Page 119 of The Girl in the Forest

“Don’t make yourself a target,” he growled, returning to my side. “If you’re going to fight, you’re going to move.”

My heels slid in the mud; my arms swung wide for balance. Momentum pulled me faster and faster down the hill until I feared I couldn’t stop when the fighting surged in our direction. The man from Carmag had disappeared. So had Laura, but Levi gripped my arm, swinging me around.

His eyes were narrowed. I realized he was communicating through the pack bond.

“Mace is issuing orders—gods, he’s pissed, Noa. Relieved, but he says Gray knows we’re here and I’m supposed to take you—”

“Oh, hell no.”

I flinched at his expression. But instead of arguing, Levi ripped off his sling. I worried over his ability to fight until the first creature lunged out of the melee and Levi met it head on, leaping to the side and spearing the animal at the base of the skull. It flopped on the ground, legs still churning through the mud.

The bowstring quivered as arrow after arrow hit the moving targets. When I ran out of arrows, I searched for discarded quivers. Brin fought beside me; her high-pitched screams echoed each time she lunged toward a target. Sparks sputtered from her fingers. She was trying to syphon without finesse and I didn’t have time to guide her. Bodies crushed around us. Men spun, caught in the fighting that surged like storm tides, falling back or pushing forward. As pigs galloped past, I recognized their stench from Azul.

Heat burned upward through my feet and legs, exploding into my arms, searching for a way out through my hands. The energy was a searing brand on my skin, and I spun, crashed into a charging creature. My hands rose, fingers splayed and curled as I gripped the hairy, heaving side, fighting the nausea as the flesh softened and ooze coated my fingers.

Heat sizzled until the charred-meat smell burned in my nose.

The creature deflated into nothing but flaps of skin and shards of whitened bone.

Up ahead, a man battled. He wore a battered knight’s helmet and gold breastplate, with segmented, heavy protection on his arms and legs. He swung a broadsword with awkward but joyous enthusiasm that was definitely out of place—

White hair poked from beneath an ancient helmet—

Bowed legs braced, momentum from the swinging sword nearly pivoting him—

A pig charged.

He shouted, “Tally-ho!”

Who in the flaming bright hell said—

“Fee?” I screamed.

The brush of puppy magic carried through the chaos. The King of the Forest turned to grin at me. What I could see of his face behind the helmet protection was dirt-smudged. Wiry white stubble prickled on his cheeks. “My dear girl. You made it. Had my doubts for a while.”

My bowstring twanged, the arrow flying toward the beast he missed with his swishing, looping swing.

I thought of the embroidered blue F on the bathrobe in Grayson’s bathroom. The normalcy in dripping water in a bathtub. Liking Grayson’s soap, messing with a stove—the words popped from my mouth. “Does Aine know you’re here?”

“Oh, gods no!” He swung the broadsword in another whooshing arc, sending a strange, thin-legged creature stumbling back. “She’d ruin all the fun.”

Only Fee—the King of the Forest—would think battling creatures was fun. When a third creature swarmed toward him, he leaned heavily on his sword and merely flicked his hand. Sent a wave of magic that shriveled the creature like a drying leaf.

“Why don’t you do that everywhere?” I demanded.

“Magic doesn’t work that way,” he said, and I thought I heard sorrow in his voice. “Like everything else, I’m getting… old.”

“No! No you’re not!”

“Who are you talking to?” Bree shouted as she stood at my back. She’d exchanged her spear for a sword, and the glare on her face was almost comical, given how thin she was.

I heaved in a tight breath. “The King of the Forest.”

“Who?”

But Fee was no longer there.

“No one.” I dashed a hand across my cheek, shoved down everything he’d said, swung around to aim my arrow toward a man I’d never seen before. His teeth were exposed, and there was nothing… nothing in his eyes that I could see.

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