“Don’t move,” Vesper said. “Just stay completely still.” He raised his hand inch by inch, his gaze still fixed on the monster. “Hello, old friend. Do you remember me? It’s been a while.”
The wolf beast growled low in its chest, and the muscles in Vesper’s shoulders rippled with tension. “I’m sorry I haven’t been to visit. I truly am. You didn’t deserve to be abandoned.”
The wolf took a thundering step toward Vesper, and I clutched Gemma tighter to me, resisting the urge to bolt. Vesper held his ground, lifting his chin to look straight into the monster’s eyes.
“I know it’s been hard,” he said. “I know you fought for too long, and I know you’re still in there, old friend. Can you hear me?”
There was emotion in his voice, real, raw emotion that tugged at my heart. He knew this creature. He had a history with it. The crimson in the wolf’s eyes pulsed and then died down slightly before a voice filled the air—deep, rumbling, and ancient.
“You have come to see what has become of me. To mock me,” the beast said.
“No.” Vesper shook his head. “Never that.”
“And yet you left me to rot. You left me trapped in this accursed place.”
“We had no choice. The magick was too strong back then. We could not retrieve you.”
“But you have come now. Now you will set me free.”
Vesper’s jaw tightened, his fists clenching at his sides a sure sign he was going to deliver some bad news. “There is no freedom for you, my friend. You know this.”
Silence, deep and heavy, followed Vesper’s words.
“No freedom. Yes. Yes, I remember. I remember the fool I was.” It swung its head toward Bran and then slowly swept its gaze across our paltry group.
Was it drooling more now? Oh shit. Low whines lit up the street, scraping at my ears and pleading for some kind of release.
“My pack hungers. My creations hunger,” the wolf said. “It has been too long since they fed.”
Vesper took a step into the beast’s line of sight, catching its attention again. “No. You are not a murderer.”
The beast’s head whipped forward, jaws snapping inches from Vesper’s body. My heart shot into my throat, beating erratically, but Vesper didn’t even flinch.
“You know not what I am,” the beast growled. “I have fed on the hearts of mortals. I have feasted on flesh simply because I could. But it is my mind that hungers as it slips away. I do not wish to slip away. You will stay. You will stay and you will ground me. I will have your minds. Your minds I will have. No more hunger. No more slipping.”
What was with the repetition? What was wrong with it?
“What is Vesper doing just staring at the thing,” Helgi whispered from the side of her mouth. “You think they’re communicating somehow?”
Wait. She couldn’t hear what they were saying? From the others’ confused expressions, neither could they.
You hear him, don’t you? Azazel said.
“Yes. Both of them. Don’t you?”
No.
“What?” Helgi asked.
I shook my head. Dammit, how was it that Azazel could speak to me in my mind but couldn’t hear my thoughts like Vesper and Dante could? And now it looked like this creature, whatever it was, was speaking to Vesper, and aside from the dragon lord, I was the only other person who could hear it.
The mechanical wolves surrounding us padded closer, and every muscle in my body tightened with the need to make a break for it. But Vesper’s calm, confident voice held me in place.
“Let them go. Let them go and you can have me. You know my mind is worth all of theirs twice over.”
Even the grand gesture was accompanied by his signature arrogant tone, but my stomach flipped with nausea because what the heck was he doing? He couldn’t seriously mean to give this thing his mind. He was a dragon lord and there was a war going on. He’d thrown that in my face on more than one occasion. It was all he cared about, so why...Wait... There was a plan. He had a plan; of course he did.
The wolf thing raised its head and then took a step back. “You are correct. I do not need them. They may be food for my children.”
“No!” Vesper held up his hands. “Please let them leave. Not for me, but for the god you once were.”
The wolf bared its teeth and closed its eyes briefly. Its snout crinkled, the metal woven into its skin skidding over itself to accommodate the movement of muscles. It was a look of emotional pain. When it opened its eyes, they were bright crimson once again.
“I will let them walk away and my pack will not touch them, but I cannot control all the hungry beasts in this place.”
“I understand.”
“Then I accept your deal. You stay, they go.”
“Go,” Vesper said. “Walk slowly and walk around him. Do it now.”
Bran looked at me, his brows raised in an is-he-serious expression. Okay, they’d heard Vesper this time, which meant he was speaking to us now.
“Don’t say a word. Do not look back.” Vesper’s tone was even. “Keep moving and get out.”
Yeah, this had to be a dragon lord ploy. He was getting us out of the way so he could execute whatever plan he’d dreamed up. Our job was to give him the space to do it. Helgi nodded in my direction. I looked to Bran and his companion to make sure they were ready, and then we began to move, one step at a time, until we were abreast of Vesper. The beast stood still and silent, not even batting an eyelid as we skirted its immense body. No other wolf even twitched. This was happening. Really happening. It was letting us leave. And then the monster was behind us and the road was clear.
“Now run,” Vesper said evenly.
Leaving the dragon lord to save his own skin, we did just that.
* * *
We’d covered over half a mile and
