his opinion of that.
“Not a good idea,” Gregor said. “We ask the Wild to let us in, and if it wants, it does. Then we hope it lets us out again, where it wills and when it wills. With how twisted Rose has left it? It might never let us out, or it might drop us in the middle of a wall.”
James screamed this time. It was a raw, bloody noise, as though he’d screamed all the time the Sannock had been silent, but the voice that came out was the same.
“Wolves,” it said. “All appetite and anger and cur’s luck. The Wild bless you, for nothing else ever will. Sannock are old, wise, and we were loved once. Step aside.”
Gregor hesitated. It galled on a deep, uneasy level to even abide the Sannock, never mind obey them, but they’d gone this far. He stepped aside.
The Sannock in James padded over to the door on silent paws and reared up onto its back feet. It pressed its nose to the seal and whispered. Gregor tried to listen, but it stuck to his brain like tar. He recoiled before it could coat it all and took a step. The bird landed on his shoulder and clipped him around the ear with a wing as it caught its balance. He reached up and stroked its beak, the hard surface warm and pitted with ogham.
“I thought I disliked them before,” he said. “Now I see them in wolves, I realize I’d barely begun.”
The bird croaked quietly against his ear. Gregor didn’t understand it, but he decided to assume that it agreed with him.
There was a yell of surprise on the other side, and something smacked into the door hard enough to rattle it. Gregor traded a quick glance with Jack. They didn’t need to speak. Understanding passed silently between them.
If the Sannock had set a trap, they’d bleed to get the meat out of it.
The door rattled again, and blood seeped out from under it in a thick, dark trickle. Then it pulled open, and a familiar man, scar raw and pink across his forehead, staggered out.
Boyd—the soldier Gregor had left for dead in the snow, now on his feet and on their side. He had a heavy knife in one hand, the curved blade coated with blood, and a desperate look in wild, dry-looking eyes.
“There,” Boyd said as he dropped the knife and went down on his knees. “I did what you asked. Keep your side of the bargain. Now.”
He sounded desperate, and he smelled like death—not the agitating stink of the monsters, but just death.
“We made a deal, we keep a deal,” the Sannock said through James’s sobbing wails. Then it snapped gray, brittle-looking teeth at the man. “At the end. Once we’re done.”
Boyd tried to protest, but the Sannock ignored him. What would he do, after all? Who would he appeal to for justice against them? He sagged to the ground like a discarded toy, his hands slack and palm up on his knees.
The Sannock flowed around him, uncaring, into what had been meant to be a safe room.
A snarling prophet, the skinned corpse he’d pulled on tattered and dry, looked shocked as he saw the Sannock-ridden Pack halfway through his grab for Boyd. It was too late for him to stop. Jack pushed Gregor out of the way and flew at the prophet in a lean, bloody streak of muscle. He hit the prophet in the stomach and knocked him to the ground. They rolled back and forth as they snarled and snapped at each other and the Sannock went around or over them. The prophet tore at Jack with taloned hands, but the thick, gore-matted coat protected him, and the prophet’s wolf split like cheap leather as Jack ripped into him. Jack sank his teeth into the man’s throat and snarled as he shook his head.
“No!” Ailsa screamed in frustration as she shoved one of the fever-skinned humans away from her. Liquid that Gregor assumed was the prophets’ poison spilled onto the floor from the silver flask she held. Since he’d seen her last, she’d patched her shabbily tailored wolf hide with fresh skin, roughly tanned with piss and still fresh enough to stink. Reddish fur sprouted from the darkened skin in rough patches. Gregor didn’t know if Ewan deserved better or not, but he’d peel the skin of Ailsa’s back for Nick’s sake. “You can’t be here yet. We aren’t ready. Why won’t you just give up