“Ilume, he’s lying!” I exclaimed. Holy mother of pearl! She really believed the junk coming out of his mouth?
Rex snatched up his chance. Putting on a mask of seriousness, he nodded. “Unharmed and set free, but Lume, you need to listen to me from now on and stop being such a solitary.” He tossed an arm at me. “And he has to help us find the trail should we lose it again.”
“Ilume, don’t.” I tried again, wishing I could pound Rex into the ground. He was conniving and manipulative. No wonder he’d kept his place as alpha.
Ilume wasn’t listening. Her eyes roamed the fence, estimating the height and examining the barbed wire. With a heavy sigh, she moved in, slipping one foot into the fence.
Ah, hell.
Spinning on his heel, Rex started across the field.
The skittering below my feet went crazy. The sound was louder than fans at a rock concert. I could feel the vibrations now as creatures moved out of the ground, tons of legs thrumming the earth. Too many legs for a mammal. As I watched Ilume slip down after Rex and glanced again at the blue spray paint on the sign . . . I remembered.
“Ilume!” I yelled, startling everyone as I violated the quiet rule. The birds, silent until now, cried out and fled their trees. Ilume shot me this incredulous look as I pressed against the fence. “Don’t! Wait, I know what’s in there! Both of you have to come back here now!”
“Jared, lower your voice,” she whispered hastily. “What are you talking—”
A high-pitched scream interrupted her. The earth lurched, and a chunk of leaves and grass popped up like a lid. Two sharp, fuzzy fangs swallowed Rex’s leg, sucking him into the ground.
Now everyone dumped the quiet rule.
Hackles raised, the wolves snarled and barked, charging the gates. In the blink of an eye their paws had returned to hands. Several glowing bodies swept up and over the fence with ease. Just before hitting the ground, the glow grew brighter, and they became wolves once more, racing into the fight.
A fight they won’t win, I thought. There were now only eleven wolves against twenty-five of them.
Twenty-five enormous trapdoor spiders.
The second the wolves hit the ground, doors came up left and right. Spiders the size of Clydesdales emerged, colliding with the claws and jaws of the hunters.
I pressed against the fence, an onlooker—something I had never been before. I hated it. I hated standing here, being a side stool while the wolves battled, taking all the wrong approaches. With the right weapons, I could be what I was trained to be. I could help. I could show them how to fight Otherworlders like these.
Or maybe I couldn’t. Howls of pain surrounded me as fangs collided with flesh and fur. I’d seen some vicious things in my time, but nothing compared to the horror I felt as I watched Althea’s sister, a red-coated wolf named Daisy, pawing at the ground. An arachnid had her by the leg. Daisy expelled a terrible noise before being dragged into the earth. Althea didn’t hear her sister as the lid slammed closed—she was too busy gnawing the head off another hungry monster.
On the ground behind Althea lay a silver wolf, someone who I had come to know as Lenny, a quiet wolf at the mansion, a kid who liked comic books and avoided the crowd. Now he was covered in blood, purple venom oozing from the wound in his leg. His pursuer wrapped its fangs around his limp body. Poisoned, Lenny couldn’t fight as the spider took him into its tunnel.
I searched left and right for Ilume, but there were three black wolves on the field, making it impossible to tell which was her. One bit its enemy in the leg, another guarded a fallen wolf and the last ran around a hole, leading its follower on a goose chase.
I couldn’t stand it anymore.
Sprinting back into the trees, I found a broken pine branch. Using my foot I snapped it in half, making a sharp edge. I ran like a track star back to the fence, throwing myself over in record time. The barbed wire caught the back of my neck, but I ignored the pain.
The ground quivered where Rex had disappeared. Suddenly dirt and debris exploded into the air, and a golden wolf emerged. Rex, bitten and bloodied, went barreling into a spider that almost took Lola. In one chomp he ripped into the spider’s abdomen. The creature let out an ear-splintering cry, stumbling into its hole.
My damp sneakers pounded the ground. I heard the monster below my feet, getting ready to leap out. I slid to a stop just in time as a small trapper jumped up in front of me. I jammed my stick into its face, gouging out a middle eye. It let out that same nasty shriek, yellow liquid streaming its face. It disappeared.
“Yeah! Take that, sucker!” I yelled, charging in to take the next one.
I had shish-kabobed three other spiders before one of the black wolves crossed my path. Seeing the green eyes against that coal-colored coat, I knew it was her, Ilume. My stomach plummeted. A pair of brown trappers circled her, waiting for her to falter.
I raced in her direction. Two Otherworlders like those are worse than one, because they’ll fight each other over food. As I closed in, Ilume leapt out of the way just as the pair fanged each other, front legs raised high.
“Ilume!” I called, seeing that she was about to bolt off. “Wait! Stop!”
She slowed to a halt. As her head jerked in my direction, another trap opened up behind her.
It all happened so fast after that. The spider swooped down, jamming its fangs into her hip. Ilume squealed, kicking out and thrashing in the air. It stepped back, about to slip into its tunnel when I speared it through the top of the head. The spider collapsed. I grabbed Ilume by the fur, jerking her up just before the lid slammed shut.
“Ilume,” I gasped, sinking down beside her on the ground.
She trembled in the leaves. She couldn’t hold her shape. Glowing faintly, her fur coat disappeared. She curled in a naked ball, arms clasping her chest. The color drained from her face as she saw the blood and venom mixing on her thighs, trickling over her legs and lower back.
A howl filled the clearing. This must’ve meant retreat, for the last of the wolves bolted toward the fence, following Rex.
I estimated our position. It was too much of a risk to run back across the clearing. We were the farthest from the fence, and to follow the pack would be like trying to race across a field of explosives. No way would we make it back alive.
We’ll have to take the forest. Behind Ilume, I stared at the curling tree limbs and curtains of moss in the forest. Trunks grew closer together, blocking out the sun. Brambles crept over the dirt, consuming nearby bushes. No trappers among that kind of terrain, but what else could be hiding in there?
“Jared.” Ilume’s voice quivered, catching my attention. She looked up at me, and for the first time I saw no trace of the alpha in her eyes. The warrior in her, the wolf, seemed to have been replaced by this terrified, injured girl.
That nagging feeling returned, stronger this time. My mind glazed over, only one thought clear: get her out, get her help. The venom of a large trapdoor spider is designed to kill large prey like wolves. These weren’t your average rodent, bird-catching spiders—they ate everything from foxes to young bears.
Bitten, poisoned, Illume would die.
“Hang in there,” I whispered. Ripping Aspen’s sweater off, I draped it over her cold body. “I’m going to get you help, okay? But you can’t go to sleep. Do not fall asleep, understand?”
“The wolves. My wolves. Rex led them into an ambush.” Her eyes welled up with tears.
“I know. I told you he was an ass.” Tucking the jacket around her, I picked her up and started toward the woods. The last of the trappers didn’t notice us. They stabbed at the fence, at the wolves that’d made it to the other side.
“You’ll listen to me next time, I hope. You should’ve just let the idiot go on his own,” I said. “God, did you really think he would’ve let me go? Serio
usly, Ilume, why did you believe him?”
“I didn’t,” she retorted. “But I have a way with Rex. If he makes me a promise, I make sure that something comes out of it.”
Her head dropped to my shoulder. In seconds, my shirt was damp. Her tears were on a steady flow, soaking the material. “Daisy . . . Daisy and Lenny and Adonis,” she whispered. “I saw all of them get sucked underground. Rex was the only one to come back up. None of the others came. Oh, God.” Her voice cracked, and she collapsed in sobs.
“Hey.” Without thinking, I brushed a few loose hairs behind her ear. It stressed me to see her like this. I’d never been able to stand girls crying, but with her it was worse for some reason.
Weird.
She sniffled, glancing sideways. She made a funny face as I withdrew my hand. “Why are you doing this?” she muttered.
“Why am I doing what?”
“Saving me. You came to help us. You could’ve run, fled far into the woods before Rex called off the fight. I know you have a good sense of direction. You could be on your way home by now.”
Oh, trust me: I could’ve been on my way home the other night. “Look, if I had truly wanted to escape, I’d have done it already.”
“You would’ve, huh?”
“What do you think we learn in Finders school? Proper English? How to scramble your brain with trig problems? That’s junior high stuff, babe.” I trampled over a thorny vine, noticing the way I shifted Ilume, not letting it touch her.
Ilume noticed, too. “Babe,” she repeated, but didn’t speak after that.
The temperature began to warm up. I ducked under moss-infested branches and avoided bizarre, curly ferns which, if you came too close, would reach out like fingers and try to touch you. Herds of penny-sized lizards darted around the underbrush, changing colors to match the foliage. Every now and again, faint whispers came in the wind, but I could not decipher them.
This was definitely not a normal area. Clearly PIU had deposited more than just trapdoor spiders here; but if it were more Otherworlders they would’ve listed them on the warning signs, unless these Otherworlders had found this place on their own.
I looked down at Ilume. Her eyes had closed. “Hey!” I gave her a hard shake.
She gasped. “Ugh, you jerk!” She slapped my chest, making me wince. “I’m not dying, okay? I’m a werewolf! We have a high tolerance for the venom of abnormals.”
“You mean Otherworlders.”
“Same thing.”
“Then how come Lenny dropped dead so fast?”
It made me nauseous just thinking about the silver wolf and the venom oozing out of his fur. He’d lain still, unwilling to fight for his life.
Her eyes filled up again. “Lenny was a half-blood. He’s a werewolf, yes, but his dad was a mortal. In fact, it’s common with a lot of wolves to have a single human parent. I didn’t though. Neither did Rex or Althea. I’ll be okay.”
Here we go again with people talking about things that shouldn’t be happening. Lenny was a hybrid? Didn’t hybrids die in their childhood stages?
“Is that what Hunters High taught you?” Aspen’s words echoed in my mind.
I shook my head, shoving the thoughts away. On the plus side, it was good to know that Ilume wouldn’t just drop dead, but I couldn’t quite sigh in relief. She’d still been poisoned, and it would take effect at some point. “How much time do you think we have?”
“Well,” she sighed. “Forty-eight hours maybe. My hips are already numb and so is my one thigh. I can’t feel anything in either one.”
She flexed her feet, but I could feel her one leg tremble below my fingers.
I felt all tense and hot again. The stress propelled me to move quicker. Forty-eight hours wasn’t a lot of time, and I had no idea where we were going or where the end of the fence was. “Do you smell anything? We need to catch the pack’s scent. Even just a hint so we know where to go.”
But as Ilume whiffed the air, I knew there was nothing. My senses were Finder-fit, maybe better than hers. There were only the woods. “No,” she whispered, grim. “I don’t even smell the Jackal trail anymore.”
I groaned, frustrated as we slid down into a dark hollow. “Yeah. Me neither.”
Chapter Twenty-one—Ilume
I slipped in and out of consciousness. I couldn’t remember the last time I needed a nap. My energy levels were at rock bottom, but whenever I dozed Jared would shake me to the point of whiplash, or he’d emit some high-pitched noise that sent me jumping. His behavior was turning me into—wolves forgive me—a real bitch, but I kept my temper below boiling.
Probably because the other half of me was so glad he was there.
I had never known monsters of that size to live among the forest, but the woods are ever-changing. I’d stopped swimming in the lake a few months back, because a school of kelpies had moved in. Monsters weren’t uncommon here; I shouldn’t have been so surprised.
It was embarrassing how the tears kept coming, but I couldn’t stop them. My heart broke into tinier pieces every time I replayed today’s battle in my head. Half our group had been taken. Sure, we’d had losses before thanks to the Jackals but never in full-blown battles. The images would haunt me forever now.
I couldn’t get over the way Jared had leapt into battle. What I’d seen of him in the alleyway was nothing compared to today. I remembered the feral look on his face when he rammed the spear into that spider’s skull. When he’d grabbed me and pulled me out of the spider’s den, he’d looked so worried.
As we moved through the woods, I kept sneaking glances at him. In place of fear, determination had taken over. His jaw was tight, chin high. He held me close, like saving me was the most important thing in the world.
Why is he doing this? I was tempted to ask again but feared his answer. It was bad enough, the feelings I had for someone the pack called my pet. I thought I’d popped all the bubbly emotions, but apparently not. Every time I looked at him, my heart threw in an extra beat. The tips of his hair had gone flat, dampened by the sweat on his neck. He kept tossing his bangs out of his face, blue eyes scanning our surroundings. A few times he stopped, picking up on an off noise, and I didn’t miss how his grip on me would tighten.
I liked him. I liked him way more than I should have.
You can’t do this to yourself. My chest went from fluttery to throbbing. When I put aside daydreams and looked at reality, I knew these feelings would land me in another Thagen disaster if not worse. At least Thagen had been wolf, someone who ran a successful pack. Jared was human, and not an average one. I wondered which was worse: loving a human teenage boy, or loving a human teenage boy who was trained to hunt my kind.
Sunset came sooner than I expected. We started losing light, and while I could see in the dark I knew Jared couldn’t. Despite his protests, I convinced him to pull over for the evening. We were near the edge of a steep drop off, where trees angled down the hill. I could see the stars as they appeared, giving me an idea that we were somewhere to the east.
I had lost the feeling in my left leg. Earlier, I could feel my foot, but now I could barely curl a toe. When Jared asked me how I felt, I told him fine. He nodded, looking relieved. Guilt ate at me for lying.
Lying against a pale-barked tree trunk, I felt heat below my back. This part of the woods was not like the rest of it. Electricity was in the air, and I felt the eyes of many abnormals as they scurried about the forest floor, curious. Something drew them here. Something I couldn’t quite identify. The temperature had cooled significantly, and if it grew much colder Jared would need to take us in a different direction. I knew Lady Winter, Queen Mab, owned area nearby, and her frosted eyes didn’t look kindly upon trespassers.
Mist settled in the drop off. It started to drizzle late into the night. I had put Jared’s jacket on, wearing it li
ke a dress, but it was thin. Cotton sucked in moisture like a sponge, and I froze my tail off. At one point Jared disappeared to take a bathroom break, and while he was gone I tried to transition. It was so painful I gave up half way and reverted. The venom was moving quicker than I thought.
“Hey, hey!” Jared came back to find me collapsed and shaking on the ground. He bent down, lifting me up. “What the hell are you—oh . . . oh, crap, you’re freezing.”
“I-I can’t transition,” I admitted through chattering teeth. “I do-don’t know what’s wrong.”
“The venom’s paralyzing your muscles.” He caught on fast. Pulling me against his chest, he settled down by the tree, curling his arms around me. “We’re running out of time. You’ve got to let me keep moving.”
“N-no. You and I both need rest, and it just gets d-darker the further we go. You can’t see in this.”
I shook my head, wrapping my arms around his waist. Oh, this was a bad idea. Such a bad idea. It had been a long time since a boy had held me. Despite his chilly hands, the rest of him was warm. He was like a smooth rock that had been bathing in the sun. I shouldn’t have been so content.
But if you’re going to die, I thought, you deserve to be content. I wasn’t afraid of death. Half my hunters had faced a worse end today. My father had faced it when he met a nightling near the border. I was lucky: my end would be quiet, painless.
We weren’t going to make it back in time. I knew that much. We had spent hours moving down the creek, waiting to come across the Jackals’ scent again. Now we were even further out. I didn’t have forty-eight hours left; I had closer to six, twelve if I was lucky. Why waste that time worrying? Rex—the selfish, ignorant excuse for a wolf who I wish would’ve stayed in that spider’s tunnel—would pick another mate. My mother would weep, but she was strong. She had survived my father’s passing; she would survive without me.
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