Queen of the Lycan, Karina Espinosa [accelerated reader books .TXT] 📗

trail and dashing between trees and bushes. I definitely hadn’t worn the proper footwear for this kind of jaunt, but it didn’t stop me from hopping over logs at full speed behind Ranulf.

We caught up with the two wolves after a half-mile sprint. They were feverishly pacing a clearing when we burst through the trees and took in the gruesome scene. I was so busy focusing on their howls, I didn’t catch the metallic tang of blood swirling through the air, but now that I was there, the smell assaulted me in every direction.

Blood was splattered everywhere, but there were no bodies to be found. Except one.

Ailios was skewered to a tree up ahead, her body limp and bloodied as it hung from the wood with a spear lodged in her abdomen.

“Ailios!” I shouted and pushed past my guards in my dash to reach her.

Her dreaded locks hung forward limply, covering her bloodied face. I tilted her head back, brushing her hair away from her neck as I tried to find a pulse.

“Ailios, please … stay with me,” I whispered as I pressed two fingers along her neck. I couldn’t tell how long she had been there, but I hoped she was still alive. When a slow pulse thumped beneath my fingers, I breathed a sigh of relief. “She’s alive! Help me get her down!”

The guards held her up as I grabbed the spear. When they had her firmly in their grasp, I counted to three and pulled the spear out of her.

Ailios gasped, her yellow eyes widening in shock. We quickly laid her on the ground and covered her wound hastily with cloth pulled from a pack.

I kneeled beside her, my hand over her bloodied abdomen. “You need to shift, Ailios,” I whispered. “And you need to do it now.”

Blood sprouted from her mouth as she tried to answer, but no words came out. Her head moved around as if she was trying to express something and couldn’t.

“Ailios, please. Shift!”

She let out a massive growl and revealed her canines, clawing the soil beside her in pain. Slowly, she shifted into a wolf with soft, reddish brown fur. She rested on her side, breathing heavily.

I exhaled slowly as I watched her injury gradually stitch itself back together. I reached out a hand to brush her coat. When she allowed it, I knew she must have been in too much pain to stop me.

I peered over my shoulder to look at Ranulf and asked, “What happened here?”

“I don know, Yer Majesty,” he answered mindlessly as he surveyed the area of what was clearly a massacre.

“We need to secure the area,” Liam announced, then directed the other guards to fan out and search the perimeter for other threats or survivors.

I sat on the ground beside the healing wolf as we waited for Ailios to be restored. I glanced at Ranulf. “I can’t believe Fenrir would attack the Highlanders like this. He doesn’t seem capable of such wanton destruction. He wants the Lycan on his side, and attacking the Highlanders is the opposite of doing that. It doesn’t make sense.”

Ranulf rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Maybe it wasn’t him,” he proposed.

I frowned. “What?”

“Yer vision said he mentioned something was coming. What if it’s already here?” Ranulf mused.

My stomach plummeted. In the horror of finding Ailios pinned to a tree, I completely forgot about it.

“Only Ailios and the Highlanders can answer that now.” I tightened my ponytail and rubbed my temple, trying to stave off the headache that threatened. “I need to find Fenrir.”

“No, Yer Majesty. It’s too dangerous,” Ranulf said sternly. “If he’s the one behind this, he will kill ye.”

The spear that was stuck in Ailios’ abdomen was her own, and there were no other weapons left in the area to give us a clue as to who the enemy was. Who could have done this? Where were the Highlanders? They wouldn’t have left Ailios behind … unless they thought she was dead. Even then, they would have come back for her body.

What the hell was going on?

It took Ailios an hour to fully heal. We waited patiently as she did, still on full alert since the area wasn’t safe. When she shifted back to her human self, I handed her clothes so she could dress and made sure no one crowded her. The guards vigilantly maintained their posts around the perimeter while Ranulf and I stayed with her.

“Are you okay, Ailios?” I asked softly as she sat up, her yellow eyes dull compared to their normal brilliance.

She shivered. “Thank ye, Yer Majesty,” she croaked.

The fact that she was shaking told me the extent of her trauma. Ailios was a warrior. She wasn’t afraid of anything. Whatever happened here shook her to the core.

“Ailios, I’m sorry to ask you this, and I know it’s bad timing, but can you tell me what happened?” I asked gingerly.

She nodded slowly as she spaced out, staring ahead without seeing. “It came in the middle of the night,” she whispered as if afraid someone in the forest might hear her. “We did nae see it coming. It was silent. It ravaged through our camp in a rain of crimson. I’ve never seen a monster like this before, Yer Majesty.” She shuddered and looked at me in terror.

I swallowed loudly, fighting the goosebumps that tickled my spine. “What happened to you?”

“I was trying to gather the others … to run,” she admitted as if it was an embarrassment. To a fierce Highlander, it was an embarrassment and she was ashamed. “When I turned around, a spear struck me and the force threw me straight into a tree. I told the others to run. I felt myself dying … I told them there was no point in saving me, I would just hold them back.”

I nodded in understanding. “Did you see the monster? Did you see who attacked you?”

Ailios shook her head. “That’s the thing, Yer Majesty, it was all a blur. I could nae