Free Cold Mercy (Northern Wolves) by Sadie Hart Page B

long, crooked nose, a gaping maw, huge spindly limbs. He’d seen caricatures of creatures like this in mythology books.
    A troll.
    A low vibration sounded in the creature’s throat as it towered over them, its body suddenly gaunt and he could count every rib along the its side, every knobby protrusion of the monster’s spine. Bay felt himself hunker down into the snow, hoping to blend in, the wolf’s need for survival suddenly kicking in. One taloned hand reached out for another wolf and the animal yelped, trying to dart away, when Morrigan laid a hand on the troll’s wrist.
    “No. They are all mine.”
    “Morrigan.” Her name rolled out of his mouth, long and drawn, and the troll grinned down at her. “About time you wake me.”
    He snorted, a glob of ice shooting from his nose, and Bay winced, dragging himself backwards in a half-crawl. She gave him a bloody smile. “Feed yourself, Svell, the wolves belong to me as always.” She glanced back at the wolves tucked behind her, several now growing confident enough to stand. Hackles rising down their spines. “My wolves have fed me well tonight.”
    She said the last with her gaze on Bay. Instantly, he thought of the fresh-killed deer and all the nights before, the bloody dreams, the hunts. God. It’d all been to feed her . To give her strength. To do what? He almost didn’t want to know. His stomach roiled at her smile, knowing damn well she knew what he was thinking. Knew he’d figured it out.
    He thought of the man last night, bloody as she’d sucked him dry.
    Nothing about Morrigan felt right. Evil and darkness leeched off her in waves, pulling at him, tainting him, and he stared up at the troll towering behind her, the long-fingered claws and jagged teeth. Nothing about that troll looked safe. Another monster. One he’d helped her make. She said he’d woken her the night he crashed? Had all this been because of him?
    “You were the start.” She reached for him and Bay launched into control, jerking the wolf’s body backwards and out of range. He would not let her touch him. Teeth bared, he scrambled away from her, only to watch as the other wolves rung around her, ready to defend her. She laid a hand on the one closest to her side, reassuring her pack even as she spoke to Bay. “Enough of this. You are mine. You do as you are told. I am your Queen.”
    Not my Queen . The thought resonated through him and he could feel his wolf’s surprise at that thought, but the beast didn’t fight him. Not now.
    Morrigan lifted one cool eyebrow at his defiance. “Come here.”
    The words came wrapped in a velvety command, one he was damn well meant to obey as her gaze jerked from his eyes to the barren snow in front of her. The wolf shivered, muscles clenching and bunching in preparation to move. There was no way he could just stand there against the force of her order. No way could he stop himself from moving. But he’d be damned if he went to her.
    Pain lanced through him, burning hot through his veins as Bay took a step forward, fighting the lure of her power—a siren in the middle of a winter’s forest. And she would be the death of him. He knew it. Maybe not now, not while she still needed him like all the others, but insolence like his could not go unanswered. Not by a cold-hearted bitch like her.
    Bay dug his paws into the snow and whirled, launching himself into the forest. Sharp icicle laced branches snapped at his face, but he drove through them, pouring himself headlong into a run. Fear pounded in his heart, a wild staccato beat, like the sounds of wild horses, and suddenly the wolf-spirit was helping him, pouring raw fear into the mixture until he couldn’t hear Morrigan screaming behind him.
    God help him, but he was probably going to die over that.
    He ran until he couldn’t breathe past the ice in his lungs and he staggered to a stop, his long jaws opened wide as he gasped for air, his sides heaving. A tremor ran through him and Bay closed his