Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
She scrambled to her knees as Salak pressed his nose against her chest, bumping her enough to push her backward onto her rear. The moment she was down, his mouth opened, and bit her shoulder.
Her eyes snapped closed as her spine arched.
“Salak—” I shot to my feet, rushing at the alpha as his spiral horns glinted with spiels of golden dawn. “Let her go!”
The wolf ignored me. His eyes closed. His fangs held Runa deathly still but didn’t puncture her skin. Kiu raised her head from her pups, whining at me with her ears flat. Her obvious request for me to leave Salak alone made rage pour through me.
He’d never been aggressive toward me.
I wouldn’t let him hurt Runa.
Under any circumstance.
“Salak!” I grabbed two fistfuls of the alpha’s thick ruff. “Get off her.”
He growled again, this time rumbling with more than just a warning.
My skin prickled with danger, but I didn’t stop tugging. “Let her go.”
This time, he obeyed.
Raising his head, he licked his lips as he removed his teeth from Runa’s shoulder. She slouched forward, breathing hard. Tears tracked down her face as Salak huffed, licked her forehead as if apologising for his behaviour, then padded out of the cave to flop against his rock in the new day sun.
“Runa.” I dropped to my knees, grabbing her cheeks and bringing her face to mine. “What did he do? What happened?”
Her amber eyes held a faint glowing ring of gold, fading the longer I held her. Her tears kept falling, rolling over my fingers. “What did he do?” I repeated, tightening my hold on her cheekbones, unable to rein in my panic.
“He didn’t do anything. He...showed me things.”
“What things?”
“He knows who I am.”
I frowned. “And that’s a bad thing? I thought you wanted to know who you are.”
She nodded, sniffing with sadness. “I did. I do...but he doesn’t want me here. He views me as a threat to his pack. He wants me to stay away from you.”
“What?” My fingers loosened, slipping from her face and onto my lap. “Why would he say such things?”
I didn’t stop to question how they’d conversed or ask how a mortal could commune with a wolf in such a deeper language than the rest of us. I’d already seen her gift. Already witnessed the magic she held over both predator and prey.
“He’s worried.” Swiping at her tears, she shrugged. “He wants me to be happy. For you to be happy. But he wants us to be happy apart. He says that’s how it’s meant to be. How it has to be.”
“But why would he care about two mortals? What possible danger could we bring to his family when all we want to do is no longer be alone?”
She sniffed and glanced at Natim.
The fawn scrambled to unsteady feet, tottering toward her.
With a mournful sigh, she grabbed the baby deer and cradled him close. Pressing her mouth to Natim’s small head, she spoke into his spotted hide. “He says one day, I’ll have to make a choice.” Her chin tipped up as fresh droplets rivered from her stare. “And that choice will either destroy me or destroy everything else. Everyone else.” She huddled over the deer as I stared at her blankly.
“But what does that mean?” I rubbed my mouth, my head aching to understand. “He can’t see what hasn’t come to pass.”
“It means that the fire was right.” Runa looked past me to the cave’s exit and the awakening world beyond.
She moved suddenly.
Leaping to her feet, she looked down at me with her arms full of fawn. “I-I need to be alone for a while.” Grabbing the deer hide that we’d slept on and tucking it beneath Natim, she weaved her way around the snoozing wolves and vanished out of the cave before I could stop her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
. Runa .
I SAT BY THE RIVER, drawn to its calming babble, wondering if it was the same river that flowed past the Nhil camp.
I daren’t step into it—too afraid of the blue light and mournful song that’d happened last time—but I did stare into its glossy wetness, blinking as sunbursts glittered on its surface, willing my mind to quieten from every thought that ran wild.
Natim tottered around on stick-thin legs, growing stronger and braver as dawn became day. His little knees bent to lower his mouth to the sweet sprouts by the river’s edge, doing his best to nibble. His very spirit hummed with happiness at being alive and learning.
I couldn’t understand why I could sense what he felt. Why my spirit tingled with a strange sensitivity to every creature around me. The zipping dragonflies tickled my mind with iridescent joy, all while the bees that always hummed close by, in their brightly petaled flowers, were as aware of me as I was of them.
Was it the fire trance with Solin that’d awoken something new within me or was it the stranger? Would this newfound gift fade as quickly as it’d arrived or was it a piece of myself that was now remembered, never to abandon me again?