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“Your Majesty!” Shouted a familiar voice in the distance. “Your Majesty!”
Breaking his hold on the girl in his arms he looked for the source of the voice with sleepy eyes. Harker stormed up to him, his green eyes blazing in the darkness, he wore a pair of leather pants once more, but no shirt. The sign of a wolf recovering from a turn. None of them could stand the feel of clothing for hours after they returned to their human form.
Erik frowned and stood up leaving the girl to relax on the bier. “What is it, Harker?”
“She’s gone. I have no idea how she did it, but she’s slipped past the two you posted by the door, and she’s gone,” he said, swallowing visibly.
Erik’s hands clenched into fists, his nails lengthening into claws, cutting his palms. “What?!”
Harker flinched, backing away half a step. “I went to see if you needed anything before I bunked down for the night, and she was gone.”
“Damn,” Erik hissed, pushing past him slipping from the tent. Storming back up the hill, he spotted his guards huddled together chatting frantically under their breath.
“Where is she?” he bellowed.
Both men snapped to attention, and the older of the two spoke. “I’m not sure, Sire, but Alaric is already out tracking her scent. We’re incredibly—”
Erik cut him off with a hand to his throat. He closed the distance between them and snarled. “If anything happens to her, I will have your head. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,”the man croaked. Erik threw him to the ground and shrugged his jacket off as he sniffed the air.
He’d lost track of time in the feeding tent. It’d been at least two hours since he’d left her to sleep, if not longer. He’d unintentionally given her a head start, losing himself to the creature within.
Where could she have gone? They were on his side of the border, and she’d been asleep for most of the ride. Where—
A faint wind blew towards him, and he caught her scent. She’d snuck out of the tent and circled behind it to cut through the trees. Smart.
“This way,” Erik barked, marching off in the direction the scent was strongest.
Harker huffed, and as he walked away, he heard the wolf grunt and growl as he returned to his animal form. The wolves were good trackers, but Erik’s sense of smell had always been better.
Bobbing and weaving, he felt the worry and panic start to claw at his throat. She didn’t know the sort of monsters that lurked in the Black Mist. He’d chosen their campsite for its defensible borders. Wandering through the trees as a warmblood meant she was vulnerable, far more than she’d ever been lurking in the trees back in Distova. It frustrated him how little the humans knew about what he protected them from.
In the distance, a loud howl broke the quiet of the night. Beside him, Harker tensed, and a rumbling growl echoed from his chest. “Alaric has found her, but he’s calling for help.”
Erik nodded and darted forward, letting his vampire nature carry him on. His muscles clenched, and power surged through his body. Freshly fed, he was stronger than he had been in days.
He had to get there, he had to find her. Moving faster and faster, he could only imagine what Alaric would need assistance with. He was larger and faster than his brother. The best of the army’s four-legged hunters. It wasn’t until Erik crested the edge of the cliffside that he smelled the sour stench of wraith smoke on the wind.
“Damn,” he hissed, and scanning the valley below he saw the briefest flash of gray fur near the border. Somehow, the princess had found the one path that would lead her down the mountain back to the early morning light on her side of the mist. Erik shook his head. “Of course, she did.”
“Your Majesty,” Harker growled. “If she crosses the border, you know what will happen. We must stop her.”
Erik whirled to face him. “You think I don’t know that? Help your brother, I’ll find the girl.”
The wolf gave him a firm nod, and leapt from the ledge, diving into the trees below. Erik watched him disappear, and then stepped forward, dropping down after him.
Landing in the crevasse, Erik immediately recognized that Mina’s scent was stronger than before. She’d cut herself climbing down the rocks. Her blood was smeared across one of the stones. With a fresh wound, it would be easier for him to track her, but it would also make it easier for the wraiths too.
Retracing her steps, he heard the growls of the wolves fighting the creatures hunting the princess, but as he moved more shadows broke from the branches above him. The hunt was on.
Approaching a clearing in the trees, Mina’s scent split off in four different directions. Confused he turned, sniffing the air twice. How could she go in four different—? It was on his third circuit of the ground that he saw it. She’d smeared blood on the trees before moving onward. She was trying to hide her tracks.
“Smart girl,” he muttered, turning towards where he knew the border lurked between the rocks. If Mina had made it this far, she was smart enough to figure out the fastest way home.
Erik took three steps past the trees, and something hard slammed into his shoulders, knocking him off balance. Thrusting out his hands he rolled, and a wraith hissed at him from where it had rebounded to the branches above. The creature was nearly skeletal. Its gray-blue skin looked cracked and dry, and its oblong jaw extended to reveal his bright yellow fangs. Vampires made with demonic blood, they were feral and vicious.
Behind him, another creature cried out in pain. The wraith’s eyes darted past him, and it made to launch itself through the air.
