Page 44 of Grace of a Wolf 2
Look!Fenris's voice provides a buffer against the painful sound.
The Fiddleback wolves are changing.
I stumble back, watching as decades melt away her flesh in seconds. Skin pulls tight across her cheekbones, then desiccates, cracking like ancient parchment. Her eyes sink deep into their sockets, darkening, shriveling.
In mere seconds, what was once a middle-aged woman becomes a mummified husk.
All the wolves shrivel beneath their fur.
The screaming stops.
The sudden silence is somehow louder than the chaos.
Fenris approaches cautiously, sniffing one of the corpses.
"Don't touch them." I've never seen magic like this. Never felt it. Where's Thom? I scan the room, but he's nowhere to be found. Neither is Andrew.
How unnatural,Fenris observes.
No shit.
But we don't have time to investigate. We have to find Grace.
Let me see if I can find Elizabeth's things. She has the keys.
"It doesn't matter whose car we take. Just find any of them. We can figure out what car it belongs to on the way."
Good point.
A familiar ringtone pierces the quiet, and I look around until I find the shredded fabric which had once been my tactical gear.
We're going to have to find clothes. Humans don't like naked people roaming their cities.
The ringing stops, then starts again. I fish my phone out of the pile before it stops a second time, seeing Lyre's name on the screen.
I've never answered a phone so fast. "Where's Grace?" I demand, ditching all formalities to get straight to the point.
"Hello to you too, Your Majesticness." Lyre's voice crackles with its usual sarcasm. "I got your text messages. I was out running an important errands. I'm on my way to the hospital now."
My breath catches. She doesn't know.
"Grace is missing," I snap. "Jack-Eye is on his way to the hospital, but they're saying they have no patient by her name, and even claim no blonde women have been admitted in forty-eight hours."
"What the fuck do you mean she's missing?" The lazy drawl vanishes from Lyre's voice.
"When did you last see her?"
"Before I left to… do something. She was tired and wanted to take a nap. The nurses were monitoring her. How long has she been missing?"
"We don't know. The Fiddleback Pack had sent someone to keep an eye on her, but they were sending me doctored images—"
"Fuck," she hisses. "Youtrusted… Never mind. You wouldn't have known. Damn it. This is what I get for… Son of a fucking bitch. Isabeau, you fucking cunt, I should have made it hurt."
Chapter twenty-one
Lyre: Hunting for Grace
LYRE
