my way, his wry expression has me stiffening, completely ignoring Crius’s happy moment.
“What the fuck just happened? Why didn’t you detect that spell?” Nikos growls. “You said you saw all magic, yet we’re barely a few steps into the woods before we’re attacked.” The fury on his face has me recoiling, and unease bleeds into my veins.
“Nikos has a point,” Stone adds. “If you couldn’t detect whatever in the world that was, what else is lying in wait for us deeper in the woods?”
I square my shoulders, needing to stand up to them or this mission will end with me dead. “It’s not a specific spell that caused our wolves to react that way, it was the air filled with magic, with each of our fears,” I snap, failing miserably at holding back the anger in my voice. “It’s your natural instinct, your wolf knowing when it’s in so much danger that running is the only option. So how could I have detected it when it’s not a spell? The whole damn forest is tainted with different enchantments.”
My arms are rigid by my side, and I’m trembling. I don’t even know why I’m arguing with them on this point when I did nothing wrong. They are just looking for someone to blame instead of admitting they were scared. “And if you’re going to all freak out so quickly over something without a spell targeted on us, then we are all just wasting our time. Give me back my sister and we’ll part ways now.” I follow their gazes as they all turn to Ragnar.
I’m furious at how quickly they turn on me, and now alarm bells ring in my head that these men—these animals—will become my enemy the moment I fail. Maybe that’s how they see me now, as having failed. It bugs me more than it should, because who cares what they think?
“We continue,” Ragnar answers abruptly, and I deflate on the inside, partly wanting them to keep blaming me and take the easy way out. “I’m giving Narah the benefit of the doubt.”
He looks at me sharply, and I’m shaking, more with fury than anything, because he’s saying indirectly he doesn’t believe I did enough either. Fuck him.
“First and only chance,” he adds, then looks over to Crius. “And quick thinking. Now, let’s not turn on each other after one test, as there will be many others.”
I’m seething, burning up.
Nikos doesn’t say a word but studies me, then gives me a nod of acknowledgment, which I didn’t expect. I can’t help but suspect it’s more about pleasing his Alpha than me. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the last person I can trust. Even if he happens to have the face of an angel, cheekbones cut sharply with a knife. He’s a demon lurking behind that mask, getting ready to finish me.
If he doesn’t stay out of my way, there’ll be a showdown between us.
I give him a ghost of a smile and slip back to where I dropped my bag, unable to stop thinking that this trip might be my demise. If not by the witches and their spells, definitely by the hands of these wolves.
A shadow falls over me, and I twist around, expecting Nikos, but it’s Crius. “I don’t blame you, by the way,” he reassures me while his attention slides down to my hands. Thin yellow lines of magic crackle and snap between my fingers, which leaves behind a slight tingle across my arms. Right now, I’m myself, open to detecting magic.
“Would it hurt if I touched them?” he asks.
“While I’m concentrating to detect other spells, it would hurt.”
He keeps studying my hands, and I know what he’s thinking. He wants to know why the top half of my fingers are stained black, which then fades as it reaches my knuckles. So I give him the answer before he asks.
“It’s magic I used months ago, and it came with consequences,” I tell him, then swing my bag over my shoulder and tuck my hands into my pockets.
“You don’t have to hide them from me,” Crius says, drawing my attention back to him. “I’m a collector of scars myself.” Before I can respond, he drags his shirt up to his armpit, where my gaze instantly inhales the sight of his ripped stomach muscles, the way he wears his pants low on his hips revealing that wicked V-dip hunks like him possess. Then I lift my head to the huge, scar curling around from his back,