Queen of Skye and Shadow complete box set : Queen of Skye and Shadow Omnibus books 1-3

by Thea Atkinson

  "What do you want, Marlin?"

  He let his hands fall slowly to his sides, obviously realizing we weren't about to attack.

  "Well," I said. "If you're this Marlin I've heard about, then what is it you're after? If you didn't spell a blood blade and you can't unspell it, then what kind of magic do you think you can muster among humans?"

  He shrugged and the white wires swayed across his shoulders.

  "I'm not gathering magic," he said. "But it was a useful story to collect believers and see if there were any magic makers nearby." He sighed. "There aren't, more's the pity."

  "Aren't you a magic maker?" Dallas pointed his machete at him.

  "Not exactly."

  "Then what good are you," I said.

  He plucked a wire from his shoulder and swung it in a circle. Music warbled in the air.

  "Think of me as a messenger from someone who had a vision."

  I guffawed and yanked at Dallas's sleeve. He was wasting our time.

  "Visions are about as useful as an three legged horse."

  "Every tool can be useful if used in the right way. I have a message from this visionary."

  "OK," I said. "I'll bite. What's the message?"

  "You will rise up against all this. And the people will rise with you. Together you will make the world a better place."

  Dallas swore and lunged at him. Marlin side stepped with a grace I didn't expect.

  "You need to find the sword first," he said. "It can only be wielded by the right person."

  I grabbed Dallas's sleeve. "Hold on," I said. "Who is this person?"

  I gave him my best judge's stare, but I didn't need to. He seemed perfectly amiable when he gave me the answer.

  "You."

  There were a few things I expected to hear, but that wasn't one of them. And it was clear I was wasting my time.

  Dallas seemed to sense it too; he stared down Marlin with that look he knew so well. I waited to see his gaze dip to Dallas's chin and pin there but it was as though he didn't see the burn scars at all.

  And maybe he couldn't. After all, the last of the sun was blinking behind the hogbacks and the moon had already risen.

  I shook my head and set off toward home. It wouldn't be but a few more minute before I had to pick my way home in complete darkness.

  "Exactly what do you think this sword can do?" I heard Dallas say from behind me.

  Ever the patient man when it meant he could get information. In Dallas's world, information could be as valuable as barter. In some cases, it was his barter.

  Marlin mumbled something that sounded like he thought it could do just about everything. So long as it was held by the right person.

  I laughed out loud and kicked at a pebble in my path. It was almost too delicious to resist. I swung around.

  "You know how ridiculous that sounds, right?" I said, still heading home, just doing it backwards so I could watch the two men shuffling their feet. They'd thought I was done listening obviously.

  Marlin ran his hand over his shoulders, grabbing for the wires.

  "As ridiculous as juicing a music maker," he said.

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. He did have a point. The world was different now and I'd seen enough of it to know better.

  "And is this a specific sword?" I said. "Or can you juice that too?"

  Dallas stood at his side, still looking him up and down in that way he had of assessment. I expected him to grab the man by the throat and demand to see some magic.

  "Leave him be, Dallas," I said. "He might need to find a safe hole for the night."

  New Denver was fairly safe and the hogbacks were a veritable natural fortress, but anything could happen in between. Dire wolves and dark fae, while they didn't frequent the area, could lurk under cloak of darkness. You just didn't take the chance unnecessarily.

  "Besides, he's got no specifics. No sword. He hasn't even shown a trace of any real magic. Just a bit of muster."

  "Who said I can't show you magic?" Marlin said. "What do you think that show was for back at the library?"

  "You said you were scared."

  "I was. But that doesn't change the fact that I was dead. You saw it. You touched me. You know it's true."

  "I know you got up and walked away," I said. "To me that means you weren't dead."

  He shrugged. "The ancient Egyptians believed in reanimation."

  "Do you see an ancient Egyptian around here?" I demanded and laughed. "It's getting dark and you don't want to be dead when a dire wolf finds you."

  Marlin gripped his cap in his hands and faced off against Dallas.

  "I've already gathered a few believers. But I can't tell you more about the sword. It's for her. If she isn't ready for it, there isn't much I can do until she is."

  Dallas crossed his arms over his chest and studied the man, then he swung his gaze to me. If his eyes could speak, the tone would definitely be accusatory.

  "What?" I said. "I'm no leader. I'm a fugitive. A murderer if you believe the wanted poster. AKA a liability."

  "You're wrong," Marlin said.

  "Really?" I crossed my arms too. Since we were on the subject, it begged a reminder of what exactly they thought they might be getting from me.

  "A leader cares about things," I said. "I don't. I feel nothing."

  Dallas gathered his dreads into one clump and swung them over his shoulder. He said nothing, but his gaze never left my face. He just waited. I knew he was waiting, expecting me to fill the silence, and even though I knew it—even though I was well aware of the penetrating stare and what it could do—I couldn't hold my own against that scrutiny.

  "It's true," I said around the clump that gathered in my throat as he watched me. "I feel nothing. I can't feel. What good is a leader who has no emotion?"

  "Says she who is fighting back tears."

  "That's just frustration."

  His heavy sigh was an admonishment as he elbowed Marlin. "She's lying."

  Marlin nodded sagely for a fellow who had wires looped around his neck. "Her pants are on fire."

  "You have no idea, Dallas," I said, feeling anger rising. "You've known me for a hot minute. You just see what you want to see."

  "I see plenty," he said.

  He did. I knew he did. He watched everything going on around him and he used that knowledge to make decisions and to plan and to barter. But he was wrong this time. He had to know that.

  "When it comes to me, you see what I let you see, not what's real."

  "You think I want to see what I see about you?" he said. "A woman who's learned to hide her emotions so well, she's even managed to hide them from herself? You think I enjoy seeing that? You think that information has value?"

  He was backing me into a corner. I felt it.

  "It might be to the right people." I stuck my chin out.

  "You're infuriating, Skye," he said.

  "Damn straight," I said. "Just remember that next time you start thinking there's a leader in here somewhere." I pointed to my chest, then with a wash of water over my vision, I turned back in the direction of the crooked chimney that poked up over the treeline.

  I swiped at my eyes with determination not to let one single tear trail down my cheek. What good would it do to cry? It had never done one Goddamn thing to make things better for me or anyone else. I'd seen it dozens of times. Watched women and children weep their hearts out to no avail. It never made a difference to Hunter, and it never made a difference to their situations.

  Crying, raging, none of it helped. They never changed one Goddamned thing.

  It made me sick to face the fact that I was a disappointment to whoever chose to trust me, but that didn't change things either. What good did it do me to dwell on it. I was a soulless piece of shit who kept trying to buy friendship by bribing people with things they needed so that in the end, I wouldn't be alone if I needed help.

  And that made me even sicker. I hated that about myself. I hated that I couldn't manage true companionsh
ip borne of natural sense of self.

  I stumbled over something in the growing darkness and kicked at it. Whatever it was skittered off into the bushes along the side of the path. I could hear Dallas and Marlin behind me, speaking in hushed tones, with the occasional spurt of laughter.

  Maybe I'd been wrong about Dallas wanting to prime the magician for intel, but I doubted it. Dallas would use whatever means he needed to get what he wanted. If he needed to be companionable, he'd be a companion.

  I thought I heard him ask Marlin if he needed a bed, that there was one free in a secret grotto he kept for emergencies. I thought I heard Marlin accept. And I almost turned around out of surprise. Dallas did not offer that kind of hospitality to just anyone. He'd never mentioned it to me.

  I didn't need to turn around to know they'd both be gone. And even if they were still there, the cloak of evening would have wrapped shadows around them and all but made them disappear.

  If I peered into the darkening skyline ahead of me, just above the smudge of trees, I could see the crooked line of my chimney.

  I breathed in the night air, forcing from my thoughts the sense of worthlessness and frustration. It was no use dwelling on the truth of it. I'd done that plenty in my travels. It hadn't been my stint with Hunter that taught me to smother down all emotion, although that year had certainly magnified it. No. I'd learned it out of self-preservation the moment the brigands starting abusing my mother and eyeing me that left me with a sense that some day that fate would be mine as well.

  Terror had been the first emotion to get swallowed down. Love, the next.

  Guilt simply refused to die, however. It was a tenacious bastard.

  I'd gone along the path, stumbling occasionally over a root that had heaved up from the earth or a stone I didn't realize was there when I heard a sound in the trees.

  It wasn't much. A bit of a rustle at first. Maybe a bird nesting for the night or a squirrel settling in. Then it altered somewhat. More of a low-bellied, hoarse-throated rumble.

  A feral pig? A dog? Maybe even a golem or a nymph.

  Then the growl came.

  And I knew what it was.

  Dire wolf.

  I was at least another five minutes from home. I could see the outline of my gate, and I knew the booby traps just beyond would be all but invisible in the dark. If I panicked and ran, I might accidentally catch myself in the wires or break my ankle in the holes.

  Don't get excited. That's what I told myself. If I got excited it was all over.

  Calm shuddered down my body from my head to my heels, stiffening my spine.

  I didn't have a blade. I didn't have a weapon of any sort let alone enough light to attack if it charged.

  I told myself it might not have scented me. I picked my way carefully toward the nearest tree and ran my hands up its trunk. It was an effort of sheer will power that I closed my eyes so I could focus on what I was feeling instead of letting in too much confused stimuli.

  The tree didn't have a single branch within reach. I had to move on to the next one.

  I sidestepped carefully, trying to be quiet. Ran my palms along the next trunk.

  Yes. A branch. Not a thick one, but it lead to another and another. It was spruce, I thought, with a cushion of flat needles that made for a good grip.

  The question was: could the branches support me?

  I heard the bushes behind me crashing now, like a tide sweeping fiercely over rocks in a storm.

  Whatever it was, it was coming.

  And it was at full throttle.

  I grabbed for the branches and yanked, hefting myself, feet scrambling upwards against the trunk. I spun against the bark ineffectively, trying to get purchase as my shoulders worked to heave me upwards.

  Branches scratched at my face and I was grateful I'd thought to close my eyes when a twig caught the corner and stabbed mercilessly inward.

  "Fuck," I said and hauled, thrusting all my weight upwards and losing my grip.

  I all but fell backwards but managed just in time to haul enough of my weight vertically to loop one arm over a branch. It caught beneath my armpit and I ended up dangling as I kicked against empty air.

  The growling was louder and it was wet and throaty. By my estimation, I'd managed to climb three feet but the sound of that wolf made me think it was at least that tall.

  "Christ on a cracker," I growled and yanked harder, pulling my chest over the branches and trying my damndest to find more height.

  In a burst of movement, the branches below exploded in on me and a spray of rotten smelling spit wet my arm.

  I heard a snapping sound as teeth clashed.

  The wolf's jowls clamped down on a branch just next to my hand,.

  I lunged sideways, rolling over onto my back and finding a fork in the branch just big enough to hold my shoulders.

  I had one split second of relief before that too was snatched away, along with several twigs near my head.

  Unfortunately, it wasn't big enough to hold my ass, and I fell through a gap in the foliage, my legs flying up over my head as I plopped through the smaller bit of greenery.

  I was going down.

  "Mother fucker," I yelled, stressing the last word in a bid for help from the gods or to scare the bejesus out of the thing below me.

  The next thing I knew, after a beastly scraping of twigs and needles, I was on my ass at the base of the tree. My lungs coughed out the last of their air.

  My ribs felt like a knife had gone through them.

  A howl rent the air from beyond the trees.

  Regular wolves, voicing their frustration that their territory had been overrun by a dire wolf. I heard the thing on the other side of the tree snuff the air. It stank of feces and filthy fur.

  I all but groaned as I tried to roll onto my side. It was so hard not to voice my pain. The thing was smelling for me, swinging its head about in order to catch the scent of me. I could hear it in the changing tones and loudness of the inhalations.

  Where in the sweet Hell was Dallas now that I really did need him?

  I panted out three small breaths as quietly as I could and tested my weight on my palm. So far so good. The monster hadn't scented me yet.

  Strangely enough. It almost seemed to be moving away, to the left.

  I wasn't about to complain. Whatever had its attention, it gave me a moment to push myself to an unsteady stand. I bounced lightly, quietly, on my toes to assess what I could in a heartbeat. Nothing broken. A bit sore. I couldn't see the wolf but I knew it was close.

  I wasn't home free, but I was alive.

  I caught sight of a light swinging in the darkness. It bled illumination out toward me, pinning me like a moth to a flame.

  And then I saw the dire wolf. He was right there, between me and the light as big as small horse, a mangy greyish thing with a head the size of a pony's.

  And then he saw me.

  -9-

  The light that at first had been my salvation had just become my death warrant. Even if the wolf didn't need to see me to charge, it's certainly made things a lot easier for him to target me. For those few precious heartbeats, I considered trying to scramble back up into the tree again, but it was already too late.

  Everything moved in a sort of haze. I thought I heard my name being called out. Confused but more than aware that I needed to run, I started to swing left, and head back to the path.

  Running pell mell along a virtually unobstructed path wouldn't be smart. The wolf would overtake me in seconds. My best bet was to scramble through the trees in the scrub brush, but even as I considered that, I heard a thumping sound in the earth beside me.

  In the glow of the light that was cast over me from somewhere in the darkness, I caught sight of a sword embedded in the forest floor.

  "Take it," said a familiar male voice from the shadows.

  The wolf was already rushing me.

  Without thinking, I wrapped both hands around the grip of the sword and pulled it free of the eart
h. I swung around in a circle, using the momentum of the movement to build up the force I needed.

  I just prayed that my aim and the path of the wolf were in concert.

  I swung as hard as I could as I came back around, and I felt the jolt of bone striking the sword reverberate up my forearm and into my elbow. My shoulder locked and prepared for the inevitable rebound. The hot taste of blood sprayed into my mouth.

  I realized I was yelling.

  From instinct, I yanked the sword back, and raised it again. This time I swung in a clean arc, downward. The tip of it went into something hard and then unyielding and then I threw the force of my entire body onto the top of it.

  The wolf howled beneath me. He thrust sideways and struggled for a few moments before he finally went limp.

  I staggered backward, panting.

  Holy fuck," I said.

  Someone approached me and I looked up.

  "Put that damn light down," I said, frustrated.

  The gaslamp got sat down upon a flat stone. It washed light over a familiar face.

  "That's some sword," I said to Lance.

  He nodded, but he looked shaken.

  "It's pretty sharp, yes," he said.

  I looked down at where the dire wolf still lay spasming in its death throes. It was covered in blood and it stunk. The sword was impaled in its neck and had gone all the way down into the earth. I highly doubted that even in my fear I had enough adrenaline to power that kind of thrust.

  I could feel my hands shaking, and although I wanted dearly to check to make sure that the wolf was indeed dead, I forced myself to take in the evidence of my eyes.

  The wolf's shoulder had a long gaping wound that peeled back it's fur and skin and it made an inroad of blood all the way to its throat where I had impaled it.

  I thought to reach for the sword to pull it free, but something wouldn't let me.

  Lance must have sensed my hesitation and he put both hands around the grip and pulled it free. It wasn't a katana, after all. But rather a broadsword that was as long as he was from hip to heal. He wiped the blade against the dire wolf's fur and then held it out to me with both hands.