Valtira.
“You had better run, Valtira. Walk away from here before I change my mind, and do not even think of returning.”
Jesse’s words clung to me long after I crossed the borders of his cursed pack, ringing through my ears with every thunderous beat of the horse’s hooves beneath me.
I rode hard toward Martha’s pack, the wind slicing against my face, though it did nothing to cool the fever raging beneath my skin.
My hands were slick from repeatedly wiping the tears that refused to stop falling. Each time I cleared my vision, another wave blurred it again until the world became little more than shifting shadows and streaks of dull color.
What had they done?
The question echoed endlessly.
Zarek.
His name rose within me like a ghost, replacing the rage that had once burned so fiercely
