Page 140 of Beyond the Faerie Gate

Shit.

I extinguish the flames without a thought and stride to the back of the room, searching for her. Still no sign.

For Goddess’s sake. There is no way out of this room—

There. Right in the middle of the group of snarling barghests three times her size. Smiling.

My heart stops.

“Rose.”

I don’t think I’ve ever moved so fast in my life. I shove through the black-furred hounds without care for their enormous fangs and glowing red eyes. Behind me, I hear Ogrim ordering them away, but I don’t pay him any attention.

When she looks up and sees me running towards her, the soft, happy expression drops from her face and turns to wide-eyed confusion.

Goddess. She’s hugging one of the pups.

“Put it down!” I snap.

She glances at the white—wait, white?—bundle of fur in her arms. “But…”

Before I can second guess myself, I rip it out of her hands by the scruff of its neck and throw it back towards the rest.

“Do you have no regard for your own safety?” I demand, furious. “They’re not puppies, Rose!”

But she’s not listening. No. She’s diving back into the pile of black fur.

I grab her arm, determined to stop her before she ends up mauled to death.

“Let me go! They’re killing him!” she screams.

Ogrim steps between her and the pups and scoops out the white bundle of fur from before, uncaring of the bites that pepper his enormous orange arm as he does so.

“Oh, it’s the runt,” he shrugs. “Sorry, Your Majesty. The pack doesn’t care for weak pups. It’s better to put him back and let nature take its course. He was never going to live long…”

Rose snatches the furball out of his arms before he can carry out his threat. “No. He’s not going to die.”

The thing is barely half the size of its littermates. Clearly, the mother doesn’t care to feed it. Its fur is bedraggled and specked with dark brown flecks of old blood. Its red eyes are glazed with exhaustion and pain.

That doesn’t mean it’s less of a threat than any of the other snarling beasts around her.

“Did you even think before you dived into the middle of the pack?” I growl, tugging her out of the writhing mass of fur. “What in Danu’s tits possessed you? They eat souls. You think you can be reborn when your essence is being digested by a barghest?”

I know, the moment those defiant, watering, violet eyes meet mine, that she’s about to do something that will make me want to tear my hair out.

I’m proven right seconds later when she adjusts the runt in her arms and says. “Well, I survived. And if his pack doesn’t want him, then I do.”

“They’re not pets!” I hiss.

But Rose ignores me, yanking her arm free and heading away from me.

Right in the direction of the valravn roosts.

“No way.” I put myself bodily between her and the carnivorous birds—lest she decide to claim one of those next. “Stop interfering. It’s natural for broken things to die.”

“Then I should’ve died a long time ago,” she spits.

The rest of the hunt is watching her with interest—or are they just fascinated to see me lose my cool over a tiny female?

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