by Jasmine Walt
I was just contemplating the idea of breaking off the legs of an old chair and fashioning them into stakes I could hide in my boots when I heard movement at the door.
“What are you doing in here?” Elgarion asked, stepping into the room. His dark eyes narrowed as he surveyed the space, no doubt noticing that I’d moved things around.
I folded my arms and arched a brow. “I thought I was allowed to go wherever I wanted, so long as the door wasn’t locked?”
Elgarion pressed his lips into a thin line. “That’s true, but it seems like you’re looking for something.”
I blinked. I was still holding the chair in my hands… upside down. I righted it hastily and set it back down on the dusty stone floor. “I was just taking a break from training.”
“You mean self-defense?” A smug look crossed his face as his eyes scanned my form, lingering on the sheen of sweat that marked my forehead and exposed arms. “I wouldn’t waste your time on that, hybrid. You’re not going to live much longer, and any mage could easily best you regardless of your physical skills.”
“Are you interested in my ‘physical skills’?” I purred, closing the distance between us. Elgarion took a step back as I fluttered my eyelashes at him, wanting to wipe the smug look off his face for once. “Is that why you’re following me around?”
“W-what? No!” His pale skin flushed, and I heard his pulse speed up. “I’m just doing my job! I would never have such lascivious thoughts, especially about a hybrid like you.”
I ignored that jab as I leaned in closer to him. It helped that I knew I was getting to him, but I was also getting used to the insult.
“I’m sure you feel better telling yourself that,” I said, giving him a slow wink. “But you know what I think?”
“What?” He sounded slightly out of breath.
I straightened, raking his body with a scathing look. “I think you’re just an untried boy who hides behind his magic and his textbooks and doesn’t know anything about the real world,” I sneered. “If you think magic can protect you from everything, kid, then go ahead and try to beat me. I’ve had to take down a mage or two in my line of work, and I guarantee you’d be child’s play compared to a fully-trained mage.”
His face turned beet red, and I waited with baited breath to see what he would do next. It was true that I’d brought in a few mages, but they had been low-level ones, and I’d been armed with protective amulets and weapons. Not to mention that I didn’t really know how well-trained Elgarion was – since he was born into a mage family he would have been using magic his entire life, unlike me. Right now I had no amulets or weapons, only my natural-born talents, and I was interested in seeing whether or not my magic would work to defend me within the palace walls.
Of course, my magic would only activate if he actually tried to kill me. So maybe this wasn’t the smartest idea.
In the end, he merely bared his teeth at me in an impressive mimicry of my own sneer. “I have better things to do than deal with a lowly hybrid like you,” he said haughtily. I stifled a snicker as he turned on his heel and walked off with his nose in the air. These mages all walked around with sticks up their asses, and all it took was a little poke for them to go rigid.
With a shake of my head, I closed the door behind me, and continued my search for a weapon.
Six hours later, I wearily trudged back down to the kitchens in search of food. I’d trained until I’d exhausted myself, then dragged my butt back to my tower room to try and sleep, but between the crushing sense of loss that filled me whenever I was left alone with my thoughts and the hunger pangs that gnawed at my stomach, getting shut-eye was impossible. So I waited until I was sure that dinner had been served and cleaned up, then crept back downstairs so I could sneak some food from the larder that wasn’t rock bread and fuzzy cheese.
As I expected, the kitchen was deserted, not even a mouse hanging around to observe my theft. There was no food sitting on the countertops, so I broke into the pantry in search of something palatable. It didn’t take me long to strike gold – a loaf of relatively fresh bread on one of the shelves, and a piece of smoked salmon wrapped in butcher’s paper.
“Who knew fish and bread could make someone so happy,” I muttered as I alternated between stuffing mouthfuls of food into my mouth and into a paper bag I’d found. I could have stayed there all night scarfing down food, but even my damaged sense of self-preservation told me it would be unwise to linger.
I crammed as much food into the bag as it could possibly hold, and walked out of the pantry with a spring in my step and a smile on my face. Sure, this wasn’t a five-star meal, but it was better than stale bread and cheese, and I was looking forward to hightailing it back to my room so I could enjoy it.
Unfortunately, someone was waiting for me in the kitchen.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” the guard leaning against one of the countertops asked. He was the human one who’d escorted me to the audience chamber earlier along with the others, and from his cocky stance and the gleam in his eye, it was clear he was looking for some payback.
“Getting some food.” I pulled the loaf of bread out of the bag so he could see it. “A little bread, a little meat. Why, you want some?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know,” he drawled, drawing his short sword from its sheath. “Seems like you’re stealing to me. I’m gonna have to teach you a lesson for that.”
He charged me, raising the sword up with both hands as he moved in with a slashing strike, obviously thinking he had the upper hand since I was unarmed. But I’d prepared for this. I pulled the brass drawer handles I’d pilfered from one of the broken dressers from my jacket pocket and slipped them around my knuckles as I dodged the blow. He whirled around, tracking my motion, his shoes scuffing loudly against the stone floor, and attempted another slashing strike.
This time, instead of moving away I moved in, bringing up my knuckles so I could catch the blow with my drawer handles, just as I would have done with my crescent knives. Unfortunately the handles didn’t cover my hands as well as the knives did, and I winced inwardly as the blade grazed my fingers, sharp pain slicing into my flesh.
“What the fu–” he began, his eyes wide with confusion, and I wasted no time, pulling one of my makeshift stakes out and stabbing him in the joint where his arm connected to his torso. He fell back screaming as he crashed into one of the counters, his hand flying to the bloody stake embedded in his flesh, and I smirked. Even if he pulled that thing out right now – which wasn’t a good idea – he wouldn’t be able to use his sword arm again to fight me.
“What’s going on down there?” a male voice shouted, and I winced. The sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs outside had me looking around frantically for an escape route, but there wasn’t one, and before I knew it three more guards had filed into the kitchen, their swords drawn.
“So much for showing mercy,” I muttered, glaring at the now-whimpering guard slumped against the counter. If I’d killed him he wouldn’t have screamed, and I wouldn’t be in this mess right now. Served me right.
“You!” the guard in the lead shouted, jabbing the point of his sword at me. “You tried to kill Harry!”
“Are you kidding?” I threw my hands up in the air, fully prepared to argue for my life, but the guards simply rushed me, in no mood to talk. I flung my second stake in their direction to distract them and leapt over the counter where Whiny – or was it Harry? – was still sobbing his delicate little heart out, making a beeline for the exit.
The sound of metal sang through the air, and the tip of a short sword plunged into my upper back. Blood poured from my searing shoulder, and I cried out as one of the guards slammed me into the wall, a dark-haired guy with cold eyes and cruel lips.
“Well, well, well,” the assassin-guard mocked, his cruel lips curving into an even crueler smile as he pressed his body against mine. “Cat got your tongue?”
I bared my teeth at him, which was less intim
idating than it sounds because I didn’t even have enough energy to elongate my fangs. I was tapped out in every way possible, and the guard knew it as he pressed his hard chest against mine, wrapping his hand around the blade of his sword. The scent of his coppery blood mingled with mine as the blade cut into his hand, and I swallowed at the manic gleam in his eye. This guy was nuts, and should never have been hired by Privacy Guard, let alone the Chief Mage. I was almost certain that the Chief Mage himself would never have allowed this guy on his payroll if he knew the guy carried around this kind of bloodlust.
“I don’t see why the other guards are so afraid of you,” he sneered, his dark eyes boring into my own. “You’re nothing but a pussy, after all.”
I slammed my knee into his crotch, then smashed my foot into his face when he doubled over and sent him skidding across the stone floor. Battle-fever rushing through my veins, I grabbed the blade and yanked it out of my shoulder, then made another dash for the door. Somehow I cleared the entrance, but I didn’t make it more than two feet into the hallway before the remaining two guards tackled me to the ground. I grunted as my cheek smashed into the stone floor, and several ribs cracked as the weight of both men slammed into me.
“You’re going to pay for that, bitch!” One of the men rolled me over and straddled me – I wasn’t sure which one, because my vision was blurred with tears of pain and fear. I held my arms above my face as he rained blows down upon me, his huge fists smashing into my forearms, my neck, my chest. Tears streamed down my cheeks, from the utter agony of two hundred plus pounds sitting atop broken ribs pounding against my neck and chest so hard I couldn’t breathe. But I clenched my teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of so much as a whimper.
Unbelievable, I thought dimly through the crashing waves of pain. I’m a shifter hybrid who incinerated a rhino yesterday, and I’m going to die in a cold, dark basement at the hands of a human.
Roanas would be disappointed if he knew I’d failed so quickly.
That thought galvanized me, and I reared up, pulling strength from a reserve I didn’t know I had to flex my claws. I wrapped my bloody, torn fingers around the guard’s neck, taking satisfaction as I dug into his meaty flesh. His eyes bulged as I squeezed, my claws tearing into his skin, and I held on tight as the other guard rushed forward to kick me.
If I was going down, at least I was taking this bastard with me.
“What is the meaning of this!” a deep, familiar voice shouted, and the guard who was about to kick me in the head froze. I froze too, my hands still wrapped around my attacker’s neck, as a tall, bearded man dressed in dark clothing descended the basement stairs, his yellow eyes glowing in the darkness of the hall.
It was Fenris, in human form.
The breath I was holding left me in a rush of relief, and I collapsed. Unfortunately, so did the lout I was choking to death, and it didn’t appear that he was going to move any time soon. Groaning, I attempted to shove the guy off me, but my arms might as well have been feathers – they had absolutely no strength left in them.
“Sir,” the guard who was still standing began. “We heard screams and came down here to find the hybrid –”
“Don’t call her that,” Fenris growled, dropping to his knees beside me. He shoved the guard off me carelessly and pressed his fingers against my neck to feel my pulse. “Sunaya, what happened here?”
Tears blurred my vision all over again at the compassion in his voice. Finally, there was someone here in this forsaken place who wanted to help me, who didn’t look at me with suspicion and malice.
“I just came down here for some bread and fish,” I croaked, the tears sliding down my cheeks faster now that nobody was there to beat them out of me. “That’s all I wanted.”
“Resinah forgive me,” Fenris muttered, sliding his hands beneath my shoulders and my knees. “I should have seen to this.”
An alarm bell went off in my head – Resinah was the female goddess mages prayed to, and not one that shifters ever referenced – but then Fenris lifted me into his arms. Pain screamed throughout my entire body, and I forgot about everything except the agony. My vision blurred again, a dull roar filling my ears, and I wasn’t sure what happened after, but the next thing I knew I was being laid out on a table.
By Magorah, I thought, a sharp burst of panic ripping through me as the Chief Mage’s face swam into view. They’re going to experiment on me now!
But when his hands touched me, they were surprisingly gentle. I stilled as a sense of peace stole through me, washing away the panic, and looked up dreamily into Iannis’s face. And as he looked down at me, his brows drawn together, lines bracketed around his mouth, I could almost imagine that he cared.
“Sleep,” he said, his deep, slightly musical voice like a balm to my battered soul, and I went under without another thought.
7
A knock on the door disturbed me from a deep, dreamless sleep. I sat up, disoriented as I looked around the small, round room with its chest of drawers and single, barred window. It took me a moment to remember that I was in Solantha Palace, and that I was kept here so the Chief Mage could study me like a lab rat. My stomach tightened as I scoured my brain for memories of last night, but all I could dredge up was a sense of agony, and the image of the Chief Mage’s face hovering above my head, backlit by a bright, white light. Had he started experimenting on me already?
“Sunaya?” the knocking on the door persisted, and my right ear twitched as I recognized Fenris’s voice. “Are you awake?”
Another memory tickled the back of my mind at the sound. “I’m coming,” I called, swinging my legs from the side of the bed. It was then I noticed I was dressed in a simple white nightgown I’d never seen before in my life.
Someone had definitely tampered with my body last night, even if it had only been to change my clothes.
But if the Chief Mage had drugged or spelled me in some way, my body didn’t know it. Energy sang through my muscles as I got to my feet and crossed the room, and I felt like skipping.
He must have given me some kind of weird pick-me-up spell.
But when I opened the door to see Fenris standing on the other side, the memory of him rushing toward me down the basement steps slammed into my brain.
“Oh.” I clutched the side of my head as I stared at him. He was dressed in dark red instead of black today, but otherwise he was the same tall, muscular man with the dark brown beard and yellow eyes who’d called off my attackers. “You saved me last night.”
“Glad your memory is in working order.” He arched a brow, then lifted the plate of food in his hands. “Hungry?”
“Famished.” The sight of the cold chicken, mashed potatoes and biscuits made my stomach ache so fiercely I thought it might devour itself. I snatched the plate from his hands before I remembered my manners. “Umm, do you want to come in?”
“That was the idea, yes.”
I stepped back to let him enter the room, and that was all of the attention I could spare – I plopped down onto my bed and immediately inhaled the food on my plate.
“Mmm,” I mumbled appreciatively when I was done. “You got any more of this?” The plate of food had taken the edge off my hunger, but I hadn’t eaten a decent meal in forty-eight hours, at least not by shifter standards. Our high metabolisms needed more food than the average human.
Fenris frowned. “I should have thought to bring more. You need the nourishment after your ordeal.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I asked, gesturing to my empty plate. “Have you been assigned as my personal maid or something? Because somehow that kind of task seems beneath you.”
Fenris scowled. “Actually, the Chief Mage sent me here to let you know that he wouldn’t be able to meet with you until later this afternoon. I decided to bring you some food on my way, so that you wouldn’t get yourself in trouble in the kitchens again.”
“What does the Great Lord Iannis have to do that is so pressing he had to push back our morning m
eeting?” I rolled my eyes. Was I supposed to be grateful to Fenris for rescuing me when it was his master’s fault I’d been nearly beaten to death in the first place?
Fenris arched a brow. “As a matter of fact, he’s still recuperating from last night. He expended a lot of energy healing your injuries, which were rather extensive.”
My jaw dropped as the fragments of memory from last night finally fell into place. “You brought me to the Chief Mage and had him heal me?”
“It seemed the least he could do, since you’d been starved and beaten while under his protection,” Fenris said mildly. “Or at least that’s what I told him when he asked me why I hadn’t brought you to the infirmary instead. Would you rather I had left you lying on the floor?”
He scowled at me, and I flinched, the truth of his words ringing in my ears. “No. But it doesn’t mean that I’m going to grovel at your feet for the supposed ‘favor’ you’ve done me. After all, you’re the pet of the mage who’s keeping me here.”
Fenris’s jaw tightened. “I’m no one’s pet.”
“Well then why are you here with him?” I narrowed my eyes. “You seem like a decent guy, so he must have some kind of hold over you. Do you owe him a debt? Because there are other alternatives to indentured servitude –”
“I am not a slave, Sunaya,” Fenris cut me off, his voice clipped. “I know this might be hard for you to believe, but Iannis and I are good friends. I stand by his side, as he would stand by mine.”
“Is that why you sit at his feet?” I snapped. “Like a dog? Because you two are equal?”
Fenris’s expression turned downright thunderous. “I know that you’re frustrated with your own situation, but believe me when I say from experience that Iannis is not what you think. If I sit by his feet as a wolf, it’s because it’s advantageous to the situation, nothing more. We respect each other, and he has more than earned my loyalty.”