Chapter Nine #2
Took down the first guard before he could get to his fire. Gerhard had my back, taking down one more. Matthis on our side.
More.
More fire. More blades. Spears.
I bit and tore and ravaged. Uncaring of the hits, of the bites from the wolves trying to take me down.
I had to get back to her. Get her away.
The haft of a halberd found my ribs. It drove into my side like someone trying to pierce the heart. But it didn’t cut. It broke.
Red covered my vision.
Ribs cracked. Breath went jagged, pain flared at every intake.
Out. I needed to get her out.
As I howled in pain, as Gerhard and Mathis tried to get us away, the square changed.
Faces I knew, faces I’d saved, surged. Pitchforks, knives, and tongs in their hands.
Aimed not at me, but at the soldiers who fought against me.
Gerhard’s captains, three of them, broke rank, halberds raised to stand with us.
Matthis’ Prowlers slid from alleys like bladed shadows and threw themselves between our backs and the loyalists.
Some of the Alpha’s soldiers held the line. Most did not.
It was chaos.
A riot.
Our chance to disappear.
We shoved out, three wolves battered and bruised and angry as night was taking over, fast.
Bodies closed in, the noise hiding us as well as blinding us. I kept my head low, every step putting distance between us and that plank. Wolfsbane still burned beneath my tongue and in my gums; every breath was unbearable.
We kept moving.
Feeling her.
Closer.
I used that sixth sense to get to her. I led the two wolves on, weaving between carts and barrels. Two stalls over, half behind a heap of salted fish–Elske.
Elske stood with Adelmar at her shoulder. Ash stroked her face, palms up, ready to strike with her fire. Adelmar had a bloody cut on his palm, but he was ready, too.
Half a dozen men in front of them, closing in on them.
Gerhard, Matthis, and I were on them with fangs of flames and rage.
It was over within a heartbeat.
We all shifted.
And I found my arms full of her.
I held her close, pain forgotten, danger be damned. She was here, warm, and safe.
I took her face in my hands, looked in her eyes. Fierce, loyal. Filled with the mirror of what I felt for her. I couldn’t kiss her—my mouth was in too much pain, so I just dipped my forehead on hers, breathing her in.
Mine, my wolf snarled as he leaned in, close to her.
Mine.
“You’re alright,” I said, tentatively, because my tongue and mouth were a wreck.
“Yes. You...” Her worried eyes ran over me. Stopped on my bloodied mouth. She touched it with the softest stroke, nothing but a butterfly’s kiss.
I took her hand, kissed the tip of her fingers, nodding. She felt my pain, but she didn’t need to know it came from my ribs, not my mouth.
Gerhard coughed.
At the sound of his voice, she turned and grabbed both males in her arms. “How are you? Did they hurt you?”
“We’re good,” Matthis said, patting her on her head. “Better than him. His mouth is...” he trailed off, shaking his head.
“I’m alright,” I stated. Breathing hurt like a knife lodged in my lung, and breathing was getting harder and harder, but it didn’t matter. I needed to make sure she got out of there. Noise from the riot was getting close to us, and I didn’t want to risk it.
She was on my wavelength. “How do we disappear?” she asked no one in particular.
Matthis looked around. Then sighed. “Follow me.”
We moved fast. Every breath a blade in my side that I ignored. Smoke and shouts rolled through the alleys. Elske was steady on my side, flame trembling at her fingertips every time someone shouted too close.
Matthis led us down a narrow passage behind the butcher stalls. The stench of blood and brine nearly drowned out everything else. The further we went, the darker and fouler it got. We slipped inside the scullery, past overturned pots and food that was left to rot when it could have fed people.
“Down here,” Matthis said, kicking aside a pile of garbage to reveal a trapdoor. A rush of damp air rose from below when he pulled it open, thick with the stink of sewage and waste.
“Tell me you’re joking,” Gerhard muttered.
“They shove kitchen muck and latrine waste into the same throat of stone,” Matthis said behind me, easy as a whiff of wind.
“No one checks this filth twice. Runs to the old river drain under the fortress wall, and it will hide our scent if we keep to the stream.” He shrugged as if he was used to whipping up a quick escape and not particularly bothered by crawling through shit if it meant seeing another sunrise.
I’ve never felt closer to him. “Freedom,” he said philosophically, pointing at it. “Rarely smells like flowers.”
The tunnel beyond gaped black and slick. I didn’t care. The pain in my ribs was getting harder to ignore by the minute, every breath getting wetter. I pressed a hand against my side. “Go,” I rasped.
The sound alerted Elske. “Dierk—”
“Go,” I repeated, shoving Matthis toward the opening. “Before they regroup.”
He jumped first, landing with a splash and a curse. Gerhard followed, muttering something about how he’d rather die clean but whatever. Elske hesitated only long enough to look at me.
I nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She caught my hand, pressed her lips to my filthy knuckles, and dropped into the dark.
For a heartbeat, I stood there, the world spinning, smoke and filth and the taste of blood and wolfsbane thick in my mouth.
Then I followed, sliding into the muck after them, leaving the chaos behind.
Cold slime closed over my hands, drenched my clothes, the stench clawing up my throat as the tunnel swallowed me whole.
I spilled out of the chute like waste. Cold, clean air hit first. Then the freezing water of the narrow stream that cut through the fields beyond the wall.
The water was shallow, biting cold. Perfect.
For a heartbeat, we just stood there, dripping, slick with whatever the kitchens and latrines had conspired to birth. Shit. Rot. Gods knew what else.
“Smells like victory,” Matthis said cheerfully.
Gerhard gagged, and Adelmar patted his shoulder amicably.
Elske didn’t say anything. She tore a strip from her ruined apron, soaked it up with water, and wiped her face.
The moonlight caught in her hair, turning the filth to silver.
Even covered in muck, she looked regal. Beautiful in her silent fury.
“Stay low,” Matthis said, already moving. “Follow the current. It’ll wash the stink and our scent both.”
We waded in. My side was throbbing. I clenched my teeth and let the pain steady me.
I knew how. The current pulled at our legs, tugged away grime and blood and everything else that didn’t belong, cold enough to dull the worst of the pain.
Behind us, the castle smoldered under the moon.
Gray smoke rose from the east wing like a hand reaching for the stars.
By the time the stream started to widen and deepen into a true river, my vision was blurring at the edges.
Each step jarred the broken rib deeper into my side, each breath shorter, wetter than the last. Still, I moved.
Elske kept to my side, shoulder brushing mine now and then.
Feeling her close seemed the only thing keeping me up and going.
The forest greeted us with open arms.
We pushed through the strengthening current until the river curved and the trees closed in behind us, swallowing the light from the fortress fires. Only then did Matthis stop. “Here,” he said. “No hounds will catch us this far.”
Gerhard nodded.
We made it out of the river.
I stumbled.
Pain.
Too harsh.
Not enough air in my lungs. Elske turned to me, caught me, tried to keep me up. “Dierk? Dierk, what is it?”
“I’m fine.” Words came sluggishly.
The forest spun around me, a blur of scent and shadow. Elske’s hand was the last thing I felt—warm against my skin as the darkness rushed in.
Then nothing.