Page 102 of Kingdom of Ash

Lorcan sent a wave of his power snapping them away.

Still more fired. Single shots this time, from so many directions he couldn’t trace their sources. Trained archers, some of Maeve’s best. Aelin had to—

She already was.

Aelin began zagging, depriving them of an easy target.

Left to right, she darted over the hills, slower with each bump she cleared, each step toward Lorcan as he raced to her, a hundred yards remaining between them.

An arrow speared for her back, but Aelin lunged to the side, skiddingin grass and dirt. She was up again in a heartbeat, weapons still in hand, charging for the hills and hollows between them.

Another arrow aimed for her, and Lorcan made to snap it away. A wall of glittering gold got there first.

From the north, leaping over the hollows, charged Gavriel. Aelin disappeared into a dip in the earth, and when she emerged, the Lion ran at her side, a golden shield around her. Not close to her—but in the air around them. Unable to fully touch her with the iron mask, the chains draped around her torso. The iron gauntlets on her hands.

Soldiers were spilling out of the camp, and Lorcan sent a black wind whipping for them. Where it touched them, they died. And those who did not found an impenetrable shield barring the way to the field.

He spread it as wide as he could. Blood oath or no, they were still his people. His soldiers. He’d prevent their deaths, if he could. Save them from themselves.

Aelin was stumbling now, and Lorcan cleared the last of the hills between them.

He opened his mouth, to shout what, he didn’t know, but a cry pierced the blue sky.

The sob that came out of Aelin at the hawk’s bellow of fury cracked Lorcan’s chest.

But she kept running for the trees, for their cover. Lorcan and Gavriel fell into step beside her, and when she again stumbled, those too-thin legs giving out, Lorcan gripped her under the arm and hauled her along.

Fast as a shooting star, Rowan dove for them. He reached them as they passed the first of the trees, shifting as he landed. They threw themselves into a halt, Aelin sprawling onto the pine-covered ground.

Rowan was instantly before her, hands going to the mask on her face, the chains, the blood coating her arms, her torn body—

Aelin let out another sob, and then moaned, “Fenrys.”

It took Lorcan a moment to understand. Took her pointing behindthem, to the camp, as she said again, as if speech was beyond her, “Fenrys.” Her breath was a wet rasp. A plea. A broken, bloody plea.

Fenrys remained with Cairn. In the camp. Aelin pointed again, sobbing.

Rowan turned from his mate.

The rage in Rowan’s eyes could devour the world. And that rage was about to extract the sort of vengeance only a mated male could command.

Rowan’s canines flashed, but his voice was deadly soft as he said to Lorcan, “Take her to the glen.” A jerk of his chin to Gavriel. “You’re with me.”

With a final look toward Aelin, his frozen rage a brewing storm on the wind, the prince and the Lion were gone, charging back toward the chaotic, bloody camp.

CHAPTER 29

With the camp in outright chaos, it was far easier to slip in.

Rowan’s power blasted to the western edge, shattering tent and bone. Any soldiers lingering between the camp’s eastern edge and the center ran toward it.

Clearing the way. Right to the tent he’d been so close to reaching when Lorcan’s power had flared. A signal.

That they’d found her. Or she had found them, it seemed.

And when Rowan had seen her, first from the skies and then beside her, when he smelled the blood, both her own and others’, when he beheld the chains and the iron mask clamped over her face, when she wassobbingat the sight of him, terror and despair coating her scent—

The rage that roiled through him had no space for mercy. No room for compassion.

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