So why have these militant assholes really come?
I have a strong suspicion that it has nothing to do with Sabine’s state of undress, and everything to do with how the Grand Cleric who oversees the Red Church resents the Valveres’ influence in Astagnon.
“Arrest this whore at once!” the Patron commands, signaling to his brethren. “She will be made to answer for spreading such depravity! Pull her down from that horse.”
The four heavyset priests behind him stalk toward Myst and Sabine.
My thoughts come slamming to a halt.
Did he just call Sabine a whore?
It isn’t until Sabine nudges me again with her toe that I realize I’m growling at them like my animal namesake.
“Wolf,” she says low, worried. “What do I do?”
My fists ball at my sides. Arrows are too good for these miscreant priests. I don’t want to give them the gift of a clean shot to the heart. I want to bloody my knuckles on their jaws. I want to tread my boots through puddles of their blood. “Nothing, my lady. You’re mine to protect, and I’m going to fucking protect you.”
Chapter 11
Sabine
Wolf drops his rucksack and lurches forward, but two of the priests draw their cutlasses. Cries ring out through the crowd. Doors slam as more onlookers come out to witness the incident. The other two priests stride intently toward Myst. One grips the base of her mane to keep her from bolting—not that we could, anyway, with the street so clogged with villagers. It all happens in the blink of an eye, coordinated to perfection.
The fourth priest grabs my thigh just above the knee, trying to pull me down off her.
Myst, go! I cry.
She rears partway up, shaking off the man’s grip on her mane. He falls back on his ass, to my delight. Myst dances backward a few steps. Her muscles bunch, but there’s nowhere to go. She stomps her hooves, frustrated.
Too many people!
“You’ll answer to the Immortals!” another priest cries. He snatches a fistful of my long hair, tugging me painfully forward to try to pull me off Myst.
I cry out, and Wolf pivots sharply toward me.
Wolf takes one look at the man with his hands all over my naked body, and any shred of mercy he might have spared for the priests evaporates. The cords on his neck strain. He limbers up his sore shoulder.
“Get your goddamn hands off her,” he threatens, “Or I’ll rip them off your arms.”
Unintimidated, the priest doesn’t stop trying to drag me from Myst’s back. His hand moves from my thigh to the side of my ass, fingers digging in to get a better grip as he pulls me halfway down.
“Let me go!” I shout, kicking at his face while I cling to Myst’s mane with a death grip. The crowd goes wild. I’m on full display to them, with my hair all askance, as I struggle against my attacker. No matter how I struggle, he’s much stronger than me.
Before I know it, my feet hit the ground. The priest grabs me from behind, wrapping one hand roughly around my breasts in an attempt to hide my nudity, but really just looks like he’s groping me.
Oh, this stupid man. He’s just made a huge mistake.
Wolf lunges for him like a beast, moving faster than I thought possible. Holy hell. Is he godkissed for speed, too? But the two priests with drawn cutlasses were anticipating this. The closest one slashes in Wolf’s direction. Wolf dodges the cutlass with ease, countering with an explosive uppercut that sends the man crashing to the ground. The second priest attacks, but Wolf sidesteps the cutlass’s blow and delivers a swift punch to the man’s jaw.
Besides the unarmed Patron, only the priest who captured me remains on his feet. Wolf stalks up behind my attacker and locks a heavy hand on his shoulder.
He leans in to hiss in the man’s ear, “You don’t deserve to touch her.”
He lands a devastating jab to the man’s kidney area. As the air rushes out of my attacker’s lungs, his meaty hands slip off me, and I’m able to scramble back to Myst. Wolf lays into the man with another strike to the kidney, sending him stumbling to all fours.
Wolf picks the broken man up, only to slam his knee into the man’s middle and send him back to hands and knees again.
Wolf pauses to toss his sweaty hair up. For a second, our eyes lock. He’s breathing hard, but doesn’t have a single new scratch on him. He touches my arm with tender concern.
“Lady Sabine. Are you—”
The two armed priests cut off his question with a simultaneous attack from both sides. I suck in a gasp as Wolf dodges the cutlass blades slicing through the air. One of them nicks his left arm as he’s bending forward, but he doesn’t so much as flinch as a line of red appears on his shirt.
He snatches his bow from his rucksack and uses it as a staff to block the cutlass swings. With a weapon in his hands, he instantly has the advantage. As he parries their strikes with astonishing speed, I realize that he’s listening to their bodies shifting—that’s how he can move so fast.
One of the priests darts into the crowd and comes back with a length of chain from the blacksmith shop, which he tries to circle around Myst’s neck.
Hell no.
I might not know how to fight, and I don’t have a sword, but that doesn’t mean I’m weaponless.
Rear up, girl! I tell her.
Myst rises to her hind legs, clipping the man in the chin with her hoof, sending him crashing to the road, unconscious.
Good girl! I cheer her on.
But my moment of excitement vanishes as the Patron sidles up beside me in the chaos, locking his hand around my arm.
“Lady Sabine Darrow. You’re wanted by the Grand Cleric of the Red Church.”
I’m so distracted by the fight that his words barely register. The Grand Cleric? The head of all ten orders? What does he care about some indecency in a tiny village?
Wolf spies the Patron dragging me away from Myst, and hurls himself against the militant priests. Explosive crashes between cutlass and bow erupt from the melee. I’ve never witnessed anything as viciously beautiful as Wolf fighting. He’s got a stark grace to him, a masculine intensity. It doesn’t take him long to unarm one of the men and kick his cutlass into the crowd. He slams the end of his bow over the man’s head to knock him on his ass. The other priest stumbles back, doubled over from a blow to his ribcage.
Wolf takes advantage of the break in the fight to wrap one hand in Myst’s mane and grab his rucksack with the other. He swings up on her back with astonishing grace. He extends his other hand down to me.
“Sabine, take my hand!”
I strain away from the Patron until I manage to clasp hands with Wolf. He digs his heels into Myst’s sides, and the momentum as she bolts forward is strong enough to wrench me out of the Patron’s hold. Wolf settles me onto Myst in front of him. He wraps a strong arm around my waist.
Now, Myst, I say. As fast as you can!
She doesn’t need any more encouragement. The crowd finally parts, giving us an exit. As she charges down the village’s main thoroughfare, Wolf clasps me tightly, my back flush against his heaving chest.
We leave the acolytes of Immortal Woudix in the dust—but I fear it won’t be the last we see of them.
Myst doesn’t transition out of a gallop until we’re miles from Charmont, back in the thick of Mag Na Tir Forest. As she slows to a walk, my thighs burn, my ribcage aches, and my anger crackles over my skin, but I’m able to stash the worst of it away as I focus on calming my racing heartbeat to match her unhurried pace.