Page 10 of Let Slip the Dogs of War

His hand, big and warm, lands on the back of my neck. He squeezes tightly. I’m not a wolf, not even wolf-adjacent the way Ophelia has been her whole life, but it centres me all the same. I open my eyes and look up into his face. The others are looking at me, I know that, but he’s all I can see.

“Breathe with me,” he murmurs and catches one of my hands, bringing it up to rest on his chest. “Like this.”

It takes a few minutes to get back under control. Tears burn my eyes and I don’t want them to. What would Ophelia do in this situation? Sam? Hell, even Felix? I bite back what might be a hysterical laugh. I know what they’d all do—all variations on the same theme. Tell him to go fuck himself. Tell him to go find her and bring her back whole.

“I’m okay,” I whisper. Kieran studies my face again and he lets my hand fall, but he squeezes my neck again and his touch lingers. He’s a good alpha, as far as I can tell. For not having a wolf at all, he’s an incredible one. But he can’t fix this. Only Lark can.

It takes a lot of effort to look at him when Kieran steps aside. Sure enough, the others are all watching me—all vaguely concerned, even Vladimir, whom I’ve met all of one time, during which he seemed aloof and uninterested—and my cheeks flame.

“How do we get her back?” I ask. I don’t quite have the snappy, secure edge Sam puts in his voice literally all the time, but I must surprise Lark anyway. He looks at me with wide, dark eyes.

“I—you—”

“I don’t care about that.” I do. Of course I do. “How?”

Lark clenches his jaw. Is he angry? Does he have the right to be? Across the room, Quinn growls again. He’s risen from his perch on the arm of Grant’s chair, and I won’t be surprised if he shifts before we’re done here.

“He wants to cross over,” Grant says, and Vlad hisses quietly.

“Grant.”

“What? He does!” Grant’s eyes blaze when he looks at Vlad. In the next breath, he whirls on Lark, and I’m surprised at the ferocity of his temper. “You said you want to get your power back, fine. Are you even going to survive that long? There’s danger there, isn’t there, for you?”

Lark glares up at him. “Yes.”

“So, someone needs to go with you.”

“We said we’ll handle it tonight,” Jeremiah interjects. “Maurice will help.”

“Maurice will not survive there,” Lark says, and Vlad is already shaking his head as though he agrees. “Vampires do not. Will not. It is the reason two of your number are in this realm to begin with.”

Grant drops back into his seat. “Huh.” He stares off into the distance, brow furrowed in concentration.

“So what was the plan then?” Paxton asks. Sam is faintly vibrating with anger in front of me. He’ll offer to go. I know he will.

He’ll want me to stay, too. I look at Kieran out of the corner of my eye. They both will. I get it. I’m a witch, hardly a threat to a fae anyway, but I don’t even like the violence, the—My head spins again. Everything that happened with Tamesis; I know we were in the right, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have nightmares about it.

But I can’t just abandon Ophelia like that. I won’t.

“I merely need the Guardians to help me pass through the veil,” Lark says now. “Once there, I can have my magic restored and take care of this myself.”

“And if the fae who took Ophelia are waiting for you, too? What then?” Sam snaps.

“They are unlikely to wait so near the crossing.” True. He can’t tell a lie.

And he presses his lips together firmly, determined not to say anything else. I find myself talking before I can stop the words.

“Do they know you gave up your magic?” I ask. “Does anyone?”

“The Huntsman knows,” Lark says quickly. He avoids my gaze, and that makes me angry.

“Who else?”

“I did not tell a soul.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He turns a stubborn look on me then, and if he’d done that before I heard the truth, it might have startled me into taking the statement back. But he…