He turned and met her gaze. “I will not lose another bond mate.”
Shit, he’s more like me than I realized…
Hunkering down, she wrapped her arms around his neck, breathing in the animal scent of him. He smelled like the forest and wild things. It was a good smell. Clean and bracing. “None of us can predict the future. I will do my damnedest to stay alive, and so will you. We can help each other, but no matter how hard we try, one of us might die.” She blinked back sudden tears. “It’s not the life I was born to, and I don’t like it very much, but it’s the way things are. I say we go out there together.”
His body stiffened under her touch. She stroked his coat from shoulders to haunches again and again. Finally, he said, “It would not be my first choice, but we can leave.”
“Do you know what kind of creature we face?”
When he didn’t answer, she sent out the finest spindle of Seeker magic. It came back almost immediately. She blew out a breath. “Only wargs. And not that many of them. We should be able to mow our way through them and be gone.”
“They are my blood. I would prefer not to kill them if there is another way.”
His answer stopped her dead. She thought about wargs—wolves turned by the dark and infused with their insidious magic. Like all creatures of the dark, they had lost their will. “You feel sorry for them?” She was incredulous. It had never occurred to her to feel anything but anger for men stupid enough to sell their souls to the dark gods.
“No, I still hold hope they will come to their senses.”
“Oh.”
Rune’s compassion for his kin filled her with embarrassment. Ever since that night in Bolivia, all she’d wanted to do was inflict pain on the ones who’d been irresponsible enough to invite disaster to Earth. The power of their chanting at multiple weak spots between the worlds had opened gateways for the dark.
“Well,” she said, “we can try to leave from here. It’s always harder traveling from underground, but if you help…”
He shook his head, still held in her arms. “No, you are right, human. This is a battle to the death. For each of their foot soldiers we vanquish, they have fewer to launch against us. Come. Let us do what we must and be gone from this place.”
“There are ten,” she told him, “feeding on the dead. There must have been fighting here recently. We have the element of surprise. I will pull fire from the earth. Do not get between me and my targets.”
“I will start with the ones on the right.” He growled. Hackles rose along his spine.
“Fine. I’ll start left. We’ll meet in the middle. I want to test out this Hunter magic you think I have.”
Using two hands, she opened the locking mechanism silently. Rune went first. When he gathered his rear legs under him and sprang out of the hole in the earth, she was on his heels, power blazing from her hands. Whatever she targeted fell before her. Aislinn blinked in amazement. Could it be that Hunter magic meant she never missed? Christ! Wish I knew more about this. It wasn’t that she couldn’t be overpowered, but her aim was always true. Once she sent magic after something, it couldn’t escape the death that flew from her hands. Son of a bitch, maybe I’m a Hunter after all.
Amidst yelps and howls, three impossibly large, gray wolves fell before her. Then two more. She didn’t have time to look Rune’s way. Snarling and snapping suggested he was well engaged. She pulled power to send it spiraling after another wolf when her target, apparently sensing his imminent doom, turned tail and ran. She could still kill it, but it didn’t feel fair somehow to nail an enemy in full retreat. Now who’s the bloody bleeding heart?
Her gaze sought Rune. Two wolves lay dead. He battled with a third, powerful jaws closed around its neck. When she looked closely, she saw the pain in his eyes. The last wolf turned and ran after the one she’d let go, tail tucked between its legs.
Once she jockeyed with her perception, she could hear Rune’s thoughts. He and the wolf beneath him were talking. Rune agreed to withhold the deathblow if the wolf would leave. He stepped back, gaze trained on his adversary. For a moment, it seemed as if the other wolf—coal black with shiny green eyes—would keep his end of the bargain. He even half turned in the direction the other two deserters had taken.
Out of nowhere, with a tremendous spring, he twisted his body in the air and landed atop Rune, burying his teeth in Rune’s neck. Aislinn loosed a battle cry and sent a killing blow straight to his head. The other wolf toppled into the dirt.
She ran to Rune and flung her arms around his neck. Harsh panting filled her ears. Warm liquid gushed under her hands. She realized the lying, cheating, sack-of-shit wolf who’d welched on the kindness Rune offered had punctured a major vessel. Ignoring an inner voice that reminded her she wasn’t a Healer, she closed both hands over the wound. A chant she’d never heard before rose from her throat. She imagined the damaged tissues beneath her hands and what would need to knit itself together so Rune didn’t lose any more blood.