Page 22
“It hasn’t yet.”
“Few minutes.”
She pulled the collar back another inch. Her jaw set, tight and final — she’d reached a conclusion she wasn’t happy with.
“You are bleeding and still intimidating.” She met his gaze. “That feels genuinely unfair.”
His wolf found this assessment humorous. It immediately and emphatically approved of the intimidating aspect.
From the far end of the path came a sound that Pike, at the last possible moment, converted into a cough.
Drayce didn’t look at him.
“The claws close cleanly. It’s tearing wounds that take longer.”
“I am absolutely filing that in the folder labeled Things I Did Not Expect to Know This Week.” She hadn’t stepped back. Still reading the wound. “How many fingers?”
“I wasn’t hit in the head.”
“Good. How many creatures?”
“Three.”
“Gone?”
“Yes.”
“More coming?”
“Not tonight.”
She held his gaze with the focused look she used to determine whether someone was telling the truth. He let her run it. He’d been telling the truth.
Her hands dropped. She stepped back. The sharp managing-this-situation look eased.
Her eyes went to the ward line. “The fire this morning. In the square.”
“Yes.”
“They came to this section because of that.”
“They came to the section that thinned when your magic discharged. The pattern’s been consistent.”
She didn’t flinch. He watched her work through it. She didn’t panic. She didn’t argue with the data. She simply set it aside for later use.
“How long has this been happening?”
“Since the boardwalk.”
“You knew.”
“I suspected. Now I have three confirmations.”
The phosphorescent light of the standing stones shifted between them, cold and steady, as the ward settled back toward baseline.
“The older woman.” She looked up the path. “She’s all right?”
“She’s fine.”
