Kingdom of Ash

Wolf and Fae went tumbling to the carpet, roaring and tearing.

Fenrys lunged for Cairn’s throat, his enormous body pinning the male, but Cairn got his feet between them and kicked.

Aelin lurched upright, willing strength to her legs as she came into a kneel beside the chest of drawers. Fenrys slammed into the side of the metal table, but was instantly moving, throwing his body against Cairn.

A low hiss sounded nearby, and Aelin dared look away to find the poker lying to her right.

She twisted her feet toward it. Placed the center of the chains binding her ankles atop the red-hot tip.

Slowly, the links in the center heated.

Wolf and Fae clashed in a tangle of claws and fists and teeth, then leaped apart.

Severing the blood oath—it would kill him.

These were his last breaths, his last heartbeats.

“I’ll peel the fur from your bones,” Cairn panted.

Fenrys breathed heavily, blood leaking from between his teeth as he placed one paw over the other, circling. His stare did not break from Cairn’s as they moved, assessing each other for the killing blow.

The links in the center of the chain began glowing.

Overhead, the sky lightened to gray.

Fenrys and Cairn circled again, step after step.

Wearing him out, wearing him down. Cairn knew the cost of severing the blood oath. Knew he had only to wait it out before Fenrys was dead.

Fenrys knew it, too.

He charged, teeth snapping for Cairn’s throat as his paws swiped for the male’s shins.

Aelin grabbed the poker, planted her heels, and drove the rod upward. It strained against the heated links in the chain, and she shoved and shoved her feet downward, her arms buckling.

Cairn and Fenrys rolled, and Aelin gritted her teeth, bellowing.

The chain between her legs snapped.

It was all she needed.

She scrambled to her feet, but halted. Fenrys, pinned by Cairn, met her gaze. Snarled in warning and command.

Run.

Cairn whipped his head toward her. Toward the chain hanging free between her ankles. “You—”

But Fenrys surged up, his jaws clamping around Cairn’s shoulder.

Cairn shouted, arching, grabbing for Fenrys’s back.

Fenrys met her stare again, ripping into Cairn’s shoulder even as the male shoved them into the edge of the table. Hammered Fenrys’s spine into the metal, hard enough that bone cracked.

Run.

Aelin did not hesitate. She sprinted for the tent flaps.

And into the morning beyond.

Half a mile to the center of the camp. To the tent.

The soldiers had responded as Rowan anticipated, and he’d killed them accordingly.

Birds of prey dove for him, attacking with wind and ice from above. He shattered their magic with a surge of his own, sending them scattering.

A cluster of warriors charged from behind a row of tents.

Some beheld him and ran back the way they’d come. All soldiers whom he’d trained. And some he hadn’t. Yet many stayed to fight.

Rowan ripped through their shields, ripped the air from their lungs. Some found his hatchet swinging for their necks.

Close. So close to that tent. He would signal Lorcan and Gavriel in a moment. When he was close enough to need the diversion for the way out.

Another onslaught of soldiers barreled for him, and Rowan angled his long knife. His power blasted away their fired arrows, then blasted away the archers.

Turning them all to bloodied splinters.