Page 70 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

But the wolf snapped as if Aidan was a man standing too close.

Mine.

At least they agreed on one thing. Sorcha did not belong to the Nightmare. It would not have her.

Wolves did not fear—they were feared.

He stood in front of Sorcha, snarling at the Nightmare as it galloped around them, tainting the very air they breathed with dread. Shadows clung to its hooves. The ivy wilted on the stones.

Aidan could fight the Nightmare as a wolf, and he might even win.

But how long could Sorcha survive the onslaught of her nightmares? Her cheeks were pale, her hair sweat-tangled. And she was shivering. He could smell the terror roiling inside of her, staining her tears. Her lips moved but he barely heard her, would not have without his wolf’s ears.

“Sunlight.”

She reached out, clutching his thick fur in her hand, fearless.

“Aidan.”

The wolf’s gray fur was soft, so much softer than Sorcha had imagined.

It felt nice.

But she was too weak to pull herself up, as if she had been asleep for a hundred years. She shoved him. “Get to the sunlight.”

One of them should survive this.

He snarled at her, eyes as gold and mysterious as buried coins.

Her own eyes drifted closed, and when his jaws opened, it was the only thing she did not fear. He closed his teeth around the shoulder of her dress and dragged her toward the doorway.

The Nightmare circled closer, snorting and neighing, the sound so gratingly unpleasant that it roused Sorcha for a moment. The wolf’s ears were stained with blood. He didn’t let go of her, pulling her away from the shadows and the poisoned air and the red, red eyes. The empty Nettlestone Hall reverberated in her head like a clanging bell: empty stables, broken windows, abandoned dovecote. Feathers drifting across the stones. Paper birds filling the sky, so many, too many for her to follow.

She was so close to the archway, to the hills outside.

A hoof slammed down, pinning the hem of her dress to the ground.

If she stretched as far as her bones would allow, she could just brush her fingers against a beam of sunlight.

But not enough. The paper birds were everywhere, choking the sun.

The wolf snarled, snapping his jaws at the Nightmare, choking on its magic. The Nightmare reared up.

When it landed again, Sorcha was gone.

The wolf had pushed her onto the grass, out of the tower, to where the sun fell on her face and her hands and her lips when she took a true, full breath. The tendrils of the Nightmare’s magic receded, like scurrying insects. It was like sticky cobwebs had been strangling her and they melted away.

The wolf soared through the archway, the huge darkness of the Nightmare lunging after him. Gold eyes gleamed; teeth flashed. The wolf landed and the Nightmare followed, burning hoof aiming for Aidan’s head.

The sun caught it first.

The Nightmare dissipated into ribbons of shadows, crumbling like ashes in the warmth of the sun.

It was just Sorcha, the call of crows from the top of the tower, the softness of an autumn day, and a wolf.

“Well.” She sat up, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “That’s never happened before.”