Page 129 of Kingdoms of Night

“Idalno!” he shouted, scrambling up the tilted floor toward her.

A peal of laughter drowned out his voice. The benches slammed through the air, striking Idalno straight back into the door.

She crashed backward, hitting her head on the brightly painted surface.

The door jolted open and swung inward with a hearty groan, revealing a dimly lit bedroom. Somehow, unlike this room, it wasn’t askew.

Flames leaped up in oven, as if in anticipation.

He fought the tilt of the cottage, digging his claws into the wood toward Idalno.No, gods, please. No.His heart raced, painful in his chest as his breaths burst in and out, in and out, tearing through his throat.

She struggled to her feet, holding onto the doorjamb, wincing.

The benches slid through the air behind her, slow, so very slow to his Changed werewolf eyes. This time they would drive her straight into the iron oven.

He plunged deep into himself, ripping through pain and fear toward his wolf, desperate for another shred of strength, another thread, a hope of one. He seized the agony in his chest and screamed it, roared it, howled from the depths of his two-natured soul as he pushed past his own limits for the strength he needed.

The witch’s cackling filling his ears, he thrust himself up and tackled Idalno into the bedroom.

The bread flew from her hand, sliced in two by a flying cleaver.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “No! The bread!”

Buttercup and Hawthorn each snapped up the two halves. They slid under the benches and skidded into the room as the oven roared.

Clutching Idalno, Feron slammed the door shut and bolted it. He then cast his gaze around the room.

One carving on the far wall. A witch’s face.

He sprang across the room and ripped it from the wall.

Splinters of wood twisted free and fell to the floor, but no daylight broke through. Within a blink, the wood healed.

Not a sound from Black Annis, and no tilt of the floor. They had a breath, but no telling for how long.

“You said you needed space and to focus,” he said softly into Idalno’s hair. “That you had an idea. This was the best I could do. What comes next?”

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN

IDALNO

Idalno had been about to exclaim that it wouldn’t work now when Hawthorn and Buttercup ran up to her. They dropped the bread at her feet.

“Oh, you gorgeous wolves!” She flung her arms around their necks and kissed them both, then scooped up the bread.

“Is that an answer?” Grimacing, Feron stared after her, braced against the door, some parts of him wolf and others man.

A loud scraping sound like claws over wood and metal raked across the door.

“Oh, such clever children,” Black Annis cooed. “Ripping out my faces. Throwing them away. But do you really think that will work? I can’t really be killed, you know. Can’t even be stopped. Only stalled. She who bound me here thought it would work. But only by half. Do you think you can escape?”

“You’re used to preying on helpless children,” Feron shouted back. He struck the door with his fist. “You’ll find us much harder to swallow.”

“But I will swallow you all the same.”

He bared his teeth, a visible vein throbbing in his corded neck

“Sooner or later you’ll have to come out. You can’t stay in there forever. Especially once it bores me.”

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