open. Felka backed up behind Ren, and she could hear the nawia screaming as they fell under the blade. They didn’t have much time. Felka couldn’t hold them back forever.
“You need to get over this,” growled Ren. “Come on—”
He moaned, blinked. But his eyes were glassy and fogged.
Ren growled, shook herself out, and felt her fur recede. She took his rough jaw in the hands of a human and hovered with her face an inch from his. Maybe it was because she was human. Maybe—and her heart skipped a beat—it was because he recognized her. But at that moment, to her complete surprise, his eyes flickered toward her face.
“They are in your head,” Ren whispered, leaning close. “You can resist them. You have to keep them out. We need you to save your friend. Keep them out.”
He groaned, tried to twist out of her hands. Ren could still hear the nawia’s music, but it was no longer beautiful. It was terrible. Skin-crawling. Beside her, Felka was shaking Koszmar by the collar while he woke, swearing dazedly as he tried to shove her away.
The Wolf-Lord also began to struggle, tearing himself from the dream. Their misty breath intertwined, filled the space between them.
“I need you, Lukasz!” she hissed. “Wake up!”
His eyes cleared and widened. He reached up, maybe to rub his eyes, but instead his hand hit her bare back.
“You came back—” he managed, while the monsters raged around them.
Ren raised her eyes to the treetops, stretching out her neck until the joints cracked on either side. Fur covered her. Claws pushed against his skin. When she returned his gaze once more, he faced the fangs of a lynx.
“Come on, Wolf-Lord,” she said coldly.
Ren stepped off him, turned once more to the monsters.
She heard him get to his feet behind her, drawing his sword. Koszmar was waking up, unholstering the revolvers. Around them the nawia closed in, and Ren swiped and brought one down.
A dozen feet away, the third human knelt among the monsters. He did not look up. But Ren recognized him.
I saw what you did to Jakub, the girl had said. The man grasped the little nav with both hands, speaking to it. You ripped his face off.
One eye, five scars. Ren had thought he was dead. She thought she’d killed him.
Jakub.
While Ren hesitated, her eyes flashed to the trees beyond. Shapes moved among the trunks. For a moment, she barely believed her eyes.
It could not be. . . .
The rifle blasted. Ren came back to the present.
The screaming became punctuated as Lukasz fired round after round into the monsters. Ren and the three humans formed a tight circle, while the nawia came at them from every side. Between swings and bites, Ren kept glancing back toward the big human—and at the creatures in the trees behind them.
Ren froze. Her heart pounded in her throat. She had to be wrong—but the creatures in the underbrush were getting closer. Creatures she knew better than anything else . . .
“We’re outnumbered,” said Koszmar, desperately, behind her.
“Not anymore,” murmured Ren.
Czarn and Ry? leapt out from the trees.
13
RY? AND CZARN FLEW HEADLONG into the nawia, and the humans—apart from Felka—paused. Only Felka’s sword flashed in the darkness. Nawia screamed. The night shattered around them.
“What is—?” started Koszmar, the saber wavering temporarily.
Lukasz’s voice cut over the screaming nawia. He tossed the rifle aside and drew his sword. “Just keep killing,” he said. “They’re with her.”
A nav shot toward her. Ren sank her teeth into its throat, and it dissolved in a spray of silver. She whirled around.
The man—Jakub—was still speaking to the tiny nav. His remaining eye had gone glassy. The little monster had long, silvery hair and eyes that looked almost human. Oddly, its fingers were delicate. Nothing like the long, sawtooth claws of the rest of the nawia.
“What are you waiting for?” growled Czarn, while Ry? launched himself into the mass of monsters. “Kill it, Ren!”
Czarn’s jaws closed around the arm of another nav and bit clean through. The hand hit the earth and twitched, claws scraping in the dirt. Czarn twisted around, muzzle coated in silver blood.
Ren remembered herself. She turned back, teeth bared, and lunged.
“Stop—”
Lukasz flung out an arm and caught her across the throat. The blow knocked the wind clear out of her, and she rounded on him.
“It’s going to kill him!” she snarled.
“No.” He had a smear of silver blood down one cheek. “Look at it.”
The nawia surrounded them. She realized suddenly that the small nav’s eyes were