CHAPTER SEVENTEEN OUR DAUGHTER FIRST
M arion felt two pains at once.
One came from Georgie.
It was small and bright and terrified, a child’s fear cutting through the smoke with a sound no mother could mistake. It struck Marion beneath the ribs and turned everything in her body toward the northern edge of the Grove.
The other came from Euan.
That pain was darker.
It hit the bond so hard her knees nearly failed.
Marion spun toward him in time to see a Crown soldier slide from the smoke behind his left shoulder.
The man moved like he had been trained for exactly this, low and fast, face hidden by a leather mask.
In his hand was not a spear or a sword, but a short black blade wrapped in silver wire.
Its edge glowed with an ugly blue white sheen.
“Euan!”
He turned too late.
The blade cut across his side, just below the ribs.
Euan killed the man before the soldier could pull back. His hand closed around the man’s throat and drove him into the nearest tree with enough force to shake snow from the branches. But the damage was done.
Marion felt it as if the blade had cut her.
Not skin. Not flesh. The bond.
A cold bite opened inside her, and black heat crawled outward from Euan’s wound. He staggered. One hand went to his side. His fingers came away dark with blood that steamed faintly in the cold.
“No,” Marion breathed.
Then Georgie screamed again.
“Mama!”
The sound tore Marion in half.
She looked toward the northern path. Through the drifting silver smoke she saw Tavish standing between Georgie and Duncan, sword raised, blood running from his temple into one eye.
Lorna was on her knees behind him, trying to pull Georgie away.
Duncan stood several paces in front of them with a blade in his hand and that awful smile on his face, while two Crown soldiers moved to flank Tavish.
One raised a crossbow.
The other held a black glass canister.
Georgie was too close to both.
Marion took one step toward her daughter.
Euan made a sound behind her.
She turned back.
He had dropped to one knee.
Black veins spread from the cut in his side, thin and fast, curling under his skin like ink in water. He gritted his teeth and tried to rise. His wolf pushed through his eyes, wild and furious, but the poison dragged at him.
The world narrowed to an impossible choice.
Her child.
Her mate.
Her child.
Her mate.
For one frozen breath Marion could not move.
This was how men like Aldrich won. Not with strength. Not with brilliance. With choices no decent heart could make cleanly. One life against another. One wound against another. One love against another until the person holding the knife could pretend cruelty was only arithmetic.
Marion hated him for it.
She hated Duncan more because his eyes were on Georgie and he knew exactly what he had become.
“Mama!” Georgie cried again, but this time there was anger in it too.
Of course there was.
Her brave little girl.
Euan’s hand caught Marion’s skirt.
She dropped beside him at once, her hands going to his face, then his side, then back to his face because there was too much blood and not enough time.
“No. Stay with me.”
His breathing came hard. “Georgie.”
“I know.”
His fingers tightened weakly in the torn fabric of her shift. “Go.”
“No.”
“Marion.”
“Do not you dare.”
His eyes lifted to hers, burning gold through pain. “Our daughter first.”
The words hit her harder than any blade could have.
For half a second she could only stare at him.
Our daughter.
Not your daughter. Not the child. Not Georgie as Marion’s burden or responsibility or soft place to be used.
Our daughter.
Something fierce and aching opened in Marion’s chest. It hurt worse than grief because it was hope. Hope at the worst possible moment, with Euan bleeding into snow and Georgie trapped beyond smoke and death moving everywhere.
“You idiot,” she whispered, and her voice broke.
His mouth twitched with effort. “Later.”
“She is not yours because you say so.”
“No.” He sucked in a breath as the poison pulsed. “Because I love her.”
Oh God.
Marion’s vision blurred.
He shoved her hand from his wound and pressed it toward the northern path. “Go.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“You are not leaving me.” His hand struck his chest, over the glowing mark she had given him. “I am here.”
The bond answered faintly, wounded but alive.
A crossbow fired.
Tavish swore.
Georgie screamed Marion’s name again.
Marion stood.
It nearly killed her to do it.
Euan watched her with such naked trust that she almost sank back down and cursed him for it. This was worse than his protection. Worse than his guilt. This was him believing she could bear what had to be done.
It was infuriating.
It was beautiful.
It was impossible to refuse.
“Hold on,” she said.
His teeth flashed in something more snarl than smile. “Always.”
Marion turned.
The wolf came before she fully called it.
Not the whole shift. There was no time for grace. Her hands lengthened, claws cutting through the cold air. Her spine burned. Silver fur flashed over her arms and vanished again. She ran half human, half wolf, too fast for thought, across the smoke filled Grove toward the northern path.
A soldier stepped into her way.
She struck him with the heel of her hand and light exploded from her palm. He flew backward, crashing into the roots with a cry. Another lunged from the side. She ducked low, swept his legs with a movement her human body should not have known, then kicked his own dropped blade away from him.
Duncan saw her coming.
For once, his expression was not smug.
Good.
The crossbowman turned toward Marion instead of Tavish.
Tavish used the mistake. He drove his shoulder into the man, knocking the bolt upward. It fired into the trees. The soldier with the canister tried to crack it open against a stone.
Lorna, still on her knees, threw a handful of snow and dirt into his eyes.
It was not elegant.
It worked.
Georgie took the chance to bite Duncan again.
This time on the hand.
Duncan shouted and jerked back. “You wretched child!”
Marion reached them then.
She did not remember deciding to hit him.
One moment Duncan’s hand was lifted toward Georgie. The next Marion’s fist struck his jaw.
He went down hard.
Not far enough.
She stepped over him and dragged Georgie into her arms.
The child clung to her so fiercely Marion could barely breathe, but she did not care. Georgie was warm. Shaking. Alive. Her hair smelled of smoke and wool and terror. Marion cupped the back of her head, holding her face against her shoulder to keep her from seeing too much.
“I told you to stay at the castle,” Marion said, voice shaking.
Georgie sobbed once, then lifted her head, indignant through tears. “Everyone was going to die.”
“That was not an invitation.”
“I burned Duncan.”
“I saw.”
“I think I did it wrong.”
Marion looked at Duncan sprawled in the snow, blood at his lip and fury in his eyes. “No, love. You did fine.”
Duncan groaned and pushed himself up on one elbow. His eyes fixed on Georgie with a hatred that made Marion’s wolf surge so violently her claws lengthened again.
“Mama,” Georgie whispered, seeing them.
“I know.”
Duncan wiped blood from his mouth. “She is cursed too.”
Marion went very still.
Tavish had just finished disarming the crossbowman and turned at that. Lorna crawled to her feet, pale but furious. Even the Crown soldier wrestling with Tavish seemed to understand the air had changed.
Marion lowered Georgie behind her.
“Say that again,” she said.
Duncan looked up at her, and the fear was there now, bare and ugly. Still, pride held his tongue like a fool’s bridle.
“You heard me.”
“Yes.” Marion smiled. “I wanted to see if you were stupid enough to repeat it.”
He scrambled backward as she stepped toward him.
“Marion,” Tavish said, not warning exactly, but afraid of what she might do.
She heard him. She did.
But all she could see was Duncan’s hand on Georgie’s arm. Duncan’s mouth near her daughter’s face. Duncan calling the child cursed because light had come where fear should have lived.
No.
Marion grabbed the front of his coat and hauled him up with strength that shocked them both. His boots slipped in the snow. His eyes went wide.
“You will not speak of my daughter again.”
He grabbed her wrist. “You are hurting me.”
“Good. You understand words better when they have assistance.”
His gaze darted past her, searching for help. The Crown soldier closest to them took one look at Marion’s face and decided against heroism.
Wise man.
Duncan’s voice shook. “You have become exactly what I warned them you were.”
Marion pulled him close enough that he flinched from her glowing eyes. “No. I have become exactly what men like you feared I might.”
She released him.
He fell back into the snow, gasping.
“Mama,” Georgie said softly.
The little voice pulled Marion back before the wolf could go further. She turned, saw Georgie’s pale face and forced her hands to loosen. The claws retreated slowly.
Too slowly.
Georgie noticed.
Marion’s stomach sank.
The child stepped forward anyway and caught her hand.
The last of the claws vanished.
“There,” Georgie said, as if she had settled a minor problem.
Marion’s throat tightened. “There?”
“You listened.”
“Oh love.”
Tavish suddenly shoved both of them back as another soldier broke from the fog. He met the man blade to blade, but his limp made him slow. Lorna grabbed Georgie and pulled her behind a tree root.
Marion spun toward Euan.
He was still on one knee across the clearing, trying to stand and failing.
Black veins had climbed higher beneath his shirt, toward his chest.
The bond flickered.
Panic slammed through Marion.
“Euan.”
His head lifted.
Even from across the smoke, his eyes found hers. He looked terrible. Blood at his side, face pale, one hand pressed to the wound. Still, his gaze moved first to Georgie.
Is she safe?
The words came through the bond faintly, not quite sound.
Marion looked at Georgie tucked behind Lorna, frightened but alive.
Yes.
Relief moved through him, deep and immediate.
Then pain swallowed it.
Euan’s body pitched forward.
“No!”
Marion started toward him, but Duncan lunged from the snow.
She heard the scrape too late.
He had grabbed the fallen black glass canister. Not the large one. A smaller one, cracked but still sealed enough to be useful. His face was twisted, all control gone.
“If I cannot save you,” he snarled, “then let him watch what he made.”
He hurled it toward Georgie.
Everything slowed.
Georgie’s eyes widened.
Lorna reached.
Tavish shouted.
Marion moved.
The wolf exploded through her legs first. She hit the ground on four paws before the shift had even fully finished. Pain flashed through half changed bones and vanished under instinct. She launched herself between the canister and her daughter.
The glass struck Marion’s side and shattered.
Silver smoke burst against her fur.
Agony tore through her.
She hit the snow hard, skidding between Georgie and the spreading vapor. The poison burned against her silver wolf body, not as badly as it would have burned another wolf, but enough to rip a howl from her throat.
Georgie screamed.
Across the Grove, Euan roared.
The sound of it shook the trees.
Marion forced herself up on trembling paws.
The smoke crawled over her, looking for the bond again. Looking for Euan through her. Looking for every place she loved.
No.
She planted herself in front of Georgie.
The silver gold light under her fur flared.
The smoke recoiled, but only a little.
From the far side of the Grove, Aldrich’s voice came soft and delighted.
“Protective maternal response intensifies the silver reaction. How very useful.”
Marion turned her wolf head toward him.
Euan, still fighting the poison in his own blood, dragged himself to his feet.
Their eyes met across the battlefield.
The bond between them, wounded and burning, tightened.
Not breaking.
Tightening.
Marion bared her teeth.
Euan straightened, one hand still pressed to his side.
Duncan stumbled backward, suddenly understanding that he had not weakened them the way he meant to.
He had shown them exactly what they had to become.
Together.