a couple of wolves left to skin and prep. She’d taken the liberty of eating the rest and now lay on the ground, letting out short, contented snorts.
He couldn’t believe he’d been afraid of her the first time he’d seen her. Sure, she’d almost killed him and Sofia both, but it was difficult to reconcile that dragon with the one sunbathing and soothing her stomach in front of him.
Fox had never eaten wolf before. Judging by the sinewy bodies of the creatures, he doubted he’d enjoy it. But any meat was better than none, and they’d been surviving off stale tortillas and nuts for two days already.
“I’ve never seen wolves attack like that before,” Clarita said with a heaving breath as she sliced through the stomach of one of the larger ones.
“They don’t normally,” Jacinta agreed, watching the scene with a grim face.
“Do the wolves answer to the wolfshifters?” Sofia asked, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“Perhaps at one point, but it’s been decades since they worked together,” Jacinta said.
“Between this and the shifter attack back near our base—I’m thinking we might be dealing with the same thing.”
“You think the wolves are answering to the shifters again,” Clarita said, sitting back on her heels.
“I don’t know,” Sofia admitted. “But you said it yourself that wolves don’t just attack travelers.”
Clarita ground her teeth. “They didn’t look starved or mad in the head. They shouldn’t have attacked.”
“Unless someone told them to,” Sofia said. “Unless they were patrolling for the damn wolfshifters.”
“It would explain their behavior, but I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”
Sofia looked over at Fox before turning to Micael.
“We should fly up to meet the dragons. We can find a cave to hunker down in, and then a few of us can fly up. It’s the safer and smarter plan.
If the wolfshifters had anything to do with this, it’s best to get to the dragons as fast as possible.
We’re sitting ducks out here if the wolves keep attacking. ”
His shoulders were stiff, but he looked around at the group, more ragged than before. His eyes landed on Fox, pausing there.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Micael said.
Fox felt his cheeks flush. He looked away, unable to hold the man’s eyes.
“Fine,” Micael said. “We find a cave today to set up camp. Then Sofia and I can fly up to speak with the dragons.”
Everyone started speaking at once. Each person had something to say about the change in plan. Fox watched it all in silence, Micael’s words rolling around in his mind.
Thank you for saving my life.
Some emotion deep in his chest burned. He blinked—the wind was making his eyes water.