Maiden's Wolf (In Deception's Shadow Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

was needed elsewhere.
Almost against her will, she found herself reining the gelding around until
they faced the trail behind them.
    The dark power
did not share more details. Beatrice desperately wanted to know more, but in
the end she couldn’t resist its urging, and she squeezed her legs around the
gelding’s barrel to hurry him into a trot.
    In all likelihood,
she was about to ride into a pack of acolytes, but her fool of a Larnkin wasn’t
giving her a choice.
     
    *****
     
    Darkness was
falling, the shadows among the trees growing longer. Ahead Silverblade heard
the rushing of rapids over the sounds of his own passage and the blood pounding
in his ears. The crossbow bolt buried in his shoulder grated against bone and
the blazing pain caused his vision to go stark white with each step. He forced
himself to focus on their surroundings, not each and every agony inflicted upon
his body by the acolytes.
    He and his mother
had escaped the acolytes. For now. But they wouldn’t remain free for long if he
didn’t focus.
    He blinked his
snowy vision clear and looked around.
    Yes. He knew this
area, had camped by the falls several times and set traps.
    The river was
near.
    They were never
going to make it. Silverblade knew it. Likely his mother knew it as well, but
still they ran, the underbrush snatching at them. Neither of them tried to hide
their trail. It would not matter if they had. The predators tracking them had
senses beyond the physical.
    Some unknown
distance behind, the remaining acolytes still followed them.
    Silverblade
darted around a tree in his path. His mother stumbled and slammed into it. He
doubled back for her just as she righted herself. Together they continued their
desperate run toward the river.
    A phoenix might
be faster than a human, but they were still awkward on the ground. If he could
only shapeshift, he could outrun the acolytes. He’d even be able to carry the
phoenix on his back as he fled. But his Larnkin was still stunned and reeling
from whatever the acolytes had tossed at them.
    He could still
feel the cold numbing chill from the acolytes’ strange net traps as if he was
still trapped underneath them. From what his Larnkin had gathered before it was
crippled, it looked like the elders and their guards had walked right into the
nets as if they hadn’t seen them. Or perhaps, couldn’t see them.
    Not that
Silverblade had fared any better. Even with the screams giving him a few
moments’ warning, he hadn’t sensed those deceptively delicate nets about to
drop down onto his shoulders. Maybe had he not been idly chatting with his
mother, he might have seen what was coming, somehow prevented the tragedy from
unfolding. If he’d been doing his duty and actively scouting for dangers…?
    Looking back, he
wasn’t sure if it would have made a difference. He’d never run across something
that had no scent, taste, or hum of power to it before. All life—all magic had
an essence, some form of taste or smell. But not these power-sapping traps the
acolytes had created. They were nothing—a void neither he nor his Larnkin had
sensed.
    Cymael stumbled a
second time, but continued toward the river. A crossbow bolt still poked out of
her back, high up near her shoulder blade. Another had shattered her one wing
bone and the soft, cream-colored feathers were now drenched in bright blood,
her useless wing dragging behind. They didn’t even have time to secure it to
her back. If they slowed for even a moment, they were both dead.
    Had their
physical ailments been the only factor working against them, he might hold more
hope of escape, but even though they were free of the nets, their magic
continued to bleed out as if they were even now caught in those deadly,
gossamer threads.
    Cymael was the
most powerful elder in the group. Her fire magic seemed the only thing able to
kill the acolytes and burn through the net traps. But even she’d been too late
to save the first group caught in the nets—their