Dammit. She wanted to stay and watch, but Eva was right. She’d be completely unable to keep her mind on what she was doing.
When they reached the trees, the werewolf gestured, conjuring a blanket on the grass. She sat down cross-legged and gestured for Olivia to take the spot opposite her. As she seated herself, Olivia looked up and did a double take. A pair of ghostly blue antlers now jutted from Eva’s temples. “I thought you were a werewolf.”
“I am. Like I said, Zephyr’s a former stag.”
“Why? I mean, I get why an elemental would want a tiger or a griffin host, but a deer?”
“The Mageverse is as dangerous to elementals as the vacuum of space is to humans. They tend to jump into whatever creature’s closest to the dimensional gate the minute they emerge here. In Zephyr’s case, the closest possible host was a stag. That decision came back to bite him on the ass, because the body you inhabit influences your thought processes. Because Zephyr was a prey animal, he couldn’t fight his werewolf killer. He did his best, but in the end, Warlock took him out.”
“But Smoke leaped into the local version of a tiger.”
“Exactly. Not only did he become more dangerous, he got a tiger’s ferocity. Later, when he and the tiger melded with a Stone Age warrior, he added the Sidhe’s intelligence and combat skills.”
Olivia’s brows shot up. “Stone Age?”
Eva shrugged. “Immortals.”
“Boy, Smoke did rob the cradle, didn’t he?”
Eva grinned. “Can’t beat a man with experience.”
“But if elementals are immortal, why jump to a new host later?”
“Just because you’re immortal, that doesn’t mean somebody can’t kill you. When a host dies, the elemental must seek a new one, taking the previous host’s essence along for the ride.”
“So the fact that my elemental has always inhabited griffins . . .”
“Influences his thought patterns. And since griffin brains are very different from human ones, you two are having a lot of trouble communicating. Hopefully we can fix that.” She reached out her hands, and Olivia took them. “I’m going to try a spell. Watch the pattern of magic around my horns.”
Olivia was no stranger to meditation; it had been a useful skill during her centuries on earth. She focused her attention on Eva’s gently glowing antlers, watching magic coruscate around the pointed tines. It had grown dark as they sat there, and she found something hypnotic in the glittering dance.
“Let your mind float,” Eva murmured. “Still your thoughts to let the one within you speak.”
That was the trick—silencing her own worry and churning mind long enough for the elemental to get a thought in edgewise.
“Breathe with me,” Eva murmured. “In . . . two, three . . . out . . .”
This had better work . . . Not helping. Shut up.
Gazing at the play of magic around Eva’s antlers, Olivia let her eyes slide out of focus.
And waited for the elemental to speak.
* * *
Rhys circled the tiger, watching muscle roll under Smoke’s gleaming black coat. Every muscle of his own felt just plain wrong, not to mention unbearably hot. No surprise, given the fur and feathers. On the other hand, without them he’d probably be black and blue. Adding to his distraction, it had been a little too long since lunch, and his stomach was growling in sullen complaint.
To make matters worse, he was all too aware of the strangers seeing him get his ass kicked by an overgrown pussy. Some of whom might be Knights of the Round Table, awake now that the sun had set. None of their commentary was mean-spirited, but he was embarrassed anyway.
Was one of them King Arthur? The idea that his boyhood hero might be watching this clusterfuck was just galling.
“This is not working.” Smoke stopped to glare at him, his eyes glowing a brilliant blue that was even more striking against his black fur. “You’re thinking too much. Let’s see what I can do about that.”
And the tiger sprang at him, jaws gaped wide to reveal enormous fangs.
Rhys leaped back, though he knew Smoke wasn’t really going to . . .
Powerful jaws drove five-inch fangs into his shoulder in an explosion of agony. The cat’s great body slammed into him as unsheathed claws sank into his sides like molten knives. He roared in shock and rage.
As the impact knocked them rolling, Rhys got a paw-hand up and raked his claws across Smoke’s muzzle, forcing him to let go. Planting his rear paws in the big cat’s belly, he flipped him off and scrambled clear to leap into the air, wings beating as he flew clear.
Have you lost your damned mind? he tried to shout, but the sound that emerged was a screech. Furious, he soared over the cat, searching for green sparks. Was Smoke under some kind of compulsion?
But no, there was no sign of green.
“That’s much better,” the huge cat called, sounding pleased. “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you. You’ve got to quit fighting your instincts.”
Rhys twisted his head to look at his shoulder, black with blood in the moonlight from the puncture wound in his shoulder. You bit me!
“Better me than some griffin,” Smoke told him, cheerfully unrepentant. He’d either understood Rhys’s thought or guessed at the content. “Because I’ll heal you after I’m done.”
Rhys glared down at him, incredulous. For days, he’d been putting up with this shit—mysteries that made no sense, assassins trying to kill him . . . and worse, trying to kill Olivia.
Now even his allies were taking chunks out of him.
Oh, fuck that.
If the furry bastard wanted him to cut loose, by God, he’d cut loose. Folding his wings, Rhys plummeted toward the tiger, flinging them wide at the last minute as he raked at Smoke with first one paw, then the other.
The cat twisted, ducking under him, then leaping skyward, going for his belly as he soared overhead. Rhys twisted in midair, tucking in his wings as he hit the ground rolling. Smoke whirled and lunged at him, lips pulled back from knife-length fangs. Rhys leaped skyward, beating his wings hard as he kicked at the cat with his rear paws. Light flared as his claws rebounded from Smoke’s magical shield.
“Good work!” Kel called. “Now you’re getting the idea. Flight is one hell of an advantage. You need to use it.”
Bite me!
“I did!” Smoke retorted cheerfully. “Worked, too!”
His response was nothing short of obscene.
* * *
The fight didn’t go much longer before they had to stop to heal their injuries. All Smoke had to do was shift forms and his wounds disappeared. Since Rhys couldn’t shift, Morgana herself joined him where he stood, panting and bleeding.
She laid a slender hand against his heaving ribs. A wave of something cool and deliciously soothing rolled over him, and the pain disappeared.
“That was much better,” the witch told him.
“It’s as I told you,” Smoke explained, drifting over in house-cat form. “Humans have to learn to do everything the hard way, but in most animals, skills like flying are hardwired. I suspect griffins are more like eagles that way. You’ll do better cutting loose with everything you’ve got than trying to use a lot of combat strategy. You think about what you’re doing too much, you’ll cross your own wires and get yourself killed.”
A dark-haired, bearded man dressed in jeans and a sweater walked up. “I see you’ve found a new friend,” he said, giving Rhys a long, cool glance.
Kel, in human form, turned to smile. “Hello, Arthur. This is Rhys Kincaid. Rhys, Arthur Pendragon, Liege of the Magi.”
Arthur? King Arthur?. He’d expected a gray-haired man, but Arthur looked about his age.
His childhood hero lifted a dark brow. “The way you’re staring, I’m not sure whether you’re hungry or just read Le Morte d’Arthur one too many times
.”
Rhys’s head snapped back and he tried to say, “God, I’d never . . .” But the only sound that emerged was an incoherent churring protest.
Arthur winced—probably at his mental volume—then gave him a dry smile. “I didn’t catch most of that, but I gather you’re not hungry.”
Relieved—and glad of the feathers that covered what was probably a furious blush—he nodded.
“You do seem to be getting the hang of fighting as a griffin,” the vampire told him. “Which couldn’t be easy for somebody who thought he was human until . . . what? Yesterday?”
It seemed somebody had filled him in on the details of the story. Rhys nodded again.
“Keep it up.” He considered him. “If you decide you need a job, we might be able to use you.”
Rhys stared at him in amazement.
The vampire shrugged his broad shoulders. “Kel says good things about you, and I like what I’ve seen.” His expression turned grim. “And these days, we can use all the help we can get.”
The cat walked over and leaped into Arthur’s arms. The legendary king caught him and gave him a good scratch between the ears. “Several of our Majae—our witches—have had visions we don’t like,” Smoke told Rhys. “Things are going to be getting messy.”
And they wanted his help? Intrigued, Rhys thought of several questions he wanted to ask, but he wasn’t that confident about his ability to communicate. He looked around for Olivia, wanting her to translate.
There was no sign of her. A niggle of unease chilled him. Where did she go? Was something wrong?
As if on cue, a blast of magic went off somewhere to his right. Two women screamed in a chorus of pain and shock.
“Eva!” Smoke leaped from Arthur’s arms, shifting to human on the way down, and raced in the direction of the sound. With shouts of alarm, the rest of the crowd took off after him.
Rhys bounded into the air and flew ahead of them.
The two women sprawled on the ground twenty feet away under a stand of trees. Smoke reached his unconscious wife and began working healing magic. Rhys landed beside Olivia, who writhed in pain, covered in a lethal swarm of green sparks. Eyes wide with pain and terror, she stared up at him.
He reached for her.
The instant his paw-hand touched her, green light detonated in his face. A dimensional gate snapped open above their heads. Rhys grabbed her and tried to duck clear . . . Too late. The gate plunged down, engulfing them.
And they were falling.
Rhys snatched Olivia close as they tumbled through the darkness. Flinging his wings wide, he tried to break their descent—only to glimpse a rolling shimmer barely ten feet below.
The surface of a lake.
He barely had time to shield her head with his paws before they plunged into the water. Bubbles and sparks burst around them, Rhys’s skin burning as if the water was boiling.
I’ve got to get us the hell out of here before we end up scalded like lobsters . . .
Panic stabbing him, Rhys cradled Olivia’s body with one paw-hand as he clawed and kicked toward the surface. To his relief, he realized the water wasn’t really hot; the burning sensation was caused by the currents of raw magic swirling around them.
With a furious effort of will, he directed his power down to propel them upward. His head broke the surface and he lifted her clear. She sucked in a desperate breath and began to cough, vomiting water.
Yet when Rhys tried to levitate them out of the lake, he found he couldn’t move at all. Hissing, he beat his wings furiously, feeling as if he were trapped in a vat of glowing quicksand.
A sudden flurry of images spun through his mind. Oh, hell, he thought, recognizing it from the first griffin attack they’d suffered. Here we go!
But when he whipped his head around, only one of the creatures was in view, standing on the bank of the glowing lake, gold feathers gleaming in the dimness of the cavern that surrounded them.
Keeping a wary eye on the enemy, Rhys lifted Olivia onto his shoulder. She scrambled up onto his back. I can’t seem to get out of the water, he told her. Can you levitate?
“I’ll see.” Magic surged around her, only to die away. “Fucking elemental’s blocking me again,” she gasped.
What the hell happened?
“Damned if I know. I was trying to contact it when it attacked us. It threw Eva across the clearing and zapped me. Hurt like a bastard.” She glanced around at the immense cavern that surrounded them.
Pale, porous rock, possibly limestone, formed stalactites hanging from the roof of the cave sixty feet overhead. Most of the cave was taken up by the lake, its glowing surface providing what illumination there was. A waterfall tumbled to the center of the water, glowing blue-white with magic. “Where the hell are we?”
I have no idea. But I imagine he does. He pointed a claw at the griffin thirty feet away. Fierce golden eyes glowed in the dim lighting; he was obviously watching them.
Olivia stared. “Rhys, that’s not a he. I think that’s your mother.”
He looked down at her, confused. You think somebody turned my mother into a griffin, too?
“No, I mean I think that’s your birth mother. I had a vision last night. That griffin and another one were in it, both curled around an egg. I suspect it was your egg.”
My egg?
“Griffins hatch from eggs.” She stared intently at the creature, whose fur and feathers were indeed the same shade of gold as Rhys’s own. “Yeah, that’s your mother.”
He stared at the griffin, who stared back, gold eyes glowing in the dim light. Concentrating fiercely, he thought at her, Why did you bring us here? Are you the one that kidnapped Olivia? Who’s trying to have me killed?
A storm of images raced through his mind. Desperate, impatient, he interrupted, I don’t understand! You’re going too fast.
The griffin hissed in displeasure. A flare of blue white magic blazed up. When it vanished, a woman stood in the griffin’s place. Tall, incredibly beautiful, she had golden skin and the pointed ears of a Sidhe. Her blond hair, the same shade as his in human form, reached all the way to her sandaled feet. She wore magnificent green robes embroidered with griffins in golden thread, their eyes topaz gemstones. “I hate this form,” she said in a rich voice almost too deep and throaty to be a woman’s. “But it is the only way to produce human speech, so I must make do.” She sighed. “Telepathy is so much more efficient and precise.”
Who are you?
“Your woman is correct. I am Nirar, queen of Griffinkind—and I am your mother.”
Then let us go, he demanded, the words accompanied by an involuntary angry hiss. Once more, Rhys attempted to levitate them from the water, but again he failed. Why are you doing this?
“Believe me, it gives me no pleasure.” Nirar gestured, conjuring a long stone bridge that ended six feet from where Rhys floated, his wings spread atop the water.. Moving in long, graceful strides, she started toward them across the rocky span, green gown shimmering as she moved. “I would far rather learn of the life you’ve led, but we do not have the time. I must work the binding now or not at all.”
“What binding?” Olivia demanded. He could feel her tension in the grip of her slim thighs as she rode his back.
“A spell to meld Rhys’s consciousness with the elemental you hold. The usurper knows you’re here—he would have sensed the spell the elemental cast to transport you.” Reaching the end of the bridge, she stopped to study them, her huge golden eyes ageless in a face that reminded him of classical statuary in its inhuman strength and beauty. “If you don’t meld with Kiate, the usurper Votos will kill you. And my people and I will remain trapped in a hell even worse than what we have endured these past thirty years.”
Usurper?
“Votos. He murdered your father—Asor, War Chief of Griffinkind.” She sighed, old grief in her remar
kable eyes. “Asor was a good chief, but he was not wise in his choice of friends. He did Votos the honor of inviting him to the Great Portal Falls the night you were to hatch. It is our custom for fathers to keep vigil at such times, that the magic of the falls may lend its power to our young.” She swept a hand toward the falls tumbling into the center of the pool.
The water wasn’t pouring from the roof of the cavern as he’d assumed. Instead, it appeared to spew from a hole in midair. Is that thing falling from a dimensional gate?
The queen nodded. “Kiate, the elemental I bound to Olivia, conjured the gate thousands of years ago, using a waterfall from his world to make it permanent. The Elemental-verse’s magic powers it to this day. He and his hosts have used it to feed their magic since, and our people consider it a holy place.” As she looked up at the falling water, desolation filled her expression, and her voice shook with pain. “When your father stood with his eyes closed under Great Portal Falls, Votos shot him with a death spell. Even as you burst from your egg, the elemental returned to me and showed me how my mate had been betrayed. I realized Votos meant to kill you and force me to bear his egg, that he might seize Kiate’s power and make himself war chief.”
What is this elemental? He waved a paw. I know it’s some sort of alien, but what is it to you? To the griffins?
“Since coming to our universe, Kiate has been hosted by the war chief of our people. His magic is bound to the chief, who leads our people into war and enforces the queen’s will. Possession of Kiate makes a war chief far more powerful than he would have been otherwise.”
All right, Rhys said slowly. But what does that have to do with me?
“By the laws of our people, Kiate must be hosted by the son of the queen. Yet a child cannot host the elemental because he cannot fight, so the queen’s consort serves as the guardian’s host until the child comes of age.”
Wait . . . He shook his head, not sure he understood. Votos murdered Asor, but you took him as your consort? Rhys would have frowned if his beak had been capable of it.
“Not willingly,” Nirar said in a growl that rumbled too deep to have come from a human throat. “Votos could not take possession of Kiate until he sired an egg upon me. The death of her child triggers a griffin mother’s heat, so I knew Votos would have to kill you. I resolved to hide you away. I can sense the patterns of the future . . .”
Master of Magic Page 15