Page 35 of Moonmarked

I only saw her profile before she moved forward, turned her back to me all the way. Went closer to the three wolves who were howling and growling and barking as they moved restlessly in place.

Fuck, they werehuge.They were almost eye to eye with the woman, who was just an inch or two shorter than me. My God, they could devour her in one bite—and me, too. They were massive, the one in the middle with golden brown fur, the others at his sides darker, mixed with a deep black.

I wanted to call out to her, to tell her to run, get away before they snapped their teeth and bit her head off, when…

The wolves howled one more time.

The woman said, “Bow.”

One word.

So much power it slipped down my throat and squeezed my lungs, made my limbs tremble, made the heat under my skin grow wild.

The wolvesfelllike their string were cut.

No longer howling, they actually bowed, stretched their front legs and touched their chins to the ground in front of the woman.

Thetinywoman—compared to them—who was naked and covered in dirt and…

She turned her head and our eyes locked. Yellow on blue.

“Hello, Nilah,” she said.

Not to brag or anything, but I was still standing.

Deep breath,in and out,I repeated in my head over and over again. And I wanted to believe that the air going down my throat was going to somehow make everything better—or even just make any amount of sense—but it didn’t. I’d been focusing on breathing for at least ten minutes now, if my sense of time could even be trusted, and nothing had changed.

Nothing made any sense as I watched the woman, now wearing an oversized white shirt like a dress, looking ahead at the trees like she could see farther than a few feet. Nothing made sense to remember how the wolves had actually bowed to her, those gigantic, monstrous creatures who had no business even knowing how to bow.

But they had and I had seen it. More than that—I hadfeltit. Whatever this place was doing to me, I’d felt those howls and heard those bones breaking and rearranging, and I’d felt the power of that word that had nearly brought me to my knees, too.

Bow,she’d said, and it was like a world was suddenly placed over my shoulders, pushing me to do just that, simply because she’d wanted me to.

Except she hadn’t, not really. And that’s why I had remained on my feet for a long time after, until I finally thought it was safe to sit near a tree and rest.

The wolves had gone somewhere—she’d waved a hand at them when they rose on all fours again, and they’d taken off running, each in a different direction. She’d then gone through their backpacks that had ended up on the ground together with the pieces of their clothes, had found a shirt to put on, and a water bottle that she’d drank from, then had put near her feet.

I watched it now, considered asking if I could just havea sip because my insides might be turning into a desert, when…

She moved.

As if she heard the thoughts in my head, the woman leaned down and grabbed the bottle full of water, then turned to me.

My breath caught and my lids froze and even my heart hesitated to beat for a split second. No clue how to better put it in words, but it felt like she was someone I’d known my whole life. Trustworthy.

Which just added to my list ofThings That Make Absolutely No Sense.

I analyzed her face as quickly as I could. Her skin was still dirty, but she’d wiped her face clean, and she was beautiful in an exotic kind of way. Big eyes that could have been made from yellow shimmer, thick brows like straight lines going up toward her temples, which gave her a pretty intimidating look. Her hair, though. It was blonde around her face, then deepened into a dark brown on her back, and it was long and wavy and dirty, yet she made it look runway-worthy somehow.

When she stopped in front of me, she squatted down. Look at me, analyzed my face, too, and…

She offered me the water bottle. “Thirsty?”

Speaking was out of the question, but I did take the bottle. Unscrewed the cap. Drank.

Heaven,even if I was too distracted to appreciate the feeling properly.

“Thanks,” I managed, and I sounded much calmer than I felt.

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