9. Viktor
Viktor
It felt like one of my fever dreams after being injured back when I was in government hands in Russia. I was running along unfamiliar terrain, following along behind my very own wolf. Desperately trying to find freedom.
Through the yard, to the hedges the guard had come through, and then straight through the garden, ignoring the herbs and flowers we trod on as we ran.
In the middle of the garden, my nostrils flared at the smell of blood, and I was worried for a moment. Was Daire hurt? Was I injured?
No. There was simply a spot where blood had soaked into the ground.
Right where I’d left the guard tied up.
The witches had murdered him.
Of course they had.
I felt a stab of conscience, but it hadn’t happened because I’d tied him up.
Likely, it had been because he’d witnessed them taking a man prisoner, and would have wanted to summon the human authorities.
They were at fault. They were the killers.
I’d have simply left him there, alive, dealing with the truth of the situation himself.
I didn’t have time for self-recriminations that I should have let him go and told him to run. If I wanted to live, it was my turn to run.
It wasn’t as though I had any doubt that the head of the coven had been planning to plunge her dagger into my chest. I wasn’t a child or an innocent like her son.
Fuck only knew how someone had grown up so innocent in her company, but I still wasn’t sure he understood what she’d been doing, even as we ran.
We rounded the corner of the house at a flat-out run, and on four legs, he was fast. I was grateful I’d trained those legs to run, rather than him.
No offense to little Daire, but I suspected any wolf born of his soul wouldn’t have been quite as interested in speed.
We reached the corner where I’d initially climbed over, and I paused. He stopped when I did, almost like he’d hit a wall, and a second later, he was turning back into his human form.
“What . . . ” He stared down at his hands, then his eyes went wide and he slapped them over his cock, like anyone gave a damn about nudity at a time like this. He did, however, address the actual subject. “What are you doing?”
I motioned to the wall. “We need to get on the other side.”
He looked at it, then me, confused. “Yeah, at the gatehouse.”
“You think they’re not headed there? You think the guards will open it?”
That finally made him truly consider, but he still dismissed me. “They’re . . . slow. I can hear them.” He took one hand away from his crotch, slapping the open palm against the brick wall. “But it doesn’t matter because I can’t climb a whole wall, whether you can or not.”
Fuck me.
We were going to die because he couldn’t climb a wall. If we survived this, I promised myself, I was going to put Daire through hours of climbing drills. This would not happen again.
I sighed, turned, and started running again, this time toward the guard outbuilding. I didn’t want to deal with more guards, let alone maybe get them killed, but it wasn’t time to stop and chat.
We had to fucking run.
Daire kept gasping and starting to speak behind me, but never seemed to get a whole word out. I didn’t smell blood again, so I didn’t turn.
No time.
Only running.
Even if I did slightly slow my pace to account for his legs being shorter than mine.
It was only when we arrived at the gate that I found the real problem. It wasn’t a simple bar lowered across the entry, that we could simply duck under. It was a huge wrought-iron gate. Even harder to climb than a brick wall, which had plenty of little toeholds.
I let out a grunt of frustration, turning back to Daire, ready to tell him he was damned well going to climb and like it. The witches were coming, though. I could see the first of them rounding the corner, less than a hundred yards away. We didn’t have time to chat.
We probably didn’t have time to climb the wall.
Then I heard a chittering noise to my right, coming from the guard house. Followed by a near ear-splitting squeal, and continuous grinding.
The door of the guardhouse popped open next to me, to emit one self-satisfied looking raccoon.
Drew.
Behind me, the gate was opening.
Daire was staring at the raccoon in shock, but again, we didn’t have time for this.
I turned, leaned down, and scooped Drew up in my arms. “Sorry for your dignity, but you can’t run as fast as we need to.”
He didn’t make a sound, let alone a protest.
I jerked my head in the direction of the gate, looking back at Daire. “Run. We have to get farther from your murderous friends.”
A strange near-defiance rippled over his face, like he was going to refute my calling his friends murderous, but he didn’t say a word. I ran, and so did he.
Drew worked his way up onto my shoulders, his little arms wrapped around my forehead. He made little chittering noises as we ran, like this was a fun new game and he was loving every minute of it. I was grateful, because I didn’t want to try to explain to Leo that I’d left his furry friend to die.
After five minutes of running, Daire’s breathing behind me went ragged, panting and gasping almost more than actual breathing. He tried to regulate it. Didn’t stop or complain, but continuing to run all the way home clearly wasn’t a real option, unless I was willing to leave him behind.
Strangely enough, I found that I was not.
My wolf hadn’t destroyed him. Had even helped him in our escape, and I didn’t think that had only been for my benefit.
When Drew’s little arm left my forehead and pointed off to our right, I nodded and turned to follow. He hadn’t led me wrong so far, and clearly, there was more to my brother’s little friend than met the eye.
If not for Drew the raccoon, I was reasonably sure Daire and I would be dead already.
It took another three minutes, and Daire’s steps had slowed so much they could barely be called running.
Yes, I’d slowed to match his pace. This wasn’t the first time I had escaped alongside people less able to run than myself.
Once again, Drew had been right. It was barely visible from the outside, but as I followed his little pointing hand, I found a crack in the rock face barely big enough for me to slide into, that seemed to be the mouth of a larger cave.
Maybe the witches would find us with ease, but also, maybe not.
Also, it was a defensible position. The cave mouth was a natural bottleneck where I could stand and fight. I would not hesitate again.
Maybe because I wouldn’t be facing Daire, with my wolf inside him.
It didn’t matter why, though.
What mattered was that we all squeezed into the cave, and Drew climbed down me like I was a tree, then set to pushing leaves in front of the cave door, to further camouflage it. Clever little raccoon.
Me? I turned to Daire.
I wanted to demand to know how he got my wolf, but somehow, I had a feeling that I knew as much about that as he did. Instead, I shook off that urge and asked him the more pressing question. “We need to escape your people. Why don’t you cast some spells to get us away?”