Lychos

by Larsen, Patti

  I’m human again, tears squeezing from my eyes, down my cheeks. My nakedness I ignore. My people couldn't care less. I hug the white wolf, her thick fur coarse against my bare skin. The alpha joins us, pressing his wide head against my shoulder until I hug him, too.

  “You know the laws, Sharlotta.” Raoul’s words carry. “No were can take full wolf form and retain their humanity. They are dead to the pack.”

  I hit him hard with power, slamming him back into a tree. “In case you missed it,” I snarl, “they seem to remember me.”

  He coughs, gasps a breath, but doesn’t grow angry. If anything, he sounds resigned. “A dumb animal’s recognition,” he says.

  The white wolf turns toward him and snaps her teeth. I laugh, angry and harsh.

  “She seems to disagree.” When she faces me again, I meet her gaze. “Mother,” I whisper. “Is it you, still, inside?”

  She nods, licks my cheek. The feeling of her is growing stronger, as though focus draws her out. I turn to the alpha. “Danilo?”

  Another swipe of a tongue before he shakes his heavy head and barks like a happy puppy.

  My heart soars. I must find a way to bring them out of their wolf shapes and back to human. But when I try with my own magic, I can’t grasp them. It’s as though they are there, but behind some kind of shielding. When I probe it, I realize it’s their own magic keeping them contained.

  “Had you shifted after you were free,” I say to them, “you would have had access to your magic. But because you were forced into this shape when the Black Souls still controlled you, the power inside you instead formed a protection around you to keep you safe.” The shielding repels me as I try to work my way past my mother’s. “We need help with this. And I know the perfect person to ask.” I stand, turning my back on my father, facing the werewolves he brought with him. “The old laws are no longer valid,” I say. “Revenants are a thing of the past.” They murmur, shift on their wereform paws. “The lies and superstitions we were raised on have kept us captive, long after we were freed from the Black Souls.” They are paying careful attention. Excellent. Because I’m about to show them something important and I need their focus. I reach for my wolf and embrace her as I finish. “Freedom, true freedom, comes from what we’ve always been told was impossible.” I shift quickly, throwing myself into full wolf shape, listening to their whimpers of shock, how they shiver at the sight of me.

  My mind embraces all of theirs, shows them—even my father—I’m am intact and, better, more powerful than ever before. We have been denied the truth of our evolution, I send. Embrace your wolf and your true power.

  For a long moment, I think I’ve lost them. And then Maks’s magic touches mine and he shifts, releasing a startled yip as he morphs into a tall-shouldered timber wolf.

  Charlotte! His mental voice is loud and clear, surging with sudden joy as his wolf body spins in a circle, a dance of utter happiness. I had no idea. He sinks to his haunches, tongue lolling out before he snaps his teeth at the watching weres. Don’t be fools, he sends. This is amazing!

  They shift almost as one, fear mixed with blind trust rippling outward as their magic wakes fully and washes over me. I laugh as best I can in wolf form, looking up to find only my father has remained in human shape.

  I snap my teeth at him and turn my tail. We go to the palace, I send to my wolves who respond instantly with eagerness. And we take back our home.

  They howl, loud and echoing, into the sky. My mother and brother race at my side as I run for the edge of the trees, leaving my father behind.

  Let him stay, cling to the old ways. The werenation will evolve. And my people will finally, truly, be free.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Six

  By the time I reach the side yard of the palace, the coalition force is already parked out front, have won through the initial barrier Rupe put up in front of them. Femke still doesn’t seem to be in fight mode, but from the tense feel of the standoff, battles could erupt at any moment.

  I’ll leave it to them, though I wonder when Syd’s distraction will come into play. Curious, I reach out to her and feel her immediately.

  Let me know when you’re in position, she sends.

  You’ve been waiting for me? Probably an excellent idea and something I should have thought of.

  Of course, she sends. We all have. She pauses. Something’s changed.

  I made a discovery. I send her happy energy so she knows I’m fine. I’ll need your help with it later. For now, consider me in position. I stop at the edge of the trees to observe. Planning to go in the back, through my room, as long as Rupe has made the same mistake with the protections around the palace as he did the fence. As long as he’s only shielding the front of the building, I should be able to sneak in. And considering the massive size of the palace, I have to believe his power isn’t enough to protect all of it. Is Femke ready?

  She is. Syd leaves me a moment then returns. Eva and her people have been holding off the sorcerers and your people remaining don’t seem to want to fight. I have a feeling this is going to be quick and dirty and won’t end well for Rupe.

  My lips lift, a wolf growl escaping. What a shame. Shall we begin?

  I leap out of the trees, in a dead run, heading across the side yard for the back of the palace just as a huge column of fire erupts to fill the front lawn with flame. The sky is so bright I have to squint, while the pounding weight of sorcery leaves the surrounds of the palace and diverts forward, to Syd’s show of temper.

  Perfect, I send to her. Mission accomplished. The few wereguards patrolling the side of the palace leap into action, running for the front lawn, leaving my path wide open. I feel the edge of the shielding brush past on my left and almost howl my excitement I was right about Rupe’s inexperience and inability to protect the entire place. I’m inside the grounds and nothing can keep me from Caine now.

  I shift into wereshape to climb the trellis, my fellow werewolves following suit. I look down to find my mother and brother circling a moment before they run back the way they came. I don’t care if they are retreating. I’m more than happy to tackle this and keep them safe.

  The werenation has let them down long enough.

  My room is dark and quiet, suddenly filled with panting, angry werewolves. I creep to the door and open to my wolf, her senses reaching out into the hallway. Rupe is even more of a fool than I thought. He’s closed off the front of the palace, but failed to block my power within, as he did at the castle where Andre tortured me. Perhaps this place really is too big for such protections. Or maybe he’s chosen to instead only shore up the throne room. There’s only one way to find out.

  The hall is as dark and quiet as my room. I gesture to the weres with me to follow, feeling them fan out behind me. A flicker of motion ahead becomes two wereguards, both of whom who immediately morph into wereshape upon seeing me and join my ranks.

  I feel their minds, the hints of the coercion that bound them burning away and offer my power in return. They accept it willingly as we descend the broad staircase to the vast foyer.

  Never has this gaudy and over-gilded space been so beautiful to me. I step down onto the cold floor, nose lifting as I sniff the air to catch the scents I seek. Caine’s burns at me, pulling me to the right toward the throne room, and I follow eagerly, trusting the rest of my weres to guard my back.

  Light shines through the large windows, casting across the floor from behind me, throwing my shadow ahead. Blue fire mixed with rainbow light and the flares of white spirit magic thud against the front of the palace. The fight Syd set off is going strong. I focus on the two wereguards standing at the throne room doors, maintaining my aggressive forward pace. They seem stunned, dazed almost. When I reach out to their minds, I realize why. I was right about the protections Rupe was able to manage. These two stand just outside the thick, black shielding, their coercion still in place, but held almost in stasis as the shields feed from them.

  I free the pair with a j
erk of my wolf’s energy, the two large guards stumbling forward, finally recognizing me. I snap at them, but not in anger, and they shift to join me, wereforms taking over as their fury surges. Awake and aware, they know what they’ve been forced to do, who they’ve been put here to protect.

  Frustration burns tiny holes in my resolve as I come to a halt at the entry to the throne room. I touch the edge of the shielding, transparent until my fingers slide over it and the thick, black goo of it sucks at my claws. I pull away with a hiss of disgust, glaring down the length of the deep purple carpet to the scene unfolding near the throne dais.

  I recognize my grandfather’s kneeling shape, his silver head turned to look back over his shoulder at me. I can’t make out his expression, nor feel him through the wards around the room. The other man crouched by the throne I know even better, my heart constricting at the sight of Sage, clearly still lost to the animal he’s become thanks to sorcery as he shakes his head and paces back and forth like a chained lion.

  Power pushes against my back as the front door slams open and a wave of magic users storms through. I turn and gesture at Syd who’s in the front line, and she hurries toward me at a fast trot. Femke joins her, Piers and her grandmother at her side, as I point at the blocked way before me.

  “If you would,” I growl, staring at Caine who lounges on the throne of my grandfather like he’s not about to have his ass handed to him. He even has the balls to wave at me, the remains of his pack hovering around him and a double line of coerced wereguards standing at attention. There’s no sign of Rupe, but he has to be here, he and his sorcerer friends, in order for this barrier to stand.

  Syd’s rainbow power cuts through the shields and they sigh apart, crumbling to dust before disappearing. She turns and holds out one hand toward the throne room with a wicked smile.

  “After you, Your Highness.”

  I stride down the carpet toward the throne, ignoring the waking wereguards who shake their heads and stare around in disbelief and growing anger. Caine is so close I can taste him in the back of my throat, smell the stench of him. Soon I will have his blood on my teeth and this will all be over.

  “Stop!” He stands abruptly, hands out, chest bare under the heavy robe he wears open to expose his heavily tattooed skin. Caine grins at me and I wonder if he’s gone mad to think he can order me to do anything.

  One of his werewolves lunges forward and grasps my grandfather, pulling his chained form sideways, claws at Oleksander’s throat. Two others pin Sage down while my love howls like a wild animal for his freedom.

  “That’s close enough.” Caine’s grin is feral. Does he really think this will stop me? I’m surrounded by magic, powerful people who can kill him and his pack in a heartbeat. I feel suddenly sorry for this man and the delusions ruling him, most likely fed to him by Rupe. “Your precious grandfather and your human pet have been waiting for you, princess.”

  Syd’s power is building next to me, but I wave her off and take a step forward. “It’s over, Caine.” I half turn, look behind me at the Enforcers, vampires, werewolves and sorcerers ready to strike him down at the least provocation. “Release them and I might be merciful.”

  Caine laughs. It’s genuine amusement, doubling him over as he clutches his naked waist. When he sobers, his face alters into spiteful hate, a smile still on his lips.

  “You hear that, Rupe?” Caine opens both arms, self-assurance making me nervous. “I suppose we should surrender then, shouldn’t we?”

  Rupe emerges from behind the throne, a line of sorcerers coming with him. There are more than I expected, almost twenty as I count, their number climbing as Rupe joins Caine on the throne dais. I hear the throne room doors slam shut and turn to see more sorcerers forming a wall between us and escape.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  A trap? It’s my turn to laugh.

  “This is supposed to impress me?” I shake my head, my wereform not allowing a full smile as I go on. “You do realize I have sorcerers of my own with me.”

  Caine lurches down the first step, face morphing to wereshape. “You’re too late to stop us,” he snarls. “I am the one true king!” His pack shift nervously, and I wonder if he’s lost his mind and their loyalty.

  Rupe’s grin is as evil, his eyes bulging as he focuses on Syd. As he speaks, I feel the thread of power between him and Caine and realize it’s not the Californian leader who has cracked.

  “I hoped you’d come.” Rupe is clearly broken inside, his mind gone, though what caused the snap I have no idea. He was deluded and had a God complex the last time we met, but he wasn’t insane. Not that he showed me. The sorcerer who stands on the dais is no longer fully in control of his faculties.

  Though he is, it seems, of his power. I feel it crush down on me, try to take me over again. But Syd is faster, her rainbow maji magic slicing through the rope of black he throws at me and mine.

  Like this. She shows me what she’s done, how her power made a barrier. I try to emulate her, but without access to my sorcery, I fail.

  I can’t, I send. I can use the elemental magic of the witches and the demon power, but I have no access. I fumble at my own magic with growing frustration.

  Sorcery isn’t in you, she sends. It is you.

  She leaves me to ponder that as she speaks.

  “You’re done, Rupe.” Syd sounds sad mixed with angry. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you make me.”

  He thumbs his nose at her, sticking out his tongue like a child even as the sorcery encasing the throne room tightens a notch. I feel darkness push outward, know the Steam Union are fighting him, but their number is far less than Rupe’s followers. Eva and her dozen or so members are hard-pressed to combat the now fifty odd Rupe has at his command.

  This trap might not be so ludicrous after all.

  “Caine was right about one thing,” Rupe says, hands jerking at the collar of his shirt. A bite mark scores his flesh, oozing blood, unnoticed against the black fabric until now. “But he was wrong about being king. I claim the throne of the werenation!”

  Caine spins on him, snarling, crouching as he slips into wereshape. “That wasn’t our agreement.” Has he broken free of Rupe’s influence, or did the insane sorcerer release him? I have no way of knowing, but Caine suddenly is open to me, no longer shrouded by the dark sorcery binding him to Rupe. He tries to approach the throne, but is held back by a wall of darkness that ripples when he hits it.

  The whole room sways as the werewolves are drawn into the power Rupe siphons, myself included. Syd tries to block him again, but I feel the pathways he spoke of, the old ones of my birth that tie me still to the Black Souls, open to the sorcerer. My power goes to him without a fight. I feel the pressure of the coercion field then, whispering to me, that I’m surrounded by enemies, the ones I came with here to enslave me. My only hope is with my wereking, Caine and the lord of all, Rupe. It would be so easy to fall, to allow these thoughts to win. But I am too far past the truth to let such magic defeat me.

  The field isn’t strong enough to survive my determination. As I shake off the influence, I look around at my people, gazing with glazed eyes at the throne. Are we that weak minded, to be controlled by a film of magic? A glance at the sorcerers Rupe brought tells me we’re not the only ones he is stealing energy from, and realize the coercion field is merely a side-event to Rupe’s true intent.

  Rupe sits slowly as his power increases, a huge, scary smile on his face. “All hail the wereking!”

  Again, he crushes down on me, almost driving me to my knees, though his slippery attempt to take my mind fails. Syd grapples with him, but with his own sorcery and the power he’s stealing, pushes her back.

  Her eyes meet mine. He can’t be infected, right?

  I don’t know. It shouldn’t be possible, but who knows?

  Her blue gaze bubbles with anxiety. I can’t free you, she sends. You’re going to have to learn to do it yourself. She shows me a dark flower, the blos
som beneath her. I’ve heard her describe it that way before, but never experienced it, at least not like this. You see it?

  I do. I feel it, too. But when I try to create the same in me, my sorcery slips out of my control.

  The power is you, Syd sends, repeating herself, and as Rupe crushes down harder on me, I finally understand. I’m reaching for something I already have, trying to find a magic right here, and in searching am missing the point. There’s nothing to find. Only something to call on.

  My wolf chuffs as she shifts inside me, magic gaping and a rush of black power surges outward. The controls Rupe holds over me shatter and fall away as dark magic pools at my feet, wavering like wind-swept grass.

  Rupe’s eyes bulge as he glares at me, Syd’s voice in my head ringing like a battle cry. Well done!

  I take a step forward, my sorcery crawling around me as I glance from side to side at the people who have come to fight. The witches, vampires and weres will have no protection, can serve as a source of power to Rupe if this goes on much longer. I must act before they can be harmed.

  This is my war to win.

  I take another step forward. “In case you weren’t aware,” I snarl, “you’re in my seat.”

  Rupe’s narrowed eyes focus on me, his sorcery pushing against me, burrowing through to seek out the controls he’s lost. My wolf snaps at him and sends him running. Maybe I can force him to focus on me, to weaken his concentration and give the Steam Union a chance.

  I don’t get a chance to find out if my plan will work. Caine howls in anger and throws himself at the shield protecting his former ally, bouncing away from it, sideways, toward Sage. My love screams in protest, his wolf body altering to wereshape as he flings himself at Caine. The two meet in mid-air, the thunderous crash of their coming together echoing through the throne room as their magic impacts at the same time.

  Now! I send the thought to Syd, but she’s already acting, as are the Steam Union. I crouch and hurry forward, staying low and out of the way, as Syd’s magic batters the shielding around the throne. The were holding my grandfather is so stunned by the unfolding events, he barely registers my attack as I take him out with a solid blow to the side of his head. Oleksander’s power is blunted, I feel sorcery controlling him, so I use my own to shatter his chains and pull him out of the way, into the arms of waiting Gwendolyn and Finlay, Maks and Isabelle tight on their heels.