Page 10 of Hunted By Wolves and Shadow
I slapped him.
It happened so fast, my hand stung with righteous anger. “Watch your tongue.”
“Me? I can't believe this. You’re a gemstone witch. This can’t be happening." Wolf turned away, muttering and rubbing his face with one hand where I hit him.
Shimmering sunbeams, I hit him!
I’d seen him wielding a heavy ax like it was nothing, let him intimidate me back to the forest’s edge, and then I went and provoked him by slapping him. What was I doing?
Wolf withdrew, watching me like I might leap over and chant a curse at him. I was so sick of people accusing Grandma of being a witch, let alone when they did it to me. He was annoyingly silentand impervious to my trying to burn holes in his head with my gaze, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I don’t need to listen to this,” I shouted. “I don’t care how bad the Mist is. I’ve had enough of this. Enough of you!”
“Emi, stop.”
“No. I’m going to find my grandma.” The drum of my furious heartbeat drowned out any fear, and I picked up my skirts to stride into the forest.
“Stop.”
I paid Wolf’s snarled command no heed.Shut me out and call me names and now you want to talk?I think not. I didn’t stop when he yelled again, or when a far off growl set my hair on end.
I didn’t stop when Mist clouded my vision either, wrapping its clammy arms around me, but I did come to an abrupt stop a heartbeat later at a large pile of overturned dirt. The mound of fresh brown soil stretched between two alder trunks, ivy ripped up messily by what looked like claw marks beside one long edge. Even in the low light under shrouding Mist, it was impossible to mistake the shape of a grave.
Chapter 5
Wolf
Emi skidded to a halt at the grave, oblivious to the sounds of massive paws thudding closer. My hearing was far better, but my shouted warning went unheeded. Why was I even bothering?
She was a sun-forsaken witch, for cloud’s sake! If one of the other beasts of Aglonbriar took on this new problem for me, I’d be grateful. One less witch in Anterra could only be a good thing.
Yesterday, I’d let a pretty face and the need to save her distract me, but I should have known what she was. No regular human could walk through Mist that thick without turning. I knew that better than anyone.
Emi. The Emerald Witch.
Curse my clouded judgment, I was an idiot. She was a gemstone witch like her granny dearest. What were the odds she was just as wicked? I didn’t want to take that bet. Had she actually seemed sweet? Maybe it was part of her magic. That would explain how I’d been so blinded until her sister’s name raised my suspicion.
Who cared that she looked like a picture and had eyes the color of a dew-damp fern in the morning? That deep red hair that shone with life in firelight was only a distraction from her true devastation.
She’d lulled me into sympathizing with her through stories that were probably all lies. And now that she’d seen Ruby's grave, I was about to see the might of her magic.
I braced myself for it.
Part of me thought I would welcome the escape of death. I was so tired.
Her hand shook as she pointed to the disturbed dirt. “What is that?”
“It’s exactly what you think it is,” I growled.
Her face crumpled, and a piece of me squeezed painfully in response before I stuffed the feeling down deep. I really was a clouded idiot.
All this time, I’d fought the monster. I’d twisted myself in knots to hold back the wolf’s nature, doing everything I could to not become a killer. That luxury was gone. The three witches had seen to that with their little prophecy.
To shuffle off these bonds, the witch must die.
And in her death the power will apply
To they whose hands shall shed the witch’s blood,
