“I’m already attached,” he says, growling at himself.
“Push her away, before it’s too late. Scare her back. Order her back. Whatever it takes.”
“I tried,” he cries, launching himself at me.
Twisting, I throw him to the ground and pin him down. In a burst of light, he’s all wolf and has my arm in his jaws. I grunt in pain, both from the bite and the pull of my burnt shoulder. Same arm. Followed by the taste of my own blood as it fills Pax’s senses. His anger ebbs, and he releases me.
My ability to exist in the dark places lets me sense through him – feel and taste too. So I know what his motives are. Deep down, in the place where only brothers understand each other. But the clothes are a different story. They’re in shreds on the ground, ruined, and I doubt he has any regrets about it.
His wolf angles himself, ready to attack again at the slightest provocation. I’m not here to poke the beast. I’m here to make him think.
“Not talking to you,” I tell the oversized beast, ignoring my pain – ignoring my arm altogether as I focus on the unpredictable animal.
Nothing.
“You won’t reason. Put Pax back in his skin.”
The wolf growls, light flashes, and Pax is back. Crouched on the grass, fully naked again – and this time I’m not giving him any more of my clothes.
“She’s not safe with us,” I say.
The glow in his eyes dims slightly. “We’re the strongest Sabers in existe –”
I cut him off, “And we have a realm to save. She will die if we take her into that battle.”
The glow extinguishes, leaving his normal golden eyes and a hint of sadness behind. Sadness has a scent, almost a taste. It’s like dew is to grass in the early morning.
“I need her to be safe,” he says.
“If these bonds seal, will you be able to walk away?”
“It’s complicated,” he growls.
“Uncomplicate it. Give her the order to stay back.”
“I’ve tried. I can’t.” He pops to his feet, waiting for me to climb to mine. “You keep her safe. I will keep my distance.”
“Can you do that?” I ask.
I can already feel the way his soul has recoiled at the notion and his wolf is rebelling against it.
“I have to,” he says through gritted teeth. “We have to.”
Then he’s fur again, sprinting from the bank straight into the water and across to the other side.
He doesn’t understand.
Fate wants her to die – one way or the other. And not that half-dead shit Roarke did to her. I’ve known since then, that moment when she remembered her birth.
Ash and pain.
But the prophecy is pretty damned clear – if I don’t let her die, our Realm will burn.
Maybe this mating is the thing that ultimately ends her life. Or maybe leaving us will make her too vulnerable. Pax is right, we are the strongest Sabers.
Maybe I don’t know which is more important anymore.
Her – or the rest of the Kingdom.
39.5 miles from Potion Master Eydis
Nobody talks.
At first, it’s because Killian returns from wherever the bralls he went with some kind of fruit that makes my tongue go tingly, but is too damned sweet and juicy to stop eating. I don’t even bother asking what they are – past double-checking that he’s not trying to kill me.
Three of the large oblong things later, and still no one is talking.
With Pax nowhere to be seen, Killian takes the lead. Seth maintains second position and Roarke moves into last. If you don’t count me behind him, still being towed along on my little gray pony, or Pax’s mount, which is tied to the back of my saddle and ambling along at the back of our line.
“Seriously, guys, where is he?” I ask, for the third time.
I twist in my saddle to scan around us – even up the trees.
Roarke raised an eyebrow when we found Killian riding slowly along the narrow path we’re classifying as a road, but when Killian just kept riding, the whole conversation was dropped.
“As far as I’m aware, vanishing is not part of an AlphaSeed’s repertoire,” I say.
“How do you know?” Roarke asks.
“Because he would have used that ability already. Someone needs to tell me or I’m getting off this horse and not moving until…” I trail off.
It’s obvious my threat isn’t bad enough for them. None of them have even turned to look at me. Roarke gathers his hair up into a tie, knotting it on top of his head, then adjusts the various buckles down the front of the leather vest he’s wearing.
Seth begins to whistle the kind of tune that reminds me of a lullaby, just not a lullaby I’ve heard before. He’s leaning back in his saddle, hands clasped behind his head, and his gaze stretched up toward the treetops and the blue sky beyond.
Killian reaches back and flicks his hood up over his head, drawing my attention to the smear of blood across the back of his hand.
Okay, time to make my threat bad enough for them.
I’ve always had a knack for going up – something I mastered when tethered to Martin’s torture post, and various other times I’ve had to scale out of windows and across the manor’s roof. Not the same as a tree, but since I’m not very good at much else, up will have to do.
Mimicking Seth’s using-a-horse-like-a-ladder trick, I pop to my feet, almost fall flat on my face, and just barely manage to grip an overhanging branch before anyone has noticed what I’m trying to do. Roarke keeps moving, my horse keeps moving, and within a heartbeat, I’m dangling from a branch with air beneath my feet and the ground way down below that.
Pain thrums through my broken bone, and I struggle to swing my legs, gain momentum, and hopefully throw myself up on top of the branch, with only one arm.
Struggle. Hurt. But succeed.
Go me!
“What is she doing?” Killian growls, just as I manage to straddle the branch and sit upright.
They spin their horses around sharply. Killian glares. The threat emanating from his presence balances with the shock on Roarke’s face and the joy on Seth’s.
While Killian might be inclined to keep walking and let the magical-potion-gone-wrong bubble that I’m trapped in knock me to the ground because that’s how magical walls work, I’m just hoping Seth and Roarke stay where they are.
My bubble is of no consequence to them. They are completely unaffected – actually, that’s not true. It is having some minor effect on their magic – which is more to my disadvantage than theirs. But for the most part, they can do whatever they want. For me, the bubble is real.
The bubble is very real.
When they get too far away, it presses against me like a physical barrier. If I get caught between the wall and some other solid object, then I get squished – that’s all there is to it.
Right now – Killian would squish me. He has before.
I’m just lucky that if Seth and Roarke stay here, it doesn’t matter what Killian does. I’m tethered to whichever Elorsin brother is closest.
“Pax,” I say, swallowing hard because my climb has left me puffing. “I need to know where he is.”
And there it is. The honest truth. We can’t keep riding endlessly away from the last place I saw Pax, because in my mind that means we’re actually physically riding away from him. Which I know we’re not. Not really. Or probably not.
I’m losing my mind, but that doesn’t change my need.
“I need to know where he is,” I repeat, because none of them have said anything.
Roarke glances at Killian, then scratches the back of his head, muttering, “Awkward,” under his breath.
Killian rides toward me, nudging his big black horse between the others. My legs are dangling on either side of the branch, and I can see that, with his large horse and larger frame, I’m in trouble. Before he can reach me, and probably grab my leg to pull me down off this branch, I shimmy closer to the trunk. Standing, us
ing it as balance, I stretch to the next branch and struggle up just high enough to be too high for Killian.
About a story and a half up – the height of the window out of Lord Martin’s chambers.
Killian growls, turning to Seth. “Get her down.”
“Just tell her where Pax is,” Roarke suggests.
“Yes, tell me.”
“Tell us all,” Seth adds, but he’s already standing on the back of his horse. He balances for a second, then in two strides – not even proper leaps, just big steps with a little spring to them – he’s standing on the branch that I have struggled to get to.
I press my back into the trunk and wrap my legs around the limb to keep balanced. My gaze stays locked on the blue in Seth’s eyes. For one of the bigger brothers, the guy is practically unaffected by gravity.
He squats down, balancing on the balls of his feet with his hands clasped in front of him.
“Don’t throw me out of the tree,” I almost plead.
Actually, not almost – I’m definitely pleading.
“I won’t,” he says, the corner of his mouth tweaking into a smile. “I mean, he would, but I won’t.”
He gestures down to Killian, then we all turn to lock our eyes on the one brother who might have my answer.
“Talk,” I order. Being out of his reach has given me some weird boost of confidence.
“Not here,” Killian grunts.
“Why not here? We’re not at the White Castle anymore. There’s nothing but trees. If you can’t tell me here, then where can you tell me?”
“We’re not stopping here,” Killian says, slowly.
Right, he didn’t mean we weren’t talking here; he meant we weren’t stopping here. We’re never talking. Ever.
And I’m not ready to go anywhere without talking.
“Answers. Now. Where is Pax?” I try speaking slower, mimicking Killian’s tactic, which gets a soft chuckle from Seth. I turn my full attention onto the youngest brother. “Tell me.”
“I don’t know,” Seth says. “But he’s a big boy. He doesn’t need a mother.”
I shove him in the chest, hard. He wavers for a second, then lands on his ass on the branch. Still chuckling, and not falling to his death.
“Right, is this forest safe?” I ask.
I’d rather not admit that I’m acting like a child who’s lost her dolly. Or maybe a stalker. A really bad stalker who’s chosen to have a tantrum because her stalkee has vanished.
“Safe enough,” Seth says with a shrug.
“We’re a fair way off the main roads in the Rengurra forest. There is a Power Spring here, so sometimes nasty things get lured this way,” Roarke says.
“So you’re saying he could be in danger?”
“Seth, get her down,” Roarke calls up. “We can talk and ride.”
“Just tell me where he is, Killian,” I say. “And why is your arm covered in blood?”
Neither Seth nor Roarke turn their attention to their brother – which means that this isn’t new information to them.
“Tell me what’s going on!”
The emerald-green sheen to Killian’s dark eyes fades, leaving only pits of black, and his lips twist into a smile, part manic and part pleased.
“Shit,” Seth spits the word out.
“Stay up there,” Killian orders, pointing at me.
The horses whinny and pull on the various reins that are tied between them as Killian spins his mount in a hectic circle. The big black animal’s eyes widen in the kind of anticipation that experience has taught him.
Roarke dismounts, throwing his horse’s reins loosely over a branch next to Seth’s abandoned bay gelding. At the same time as he pulls a bow from behind Seth’s saddle. The weapon and a quiver of arrows sails silently up into Seth’s hands.
Before I’ve even managed to breathe, never mind take stock of the action, Seth has an arrow loaded, and Roarke has not one, but two, short swords drawn and ready.
Something red flashes between the trees. Not like a shirt or cloak, but skin. Something with red skin.
I spot more on our left, then our right.
Seth curses again, turning carefully on our branch, and scanning in sweeping motions over the forest behind us.
He shoots an arrow and the creature lets out a wounded hiss in the trees. Quickly, Seth fires three more arrows. Whatever the thing is, and it’s sure not human, it takes more than one arrow to slow it down.
Killian growls, going into battle mode, and draws his sword at the last second. The deadly curved blade rips through one of the things as soon as it darts into the open.
The red skin over its face is so tight that its features are flattened – but even still it looks incredibly human. Eyes like mine, cheekbones and a nose like a man, and a solid jawline. At first, its massive ears look like bat wings, but as it turns to try and fight Killian, I get a glimpse of something more like gills on the side of its head. Arms and chest like a man, with rudimentary leather armor on. But it has a tail. No legs. No pants. Its bottom half is like a giant chuckin’ snake.
“No matter what happens, stay up here. They can’t climb,” Seth says, loosing arrows with the kind of speed that makes it hard to track his movements.
The horses dance around in fear, their eyes wide and their nostrils flaring. Pulling at their reins, until finally one of the ropes gives and half the animals break free. They bolt down the track, only to stop suddenly before they’re out of view.
While the action below me, with half a dozen red-snake-things fighting my guys, is crazy scary, the fact that the horses have stopped draws my attention.
A man steps out of the forest to take Roarke’s horse’s reins. A normal guy, with normal skin and normal legs. He ignores everything else, patting the horse on the shoulder and running his gaze over the saddle and various bags and packs attached to the animal with a satisfied – or maybe excited – smile on his face. They’re yelling at each other in hisses and clicks.
This isn’t just an attack. This is a robbery.
Seth shoots his last arrow, then literally steps off the branch. He lands with a thud that’s almost lost among all the other noises: swords and screams and a few angry words that aren’t even in the common tongue. He dashes for his horse, whose reins are so tightly hooked around a tree branch that the animal can hardly move, and pulls a spear from under the saddlebags.
The horses are important, but my guys are all in the middle of keeping their heads attached to their necks. I like their heads on their necks.
Helplessly, I watch as the three horses are led out of sight.
The battle is moving further and further away. Every enemy the guys cut down, every scream of pain followed by loss of limb or life, drives the creatures away in an intricate dance. One of the creatures shoulder-barges into Roarke – tossing him back against a tree. Seth puts his spear through the thing’s chest. Then the two of them turn and step toward the next wave of ugly-red things. More of them coming out of the forest.
And I’m pretty sure that puts both of them outside my range. All I have left is Killian – and he’s surrounded. Five of the things keeping him busy. Pax would be handy right now.
Where the chuck is he?
I’ve got two options, wait for a wall to knock me to the ground – which given the super-speed and crazy jumping distance of these guys, could knock me clean across the forest and into unconsciousness – or climb down and creep closer.
Leaving my tree is a horrible idea, but being knocked out is worse.
The ground is a long way down. I hadn’t factored that in when I got up here, and there are no good holds or branches between me and the bottom. I hug my branch before dangling my legs, inhale deeply, then let go – and land in a crumpled ball of pain. Not something’s-broken pain, but man-that-was-a-bad-idea pain.
Someone grabs my ponytail and yanks me to my feet. The guy has long blond hair that’s matted into permanent chunks, a smile that’s missing three teeth, and brown eyes that pierc
e into me. He’s not a red-snake-thing, but he’s not much better. He steps in close, forcing my head back. Then leans against the tree, my hair still in his fist.
“Shade,” Killian growls, his voice slicing through the battle noise, but not affecting this guy at all.
I hear him, and somewhere in the back of my mind I register that Killian’s yelling at me, but he doesn’t have me pinned against a tree right now, so anything he’s shouting sits low on my priorities.
My captor licks his lips. “So you’re the slave they’re talking about,” he drawls, his breath rancid against my nose, brushing my lips, and burning my throat.
His fingers trail along my collarbone before snapping up to grip my throat. My heart’s racing so hard that I might pass out just from the blood rushing through my head. I try to speak, but can’t. Try to swallow, but can’t. Try to inhale, but can’t.
“They never mentioned you were pretty. The one who broke the Saber laws. The woman in a team of men. A pentad, no less.”
He leans down, and the last thing I’m expecting is for him to run his tongue up the side of my face – from my jaw to my hairline – slowly.
I glimpse the pleasure in his eyes as he pulls back, then a giant wolf leaps from the forest and slams into the guy so hard that I’m sent flying from the force.
The leaf litter crunches underneath me as I land and roll. Not caring that I need to move or even breathe, I rub at my face, scrubbing the moisture away and then scrubbing some more to try and remove the sensation.
Then I inhale.
The wolf has its teeth bared and the man pinned. The guy’s screaming – screeching – then the wolf’s jaw snaps around the man’s neck, and his body goes limp. The only movement I make is the continued scrubbing at my cheek with the sleeve of my shirt. Even though my gaze is locked on the wolf-thing – too big to be a wolf, maybe a wolf-bear-thing – out of the corner of my eye I see the last of our attackers being skewered and falling to the ground.
I struggle to my feet, hugging myself and realizing that my heart is still pounding so hard that I can feel it against my arms.
The wolf turns, its golden eyes boring into me. He looks familiar.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 37