Page 23 of Ravenous

Eyrun shruggedno, and they started running, following the witches’ trail to a field.

Ven scanned the tracks and found trampled ground, hoofprints, and manure. “Aren’t those Wiccae bold?” Her voice was low and incredulous. “They’re rustling cattle from the Lykae.”

“Stealing meat from wolves.” Eyrun whistled, and a residual snarl rumbled. “How do they think this is going to end for them?”

“Should we tell the pack?” Ven tapped her chin, playful and plotting. “Or steal the stolen cattle?”

Eyrun slung Rosewyn’s trophy leg over her shoulders and folded her arms around it. “We don’t need food. What about for fun? Just to tell the witches we know your secret. Wehaveyour secret.”

Ven’s grin was a promise. “I choose havoc. But where would we put the cows?”

“Let’s drive them to Umber. Create an interspecies incident.Happy Accession!” Eyrun crowed with a howl.

They exchanged conspiratorial smiles and ran, the night around them alive with possibility—and with something else, deeper and waiting, that made the air tighten at the edges.

Chapter 10Torben

“I should kill Inkletter for this,” Arctos growled when Torben entered his cavernous home. The words were thick with outrage and disbelief.

He’d found his cousin pacing in front of the hearth. Firelight raked over Arctos’s scars, throwing them into hard relief. The lord of shields clenched his hands so hard that blood beaded on his fists.

Torben instinctively scented the air upon entering. The vampire—that incense-reeked little parasite—was tucked somewhere nearby in one of the cave chambers that made up Arctos’s den. His home resembled Arctos himself: stone-hard, pared down to essentials, spare as a war forge.

Her steady breathing suggested the princess’s sleep was slow and deep, untouched by her machinations.

“You would be well within your right to kill him,” Torben said, just as outraged. “Sounds like the incubus got played by a conniver.”Bloodthieves and deceit, hand in hand eternally.

“And now I’mwedto one,” Arctos bit out. “One who fainted in the court and now sleeps in my godsdamned bed.” He crossed to a stone shelf and reached for the liquor service. He poured a measure of vodka—Umber-distilled, clear as bladesong—into a bermetal cup.

Torben almost warned him to conserve it—the shifters in Umber had predicted a lean season—but the set of Arctos’s hard jaw silenced him.

Torben’s own fists clenched, his Berserkerage primed. He could think ofno worse scenario for this man. Disfavored by his beloved queen in front of everyone? Wed to one of the ilk who’d annihilated nearly their entire family?

Decades ago, when young Arctos had staggered back to the court with news of a vampire attack, Torben’s parents had led the hunt for them. His father and mother had killed many before falling to the leeches.

Queen Yrsa herself had been the one to wipe out the rest of that gang. Another reason his cousin remained so loyal to her.

Arctos knocked the liquor back in one practiced motion, throat flexing, and set the cup down too hard. The room smelled of woodsmoke and vodka and the iron tang of plans gone wrong.

“Why are you not already blind drunk?” Torben said. His cousin’s behavior was puzzling.And I know him better than anyone.The two had been inseparable as children. Orphaned young, they’d run wild in the queendom, staying out of trouble because Yrsa favored her gods-sons.No longer.“You seem relatively…calm about your fate. Why are you not breaking things?”

“When Emilia wakes, I’ll breakher. That vampire will taste every hardship I’ve ever wished upon her kind.”

The vow grounded Torben. His Berserkerage ebbed from near eruption to something he could contain.

When Arctos offered the bottle of vodka, Torben shook his head. “None for me. As long as Dagny abstains, I gladly do the same.” His cherished mate was due in just weeks!

Dagny had been raised in an outpost on the border of the vampire Badlands, tasked with defending Ravinelun against strigoi and other grotesque creatures. Those lands were where vampires grew bat-like, the winged monsters of legend.

Though just twenty-five, his fierce female had earned ohalla even before Torben had. Yet she was also as warm as a summer glow. He often caught her murmuring to her rounded belly with utter love.

Despite Arctos’s turmoil and the events at court, Torben found his lips curled just to picture her.

His cousin studied him. “You and Dagny are forged perfectly. Stop trying to hide how wondrous matehood is for you. I can handle it.”

“And what about matehood for you? You’ve craved it more than anyone I know. Now that you are wed, you’ll be expected to give up the search for your mate. Though it’s an Accession.” Could Arctos’s fated one still stumble into hislife? Yes. But unlikely. Moving outside of one’s day-to-day sphere brought the best chances.

“An Accession may yet shift the stars.” Arctos’s voice dropped. “Once I show Emilia a bear’s life, her day walking will embolden her just enough to flee me. When she crosses the border into Craigdúr, those wolves will tear her apart. If not them, then the witches. So it’s only a matter of time, cousin, until I’m a widower.”