Blood Challenge

by Eileen Wilks

  It smelled like Dya. Arjenie leaned forward carefully. Dya had warned her not to get any of the potion on her skin. Though it worked best if taken internally, it was extremely potent. Getting even the teeniest bit on her skin would undo the potion she’d taken earlier.

  That’s what tonight was for—undoing. Making sure things didn’t happen.

  “But, Dya,” Arjenie had said when she heard what Dya wanted her to do, “won’t Friar blame you when nothing happens?”

  “I do not wish to insult your world, but people here are very ignorant. After I became suspicious, I chastised Friar about chlorine.”

  Arjenie had blinked. “Chlorine?”

  Dya had chuckled. “You are not so ignorant as he, little fox. I wished him to believe this chlorine might interfere with my potions. He had not told me that you people put it in your water here, you understand, and so I suggested that if the potions did not work, it was his fault for not informing me of the chlorine. He will be angry when nothing happens, for that is his nature. He will not think I have acted against him.”

  “Couldn’t you just . . . well, instead of going through all this with the antidote—”

  “It is not an antidote, Arjenie. It is an undoer.”

  “Okay, but wouldn’t it have been simpler to just make the potions a little bit wrong, so they didn’t work?”

  Dya had been silent for a long moment, then said softly, “I did not like Friar’s purpose, but it is not for me to approve or disapprove of the use to which my work is put. I did as I was bid. When I heard . . . when I began to suspect . . .” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Queens’ Law, Arjenie. If Friar violates it, then so must my lord be doing, also. He loaned me to Friar. He must know, but it—it is a very large thing to suspect one’s lord of such evil.”

  “You haven’t told me which Queens’ Law Friar is messing with.”

  “Do not ask.”

  And that’s all Dya would say about it. Don’t ask.

  Sidhe had many realms and many rulers, but only two queens: Winter and Summer. The Two Queens didn’t bother with many laws, but those few covered some terrible ground. Eledan had told her about Queens’ Law. He was supposed to have come back and explained those Laws more fully once she was adult, but he never had. Very likely he’d forgotten. His notions of fatherhood were extremely casual.

  What Queens’ Law was she upholding tonight? Arjenie wanted to know and she didn’t, and on a personal level that sucked. But given the overall potential for ghastliness, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was stopping Friar. She poured the undoer into the opening, holding it tipped and steady as it slowly glug-glugged out and down.

  She sighed, reinserted the stopper, and screwed the cap back in place. Done.

  Now she just had to get herself out of here.

  Arjenie knew how much her ankle hurt. She didn’t realize until she struggled to her feet how tired she was. Now that she’d accomplished her mission, exhaustion seemed to radiate out from her bones.

  She hadn’t had much sleep last night, but she’d never needed as much sleep as most people did. Losing an hour or two didn’t affect her much. No, this kind of blood-and-bone tired had little to do with sleep, and everything to do with her Gift.

  Like most Gifted, Arjenie could use outside sources to power a spell or a charm, but she couldn’t power her Gift itself that way. Unlike the other Gifted she knew, however, she could draw power directly from another source if she had to: her own body.

  There was, of course, a price for that.

  Arjenie dug into one of the pouches on her tool belt, but instead of a screwdriver she pulled out a candy bar. She wasn’t hungry, but experience had taught her that her body’s signals could not be trusted when she’d pushed herself too far. She needed fuel. Sugar first, then some jerky for the protein, then more sugar. By then, hopefully, she’d be back at her car and could drink the Coke she’d left there. That ought to get her back to her hotel, where she could crash safely.

  Judging by how tired she was now, with roughly three miles still to walk and all of that spent drawing strongly on her Gift, the crash was going to be bad this time.

  Couldn’t be helped. She peeled back the paper, bit, and chewed as she started back down the ruts that led to the main road.

  Would it last two days? Three? She took another bite of chocolate. Could well be the latter. That wouldn’t be a problem as far as work went—she’d taken a full week off, and had warned her boss that she wouldn’t be checking e-mail or voice mail very often. Aunt Robin, though . . . if her aunt called and couldn’t reach Arjenie, she’d worry. And she’d probably call. Aunt Robin’s trouble radar was uncanny.

  Best to call her on the way to the hotel, Arjenie concluded glumly, and warn her that a crash was imminent. She’d get a lecture, but that was better than upsetting her aunt. Not that she could tell Aunt Robin—or Uncle Clay, or Uncle Ambrose, or Uncle Nate, or Uncle Stephen, or any of her cousins—why she’d abused her Gift tonight.

  Are most adventures like this? she wondered as she reached the road. Lots of preparation and worry, a distracting level of pain, not much happening for long stretches of time, and a whole litter of complications to deal with afterward.

  Still, she’d been lucky. Also clever, and she gave herself credit for that, but luck had surely played a big part. And now that it was over, she could admit that she’d liked parts of her adventure. She did enjoy sneaking around. That was no news flash. How could someone with her Gift not develop a love for . . .

  Uh-oh.

  FOURTEEN

  THE largish building Arjenie had passed on her way to the well was nothing fancy—just a long, stucco rectangle roofed with the red tiles you saw everywhere in California. A wooden deck ran the length of the building’s front. The thirty feet that separated it from the road couldn’t be called a yard—it was mostly dirt with some stubborn tufts of native grass.

  The windows were unexpected. They were unusually tall, running nearly from floor to ceiling, and she hadn’t seen any on the sides or back, just in the front along the deck.

  Those windows spilled light into the darkness now. And voices. Men’s voices.

  Arjenie’s feet stopped entirely. From this far back she couldn’t hear what the voices said. She could, however, see inside. Men moved swiftly and purposefully in what seemed to be one huge bedroom—she glimpsed several beds, anyway. No, wait, the beds were on either end; the middle part looked more like a living room. Several of the men were naked. And not everyone was a man.

  Arjenie’s heartbeat leaped for the stratosphere. Move, she told her feet, and they obeyed for two whole steps when something happened that made her forget everything else.

  A tall, dark-haired man with a wiry build and no clothes stood near one of the windows. She watched, transfixed, as he splintered himself. That wasn’t the right word, but there were no words for what she saw—reality shorting out in a fizz of impossibilities, fractal glimpses of flesh and fur and change.

  “Go,” said a man’s voice, deep and commanding. And the wolf who’d been a man a second ago did, spinning to leap out the window—as did four more wolves, launching themselves through four more windows.

  They all but flew, those wolves. As if they’d choreographed this, they sailed out the windows and over the porch, landing on the hard ground. And kept going, streaks of shadow cutting across the night like wind made visible.

  One of them ran right past her. Not quite close enough for her to reach out and touch, but nearly. Arjenie swallowed and pulled hard on her Gift and remembered her feet, which agreed that it was time to move. Even her poor ankle was on board with that plan.

  What had alerted them? Had they found some trace of her? Could the potion have worn off? No, that was stupid—that wolf had raced right past her, which he surely wouldn’t have done if she were leaving a scent trail.

  She hobbled forward slowly. Much as she wanted to hurry, that would end badly. Her ankle wouldn’t tolerate any rushing.

>   Men were coming out now. A couple stepped through the windows like the wolves had, only not in such a rush. Others exited more prosaically through the door. They were all armed, and mostly dressed—at least, all but two wore cutoffs. Arjenie’s gaze flickered over the men, counting compulsively as she walked, leaning on the stupid cane . . . two, three, five, seven, nine . . .

  The tenth man was in charge. Arjenie knew that the second she saw him. It was clear in the way the others watched him. His voice was a low rumble, too low for her to make out the words—something about the road, or maybe the Rho—and he was big. Big like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his bodybuilder days. Big like a pro football player or the G.I. Joe doll her cousin Jack used to play with. Big as in all muscle.

  His hair was black and straight, pulled back in a stubby tail. He had coppery skin. Lots of coppery skin. He wasn’t quite naked. He had on cutoffs. And a sword. She was pretty sure that was a sword strapped across his back, plus there was a rifle in his hand and some kind of gun holstered on his hips.

  She wanted him.

  The rush of hunger astounded her. It was so misplaced she had nowhere to put it, no context by which such an absurd upwelling of desire could be understood. She stood and gaped at him.

  He finished speaking to the men with him. Two of them peeled off, racing toward the gate, and he—he looked at her. Right at her.

  “It’s you,” she whispered.

  Did he hear her? She couldn’t tell. His face gave nothing away. He started toward her, moving slowly, like a big cat stalking its prey . . . would a part-time wolf be insulted if you called him a cat? His gaze never left her.

  He made a gesture with one hand, some kind of signal. Two of the other men fell into step with him. “Lights,” he said. A second later Arjenie was blinking against the sudden flood of light—all of it directed out at the yard and the road. The porch itself remained unlit. The men remaining on that porch looked watchful and wary, but she could tell they didn’t see her.

  He did.

  His eyes never left hers as he stepped off the deck and kept coming. He looked about forty, with crow’s-feet tucked in the corners of his dark eyes. His face had no expression at all. He didn’t so much as blink. Maybe he was a robot? A robotic lupus, because she somehow knew he was last night’s wolf. A Native American robotic lupus, because that copper skin was stretched taut over broad cheekbones bisected by a high-bridged blade of a nose.

  Apache? Navajo? She wanted to ask him which tribe, and why he could see her, and why his men weren’t asking him what he was doing, stalking something they couldn’t see. She wanted to stretch out a hand and touch him . . . and that was stupid, because he was a lot scarier in this shape than when he was a wolf. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.

  He stopped about five feet away. He’d been a big wolf. He made a very big man. “I am so scared,” she whispered.

  “You don’t smell scared.” His voice was so low, rumbling out of him like a big cat’s purr. “You don’t smell like anything.”

  “You can hear me!”

  “Hear you, see you, but I can’t smell you.”

  She blinked. That was interesting. Apparently her Gift didn’t work on him, but Dya’s potion did. “That’s because of the potion,” she whispered. She could not bring herself to speak out loud while using her Gift. Or maybe her voice was strangled by fear.

  “You’ll tell me about that shortly.” He gestured at the cane she was leaning on. “You fell last night. Are you injured?”

  She nodded. “Are you? I heard shots. So many shots.”

  “Nothing significant.”

  “Benedict?” one of the men with him said—a redhead with freckles everywhere. Truly everywhere. He hadn’t bothered with cutoffs. “Who are you talking to?”

  “You don’t see her,” the robotic lupus Native American said. The redhead shook his head. “Do you not hear her, either?”

  “No.”

  There was no point in exhausting herself further. She was well and truly caught. With a sigh, Arjenie released the draw on her Gift.

  “What the—”

  “Where did she—”

  “Ohmygod, she—”

  Arjenie squeaked. It wasn’t good to startle armed men. A gun had practically jumped into the hand of a blond man on the porch. He aimed it right at her.

  The large robotic lupus in front of her never looked away from her face. “Who drew?”

  “I did,” said the man who was pointing his gun at her.

  “Put it up. You and Saul go to the Rho’s. Wake him and report.” He used another of those hand signals, this one sort of like a beauty queen’s wave. The two men took off at a run in the general direction indicated by that wave.

  For a moment she watched them. She couldn’t help it. They were so lovely and so swift.

  The one they’d called Benedict shook his head. “Damned if she didn’t deliver you to me. You might as well tell me your name.”

  FIFTEEN

  “I’D rather not,” Benedict’s Chosen said apologetically.

  Her hair was red. Somehow he hadn’t expected that. It was also insane. She’d pulled it back, as she had last night, but it was so frenetically curly he half expected to see it wiggle out of its bonds right before his eyes.

  There were many details he’d missed last night. Part of him noted them, appraising an intruder who’d violated Clanhome’s boundaries for an unknown purpose, using unknown abilities, on the same night that Lily had been attacked and injured.

  Worry beat in him like a second heart. Lily had needed surgery. She’d made it through that, and Nettie was consulting and would fly out if she was needed. Benedict could do nothing right now to make Lily safer or speed her recovery, so he focused that worry where he could make a difference—on Clanhome’s security.

  Even as he did, part of him drank in other details.

  His prisoner wore jeans, a jacket, a T-shirt, and ugly brown shoes. The shoes looked orthopedic, suggesting he’d been right about a physical impediment. No visible weapons aside from the cane. She wore a silver pinkie ring on her left hand. A Wiccan star.

  Her skin was porcelain, with a few freckles sprinkled across a small, crooked nose, as if someone had salted her. Her eyes were the color of sea glass.

  Her glasses were framed in thin black metal. The lenses weren’t Coke-bottle-thick, but were substantial enough to suggest she saw poorly without them.

  Her jacket was too large for her. It hid her breasts.

  It could also hide a weapon. He didn’t smell one, but he didn’t smell her, either. That disturbed him. Both that lack and his response to it made it hard to assess her properly.

  Her legs were long. Though she was only slightly above average height for a woman, she looked taller because so much of that height was provided by those long, thin legs. He wanted to know what those legs felt like wrapped around his waist.

  She presented no physical challenge, but her abilities and motives remained unknown. He had to treat her as a possible danger.

  “You’re staring at me.”

  Yes, he was. The breath Benedict drew was ragged. He wanted to sink his hands into that crazy hair. To sniff and taste that smooth, pale skin. He was supposed to do those things, and more. She was his mate, though she didn’t know it. This fragile woman with huge, frightened eyes was his mate.

  Was the Lady insane? “What are you doing here? Were you looking for me?”

  “No, I—oh, I should have said yes. You might have believed that.” Her face fell. “I can’t tell you why I’m here, but it’s a good reason. I’d like to leave now.”

  “No.” Benedict refused to feel sorry for her, no matter how fragile and frightened she seemed. “Matt, call Seabourne. Tell him to meet us at the Rho’s house. Be sure he knows we’re on yellow alert.”

  “Cullen Seabourne?” She had pretty eyebrows, perfect half circles she lifted now over the frames of her glasses.

  “You know him?”

  “N
o, but I . . . I talk too much. I should shut up now, but I need to call my aunt.”

  “Your aunt.”

  She nodded vigorously. An escaped curl bobbed into her face and she brushed it back. “I’m going to pass out soon. I don’t want her to worry, so I need to let her know ahead of time.”

  “How soon?”

  She gave that a moment’s thought. “It’s hard to say. Within the hour, probably.”

  Matt called out, “Cullen’s not answering.”

  “Then go get him.” Matt leaped off the porch, hitting the ground at a run. Benedict spoke to his captive. “Give Shannon your cane and your tool belt and remove your jacket.”

  “What?”

  “I need to check you for weapons before I take you to the Rho.”

  She considered that with a small frown, then hooked the cane in her jacket pocket, freeing both hands so she could unfasten the tool belt. That, she handed to Shannon without complaint, but she held on to the cane. “I assure you, there’s no sword concealed in this hunk of wood.”

  “A cane makes an excellent weapon on its own. It doesn’t need a concealed blade.”

  She looked at the cane in her hand, amazed. “I had no idea. How cool. I don’t suppose . . . well, no, you probably wouldn’t,” she answered herself. “But maybe I can find out more later. Not that I have many adventures, but you never know, do you?”

  “Your jacket,” he repeated. “And your cane.”

  “I really can’t walk far without it.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  She bit her lip, then handed the cane to Shannon and shrugged out of her jacket. She gave that to Shannon, too.

  Her T-shirt was snug. Her breasts were small, but beautifully shaped. He wanted to . . . but he wouldn’t. Not now. Maybe not ever. He didn’t know what he was going to do, what he could do—or do without. He didn’t know, and the lack of plan or purpose, of any sense of what was needed, was as disturbing as her lack of scent. “Hold your arms out.”

  Her cheeks colored. “You are not going to search me.”