Page 36 of The Dead Saint

She inched backward again, tentative, watching the creature for any hint of movement.

It didn’t stop her as she wormed away, putting a little distance between them. Its stance changed, the attack pulled back, eyes intent as she scooted backward. She panted, nostrils full of that animal scent—predator, meat eater, hunter.

Heartbeats passed, seconds, moments, minutes, as they sat staring at each other. She had no way to measure the time except by the beating of her own heart.

They remained locked together, staring each other down, until her breath came more easily and the fear began to recede. The creature’s posture shifted, tense and poised, but more relaxed than it had been. Tensed in a new way.

Would it bite her? Stop her from moving? Let her go?

“Why are you here?” she asked, voice rough, emotion welling up. Slowly, oh so slowly, she reached out with one hand. “Do you know me? Or about me?”

The werewolf breathed out against her fingers, its hot breath rolling over her. A noise came up from its chest, a sound she felt in her own chest—a vibrating echo. An acknowledgment.

Excitement crashed through her, a moment of crazy, blinding hope.

The werewolf knew her.

But would it be able to help? It had snarled and snapped but not lunged to kill. And maybe it was tied to the Saint as well. Just as she was. Maybe this creature was tied to her.

A noise startled them both. A cry from a familiar throat. The werewolf turned its head.

She gasped and then screamed as a blade severed the werewolf’s head from its shoulders.

* * *

Steel bit into flesh, severing through taut tendon and bone, skin and muscle parting beneath the blade. Blood gushed over Sorcha. The scent of copper filled his nose—metallic and bitter. The beast’s head dropped into her lap as the body slumped to the side, paws twitching. She was screaming, a mixed wail of surprise and anguish.

“What have you done?” Sorcha gasped.

She looked up at him, face spattered with blood—dark in the light of the full moon—anger flashing in her eyes. Struggling to free herself of the dead thing, she stood and stumbled away from him, an arm outstretched to keep him at bay.

“It wasn’t going to hurt me!”

“You don’t know that,” Adrian said, tone flat, gathering a calm and disinterested demeanor to him like a cloak. “It would have killed you.”

He hadn’t expected thanks, but he had expected relief at being rescued. Instead, she was angry and distressed at the creature’s death.

Adrian had forgotten his anger with Sorcha’s escape the moment he’d seen the werewolf hunched over her. The prince would kill them all if something happened to the woman. Adrian wanted to keep his men alive—himself alive. Saving her was nothing more than saving his own skin.

That’s a lie.

Sorcha’s voice had gone hoarse, tears threatening to spill out of her wide green eyes.

Adrian looked down at the creature. It shifted subtly, the canine features fading, the body shrinking. Second by second, the beastly features receded until it became a bearded man with matted hair all over his body and long, yellowed fingernails.

It would have killed her. It had already killed several of his men. Juri and Lev, both excellent swordsmen and unmatched on a battlefield but caught off guard by something so strange and new.

More werewolves were out there, hunting in the night and lurking beneath the silver moon. Their animal gaze bored into him from the shadows, heating his skin, heavy as fists, menacing and feral. He needed to take Sorcha back to the safety of the temple. The creatures had not come into the ruins. And there they could keep the walls at their backs and defend the position until morning. They were too vulnerable here.

Sorcha took a step back, moving away from him and putting distance between herself and the dead thing.

She held up a trembling hand and whispered, “Stay back.”

Adrian remained motionless, aware of the silence around them, listening to the way her voice fell into it like stones into water. Stay. Back. Her voice rippled out, lapping up against the trees and the things hiding in them—watching them.

“You’re a monster,” she whispered, eyes darting back to the werewolf, mouth twisting in sorrow.

It would have killed you.

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