Page 46 of The Wolf Queen

Bryson.

His eyes glowed with an unearthly golden light as he appeared before my mate, sword raised up, right before the blows fell. Dane hacked into one Reaver while Bryson did the same with the next. But how had he managed to get there that fast? I didn’t know or care, coming up behind the beasts and hacking them in two, seconds later, before turning to meet the next.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dane snapped at me, stepping forward to meet the next Reaver. “This isn’t what we planned.”

“And you getting your head torn off isn’t part of the plan either,” I shot back between gritted teeth, lopping off arms and stabbing into throats. The blade seemed to like it, drinking their blood, sinking into their bodies like a knife might through butter.

“Battle fever,” Bryson ground out.

“What?”

“That’s what you do, isn’t it? Let your head go mad with battle fever and fight as a pack?”

I wanted to correct his assumptions about Strelans, but now was neither the time nor place. Dane shot me a wild, searching look, right before he dealt with another blow from his opponent. Could I do this? Would I do it? We’d tapped into that when we took the garrison, but there, the outcome had been almost guaranteed. Here, it was different. The garrison inmates could never have reached the sort of fixation on their purpose which the Reavers, powered by a fanatical energy, could achieve. Perhaps the Reavers needed to be matched by an equal and opposite force.

I took a breath in, no longer attacking, simply parrying away any swipes that came my way, so that I might take stock. And when I did it all came in. The sounds of sword against flesh, the growls of the Reavers, their terrible roars and howls, along with the shouts and snarls of the Maidens and those of my men. The humans weren’t to be outdone, singing ragged prayers to Hrist of the Bow, praising her name in the same way I had done the Morrigan.

Which seemed to summon her forth.

Are you ready, little queen?she asked.Are you going to stop playing at being a soldier and truly become one?

Get out of my head, I snapped.

You summoned me. You prayed to me. You promised me a delicious meal and I mean to collect, but my ravens aren’t choosy about whose eyes they peck out. Your men’s or my boy’s beasts.Her darkly maternal tone in reference to Callum made my gorge rise.Each side prays to me in any given battle, thinking I’ll intervene at the last minute in their favour. But what’s in it for me?she asked.What will you give me, little queen, for your brave fellows to prevail?

I took the chance to look around me, quick little darting glances. Axe had joined the battle and was in the half-wolf form, mowing down Reavers with his axe. Weyland was fighting side by side with Gael, each protecting the other’s back. My grandfather was fighting with surprising speed and ferocity for a man his age—but for how long? Higgins and his band were singing raucous battle hymns, wading into the fight with little care. And Selene and the Maidens were moving in their part-shifted bodies, with all the acrobatic grace of a human and a wolf combined. I wasn’t willing to let go of a single one of them, not even my grandfather’s knights. They’d followed him into a battle which none of them would have joined without his urging, and they shouldn’t be punished for that.

Me,I replied, a sob catching in my throat.That’s what you want, isn’t it? Callum is not your natural vessel, but I am. Take me, if that’s what it takes to win this fight. Take me.

Done.

Her reply was swift and true and for a moment I thought nothing would happen. My mind went very still and quiet, as if she had left me behind and gone back on her word.

Then I felt it.

If the sword burned with a blue fire, it was nothing compared to what flared to life in me. My muzzle fell open, and it felt like every single strand of hair stood on end as pain raged through me. Agony pulsed red and hot like the blood in my veins and then this.

I thought I knew what battle fever was, but I had no idea. The state of feeling one with the blade was nothing compared to this. It pulsed inside me, all of the darkness I kept locked down, and then surged out. The Reavers were no threat, less than nothing. The need to obliterate every single one of them surpassed all other thoughts, and the shouts going up around the battlefield told me everyone felt the same. Knights in armour shoved off their helms as that latent Strelan blood of theirs came to life, introducing them to the other side of their souls. We were wolves and we would hunt these fucking bastards until every single one of them was dead.

Cutting, slicing, stabbing, tearing limbs from sockets and then roaring with the joy of conquest. Reaver faces were slashed open, going from drooling beasts to bloody corpses. Guts spilling on the cobblestones and then being ground under foot. Arms lopped off and legs too, leaving flailing, hopeless Reavers on the ground, flapping like fish, until a sword was stabbed into their spines and they fell motionless against the stones. We fought and we fought until there was nothing left to fight, turning to each other then, instincts honed, blood up, ready to keep on fighting.

Until I grabbed on the reins and hauled everyone back.

“She is the one prophesied to come.” Higgins’ voice was little more than a guttural growl, because he had become two-souled as well. His half-wolf form was big with black fur running across his body. “She is the light in the darkness!” He grabbed my hand and held it up, forcing the flaming sword to point to the sky.

But I didn’t get a chance to see how the humans took this display, because more howls alerted us to the fact we hadn’t fought the entire attack force, just the vanguard.

“No,” Weyland said, stepping forward. “No, no.”

“We didn’t know what we would be facing,” Dane reasoned. “So there was always a degree of uncertainty.”

“We could fall back to the caves,” Gael said. “Try and evacuate the town through them.”

“No.”

I shot them all down with barely a whisper, pulling my hand free of Higgins’ grip. My feet started moving before I could even formulate a plan, the battle fever that raged inside me responding to the evidence of another foe, and I rushed towards it.

Trees whipped past and the breeze was cool on my face, combing soft fingers through the fur that still rippled up and down my arms. I moved, the wolf moved, as one, rushing towards whatever enemy lurked beyond, not away. Running away from Snowmere had been necessary, a large part of me knew that, but I couldn’t help but feel it had been some sort of admission of defeat. I’d been whisked away from my father’s keep half-dead from a beating. I’d been forced to slip out through the cave complex with what was left of Snowmere. I had run and kept on running away. Until now. I saw the first Reaver further down the road and it paused, sniffing the air when it saw me. But just like before, more came, many, many more. More than we’d be able to fight even if we were fresh to the battlefield. As that thought hit me hard, I heard the Morrigan’s chuckle.

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