by Mel Teshco
Vasilous’ grin was dangerous. “It’s made our mission to rid the world of the larakyte freaks so much easier. No more hunting in the damn forest, no more traveling on horseback with the slim hope one of the shifters will give in and tell us her location.”
Raffia turned to Vasilous, exchanging a self-satisfied look. Then he twisted in his saddle and motioned to his soldiers. “Get her.”
Judas stepped back, pushing her behind him. His body was braced, readying for attack. “Shift,” he said under his breath. “And run. It’s your only chance.” She paused, her mind balking at the idea of leaving him. Of not putting up a fight. Then he turned to her, his eyes hard, ruthless as he ordered, “Now!”
She pivoted, sprinting away. Fear pulsed through her, but it was all for him.
Even knowing her every lie—Judas cared for her—more than cared.
The beast roared within and she welcomed it, embraced it. She had to lead the soldiers away from Judas.
The change came on fast, but not fast enough. And as she forced her bones into an immediate shift, she knew she’d pay for the privilege later. Big time.
When a shifter compelled the body to change too quickly, adrenaline, endorphins and a whole load of chemicals that were unique to a shifter, ensured the immediate suffering was kept at bay. But in an hour at best, the pain would attack her body, overwhelming, frightening.
Possibly even fatal.
It was a risk she had to take if she had even half a chance of survival. She had to live. For her people. For Judas.
Her big, silver paws hit the sand running while her panther ears swiveled back, taking in the sounds of the horses surging into a gallop close behind.
“Angel, hurry!”
Her ears flattened to her skull at Judas’ desperate shout. He needn’t worry, she was tough. She was a survivor.
And no pain in the world could touch the love for him that burned bright within.
She surged up the slight incline with her paw pads skimming over the sand. The horses easily kept pace. She snarled, increasing speed and all the while aware the mounts were war horses, trained for endurance as much as speed.
She needed to conserve her energy. Except only a few miles ahead the blunt, pyramid shapes of the dunes reared from the flat, seemingly endless desert as though a mirage shimmering bright under a relentless sun.
She tore toward it, panting for breath as the galloping beat of horses drew closer still. She wouldn’t look back, wouldn’t waiver in her goal to reach those dunes. She had to focus, to believe she’d make it.
Or she was doomed.
She was only grateful the soldiers didn’t arm themselves with bows and arrows like the larakyte guards did when they were in human form. She wouldn’t have had a chance.
The lead horse was breathing heavily through its nostrils behind her, struggling to keep up. Even so its rider flogged it faster so as not to let her gain any ground. Akeisha let out another snarl. The cruel rider had to be Vasilous.
When she finally set paws on the first dune, her muscles were screaming, lungs burning and heart leaping in her chest.
A horse grunted in distress behind her, then another as they plowed through the hock-deep sand.
The soldiers wouldn’t continue the chase. It would be madness.
At the top of the dune she turned back, panting. Vasilous rained curses on his mount, his face a mottled purple as the horse struggled to extract itself from the sand. When the beast finally clambered free, its trembling legs gave way. The horse toppled to its side. Bones snapped and Vasilous screamed for help, trapped beneath his mount.
She spared the bastard no pity. Karma was a wonderful thing.
Raffia sat easily on his sweat-lathered horse, oblivious to the chaos nearby. Instead, his eyes burned with hatred as he stared at her staring back at him. She flicked her tail in disdain and turned away, lifting her face into the heat.
Glorious, open spaces. Freedom.
She’d never take it for granted again.
In a sudden burst of speed, she ran down the other side of the dune and up the next, her paw pads barely touching the baking hot sand as she gloried in her escape.
The sense of victory didn’t last long. She had to turn back, to see for herself if Judas was okay.
She’d already covered countless miles, her throat parched and her legs wobbling with exhaustion when she slowed and then stopped. Dunes surrounded her like an infinite sea of waves. A slight breeze picked up and swirled the sand.
Oh, hell.
Often the cooling afternoon brought with it a wind that re-dispersed the top layer of sand, enough to cover her scent, her trail. Even her amazing cat senses wouldn’t be able to pinpoint which direction she’d come from, let alone where to find Judas.
She took a deep breath—but her lungs stalled as the pain of her earlier shift suddenly struck.
She collapsed onto the sand, moaning low in her throat as a fiery tide burned through her body, torturing her from the inside out. She’d heard stories of the unbearable suffering her kind went through after they’d had no choice but to forcefully shift.
She gasped in some air. She’d had no clue how bad it could really get.
None.
Her eyes squeezed closed at the hapless, involuntary shift back into human that was the body’s self-defense mechanism. With each change, not only did cells regenerate and heal, but as human, she’d be more able to take care of her own injuries, more able to seek help.
If only she could tell her body that being human out here, with nothing but sand dunes, was not in her best interest.
The pain of shifting back into human was nothing in comparison to the burning concentration within, heat waves that surged one after the other until it intensified into a cataclysmic agony that left her writhing in the sand, panther now human.
She wanted to scream, to find something…anything, to end her suffering. But in this barren wasteland the worst she could do was bury her head in the sand until she suffocated. And that required energy she didn’t have.
The torment had weakened her beyond the point of mobility.
Ironic really, to die out here, in the open spaces. If the pain didn’t kill her, thirst or tomorrow’s intense heat burning her naked body, would.
Judas, I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry.
She swallowed. She couldn’t give up. Judas may be in trouble. Judas may need her help. And her people…her people counted on her.
Gritting her teeth and using her last ounce of strength, she sat, fighting a torrent of dizziness so as to not collapse right back on the sand.
And that was when she realized she wasn’t alone. Through her fog of pain she sensed someone close in; saw a flash of black on the dunes farther away, as though velvet on snow.
Then another wave of intense heat gripped her in its fangs, a seizure of untold agony that left her fighting just to stay conscious, let alone sitting upright. But somehow she did.
Another streak of black, like a shadow running low to the ground. A panther? She closed her eyes, too weak to consider the possibility. No shifter would be out in the desert, and certainly not one of the non-shifting panther varieties that were easily distinguished by their black-as-coal coloring.
Unless…
She forced open her eyes and squinted, trying to focus before the next unbearable wave hit. She swayed, before the world abruptly righted as it rocked back onto its axis. She was dreaming, surely?
It was no black cat cresting the sand dune above her. Judas’ raven-black hair glinted under the brutal sun as he waded through the sand toward her, naked and bare-footed and beautiful as all hell.
He crouched before her and she reached out an unsteady hand, touching him and making sure he was real, he was all right. “How…how did you get here?” she croaked.
“Don’t worry about that for now.” He lifted her effortlessly in his arms. “Save your energy. I know of a safe place we can go.”
She swallowed, and almost cho
ked. She needed water desperately. And then she realized. The savage waves of suffering had receded, but it’d left behind a brutal thirst and crippling, dizzy weakness. “Leave me here. You can’t carry me all the way back. We’ll both die.”
When he remained silent and tucked her closer still before he began to climb the nearest dune, Akeisha heaved out a sigh of surrender, too weak to fight Judas and the blackness pressing in around her.
* * * * *
“The humans have broken through our guards. We need to get you inside! And no matter what happens, stay quiet. Don’t say a word.”
Akeisha glowered at Sienna, the larakyte handmaiden. “I want to fight alongside my father and his soldiers.”
Sienna glared back, not giving an inch, though desperation had leeched her face white. “You will do as I say and no more argument. Your father entrusted me to care for you and I’m not going to be the one to tell him his ten-year-old daughter was killed because I didn’t have the tenacity to make you do as you’re told.”
Akeisha knew the maiden was scared for her own life too, and who could blame her? Screams and fighting were coming ever closer to the library, growing in volume.
She nodded reluctance, her hands clenched. She’d pretend to stay in the secret room behind the thick stone walls, built long ago to hide classified documents and such. When Sienna was gone and safely hidden, she’d push on the tiny niche inside the wall that’d spring open the hidden door.
She would fight beside her people.
Sienna hustled her inside. It was dank and dark. But when the handmaiden shut the heavy door, the pitch-black silence was absolute. Akeisha had only ever been in the room once, a few years before. She’d sneaked inside, a candle in hand to break the bleak darkness.
She hadn’t stayed longer than a minute.
She swallowed. Hard. Then a loud snick rang out. She froze, disbelieving. A lock had been turned!
Akeisha fumbled for the niche, found it and pressed. The lock didn’t budge. “Sienna, no!”
The handmaiden’s voice was muffled from the other side of the closed door. “Sorry, child, but it’s for your own good. Plans are already in place to escape to the forest. Any survivors will come back for you. But for now I beg of you. No matter what you hear, stay quiet. If you love your people, remember your being alive might well be the larakytes only hope.”
Akeisha didn’t have any more time to plead or beg to be let out. A loud bang ricocheted the entire library. And then another. She bit into her bottom lip, tasting blood. The humans were breaking down the library door.
She put a hand over her mouth, stifling an urge to yell at her handmaiden and tell her to escape, to run for her life.
One more terrifying bang was followed by something skidding across the floor. Akeisha bit back a sob, certain it was a large chunk of the thick door. She could only hope and pray Sienna had already escaped.
A man’s coarse, leering laugh seemed all too close. Then she heard it. A scream. High pitched and terrified.
Sienna’s.
Akeisha slid to the floor, pushing her fingers into her mouth. She bit hard, stopping her own screams from tearing free and giving away her hiding place as more sounds, horrible sounds, infiltrated the walls. Sounds she never wanted to hear again.
Quiet sobs racked her body, tears cascading down her face. She’d effectively killed Sienna by being obstinate and refusing to hide, time in which the handmaiden could have escaped.
Time held no meaning. A doomed silence had long since taken over in the library, Akeisha’s sobs becoming strangled breaths as darkness pressed in at her on all sides.
Seemed only fair that the room that had spared her would soon become her tomb, a place to die. Her people weren’t coming for her, they were likely all dead, killed by the same humans who’d murdered Sienna.
Who’d undoubtedly murdered her father.
Chapter Five
Akeisha’s breath caught in her throat as she slowly came to, taking a moment to realize she was no longer the little girl left alone in the secret room for two-and-a-half long, terrifying days.
Two-and-a-half days before her father and what was left of the larakyte people had risked returning for her, hoping against hope she was still alive.
Voices murmured nearby and she struggled to make sense of her whereabouts. Damp and mildew hung heavy in the sluggish air, along with an undertone of decay.
“I think she’s going to make it, Sire.”
Someone peeled a hot, wet cloth from her brow and replaced it with another that was blessedly cool.
She cracked her eyelids open.
A cave. She was in a cave. A dank, dark place just like the small room.
She swallowed, instantly alarmed as claustrophobia threatened. But as Judas leaned down, one hand clasping hers, the other gently holding the cloth in place, she sucked in a steadying breath, reassured by his touch, his presence.
She blinked, trying to focus. Trying to get things straight in her mind. And failing. “We…we made it,” she whispered.
His smile was full of relief, full of…love? “We did, angel.”
But how? Somehow the question seemed too much effort, too much to take in.
She licked her dry, cracked lips and he leaned forward, clasping behind her head to raise her slightly before lifting a cup to her mouth. Cool water slid down her parched throat and trickled down her chin. She wanted more.
“Easy,” Judas said. “Just a little at a time.”
She was too weak to argue. Too weak to even stay awake. Her eyes fluttered closed again and she drifted in and out of consciousness, her body attempting to revitalize after the forced shift and subsequent agony of regeneration.
Even so, intermittent, brief snatches of conversation filtered into her mind.
“They’re closing in on us, Sire.”
“She’s too weak to move yet.”
“No choice.”
“We wait. For just a little longer. We wait.”
Was she was awake or dreaming?
Sometime later, her eyelids flickered apart as Judas elevated her a little and dressed her in a cotesh robe with all too practiced hands. When his arms locked under her before lifting her high, she focused on his face. Defined cheekbones taut with concern, sensual lips pressed tight. Then, as if aware of her stare, he met her gaze and his face relaxed.
“Sorry to disturb you angel, but we have to move.”
So what she’d heard hadn’t been a dream. She wriggled in his arms, wanting only to stand on her own two feet. She needed to lighten his load so there was better chance at escape.
“In a few hours your body will be strong enough to walk; even fight,” he said. “But not yet.”
She frowned. Did Judas perceive her every thought? And how did he know how long exactly it would take for her body to fully recuperate?
“Until then,” he added, “let me help you. Trust me, okay?”
She relented with a nod, forcing her stare from his hawkish, beautiful face and to the dirty, rock walls closing in either side. The natural corridor danced with shadow and light from the naked flames of torches of at least a dozen people escorting them front and back.
But pressed against Judas’ hard strength, his iron will, she managed to keep her fear at bay, managed to be distracted by the many unanswered questions filling her mind.
Judas had risked life and limb following her into the desert, where navigation was a guessing game at best and the ever-shifting sand dunes could bury a human alive. Hell, he’d risked his kingdom for her and she hadn’t even found the courage to tell him who she really was.
“Thank you for saving me,” she said. “Though I know you must hate me for deceiving you.”
Something…curious flashed in his eyes, followed as quickly by regret.
She drew in a sharp breath. Could he not forgive her?
Hooves clattered on the hard packed cave floor far behind them. His nostrils flared, eyes narrowing. “Move!” he commanded to the p
eople around him, “To the gathering room. You know what you must do.”
Akeisha wrapped her arms around him, clinging tight as he bounded into an effortless run to the back of the caves.
Soldiers shouted from behind, gaining ground, their horses snorting fearfully at the ever-narrowing passageway.
She resisted a whimper as claustrophobia again threatened. But…perhaps this once the confined space was her friend, not her enemy?
Judas and his servants burst into a huge room, the torches they pushed into man-made brackets on the cave walls not even making a dent in the blackness above.
Judas grabbed a spare torch from one of his men and strode to the far end of the huge cavern. He leaned the torch against a boulder of around shoulder-height, before he lifted her high so that she could scramble onto the smooth, elevated platform.
“Stay here,” he ordered, his eyes holding hers. Intent. Steely. “Keep hidden. The soldiers won’t search for you—they believe you died in the dunes.”
He grabbed the torch and raised it overhead so that the flame radiated around her. And that was when she saw the hole behind her—a tunnel—in the cave wall.
Shock kept her silent, though inside a choked scream built and built.
“If we don’t win this fight,” he said carefully, “you’ll need to crawl through the tunnel. Even if the soldiers see you, none will be small enough to follow.”
She shook her head, heart banging in her throat. “No. I…I can’t. I’m terrified of…of small spaces.”
His hard eyes softened beneath the flickering flame. “Yes you can. I know you can. The tunnel leads straight to the palace. Find Fontaine. She will organize supplies for you, a horse. Then you can return to your people before any of the soldiers discover where you are.”
Tears rolled down her face. But it wasn’t for her incessant fears. She couldn’t let him die! He’d saved her life, she couldn’t abandon him. Besides, he’d need all the help he could get against his soldiers.
She looked over his shoulder to the servants. Even with her emotions blown to the four winds she knew they were an unorthodox lot of fighters if ever she’d seen any.