Page 113 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

I realised now that Nordred was something much more than the role he’d fulfilled in Grania; something I’d always known, just not recognised. He rubbed his hands together, a blue light flickering openly between them, and then he pressed his palm to my chest.

“Breathe, lass,” Nordred said, staring into my eyes, his voice containing the weight of a sledgehammer as it smashed the stone wall that was resting on my chest. “She can’t have you yet, if ever. Breathe now and live.”

“Is Darcy alright?” Del had appeared from somewhere and he stared at me with eyes wide. It was then I sucked in a breath. My lungs fought hard, it felt, to fully inflate, but then they did, like nothing had ever happened.

“She will be, lad,” Weyland said with a deadly determination. “She will be.”

“You haven’t had an attack for some time,” Nordred said, peering up at me, watching me breathe with the eyes of a hawk, then he glanced around him. “Too much going on here. The world cries out from its pain, but you can’t do much to help by drowning in it.”

There was a wisdom in his words, I knew that, but I couldn’t hear it right now. I was breathing fine again, but, perhaps due to the violence of the attack or because it hadn’t happened for some time, my vision was still blurry. Because over Nordred’s shoulder I saw a dark figure of a woman wearing a wolf mask, her fangs glinting in the lamp light. Pepin, I assured myself. But beside her? Just a hazy mass of strawberry blonde hair and a soft, willowy figure, one I blinked furiously to see clearer.

But when my vision cleared, all I saw was Pepin looking concerned, her mask lying down on the table now, and all of my mates clustered around me.

“What happened?” Dane’s voice was sharp with his alpha bark as he demanded an answer. “What did you do to Darcy?”

“I healed her,” Nordred said, “just like I used to. I thought we were done with this, that when she–”

“Sounds like an explanation is in order,” Weyland said, shooting him a dark look.

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