His lips rose over his teeth, and he lunged.

I dodged his strike, circled him as he pivoted. My hands remained outstretched. Conciliatory. “You have a choice. The Chasseurs will kill you, yes, but so will Morgane. After you’ve served her purpose. After you’ve helped her murder innocent children.”

Mid-charge, Blaise stopped abruptly. He cocked his head, ears twitching.

So Morgane hadn’t told him the intricacies of her plan.

“When Lou dies, all of the king’s children will die with her.” I didn’t mention my own death. That would only fortify the werewolves’ resolve to join Morgane. “Dozens of them, most of whom don’t even know their father. Should they pay for his sins?”

Shifting his weight, he glanced behind as if uneasy.

“No one else has to die.” I hardly dared breathe as I stepped toward him. “Join us. Help us. Together, we can defeat Morgane and restore order—”

Hackles rising, ears flattening, he snapped a warning to stay back. Revulsion twisted my stomach as his bones began to crack. As his joints popped and shifted just enough for him to stand on two legs. Smoky fur still covered his misshapen body. His hands and feet remained elongated, his back hunched. Grotesque. His face contracted in on itself until his mouth could form words.

“Restore order?” he snarled, the words guttural. “You said the Chasseurs will”—he struggled to move his jaw, grimacing in pain—“kill us. How will you defeat them?” Neck straining, he rescinded his teeth farther. “Can you kill—your own brothers? Your own”—another grimace—“father?”

“I’ll convince him. I’ll convince them all. We can show them another way.”

“Too much—hate in their hearts. They’ll refuse. What—then?”

I stared at him, thinking quickly.

“As I thought.” His teeth snapped again. He started to shift back. “You would watch us—bleed—either way. A huntsman—through and through.”

Then he lunged.

Though I dove aside, his teeth still caught my arm and buried deep. Tearing muscle. Shredding tendon. I wrenched away with a cry, dizzy with pain, with anger. Gold flickered wildly in my mind’s eye. It blinded me, disorienting, as voices hissed, seek us seek us seek us.

I almost reached for them.

Instinct raged at me to attack, to protect, to tear this wolf’s head off by any means necessary. Even magic.

But—no. I couldn’t.

When everything is life and death, the stakes are higher, Lou said, chiding me in my memories. The more we gain, the more we lose.

I wouldn’t.

Blaise readied to spring once more. Gritting my teeth, I leapt straight into the air and caught the branch overhead. My arm screamed in pain, as did my hand. I ignored both, swinging back as he rose to snap at my heels—and kicked him hard in the chest. He yelped and fell to the ground. I dropped beside him, drawing a dagger from my bandolier and stabbing it through his paw into the ground below. His yelps turned to shrieks. The other wolves’ answering howls were murderous.

Arm dangling uselessly, I tore at my coat with my good hand. I needed to bind the wound. To stem the bleeding. The mud on my skin wouldn’t mask the scent of fresh blood. The others would soon smell my injuries. They’d find me within moments. But my hand refused to cooperate, shaking with pain and fear and adrenaline.

Too late, I realized Blaise’s screams had transformed.

Human now, naked, he wrenched the knife from his hand and snarled, “What was his name?”

Frozen Heart

Lou

My footsteps wore a path in the ground as I paced. I hated this feeling—this helplessness. Reid was in there, fleeing for his life, and there was nothing I could do to help him. The three wolves Blaise had left to guard us—one of them Blaise’s own son, Terrance—made sure of that. Judging by their size, Terrance’s companions were equally young. Each of them stared at the tree line, giving us their backs, and whined softly. Their rigid shoulders and pinned ears said what they no longer could.

They wanted to join the hunt.

I wanted to skin them alive and wear their fur like a mantle.

“We have to do something,” I muttered to Coco, glaring at Terrance’s dark back. Though he and the others were smaller than the rest, I had no doubt their teeth were still sharp. “How will we know if he reaches Gévaudan? What if Blaise kills him anyway?”

I felt Coco’s gaze, but I didn’t look away from the wolves, longing to embed my knife in their rib cages. Restless energy hummed beneath my skin. “We don’t have a choice,” she murmured. “We just have to wait.”

“There’s always a choice. For example, we could choose to slit these little imps’ throats and be on our way.”

“Can they understand us?” Ansel whispered anxiously from beside Beau. “You know”—he dropped his voice further—“in their wolf form?”

“I don’t give a shit.”

Coco snorted, and I glanced at her. She smiled without humor. Her eyes were as drawn as mine, her skin paler than usual. It seemed I wasn’t the only one worried about Reid. The thought warmed me unexpectedly. “Trust him, Lou. He can do this.”

“I know,” I snapped, said warmth freezing as I whirled to face her. “If anyone can out-beast the Beast of Gévaudan, it’s Reid. But what if something goes wrong? What if they ambush him? Wolves hunt as a pack. It’s highly unlikely they’ll attack unless they have him outnumbered, and the idiot spurns magic—”

“He’s armed to the teeth with knives,” Beau reminded me.

“He was a Chasseur, Lou.” Coco’s voice gentled, so unbearably patient that I wanted to scream. “He knows how to hunt, which means he also knows how to hide. He’ll cover his tracks.”

Ansel nodded in agreement.

But Ansel—bless him—was a child, and neither he nor Coco knew what the hell they were talking about.

“Reid isn’t the type to hide.” I resumed pacing, cursing bitterly at the thick mud coating my boots. Water sloshed up my legs. “And even if he was, this entire godforsaken place is knee-deep in mud—”

Beau chuckled. “Better than snow—”

“Says who?” His eyes narrowed at my tone, and I scoffed, kicking at the water angrily. “Stop looking at me like that. They’re equally shitty, okay? The only real advantage in the middle of winter would be ice, but of course the dogs live in a goddamn swamp.”

Howls erupted in the distance—eager now, tainted with unmistakable purpose—and our guards stood, panting with feverish excitement. Terrance licked his lips in anticipation. Horror twisted my chest like a vise. “They’ve found him.”

“We don’t know that,” Coco said quickly. “Don’t do anything stupid—”

Reid’s cry rent the night.

“Lou.” Eyes wide, Ansel swiped for my wrist. “Lou, he doesn’t want you to—”

I slammed my palm into the ground.

Ice shot from my fingertips across the swamp floor, the very ground crackling with hoarfrost. I urged it onward, faster, faster, even as tendrils of bone-deep cold latched around my heart. My pulse slowed. My breathing faltered. I didn’t care. I stabbed my fingers deeper into the spongy soil, urging the ice as far as the pattern would take it. Farther still. The gold cord around my body pulsed—attacking my mind, my body, my very soul with deep and boundless cold—but I didn’t release it.

Vaguely, I heard Coco shouting behind me, heard Beau cursing, but I couldn’t distinguish individual sounds. Black edged my vision, and the wolves in front of me faded to three snarling shadows. The world tilted. The ground rushed up to meet me. Still I held on. I would freeze the entire sea to ice—the entire world—before I let go. Because Reid needed help. Reid needed . . .

Frozen ground. He needed frozen ground. Ice. It would . . . it would give him . . . something. Advantage. It would give him . . . an advantage. Advantage against . . .

But delicious numbness crept through my body, stealing my thoughts, and I couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember his name. Couldn’t remember my own. I blinked once, twice, and everything went black.

Pain cracked across my cheek, and I jerked awake with a start.

“Holy hell.” Coco dragged me to my feet before slipping on something and plummeting back to the ground. We landed in an angry heap. Swearing viciously, she rolled me off her. I felt . . . odd. “You’re lucky you aren’t dead. I don’t know how you did it. You should be dead.” She struggled upward once more. “What the hell were you thinking?”

I rubbed my face, wincing slightly at the sharp scent of magic. It burned my nose, brought tears to my eyes. I hadn’t smelled it this concentrated since the temple at Modraniht. “What do you mean?”