The Last Warrior
Shifters Unbound Book 13
Jennifer Ashley
JA / AG Publishing
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Also by Jennifer Ashley
Who’s Who in Shiftertowns
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter One
Can’t a guy just drink a beer in peace?
Ben took a determined sip, pretending to ignore the seven men who’d gathered around him in the bar on the outskirts of New Orleans, a place where he’d always been able to blend in and have a quiet drink. Not tonight, it looked like.
The men who’d decided to be a pain in his ass were human, but their body language screamed as loudly as any Shifter’s that they were protecting their territory.
Ben had settled himself on a barstool at the far end of the counter, a long way from anyone. He’d returned to New Orleans to check on the haunted house and take a load off for ten minutes before he went back to work. Unfortunately, while he’d been in Faerie these last however many months, this bar had been taken over by a group of buttholes.
The leader, a guy with a beer belly, stubbly whiskers, and flyaway brown hair, leaned his elbow near Ben’s arm. “We don’t like your kind in here.”
Such an original opening. Ben guessed that when the man said your kind, he didn’t mean goblin.
“Short people?” Ben offered. In his human form, he stood a few inches below the average human male, which meant a lot less than Shifters. And weren’t Shifters smug about that?
The man frowned. “You know what I mean.”
Ben could have toyed with him, asking, Do I? Do you? but he didn’t have the patience tonight.
“Listen, boys.” Ben carefully set down his bottle. “I’m not here for trouble. I’m just taking a break. My boss—” A badass dokk alfar who’d make you guys wet your pants when he looked at you— “has me working my rear off”—recreating a magic iron doohickey that will keep hoch alfar from invading whenever they feel itchy—“a long way from home—” in the dank lands of Faerie. “This is the first night out I’ve had in months.”
“Not our problem,” the leader said. “Go drink somewhere else.”
“Delighted to.” Ben dropped another five on the bar for a tip and slid off the stool.
As he’d suspected, these ignoramuses had no intention of letting him leave that easily. They were half-drunk, belligerent, bored, and ready for any scrap they could find.
Ben hid a sigh. Really, he’d returned to this world only to find a relaxing beer and then go to bed. No Shifter insurgents, no dokk alfar breathing down his neck to hurry it up with the magic already, no Fae lords being their arrogant selves, no Dylan Morrissey on his phone saying, “Ben, I need you to …”
A little peace and quiet with a sentient house keeping everyone away by being terrifying. That was all Ben wanted. He’d also returned to reassure the house that he was all right and hadn’t abandoned it. It was always good to be kind to an abode that could eat you.
“How about we take this outside?” Ben suggested. If tables and chairs got broken the manager might add it to Ben’s tab.
“Sure thing.” Leader smiled. He had the straight, white teeth everyone in this country seemed to have, whether they were corporate execs or biker dudes.
Ben made for the door, and the men herded him along like wolves circling their prey.
Outside, the warmth of the September night was pleasant after the chill of Faerie. Ben never remembered it being so stupidly cold in Faerie, but after a thousand years in the human world, it was the little things that he’d forgotten.
The parking lot was deserted this late, and several of the lot’s lights were out, making the place inky dark. The guys flanking Ben moved him beyond the floodlights at the door and into deep shadows.
Ben could cast a glam on them, distract them while he slipped away, but while a glam rendered him almost invisible to human eyes, it didn’t render him intangible. He’d have to push past the wall of guys surrounding him, and once they focused on him, they’d see him. Better to face them down and be done with it.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ben asked. “How about I buy you whatever you’re drinking, and we call it a night?”
“Not taking shit from you.” A man with sandy-blond hair glowered at him.
Ben heaved a sigh. “All right. I’ll make it quick.”
They had no idea. The men stared at him, slightly puzzled, then they went for him.
Ben feinted back, encouraging the pack to attack him en masse, then he came out of his half-crouch and spun like a whirlwind, roundhouse kicks catching three of his attackers in the head.
He felt the beast he truly was coming out, the beast he held tightly inside because he had no choice. Ben’s inner self wasn’t a cute furry animal like a Shifter, but an ancient warrior who’d been forced into exile in this crazy human world.
His body thickened and grew, and his hands became powerful things as his true form struggled to emerge.
Ben reminded himself that these assholes weren’t hoch alfar coming to massacre his family, just lazy booze-heads looking for something to do on a Saturday night.
He stopped himself from becoming a destructive force of nature, only changing form far enough for what he needed. Ben kicked and punched, pummeled and whirled, the men’s drunkenness and the darkness not letting them see exactly what they battled.
Three went down, groaning, but the other four, not understanding their odds, wouldn’t give up.
Ben didn’t wait for them to regroup but simply launched into them. The legs of one went out from under him at the same time another doubled over with an oof! as Ben slammed a heavy fist to his abdomen.
Chime.
The cell phone-like sound distracted the remaining two men for a second, but only a second. One of them drew a knife.
Chime!
“Is that you or me?” Ben resettled into his human guise. “Maybe you should get that.”
The men hesitated, glancing at each other. Ben lunged at them, ripping the knife from the first one’s hand and throwing it across the parking lot. Then he knocked the two men together with inhuman strength. They fell, insensible, to the uneven pavement.
CHIME!
“All right, all right.” Ben jammed his hand into his pocket and pulled out not a cell phone but a small round crystal about an inch in diameter. Its white glow heated his fingers, its insistent peal ringing in his ears.
“What?” he yelled into it.
“Ben, dear, I need you.” The faint but musical tones of a woman called Lady Aisling came to him across the void from Faerie. The scary woman had powerful enough magic to do that. “Now, please.”
She said please, but she meant the now part. No arguments.
Ben glanced at the seven moaning men at his feet, none about to rise anytime soon.
“Yeah, I guess I’m done here. I�
�ll be there as soon as I can.”
“See that you do. It is very important.”
Which meant, Get your ass back to Faerie in the next five minutes or deal with me. The men Ben had just fought wouldn’t stand a chance against Lady Aisling, who could wipe them out with her pinky. Ben stood in awe of her, admired and respected her, but damn, the woman could frighten a hundred years out of a goblin.
Ben walked to the motorcycle he’d left near the building, mounted, and started it. The men were barely twitching, so he thumbed 9-1-1 on his cell phone and sent first responders to them before he strapped on his helmet and rode out of the parking lot.
He sped the few miles to the haunted house, patted its wall as he went inside, and then had to talk to it for thirty minutes before it finally opened the way to Faerie for him.
Ben went through, leaving the house to creak in his wake, emitting a sound suspiciously like a mournful sigh.
* * *
“I don’t think you understand.” Rhianne mac Aodha shook the chains that stretched from her wrists above her head to the stone wall. “No means no. And ladies don’t really like being locked up in dungeons.”
She spoke the words in the language of the hoch alfar so that Walther le Madhug, the idiot who’d put her down here, would understand. He’d never bothered to learn Rhianne’s language, that of the Tuil Erdannan, but for some reason expected Rhianne to marry him.
When Rhianne had politely declined, Walther had signaled his thugs to grab her and drag her to his castle in the middle of ice-cold nowhere, locking her in this cell until she changed her answer.
“I shall count to three …”
Silence. Darkness. Walther wasn’t listening. He hadn’t bothered to put guards on the cell door, which wasn’t even a door, but a grating in the low ceiling she sat beneath.
“One …”
This always worked so well for her mother. When Lady Aisling started the count, the faint of heart fell all over themselves to do whatever she wanted.
“Two …”
The silence and darkness unnerved Rhianne more than she wanted to admit. She had magic, not anywhere near what her mother had, but enough to conjure a pinpoint of light to keep her company. She’d extinguished it after about two seconds because the filth of the grisly dungeon, not to mention the skeletal remains chained up opposite her, had been truly horrifying.
“Three. All right, I warned you.”
No response.
Rhianne growled in exasperation. This was going to hurt, but she couldn’t stay in this dungeon any longer. She had things to do, papers to write, celestial charts to draw.
She closed her eyes—not that it wasn’t already pitch dark—and honed her concentration on a spot about a foot in front of her head. A glow began within her, giving her a modicum of comfort. Sometimes the glow didn’t appear when she called for it, which meant she needed to recharge, preferably in her mountain observatory or taking walks along cliff paths above the sea, which she’d been doing when Walther and his men had captured her.
The chains needed to go first. Rhianne’s arms had been pinned over her head, just enough to make them ache. That soreness would gradually grow into deep pain, which had been Walther’s plan, the prick.
Rhianne whispered a word of power, infusing it with all her strength. The cold metal of the chains warmed, as though touched by sunshine. Then they became hotter, the cuffs around her wrists heating with them.
Rhianne gritted her teeth, bearing the pain the best she could. Shutting down her power because it hurt would leave her sitting here like a lump, still bound, when Walther finally came to fetch and then seduce her.
Yuck. He’d send a lackey to fetch her, because Walther wouldn’t soil his boots in this place. Rhianne wondered if he’d have the lackey do the seducing too. She wouldn’t put it past him.
The metal began to sear, and Rhianne sucked in a sharp breath. The chains had been spelled—Walther wasn’t foolish enough to put anyone from Faerie down here without magic infusing the bonds—but they were ordinary hoch alfar spells. To wield against a Tuil Erdannan, one needed much stronger stuff, which Walther did not have.
Or did he? That thought had bothered Rhianne since she’d woken up here. Walther’s men shouldn’t have been able to capture her at all. Not with even the small amount of magic Rhianne had inside her, which should have bested hoch alfar magic any day.
Tears wet Rhianne’s cheeks as the metal scorched her skin. The cuffs became hotter and hotter, as though she plunged her wrists into fire. She had to stop—she couldn’t take it anymore.
Just as Rhianne opened her mouth to shut off the magic, the chains disintegrated in a flash of fire, and her cuffs fell away.
In relief, Rhianne rolled to her hands and knees, her aching arms and burned wrists bringing a groan. The stone beneath her was damp, even squishy. She didn’t want to think about what she knelt in, which motivated her to climb to her feet.
The cell’s absurdly low ceiling ensured she couldn’t stand all the way up. The grate, the only entrance, loomed above her, designed to make it easier for guards to drop in food and water, or whatever noxious substance they wished, without having to enter the cell.
Rhianne examined the lock above her. She’d have to open it with a lock pick because her word of power had been spent on the chains and had to renew itself. Walther’s guards had taken everything from her but her clothes, including the pins that held up her long hair, which now dragged in the filth. She had the feeling these locks wouldn’t be that easy to pick anyway.
She put her hands on the lock, closed her eyes, and tried to call up her fleeting magic.
Boom!
The walls shuddered. What the hell? A shower of rubble rained down on Rhianne, and she coughed.
Brilliant light suddenly filled the tunnel above her, and another boom sounded. The light cut out immediately, but Rhianne’s pulse leapt in hope and excitement. Had her mother found her? Walther would pay dearly if so. Rhianne hoped she could watch.
“Hey!” she shouted. “I’m down here!” Rhianne yelled in her own language, then switched to hoch alfar, then, more shakily, to a human language. Who knew what rescuer her mother would send?
The shouts of hoch alfar filled the distance. Guards bellowed orders, cursing at each other, the words who the hell let them in? streaming down to her.
The next flash showed a pair of giant hands gripping the grate of her cell, hands belonging to a bizarre-shaped creature of impossible size. Rhianne cried out, then pitch darkness made the creature invisible.
A screeching sound burned her ears as the grate tore away. More rubble poured down, and Rhianne threw up her arms to protect her face from the cutting stones.
Another flash burned its way past her closed eyes as Rhianne was hauled upward by a pair of large and immensely strong hands.
Whatever pulled her out was massive, its strength unreal, but it set Rhianne gently on her feet, the grip easing away.
One more flash of light. Rhianne gingerly opened her eyes, expecting to find a colossus hunching over her.
Instead, she saw a man about her own height with dark skin and hair and the blackest eyes she’d ever seen. They sucked her in, those eyes, and that in only one instant of dazzling light.
The light vanished, and the man gripped her hand.
“Hey there,” a rumbling voice said in perfect Tuil Erdannan. “I’m Ben. I’m here to rescue you.”
Chapter Two
Ben couldn’t see much of his rescuee in the dark, but her hand in his was soft and sweetly warm. And strong. She clung to him without squeamishness.
Another flash from where Cian was enjoying himself blowing up pieces of castle showed Ben a mass of very red hair and a chiseled face that wasn’t like Lady Aisling’s at all. The face was grimy and bloody, as were the young woman’s loose trousers and shirt, which made Ben’s fury boil.
Then blackness. Their only connection was the firm clasp of their hands.
The ceilings
on the dungeon level were low, built to stymie the tall hoch alfar and dokk alfar, but they were perfect for Ben’s height. His lady’s too. Rhianne mac Aodha appeared to be only an inch, if that, taller than Ben. Unusual for a Tuil Erdannan, but Ben wasn’t complaining.
His night-sight took them unerringly to the stairs at the end of the corridor. The door that had barricaded it leaned raggedly against a wall, torn from its bronze hinges. Ben had been too impatient to pick the lock.
Ben started up a flight of stairs, pulling Rhianne behind him. Flashes and rumbles sounded from above, the walls shaking in a manner that alarmed him.
“What is that?” Rhianne asked in Tuil Erdannan, probably figuring Ben was fluent in it.
Ben wasn’t. He’d learned a little during his sojourn in Faerie so he could speak to Lady Aisling when needed. Not that Lady Aisling didn’t know many other languages, including several human ones. Today when she’d met Ben at an ancient sundial in the woods and marched him to her house, she’d told him his task in perfect English.
My daughter’s been taken by that wretched Walther le Madhug, she’d said in rage, but Ben had felt her great fear behind the anger. He’s a high lord among the hoch alfar and far too full of himself, but he has grown dangerous. He wants to force Rhianne into marriage, believing it will help his bid to become emperor. Ha! You are to rescue her and then keep her safe for me.
Sure, your ladyship, Ben had thought. Easy-peasy.
Ben said to Rhianne now in careful Tuil Erdannan, “Don’t speak your language much.”
The Last Warrior: Shifters Unbound Book 13 Page 1