Wolf at the Door (Wolf Winter #3) - T.A. Moore Page 0,50

neck. Blood dripped down his ankles to stain his bare feet and soak into the almost-there beach.

“Bitch,” he said.

She shifted her chin at the sound of his voice, tilted her head toward him, and he realized she was still blind. One eye socket was empty, the edges melted like wax, and the other had been stitched closed with a stolen lid. Something moved under it. Gregor wasn’t confident it was an eye or even what was left of one.

“Where’s my grandson?” she asked.

“Gone,” Gregor said harshly.

She had the gall to flinch as though she had the right or the ability to give a fuck. Her head snapped around and she raised her hand at Lachlan, finger reconstructed from stolen skin and splints.

“What did you do to him, boy?” she demanded harshly. “Where is Nicholas and my little god?”

Lachlan stumbled forward, propelled by a shove, and dragged Ellie with him. His hand was locked on her arm as they stumbled through the misplaced seawood and stopped just in front of the old woman. His face was greasy with sweat, and an uneasy stink of fear and lust seeped out of him.

“The dark-haired man? I didn’t know he was anything of yours. If I’d known, if we’d known, we’d have welcomed him better,” Lachlan blurted out. He yanked Ellie forward, grabbed the back of her neck, and shoved her toward Rose. Ellie struggled in his grip but couldn’t break away. “I barely saw him. It was Ellie who chased him off.”

Ellie stammered out a shocked denial. She buttoned her lips together midword as Rose turned her ruined face toward her. There was an accuracy to the movement that gave the creepy impression she could still somehow see through that ruined eye.

“What did you do to him, girl?” she asked as she leaned down into Ellie’s face. Her lips, smooth and pink, sagged and slipped as she talked, her own wrinkled seam of a mouth visible underneath. Ellie squirmed uncomfortably, her face puckered with revulsion and attraction, and tried to turn away. Rose pinched Ellie’s chin between her fingers and held her in place as she sniffed. “Did you bite my boy? Did you fuck him? I can smell him on you.”

Ellie whimpered. Behind Gregor, among the row of dogs, a chain rattled, and a man made a low, strangled sound of protest. He looked around, past the prophet behind him, to see the strange dog cuffed to his feet.

He registered that and glanced at Jack to make sure he’d seen it too. He had, and his jaw was set unhappily. Before Gregor could pick the expression apart, the prophet behind him cracked him around the ear.

“You look at her,” the prophet ordered over the ringing in Gregor’s ears. “She wants you to see her.”

Gregor exhaled and reluctantly turned his attention back to the patchwork woman of scars and stolen skin. He could see her, but his brain didn’t question the belief in her beauty. Some Sannock skin, he supposed. The myths of them claimed they were beautiful, yet when he saw the remnants of them in the Wild, they’d been mismatched, none of them just one thing entirely.

In Rose’s grip, Ellie gulped audibly and choked out through her pinched jaw, “I fought… no, I chased him. He got away from me.”

Rose snorted. “How did he do that? He’s all leg now. And I taught him what happened to boys who can’t run fast. But you’re a wolf. How did one lanky boy get away from you?”

Ellie hesitated. She tried to turn toward Lachlan again, but Rose didn’t let her. “He… he turned into a bird.”

“Crazy bitch,” Lachlan blurted. “She just doesn’t want to admit a human got away from her.”

Rose finally let go of Ellie, who staggered back and wiped her face on her sleeve. Then Rose reached out for him. She patted the air blindly, and Lachlan moved under her hand, a shudder of something going through him as she gripped him.

“No, he does that,” she said pleasantly. Then her fingers tightened, dug down through the wool sweater to dig into flesh and muscle. Lachlan staggered under the pain but managed to throttle the whimper that tried to escape his throat. She dropped to a guttural growl. “And do I look like I’d have a human grandson?”

Lachlan choked out a strained “No” and “Sorry.” Rose finally let him go with a shove. He staggered out of the way, blood dark as it stained the cable knit of his sweater, and nearly