From the woods, a booming roar answered her: “Kereny!”
Her heart leapt. Munro had already awakened!
“Ren?” Jacob frowned. “You didn’t kill the wolf?”
Her decision still confused her. “I stabbed him, but I didn’t behead him. He isn’t evil; just unbearable.” If Munro reached them before the newlings, she would beg him to fight.
“Good. I’m glad he lives.” Jacob straightened. “I’m going to give you to him on a silver platter.”
“What?”
FIFTEEN
“Kereny!” Munro had heard her battle cry and knew what that meant. She was about to die.
He increased his speed even more, following her trail through the steady pour of rain. Weakness lingered from her blade, and he blundered against trees, taking out anything in his path.
His beast was in a fury to rise, just as it had in that cave. Munro beat it back once more. Must think and reason!
Haphazard miles passed beneath his feet. But by using her shortcut, he’d been able to get out in front of some of the pack. He could save her. I still have time.
He’d just had that thought when a bout of vertigo hit him, as if he had a mortal illness. Regeneration must be affecting him.
He told himself that until he looked down. “Oh, bloody hell.” His hands and wrists wavered before returning to solid form. The fade had begun. Would he have hours or minutes?
For the first time in his existence, he was . . . dying. His beast, sensing its own end, thrashed for freedom.
Even if Munro reached Kereny before she fell in battle, he might not have enough time to get them back to the gateway. His Instinct screamed that he would fade in this past, never reaching his own time.
No, he refused to fade. Not now. Not when he’d found his mate at last, and she was more than he’d ever dreamed of.
Munro raced through the forest, outdistancing a number of newlings to reach the fairground clearing well ahead of them. He slowed at the sight of the gruesome battle scene. The mortals had taken out a surprising amount of Lykae. Headless corpses lay mangled in traps. Machine guns and grenades had dismembered more across the blood-soaked field. Bodies floated in that flaming trench.
He swore under his breath. These creatures possessed the Instinct, which made them Munro’s brothers.
Yet nothing mattered beyond Kereny.
He spotted her in the clearing with the other hunters. Blood streaked her gown and legs. Her hair was a wild tangle, her vivid eyes even wilder. With her weapons drawn, she made a fearsome sight.
But she was alive. As he sped toward her, she gave a signal to her hunters not to attack him, then marched forward to meet him. She sheathed her sword—but not her knife.
He stopped before her. Between breaths, he said, “You’re coming with me.”
“You know I won’t leave my people behind. Be reasonable.”
“Reasonable? All I do is bloody listen to reason! This is no’ reasonable.”
The groom limped over, in rough shape. To fight me? Munro might’ve laughed if less had been on the line.
“She’s yours,” the cub said. “Take her from here.”
He gained a notch in Munro’s estimation. “Done.” Munro advanced on her.
But she brandished that knife. “Your third dance with my blade will be your last.”
Jacob said, “Ren, I meant what I said. I want more for you. I release you from this marriage. Go with him and survive!”
She shook her head. “I pledged my life to this cause. And to you.”
He swallowed thickly, but said, “Wolf, take her. Just go.”
Eyes fierce, she told Munro. “I’ll fight you every inch. You’ll never have peace, will never get what you desire. You want me to look favorably upon your suit? Then incentivize me. Crush our enemies.”
More hunters gathered round. Munro ignored them. “There’s no time!” He was about to be erased out of existence, and none of this would ever have happened. “If I fade, I canna come back for you. And once I’m gone, you will die against these newlings. Then we’ll both be lost.” For all of his life, he’d depended on logic. Why abandon it now?
“What are you talking about?”
“Damn it, none of this matters!”
“You coldhearted bastard, it matters to me! You have the power to save my people and all those innocent villagers. Don’t leave them like this. Don’t make me hate you.”
His fists clenched. “I’ve never deserved your hatred.” He knew the past couldn’t be changed—but his mate could. If he ran with her, she would hear her people’s screams as the newlings massacred them. She would replay those screams forever, just as he replayed her last words when she’d died in his arms in Quondam: I hate you . . . I hate you . . .
He would easily risk his life to prevent that, but could he risk hers?
She placed her free hand on his chest, her palm a brand in the cool rain. “Fight the newlings. For me. For our future.”