Chapter 11
eleven
The growling woke me up.
I remembered exactly where I was—asleep on the branch of a gigantic tree with dark grey, almost black leaves, while a werewolf I’d thought was a dog slept on the ground near the trunk.
Yes, I remembered that—but what I saw when my eyes opened was different.
The sky over me was blue, full of light with the new day. The werewolf I’d named Wolfie wasn’t sleeping on the ground, but she was standing there near the trunk, growling.
At the three men standing some twenty feet away from her, watching her passively.
Everything came to a halt. Even my heart didn’t beat for a long second as the view registered and I tried to make sense of it.
The men were big, bulky, and they wore shirts and pants, bags strapped to their backs. They had hair on the longer side that completely hid their ears, but they weren’t fae. I knew it deep in my bones—they were not fae. They were not the royal guard, and they were not Rune.
I released a slow breath, and the man in the middle looked up at me as if he’d heard it.
Then he took a step forward, and his friends joined him.
“It’s over, Maera,” he said, and he had some kind of an accent that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “It’s over. Surrender, and let us rid our pack from the curse of you. Step forth willingly. Do not cower.”
Every inch of my skin broke out in bumps as I watched, tried to process his words said in that thick, hoarse voice, but I couldn’t.
The werewolf growled louder and moved farther back, her hind legs almost at the trunk.
I moved on instinct. If she was afraid of these men, that meant they were dangerous, possibly as dangerous as the sorcerers had been. I climbed down from the tree and jumped off the lowest branch and to the ground without an ounce of pain.
Fuck, the men were even bigger from closer up, their shoulders twice the size of mine, especially the guy in the middle. Tan skin, dark brown hair, pin straight, the tips reaching his shoulders, wide almond eyes that were as yellow as those of the werewolf…
My stomach fell.
I stepped forward, right in front of Wolfie, and said, “Who the hell are you?”
It wasn’t because I was brave. It wasn’t because I thought I could take these men—of course I couldn’t.
But Wolfie had stepped in front of me when she thought that chained man last night was dangerous, and now I was going to do the same.
Because she was afraid of these men—or at least wary of them.
And they were men, so they could speak. If they wanted something we could give them, I could make deals until they were on their way.
Anything it took—we’d made it this far, hadn’t we?
The men looked at one another, brows narrowed.
“That does not concern you,” the one in the middle finally told me. “Step aside. We’ve come for Maera.”
Maera.
I risked a quick glance back at the werewolf, who was still as tense, her chin almost to the forest floor as she waited, her eyes ahead, ready to attack.
Pretty name, I thought.
And she was really a werewolf.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I said and tried to stand as tall as possible. Tried to seem unafraid. No idea whether I succeeded, though. “Maera here is my friend. She saved my life. If you want something from her, you can tell me about it.”
“ A friend, ” said the guy in the middle, and it was meant as a mocking.
God, I hated bullies. There was nothing in the world I hated more—but when he took another three steps closer, that burst of anger vanished in the face of fear.
“She is a curse—not a friend,” the man continued, and the closer he came, the bigger he appeared. Fuck, I was sweating. “She was supposed to be dead a long time ago. We gave her to the sorcerers, yet she still lives to plague us.”
What the fuck ?!
That made my thoughts crash and burn to ashes. “Hold on a minute— you gave her to the sorcerers?” Was he serious right now?
“We did—to rid our pack of her. Of her curse.” He nodded solemnly at the end, too.
I could hardly believe my ears .
Shaking my head, I put my hands on my hips . “What the hell’s the matter with you, man? She was in a cage, wasting away, being used for magic spells and stuff!”
Which I was sure he would know, but…the way he looked at me.
The way he suddenly leaned in a bit closer and sniffed the air, closed his eyes.
My instincts reacted. My first thought was to run because these men were not in chains, and they were not sorcerers, either. And the last time I’d been cornered like this, at the edge of a cliff, I’d felt so hopeless—but not anymore.
I’d forgotten the cavern in Mercove, but I remembered now. I remembered the heat that had gone through me, the power. The magic.
No, I was not going to run again (partly because I was pretty sure they’d catch me if I tried, but still.) Something inside me clicked—warm and inviting, familiar, comforting .
I breathed deeply, closed my eyes for only a moment, and I saw the pale golden light in the very middle of my chest. There you are.
I’d pulled mermaids out of water with that light. I’d made those tempest crystals float on air— for real because Rune had been there and he’d seen it.
I could pick these people up right now, too, if it came to it. That’s what I told myself, at least.
“What are you?” the man suddenly whispered, his voice low, dangerously low. And his friends approached immediately, sniffing the air as they came.
Those words Rune said before came back to me again—about werewolves and mortal flesh. So fucking hard not to be terrified.
“I’m—” Except they didn’t let me speak.
“Have you been bitten?” the guy in the middle cut me off. The way those wide yellow eyes scrolled down my body…
I swallowed hard. “No, I?—”
“Have you been scratched?”
Well, fuck. “What’s it to you?”
He stepped forward. The werewolf moved to my side with a howl that didn’t even make me jump.
“Show me,” the man said instead. “Show me— now. ”
Fuck me, I could’ve sworn he now looked desperate all of a sudden. On the verge of tears.
I looked down at the werewolf at my side, and she only glanced up at me once before she focused on the men again.
There was no way to tell what that look meant, so I didn’t bother trying to decipher it.
I just figured that these men could make me show them if they wanted, and I really didn’t want them anywhere near us.
And if I could get away from this without using the heat that was slowly intensifying inside me, I would.
So, I pushed up the sleeve of my jacket and raised my hand to show them my inner forearm. The four claw marks on my skin, calmer still than they had been the day before.
The men looked like they’d suddenly seen a ghost.
“No,” the one on the right with the buzzcut and the thick beard covering his jaws whispered.
“When?” the man in the middle said.
“Yesterday,” I said, wetting my dry lips to give myself a moment. “She saved my life, and I am not going to let you hurt her. I’ll warn you, though—I know how I look, but I beat a bunch of mermaids once. I-I-I’m not harmless.”
Goddamn it, Nilah! How in the hell was I supposed to sound badass if my voice broke on me at the last second like that? !
The men all looked down at the werewolf, who was no longer growling, but she hadn’t moved an inch, either.
“It’s okay. We’ll be fine,” I whispered, more for my own benefit. But I still had the magic. I felt its heat and I saw the light, and the moment I imagined it crawling to my arms and moving down to my hands, it would.
Wolfie finally looked up at me again, eyes wide, less tense than a moment ago.
“Trust me, okay? We’ll be fine.” I even sounded like I meant it.
“Did Maera do that?” the men then said—one or the other, I didn’t really care.
I looked at them. “She did, yes.”
“Yesterday.”
“Yes.”
Again, they looked down at my body. “You’re no fae,” they whispered. “You smell like it, but you’re not fae.”
“I—wait, what?” Did he say you smell like fae ?
“Have you shifted?”
Holy motherfucking shit. He actually said that with a straight face.
“No! Are you crazy—no, I haven’t shifted! I’m mortal, in case you missed it. I’m a human from Nerith.”
“She lies,” said the other guy on the right, and he looked me straight in the eye as he did.
“Fuck you, asshole. I’m not a liar,” I said, and maybe I shouldn’t have, but the fear and the raw tension hanging in the air, and this heat that was moving down my arms without stop now were making it impossible to keep my thoughts—and my tongue—under control.
“Maera scratched you, but you didn’t shift,” the man in the middle said. “You’re no mortal, but you’re no fae. What are you? ”
“I am —I’m a mortal from Nerith!” I shouted, and that was the last time I would say it.
These guys were fucking nuts—weren’t they supposed to smell me from a mile away?! Wasn’t that what Rune said?
“Then why aren’t you dead yet? Have you been cured, taken potions?” said the man and took another step closer. Except by now I was too stunned to even move back, and the heat that was rushing inside my body kept me in place as well.
“No, no, no potions. I?—”
“You should be dead by now—four times over. How do you live?”
I shook my head, my mouth opening and closing a couple of times. “Because I’m alive. Why the hell would I be dead—I’m alive !”
“Werewolf bites and scratches come with death—immediate death for creatures of Nerith,” the man said, speaking slowly now, like he was giving time for each one of his words to sink in. “Bites and scratches from werewolves who are not alphas come with death for all creatures of Verenthia.”
Fuck .
Was it just me or were the words of those sorcerers earlier starting to make sense?
“Maera is not an alpha,” he insisted, except I could have sworn this time he sounded different. I could have sworn this time his voice changed as he looked down at her.
The werewolf was no longer growling. She was no longer even looking at them—she was looking up at me instead.