White Stag (PERMAFROST #1)

Chapter Twenty-One: The Witching Hour

We locked eyes. "I can do it," he said. "I'll hold them off. You need to find Soren and the Stag." The howling wind blew his voice away and stung like lashes on my face. Embers floated through the air and burned my skin. The pain could've been a pinprick for all I felt.

My heart beat wildly; I needed to get out of here, save Soren, save the Stag. Dread churned inside me as I reached for the power in the air; Soren's was gone. Worse, so was the Stag's.

Seppo twirled his staff, carving a path for me out of the bodies in my wake. "Janneke," he called, "be careful."

We shared once last glance and friendship and worry sparkled in his dark blue eyes. I knew my own eyes sent the same message to him. Whatever happened tonight, Seppo would always be my ally, my friend.

The goblins that hadn't been fatally injured were regrouping. Without another word I shot westward past the wounded horde and down the border of the Permafrost.

Beneath my feet the soil was pulsing with the power of the ancient land, the boundary between the worlds precariously hanging on a thread. Blood rushed in my ears as I expanded my sense to find Soren. He had to be on the boundary, that could be the only place Lydian would make him fight. That way the Stag would be forced there too.

Still, the thrumming rhythm of the Stag's hooves evaded me; they'd been inside my head ever since the dream of the Burnt Land where he showed me the seeds that burned in my pocket even now. I tried to feel it, his regal, beautiful air, the ancient wisdom that pulsed from him like lifeblood. But there was nothing in the wind; just like in the dream the creature was silent as it ran.

But the battle wasn't and I raced toward the sounds of breaking trees and animalistic shrieks, ignoring my burning, oxygen starved muscles. I was all too well aware the beating my body took in the past few days and the fact that the fire was stealing what little energy that remained.

When I saw them, I swore my heart stopped. Fear trickled down my spine like a stream; I froze, unable to do anything but watch. Both barely looked like men. Their bodies were hunched over, their hands and feet stretched out like the paws of a large animal, fangs glistened at their lips, and the sounds they uttered were anything but human. Spines protruded from their back and their bones stuck out at gross angles; their hair tumbling down like a waterfall of blood.

A flash of green and gold caught my eye as the Lydian-creature saw me in the trees, but before he could attack, the Soren-creature lunged at him, his jaws snapping at his rival's neck. All I could do was stand staring, paralyzed by fear. Every instinct told me to run and get away from these creatures as fast as possible. My body screamed as it took in the carnage and the creature that was Soren, rejecting it fiercely. He couldn't be that hideous, he couldn't be that cruel, with blood dripping from his nails and his teeth bared in a wicked snarl. But deep inside I knew this was his truest form. I'd come to terms with what he was long ago. Whatever state he was in now, somehow, I had to believe he wouldn't hurt me.

So I forced my frozen muscles to run toward the fighting goblins, my eyes open for the Stag as I did. Soren was trying to push Lydian out of the edge of the Permafrost, back into the human world, but Lydian swung at him and sent him soaring back into the trunk of a skeleton tree. With a sickening crack, the tree split open.

He raced forward to land another blow at the same time I crashed into him, sending him tumbling away from Soren's still body.

Lydian hissed and the sound sent shivers down my spine. We grappled in the dirt until he was over me. I spit in his face and drove my knee into his crotch, but all he did was extend his claws and reach for my heart.