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

suggest you be ready to run.”
    Hope rekindled in
Silverblade’s chest, and it kept pace with the fierce power now spreading out
from that mark, flowing to every corner of his body and soul.
    The acolyte
tapped Silverblade on the chest with his dagger’s hilt a second time. “You
don’t have to tell me. There are other ways.”
    Ironsmith brushed
back the long sleeve of his robe and exposed a thick, black, metal band encircling
his wrist. A dark red stone was mounted to the band.
    It may have
fooled a few onlookers into thinking it was a bracelet or some other
decoration, but Silverblade saw it truly for what it was.
    A slave shackle.
    Ironsmith pressed
the unnaturally cold metal against Silverblade’s chest, just below the glowing
mage mark.
    Immediately, some
of the power swirling in Silverblade’s body was sucked into the black metal.
Ironsmith’s brows knit together and then his eyes grew large and he threw
himself back and to the side.
    The two other
acolytes holding Silverblade down were not so lucky and he witnessed the
magic’s destructive force that he’d only sensed before. Power arced out of the
mark on his chest and lashed at every acolyte within reach.
    Whatever it touched—be
it rock, tree, or acolyte—blew apart in a cascade of burning shadow and ash.
    Silverblade lay
there in shocked disbelief as bits of the gray ash rained down upon him.
Cautiously, he looked around. He’d half-expected to see the forest leveled,
destruction a wide pattern around him. But the nearest tree, only a few body
lengths away, showed no signs of the potent magic’s attack.
    However, the
ground in a body length’s diameter around him, was now barren and scorched.
    He rolled to his
side, scanning the area. While the foreign fire magic—or whatever it was—had
destroyed the nearest acolytes, several were still picking themselves up off
the ground. Distantly, he could still hear their horses’ hoof beats as they
fled.
    Silverblade
didn’t know how many of those horses still possessed riders, but he wasn’t
going to wait around for them to come back and find out first-hand.
    Heaving himself
to his feet, he lurched almost drunkenly, but soon found his footing. His
battered body screamed about its many abuses, but he forced himself to take in
the scene with more detail and soon spotted Acolyte Ironsmith. His enemy still
lived. Although he looked to have some severe burns covering a third of his
body, which likely would have killed a human, but he doubted the acolyte could
be considered human any longer.
    A quick inventory
of his own wounds showed he was in no shape to finish off the remaining
acolytes. Silverblade also realized he was stuck mid-shift—half-human and
half-lupwyn. But by Light’s mercy, he was alive and not yet enslaved.
    And he could
still run, if only on two legs instead of four.
    Barely conscious
of the direction he fled, he started away from the acolytes and the carnage
they had caused and headed towards the healer.
     

Chapter Seven
     
     
     
    As Beatrice expected,
her death magic had obliterated all that it touched. The nearest acolytes had
crumbled, their skin disintegrating and flaking away to nothing. Blood had
misted away as cartilage and bone crumbled to powder. Even the fibers of their
robes had returned to the earth to nourish new life.
    As hideous as her
dark power was to behold, it had left nothing for the acolytes’ master to latch
upon and control.
    For his part, the
lupwyn took advantage of the distraction and escaped into the forest. The link
between them was weakening, but she could still feel his aches and pains of
both physical and mental variety.
    She could no
longer speak to him mind-to-mind—her death magic having damaged the link
between them—but she followed his progress. One part of her mind said it was
too slow, that the remaining acolytes would still catch him. Another part of
her consciousness belonging solely to her Larnkin whispered that if the
acolytes continued to