Red and Her Wolf (Kingdom, #3)

“You’ve betrayed Miriam’s trust.” Ewan’s fist clenched, nails gouging his palms, leaving behind a hot wet smear.

“I think you mean, I betrayed yours. The Shunned paid me, Malvena paid me more. My allegiance lies with my family. This is only a matter of business.” Kermani shrugged. “No hard feelings.”

Something cold and chilling brushed against his back, when a pulsation blasted through him. Dark and twisted, like a lethal blade, cutting into his flesh. Variegated colored smoke curled around his ankles.

Ewan didn’t dare take his eyes off Kermani.

“Red,” he growled in a voice more wolf than man, “are ye alright?”

Kermani’s obsidian eyes narrowed to thin slits as he stared at a spot behind Ewan’s head.

Breathing heavy, dripping with sweat, Ewan chanced a quick peek. But he was unprepared for the sight that greeted him.

Blue and red smoke billowed from Red’s every pore, seeped from her nostrils, her mouth. Bled through her eyes, washing out the cobalt blue and turning them a deep indigo. She was looking dead at him, but not really. Her gaze saw beyond, into another reality. Blond tips of her hair danced like charmed snakes around her head as a wind he couldn’t feel encased her body.

“Red?” Ewan sniffed the ash laden air; there was the scent of brimstone and fire. It clung its sticky fingers to his nostrils, forcing him to breathe through his mouth. She reeked of death.

“What is she?” Kermani hissed, his voice cracking just slightly beneath the veneer of cool.

She wasn’t scared. She didn’t cower. Which meant Ewan didn’t have to wear the leash. He called his light, howling as his body stretched and contorted. Howling when muscles lengthened and claws ripped through his hands and feet.

When the white light died Kermani had a set of wicked looking daggers in each fist. “The Black will arrive any moment now,” he warned, circling to Ewan’s right.

Ewan snapped his fangs, pulling back his muzzle far enough to let the length of his canines show. The short man weaved in and out, his pants and shirt billowing like a silk curtain as he moved. Ewan kept him in his sights, never allowing Kermani too close to Red.

Then Kermani jumped, moving like a blur and drawing first blood as his blade carved a fine line through his ear. Ewan howled and twirled, but then Kermani was back. Over and over, taking a small slice out of him each time. A whirling dervish he could not see to defend himself against.

“YOU WOULD DARE!” Red’s voice thundered, cracking through the air with an inhuman strain.

Then she jumped, pouncing on Kermani like a predatory cat with the thick smoke undulating around her. The slight man fell to the ground, slashing and cutting. Red screamed.

Desperate to get Kermani and his knives away from Red, Ewan barreled into the smoke screen. His eyes were useless, the smoke around her had increased. She was in color so thick it was like trying to look through shadow.

There were grunts and groans. The sharp slap of skin striking skin. Closing his eyes, Ewan scented the situation. But the brimstone was everywhere, disorienting him. There were elbows and hands everywhere, knocking into his side. But he didn’t know who to bite, what to bite. Which one was Kermani?

Growling, panicked, Ewan bumped into a slight body kneeling upon another. He took several quick breaths, beneath the brimstone and barely perceptible, he smelled flowers.

Then there were screams, keening wails like the sound of a dying animal. What the bloody hell was happening? He needed to regain control of this situation, clamping onto the ankle beneath his paw (praying he hadn’t bitten through Red’s tender flesh), he dragged the body away from the cloying smoke.

Heart pounding, eyes wide, Ewan prepared himself for the worst. The second they escaped the dense shroud, he opened his eyes. And it was. It was brutal. Violent.

But not who he’d expected.

Kermani’s lips were flopping open and shut, his dark eyes clouded with pain as he gasped for breath from a body whose ribs were sunken and cracked. Blood soaked through his shirt, turning it a dark shade of crimson black.

“Ewan,” Red’s voice was reedy and strained. He glanced up, she was stumbling out of the smoke. The breeze was clearing the haze, when she dropped to her knees, fingers curling into the ground.

Ewan ran to her as he called his unbecoming. Half man, half wolf, as he latched onto her with paws and hefted her to her feet. Fire sizzled through his veins, touching her was like touching a live wire. Power so strong rolled off her in waves, made him clamp his teeth against the scream trapped in his throat.

Dizzy with sweat, he gulped in air, trying to keep her steady on her feet. She swayed, blinking huge owl eyes back at him. They were still purple.

“Ewan?” she whimpered. “I’m scared.”

“I got ye, Red. Stay with me. Listen to my voice.” He patted her cheek, trying to get her to focus. But her head kept lolling side to side.