eyes. “A pet of yours?” he asked. “This thing?”
“Leave him!” she ordered, watching her friend stumble from the blow, leaving a trail of blood as he moved.
“I’ll end this thing,” Straton swore, raising his sword above his head, “and then I’ll end you.”
Keeley yanked her arm free and rammed her elbow into one soldier’s face. She pulled away from the other and brought the head of her hammer down on his foot, crushing it.
As the soldier howled in pain, Keeley charged forward but she stopped when the demon wolf’s blood abruptly disappeared into the ground and a crevice opened up in the stone floor. The soldiers and Keeley moved away from that opening when paws appeared, and then wolf heads . . . their eyes made of flames.
Keeley looked at her old friend and watched the wound to his head heal, leaving a raw scar from the top to under his jaw. Then he flashed his fangs at her. Not in warning, but a smile.
A brutal, merciless smile.
That’s when they came tearing up from the crevice. Ten. Twenty. More.
Full-grown. Eyes full of flame and rage for one of theirs who’d been harmed by a human.
They charged at Straton and the bastard dragged one of his own men in front of him before running back toward the bedroom.
Keeley ran after him. “Straton!” Keeley barked to stop him before he could go back into the room. She didn’t know if his captive had made it out yet and she didn’t want to risk it.
He came to a stop.
“Afraid of me, are you?” she taunted.
“Afraid of you? A farmer’s daughter? You’re nothing,” he said, walking toward her, his bloodied sword still clutched in his hand. “You’re no one. And you will never be queen!” he bellowed.
“Then come for me, prince. Or are you afraid of a woman who can fight back?”
“Cunt,” he hissed.
“Right here,” Keeley agreed. “And waiting.”
Straton now held his sword with both hands and raised it over his shoulder.
Keeley readied her hammer, smirking as she heard the sounds of the soldiers behind her being torn apart by the wolves.
That smirk was too much for the prince. He ran at her first and Keeley raised her weapon to block the downstroke of his sword. But he abruptly stopped, removing one hand from his weapon and reaching behind his back. As he did, he turned, and Keeley spotted the knife that had been rammed into his spine.
Straton fell to his knees; his sword fell from his hand. As he dropped, Keeley saw the woman who’d been chained in his room. Still naked, her hand covered in the blood of the prince; but the woman hadn’t killed him. Straton wasn’t dead. Her strike had been precise, Keeley guessed, to keep him alive but leave him unable to fight.
“You need his head,” she calmly said to Keeley, walking past her. “Feel free to take it at your leisure.”
Keeley watched the woman walk out of the longhouse, and Keeley sucked her tongue against her teeth. She motioned to the lead demon wolf and then the woman. He sent several of his original pack to follow her. They’d help her get to safety.
With the woman cared for, Keeley looked down at Straton. She sheathed her hammer and pulled the long sword hanging from her side.
“As I told the first contingent of mercenaries you sent to kill my kin . . . you chose the wrong family.”
“You’ll never be queen, peasant!” he desperately gasped out. “You’ll never—”
The head came off swiftly and cleanly, bouncing a few feet away.
Done with that bit of unpleasantness, Keeley switched back to her hammer and headed out to join the fray.
“Bring the head along, would you?” she asked the lead demon wolf. “The rest of you can have the body.”
Keeley met Gemma outside the doors. Her sister looked in, then glared at her. “Where did all those extra demon wolves come from?”
“Why do you ask me questions when we both know the answers will only upset you?”
* * *
“Pull back!” Caid ordered the centaurs. “Pull back!”
Caid knew not asking the dwarves to send a battalion or two with them was a danger but he also agreed with Keeley that they would need the king’s dwarf armies far more when they took on Prince Marius and Beatrix. It would be foolish to waste their good favor for such a small battle.
Of course, they hadn’t expected fresh mercenaries would be arriving during their attack and now they had to contend with the new arrivals. They