“Is... was that a... dragon?” Noah asked, his voice strangled.
“Not a dragon,” I whispered as Alek’s description came back to me. “Wyvern.”
We were rigid with shock, not one of us remotely prepared to deal with the threat looming above us. Beside me, Kingston started to strip.
“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered, terrified of moving and drawing any attention in our direction. If that beast saw us, we were dead.
“I’m getting us the fuck out of here. None of us are going to be able to fight that thing. Our only defense is to get away from it.”
“Agreed,” Noah said, wrapping his palms around my biceps and holding me to him. He knew me so well. If given the chance, I would’ve run to Kingston and tried to stop him from shifting. “Dove, the speed that wyvern was flying at has already put it out of range, but it could return. Now is our chance to find the right path. Let him do this.”
I sighed, frustrated but resigned.
Fully naked, standing in the snow, Kingston gave me a wink. “Look at that, not even a little shrinkage.”
I couldn’t stop my laugh. “Of course not.”
“I’ll shift, catch the scent of the village, and lead us there. Do me a favor?”
Lifting my brows in an expression that clearly said continue, I waited for him to ask his question. Honestly, I think he just wanted me to stare at his dick a little longer.
“Bring my clothes?”
“Of course—” My assurance was cut off as soon as my gaze swept across the ground. “Uh... Kingston. Where’d you put them?”
“What do you mean? You just watched me take them off.” His brows veed down in confusion. “What the fuck? They were right here.”
A soft, childlike giggle caught on the wind in the distance. “What the devil...” Noah’s eyes narrowed. “Sprites.”
“You can see them?”
“Only just. They’ve taken your clothes, Kingston. It’s likely what happened to ours as well. It seems you gave them quite a show.”
Kingston smirked. “Fuck yeah, I did. It’s a good thing I don’t mind being naked. Novasgard is going to write stories about the handsome wolf shifter who waltzed into town and put all their men to shame.”
I bit my cheek. It took everything in me not to remind him that Alek more than had him beat in that department, but I couldn’t bear to take the wind out of his sails. He was just so damn proud of himself. The cocky ass.
“If you’re going to shift, then bloody do it. Sunday might not mind looking at your cock, but it’s not my favorite sight in the world.”
“Jealous?”
“Not remotely. I don’t need any extra hardware to get the job done.”
“You’re missing the point.” Kingston scowled as he looked down at himself. “Don’t listen to him, Jake. You’re perfect.”
Before I could tell him to stop talking to his dick and get on with it, Kingston shifted.
An explosion of pine needles and snow accompanied his transformation, a shadow once again streaking across the sky. I was prepared to stop, drop, and roll for cover, but it didn’t take more than half a second for my brain to catch up. It wasn’t the wyvern. The shadow was much too small for that. Just a bird. An enormous bird.
“Ravens,” Noah whispered. “Of course.”
Kingston dropped his nose to the snow, then raised his snout into the air. His ears pricked forward, his posture going tense before he let out a howl. Then he began stalking in the opposite direction of where we’d been headed.
He didn’t make it far, twelve feet at most, before a figure dropped from the trees.
My breath left me in a gasp. This guy washuge. And scary. Like... find me in a dark alley and violently murder me scary. His hair was black as night and wild about his face. A scar bisected one of his eyes, which was a milky white. The other was a piercing green that seemed to glow with fury. His upper lip curled back in a snarl.
“Trespassers.”