Page 29 of The Dead Saint

“It’s on your skin,” he said.

She stared back at him, face carefully blank.

As they came around the tree, the ruins of a temple came into view. Overgrown pillars and arches, pale rock and shallow steps. The forest was pressed close like a lover, trees intertwined with stone, becoming something wholly new and otherworldly. It was a ruin of a place that had once been immaculate and imposing. Fallen branches littered the steps, and vines crisscrossed the arches. Leaves had drifted, concealing sections of the stairs and what might have been fallen statues.

The men rode their horses up the first shallow flight of steps into an open courtyard. More steps led up to dark arches, the stairs too steep here for the horses to climb. They dismounted and began to spread out, swords in hands—wary and watchful. Sorcha kept her seat, Epona shifting beneath her and ears flicking back and forth.

Revenant and Domenico went up the steps together and passed under the arch into the darkness of the inner temple. Thompson rustled between the relic map and another she hadn’t seen before—the parchment dark with age, the lines on it faded. Adrian dismounted and crossed to Sorcha’s horse, reaching up to take the reins with one hand and offering the other to help her dismount.

“I don’t need your help,” she said.

Sorcha shifted in the saddle, ready to drop down on the other side away from the Wolf. She was tempted to kick him or nudge Epona forward and force him to drop the reins, but he reached up, wrapped his large hands around her waist, and lifted her down from the saddle in a smooth motion. She gripped his forearms, steadying herself, their gazes locked.

The Wolf’s eyes were so brown they were almost black—framed by long lashes—and with his full mouth pressed into a thin line, Sorcha found him hard to read. Was he in a hurry? Or was there another reason he’d pulled her from the horse? Sorcha exhaled, brows coming together, a question half formed on her tongue. His gaze shifted to her mouth, and for a moment, his grip tightened.

“Adrian,” Revenant called from the top of the stairs. “You need to see this.”

* * *

The sound of dripping water drew Sorcha, tempting, promising. More than anything, she wanted the chance to rest and drink something that hadn’t been in a waterskin for several days. But as she rounded the corner and saw the entrance to another large room, it wasn’t the fresh, clean smell she’d been expecting. A heaviness filled the air, cloying and thick, metallic tinged with heat.

Behind her, Thompson held a torch high, the light catching on the details of the room. Carnivore. Predator. Everything in this room spoke of the hunt, the chase, the conquest. The head of a giant wolf had been carved from a single piece of black stone. It dominated the wall and was ornamented with ruby eyes and clenched, golden teeth.

Sorcha hesitated in the entryway, watching as blood seeped from between its clenched jaws and collected on the bottom jaw, falling into a wide pool below it.

The blood dissipated in the water, a spring fed from an unseen source, the surface moving—shifting—the blood dissipating as the water circulated. A shallow step led into the water. The bottom was visible but distorted, a mix of white animal bones and waving green plants.

“Where is the water going?” Wes asked.

Sorcha shook her head, though he hadn’t been asking her.

“It must flow beneath the stone,” Thompson said. “Or there’s a tunnel or something.”

“Is it drinkable?” Lev asked. “Our waterskins are almost dry.”

“Would you want to drink that?” Magnus asked, pointing to the clenched jaws of the wolf as a trickle of blood fell.

“Do not drink from this place,” Domenico said from the back. “Take nothing from this place.”

“That’s what we came here to do, Dom,” Juri said. “And now you’re telling us not to?”

“Do what you want,” Domenico said, shaking his head. “But I wouldn’t drink from that pool.”

Sorcha could hear the shrug in Domenico’s voice. She had to agree. Even if she’d had nothing to drink for days, she wouldn’t dare drink from this spring. It wasn’t only because of the blood-stained wolf head. The bones visible at the bottom were unsettling. Who had put them there? Why?

But even as she wondered those things, the water called to her.

“What is this place?” Lev asked. “Was it on the map?”

Thompson shook his head.

“Is it on her skin?”

Lev took a step toward Sorcha, but the Wolf was there in an instant—a silent, solid figure between them. She couldn’t see the Wolf’s face, but she saw Lev’s expression shift from determination to startlement to acquiescence. Adrian would never let any of them touch her, even if they’d been tempted to offer some small kindness, which they never did.

Sorcha walked forward—the men keeping their distance—as she moved beyond the immediate circle of light thrown by the torch. The room was cool, and her skin prickled with magic, an electric sensation, as if lightning crackled through the stones waiting to be released.

Slowly, hesitating as if the carving might come to life and snap, she reached out.

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