I SLAMMED BACK DOWN to planet earth so hard my teeth should have rattled. One second I was elated. The next, I was panting, the fight’s adrenaline fading.
Could I do that again so soon? I doubted it. Likely, I’d instead end up stabbing myself in the foot when I tripped over nothing.
But I was the sword maiden. I lifted my blade, hating the fact that the tip wavered. “Thirty seconds,” I informed Victor, “then you can join the big dogs in today’s race.”
He stepped forward, sword at the ready. His weight rested on the balls of his feet.
Victor’s stance suggested that he not only had a sword, he also knew how to use it. I brought my own blade’s tip higher to follow the track suggested by his eyes.
“Enough.”
Luke’s roar blasted through me, through our pack mates, through the forest. Birds
