Daughter of Neptune, Book one

XXVII

Tori's pov

"Wolves," I said. "They sound close."

Jason and I rose and he summoned his sword. I ripped off my necklace and summoned my silver bow and took off my ring and summoned my quiver of silver arrows. Leo and Coach Hedge got to their feet too. Piper tried but she couldn't.

"Stay there," Jason told her. "We'll protect you."

She gritted her teeth. I could tell she hated feeling helpless. She didn't want anyone to protect her.

Just outside the firelight at the entrance of the cave, I saw a pair of red eyes glowing in dark.

More wolves edged into the firelight—black beasts bigger than Great Danes, with ice and snow caked in their fur. Their fangs gleamed, and their glowing red eyes looked disturbingly intelligent. The wild in front was almost as tall as a horse, his mouth stained as if he'd just made a great kill.

Jason stepped forward and said something in Latin.

The alpha wolf curled his lip. The fur stood up along his spine. One of his lieutenants tried to advance, but the alpha wolf snapped at his ear. Then all the wolves back into the dark.

"Dude, I gotta study Latin." Leo's hammer shook his hand. "What'd you say?"

Hedge cursed. "Whatever it was, it wasn't enough. Look,"

The wolves were coming back, but the alpha wolf wasn't with them. They didn't attack. They waited--at least a dozen now, in a rough semicircle just outside the firelight, blocking the cave exit.

The coach hefted his club. "Here's the plan. I'll kill them all, and you guys escape,"

"Coach, they'll rip you apart," Piper said.

"Nah, I'm good."

Then I saw a silhouette of a man coming through the storm, wading through the wolf pack.

"Stick together," I said. "They respect a pack. And Hedge, no crazy stuff. We're not leaving you or anyone else behind."

The wolves parted, and the man stepped into the firelight. His hair was greasy and ragged, the color of the fireplace soot, topped with a crown of what looked like finger bones. His robes were tattered fur--wolf, rabbit, raccoon, deer, and several others I couldn't identify. The furs didn't look cured, and from the smell, they weren't very fresh. His frame was lithe and muscular, like a distance runner's. But the most horrible his face. His thin pale skin was pulled tight over his skull. His teeth were sharpened like fangs. His eyes glowed bright red like his wolves'--and they fixed on Jason and I with absolute hatred.

"Ecce," he said, "filli Romani."

"Speak English, wolf man!" Hedge bellowed.

The wolf man snarled. "Tell your faun to mind his tongue, son and daughter of Rome. Or he'll be my first snack.

The wolf man studied their little group. His nostrils twitched. "So it's true,"he mused. "A child of Aphrodite. A son of Hephaestus. A faun. And two children of Rome, of Lord Jupiter and Lord Neptune, no less. All together, without killing each other. How interesting."

"You were told about us?" Jason asked. "By whom?"

The man snarled--perhaps a laugh, perhaps a challenge. "Oh, we've been patrolling for you all across the west, demigod, hoping we'd be the first to find you. The giant king will reward me well when he rises. I am Lycaon, king of the wolves. And my pack is hungry."

The wolves snarled in the darkness.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Leo put up his hammer and slip something else from his tool belt--a glass bottle full of clear liquid.