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Bronze scanned the gathered lycans, searching for the hood of Clara’s favorite cloak or, at the very least, her white hair standing out among the throng. Nothing. Just a lot of somber faces beneath soaking-wet clothes and ominous umbrellas. Fucking hell, they looked like they were at a burial, not a tournament.
That unease from earlier ramped straight up to full-blown panic as he eyed Raff, who stood shoulders straight and arms clasped behind his back, donning his usual stony expression.
The king cleared his throat, pulling Bronze’s attention back to the pompous prick. “As both remaining champions have each garnered a victory, the winner of this, the third and final trial, shall be declared the winner of the entirety of the Betrothal Games. By right of writ, the male shall receive my daughter Clara’s hand in mating, a pledge of alliance and allegiance with this kingdom, and he shall be placed in the direct line of succession to the throne.”
Why the fuck was he saying all this shit? They knew the stakes. Did the male think because he was surrounded by so many oxygen-replenishing trees that he had the right to use up more than his fair share of it?
It was all a fucking performance. A grand covert declaration of hostility that could only be made by one who had more expertise in stagecraft than sovereignty.
Bronze was so over it
Then Pascal stepped forward and unveiled the burgundy banner revealing the third credo of the monarchy. The swirling opalescent script blurred together amid the fog and rain, but it was legible nonetheless: “With the moon’s senses, we protect and safeguard.”
“Broderick, if you please,” the king said.
Halpin’s lycan stepped forward and gestured to another guard, and both males walked behind Bronze and Raff. There was a rustle of fabric, and then a heavy swathe of dark linen was draped over Bronze’s eyes and fastened snugly behind his head.
Shit. It was a senses challenge. And he was competing against a lycan.
“For this trial, both competitors shall be blindfolded, and as our credo expects, now that you have been robbed of your sight, you must use your other senses to locate an object hidden in the woods behind me.” Another pause, then Broderick was tugging at the back of his head again. Was he fastening something?
“Lest you think of removing your blindfold once you are beyond the initial perimeter of the forest, I have instructed that a small length of special thread be secured at the juncture of the fabric. Should you try to lift the blindfolds over your heads or remove them in any way, the thread will snap, and you forfeit the game. Each competitor must hunt for the object blindfolded, retrieve it blindfolded, and return from the woods blindfolded. Only then can he be declared the victor.”
Of all the on-the-fly scenario calculations Bronze was doing, far too many of them resulted in a snowball’s chance in hell of him out-hunting a biological predator like Raff. Not without his celestial senses and sure as shit not when it came to scent or hearing. Eyesight maybe, if he was quick enough, but scent?
A small square of fabric was placed in his hand. Soft leather coated one side, while the other was thickly napped with smooth wool. On instinct, he brought the thing to his nose, and every muscle in his body swelled beneath the pelting rain.
He knew this fabric. Knew its earthy scent and the bristly feel of it when it was soaking wet from the river. Knew how the cloth was a deep evergreen while the leather lining beneath it was the same tawny brown as the eyes of the female who’d worn it.
It was from Clara’s mantle. The one she’d been draped in when he discovered her in the river.
His heart squeezed out hurried peals of panic. But just as he was preparing to run, to leap over the king himself and bolt into those woods to find her, something else gave him pause.
Something rich and earthy rose up from the fabric, more pungent than sweat but without the normal metallic indicators of bodily fluids.
Then he sniffed again, and as a stark realization closed around his neck, he nearly destroyed the fabric within his fist.
Normal metallic indicators for mortals. Not for lycans.
It was blood. Clara’s blood.
Chapter 28
The horn’s baritone bellow rattled the trees, and Bronze heard Raff take off with a burst of speed he’d had not thought the lycan capable of.
And it fucking terrified him.
Bronze sprinted toward the forest, keeping his head down and ears open to whatever he could detect. He had no time to cower under the eerie sensation that came with his loss of vision, nor did he sink into his survival instincts that all but demanded he slow down, stop, and step lightly lest he plow into a tree. That was what his hands were for, and he kept those suckers out and around him like iron clotheslines. He’d never kneecapped a three-hundred-year-old heart pine before, but he’d go at it with gusto if it got him to Clara before Raff found her.
Clara. Oh God, Clara! All at once, images slammed into his head, morbid scenarios that were a thousand times worse than the night he’d first found her. Deep gashes, blood soaking the forest floor, severed limbs, the final puffs of air being pushed out of lungs quickly filling with viscous liquid. You name it, and Bronze imagined it, no matter how haunting.
“Shit!”
He couldn’t think like that. All he could do was keep moving forward. Keep scenting, keep listening, keep?—
The side of his heel came down on a tree root. His ankle rolled, and then the rest of his body rolled some more, tumbling to the forest floor in an uncoordinated tangle of limbs. The impact evicted the air from his lungs, but his muscles were on autopilot. Rising. Slowly rising.
Get up. Get the fuck up.
