Page 122 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

Tavish held a knife in his hand. “What’s going on?”

“The Collector’s working his spell.”

“How can you be sure?” Tavish was still watching the paper birds. “These things?”

“Aye.”

“Also?” Sorcha added in a strange voice Aidan had never heard before, just as he caught the scent of blood. She held up her arm, sleeve pushed back to the elbow. “This cut is bleeding again.”

He had her in his arms before she could blink, glaring down at the wound. He wasn’t the only one growling. She belonged to the Packs. To him. She was more of a wolf than he was.

She belonged wherever the hell she wanted to belong. The Collector would not have her.

Not today. Not ever.

Not one more wolf.

Sorcha accepted the length of cloth Tavish handed her. Aidan wrapped her cut, knotting it carefully. A spot of red bled through the white, and he gnashed his back teeth together, vision crisscrossed with those damn threads of magic. Whoever had cut her, marked her, hurt her, would die. The earl, the curator, and the wolf all agreed.

Aidan turned to Simon, who was still chained, still human. He was sweating. But when he saw Aidan and Sorcha, he only smiled. “It’s happening.”

“What’s happening?” Aidan demanded. “What have you done?”

Simon did not answer. He might be feeling smug, but he was feeling the effects of the spell as well. Silver threads gagged his mouth, thin and cutting as wire.

Aidan would have punched him, but Sorcha beat him to it. “Undo it!”

When Simon finally answered, it was not helpful. “Can’t.”

Sorcha’s paper birds drifted down closer. Her crow landed on her shoulder, bright and sharp as moonlight on the sea, as the first shard of ice in the water bucket when the weather turned. “Aidan, I have to follow them.”

“Not alone.” And he could have sent a thousand wolves to protect her, but they would all walk blindly, unable to track the bloody Cauldron.

And he did not have a hundred wolves. He did not even have himself.

“If you don’t follow your birds, your cut will keep bleeding,” Simon said. “You’ll bleed out completely.”

“You’re working with someone, and they are the one working the spell,” Aidan realized. He bared his teeth and could not even blame it on the wolf. The blood of your enemy was potent in any spell of this nature. “And they need the Red Cloak.”

Sorcha lifted her chin. “Then he’ll bloody well get her.”

Fear he had never known before strangled him more than the threads. “You can’t go off on your own.”

“I have you.”

“Until the day I die,” he promised roughly. “But, much as I hate to admit it, you and I aren’t enough to take on the Collector. Not when he’s clearly been playing us. We need a plan.”

Frustration flashed across her face, but she nodded tersely. “Fine. And something very sharp and pointy.”

He didn’t like it any more than she did. He wasn’t sure how long he could fight the spell. And whoever had immobilized the wolves was unlikely to let them lie. “Someone’s coming.”

Following the paper birds was not safe. The Wolf Wood was not safe.

He was not safe.

“You know we can’t follow you. He’s shielded against the wolves. We could be on the doorstep of the pits and not know it. Sometimes we see the torchlight and we still can’t find it.”

“I know,” Sorcha said even as his fingers curled like claws.