Page 68 of The Princesses of Ruin
“What is it?”
He rubs one of the rabbits on the neck, getting the skin pliant. “Asmoranthia.”
“You’re going to poison it?” I ask, feeling indignance flare in my chest.
He doesn’t look away from his task. “You saw the tracks. We would not survive an encounter with that beast, let alone two or three of them.”
Of course, it makes sense, but it just… “Feels wrong.”
“I don’t care how it feels to you, Captain Alejandra. This is the way we’re going to do it.”
My chest tightens and heat floods my face. Is this because I won’t let any relationship blossom between us? Is he being rude to spite me?
He injects the first rabbit carefully, his lithe hand moving in practiced motions. I reevaluate what just happened. He used my title and my surname. He told me he didn’t care how it—the method of hunting the beast—felt to me. Perhaps it was a snipe, but he’s being pragmatic.
And I’m overreacting.
This man has me feeling like a hot-headed teen, all lust and fury.
He sets the needle into a secured panel in his pack. “Be careful not to touch any of it. Even a small amount is devastating to us.”
“What does it do?”
I know it’s a poison, but beyond that, I’m in the dark.
“When ingested, it will cause serious hemorrhaging of the stomach and intestines in moments. Within five minutes, the subject will lose control of their motor functions and enter a catatonic state. Death usually follows not long after.”
My palms get sweaty at just the thought of accidentally pricking myself on the needle. “When injected?”
He looks at me gravely. “Acute subdural hematoma.”
“What…is that?”
“A very swift, unstoppable death.”
I swallow and rub my hands on my leathers.
He rolls over his crossed legs and stands. “We need to find a place to lie in wait.”
He wants to hunt itnow.
Fair enough.
I gain my feet. “There’s a good location not far from here where I laid snares. The wolves likely hunt here.”
“We’ll spill the good one’s blood, and cover the tainted one to hide the scent,” he says.
I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t think the wolf will wonder where the free meal came from?”
He cocks his head. “Blood will draw it in. If it doesn’t take the bait, you have a blunderbuss, do you not?”
“I do, but I don’t know if it’ll kill the beast. My slugs are powerful enough to pierce bear hide and fat, but this wolf will be muscular, and dense, more so than a bear.”
“If the gun fails, I have sleep grenades,” he says, tapping the satchel hanging off his belt.
It’s crazy, and it’s certainly not the way my father would’ve wanted me to hunt, but it’s going to work.
I grin. “Let’s hunt a wolf.”
