Wolf at the Door (Wolf Winter #3) - T.A. Moore Page 0,148

in the shuffle. Under them, blood smeared the man’s body in thick, clotted streaks that had dried into scabs on his thick hair. It didn’t quite hide the old blue-black rank marks that curled over his shoulders and circled thick thighs.

Jack took a shocked breath of cold air, and it cramped in his chest. His ribs squeezed in around the weight of recognition as though that might contain the pain. It was Gregor who managed to put it into words.

“It’s Da,” he said. “What the fuck has she done to the Old Man?”

As if he’d heard them, the Old Man snarled and scraped at the thick, pale leather collar that dug into his throat. His nails tore open old sores and dug new ones into the blotched, irritated skin. Rose yanked on the lead again and then winced. She reached under her coat and pressed her hand to her stomach.

“Look at that,” she crooned as she pulled her coat open. Her stomach hung, bruised and stretched until it was ready to tear, in a heavy fold over her hipbones. She rubbed it with her hand as though she were a real mother instead of an old monster who’d slit her own grandson open. Then she dug her finger and thumb down into the loose skin to pinch at whatever was in there and make it squirm. “The baby wants to meet his da.”

The Old Man snarled at her. It didn’t sound like him. The sound was too deep, too… big to come from him. It felt more like something else was behind him and snarled through his mouth.

Lachlan scrambled to his feet. His torso was raw, and great swatches of skin had peeled off to reveal raw meat and muscle underneath. He scraped snow from the nape of his neck and spat at the Old Man.

“We should kill him now,” he said. “He’s just slowing us down.”

Jack tensed and glanced behind him. They had left the Sannock behind, shadows in the snow. It wouldn’t take them long to catch up, but it might be too long for Da.

“I wanted you to choose this,” Rose said tiredly. Then she kicked the Old Man in the face with a booted foot, hard enough to snap his head back. Jack heard Gregor’s low growl. He reached out and grabbed his shoulder to hold him in place. “But you are still a stubborn, stupid bastard, so we’ll do it the hard way.”

She wrapped the lead around her hand. The knots in it dug into her flesh, and she hauled Da to his feet. He choked on the collar, and it was the dog who snarled—a quiet, angry sound in the back of his throat. Of them all, it was the one who’d spent time on Rose’s leash. Jack growled back at it.

“Wait,” he said.

“Since when do I obey you?” Gregor growled, although for once, the anger in his voice wasn’t for Jack.

The Sannock reached the hill and stepped out of the storm, their hair frosted into elflocks and sharp, unsettling smiles on their mouths. It seemed strange to hear the snow crunch under their feet. The horned Sannock bent his head, and daggers of ice dripped from its antlers like a crown.

“We’re too late,” it said. “Fenrir cannot be put back to sleep.”

“That’s why we don’t let her wake him,” Jack said.

The Sannock’s chuckle was a mean squeeze of humor. “Once it’s done, it can’t be undone. A throat slit can’t be sealed back up by regret, and the bitch has none anyhow. She’s ready to split, and the end of the world will hasten with what spills out of her.”

Jack glanced at Rose’s belly. The Sannock might have meant that literally. She’d strapped her belly up with strips of badly cured leather, but blood seeped through in dark, crusted stains. Whatever was in there wouldn’t come out peacefully.

“We came this far. I’m not going back without blood in my throat,” Jack said. He glanced at Gregor and, for the first time, didn’t see his own face. “We get to Rose. That’s all that matters.”

It wasn’t a plan. There was no point. The Sannock evened the odds a bit, but not enough. They might get to Rose, but they wouldn’t go home.

Gregor knew that too. He nodded grimly and then looked up, to pick out Nick’s dark shape through the dense clouds—the closest to a goodbye they might get.

At least Jack had Danny here, part of him, at least. He pulled the dog into