Page 47 of In Her Own Rite

“Stop it.”

The voice is small, and I turn behind me to see a little girl. Em.

I know her immediately, even though she’s so much smaller than even when we met. She must be five or six at the oldest. She’s wearing blue pajamas with a yellow sun on the front.

“No,” I say, reaching out to her. I want to keep her out of this. But the wolf hears her voice, and he and the goddesses both turn to look at her.

“Emerson, baby, go upstairs,” the goddess says. But it’snotMóra, I realize, and the realization hits me like a gut punch.

It’s Em’s mother. Lena.

I’m in a memory.Em’s memory.

“But Mama—”

The wolf barks at her, the sound so harsh and loud that it startles even me, and I fall to my knees. I see a wave of fear hit Em, her eyes going wide. Her breathing gets erratic, tearing through her, and I know what’s next. I’ve seen this before, in kids—the way the wolf overtakes them, before they learn to control the shift. She gasps and falls forward, tumbling into her wolf form before me, her fur tan and white.

“Em. Em, it’s okay,” I say to her. “You’re safe, okay?” But she’s whimpering, scared, and I realize she doesn’t hear me. It’s like I’m not here.

“Janus, please, not in front of Emerson,” I hear behind me, and then I hear a scream and smell the scent of blood.

Agaayit, I think, looking at the pup before me. She’s so small. Smaller than she should be for her age. Too small to see this. She’s yipping, panicking, and I can feel her fear in the air.

“Make it stop,” I say, my voice weak. Not for me—for her.

“Are you ready for more?” asks Lena, and now she’s like the goddess again: floating over me, the slate wiped clean. The smell of blood disappears from the air, Emerson’s wolf form vanishing into mist. I turn around to see the gray wolf stalking me, prowling around the edge of the ring.

“No,” I say, but it’s too late. The scene snaps to something different: their family at dinner, Janus shouting at Lena in the kitchen, holding a knife while Emerson sobs under the dining room table, rocking back and forth, hands to her ears. The wolf is still stalking the ring, watching me as I take it in.

“Again,” the goddess says, and now Lena is crying on the couch, Janus looming over her in his wolf form. Emerson stands between them, facing her mother. She’s almost the girl she was when I met her: she must be eight, maybe nine. She’s holding a stuffed rabbit under one arm, stroking her mother’s hand.

“It’s okay, Mama,” she says, as her mother cries. “I can help you. You’re gonna be okay.”

Janus lifts his paw, claws bared, and I lunge.

“No!” I shout, trying to tackle him to the ground before he hurts them. But as I reach them, the scene vanishes into mist, and what comes through the vapor is the wolf that’s been prowling around the ring, watching me.

Now that I’ve seen the memories, I know it for sure. Janus, her father. He’s a little older, but it’s recognizably him, his body massive, just a little harsher and more angular than it was then. I move quickly, unstrapping my knife from my leg, and take a fighting stance.

I’ve always hated him. I hated him from the first goddamn moment I saw how Em reacts when someone raises a voice, or the way she jumps at a loud noise. But now, seeing what he did to Lena, seeing how young Em was for myself, I feel the anger coursing through me, pushing me, controlling me.

I want him dead.

He lunges first, fangs and teeth bared, and this time I don’t run out of the way. He’s so large and strong that he barrels into my body and slams me into the ground. I gasp, the breath crushed from my lungs, but I only have a second to act. He lifts a paw and slashes at my left arm, just as I manage to get the right one free and sink the knife into his side. As the blade meets his flesh, he yelps and stumbles back from me, retreating to the edge of the ring.

The air fills with the scent of blood, his and mine. It’s warm on my hands, and I feel it starting to soak through the fabric of my sweater. It hits me with confusion that this is so much more real than the memories I saw a moment ago. I bring a hand to my arm, then back up to my face.

The blood is real. This is all real.

“Is he really here?” I ask Lena, the goddess, whoever she is. Maybe both at once.

“He’s here.”

Janus prowls the edge of the ring again, growling, watching me.Agaayu, how will I protect Em from this? I need to kill him before he can find her. I think, drawing on my memories from my training. I need to shift. It’ll be easier to overtake him in my wolf form.

“You can’t save her, Kieran,” Lena says again, interrupting my thought. “What’s done is done.”

“It’s not over. I’ll kill him.” I start to walk around the ring now, too, watching him, unwilling to turn my back. I need to get my body armor off. I reach to take off my sweater without looking away from him.

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