Page 44 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

Seeing his distress, I found myself saying words I needed to acknowledge as well.

“Neither of us could anticipate what they would do, because neither of us is as sick as those two were. I think it's a point of pride that we couldn’t.”

He nodded then.

“Perhaps that’s the way of it. Now, you want to take Arden out? The beast’s been kicking down his stall, wanting to get to you.” As if to prove that point, I heard my horse whinny, then stomp his feet. “I’ve had some time to think while you’ve been sleeping. We can get you back into training, get you using your body. Start a routine and help you settle into it. Best thing for getting over…” He paused and then stared at me, eyes seeming awfully pale right now. “For dealing with trauma.”

Because that’s what I was now, a survivor of trauma. I’d vanquished my father and Linnea, left the damn country to stay away from them, but still… They’d thought they had the right to hurt me and that changes a person.

Other people, those who don’t have to bear the weight of an abuser’s actions, they live in a state of blissful ignorance. They’ve been spared from seeing the truly dark side of people and that gives them an unacknowledged gift to carry them through life. As Nordred showed me where my saddle was, as I stepped into Arden’s stall; as I got my horse ready to ride, as I led him out, I could not claim that blessed state of obliviousness and perhaps that’s what came into play next.

I was leading Arden out of the stables, Pep coming behind me with a horse I didn’t recognise, when the wargen princes approached the inn. Gael still had that perpetually closed off expression as he listened to his brothers, but when he turned and saw me it lessened in severity. The others were a different kettle of fish. Weyland took one long step towards me, then another, his eyes burning bright as Axe smirked, then nodded slowly. But it was Dane, with his mouth opening, a world of… stuff playing across his face, ready to be delivered, that had my hand on the saddle, hauling myself up on Arden’s back.

The horse was skittish because I was, our bond that great, and Dane instinctively put his hands up to placate us.

“Darcy…” he said, his voice rough and corded with so bloody much, but I shook my head.

“No.”

“Boys, you’ve got to give her time,” Pep said and that was exactly what I needed.

I heard their growls as I kicked Arden from a trot into a canter, letting him have his head as soon as I could feel his willingness.

“Darcy!” came Weyland’s shout as I took off. “Remember. We told you what would happen if you ran!”

But I could no more stand still than Arden could. We loped through the streets, people throwing themselves out of our way and for that I was sorry, but I couldn’t stop. It was like I couldn’t take a full breath, not until we burst out into the open land beyond the town, the rising hills of Strelae all around.

I reined Arden in for a moment, to look across the undulating landscape, the occasional scatterings of rock formations breaking up the greenery, growing more and more frequent the closer they got to the mountains in the distance.

“You know this won’t help, don’t you?” Pep said, as she caught up to me. “Talk to them. Tell them what you’re thinking. They’ll be willing to wait, but if you run—”

“No,” I replied, never feeling more definite than I did now. “Wait or don’t, that’s up to them, but me?” I scanned the landscape, so different to the flat moors I’d ridden across at home. I nodded to myself as I felt a strange rush of homecoming - something that made no sense whatsoever. “I’m done doing as I’m bade. I’ll talk when I’m ready and right now, I’m not.”

She let out a long breath and then nodded. “Alright then, I’ll race you to Kervein Tor. Then we can eat the last of Kelly’s tarts and maybe that will settle you.”

It wasn’t really a race,when she knew the way and I didn’t, but the speed with which we tore across the land, climbing, climbing to a great jutting outcrop of rock, made it feel that way. We left the horses to catch their breath and we walked along the spar of stone to come to sit on the point at the end, a panoramic view of Bayard below us.

“That’s Grania,” I said, pointing off into the distance, the vague shapes there somehow familiar.

“So it is,” she said, passing me a tart and watching me closely. “So, you miss it?”

I thought of the keep, my father, the bloody priests and then, with a small pang, Kris, then found myself shaking my head sharply.

“I don’t want to go there ever again.”

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