Rogue Within

by Mima

  He gave her the gist of the conundrum he’d been wrestling with immediately. “Somehow our escaped rogue Bear knows the name of your niece Moriko. He’s said it in his sleep three times now, and today he told me you should agree to a Royal Bonding.”

  The Queen’s lightly lined face remained serene. She didn’t trust him nor like him, so her aura was always drawn in tight when they met. Their meetings had been rare, just a handful of times in formal settings, until the last two months when the lizard birds and darkmage activity had really begun to spike. He was impressed with her now. She didn’t want anything to do with him, but was doing smart things to make sure the alliance both their people needed remained vibrant.

  “You weren’t sure you could keep the rogue from execution.”

  “Yes, I doubted I could convince the representatives and clan Alphas. I don’t have the luxury of overriding my Council as you can.” Dom was the embodiment of peace between the clans. It really sucked sometimes.

  “This would give you another reason to keep him alive. If we can’t find a way for your warriors to survive entering the fortress, then he might be our only way in. If we can control him.”

  He stared at her, let her work it out. They’d finally found the darkmages’ secret fortress, an island far to sea. However, the darkmages had triggered some sort of defensive spell that seemed to kill every non-darkmage male who entered immediately, but not human women. Now that their pet rogue trux had been turned loose, the question was, why hadn’t he died in the fortress? Had he really cleverly escaped or had they set him loose through a sloppy order to “go hunt”? Why would they want him to return to the clans with all of his detailed information? What were they hoping to use him for? And could the clans use him in return?

  “Moriko could be a way to control him.”

  The Queen was lovely, tall and tan. And if he sometimes saw the ruthless gleam of a focused hunter in her eyes, he didn’t judge her. He was a killer too, for his people.

  She asked, “Has there been news from the latest scouting party?”

  “We have confirmation from the watchers that the island is to the northwest of here, almost due west of Fifth City’s swamps. It’s small, perhaps a half-day’s run in diameter, with a single large mountain, no taller than your Royal tower. There are cliffs to the north, beaches to the south. Our men who penetrated the circumference of the sea around the island died instantly when they came within five bodylengths of the land. Our flighted warriors made it inside, but none have returned. Our tunneling efforts with watercoasters have proven that a shallow tunnel is protected by their spell. We’re trying a deeper one now. No life has been sighted at all. Nothing, not simple beach crabs, not common birds.”

  The Queen nodded. “I see. So, it appears we will be needing female warriors very shortly.”

  The memory of Rowan telling him about her first prophecy almost made him throw up. Breathing through his nose, keeping his throat tightly locked, he said, “We will exhaust all possibilities before we allow that.”

  The Queen sighed with distinct disgust. “Including the death of every able-bodied man? Only when you are all gone will you allow your women to risk themselves? Is that it?”

  He changed the subject. “If the Bear Alpha Bonds them, Donte could kill her, either in the ritual or later. She could be tainted by his darkcraft. They could find a way into her through their link, learning what she knows of your secrets, or he could be their assassin, and this would just put him closer to you. I think Bonding would be incredibly stupid. It’s best to leave it as a potential reward, of using it as an incentive for his cooperation.” The thought of what would happen among the eleven clans when they heard a Bond was even being considered for a rogue would not bear thinking of. No pun intended.

  “What was the final verdict of your spiritmage?”

  “He was definitely a rogue. He completely surrendered to his beastspirit in the past and feels no remorse for it. If we weren’t at war he’d be dead by my hand weeks ago.” And yet Dom wondered at the fact he no longer felt blood lust for Donte. The urge to choke him and beat his cocky head against the wall, yes. But slit his throat, no. Despite the fact he still reeked of darkcraft.

  “He’s been brutally tortured and his psyche is fractured and unstable with emotion unbound by our laws. Entire chunks of memory from the fortress have been lost to his beastspirit. We simply have no records of a warrior being able to slide from reason to rogue then back again at will. I can make no guarantees at all for the safety of your niece, let alone your citizens.”

  He wouldn’t mention Quor’s suspicion that Donte’s ability to function as a human was tenuous and possibly tied to the way darkcraft continued to thread through his spirit. If that connection to darkcraft ever severed, Quor’s hypothesis was that Donte would have no rational reason to remain sane, and he’d return to a rogue state.

  Remembering the rage that covered Donte’s skin at all times, Dom curled his fists tight at the thought of it being set free in battleform … in a City. He didn’t mention it because he believed in Donte. His strength would prevail. But wouldn’t it be ironic if their own weapon broke and was the cause of truxet being expelled from the Cities? He caught his breath. Yet another way the darkmages could use Donte against them.

  For all that he was ruined, Dom was far from convinced Donte was lost to the darkmages or his bear. They’d forged the young man into a weapon of some sort, but Dom wanted the chance to win control of him and turn him against his makers.

  “Possibly, a Bonding might not end badly.” The Queen brushed a hand down the embroidered brocade hanging near her wrists. “She could either end up helping us control your rogue, or she could be bait, drawing the darkmages in. I imagine they’d be confounded if we began parading a Bonded rogue among the Cities’ Royals. I fail to see how they could have planned for that kind of relationship.”

  It chilled him, just how much these bony shadows had been able to plan. He couldn’t discount they’d arranged all of this around Donte’s release, and it drove him insane that he couldn’t determine it. That Donte had found, on his own, a potential Royal mate seemed deeply suspicious.

  Still, the man had discovered Dom’s secret, one the clan alphas did not care to share. If he truly was that gifted, and all his council training reports said he was, then it was possible he’d found Moriko on nothing more than his own abilities, the same as he’d discovered Dom’s many beastspirits.

  Like the Queen, he couldn’t imagine darkmages knowing the series of connections for this preposterous occurrence. But it was so bizarre, it held all the razor attention of his eleven beastspirits. His considerable instincts roared not to kill Donte … yet. But to include the woman Moriko in this giant gamble was a ruthless, cold decision. He wouldn’t make it on his own when she wasn’t really his.

  The Queen fingered one shapely lip, distracted. “What did your Truth-teller say?”

  Rowan. Wolf howled inside him while Hawk flapped mightily. Groundbear snarled and Marten leaped in wildly twisting bounds. Dom breathed in deeply, stilling the chaotic chorus of need.

  He’d stood watching her sleep, her groundbear guard Laing wrapped around her. He’d almost cried. The tears had burned in the center of his chest, an agony of loss he couldn’t allow. He’d had to stare at the puckered scars on her shoulders from where she’d ripped her own chains out. And he’d had to watch Laing draw the cover over her, denying him, knowing she was cuddled nude against the other man. Bear swung his heavy head inside.

  “I had asked her about Donte earlier. Her reply was, ‘Bind two, kill three.’”

  Idivay gave an irritated huff. “That could mean anything. Their death, our death. Three citizens or three darkmages could die. But her words relate to a Bonding.”

  Dom inclined his head. Rowan had no control of her gift, and indeed, her petition to remove the Mage Guild collar on her neck had always terrified him. As maddening as her riddles were, they weren’t worth her sanity, and based on the acco
unt he’d researched, she’d been a gibbering mess before the collar. What had appeared a punishment from one angle could very well be helping her. From here, he had a meeting with the Locksmith Guild. They owed him.

  Speaking of research… He leaned one shoulder against a polished mosaic pillar in the hall. “I looked into Moriko and it seems doubly suspicious that she was the accomplice of an escaped darkmage. Again, I do not recommend a Bonding, if even possible in his condition. But now that he knows she’s out there—”

  The Queen snapped her wrists, flicking his words back to him. “Preposterous. She was no accomplice. I’d swear my life on it.”

  Since the Queen basically had by allowing the woman to remain Chatelaine, Dom had nothing to say. A spiritmage had found her innocent, true.

  Hitching her shoulders so the incredible sleeves of her dress slid over her fingers, the Queen stared off down the empty hall. The magelights set into the walls here were behind carved scrolls of rubies. The light glowed in a delicate tracery across her distant face. “Moriko’s value to me was considerable, but has diminished. She is an acceptable loss, as well as a potential success in the political staging I could roll out around this development.”

  In a wave of sandalwood, Idivay turned back toward the door. “Yes. Bond them, if you can get your council to give up their calls for his execution.”

  Dumbfounded, Dom stepped forward. “You can’t mean that. Idivay, this is not worthy of a whim.”

  “I’ll forget you spoke to me like that, for I am not worthy of a scolding.” She opened the small, deeply carved and painted door. Petting the representation of a dolphin with a sapphire eye, her voice lowered to a whisper. “You can’t deal with your rogue. Send him here and let me try. There isn’t a man alive my niece can’t manage. Between the two of them, I think we’ll have both a statement that will benefit stability among our peoples, and a powerful weapon against our enemies.”

  “I disagree.” Every syllable grated from between clenched jaws. Sandcat scored his abdomen with needle claws. “My council will fight this.”

  She stepped over the knee-high sill and paused, looking back at him. “Then arrange his escape. Your Truth-Teller mentioned the Bond and I will have it. Tell them that if it helps.” She stepped back to close the door.

  He couldn’t argue with her when she got like this, but he couldn’t arrange the world to her liking either. Her opinion would be duly noted but doubtfully acted on. Long experience in not getting his way kept him from storming off. “How is your investigation going into the Mage Guilds?”

  The Guilds were the backbone of the Cities, and the Mage Guild ruled them all, the main opposition to Royal interests. But that centuries-long rivalry had exploded and now both groups scrambled for existence. At a time when he personally needed the human High Mages’ help to undo Rowan’s collar, it was frustrating that the bulk of the secretive, pompous human Mages were drowning in problems of their own making. The Mage Guilds were under siege from within and without. None of them could even be trusted if they had the time, the Guild was so riddled with darkmages.

  The Queen checked her apartment and lowered her voice. “The Royal City Mage Guild is almost a complete loss. Estimates of the innocent in their numbers are at perhaps a quarter of their membership. I’m drawing up plans for truxet to move against them in the next few days. There will be loss of life and property.”

  Frowning, she smoothed her long fingers over the carved swirls in the ancient door and stroked an emerald the size of her fist. “My people will be responsible for evacuating the children and then I want the compound razed.”

  Psychically, his snowcat crouched and roared. “We’ll be ready.” It would be satisfying to take down a major architect of this mess

  “Fourteen more people died in a dark-trap a few hours ago, just outside a truxet boardinghouse in Sixth City.”

  He hadn’t heard. “Any truxet?” he asked sharply.

  “One. A mountaincat, I believe.”

  Dom growled, and it came out with the thrum of a wolf, so he quickly lowered it into the bear of his birth. It was part of the same pattern they’d used with the beebee attacks. The lizard birds had terrorized the humans—while targeting trux-friendly people and places. The local Royal representatives in Fourth and Fifth Cities had already called for truxet expulsion which was just what the darkmages were waiting for. Vivienne and Odan appeared to have stopped the beebees, or lizard birds as humans called them. There hadn’t been a sighting in weeks. So now the darkmages had begun to use outright attacks on truxet gathering places in the Cities.

  Swallowing his fading rumble, he said, “Look for my daily report later than usual. I’ll let you know the outcome on Donte.”

  “I trust you won’t waste this opportunity.” She inclined her head and closed the door. He turned on his heel for the short walk to the private sifting stone he used to gain the heart of the Royal apartments.

  The marten guard met him at the corner. “She doesn’t understand what a rogue is, to just throw her niece away like that.” Matching his stride to Dom’s long legs, he hissed with low hoarseness. “Six to the Stars, what a fool she is to even consider it.”

  Dom remained silent. The image of Donte’s immense, muscled, scarred form hunkered in the corner, playing with a ball, popped into his mind. A ball he’d defended. Mountaincat flicked his tail thoughtfully.

  Chapter Five

  The thin blanket tatters were beneath him, the leather ball hidden in the fold behind his knee. He sat upright against the wall, legs loosely crossed. They’d escorted him to the baths at dawn so he smelled great. Or clean, anyway. It was a state he was still getting used to.

  He cracked his neck from side to side, judged she might still be asleep, and with a deep trembling breath, dove into the maze-like construct of spiritmages. When he psychically made his way from the dry mountain where he sat corralled, southwest over the forests to the coast, he hovered over the sparkling collection of souls that sprawled across the stone streets and neat, square buildings of the City.

  “Ready?” he asked Bear.

  Bear gave a little half jump, lifting his front feet.

  “Me too.” Bracing against the smell of salt, locking the pain of Thad’s hideous spell and all those related memories into the deepest, tightest corner of his mind to try to save her from exposure to them, Donte stared at the pulsing beacon of Moriko’s soul and dove for it.

  He threaded through the layers of her with the ease of growing practice, but also of welcome. She was waiting for him. Well, not really. She was sleeping, restless and disturbed, the blanket beneath her a dark red. She was also well away from the water, high up by the banks of flowers and palms. He knew she was expecting them.

  The lust, as always, hit hard. The gut-churning tenderness hit next. Breathing through the shock of being here on her strand, here inside her, with her … he steadied.

  Focus. He swallowed. Finish this. Make her ours, Bond her, get on with the plan.

  His heart hadn’t pounded this hard even when the old tattooed darkmage Sverre had snarled those fateful, freeing words—Go hunt and feed yourself.

  Her feet had left sweeping gutters in the sand with her shifting legs. He put his foot in the path of a dainty ankle and in moments she opened those eyes. They were golden-brown, a shifting melding of gilded copper, set at an angle with matching eyebrows. Her gaze proclaimed her strength. It was steady on him. She’d never been afraid of him. Indignant, confused, exasperated. Never afraid, even though she recognized him.

  “Donte-Bear.” She smiled and held out her arms. “Come to me.”

  He actually took a step back. His thumping heart jittered around like an upside-down swatted fly. Bear lunged continuously. He strained to hold himself still and not leave. The urge to protect this woman was so strong and he was her biggest danger.

  She perched up on her elbows, and her silky hair shifted to hang behind her. Her bangs lay across her forehead, boxing in those eyes … staring at
him, growing more serious, more sad.

  Turns out his shame wasn’t stronger than his need for justice. She wasn’t worth more than their deaths. Shoulders bouncing with the force of his billowing chest, he fell to his knees at her feet.

  “Moriko.” It came out in pieces, like his soul. But his flesh had been stitched back together, and he had enough scars holding his spirit to the goal.

  She sat up in much the pose he’d left himself in back in his cell. Her hands went round and round on her knees. Bear roared so loudly, desperate to touch her. Head echoing, he gave in and took one hand in his. She let him. Her fingers were slender and straight compared to his crooked mess.

  “Talk with me tonight. Why do you come to me? Why do I seem to know you?”

  You’ll find out. Her breasts were too small for his hands, but about right for his mouth. He stared at them, the soft globes tipped with sensitive nubs. His mouth flooded with saliva. Leaning forward, he licked at one.

  Her fingers threaded into his hair, coasted over his shoulders. “As lovely as that is, I want to know you better.”

  He took the whole tip and moved up against her, driving her back with his body. She sprawled down on the blanket. Her palms toyed with his ribs and Bear crouched, tense, shivering, demanding. Playing the nipple with tongue and teeth, he waited until he had those sweet, easy moans from her before switching. The other breast got a hard, sucking kiss on the upper slope. His mark wouldn’t transfer to her physical body and the need to Bond her crashed over him.

  She twitched and danced below him as he notched her with his heavy cock and pushed, connecting her body to his.

  Those first moments in her perfection shook him hard. A small moan escaped his throat, where he’d long since controlled his body’s urges to make sounds.

  “Why do you—”

  Silencing questions that would only separate her from him, would only delay their joining, he thrust. He was a lot bigger than her, so when he fucked her, he had to tuck his head to look down at her under him. He liked being able to shelter her. His back would take any harm that came to them when he made her vulnerable. The sensations of pleasure on his cock boiled into his hips. He thrust and she was still talking but he didn’t listen.