Chapter 22 · Crossbows at the Gate

The first bolt hit the carriage door and I felt it in my back teeth.

Iron on iron. Then a second one, a third, and the whole coach rocked sideways like something had grabbed it by the collar and shaken.

"Down." Torin's hand closed on the back of my neck. Not rough. Not gentle, either. "Briar. Down."

"I'm not a—"

"Down."

I went down. My knees hit the floorboards and my palm landed in a puddle of rain that had blown in through the window, and the whole box of the carriage smelled like wet wool and gun oil and cold iron.

Outside, a man's voice, stretched thin: "By order of the council guard, the Alpha's coach will halt and submit to inspection."

The coach had already halted. That was the joke. We'd stopped so hard the horses were screaming and one of them had gone up on its hind legs, and I could hear the driver swearing at the reins.

Torin didn't move. I watched his jaw from the floor. That muscle under the bone that ticks when he's deciding how many people he's going to hurt.

"Kaelen's men," I said.

"Pack guard." Flat.