Page 98 of Kingdom of Ash

Even Cairn halted. Looked toward the white wolf. “Stand down.”

Fenrys snarled, deep and vicious. And still he struggled to his feet.

Cairn pointed the poker at the rug. “Lie down.That is an order from your queen.”

Fenrys spasmed, his hackles lifting. But he was standing.

Standing.

Despite the order, despite the blood oath’s commands.

Get up.

From far away, the words sounded.

Cairn roared, “Lie down!”

Fenrys’s head thrashed from side to side, his body bucking against invisible chains. Against an invisible oath.

His dark eyes met Cairn’s.

Blood began running from the wolf’s nostril.

It’d kill him—to sever the oath. It would break his soul. His body would go soon after that.

But Fenrys put one paw forward. His claws dug into the ground.

Cairn’s face paled at that step. That impossible step.

Fenrys’s eyes slid toward hers. Neither needed the silent code between them for the word she beheld in his gaze. The order and plea.

Run.

Cairn read the word, too.

And he hissed, “Not with a shattered spine, she can’t,” before he brought the poker slamming down for Aelin’s back.

With a roar, Fenrys leaped.

And with it, he snapped the blood oath completely.

CHAPTER 27

Wolf and Fae went tumbling to the carpet, roaring and tearing.

Fenrys lunged for Cairn’s throat, his enormous body pinning the male, but Cairn got his feet between them andkicked.

Aelin lurched upright, willing strength to her legs as she came into a kneel beside the chest of drawers. Fenrys slammed into the side of the metal table, but was instantly moving, throwing his body against Cairn.

A low hiss sounded nearby, and Aelin dared look away to find the poker lying to her right.

She twisted her feet toward it. Placed the center of the chains binding her ankles atop the red-hot tip.

Slowly, the links in the center heated.

Wolf and Fae clashed in a tangle of claws and fists and teeth, then leaped apart.

Severing the blood oath—it would kill him.

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