“Two minutes,” I whispered. “Maybe three.”
“Got it,” Maiela said as she and Kysha notched arrows, pointing the readied bows into the forest.
My heart pounded in my chest and sweat prickled on the back of my neck. This was the part of fighting that I hated with a passion. The actual battle was never the problem.ThatI could do without thinking. After being alive for so long, my sword was an extension of my arm. I knew how to fight. To survive.
But the waiting.
Knowing something was going to happen, anticipating it, feeling the weight of what was to come—that was the worst. It was the burden of a Fortune Elf to know the future. It was often difficult; knowing what was to come. I understood more than most the cost of delaying an action or moving too early. I knew what the darkness looked like. I had Seen what was happening in Eleyta.
The waiting was where the darkness lay.
The waiting wreaked havoc on my mind, making me question my sanity. It was in the waiting where flashes of the past intermingled with the present, pushing and pulling and prodding at me as I struggled to remain in the here and now. In those waiting times, the ones where the things I Saw were about to happen, my mind always went to the worst possible outcome. What if this moment was the end? What if this quest ended before it had truly begun?
A branch cracked nearby.
Another howl.
I stiffened.
“Soon,” Xander hissed.
In the waiting, death played games. It taunted me, pulling at my mind and finding all the weak spots. And now, with this beautiful, brave princess standing beside me, there were many of those.
No longer was my own well-being of any consequence. It had moved aside, ceding its place to Ryllae. She was the most important thing in my life. Everything I did these days was about her. She was all I thought about, waking, and sleeping.
And now, in the waiting, I worried. What if we never got to fulfill this connection that lay between us? What if we ran out of time and we ended before we even began?
Twin snarls, both sounding incredibly vicious and deadly, came from either side. I glanced at Ryllae as she shuddered. She pressed her shoulder against me, and the tiniest of mewls slipped out of her.
“I’m scared,” she confessed quietly. “I’m worried my magic isn’t strong enough.”
My pinky finger slipped out, hooking hers as we stood next to each other. I pressed the lightest of kisses to the middle of her head, in between her horns. “I know, Princess. I believe in you.”
She might have been scared, but she was also brave. We needed to survive so I could show her how truly incredible she was. This Death Elf of mine thought she was broken, but I knew the truth. Like a piece of pottery that had been chipped and then put back together, Ryllae was remade. Formed in the forge of her father’s hatred and hardships so horrible most people couldn’t even imagine them, Ryllae was not weak. She might not have been a warrior, but she was strong in her own right.
I needed time to show her exactly what that meant. Time to show her how much she meant to me. To ensure she knew that no matter what she had been through, she was everything to me.
I needed time to show her I loved her.
Survival was not optional.
The wind blew. My nose twitched as the scent of wolf reached me. My heart pounded. A sinister howl. Leaves rustled. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
These creatures knew how to move silently in the woods. That they were making sounds was not for their benefit—it was all a tactic. A warning. Feeding on fear and danger, they wanted their prey to know their doom was imminent.
Like death, these wolves played games.
Another roar, this one so loud it sounded as though it was right above us. A crunch on the snow was followed by three more. A series of howls. Then I saw it.
A pair of glowing eyes broke through the shadowy darkness brought on by dusk. Like flickering flames, they shifted from a bright orange to a deep, burning red. A ferocious snarl ripped through the air.
The six of us shifted, so we were all facing the creature head-on.
Ryllae made a strangled, choked sound, and the other females swore. Xander was silent, but I knew he was assessing the situation.
All I could do was stare at the wolf. Wrongness permeated the air, and I shuddered. In all my years, in the thousands of auras I had seen, none had ever been like this.
Like all shifters, Xander’s aura was white. Aileana’s was a bright green, like grass after a fresh rain. Maiela’s aura was silver, and her wife’s aura was a deep purple. Ryllae’s aura was a dark crimson. Nonna’s was blue. Those were all normal. Natural.