by May Sage
The mage flowed toward him, her feet barely touching the ground.
Rhey fought the bonds that held him in thrall, desperate that the mage not reach Xandrie or harm her in any way. He’d only just found her, he couldn’t lose her. He sharpened his will and plumbed his dragon power and managed, finally, to put one foot in front of the other.
Xandrie stepped around him, apparently untouched by the mage’s spell. “Talia?”
To the shock of the whole Kingdom, their future Queen’s arms flew around the shoulders of the single strongest magical entity they’d ever encountered; stronger than the enemy which had almost killed them all at their borders. More astonishing yet, the mage’s arms circled her frame and squeezed as hard as she could.
“You’re here,” the stranger whispered against her neck. “You’re really alright.”
Relief and delight were both evident.
As quickly as it had taken them all, the spell keeping them in place released their limbs, and Rhey sheathed his weapon, ordering his men to do the same.
Beaming, his bride was pulling the mage who, now, didn’t look all that terrifying – she was a young woman who walked a little awkwardly, tripping over her own foot. Her gaze never met anyone’s, other than Xandrie’s.
“Talia,” she said, pointing to him, “meet my future husband. You made it just in time.” Then, she added, “Rhey, this is my little sister.”
Right.
So, when she’d meant that her family was powerful, what she’d actually wanted to say was that someday, they would rule the entire world.
Two weeks ago
It didn’t make sense. Not even a little bit, actually. Every time they repeated their inane story, Talia’s head hurt.
She’d come with news - great news - but she’d wanted to tell it to her sister first, and she wasn’t there. Her parents told her about demons, dragons, and other such crazy things that didn’t belong in Malek.
After a while, she lifted her hand, and the words stopped.
Oops.
She forgot, now, how much power she had at her fingertips.
“Sorry. Please be quiet. Aleria, would you tell me what happened?” she asked her older sister.
The blonde beauty smiled sadly.
“You won’t like it. Darsen the oaf tried to rape Alexandria, then accused her of being possessed by a demon, because she pushed him back with fire. Father and Mother took his side. She was imprisoned, and sentenced, too. They tried to torture her. They couldn’t. Finally, she was rescued by a dragon; we all saw it fly away. No clue how that happened.”
That was plainly said, and made a little more sense; not a lot, though.
“Dragon?”
Aleria shrugged.
“No clue how that came about, but at least she didn’t get drowned. I don’t think she’s dead. I’ve done location spells and they had worked for a time - now, though, they’re vague, as though some shield is protecting her.”
Talia nodded.
“Come on there was no proof that…”
She lifted her hand again, this time intending to shut her mother up.
“Truth,” she ordered.
Her parents were class four mages. Some of the most powerful in the land. Few spells worked on them, fewer mages could hope to best them.
She wasn’t a mage, though. Not anymore.
“The girl was a disgrace.” Daria clapped her hand over her mouth in an effort to stop her own words for damning her further, but there was no resisting the magics of Talia. Not anymore.
They’d had what they’d wanted. They’d sent their child to the capital of the Northern Var in hopes that she be noticed by the Order.
She had been. “We wanted rid of her honorably. If she had married Darsen, as planned, she might have salvaged a little pride and undone the damage she’d done to our name, but she was always a wayward child and refused to obey. I curse the day she sprang from my loins and am glad she was snatched away by some dragon. May it not choke on her bones.”
Lars Astria stood behind his wife, thunderstruck. Talia could read him. He wasn’t alarmed by what he heard from his wife, he was worried what was about to come out of his mouth. Talia turned her attention on him, binding him with the same truth magic she had lain upon her mother.
“I didn’t believe she was mine,” said Lars.
Daria clouted her husband over the head.
Talia smiled. They were their own worst enemies. She didn’t need to do more to punish them for what they’d done to Xandrie. They would keep telling the truth for days and by the time her truth spell wore off, their reputations would be in tatters and their business a shambles. They deserved no less. No self-respecting parent sentenced their daughter to be tortured and murdered. They only got what they’d brought upon themselves.
She left her parents, screaming obscenities at each other, and headed towards the Guard post, stopping at the door, only to turn to Aleria.
“You’re coming?”
The woman didn’t hesitate.
Darsen was lounging at small table, in the corner of the common area, where the guards loitered when they were on break and playing at cards and dice. His tunic was unbuttoned and his suspenders off his shoulders and around his sagging waist.
“Down,” said Talia.
Darsen’s pants fell around his ankles. His colleagues wept with laughter.
“Again,” said Talia.
Darsen’s underpants were on the floor in a trice.
Talia smiled. The man was well endowed. Not for long.
“Walnuts to hazelnuts, then hazelnuts to pinenuts.”
She didn’t wait to see her handiwork, but his shouts could be heard from one end of Malec to the other. With a nutsack that small, he wouldn’t be dropping his drawers any time soon.
Talia washed her hands of the small, backwards, oppressive town of her youth and set off. Truth be told, she may have stayed in the The Northern Var - might even have carried on working for her parents - if things had unfolded in a different way, but instead, Natalia Astria, the only living Enchantress in Eartia, set off without knowing where her steps would take her, and embraced her destiny.
The End
Stalk me on Facebook or join my newsletter to be notified of the release of Gold and Shadows, (because Argon and Turin have a tale to tell) and the second book of Age of Gold, To Catch a Prince, Talia’s story.
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May Sage © 2017
Cover Art by Jeremy Chong
Typography by Rebecca Frank
Edited by Lisa Bing, Theresa Schultz and Kate Pickford
Created with Vellum
Except of Kitty Cat
Coveney, on your left!
Hearing his Alpha’s warning, the Head Enforcer of the Wyvern Pride turned just in time to block the jaw of the wolf, preventing him from aiming for his neck, but the shifter still bit his flank pretty hard and deep.
They were outnumbered, practically six to one - seven felines against three dozen wolves - but seeing his wound, Rye still ordered Coveney to get back to their pride house.
I can still help, the tiger said through the pride link.
He probably could, but at what price? The gash needed to be bound, or he’d bleed out at the entrance of their territory.
In other circumstances, Ola could have healed him, at least partially, but the lioness was currently relentlessly fighting against three females. Stopping to heal him right now was the equivalent of asking for a break, so she could make a cup of tea and eat muffins.
Go help Jas, Rygan replied, referring to their strongest female.
Jas hadn’t been happy about it, but she’d stayed behind, with the non-fighters and the children. She was too far for Rye to get a good reading on her through the pride link, but he sensed some distress, which meant that some wolves had made it past their lines of defense.
Fuck.
Coveney did
n’t protest, presumably feeling the same call coming from the rest of their pride. Blood trailing him, he ran towards their homes.
Satisfied his Head Enforcer wasn’t in imminent danger anymore, Rye grabbed the wolf on his back by the scruff of his neck, his long fangs breaking the skin, and threw him at the nearest wall. He jumped on the one standing in front of him, claws digging in its back before his teeth closed on the wolf’s face. Now those were taken care of, he turned to Tracy. Ola was dealing with more opponents but Tracy was younger, and more vulnerable. His claws hooked on the flanks of one of the wolves attacking her, and tore through him.
Taking a second to observe their progress, he saw that his pride wasn’t nearly as outnumbered now. Rye had incapacitated at least ten wolves, but the real hero was Daunte, his crazy-ass Beta: the humongous, graceful panther was killing a wolf every other second. The others weren’t doing badly either.
They were winning.
Until they lost everything.
In the distance, Coveney roared, a gut-clenching sound that made them all stop and turn in the direction of their home. With some effort, Rye managed to push through the pride link, despite the five miles separating them, and asked his Enforcer, What is it?
Coveney shared what his eyes saw.
Fire. Their house was burning, each door and window reinforced, barricaded. No scream came from within.
Their pride members were already all dead.
Coveney cursed like a sailor, while Daunte punched the wall, enraged, sick to his stomach. The younglings in their pride, their submissive…they were all dead.
The only thing keeping them sane right now was the fact that it hadn’t happened. Yet. They were all gathered in the common room of their pride house, and there was no wolf in sight. But what they’d all seen would happen, if they didn’t change the course of their actions.
Blessing the day when their Seer had joined them, as he often did, Rye closed his eyes, tuning out his pridemates’ distress and trying to concentrate on finding a solution.
They didn’t have a lot of time; whenever Hsu had a vision, they needed to move their asses and act fast, if they wanted to avoid the outcome she’d foreseen. They’d ignored her once - because who would believe the word of a six year old child no one knew a thing about? - and they’d paid for it in blood.
Never again. Three years had passed since, and the child had saved their skins so often it was almost embarrassing.
“Can you concentrate for me, puppet?” he gently asked her.
It was a heavy burden to place on a child’s shoulders but what choice did they have?
Hsu nodded, and took his hand.
He ran through solutions; attacking first, blocking their gates, moving the pride, keeping some fighters behind…
No, no, no, and definitely not. Hsu shared her visions with him as he thought of different paths, and all he saw was more fire. Blood. He could even smell it, which meant that their little Seer was getting stronger.
Another issue for another time.
Suddenly, the child’s head snapped left, and she smiled - a rare occurrence. The kid was normally almost as serious as Rye.
“That will work,” she said, talking to Daunte.
Rye turned to his Beta, giving the man all his attention, but instead of merrily telling them all about his idea, the man seemed like a deer caught in headlights, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the next, and remaining silent.
Interesting. Daunte was normally an open book, and as Alpha, Rye had no issue reading him through the pride link. He couldn’t get his actual thoughts, but he got his cat’s feelings. Right now, the usually playful, easygoing animal was snarling at the Alpha, warning him to stay away.
Rye was surprised, and slightly miffed, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. When he’d formed his pride, he’d made it clear that he intended to run it fairly; his pridemates were entitled to their private shit, unless they were on trial.
Instead of pushing, as his instincts wanted him to, he asked, “What is it?”
“That was just a wayward thought. There’s… There’s somewhere safe. But the territory is claimed, and we wouldn’t be welcome there.”
He was hiding something, and again, the animal inside Rye rushed to the surface, urging him to push harder. Rye told his furry counterpart to shut it. Firstly, it wasn’t the way he ran his pride, secondly, there was a very, very good chance that Daunte would push back, and no one wanted that.
The Beta was one of the strongest dominant feline shifters he’d ever met, and he could have been Alpha of his own pack if he’d wanted. Rye could take him, but a confrontation between them wouldn’t be pretty.
“Hsu thinks it will work.”
“It might,” Daunte admitted. “But going there would mean I’d have to break my word, and lose a friend’s trust. Let’s run through other possibilities.”
Rye let it go, and they spent the next two hours thinking about a way to win their conflict with the pack of wolves who attacked them everywhere they went.
Fire. Blood. Water. Silver.
Hsu was white, weak, and holding back her tears after replaying the death of her friends over and over again; she also always became more agitated as the moment when her visions would come to pass drew nearer. Hsu never could tell when a prediction would occur, but the weather, and the age of the kids was a good indication; little Lola, their toddler, didn’t appear to be older at all in the visions, which meant that they were running out of time.
Rye was about to command Daunte to sort his shit out, but the Beta didn’t need him to say anything.
“Enough!” Daunte yelled, holding his hands up in surrender. “Enough. We’ll go. She’ll just have to deal with it.”
“She?” Rye asked, crocking an eyebrow.
Daunte sighed.
“The territory I thought about belongs to a loner no one in their right mind would cross. She may let us stay temporarily. If I ask nicely. After she kicks my ass.”
Daunte didn’t appear to be joking, which was intriguing. Female cat shifters were strong, fast, sneaky, and some could take a male in combat, although males were generally larger, more muscular. But his Beta was Daunte Cross, son of The Butcher, an actual feral shifter, with a reputation for chopping off heads more often than he spoke. He’d taught Daunte well, which made him one of the only males who came close to Rye’s level of strength and dominance.
But the Beta genuinely seemed to think that the female he spoke of could beat him.
“I only have one request. Let me deal with her. Whatever she does to me, don’t intervene.”
Ah. So, Daunte had a thing for the woman. That explained a lot.
“Consider it done.”
Moving was never pleasant but they were used to it; even the kids helped packing their belongings.
Rye didn’t have a lot of stuff; he shoved his clothes in two suitcases, and that was him done. Before going downstairs to help the others, he sighed, and grabbed his phone to do what he had to do.
“Hello.”
The phone call was unavoidable. If his family learned that he’d moved without telling them, he was in for a world of drama and guilt trips.
“Rygan,” his brother replied on the other end of the line, calling him by his full name.
“Colter.”
“I take it this isn’t a courtesy call.”
It never was. They weren’t the warm and fuzzy kind.
“We’ll be moving to Oregon tomorrow. I thought mother would want to know.”
They both knew it was their overbearing, controlling father who would have caused drama if he hadn’t informed him - although Rye was the Alpha of his own pack, his dad was still acting like he was under his thumb.
“Right. Hang on.”
The sound was muted on the other end of the phone for a few minutes, and then Colter was back online.
“Give us an address when you arrive. Dad says you can take his jet.”
Rye had to admit
, tiring as family matters were, they had their perks.
Rygan let his tiger run free at dawn, hoping to feel more settled afterwards, but the animal was on edge. Unusual. The beast he shifted into was, for a lack of better word, a complete dork. It would have been happy spending all of eternity in a box, with a rope toy and a few trees nearby. His priorities were simple, straightforward- protecting his pack, playing. Not necessarily in that order.
Today, the tiger wasn’t interested in a run, or a dip in their pool. It wanted to get on the road, so Rygan shifted back and went to help, in order to speed up their departure.
Twelve hours later, he still wasn’t in the best of moods, all of his protective instincts working overtime as he was separated from the most vulnerable members of his pride. He really didn’t like the plan they’d come up with. Following them wouldn’t be hard; they’d left a trail a mile wide.
He got Coveney to fly with Ola, Tracy, Kim and the seven cubs they’d adopted into their fold; although Niamh would probably take offense to being called that. Since she’d turned twelve, the little girl had tried to grow up too fast, not caring about the fact that her lipstick and high heels were turning his hair prematurely gray. There he was, thirty-one, going on eighty-one thanks to the millions of duties falling on his shoulders. Being the Alpha of a pride was no joke.
Flying wasn’t too much of an issue - using his father’s jet meant that the wolves wouldn’t be able to track their details, like they would have if they’d taken a commercial transit. But the rest of them weren’t as discreet. Christine, their only submissive, was traveling on the back of his motorcycle; Daunte and Ian flanked his sides, while Jas drove a SUV with their belongings behind them.