by Tessa Dawn
Kagen regarded Marquis with nothing more than a shift of focused attention, the barest transference of energy toward his eldest brother, their unquestioned leader, to ascertain any immediate orders—if, in fact, there were any.
Marquis felt the probe and responded coolly. Nathaniel, subdue Walker so that Kagen is not inclined to take his life prematurely. Nachari, take the reasoned one with the sword, the one called Kade. I will capture the fierce one, Echo; and Kagen, you will apprehend Neil. At my command, he added tersely.
So we are to leave them alive…no matter what? Nathaniel drawled lazily in his typical cat-like way, sounding interminably sleepy and more than a little bit bored.
For now, Marquis replied, sounding equally annoyed. His psychic voice relaxed, and he turned his attention to Nachari. Wizard, what do they want?
While all vampires could reach into the minds of humans and extract their thoughts with ease, as a Master Wizard, Nachari’s touch was virtually undetectable. A pregnant moment passed before Nachari answered his eldest brother circumspectly. The tall one became worried when Arielle did not return to camp this night; he brought a handful of warriors, including a tracker—I believe Echo has exceptional hunting skills for a human—to trace her steps, and it eventually led them here. They are hoping to rescue Arielle.
He tracked us by scent alone? Nathaniel asked, sounding mildly surprised, if not slightly impressed. They could not have moved this quickly by simply studying tracks at night.
Nachari’s voice brightened. I believe Echo has a small trace of wolf’s blood in his veins, although he knows it not. Perhaps that is why he is so wild and fearless.
Mmm, Marquis replied. Well, the best laid plans of mice and men…and wolves…
He didn’t finish the familiar refrain.
The approaching rebels drew into tighter formation. They raised their weapons and entered the cave in an organized charge, like warriors hoping to capitalize on the element of surprise, despite not knowing what they were walking into.
“Now!” Marquis barked, this time speaking aloud.
The seizure that ensued was as exact as it was quick and eventless: Nathaniel descended upon Walker from above with deft precision. He removed the battle-axe from his grip, forced him onto his knees, and fisted his wild red hair in his hand, rendering the human immobile before Walker knew what had hit him. The startled male arched unnaturally forward beneath Nathaniel’s pressing knee, his head bent low, and Nathaniel used the opportunity to press the human’s face into the dirt. “Do not move a muscle,” he ordered with a hiss, as if the human could.
Marquis and Nachari acted at the same time, each male becoming visible in the same instant, as if they no longer felt the need to maintain an element of surprise: Marquis snatched Echo by the back of his collar, lifted him effortlessly off the ground, and shook his spiked wooden club loose from his arms. He held him steady, at eye level, snarled a fearsome warning between gnashing fangs, and then seared an imperious command into his mind, lacing the words in compulsion. “Submit!” There was no need for an entire diatribe, not from Marquis.
Nachari leapt from his position at the back of the cave, practically landing in Kade’s footsteps, as if the two males were wearing the same pair of boots. As Kade inhaled sharply in surprise, the wizard paused, waiting for the ensuing exhale, and then he held out his hand, drew back his fingers, and stole the human’s breath from his chest, refusing to allow him another breath of air until he clutched at his own throat and dropped his sword in an effort to coax oxygen into his lungs. Nachari watched patiently as Kade folded in on himself, dying from aspiration; and then the wizard kicked the sword away.
Kagen took Neil with as much stealth and ease as his brothers. He plucked both lethal daggers out of the rebel’s hands and swiftly tucked them into the waistband of his trousers; and then, with one swift, targeted blow to the male’s throat, Kagen dropped him like a sack of potatoes, leaving him agonized and retching on the cave floor, his frantic eyes darting this way and that as if struggling to comprehend what had just happened. Then, and only then, Kagen shimmered into view.
“Welcome to our camp,” Nathaniel drawled in a dark, silken voice, even as all four humans continued to reel from the sudden attack: They scrambled to regain their composure, groped for their missing weapons, and struggled to make sense of what the heck had just happened. “Have a seat around the fire, please,” he added wryly.
Just then, Arielle shot up from her repose at the back of the cave. She grasped her bow, as if she had done so a thousand times before, drew a silver-tipped arrow from the quiver beside her bed, and bounded to her feet in one smooth, agile motion. Her reaction was not measured or thought out. She did not assess or identify her enemy. She simply acted with an instinct born of years…and years…of training, responding, surviving as an integrated part of a whole: one member of a group coming to the immediate aid of the others, her rebel companions. As she quickly surveyed the scene, her vivid aquamarine eyes heated with fury. She took a cautious step toward the fire, turned her head sharply toward Kagen, and glared at him in defiance. “What is the meaning of this, healer!” Her wild gaze swept to Kade, who was still bent over and gasping for air, and she practically seethed malevolence. “Nachari! Release his throat, right now! Let him breathe!” She pointed the arrow directly at the Master Wizard’s heart.
“I already released it,” Nachari assured her, his own silken voice absent of concern: Either he didn’t notice the arrow pointed at his heart, or he didn’t feel threatened enough to acknowledge it. Kagen figured it was the latter.
She spun around to face Marquis, who was now carrying Echo to the fire like a puppy being dragged by the scruff, and her face turned three shades of crimson. “Marquis!”
One stern look from the Ancient Master Warrior, and she instantly backed off. Marquis Silivasi was not one to be ordered about by humans, and apparently, the look on his merciless face made that clear.
Arielle took a cautious step backward, lowered her bow, and turned to Kagen, instead. “Kagen, please.” She sounded so pitiful, so desperate…so incensed.
Kagen sighed, but he didn’t back down. “Arielle, let us handle this…our way.”
She started to nod, albeit reluctantly, and then she caught sight of Walker, still bent over with Nathaniel’s knee planted in his back, his face pressed hard into the earthen floor. “Are you kidding me!” she shouted. She immediately rushed to his side. “Walker! Are you all right?” She slapped at Nathaniel’s knee, as if the vampire were nothing more than a recalcitrant child, and then she implored him with her eyes. “Nathaniel, stop! You’re hurting him.”
Before Nathaniel could reply, Kagen snarled deep in his throat—the sound was a feral mixture of warning and surprise. “Do not,” he clipped harshly, instantly regretting the harsh authority in his words. The last thing he wanted to do was intimidate Arielle further, or worse, lose his temper and end up tearing Walker’s throat out in front of the female. Not only would such a thing likely turn her against him for good, but the sight of his animal nature, so unrestrained and primal, might just scar her for the rest of her life.
Yet and still, how could he explain that he had read the male’s true intentions within seconds of looking into his duplicitous eyes, that for all of Walker’s professed friendship and admiration for Arielle Nightsong, the human was a cauldron of insecurity and raging hormones, as confused as he was loyal, as desperate as he was determined?
How could he explain that Walker was this close to crossing the line?
That he had already moved from admiration to stalking, and it was just a matter of time before stalking turned into…rape.
The male may have been her childhood friend, and at one time, he may have truly cared for her like a brother, perhaps even desired her as a man, but her constant denial of his affections had warped him—that, and the untenable life the lycans had forced him to lead. Walker was tired of being the bottom man on the totem pole, and the next step up was subjug
ating a woman, taking what he couldn’t have.
Not caring to reveal what was so obvious to his naked, vampiric eye, Kagen sought to find another way to avert disaster—why it mattered so deeply, he just couldn’t say—still, he swallowed his anger and tried to soften his tone. “Arielle…”
She looked up at him beneath angry lids, her luminous eyes filled with obvious sympathy for the red-headed human. “What!” Her voice was uncharacteristically clipped.
Kagen licked his lips and suppressed another growl. “Do you remember what happened earlier, when Nachari tried to take your blood and your memories?”
Arielle’s eyes widened with budding understanding. “Yes.” The word was a mere whisper.
Kagen gestured toward Walker with his chin. “Get away from that male.” When she didn’t respond immediately, he added, “Unless you wish to sentence him to death.”
Like someone who had just reached out to pluck a piece of fruit from a tree, only to discover that it was actually a nest of hornets, Arielle froze. She draped her bow over her shoulder, held her hands up in front of her, and slowly backed away from Walker.
Kagen gestured toward the back of the cave, his stark gaze indicating the farthest region of the cavern, well beyond the fire pit.
Shaking her head back and forth in bewilderment, Arielle started toward the back of the cave, heading for the exact spot he had indicated.
And that’s when Walker sat up sharply.
His face flushed with righteous indignation, he stared angrily at Kagen and then sneered at Arielle. His insipid gray eyes shot back and forth between the two, and his mouth turned down in a frown. “Arielle, what the hell is going on?” He wiped a smear of dirt out of his eyes and turned to glare at Kagen. “Who are these men?”
“Not men,” Echo spat defiantly. “Vampires.”
Ahh, so his latent wolf senses serve him well, Nathaniel said telepathically.
“Indeed,” Marquis said aloud. He dropped Echo in front of the fire and nudged him with his foot, making it clear that he wanted him to sit exactly where he had planted him, until further notice, assuming further notice was given. “Stay as you are, and you may yet live.”
Kagen followed suit. He appraised Neil Potter, making sure the human was at least drawing air through his damaged windpipe before he required him to walk, and then he gave him a sharp shove toward the fire pit. “Sit down next to your friend.”
Neil did as he was told, flinching as Kagen came to stand behind him.
Nachari held his hand out to Kade like a gentleman. “Sorry about your throat,” he said kindly, referring to the clever use of magic that had robbed the soldier of his breath, his dignity, and his sword. “Shall we?”
Kade stared at the proffered hand with disdain and rose to his own two feet without taking it. He shuffled irritably to the fire and sat amongst the circle, showing no emotion at all when Nachari sauntered up behind him.
Nathaniel shrugged as if he hated to be the odd man out. “Walker?”
The human jolted at the sound of his name. He stared at Nathaniel with callous disregard and then turned back to Arielle once more. “Arielle?” he repeated, his voice thick with insistence. “Who are these men? And how do they know my name?”
Nathaniel clucked his tongue several times. “You are not a particularly bright boy, nor a quick study, are you?” He inclined his head toward Kagen. “That unstable vampire over there is my brother—my twin, to be exact—and he is so much closer to doing you harm than you can imagine: painful, grisly, irreparable harm.” He grimaced, and then he shrugged his shoulders. “And while I can’t clearly articulate just why that is, I can give you a word of advice: You would be wise to stop talking to Arielle—as in zilch, nada, cat’s got your tongue.” He gestured toward the fire then. “When in Rome…”
Walker scrunched up his face. “What’s Rome?”
Nathaniel rolled his dark, intense eyes. “Ah, yes; you are not from our world.” He bent down to whisper in Walker’s ear. “When in Mhier, surrounded by lethal enemies who can and will kill you with only a glance, one should get up and have a seat by the fire. Is that clearer?”
Walker stared at Nathaniel, incredulous for several prolonged seconds, and then he grudgingly rose to his feet, stretched his back as if to relieve some lingering pain, and reluctantly made his way to the remaining place at the fire. He didn’t appear surprised when Nathaniel followed closely behind and stood directly at his rear.
Marquis cleared his throat and spoke to no one in particular. “Yes. We are vampires, and you are rebels, wanting to rescue Arielle. However, she does not need to be rescued, so we will ask you several questions; you will answer them succinctly, without wasting our time; and then, we will feed from you, erase your memories, and send you home.” He snorted as if the entire recitation was beneath him, not to mention taxing his patience, and then he added: “If you do not comply, or you otherwise make things difficult, we will kill you instead. Whatever is most convenient.”
Nachari tilted his head from side to side as if weighing the content of Marquis’s words against the somewhat crude delivery. Apparently deciding that, all in all, it could have been worse, he nodded.
Arielle was less impressed. “Kagen,” she whispered from the back of the cave, knowing he could hear her clearly. She deliberately pitched her voice in a nonconfrontational tone. “These are my friends. My family. Don’t do this…not the way you are doing it.”
Kagen met her troubled eyes, and for a moment, he felt as if he might just drown in the placid depths of compassion, the liquid pools of anguish. For reasons he couldn’t explain, her entreaty tugged at his heart, and not because he cared one iota about a group of human soldiers who would have readily killed them all without asking questions first, should the cards have fallen in their favor; but because he cared about her experience, her feelings. He had viewed her memories, and he understood that this—these overmatched, mostly well-meaning rebels—were all she had left. All that had given her tortured life meaning. And, on a deeper level, he also understood that Keitaro, their father, also cared profoundly about this woman’s feelings and her well-being.
Sighing, he made his way to the cave entrance and retrieved each of the rebels’ weapons, returning them one at a time to their owners with no more than a nod of his head. He didn’t bother to say, Take care not to brandish this armament, lest you choose the hour and instrument of your own death. He hoped it was implied, and he assumed they hadn’t lived this long by being fools.
When Walker, being the last male to receive his battle-axe, stroked the handle with relish and puffed out his chest, angling his jaw in defiance, Kagen almost regretted the decision. The male was foolhardy at best, unashamedly stupid at the least, and he was going to get himself killed if he wasn’t careful.
Arielle seemed to sense the mounting tension and sought to diffuse the situation: Careful to fix her eyes on Echo—not Walker—she spoke thoughtfully. “These are Keitaro Silivasi’s sons,” she said without preamble. “They are here to try and rescue Keitaro.”
Walker’s face turned whiter than it already was, but he held his tongue for a change.
“We are not here to try,” Nathaniel corrected her, his voice thick with inference.
“And we haven’t the time to waste on pacifying your friends,” Marquis added. He regarded Kagen thoughtfully—at least as thoughtful as Marquis could be—and cleared his throat. “I appreciate your interest in this human female’s feelings. Unfortunately, I don’t share it.”
Nachari raised his eyebrows. “She is the daughter of our father’s heart, brother.” His words were as measured as his voice. There was no disrespect intended.
“Perhaps,” Marquis said, “and should our father be displeased with me, I will offer a dozen olive branches, every day for the next ten years, seeking his forgiveness. And all the while, I will thank the gods for his disapproval because it will mean that I once again have a father to disappoint. It is a trade I will gladly make. So u
ntil such time as Keitaro stands before us and makes these judgment calls himself, my word remains your law.”
Nachari’s deep green eyes darkened with acquiescence, and he immediately inclined his head. “As you will, brother.” He could have said more in his defense—he could have tried to explain the subtle nuance in his words, the fact that he was only pointing out that Arielle was important to Keitaro, and her feelings could be taken into consideration without jeopardizing their mission—but he was wise and measured, as always.
Marquis didn’t entertain gray on the best of days, and in this situation, in this place of so much danger and uncertainty, the world was definitively black and white: They came for Keitaro, and nothing—and no one—would take precedence over that singular focus.
Marquis eyed each of his brothers in turn, and the hardened resolve reflected in his gaze was far more telling than any words could have been. Turning to regard Arielle, he added, “I don’t know how much our father has shared with you about vampire hierarchy, but know this, sister of my father’s heart: I am the eldest of Keitaro’s sons. Both my rank and my life have entitled me to a certain measure of deference and an absolute measure of obedience. While Nachari may have a wise and sensitive soul; while Nathaniel may—or may not—entertain your requests, depending upon his mood; while Kagen may have claimed you as his own, for reasons none of us can fathom, I will not hesitate to put you or anyone else aside that stands in our way. I care nothing about anything—save bringing Keitaro home alive.”
Nachari let out a deep breath of air, but he held his tongue.