Book 3: Face to Face

Candace

A wolf dives at me out of the screaming, clashing mayhem, its maw drenched in blood. One half of my brain orders a paw to swing. The other shouts, RUN! I manage a hopping scramble that seems more likely to get me killed than anything else.

And one of the men Hollis picked to stay at my side through the battle catches the attacker’s back foot between his teeth and yanks him back. Two of the others swarm out from behind me like a cloud of death, and the reek of blood in the air intensifies.

I heave. It’s so much like my dream, so little like anything else I’ve ever experienced. I’m just grateful Ingrid didn’t fight me when I told her she should stay in the castle. I only got a few self-defense lessons, but she barely had any at all.

More claws swing toward me. The final member of the team Hollis assigned to me attempts to interrupt them, but some instinct a trainer actually managed to inculcate into me fires, and I dodge out of the way