Page 76 of The Last One
“You like it?”
“I’m lightheaded.”
I laugh. “Faint and prove it.”
“Keep threatening to destroy whole towns and I’ll do more than faint.”
Delightfully shameless. Pleasantly unrepentant. Deliciously transgressive.
“I care for you,” he says. “That’s why I’m saying this. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I close my eyes again, buzzy and lightheaded, hesitant to let this moment go. I’m happy that he isn’t a zealot. Don’t know what I’d do if he were. Relieved, I rise from the log and stretch my sore back, readying for another day of riding—
What was that?Out of the corner of my eye, IthinkI saw a flash of white slipping through the copse of poplars. My heart bangs once, and I go rigid. Maybe I imagined it.
No, I didn’t imagine…
The wolf is real. Long and lean, its fur whiter than any snow, its glow a hard blue, like it will never die. The beast’s silver eyes glimmer, and its lips curl to reveal sharp teeth. Even this far away, I smell its fur: wet dog and pine needles.
The beast stands there, on the other end of the dell, staring at me.
I keep my focus on the wolf as I whisper, “Jadon.”
He smiles and says, “Kai?” Seeing my expression, his face hardens. “What? What’s wrong?”
I hold a finger to my mouth, “Shh,” and nod to the forest at his back.
Right at the perimeter of that poplar forest, the white wolf stands, an odd brightness amid those columns of slender gray trees. The last pulses from the nightstar shine slices of pearly light to illuminate him.
21
“Wake the girls and ready the horses while I cover,” Jadon says, standing and drawing his sword. “We need to leave before the rest of the pack comes.”
“We’re not fighting?” I ask.
“Not unless we have to.”
Both Olivia and Philia grouse about being awakened, until they see the white wolf on the other side of the meadow. Both shriek.
The wolf snarls and lopes in our direction.
Hearing that snarl makes our three horses jerk their reins from my hold and bolt, racing east across the meadow and back toward Maford. Pissed, I slap my hand against my thigh, then shout, “Go!” pulling Olivia and Philia to their feet and leading them into the woods.
We all agreed before nightfall to sleep in our clothes for this very reason—to be ready for the worst. Fortunately, both girls kept their shoes on, too. “Go!” I shout again. There’s no time to grab our satchels—I can practically feel the wolf’s breath on my back as we tear through the dark undergrowth. Burs and thistles scrape against our skin while branches tangle in our hair.
Jadon brings up the rear, his hand ready on his weapon.
The land tilts as we run uphill through the woods, and the dark, slippery path of the poplars’ glossy triangular leaves keep us tripping and twisting our ankles. I’m running hard and fast, and sweat bubbles in my hair and across my top lip.
“Faster!” I yell to the girls. My leg muscles cramp after hopping and scooting over gnarled this and ducking and crawling beneath spiraled that.
“We have to go faster!” I urge.
Olivia’s and Philia’s faces show strain and exhaustion. With a glance backward, I read the same on Jadon’s face. But we can’t stop—this wolf certainly hasn’t.
We quicken our pace, slipping now on wet granite and slick roots. But I learn to anticipate these obstacles, and now I no longer slip, not anymore, and I call “jump” and “duck” and “scoot” to the young women behind me. It works until the forest turns from the orderly rows of poplars to tangled willows that soar impossibly high over us.
The foliage is so thick, I can’t see where the path ends until we’re nearly on top of it. We skid to a stop and nearly tumble into the bank of a stream. I throw my hands out to catch Olivia and Philia before they fall into the dazzling silver-blue water that cuts through the earth before us. I try to catch my breath from the running, and I heave lungfuls of thick, swampy air.
