Page 64 of Wolf's Return
Lance released Anne, rising to his full height. “You think to threaten me with a sword, little she-wolf? Me?” He slapped his blade against Kathryn’s.
Kathryn parried and jabbed the blade in his direction again, forcing him to take a step back from Anne.
“Imadeyou, you ungrateful wench. You will kneel at my feet.” He pinned them each with a stare. “All of you.”
“Like hell we will,” muttered Erin.
“Sod off,” said Bek, lifting her chin. “Over my dead body.”
“So be it.” Lance lunged.
The ring of steel against steel echoed as Kathryn blocked Lance’s strike. Angry growls, the ripping of fabric and the popping of bones filled the hall as Erin and Bek shifted.
Two wolves, one blonde and the other dark brown with green streaks, faced the chevalier, snapping and snarling at him. As women, they were extraordinary. As wolves, they were fierce. Kathryn with her sword was no less ferocious. She swung her blade again, but Lance fought her off, knocking her sword from her hand. It skittered across the floor beyond her reach. She abandoned it, and shifted into her wolf, gloriously red and angry.
Kathryn snarled and lunged. Lance leaped out of her path and she skidded across the floor, sending meadowsweet rushes in all directions. Bek and Erin were not far behind her, forcing Lance to dodge teeth and claws.
“Wretchedwomen.”
Kathryn, the most experienced of the three, latched onto Lance’s sword arm. He lashed out with his boot, catching her on the flank. She yelped, and he shook her off, but not before Bek leaped at his back, almost knocking him to the floor. Lance threw his elbow back and connected with her jaw. Her teeth tore into his tunic, exposing his skin to her sharp canines. She drew blood. Lance roared, throwing her away from him. Erin worried at his side, dodging his sword.
The she-wolves were not letting up. Lance had underestimated them and the training they had received from their mates. But he had yet to call his wolf forth. And if he did?
Constance retreated from the struggle. She must do something, but she was no use to them in this fight. Unless… She had a few spells, ones her mother had taught her. She searched the table for something sharp. Platters, goblets, her grimoire—no knives.
In the meadowsweet rushes by the stairs to the kitchen, Kathryn’s sword gleamed.
The chevalier’s gaze snapped to Erin, and he sniffed the air. A malicious grin spread across his lips. “You are with pup.”
Oh, no.Dread curdled in Constance’s stomach and she raced for the sword, snatching it up. Lance lunged for Erin. Without taking her focus from the fight, Constance sliced the blade across her palm, a spell on the tip of her tongue.
Noise filled the hall. The villagers, Old Tumas in the forefront, his pitchfork brandished like a weapon, poured through the doorway. They had come to their aid, and with them Seigneur Gaharet’s men. One look at Anne, prostrate on the floor, and rage flickered across Tumas’ lined face. Fixated on Erin, Lance turned too late, and Tumas plunged his pitchfork into Lance’s side, the tines sliding between the links of his hauberk.
But Lance did not go down. He roared, wrenched the pitchfork out and cast it aside. With a mighty swing of his sword, he sliced his attacker’s head off. Tumas dropped, his head rolling across the floor.
Constance gasped, and stumbled.Tumas.A wail so heart-wrenching split the air. Anne.
Lance slumped to his knees as more men entered the hall, their weapons at the ready. Constance sagged against the wall, her palm stinging and sticky from her blood. Help was at hand. They would prevail. Lance slumped to his knees, wrapping his hand around his blade. The chevalier sliced his palm.
No.He cannot get away. He cannot live to haunt them still. “Stop him! He’s going to—”
A hand banded about her waist and pulled her backward through the doorway and into the stairwell.
The sword, knocked from her grasp, clattered to the floor and a hand clamped over her mouth. “Oh, no. No spells for you, little witch.”
Constance struggled and kicked, but he was too strong.
“But I have one for you.”
He began to chant, and as blackness closed in, as he dragged her away from the hall, she glimpsed lank dark hair with streaks of gray, then nothing.
* * * *
Constance stirred and blinked open her eyes. She squinted, her head pounding.Where…? Why am I in the forest? Why… Am I in someone’s arms? D’Artagnon.Had he returned? She shook her head and winced. No. That did not feel right. Her memory danced in and out of focus. Snatches of three wolves—one blonde, one red and one with green streaks. A chevalier, angry, blood dripping from his hand. Villagers storming into the keep with pitchforks.
Lance. She remembered.
But who…? Why…?
