Chapter 10 Hannah #2
“You could have,” he said, voice low against my back as he gathered the reins. “But this is faster.”
“Not everything has to be about speed.” I didn’t like how he treated me like I was a liability and that I needed a big man to do things for me. Part of me wanted to lean back and nuzzle his neck while I punched him.
“Don’t worry. When it actually matters, I’ll take my time.”
A hot knot formed deep inside me, but before I could fire back, he kicked the caribou’s flanks.
The beast surged forward hard enough to snap my head back, and I grabbed the saddle horn, fingers locking tight around the leather as we burst from the cave mouth into the brutal cold of the mountain pass.
The wind hit like a physical blow, tearing at my borrowed clothes and ripping the breath from my lungs.
Snow swirled in thick curtains, the predawn darkness broken only by torchlight from the riders spreading out on either side.
The caribou’s hooves churned through drifts that reached past its knees, powerful muscles bunching beneath us with every stride.
Kai’s arm locked around my waist, hauling me against his chest. The heat of him burned straight through my clothes, a sharp contrast to the cold clawing at every exposed inch of skin.
His breath brushed my ear when he spoke, voice low and nearly swallowed by the wind. “Hold on. Don’t fall off.”
I wanted to snap that I wasn’t an idiot, but a shriek split the sky before I could. It was the eagle, higher and farther away this time, echoing across the mountains like something tearing the night open.
Craning my neck, I squinted against the driving snow until I caught a glimpse of its massive shape cutting through the dark. The creature circled high above the Blood Basin, its wings blotting out the stars with every pass.
Something prickled through my body, a sensation both foreign and familiar. It was as if I could feel the eagle more than I could see it.
The wind howled harder as we pushed farther from the cavern. The line of torches stretched ahead and behind us, then broke apart as riders split off in pairs. Flames bent low and scattered like embers in a storm.
Snow struck my face in bursts, stinging anywhere the scarf didn’t cover. I ducked my chin, blinking against it, but the world refused to settle—light, shadow, movement—all of it slipped out of place before my brain could make sense of it.
Kai’s arm tightened around my middle as the caribou surged over uneven ground, the jolt snapping my teeth together. My grip locked harder on the saddle horn, the leather slick beneath my gloves. A torch ahead dipped, then rose.
Something felt off.
The glow dragged too long across my vision, smearing into the dark instead of snapping clean as it should have. I blinked hard, breath catching, and searched for it again.
Gone.
I hated not being able to trust what I was seeing.
The caribou’s hooves pounded beneath us, steady and sure, but the ground blurred when I tried to track it. Dark and pale swapped places too fast, the snow swallowing depth until every step felt like it might drop out from under us.
I leaned back without thinking, pressing into Kai’s chest, anchoring myself to the only solid thing in reach.
A shout cut through the wind from somewhere to the left, and I turned toward it.
The sound came through clean, but the rider didn’t. The torch near him flickered once, twice, and then vanished, swallowed by the dark as though it had never been there.
My stomach twisted.
Leaning forward, I squinted, trying to force my eyes to adjust and catch sight of anything beyond the immediate reach of the nearest light.
Nothing held.
Everything beyond a few yards dissolved into shifting shadow and snow, like the world just… stopped existing.
This was insane. How were they even navigating this? The torches barely helped, and Kai didn’t even have one.
The caribou lunged forward and climbed a steep rise. My body pitched with the motion, and my breath punched out of me as the incline dragged us upward.
Kai’s hand slid higher along my ribs, bracing me more securely against him.
Another shriek from the eagle tore across the mountains, closer now. The caribou beneath us tossed its head, snorting, unease rippling through its frame.
Then came the sound—
A sharp, slicing whistle through the air. Not whistles.
Arrows.
My head snapped up just as something hissed past us close enough that the air shifted against my cheek.
Adrenaline pumped through my body once again. “I’m not liking this,” I muttered, ducking.
More followed.
The whistles multiplied, cutting through the wind in bursts that were too fast and too close. Shouts and commands rose in the distance, but the wind shredded them into fragments that made no sense.
Kai commanded, “Steady now.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking to the beast or me, but it worked for both.
The torchlight ahead of us wavered, then steadied as Gavriel’s form materialized through the swirling snow. He rode up alongside us, and his caribou matched our pace with powerful, ground-eating strides. His face was set in grim lines, and his blue eyes scanned the darkness behind us.
“They’re gaining.” His voice barely cut through the wind. “At least a dozen have broken off in pursuit. More are still coming down from the pass, slow but steady. The eagle isn’t doing enough to stop them all.”
Kai grunted. One hand came off the reins and pressed against the side of my head, checking the scarf as if reassuring him that it was still in place. He warned, “Dawn is coming.”
I twisted to look at the horizon, and my breath caught.
The darkness was bleeding away into something softer.
Not the harsh white-gold of any sunrise I knew, but something muted and layered—violet fading into rose, rose dissolving into the faintest silver-blue, each color spreading across the horizon like watercolor on wet paper.
The bands were distinct despite their softness, and the light didn’t hurt to look at.
Not yet.
It felt almost gentle. Almost kind. Like the sky was holding its breath before turning cruel.
The snow caught the change and held fast.
One moment, it was just white, endless drifts of pale nothing stretching in every direction.
The next, it began to shimmer. Tiny crystals glittered in the growing light and reflected it back in a thousand soft glints, the sparkle racing over the mountainside until it looked like someone had scattered diamonds across the powder.
As the dawn strengthened, the glitter intensified with it, and suddenly, the whole landscape seemed to glow from within.
It was beautiful.
Terrifyingly, impossibly beautiful.
“The visor,” Kai rasped against my ear. “Now.”
I fumbled inside my cloak with clumsy fingers and wrestled the narrow thing over my eyes. It still didn’t seem bright enough to justify the panic, but the caribou’s pounding stride made it impossible to get the thing settled without punching myself in the face.
Finally, it slid into place, and the world dimmed to a narrow slit of filtered light. The glittering snow dulled, its brilliance flattening into shapes and shadows my eyes could follow without watering.
Then a howl split the air, and my blood froze.
That wasn’t the eagle.
Another howl answered it, followed by another. The sounds rose from different directions and bounced off the mountain walls. Ahead and to the right, farther up the ridge, a dark shape launched through torchlight, and a throaty scream tore across the pass as a caribou bellowed in alarm.
The one beneath us lurched sideways so hard my stomach flipped, and Kai’s arm crushed my middle.
“Wolves,” he snarled. “They’ve brought the hunt, and they’re closing in.”