Hooves entered the fray, the sound of bones snapping not slowing Ollianna’s attack at all. They had no choice, they were under her power, but I could see it in them, the desire to run.
They knew they were all going to be killed.
Maks whipped his curved blade through the air, taking two heads at once, and killing the last of them. “Check the horses. I’ll finish any that are still breathing.”
I shifted to two legs and ran to Balder. He stood there heaving, flanks soaked with sweat, blood on his lips. I wiped the blood away, then wrapped my arms around his neck. “Thank the goddess we made it in time.”
He gave a soft nicker and dropped his head so he hugged me to his chest. I swatted his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a unicorn?”
Balder pulled back and those big eyes blinked at me with an innocence that I didn’t believe, not for a second.
The way he’d wanted to battle the White Wolf came back to me in a rush, how he’d challenged the creature.
How he’d reveled in the battles we’d galloped into.
“I’m not letting you go. You’re my horse, even if you are a unicorn.” I grabbed him by the nose. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
Batman nudged me from the other side, and I ran my hands over him, checking them both for wounds. Other than a few scrapes and cuts and a whole lot of sweat, they were fine. Dehydrated, by the way their skin reacted to a pinch test, but that could be dealt with.
A nose bumped my back and I turned to Balder. Maks stood back, giving space for this moment.
A girl and her horse. There was no bond so strong and I felt . . . honored that he’d stayed with me all these years.
His nose stretched out and I cupped his muzzle. He pushed farther until we were nose to nose, breathing in each other’s air. An old trainer’s trick to allow a horse to smell you. Only I was breathing in Balder’s air, and with that warmth, my eyes closed.
Images flickered to life inside my head.
A gangly-legged solid black colt next to his pure white mother, her horn glimmering in the sunlight.
Someone in a cloak offering the mare a bright purple stone, asking her to protect the magic within, the words muted as though from a long distance away. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman under the cloak.
The mare dropping her nose to her colt’s and the images grew stronger. The need to protect the magic, to wait until the right one came along to share the magic with. The trust that would be placed on that child of one of the last unicorns. And the stone sliding into him, settling inside his chest.
Tears pooled in my eyes as I watched the mare lay down her life for her colt, not in a battle, but to give him all her strength to live as long as he would need to live. The tears slid down my face as he gave up his horn, watched it fall to the earth and disappear into the mountain steppes in order to keep his identity safe.
And then seeing me for the first time as I haggled with the traders he’d allowed to capture him. Wondering about me.
Thinking I was okay as long as the treats kept coming.
I laughed. “Treats? That’s all I am to you?”
He blew a deep breath and winked at me. That smart-ass horse winked at me.
Another big breath out and I saw him carry me through battles that made his blood sing, that he secretly loved because he didn’t have to hold back his strength or speed. I let him be all that he could be and never questioned him for it.
And then came the first time he’d gifted me with an ability through the power of the stone. When I’d found Lila and rescued her, he gave me a connection to her.
Then when I’d tried to send him away in the Swamps, to keep him safe, he’d gifted me with a connection to the fairy folk.
Other little things were there too, my added stamina and strength for fights I should never have had, my gut instincts . . . the ability to walk in the dreamscape as deeply as I’d needed to.
He’d seen me there one of the first times I’d walked the dreamscape, seemingly asleep. But he’d been there, carrying me through so much, just waiting for me to realize just how important he was.
More than all that was the same gift he had, one that he’d give no one else.
The ability to carry any and all of the stones without their power corrupting me. Balder had been the one to give me that, not my connection to my mother, to the Emperor, or to my father.
My horse.
“I always knew how important you were, you donkey.” I held his head tightly. “You’re family. Long before this moment.”
A sensation flowed over me, one of agreement, but also that none of the gifts could be taken back, so he had to be careful about what he handed out. I rubbed his forehead and he leaned into my hand. “You will fight with us then?”
He bobbed his head once.
Maks was at Batman’s side and his horse leaned into him. I looked at Balder through narrowed eyes. “You gave him more speed, didn’t you? So he could keep up with us?”
If horses could look smug, Balder did in that moment. He flipped his lips at me, then shook his head side to side so his mane flipped back and forth. No true words came to me from him, but the sensations were strong. He liked Batman, and more than that, he liked Maks and wanted them to stay with us.
So he figured they’d need to keep up.
I glanced at Maks. “He likes you.”
“I’d hope so,” Maks said. “I did help you save him from the ophidians.”
Balder stomped with a front foot, then bowed down, welcoming me onto his back. “Just a minute.” I hurried back to the neck of the funnel where I’d dropped the bag of stones I’d collected.
For just a moment, I thought they’d be gone, that my shitty luck would turn on me again.
But they were there, waiting for me. I scooped them up and peeked inside. All accounted for, and add one more to that mix, and we were off to the races.
Or at least, we were off to see the wicked witch of the south.
We had all the stones we were going to have.
Now it was time to battle Ollianna, hope that the witches kept their word, and that the Emperor would be able to stop the falak.
Because if he couldn’t . . . we were all in deep shit that there would be no escaping.
29
Kiara
The desert was quiet, hot, stifling with the lack of wind. More than that, Kiara couldn’t help but feel the pull toward the Stockyards as they rode nearer to the only place she’d known as home. Her eyes swung that way, and in the very far distance was the shimmer of heat waves rolling off the buildings she’d called home for so long.
She wanted to believe that Merlin was telling them the truth. She wanted to believe that going south to help Zam face Ollianna and the falak was the way to do things.
But that pull toward the Stockyards . . .
Was it a true pull toward home, or was it something else? Was it Ishtar trying to fool them yet again, or was the sensation something deeper, an instinct she needed to listen to?
Kiara had spent her life believing that Ishtar was their guardian, the last one to look out for the Bright Lion pride, only to find out that not only had she been using them, but that Steve had been . . . Kiara pulled herself up short, her big paws padding silently across the shifting sand over the hard-packed earth.
Her nose wrinkled as she caught wind of something . . . rotting. Dead, but lion.
Heart hammering, she made herself take another deep breath, because it wasn’t just any lion, but one she knew all too well.
Steve.
Something moved in the distance, heading straight for the Stockyards with purpose. The wind shifted again and she crouched as if he would turn and see her. But he was focused on what he was doing, or where he was going.
She glanced over her shoulder to see that Merlin, Ford, Shem and Bryce had carried on. They were swapping out horses as quickly as they could, and the four lion shifters used their legs for much of the travel, but Kiara could
see there was no way they’d make it to Ollianna’s place in the south in time.
Not even if they all had horses. Not even if they all were healthy, which Merlin was not despite his miraculous recovery.
“Hold,” she called out.
The men paused and turned as if startled she’d spoken at all.
She hated that she’d turned on Zam, that her fears about her friend and only true mentor had surfaced and Merlin had used it against her.
“What is it? Are you hurt?” Bryce trotted back to her, and she had to admit her heart hammered for a different reason. She shook of the spurt of attraction, needing to focus on what was in front of them, not on a slim chance of the future.
“Not hurt. But you and I both know the place Merlin wants to get to, there is no way we’ll make it in time. And if we do . . . what do you want to bet that we’d be used as cannon fodder or worse, bait? Or worse even than that, blackmail?” She shook her head. “There has to be a better way to help Zam.” She turned and looked at the Stockyards.
Bryce moved up beside her. “What are you thinking?”
Kiara tried to put a plan together the way that Zam might have. What would be the boldest move? The one that . . . “We could keep Ishtar busy,” she said softly. “We keep her attention here, and not on whatever Zam is doing.” She looked at Bryce. “She’d do it for us.”
Slowly he nodded, and then he looked over his shoulder to where Merlin sat on one of the horses. “He won’t want to stay.”
“He’s not part of our pride,” she said. “He can stay or go as he pleases.”
Merlin frowned, not hearing them, but, of course, their eyes were on him as they spoke. “Ishtar could kill any one of us, and she could force us back to her side to drain us of our energy,” Kiara said softly. “But if we go into that battle, we are all surely dead.”
Bryce leaned into her, giving her not only his warmth, but literal support. “I’m with you. We stay here, try to keep Ishtar busy, keep her eyes off Zam.”
Surprise filtered through her. “You used to argue with everyone,” she said. “I like this side of you better.”
He gave a chuffing grunt. “Being caged showed me some humility. Nearly dying offered me a chance to look at what I’d do different.”
She fought not to cringe. His path had been a hard one, but it had given him a far better outlook on life than if he’d had it easy. Maybe if the pride was handed to him, he would have turned out like Steve.
Speaking of . . . she turned and looked at the figure lurching forward. “That’s Steve out there. I’m thinking he finally pissed Zam off enough that she killed him.”
Bryce looked at where she pointed with her nose and took a deep breath. “I’ll be buggered. He smells dead.”
Shem and Ford joined the two of them, and for just a moment she felt a connection to all three men, a connection that warmed her from the top of her head down to the tip of her tufted tail. Ford looked at her, his eyes as gold as any other lions’, only framed with all that dark hair.
And Shem, lean as a whip and old enough to be her father but still handsome, still full of wisdom and surety.
Not a harem, but her pride, and that connection to each of them, that trust was what Zam had been trying to make happen. But it couldn’t, not fully, because Zam was only part lion, as much as it killed her to admit it; she would always be a little on the outside of their species. Kiara’s heart skipped a beat as she understood Ishtar’s games. “That’s why she kept us apart.”
“What?” Bryce looked at her.
“If a pride is truly connected to a proper alpha, they are far stronger than if they are all individual. That’s what Ishtar was doing all those years, keeping you wounded, keeping Steve at all of us, even encouraging him to mess around on Zam. I heard her once tell him that he was the pride leader and he should do as he pleased. And she encouraged Zam to challenge him, all the time.” Her words tumbled past her lips. “But a true pride, one of full-blooded lions connected together, following a single alpha, she can’t touch that. Ishtar can’t break through those bonds. That’s why she never came at the prides before the Jinn attacked!”
She wasn’t even sure just how that all had come to her, but she felt it in her bones. Like a story her mother had told her when she’d been a cub, before she’d been rescued by Zam, before she’d been fooled by Steve and before she’d lost her own cub. A story she could half remember about prides sticking together and being stronger for it.
That was why they’d stood against the Jinn all those years. Why they’d been the protectors of the desert.
Shem slowly nodded. “That is true. A proper pride following an alpha they have all committed to by blood and by bond cannot be broken. Bryce?”
Bryce was already shaking his head. “No, it isn’t in me anymore. I am not the man I was. Ford?”
Ford sighed. “Nah, I’m too fucking lazy to be the boss.”
Shem laughed. “And I am too crazy. But I see one I would follow. One with a heart that would defy the odds.”
Ford looked at her and nodded. “Me too.”
Bryce leaned into her again. “I see you, Kiara, and would follow you as alpha of the Bright Lion Pride.”
Shivers racked her body as each of the men pledged to follow her as the alpha.
Her.
Kiara.
The girl no one wanted. The girl who Steve thought was stupid.
The girl who Zam never stopped believing in, even if she’d stopped believing in herself.
She lifted her head and the desert wind swirled around her, tugging at her, daring her to do what she was born to do. Kiara opened her mouth and roared, the sound echoing out to the Stockyards, and farther, calling any lion within the vicinity to her, calling them to battle at her side, against Ishtar.
The sound echoed and echoed and she looked back to see Merlin smiling. “I thought you’d be angry that we’re staying, instead of going with you.”
He shrugged. “I’m a go-with-the-flow kind of guy.”
“Bullshit,” she said.
Merlin shrugged again. “Look, I’ll be straight with you. From the beginning, I’ve been trying to run the show and look at how that’s done. Maybe I’ll just roll with this, see what happens.”
Kiara gave him a slow nod. “Then you’ll stay and help?”
“As surely as if you were Zam herself.” Merlin gave a bow from his waist. “Besides, I think my Flora is almost upon us.”
They all turned as a pair of horse and riders galloped from the north toward them, skirts flying in the wind. Not just Flora then, but another woman too.
Kiara stepped up and roared again, this time a direct challenge to Ishtar.
The desert wind carried the sound, and from the Stockyards there was a burst of flame around the edge of the buildings.
So be it then, the battle would be on them soon.
Let her come at them, unified as they were now as a pride. Let her see who the real queen of the desert was and let her tremble before the strength they held together.
30
Zamira
The flight to the south was . . . quiet. No one chased us, no one threw spells at us. No traps, no enemies. I knew they were out there, waiting, watching, and my skin crawled with that knowledge.
Basically, all of it weirded the shit out of me.
We’d avoided the Stockyards by a good distance, to be on the safe side. I found my head turning toward that direction, though, as if something would tug me there.
“You thinking about Steve?” Maks asked, no doubt seeing the direction I stared. I laughed and shook my head.
“No, I was just thinking that . . . that I have to face her soon.” I sighed and tipped my head toward the Stockyards and Ishtar. “Assuming we survive these first two battles.”
Maks tightened his arms around me in a fierce hug. “You mean to take the Emperor on as soon as we finish fighting Ollianna and the falak, don’t you? To take him by surprise?”
I bit my
lower lip and nodded. “The Emperor won’t be expecting it. Hopefully he’ll be injured from the fight. That will help us.” Again, there was an assumption there would be injuries to the Emperor, enough to turn the tide in our direction. I mean, if the falak was killed, there was no worry about keeping the Emperor alive. Right?
Right.
On top of those thoughts, I was wondering why Ollianna’s creatures had gone after Balder. Did she actually know what he was? Did she know that he held one of the stones, or did she figure out that I’d left the powerful jewels behind? I chewed on the inside of my lip. “If Ollianna knew not only where to find Balder, but that he was a unicorn, who would have told her? How did she figure it out?”
Lila banked her wings on the wind, turning us to the right. “Could she have just figured it out? You know, gotten a hint and puzzled it through?”
“We didn’t, and he’s been with us all along,” I said. “I mean, the only clue we had was that ‘purest of heart,’ which yes, sounds like a unicorn. But they’ve been unseen for as long as I’ve been alive. And we got that clue from Merlin. He wouldn’t have given her any such clue.” MIA as my father would have said. Unicorns hadn’t been plentiful, and the only time he said he’d seen one was when he’d first landed on this side of the wall, sent in to help.
Only he hadn’t known he was being dropped off because “they” knew he was a supernatural, and his superiors didn’t tell him. There was no one in danger, or at least not immediate danger.
Maks held out a hand, palm up. A tiny puff of smoke flowed over his palm. “There are other seers.” The smoke curled up until it turned into the Oracle—a phoenix. The smoke pooled in his hand and then swirled around once more, forming another figure of myth—a gryphon. Then another—a three-headed woman. “Any one of them could have given her a hint. Does it really matter?”
“It matters because she’ll try to kill him, to get the stone out of his chest,” I said.
Emperor’s Throne: Desert Cursed Series, Book 6 Page 21