by RJ Blain
Asking an equine shifter to lower himself to relying on his mundane counterparts went far beyond a mere insult. He’d kill to restore his honor and dignity, and I didn’t feel like being pounded into paste by an enraged stallion. Todd liked me, but he didn’t like me that much.
“Where’ve you been, anyway? You haven’t written, haven’t called. You dropped right off the planet without a word to anyone.”
Did Todd really think I could afford a phone of any type? Where did he expect me to plug it in, even if I had one? A static address was required for the affordable models, and I didn’t know anyone who owned a mystic-powered portable. I leveled a glare at him. “Down south. Not recommended.”
“You’ve grown your mane out. It looks good.”
“I guess you’d be upset if I cut it all off.”
“You are representing my herd.”
Damn it. Why did I have to be such an opportunist? Why hadn’t I thought to ask more questions? “Fine. I’ll cut it after the banquet. Give it to me straight, Todd. How much trouble will there be between the clans?”
“It’s going to be a brawl. The mayor’s going to have to rebuild the palace, the clans are going to beat themselves bloody, but the wedding will go off without a hitch. It’ll be a good time.”
Something about the stallion’s tone warned me he wasn’t joking. I tensed, slowing my stride to stare up at him. What had I gotten myself into? “You’re serious?”
“Unfortunately. Several clans have had their Starfall stones stolen. Some are blaming rival clans. This is the first time many of the clans have been together since the thefts. No one should get killed—it would ruin their honor—but violence will happen. The mayor wants extra guards to prevent any accidents, especially since there will be a lot of magic users around, and they aren’t quite as durable as us shifters.”
I slapped my palm to my forehead, cursing myself for not having asked more questions before accepting the job. “I should have known it was too good to be true.”
Todd smirked and slid his arm around my waist, tugging me to him. “Play along. I need people to see me flirting with you. You enjoy a challenge. You have a week to rest up and get your head in the game. Vacation’s over, Alexander. We’ll discuss the details tomorrow after you’ve had a chance to rest. We’ll need to collaborate on our story for the banquet. In short, you’ll be expected to behave as my mare of the moment—one I am serious enough to court and treat as an honorary member of my herd. You and I know it’s a farce, but everyone else must believe it’s serious. This benefits us both. You’ll be approached by other clans to leave my herd and join them. There will be two other herds in attendance, so the other stallions will be rather insistent to have you, especially when they learn you insist on my use of condoms until I prove my worth to your satisfaction.”
I rested my hand on my sword, my fingers twitching as I fought the urge to draw my blade, shove it in Todd’s gut, and twist it around for a while. “You bastard.”
“You’re just cranky I outsmarted you—and set up your attendance so nicely in front of the guild’s biggest gossip. By nightfall, everyone will know you’re considering joining me in bed. Even better, they’ll know I’ll have a box of condoms just for you. After I have you home safe and sound, I’ll prance my way to the largest pharmacy and pick them out. I’ll wait until I know there are some loudmouths around so everyone knows I’m courting without breeding. It’ll be fun.”
“You’ve lost your mind, haven’t you?”
“No, you’ve saved me from having to ask someone far less qualified. For this job, looks matter. Do you know how hard it is to find a female mercenary without any scars on her face? Not easy. I’ve been looking for someone with the right qualifications for a month without any luck. You’re perfect. You’re good—really good. You’re a pretty woman, and people underestimate you because of it.”
“I have scars,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“But not on your face. Clan leaders get pissy about females with scarred faces. For this sort of party, appearances trump all. That’s just how it is. A few clans don’t care, but they’re not going to be after you anyway. They get their brides through, and I quote, ‘Proper negotiations.’”
A bone-deep chill ran through me. “Brides?”
“There are five weapon clans coming to the banquet. They won’t scar a woman, so you’ll be invaluable in a fight with one of them, but they’ll slaughter most mercenaries without breaking a sweat.”
I swallowed so I wouldn’t throw up. “What kind of hell banquet is this?”
“This is exactly why I need you, Jesse. You’re sensible. You know exactly what sort of trouble we’re walking into.”
“Please tell me it doesn’t get worse.”
“It gets worse.”
I couldn’t help myself; I screamed my frustration, drawing the attention of everyone on the street. “Why me? What did I ever do to you, Todd?”
“You left. Welcome home. This wouldn’t be quite as much fun without you.”
I forced a laugh, low and strained, If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry.
Todd gave my shoulder a consoling pat. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll take you home, we’ll have lunch, and you can blow off some steam. It’ll be fun, I promise.”
While I knew Todd meant to give me a wooden sword and allow me to pummel him until I couldn’t stand, no one on the street knew it. Someone whistled, and it took every bit of my will to keep from strangling the Lancers’ Alliance guild master.
Chapter Four
When I got my hands on Todd, I’d beat him to the brink of death with my fancy little stick. The fire-hardened wood weighed too much, but I understood the need for the practice sword.
Without it, I might kill the stallion, and in the brief moments my thoughts cleared, I wondered if he realized how close to death he came. Unlikely. He taunted me with his laughs and used his equine strength and speed to escape my blows.
I bet the bastard had given me a too heavy sword to preserve his hide.
His mares and foals watched from the corral fence, my awareness of their presence pricking the back of my neck. After I’d reached twenty, I’d stopped counting them. That, too, I understood.
My new landlord and hire showed me his strength, strutted me in front of his herd, and expected me to posture for them so they would know I wasn’t just a pretty face and new tail for Charlotte’s premier stallion to chase.
Instead of lunch, he’d given me a fight, and I wanted to wring his neck for it.
I stalked Todd, remaining silent so I wouldn’t waste my breath. When he came into reach, I’d erase the smirk from his face. Maybe I’d leave a scar when I broke his arm with brute force. Maybe I’d blacken his eye so when the banquet came, the bruise serve as a warning for any who thought they could cross me.
“Temper, temper,” Todd chided, shaking out his wrist, his practice blade swishing. Like mine, his was wood, but he had a longer reach and was capable of deflecting my strikes, avoiding the full force of my fury.
I’d have bruises tomorrow, especially along my ribs. “I’d rearrange your face, but you’d like it.”
“How charming. You’re going to break my legs if you get a hold of me, aren’t you?”
“I was thinking your nose, so everyone knows how crooked you are at first sight.”
One of Todd’s mare’s snorted, and if the stallion had equine ears instead of human ones, they would have swiveled back and flattened. “Now you’re just being mean.”
“One might say I’m stallion mean.”
“That’s awful.”
With my free hand, I beckoned for him to make his move. With a smile more wolf than horse, he lunged for me. I sidestepped, spun, and whipped my sword at the back of his knees.
His blade cracked down on my shoulder, and I comprehended I hadn’t seen the blow at the same time I crumpled to the sand. Todd had several inches on me and outweighed me by at least seventy-five pounds, but that didn’t stop him from
pouncing and pinning me down, gripping the back of my neck. I froze, aware he could pop my head off like a grape from the vine if he really felt like it. With his other hand, he pawed at my shoulder.
“When I say I like breaking my mares, I don’t mean it literally,” the stallion muttered while poking and prodding at me in his effort to discover if he had broken any bones. He applied enough pressure flashes of white blinded me, and the edges of my vision darkened to gray.
“That doesn’t feel right.”
“No shit,” I wheezed.
“Get Cleo,” Todd ordered. Instead of letting me up, he shifted his weight and immobilized my neck and shoulder.
I didn’t recognize the name. When I had last been in Charlotte, I had known most of Todd’s guild by name. “Cleo?”
“My herd’s mystic. Adrian got caught in a Starfall burst.”
I winced. When I’d last seen Todd’s eldest colt, he had been rising through the ranks as one of the most talented mystic doctors I’d ever seen. If the body parts were in the same room and the victim’s heart still beat, Adrian could put the pieces back together. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He’s building a herd of his own now. The brat likes coming over, prancing on my doorstep, and showing off the pearly phallic symbol glued to his head while pretending he’s the cat’s meow. He took over Detroit. I think he was hoping he’d find you there and stick it to me again.”
Starfall bursts could do just about anything, including turning an ordinary ornery colt into a unicorn. Siring a unicorn came a close second to actually being one, and I groaned. “Wasn’t your ego bad enough?”
“Never.”
“He still a mystic?”
“When he can manage to take human form. It’s hard for him.”
Of all the known shifter types, unicorns had it the worst; the magic that made them often forced them to remain in their equine form. Unlike Todd, who could mount any woman who’d have him with a high expectation of producing a foal, usually an equine of some sort, unicorns weren’t so fortunate. Only equine mares could carry a unicorn’s foal to term, and even then, most didn’t survive.
Their magic was just too strong.
“He’d have no interest in me. I’m not an equine.”
Todd jabbed my shoulder, and pain blossomed through my chest, up my neck, and burst behind my eyes. “You don’t know what you are. You might be a unicorn, too, for all you know. Then I’d make you all mine. I remain very, very hopeful this is the case.”
“Me? A unicorn? Did I hit you in the head?”
“A man can dream.”
A gangly teenager jumped the corral fence and shuffled his way over, his blue eyes shifting over Todd before settling on me. “You called?”
“Possibly broke her shoulder sparring,” the stallion replied, shifting his weight off me. He kept a firm grip on the back of my neck. “Doesn’t feel right.”
The teenager’s nose flared, breathing in the scents. “You don’t smell like a mystic. What are you?”
“Unidentified shifter,” Todd answered for me.
I grabbed my sword, swung it over my head, and clobbered the stallion. Todd grunted and, a moment later, yanked my weapon out of my hand.
“Little old not to have shifted. Defective?”
“Let me up, Todd,” I growled.
“Not a chance, sweetheart. You’d beat my mystic black and blue.”
I was going to beat Todd black and blue when I got free of his hold on me. “Todd.”
“Jesse.”
“Let me up.”
“Once Cleo fixes your shoulder, I’ll let you up. I need you in fighting shape. Cleo, I’ll hold her down while you work your magic. Don’t worry about her. She’s mostly all bark.”
The mystic didn’t seem very impressed with either me or Todd. “Mostly?”
“I recommend you don’t get too close to her teeth.”
“Wonderful. You brought a predator to the main house?”
“She lives here.”
“Since when?”
“Today.”
“You brought a predator to the main house to live. Are you insane?”
“I never said she’s a predator. She’s an unidentified shifter mercenary, unaffiliated.”
“Same difference.” Cleo sighed, crouched in front of me, and pressed a finger between my eyes. “Couldn’t you stick with your mares? They’re bad enough.”
The women in question snorted, although a few chuckled.
Every mystic worked magic in their own way. When Adrian healed with his magic, the process made me feel like a piece of laundry wrung out to dry. Pain fueled Adrian’s power, and the more his victim suffered, the better his magic worked.
Cleo’s touch numbed me, and a pleasant chill spread across my forehead, seeped into my head, and swept through me. For a brief moment, I stiffened from alarm before my muscles relaxed. I went limp on the sand.
I fought to keep my eyes open, my vision blurring around the edges despite my best effort to focus on the mystic, who met my gaze while his brows furrowed in concentration.
“You brought home a stray? You didn’t break anything. Her shoulder doesn’t feel right because she’s thin. You’re expecting muscle where there isn’t any. Bone bruising, but nothing that won’t heal on its own in a few days. Metabolism is slow, but I’ll assign an appropriate diet for her.” Cleo trailed his fingertip down the length of my nose, shifted over to my cheek, and down to my throat, where he pressed to feel my pulse.
His touch left a cool trail on my skin.
“For some reason, I’m unsurprised. What do you want me to do with her?”
“Feed her an appropriate diet. I can’t identify her exact species, but I can give you a few clues,” the mystic offered.
I blinked. At first, my tongue refused to cooperate, but I forced myself to swallow before slurring, “You can do that?”
“It’s a simple matter of biology.”
I somehow resisted the urge to snort like one of Todd’s mares. On a good day, science provided a very loose guideline to what would happen when magic wasn’t making a mess of things. The basic laws of physics broke in the presence of magic. Every rare blue moon, gases combusted, allowing fires to burn and antique cars to run on roads maintained by mystics since no one had machines capable of heating tar, flattening asphalt, and otherwise paving the way for pre-Starfall technology.
Maybe one day I’d see someone drive a vehicle, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath while I waited. From my understanding of the situation, most of those who did know how to operate cars had perished in 1992 along with the other residents of Fort Lauderdale.
Maybe some first generation survivors remembered the art, but no one I knew ever talked about driving a car.
“It’s true,” the mystic snapped, drawing my attention away from my thoughts. “Your canines, for example, are slightly more pronounced than an equine shifter’s; you may be unidentified, but your body is already preparing for your first shift. You’re not a mystic. You don’t have the residues associated with direct magic usage. You have a preference for meats, something us equines turn our delicate noses up at. You’re a predatory or omnivorous species, but I can’t tell you which type at a glance. Maybe with a little time and study, I could pinpoint a broad species group.”
“Omnivorous equine,” Todd countered. “She could be a sabertooth unicorn.”
Once again, the mystic seemed less than impressed with the stallion. “With all due respect, Todd, you’re an idiot. There is no such thing as a sabertooth unicorn. Regular unicorns are rare enough, and you have a colt who became one. You should stop whining and be happy already.”
“You’re not too bad for a horse, Cleo,” I acknowledged.
“Donkey. I live to frustrate our proud and most esteemed stallion. He knows he can’t kill me because he has ten pregnant mares I’m caring for.”
Typical stallion. Todd wouldn’t be happy unless every last one of his mares was heavy with foal.
<
br /> Todd snorted. “You’re a jackass who kicks like a mule.”
“I’m too pretty to be a mule.”
The two started bickering in earnest. Too tired to be bothered with piecing together the source of their conflict, I closed my eyes.
I should’ve known better. The mystic’s magic sucked me into a soft, soothing darkness and refused to let me go.
Maybe there was something to Cleo’s declaration I was a predatory species, because I wanted blood. A lot of blood. I wanted to paint Todd’s manor with so much of it no one would be able to tell the walls had once been white.
There was only one person on Earth who’d dress me up in lace lingerie while I was sleeping, and his name was Todd Jacobson. I swung my legs off the four poster bed, scowling at the gauzy pink fabric draped overhead. A dresser took over one whole side of the room, leaving enough space for an arm chair, reading table, and armoire.
My sword, sword belt with its many pouches, and my satchel waited on the dresser, along with my bracers. I staggered to it, examining each and every pouch.
Nothing was disturbed, and the pulsing Starfall stone was where I had left it. Exhaling, I returned it to its hiding place, tied the pouch closed, and counted my blessings.
My blessings ran short when I checked my bracers. Someone had examined them. While the needles remained in their tiny sheaths, the lacings weren’t tied the way I liked them. If the needles had been discovered, I’d have a lot of trouble on my hands. The bracers themselves wouldn’t surprise anyone who knew me. Underneath the leather was just enough metal to give me a hope of deflecting a blade without losing my arm in the process. As long as someone hadn’t searched the seams, the tiny weapons may have gone unnoticed.
Even if they had been found, the poison needed to be renewed; it lost its potency within a week, and I hadn’t worked with them since my encounter with Nate. I’d been too busy marching my ass across what was left of Florida.