by Tracey Tobin
There was no way she could have moved fast enough to stop any of the blades, but Tori seemed to see them moving as if in slow motion. One blade sailed past her face, just barely catching the skin of the left side of her jaw. Two went sailing harmlessly out of sight and bounced off into the shadows. One lodged itself in Heln’s shoulder as he shoved Kaima aside to stop it striking her in the chest. The last would have taken Jacob’s eye and possibly his life, but the Guardian twisted away at the last minute so that the blade merely kissed his face, sending a spray of brilliant ruby blood across the stone beneath him.
Tori saw all of this occur in the matter of a few seconds, and her blood boiled.
I’ll kill you for that. Mark my words.
She had half a heartbeat to savor the look of pure surprise on his face as her fists struck Goera’s chest and they went toppling off the cliff together, her teeth lodged into his throat.
She tasted blood the entire way down. She grinned at the intensity of his shriek echoing in her ears, bouncing off the stones that whipped by them. She was vengeance, without concern for consequences, and he needed to die.
He needed to die.
The landing was painful. Her limbs bucked beneath her and her head rang with the shock. But she’d landed fully on top of her enemy’s broken body, which had cushioned the blow enough for her to survive intact.
She was looking into his face. His eyes were wide open, but empty. His neck was at a horrifying angle. His life’s blood poured out of him from the base of his throat.
The taste of that same blood was in her mouth.
The whole world seemed to be bleeding. Her heart was pounding impossibly fast. She felt raw, wild, primal. Her hatred for the thing beneath her feet had soared past any semblance of reason or logic. He was dead, there was no question, but that was somehow no longer good enough. With a vicious, bloodthirsty growl she dipped her head back down and plunged her jaws into him. The warm blood bubbled into her mouth as his heart murmured through its final few beats. She snapped her teeth around the tissues of his collar and pulled back, ripping flesh from bone and tossing it aside with utter disdain. With her face and body drenched in hot red liquid, she threw her head back to the sky and howled long and hard, savoring the sound as it spread out across the mountain range and the lands below, a warning to any who might dare approach that she would be waiting for them.
Footsteps.
Her head snapped to the side. Eyes wide and wild. Teeth bared.
There were many of them. They held weapons, but they were lowered. They gazed upon her with curious eyes, and she noticed that they smelled a bit like her. She stood. Slow, deliberate, she turned her body to face them, raised her head, let them see that she was soaked in the blood of her enemy. She drew a long breath through her nose and recognized a second scent. The black blood of her other enemies was spattered across their bodies and weapons. These were allies. They had slain many of the evil creatures.
She looked out across the gathered beings and locked eyes with the one nearest her. She kept her eyes wide, unblinking, and raised her chin slightly, holding the gaze, refusing to look away as blood dripped from her chin and fingertips. A long moment passed with the wind howling between them, and then the other gave a slow nod, lowered his eyes to the ground, and kneeled. On the ground, he leaned forward, turned his head sideways, and exposed his throat while peering up at her.
The others watched, carefully rapt, as she stepped forward and positioned herself so that she was staring into his eyes. She waited for the length of five heartbeats and then, quick as a snake, darted forward and wrapped her teeth around his throat. She didn’t bite down, and he didn’t flinch.
She leaned back, offered him a slow nod, and stood to look back out at the rest of the crowd.
One by one they each kneeled, some faster than others, but all eventually. When they’d all mimicked the pose of the first, she looked around at them, raised her head to the moon, and let out a long, low howl. When she paused to draw a breath they all raised their heads and howled together with her, one long, continuous note that rang out across the land in a haunting harmony.
Chapter Thirteen
Footsteps approached.
Her head turned first, her body dropping to the ground on all fours. With her pack behind her she was prepared to attack the intruders without a second thought.
Two of them crouched over the bloodied body of her fallen enemy, examining him. One, her yellowish eyes glowing in the moonlight, was standing back a ways with her hands on her mouth, ready to be ill. The last one, the strange one with bare, pale skin, approached, and then stopped. He had one hand forward, a strange look on his face, mouth open as though to speak.
She let a deep growl rumble up from the depths of her gut and locked her gaze on this one. She refused to blink, and he stared back at her, unflinching, though he was clearly shaken.
So he was brave, but smart enough to know when he was facing someone stronger than himself. Good.
She took a step forward and he twitched a little, but did not move back. She growled a little louder and saw the resolve on his face beginning to waver.
The small one with the bright eyes swished her tail nervously and squeaked out a few funny noses: “Be careful, Jacob! There’s something very wrong here.”
The brave one glanced back at her for half a second while responding, “You honestly think I don’t see that?”
One of the big ones, the ones who smelled of her pack, spoke up from the body. “He’s dead. She’s killed Goera.”
“Look at her face,” the other one added. “It looks like she tore out his throat with her bare teeth.”
A few voices began to speak up from her pack, but she growled and shot a glare back at them that cut them off immediately. Many of them looked both scared and confused, but their jaws snapped shut at her wordless command.
“Tori,” the brave one said slowly, “are you in there?”
Her jaw flexed and her eye twitched. She had no speech, but thoughts raced through her mind.
Why does this creature speak to me so familiarly?
He was stepping forward very slowly. “Princess? Can you speak to me? Are you okay?”
How dare he?
“Come on, princess. Please talk to me.”
He lifted a hand and reached out to her.
How fucking dare he?!
She leaped forward with a roar and a snap of bloodied teeth amid cries of surprise and horror from both sides.
Her front paws took him in the chest, full force, and together they went hard to the ground. He struggled to throw her off, but she slammed his arms down and dug a knee into his hip to keep him still. In one swift movement she ducked her head down to his throat to the sounds of screaming all around her.
Her jaw was wrapped around his neck, her teeth pressing into the soft, fragrant flesh, when his scent struck a vivid memory.
Wait.
She paused. Lifted her head. Snapped her jaw shut. He was staring up at her with wide, unblinking eyes and a breath caught in his chest. Slowly, avoiding any sudden movements, she leaned in toward his ear and gave his hair a good, long, deep sniff.
Familiar…
Behind her, her pack stood frozen. In front of her the creature’s companions were begging her to let him go.
“Victoria?” he choked out from beneath her, barely a whisper. She breathed in. His breath was warm and familiar as well.
Not an enemy…
Not this one…
“Victoria, it’s me. It’s Jacob. Do you remember?”
This one…
This one is…
Safe.
Warm.
Protection.
This one is…
She took one last long, deep breath and felt a calmness wash over her as his scent surrounded her.
Mine.
She stared down into his eyes, all the ferocity draining out of her. Suddenly she felt very warm, very tired, and very happy. His jaw twitched a l
ittle when she moved toward him again, but this time she simply licked his cheek. The taste of his skin warmed her further. It was safe here.
Eyelids drooping, heart-rate dropping, she licked him again, nuzzled her nose into the crook of his throat, allowed her body to drop down against his, and let herself drift away.
Mine…
Jacob’s heart, having made a rather desperate attempt to escape his constricted chest, began to slow its pace without quite returning to a normal rhythm. He stared straight forward, up at the night sky, mouth hanging open. He wondered if he was dreaming. Otherwise he wasn’t sure how to wrap his head around what had just happened.
As she drifted into a deep, calm sleep, the princess’s transformation melted away. Human once more, her pink eyelids fluttered and her lips parted to let out a warm sigh, but she didn’t wake. On the contrary, she nuzzled further into Jacob’s chest, causing his body to tense and his heart to take up its stuttered march again at full speed.
An eternity seemed to pass before anyone made a noise. In the end it was Kaima, who leaned into Jacob’s field of view with an eyebrow raised and a curious tilt to her head. “Um, what… What happened?” she asked.
Jacob met her gaze with his own. His eyes were burning, having failed to blink even once since the princess’s bloodied paws had struck his chest. “I have absolutely no idea,” he croaked.
Lira peeked over him from next to Kaima. Jacob questioned the look on her face before realizing that she was struggling to keep a laugh held at bay. “Shall I extract her for you?” she asked with as straight a face as possible. “I believe she’s sufficiently out cold that I won’t awaken her.”
For a moment Jacob almost considered refusing. He imagined just laying here until the sun rose, letting the princess gently breath in and out against his chest until she woke of her own volition. But then he mentally shook the image away and forced himself to offer the Coiyana a short nod.
With Kaima’s assistance, Lira was able to slowly, gently slip her arms under the princess’s body and roll her into a child’s pose nestled into the fur of her chest. The girl slept on, undisturbed and unaware of the horror show she’d left on the mountainside behind them which, Jacob supposed, was for the best. He couldn’t help looking back at the Chief’s body himself. He was having a very difficult time reconciling the images of Tori covered in the Coiyana’s blood and mere microseconds from spraying herself in his blood as well with the image of the peaceful young woman now sleeping soundly in Lira’s arms.
“It’s like she was possessed,” Kaima whispered to him.
He couldn’t help but nod.
“She’s had a hell of a time lately,” he muttered back. “And I know she wasn’t getting much sleep. She was probably just so tired that…” He trailed off. It was a thin excuse and he knew it.
Possessed…
When he was able to tear his gaze away from the gaping wound in the expired Chief’s throat it was to find that Heln was speaking quietly and rapidly with a few of the elder members of the Coiyana who had survived the battle. There was a murmur growing throughout the younger ones, with many strange glances being shot in the princess’s direction. Jacob noted that the majority seemed to be mostly curious and possibly in awe, and for that he was eternally grateful. It seemed that, in the end, the princess had managed to garner their respect and acceptance. Surely they would now be free to leave and move on with their journey.
When Heln finally broke away from his conversation and approached Jacob he had his jaw clenched and eyebrows drawn, which the young man wasn’t certain how to translate. The Coiyana gazed at the young woman in his mate’s arms and frowned, but there was also a kindness and a reverence in his eyes. That much Jacob could see.
“What’s going on?” Kaima asked the Coiyana. “What are they saying?”
Heln reached up and scratched the back of his head, seeming uncertain of what he should say. “Nothing much that we hadn’t already figured out ourselves,” he said. “She killed the Chief, tore out his throat, with nearly every survivor of our people as witness. This…” He paused and frowned again. “This is significant.”
A moment of silence followed that made Jacob and Kaima glance at each other, eyebrows raised. “Care to elaborate?” Jacob eventually prompted.
Lira seemed to have already come to some conclusion. She gave her mate a short nod before offering an explanation that made a strangled noise escape Jacob’s lips.
“By Coiyana law, she is our new Chief.”
Chapter Fourteen
Tori couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so deeply. She didn’t dream, didn’t toss or turn, and woke with a stretch and a yawn, feeling as though she’d slept on a mattress of feathers for a month or more. In reality, she soon saw, she seemed to have been bundled into an enormous pile of blankets, furs, and leaves on the floor of a forest. The result was extraordinarily comfortable, but left her rather confused all the same. She pushed the hair out of her eyes and frowned, fighting to recover the memory of what had happened before she’d fallen asleep. She recalled fighting Shadows alongside the Coiyana, which made her rub her palms together. She could recall the raw strength of her human-Coiyana hybrid paws. She remembered scratching and slashing and pummeling her enemies. She remembered spying the Chief - Goera - making off with Lira, and she remembered bounding up the mountainside to save her. The memory of his grin made her eye and neck muscles twitch. Then she remembered the knives flying from his hands, and-
She raised a hand to her face and felt a small scar along her jawbone where the one knife had skimmed her skin.
That’s where everything got hazy. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried her hardest, but everything after that moment seemed to be a jumble of sounds and smells and emotions. She remembered red. Lots of red. Wind. A pain in her legs.
Howling. Lots of howling.
Her eye twitched again. An ache began to form across the bridge of her nose.
There was something else, something that didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the noise in her head. A stranger who...wasn’t a stranger? A pleasant smell, and warmth, and…
Before she could consider the possibilities further, there was a shuffling sound to her left and a little “Oh!”
Tori blinked at Lira, who she hadn’t noticed there fiddling with something with her back turned. “You’re awake!” the Coiyana cried, face breaking into a grin. She rushed to Tori’s side and dropped down beside her, offering the glass that she’d been pouring some kind of grayish liquid into. “Here, drink this,” she insisted. “It will help you regain your strength. I’ve been giving it to you in small drips, but now that you’re awake you can take the full dose at once.”
As she accepted the cup, Tori recalled how she’d slept for a week after the battle at the Maelekanai village. “How long have I been out?” she asked.
Lira waved away the concern in the question. “Oh, only about two days,” she assured her. “Nothing to be concerned with.” She made a motion with her hands to urge Tori to drink.
“Where are we?” Tori asked instead. She gestured at the thick forest all around them.
Lira took Tori’s free arm and felt for her pulse as she answered. “We’re deep in the Western forest. We left immediately after the battle and have been traveling as quickly as possible in case a second wave of Shadows were to come. Normally we would meet them head-on, whatever the result, but Heln thought it more prudent to get you to safety until you could recover.” Seeming satisfied with the pulse, she lifted a paw and pulled against Tori’s cheek to check her eyes. “The others are nearby, but Heln and his guard have given us a wide berth so as not to disturb your rest.”
Tori pulled her face away from Lira’s grasp and downed half the liquid in the cup to appease her. It tasted like boiled tree bark.
“What about Jacob and Kaima?” she asked, holding her breath. Try as she might she couldn’t remember what had happened to any of them after the knives had gone flying.
Li
ra relaxed and nodded, seeming happy with her physical assessment of the princess. “Not to worry, they’re fine,” she said. “They both had minor injuries from the battle, and your handmaiden re-fractured her arm, but they are doing well. They have been helping with guard duties while their injuries are healing.”
All that sounded perfectly good and logical, but the question came unbidden from Tori’s mouth before she could stop it: “But why aren’t they here with me?” She felt her face flush with embarrassment at the whiny, childish tone of her voice.
Lira continued to smile, but Tori thought she saw a strange look pass across her face just then. “They… They have not been permitted to visit with you,” she explained slowly. “As per Coiyana law, only healers have been allowed to attend you, as you’ve not been awake to grant permission to any other visitors.”
Tori’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t understand,” she said. “By law? What law? Why would I have to give permission for my friends to be here?”
Lira had begun to ring her paws together, but caught herself and heaved a sigh as she forced them still. “It’s a Law of Rule,” she stated simply.
Tori blinked. She struggled to work out how that explanation should mean anything, but she came up short. “Huh?” she eventually said. “Are you trying to say that it has something to do with the Chief? Did he order everyone away from me?”
The silence only lasted a few seconds, but it hung heavy in the air and made the hair on the back of Tori’s neck stand.
“No,” Lira responded, her voice serious. “Goera is dead. You… You killed him, remember?”
Tori’s face blanched. She opened her mouth to argue the accusation, but all at once she knew it was true. She felt dizzy and nearly fainted as the bits and pieces of memory began to coalesce in her mind. Blinding rage, the rush of wind, her teeth around Goera’s throat.