by Inez Kelley
The haft of her knife bit into her hand as the soldier bent and gripped her wrist. The man behind her leaned down, as though to get a better look. She could not see his face. A hand shot out and grabbed at the pendant that dangled from her neck.
“Where did you get this?” His soft voice was heavily accented.
“Not now,” the soldier said. “There’s more of them coming, a lot more.”
“We can’t leave her here.” Slender brown fingers wrapped round the pendant. He murmured a few words, a flash blinded Hilde and then darkness swallowed her.
Hilde landed with a crash that jarred her teeth, numbed her legs and made the claw wounds in her shoulder scream. She sat up carefully and looked round. She could make out the vague lumpy shadows of furniture. A room, of sorts. Her head whirled with thoughts that shouted at her from all directions so she could barely understand them. With a deep breath, she took a firm grip on herself.
She had no memory of travelling, but she was in no danger, for now. The beast was not here, at least. A shred of comfort. A faint strip of light caught her attention. After a small internal debate, she walked cautiously towards it and found a door but hesitated to go through. Who knew what was on the other side? Instead, she felt around the walls with her fingers. She tried to make as little sound as possible, but could not help but trip here and there on furniture. There was no other way out.
She pushed the door open a crack. It took a moment before her eyes adjusted to the brighter light, and then she saw a windowless octagonal room with abundant flickering torches and a spiral rune in the centre of the floor. On the rune was a heap of grubby red. She opened the door wider and stared at the ceiling, which flickered with colour and half-seen images.
The heap moaned. It was a man. She put her back to the wall and drew her knife.
He sat up and dislodged the large, stained yet still crimson cloak. With an almighty groan, he patted himself all over as if to check he was all there. Jet black hair fell over his face and shoulders. The man with the strange accent? Maybe. A small seed of suspicion wormed its way to her notice. The flaming face of the beast. No, it could not be. She was not about to start believing in tales.
Apparently satisfied all was in order, he got to his feet with a groan. He was flamboyantly dressed, with a red waistcoat over a voluminous white shirt, stained leather breeches, and a belt slung at a rakish angle across his hips. Various ornaments, tassels and bangles quivered and clinked as he moved. He picked up a battered hat with a round crown, checked the jaunty red feather on it and put it on.
She would not have called him handsome, exactly. He looked nothing like any other man she had seen. Striking in a dishevelled kind of way, with tanned skin and eyes so dark as to be black, now rather unfocussed as he tried to peer around him like a ten-pint drunk. A gash across his forehead dripped blood down one cheek. His face had few lines, and his hair and neatly trimmed little beard held no grey, so she could not tell his age. It could be anywhere between thirty and fifty.
He spotted Hilde, grinned a wolfish sort of grin and held out his hand. “Hello, I seem a bit lost. Do you know where we are?” A soft voice, with a syrupy accent she had not heard before.
She took another step back, but he was the first man she had ever met who did not make the sign of Kyr’s Ward when he saw her eyes, and that decided her.
“No,” she said. He squinted at her and swayed so hard he nearly fell. Anyone that concussed should be no threat. She lowered the knife. “Ten minutes ago I was on the plains of the nomads. So were you, I think.” She slid down a wall, her legs unable to hold her. Wherever she was, this man was no threat, at least at the moment. Besides, he and his friend had saved her from the beast. The beast that knew her name.
“I don’t know where I came from.” He frowned, and more blood dripped into his eye. He wiped it away absently. “I appeared about ten feet up in the air. The fall seems to have made me a little groggy. Have you any idea where here is?”
A good question, one she had been about to ask him. She stood up and held out the pendant at arms length. “You used this, there was a big flash, and then we were here.”
He steadied the moonstone with his left arm, before now hidden under his cloak. The arm was there but the hand was missing. A one-handed wizard. Foul-tempered and given to melting eyeballs.
Ilfayne.
He did not look anything like she had imagined a wizard to be. She had expected him to look older, for a start—he was said to be older than the Kingdom of Ganheim. This befuddled man looked more like a peacock. One of the rich merchant’s sons or idle nobles who occasionally passed through her village and did little other than preen themselves, drink, gamble and try to talk the girls into bed.
Yet he had only one hand, and there had been that flash of fire on the beast’s face. He did not seem too foul-tempered—the soldier had sounded far angrier—but then again he was addled from the blow to his head.
With luck, he had forgotten how to melt eyeballs along with everything else.
Giving in to the lure of passion could lead to disaster.
Lycan Tides
© 2009 Renee Wildes
Guardians of the Light, Book 3
Selkie princess Finora is all too familiar with betrayal. Betrayed by her curiosity, which led her from the sea. By her body, which yielded to a handsome human under the full moon. By the human, who hid her skin and took its location with him to his grave. After seven years of searching, she no longer believes in miracles.
Trystan is a werewolf on a mission to find and return dragons to his homeland. He follows a slim lead westward across an unfamiliar sea. Gravely wounded in a pirate attack, his ship foundered in a storm and sinking fast, he comes face to face with the most unexpected rescuers—Finora and her two half-human children.
Selkie and werewolf. Both creatures ruled by the moon. The attraction is instant, mutual, undeniable…and impossible. Trystan is destined to return to the mountains and Finora can’t leave the sea. Their only gift to each other is one night of searing passion—which could lead to the greatest betrayal of all…
Enjoy the following excerpt for Lycan Tides:
What had she gotten herself into? Finora crossed her arms to hide her shaking hands and watched Trystan’s broad back lead the way into The Mermaid Pub. The tightness in her womb, the wet heat betwixt her thighs, shocked her. The full moon was last night. The burning need should have been over. She wasn’t supposed to respond to a male out of time. Of course, four years was a long time to go without. ’Twas the selkie way to indulge that part of their natures. ’Twas the easiest way to trap them, as she’d learned to her sorrow.
Why now? Why him?
Her lips still tingled from his kiss. She quivered at the thought of sharing her bed tonight, of limbs entwined and hot skin sliding against hot skin. What was it about Trystan that made him impossible to resist? She should have put her foot down and left him in town to find his own way. Was it because he wasn’t human, either, but a fellow creature of the moon?
He was safer with her, away from eyes and questions. But was she safer with him? Ioain wasn’t the only one at risk for a broken heart. He’s not staying long. He has a mission to complete, then a family and home of his own to get back to. A family of his own… “I made a promise t’ someone back home, a promise t’ keep,” he’d stated.
“Trystan, wait.”
He turned at the doorway, a question in those piercing blue eyes.
Stars, those eyes…
“The someone back home whom you promised. Is it a woman? Are you married?”
“A woman? Aye. But a wife?” He shook his head and smiled. “Nay, lass. Were I bound t’ another, I’d no’ be stayin’ with ye an’ the littles. ’Tis no’ me way. Me folk back home have but one mate. There’s no one awaitin’ me return.”
One mate per male? In her world the strongest bulls got the most cows. A bull could have many cows in his household, but each cow answered to but one bull. A pang str
uck her. Acourse being stuck on land, with Bran gone, she’d had an uncommon spell of freedom. None to answer to, making her own decisions. A small rebellious part of her—the part that had caused her to disregard her sire’s warnings so long ago—reveled in that freedom. Even as she yearned for the sea itself, she dreaded going back to the harem, to being just one of many in her sire’s household, until he shipped her off to some other bull.
Why her heart flipped at Trystan’s unbound status she didn’t know. ’Twas of no consequence to her. “You’ve never taken a wife?”
His eyes twinkled. “I’ve been asked. But I’ve ne’er been tempted t’ say aye.”
Stop talking now. You’re making a fool of your— “What? You mean to tell me your women do the choosing? And they ask?” Finora knew her jaw was surely hanging down around her knees, but she couldn’t seem to close her mouth.
“The clans are each ruled by a headwoman. The women govern an’ each decides who they wish t’ take as a mate an’ father their bairns. Doth a mon piss her off enough, a lass is free t’ release him an’ choose another.”
“What do the men do?”
He shrugged. “Whate’er we’re good at. We hunt, scout, craft, defend. Those o’ us that be guardians, though,” a shadow crossed his face, “are sworn t’ the clans as a whole. That be above any bond t’ one woman. There’s no’ many women who relish the thought o’ a mon that oft disappears for days, weeks or months at a time on clan business, or can be slain in battle.”
“Is that what this is?” Finora asked. “This quest of yours? Clan business?”
His eyes sobered. “Nay, lass. ’Twas a promise t’ a guardian queen, who wished t’ know if she be the last o’ her kind.”
She sensed a holding back in those words, like there was something he could have added but didn’t. One thing was clear to her, however: Trystan was an honorable man, with his own ironclad code of conduct. She could trust him. She moved around him, brushed against his arm as she opened the Mermaid’s door and went back inside.
The children sat at the table with Giles and Jan, Niadh and Storm sprawled at their feet. Ealga perched on the back of Braeca’s chair. Giles handed Trystan the half-finished whiskey Trystan had set down when he’d stepped outside for their talk. “Would you like something?” Giles asked Finora.
The whiskey was too tempting. She needed a clear head. “Just cider,” she replied. Tess unloaded her tray at the next table.
Giles waved Tess over and gave her Finora’s request.
Finora sat down in the empty chair betwixt her two children. “Were the scones good?”
Ioain nodded. “Can we bwing some home?”
“Please, Mama?” Braeca added, pleading in her big brown eyes.
Finora laughed. “Very well. Enough with those cow eyes, poppet!” When the other woman brought her the cider, she said, “Tess, I think I’ll need a dozen of those cranberry scones to take home with us.”
“I’ll wrap them now,” Tess replied.
Trystan held out a hand and Ealga returned to his shoulder. He slouched against the wall, savoring his drink. “They make this back home. Me uncle Cormag’s a master. His has a unique nutty flavor an’ his barrels’re stamped with an acorn.”
Finora stared at Trystan, the wild Arcadian mountain man, from his long, grizzled grey hair to his muscled legs. She couldn’t help herself. The tattoo down the left side of his face made him look so fierce, but all she could recall was the hot desire in his eyes and the feel of those strong arms around her, holding her close. She wasn’t the only one staring at the way his broad shoulders filled out his shirt. Catching herself at it made her frown. Ridiculous to feel possessive over a stranger. She had no claim on him.
“Acorn whiskey’s rare,” Jan stated. “Hard t’ find, an’ too rich for the common purse.”
“Soon we should be able t’ afford it. Cap’n’s lookin’ for ’nother ship,” Giles clarified. “We’ll be sailin’ ’gain in a few weeks.”
Finora’s gaze slid to Trystan, who stared at the memorial wall, at all the names of those lost to Cilaniestra. “What is it?”
“’Tis lucky I am t’ no’ be listed there. Thanks t’ him.” He saluted Storm with his cup.
“Lighthaven Water Dogs. Mari breeds and trains them,” Finora told him. “They’ve gained a reputation all over Rhattany.”
Braeca also stared at the wall. “My da’s on that wall.”
“Aye, lass.” Trystan’s face softened. “I’m sorra for yer loss.”
Oh, he was dangerous…
“Is your da gone, too?”
“No’ t’ me knowledge. But I’ve been gone from home for some months now.”
“But ye’re old!” Braeca indicated his grey hair. “He must be ancient.”
“Braeca!” Finora’s cheeks heated.
Trystan laughed. “Well, I’m no’ as old as all that. Simply went grey early. They told me it makes me look wise.” He assumed a solemn expression that made the children giggle.
Finora again sensed a holding back. Trystan shot her a sharp glance but said naught further.
“Time to go home,” Finora said. “I don’t want to be climbing in the dark.” She stood, picked up the wrapped packet of scones and inclined her head to Giles and Jan. “Good night.” The children headed for the door, shadowed by the two canids. Finora followed with Trystan and Ealga bringing up the rear. She tried in vain to ignore his gaze. The back of her neck prickled with awareness.
She stopped at Mari’s. Storm’s dam sprawled against Mari’s makeshift stand but lumbered to her feet at their approach. She looked to be near her time—swollen like a great furry whale. “I need a kira of frill and a half of red.” Finora reached down to rub the dog’s ears.
Mari weighed out the two seaweeds. “Pups should be here next week,” she said to the Ioain and Braeca. “You two will have to come see them.”
Ioain stared at his shoes. Finora paid Mari and tucked the wrapped packages under her arm. They continued up the cliffside path. The children sang a counting rhyme Mistress Greta had taught Braeca. Finora and Trystan followed in silence.
“Finora!”
Bree’s call stopped her in her tracks. “What’s wrong?”
“Naught’s wrong,” the mermaid replied. “We’ve been scavenging the ship and I found something your new friend might wish to see.”
Trystan placed a hand against her back. “What is it?”
She turned around. “Bree’s found something she wants you to see. We’d best go down to the shore.” She shivered. That luring, elusive shore…
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