He grabbed the trunk of a twisted tree that grew at the base of the canyon wall. Ross ran to the other side and did the same. Panicked and with nowhere to run, I found a thick root that had pushed its way through the wall at about shoulder height. I grabbed the root with both hands and gritted my teeth.

  Within seconds, the wall of water was upon us. The raging, twisting, rushing wave carried trees, bushes, branches, dirt, leaves, and anything else that it swept up along its course. A huge trunk thicker than I was tall swept past inches from my face, and then the water crashed over me.

  It took every ounce of strength I possessed to maintain my grip. The suffocating water pounded against me with the force of a dozen raging bears. Branches battered me from side to side and a trunk slammed into my head so hard my skull rebounded off the rock wall behind me. Dazed, it was only the fact that I had slipped my arm through the root and held it with my other hand that kept me there.

  Sometime during the pounding, I had let go of the last of my air. I had to breathe. The sensation of drowning wasn’t new to me, yet it carried the same panic-edged urgency of the night Sebastian drowned. Though the current was still too strong to fight, I was out of options.

  I shoved away from the wall in what I hoped was an upward direction, but the moment I let go of the root, the force of the water sent me tumbling end over end. I swam, but didn’t know which way was up. The debris that rushed around me flipped me in a summersault into a log with such force I lost what little remained of my breath. Water burned in my nose and my eyes could make out nothing through the mud-filled liquid. I clawed at anything I could reach.

  Just past the log, my hand closed on something that didn’t belong in the sharp tumble of debris. The texture was softer than the branches that scratched against me, but firm. I realized with a start that it was a foot. Following it down, I found that whoever it belonged to was trapped beneath the log. Scrambling with the last bit of strength I had left, I managed to free us both from the log.

  Clear of the debris, I yanked backwards and the body followed. Glancing up through the dark haze that pressed against the edges of my mind, I saw a glimmer of light. I pushed off the log and dragged us both upwards.

  My head broke the surface just before the darkness in my mind won. I sucked in a deep breath and coughed at the water I had gulped with it. I shoved the body up and went under again. With a final, desperate surge, I managed to grab the other person around the chest.

  My watery gaze made out the side of the wall just feet away from where I struggled to keep our heads above the surface. With slow strokes impeded by the body I towed, I fought to reach the wall. Finally, my fingers brushed the rough side. The water carried us for several yards until I managed to snag the branches of a bush. My movements slow and exhausted, I inched the body out of the water onto the small outcropping where the bush grew. It felt like hours before I could pull myself up as well.

  “Rhett,” I said, my voice scratchy from breathing in the water. “Rhett, breathe.”

  A mouse wouldn’t have heard my whisper.

  Using the very last of my reserves, I slapped Rhett’s bare chest.

  “Breathe,” I growled.

  When the sound of his breath refused to meet my ears, I did the very last thing I could. I struggled to my feet on the little shelf and then collapsed on top of him. My shoulder hit his chest with such force that he started to cough. I pushed him weakly to his side and watched as he coughed out more water than he probably drank in a day.

  “Breathe,” I was finally able to bring myself to say again.

  Rhett looked up at me. “Finn?” he said with confusion in his gaze.

  I nodded. “You just survived the final Gauntlet.”

  Together, with slow, agonizing movements, we climbed to the top of the canyon and the group waiting beyond. I collapsed to my knees and watched Roundy run up and gather his son in a tight hug.

  “I’m so proud of you!” the werewolf said. “You did it! You really did it!”

  “That was amazing,” another werewolf told Rhett.

  “Good job,” a woman said.

  I caught several curious gazes and turned my attention to the ground in front of my knees. In the growing darkness, the earth looked soft and inviting.

  I was contemplating curling up to sleep then and there when a hand touched my shoulder.

  “You saved my son’s life. How could I ever repay you?”

  I looked up to find Roundy standing above me.

  “A blanket?” I replied. My body shivered. I didn’t know if it was from the freezing water we had just survived or if shock was setting in from what we had been through.

  Roundy chuckled and helped me to my feet. “Get these boys some blankets!” he called out. He pulled me into a tight hug that surprised me. “Thanks for saving my boy. I don’t know what I’d do without him,” he said sincerely.

  When he let me go, a woman wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.

  “Come on, Finn,” Rhett said from behind his father.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Rhett smiled at me for the fist time since we had met. “Time to get branded.”

  Roundy and Rhett walked on either side of me. To my surprise, instead of returning to the Den for some sort of ceremony, the werewolves with Roundy had already started a fire. They moved so Rhett and I could get close enough to dry ourselves with the warmth.

  After a few minutes interspersed with congratulations and teeth chattering, Roundy pulled something from the fire.

  He held up a length of metal that glowed at the end in a shape that matched the wolf head on his forearm.

  “Time to become a member of the Pack,” he said to us.

  Rhett gestured to me. “Finn first.”

  I shook my head. At his surprise, I said, “You’ve waited a lot longer for this.”

  With a grin that showed the gap in his teeth, Rhett held out his forearm. A hiss escaped him when his father pressed the brand to his arm, but he didn’t pull away. When Roundy removed the brand and placed it back in the fire, the red, angry, raised mark on the boy’s arm showed in stark contrast in the moonlight.

  “It’ll heal quickly,” Roundy said, indicating the moon above us. “I’m proud of you, son.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Rhett replied. He turned to me. “You’re next.”

  The thought of Vicken waiting chained and wounded with my brand as his only means of escape made me hold out my arm. I sucked in a breath when Roundy put the brand to it. His gaze traveled down my arm to the name written across the inside of my wrist.

  “Who’s Sparrow?” he asked.

  “My dragon,” I replied. At their surprised stares, I said, “She’s with a friend right now.”

  A pang of sadness filled me as soon as the words left my lips. The baby sylph dragon who had chosen me on her hatching day and sacrificed herself to save my life had been with Alden when I left Haunted High to free my parents from monster killers, but she had vanished a few days before I returned. I had no idea where she was or how she was surviving in the city. I fought back the feeling of hopelessness at trying to find her. The only hope I had was that she would return to the Academy on her own. But how could a baby dragon ever hope to navigate such a huge city and return home?

  “There,” Roundy said, pulling the brand away. “Now it’s official.”

  He handed the metal rod to one of his pack members and clapped Rhett and me on the back. “Welcome to the Pack, boys!”

  Applause and cheers followed his words. The other members of the Pack were in the middle of their congratulations when headlights appeared further down the road. Two sets, then four, then a dozen trucks bounced up the dirt road at speeds far faster than should have been safe. The first truck slid to a stop near Roundy.

  “What the—” he began.

  “What’s going on here?” Meg cut off when she shoved the door open and climbed out. A cloud of dirt puffed up when her shoes hit the ground. She slammed the door and stormed over to Roundy. “I demand answers!”

  “We branded them,” Roundy said with a grin. “They survived the Gauntlet. They’re members of the Pack now.”

  “They’re members of the Pack now,” Meg repeated in a mocking imitation of his voice. “Did you see what I saw, Roundy, or did I miss something?”

  “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roundy said with a confused expression.

  Meg looked back at the Pack members who were climbing out of the trucks to join her. “Did these two survive the Gauntlet according to all of the rules?” she asked.

  Fear flickered on Roundy’s face. I saw him take a step forward to place himself between Meg and his son.

  “No,” Stix said when he reached Meg’s side. His face was hard when he continued with, “They didn’t obey all of the rules.”

  “What are you talking about?” Roundy demanded. “Of course they did. They survived, didn’t they? They’re standing right here!”

  A hint of sorrow brushed Meg’s face only to disappear so fast when she looked at Rhett that I could have imagined it. “What happened under that water, Rhett? Did you swim to the surface all by yourself, and by yourself, did you climb onto that ledge to get free of the flood?”

  I caught Rhett’s intake of breath before he shook his head. “I was trapped. I-I couldn’t get free from the log. I was drowning until—”

  “Until what?” Meg prompted with a falsely sweet voice.

  Rhett swallowed audibly and then said, “Until Finn managed to free me.”

  “That’s right,” Meg replied in the same sweet voice. “And what is one of the rules of the Gauntlet?”

  Rhett hung his head. “No assistance is allowed.”

  Meg snapped her fingers. “Yes, that’s it.” She repeated his words in a singsong voice. “No assistance is allowed.” She turned on Roundy and all mockery vanished to leave only steel in her gaze. “You branded them falsely, Roundy.”

  Roundy’s eyes were clouded with tears when he shook his head. “No. They survived, Meg. You have to have a heart. They deserve to be members of our Pack. They showed their strength. They were the only ones who survived!”

  “Survived falsely,” Meg spat. “I won’t welcome cheaters into our Pack, and you did so knowing they broke the rules.”

  Her gun cleared its holster before Roundy could defend himself. Two shots rang out.

  “Dad!” Rhett shouted.

  He caught his father as Roundy collapsed to the ground. Blood trickled from the two holes in the man’s chest. More blood spilled from where Rhett’s hands clung desperately to his father’s back. Roundy gave his son one last smile, and then his breath left him in a rattling gasp. Rhett could only stare as the life left his father’s gaze and his head fell to the side.

  Rhett turned hate-filled eyes on Meg. “You killed him!”

  “You killed him when you broke the rules,” she replied. She looked at me. “Just as you killed your vampire friend.” Her gaze moved to the werewolves around us. “Stun them and throw them in the truck. They’ll be bear food in the morning.”

  The thought of Vicken dying because of me made me reckless. I threw myself at Meg. I didn’t know what I would do if I reached her. Instead of finding out, a bullet hit me in the back and dropped me to the ground. Rhett fell beside me. I closed my eyes against the sight of tears streaming from his dark gaze that was still locked on his father’s face.

  The hands that carried us into the back of the truck were gentle. The glimpses I caught of the faces of the werewolves around us showed their sorrow. It was obvious no one had thought the night would end like this. A woman with Lunera’s long red hair sat in the corner of the truck with her face buried in her hands. A man rubbed her back as her shoulders shook. Other werewolves were also already in mourning. The thought that they had expected to welcome Ross and Durnin into their pack made me sad.

  When we reached the Den, Rhett and I were thrown into the cage. I wondered if Meg had forbidden visitors because nobody even walked near the bars. Kiyah was conspicuously absent. I wondered if she would get in trouble for feeding Vicken. The thought that neither of us would survive the Den made me angry, but it was a futile, vain anger that had no outlet. Rhett lay in silence where they had set him. Though I heard his quiet sobs, I knew there was nothing I could do to ease his pain. I wish Dara was there to help, then retracted the thought. At least the girl I loved was safe.

  When the numbing effects of the stun bullet lifted, there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Our thick handcuffs left us with few options. I couldn’t help thinking of every step of the Gauntlet again. Guilt at what Rhett had gone through pressed against me.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” I said quietly.

  Rhett glanced at me. His dark eyes were red, but he appeared to be out of tears. “You’re dying because you chose to save my life.”

  “If we did it again, I would still pull you from that river,” I replied.

  Rhett watched me silently for a moment before he said, “Even if it means being eaten by bears?”

  “Does it have to be bears?” I replied. At the shadow of a smile on his lips, I nodded. “Even then.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  I waited in silence for him to continue. When he did, his words gripped my heart.

  “Why are we supposed to fight for each other and live for each other if to do so during the Gauntlet means death?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “I think someone has too much power here.”

  “Meg,” he whispered in a tone thick with anger.

  I nodded. “For a people whose motto is to follow hierarchy, it doesn’t make sense to put someone in power who is the same rank.”

  Rhett glanced at me. “We need an Alpha.”

  I shook my head. “What you need is a fair government where everyone’s voice is heard. She’s grown too attached to her power, and so she gets rid of those who threaten her position.”

  “Like us,” Rhett said with realization dawning on his face.

  I nodded. “Like us.”

  Footsteps sounded down the hallway. Ten armed werewolves appeared.

  “Is it morning?” Rhett asked. He made a show of glancing at the windows above. “Still looks dark to me.”

  One of the werewolves unlocked the cage. The door swung open with a creak.

  “I’m sorry about this, Rhett,” the werewolf told him.

  “You were brave out there, boy,” a woman said to me as she hooked a chain to my handcuffs.

  “We’re praying for a quick death for both of you,” another told us.

  “That’s reassuring,” Rhett said dryly. “I’m sure that’ll help.”

  He shot me a nervous grin. I returned it. We would go out bravely and without tears, at least until we saw the bears.

  That thought solidified when we were led to a thick metal door embedded in the wall. Stix waited next to it.

  “I’ll see that your father’s body is properly laid to rest,” he told Rhett.

  “I would rather you’d have fought for him,” Rhett replied, his gaze level.

  Shame filled Stix’s face before he lowered his eyes to the floor. He pulled the door open without a word.

  “Unlock their handcuffs,” a werewolf instructed.

  The cuffs were unlocked. The guns of the werewolves kept me from entertaining the impulse to fight back. With my heart thundering in my chest to bely the calm expression on my face, I stepped inside. Rhett’s shoulder brushed my own. We both waited until the door closed and was locked behind us. For a moment, the light was shut out, leaving us in total darkness. The musky, pine-tinged scent of bears flooded my nose.

  “Ready for this?” Rhett asked.

  “No,” I replied. “You?”

  “Definitely not.”

  Lights flickered on. My first glimpse was of a cavern lined with cameras. They apparently wanted to get a good view of our deaths. I had no doubt Meg required every werewolf in the Den to attend our slaughter. It was disgusting.

  “Let’s give them a good show,” I said, stepping forward.

  “I’d rather not give them a show at all,” Rhett replied with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

  A growl rumbled through the cave to cut off my reply. Scents of hunger, anger, and frustration wafted from a tunnel on the far side of the cavern. I felt the fall of heavy paws on the floor through my bare feet. Great snuffling sounds preceded a massive head that poked from the darkness into the light of the cavern. The huge brown bear blinked its beady eyes as its head swayed from side to side.

  Chapter Six

  “Where did they get these bears?” I asked as the one in front of us lumbered out of its cave. It was easily twice the size of the possessed bear Vicken and I had run from in the Academy forest. It lifted its head to sniff again. The hunger in its gaze was unmistakable. It focused on us and let out an earsplitting roar that made both of us cover our ears.

  “We’re in trouble!” Rhett said.

  “Tell me about it,” I replied.

  A second bear followed the first. Soon, there were four massive bears watching us from in front of the tunnel. One licked its chops. It was easy to see how hungry they were. Instead of thick, healthy bellies, and full coats, these bears were gaunt with scraggly fur and a scent of desperation. The question wasn’t if we were to be eaten, it was which bear would get to us first.

  “Should we phase to wolf form?” Rhett asked with fear in his voice.

  I shook my head. “Wolves will fight bears like predators. We need to think strategy.”

  A bear charged.

  “My strategy is to run!” Rhett shouted.

  He took off to the right. The bear seemed to think he was the most tempting morsel of the two of us because he moved in a lumbering gallop after the werewolf.

  His actions fueled the other bears. Rhett’s circuit around the circular cave sent him back toward the animals. He glanced at the two bears behind him. Desperation must have fueled their strength, because they were gaining on him. With two bears in front and two behind, Rhett was quickly running out of options.

 

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