“For a moment I couldn’t believe my eyes,” the alpha said when Ashared stopped a few swords away. In his voice echoed the joy of someone who won an unexpected prize. “This mongrel running obediently behind the sleigh couldn’t be the same proud puppy who insisted that he would never serve anyone.” Lannahi couldn’t see his face but instinctively knew that Amaruk was smiling. “And yet my nose tells me it’s you. What happened, Ashared? Did you let yourself be leashed or did someone catch you?”
The brown wolf replied with a bark. Words appeared in Lannahi’s mind,Let her go.
Amaruk leaned over and pressed his nose to Lannahi’s tousled hair, breathing in her scent. “Don’t tell me the golden witch has charmed you?” He straightened up slowly.
Ashared remained silent, and Amaruk laughed out loud. “Fine then. We’ll have a chat another time. If you survive.” The alpha fell silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, there was a metallic note in his voice. “Show me your throat, Ashared. If you do, you and your witch queen will come out of this unscathed.”
Lannahi’s eyes widened. Before coming here, she had broadened her knowledge of shapeshifters—werewolves in particular—enough to know what it meant to expose sensitive body parts to the enemy. “Show your throat” meant the same as “bow to me.”
Ashared’s gaze dropped to her face. She knew from the expression in his eyes that he was thinking. He knew that if there was a fight, they would suffer greater losses than Amaruk, but why should he sacrifice his pride for her? She’d conquered a city built by the landshapers. She’d humiliated the woman he loved. She’d abandoned him and the rest of the guards in her foolish quest for pleasure. She understood that he feared Sarkal would plunge these lands into a bloody war, but if her father had decided to take revenge at all, he would have moved against the wild shapeshifters and not the landshapers…
But Ashared did not know that. He knew her father only from stories, most of which were bloody. He couldn’t be certain that Lizaar wouldn’t be accused of colluding with werewolves. He couldn’t risk—
Ashared’s gaze lifted to meet Amaruk’s. His eyes took on an indifferent expression, but Lannahi had seen it often enough that she could easily read what was behind it. It was just a bow, Ashared thought. Recently, he bowed to the enemy several times a day. What difference would it make if he did it again?
Lannahi couldn’t stand watching.
Taking advantage of the fact that Amaruk’s attention was directed at Ashared, she shook her head as much as the alpha’s surprise allowed.
“And what is this?” Amaruk asked with interest, tightening his grip on her jaw. “Don’t you want to be rescued, witch queen? Or you can’t stand the thought of your mongrel bowing to someone other than yourself?”
Lannahi met Ashared’s surprised gaze. Without thinking, she shook her head once more. Because of Amaruk’s grip, she could only make a tiny move, but she knew the brown wolf noticed it.
Seeing his disbelieving hesitation, she felt like screaming.
“Erril!” Blann’s cry suddenly rang out. “Watch out!”
Everyone looked up. It was a reflexive reaction. But before the wolves fully realized what was happening, some of the snow that Souhi had managed to knock off the branches with her sleigh crashed down on their heads, burying them in great mounds of snow. As the enchantress kept going, the white mass was falling from all sides, forcing the wolves to jump away from danger.
Amaruk started retreating, dragging Lannahi behind him. She tilted her head back and bit his hand with all her might.
Amaruk hissed, but when he tried to pull his hand away, Lannahi sank her teeth into it with even more determination. The man tugged harder and eventually was forced to loosen his grip on her arms and Lannahi broke free.
“Don’t move,” Lannahi said sharply, pulling the knife out of the pack on her hip.
Amaruk froze, regarding her with a furious look, but the rising growls she heard behind her didn’t let her enjoy it.
“Do you know the saying? An enchanter’s knife always hits its target,” she said.
“Don’t worry if you don’t,” Erril added from somewhere behind her. “We will be happy to demonstrate it.”
A sudden movement caught her eye and Lannahi tensed, but it was only Ashared who pawed forward to stand beside her. Because his attention was focused solely on Amaruk, she guessed that the other three guards were behind them, ensuring that no one else approached.
Amaruk clenched his jaw, but after a moment, his gaze moved to the scene behind her back. Trusting that Ashared would warn her if anything happened, Lannahi turned around to assess the situation herself.
Erril and Esau stood by the sleigh with their backs to each other, and around them floated enough enchanted knives for every member of Amaruk’s pack. Lannahi knew that the chances of hitting all of them at once were slim, but the wolves stared at the levitating weapons as if hypnotized.
Souhi, who suspended the sleigh in the air just out of the wolves’ reach, asked in a conversational tone, “Should I head to their village?”
Seeing her friend in a relaxed position with two knives in her hand she casually rested against the side of the sleigh, Lannahi summoned the deepest reserves of willpower not to smile. “That would be rude,” she said. “Let’s ask our host first.”
Amaruk had an expression of grim amusement across his face. “You can bite, little witch,” he admitted. The hand she had bitten was clenched tightly and there was a purple bruise on it, but the man wasn’t looking at it when he spoke. “I would’ve invited you to my bed if it weren’t for the fact that the she-wolf who’s warms it would’ve torn your throat the moment you crossed the threshold of my bedroom.”
When a growl sounded from somewhere nearby, the corners of Amaruk’s mouth twitched. “I’m just teasing you, Ashkii,” he addressed the white she-wolf. When his gaze returned to Lannahi, his lips curved in a parody of a polite smile. “I hope you won’t be offended if I don’t invite you after all.”
Lannahi answered him with a cold look. “A little late for pleasantries, don’t you think?”
“No, little witch. We’ve never gone beyond pleasantries. I’m guessing you aren’t used to wolfish hospitality if you haven’t realized yet that this is what our greeting looks like.”
