And the thing that should have horrified me but didn’t was that it wouldn’t matter what the Emperor asked of me, for Maks: if it saved him, I would do it.
“We all need to sleep,” Shem said. “Ford is injured still, and the healing takes the stuffing right out of you both.”
Lila’s voice called out from above. “We have a place, about a mile ahead, right inside the edge of the blasted lands.”
We hadn’t gone far then. My dream had happened quickly, there and gone before I could try to hang onto Maks once more. Gone before Marsum could find us and pull us apart. Maks had said goodbye on his own terms.
I closed my eyes, the swaying of Balder under us lulling my body, but my mind wouldn’t shut off. I kept seeing Maks saying goodbye, the arrow in Ford’s chest, Kiara standing her ground, Flora’s note.
Too many emotions all at once meant that they ended up leaking down my face in tiny droplets. I buried my head under my front paws and wrapped my tail around my head. The one benefit of being this size was I could hide my face easily.
“Here we go,” Shem said a few minutes later and I lifted my head. A small depression in the soil had filled with a miniscule puddle, and around it was a ring of stones large enough to act as seats.
That should have been the tip-off that this was a bad idea, but we were all tired, and our brains were too stupid to see what lay in front of us.
A place of spells and magic.
21
Trick and Lila landed on the edge of the depression and Trick ended up wrapping his body partway around it, blocking some of the wind that blew in our faces. The horses—with the exception of Balder and Batman—weren’t overly pleased with the big dragon being so close, and they snorted and danced and tried to leap away.
It took everyone working together to get them to settle long enough to hobble them and get them quiet. That, and Trick had to close his eyes and keep his mouth shut.
“This sucks,” he grumbled out of the corner of his mouth. The horse closest to him whinnied, reared back and tried to bolt. Ford grabbed the horse by the rope and slowed her sudden escape attempt.
“Don’t take this personally, Trick,” Ford said, “but maybe it would be better if you slept farther away?”
Trick rose up, a glower on his face. “Fine.”
He turned and walked away, finding another spot to curl up around himself. Lila gave Ford a serious stink eye that said it all. And then she added to it.
“Me thinks thou art a general offense and every man should beat thee.” She tipped her nose into the air and flew over to Trick, landing next to him.
I stared after her. “All’s Well That Ends Well.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that ended so well,” Ford said.
I snorted and leapt from Shem’s arms. “That’s the play she was quoting, you doofus.”
“Oh.” Ford grunted. “I think I need to read more.”
Kiara gathered Frankie into a blanket and lay down with him, curling around him. Shem, Ford and Benji joined them, Benji in his lion form, gangly and youthful. I took a step to move to them, joining my pride.
But then I stood and watched them for a moment, watched them settle in against one another, taking comfort from each other’s warmth and closeness without a speck of inappropriate teasing. I turned and leapt up onto Balder’s bare back, sitting on his rounded backside.
Ollianna stepped up beside me as I surveyed around us. “This is a dangerous quest you are on. More so than I even realized when I joined you.”
“Yup.” I cracked a yawn. “You don’t have to come with us, you know.”
She shrugged. “To meet the Oracle is not something any witch has ever done. Perhaps she will tell me my future.”
I flicked an ear at her. “Why aren’t you like the others, Ollianna?”
A sigh slid from her and she ran a hand over Balder’s side, absently, her eyes distant. “I have the dubious honor of being able to see the threads of life around us. You know when you stole the jewel the first time, I slowed them. I could see even then the damage it did to those not designed to carry them and the power they held.”
My jaw dropped. “You saw me then?”
“I doubt you remember me. This red hair is my natural coloring, but I can change my image, as the others can as well. My mother is not the Mother witch like the others.” She smiled. “But I hide what I truly look like, as do they, so I fit in better.”
I frowned, thinking. “So you are half-sibling to them.”
“Yes. My mother was a beauty, and I carry that with me. A witch only has the beauty she creates, she is not born like this.” She swept her hand to encompass her face and body. “They—we—are sirens of a sort. But if they knew my image was exactly as they see . . . well, that would not do me any favors. Not that it matters now.”
I was curious about her mother. Natural, I suppose, since my own mother was something of a mystery to me. But that was not why we were there. “Flora thinks you can help me with my magic more than she could.”
“Of course I can.” She raised an eyebrow. “We are of the same bloodline, and blood sings to blood.”
That made a weird sense to me. “So the Emperor is a witch?”
“Warlock,” she corrected softly. “The same as Merlin, only with more power accrued than my foolish brother ever could imagine. He caught our father off guard when he imprisoned him.” Ollianna sighed. “I was a child when he did it, and the Mother witch said more than once that he had far more brains than magical abilities.”
I didn’t disagree with that. Not that I thought he was weak, but he seemed to always have a plan up his sleeve.
Even if they didn’t always go as he thought they would. The fact that Flora had to bugger off to go help him said it all. Merlin was in trouble. Again. Maybe there really was something in our bloodlines that drew trouble to us.
I lay down on Balder’s rump and stretched out on my belly. “Well, stay as long as you like, Ollianna.”
“Why do you trust me?” she asked. “By all rights, you shouldn’t. You know that, right?”
I put my head on my outstretched paws, my body aching and tired. The warmth rolling through me from Balder was enough to draw another yawn from me. “I don’t know. I just do.”
“You trust too easily then,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t.” I cracked an eye open and looked at her. “We need you here for some reason, Ollianna. And whether either of us likes it or not, we are family. Maybe you are meant to help me, maybe I’m meant to help you. I don’t know. As long as you don’t try to fuck me or my pride over, we are good.” I closed my eyes again.
“You are not what I expected, Zamira. At each turn, I am surprised by what you do, and the things that come out of your mouth.”
I smiled with my eyes still closed. “That’s what I’m good at. Doing the unexpected.”
The whisper of her skirt across the sand tugged at my ears and I lay quietly, not sleeping, just listening. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to join my pride, it’s that I had to decide just what to do next.
As the sounds of everyone falling into a deep sleep filled my ears, I lifted my head. A gust of wind rolling from east to west brought me the scent of the blasted lands. Toxic waste, brimstone, lava pits.
Fun times lay ahead, dangerous, deadly times.
I hopped off Balder’s back and jogged across to where Lila and Trick lay separate from the others. Lila saw me coming and flew to meet me.
“Walk with me.” I tipped my head to indicate going deeper into the blasted lands.
“Ford is a dick,” she grumbled.
“He just didn’t want to deal with the horses freaking out. It wasn’t personal.”
Her tail lashed back and forth.
“Do you like him?” she asked.
I sighed. “I do. But I don’t think it’s that easy. I love Maks and . . . I don’t know, Lila. It feels wrong to feel anything for Ford.”
“But you feel something?” She wasn�
��t about to let this go, and I sighed again.
“Something, yes.”
We continued on avoiding the smaller pits and holes in the ground.
Lila blew out a big breath. “I want the sapphire back, Zam. More than ever before. I don’t think I should use it again.” She hung her head. “I’m not strong enough to carry it and not let it use me. I think I understand now why my grandmother told me not to touch the emerald stone. I can’t imagine the power it has, that my father used.”
The emerald stone was wrapped in several layers of leather within a second pouch I kept tied into my saddlebags. Away from us both.
I glanced across at her. “For now, I’ll hang onto the sapphire. But we might need you to use it again. And as long as you trust me to take it from you, I trust you to use it.”
She grimaced and changed the subject. “What about the blasted lands? How are we going to cross all this, with all these people and horses and a child no less?”
“We aren’t,” I said softly. “We can’t.”
Her head swung toward me. “What? What about Bryce? We have to get to the Oracle for him. To bring him back. He’s a key to you facing the Emperor. Isn’t he?”
We were a distance from the camp and I sat down, Lila sitting next to me. In front of us a strange red glow lit up the horizon, the heat from the lava and toxic waste merging into a miasma of death just waiting to swallow us up.
“I have to go without them. This isn’t their journey; it’s mine.”
Lila grunted. “You aren’t going without me.”
I leaned across and butted my head against hers, my throat tightening a little. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, my friend.”
“Then what’s the plan?”
This was where it got tricky. Literally. “If Trick will fly us, then we could go tonight. We both saw where the Oracle’s Haunt lay, deep in the blasted lands, nothing but the ground issues between us and there.” I stared out at the horizon, wondering if I was right to do this. Bryce was my brother, and he’d died fighting to protect me.
For a moment, I thought I could feel his presence at my side, a restless spirit. Trapped. He was trapped, and his soul couldn’t move on. Either way, I had to find him. Either to free him from where he was or bring him home to me.
“Why tonight?” Lila asked. “Why not wait till morning?”
I stood and closed my eyes, forcing my body to shift back to two legs. Pain rocketed through me and I ended up on my hands and knees, retching as if my stomach were trying to remove itself from my body.
“Oh, yeah, you look like you are right ready to go into battle,” Lila drawled.
I spat to the side and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “We are running out of time, Lila. Maks and Ishtar are still behind us. The gorcs will rally; we know this. And goddess only knows what else is coming down on us. What about your father? Is he hunting you?”
She frowned, the scales on her brow furrowing deeply. “I don’t know, Zam. I wish I did. But to go now, when you’ve barely survived? Is that smart?”
“There is nothing between us and the Oracle, Lila,” I said. “The longer we wait here on the edge of the blasted lands, the more we could end up drawing danger to us. And let’s be honest, it’s following me. The quicker I can get the others to go in another direction, the better.”
She was quiet a moment before she slowly nodded. “I don’t like it, but I agree. As your second, I will back you up on this.”
I scooped her up and she climbed my arm to lie across my shoulders, her tail anchoring her. My first couple steps wobbled, and then I got my legs under me. I was fine. I had nothing to worry about. A dragon ride to the Oracle, I’d get the info I needed and we’d be out.
But where to send the others while we did this?
Back at the camp, they all slept soundly, curled around one another. Safe.
And while they were mine in one way, my family and my pride, I knew that I was also different enough that I would always be here, on the outskirts. Watching over them.
“Kiara,” I said her name softly.
She raised her head and slid out from the pile of bodies.
Her eyes swept over me, reading my stance. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
I nodded, not really surprised she knew already. “You and Ford take everyone north, along the edge of the blasted lands, and then turn east. Follow the rising sun.”
“Are you sure? Shouldn’t we stick together?” she said quietly.
I shook my head. “Not yet. I . . . think I am drawing too much danger to you all, and I couldn’t bear it if one of you were killed because of me. Frankie and Benji, they are so young, and they need somewhere safe. You can give that to them, Kiara.”
“I’m not an alpha,” she whispered.
“Not yet.” I winked at her. “One day I think you will be. And you are well on your way, you bad ass lioness who faced down an alpha all by herself.”
There was silence between us and then she reached over and pulled me into a hug. “Don’t die on us, Zam. Promise me you will find us when you are done with this journey of yours. That you will come home to us.”
Her word sent a chill down my spine as I hugged her back. “I will always come home to my family. No matter how far I roam.”
She stepped back and gave me a nod. “Shem and Ford will be pissed when they see you’re gone. Ford especially. He loves you, you know.”
I shook my head. “I know, but I . . .”
“She’s still hung up on Maks,” Lila said. “And I don’t blame her. He might have been a toad, but he was a good toad. We have to keep trying to bring him back from what he is.”
“He’s a Jinn.” Kiara’s face hardened. “Even if he’s just half Jinn, there’s no saving him from what he is. You can’t change him.”
A few short weeks ago, I would have gone toe to toe with her. I would have called her names and made her back down from me. Not now, not with everything I’d seen, and all we’d lost.
“Kiara, I have Jinn blood in my veins. I am not like them. And neither is Maks. No more than because you are a lion shifter you’re like that asshole we both got fucked over by.”
The lines in her face softened and her lower lip trembled as her eyes filled. “They killed my baby, Zam. I hate them with every fiber of my being.”
I tugged her into another quick hug, holding her as tightly as I could. “I know they did. And I know you do. But . . .” I struggled to find the right words around the pain I could feel emanating from her.
“Hatred will blind you,” Lila said, her words careful, “it will blind you to the good in people, the good worth seeing. They don’t have to be on our side to be good, and they don’t have to be on their side to be bad.”
Kiara drew in a deep, shuddering breath and pulled back from me. “I will do my best to protect them all.” She wiped a hand across her face and I reached out and put my palm against her cheek.
“I trust you, Kiara. Don’t let the boys push you around.”
She nodded.
Lila adjusted herself, her claws digging into my back a little. “And if they try, just kick them in the balls.”
I laughed at the sudden shock on Kiara’s face with Lila’s suggestion. “Ignore her. Take them with you, Kiara. Shem will go. Ford should go and if he doesn’t, tell him—”
“Tell me what?” His voice rumbled through the air. Damn it, I’d been so focused on Kiara and her pain that I’d not noticed him sit up.
And with him up, everyone else awoke, their eyes blurry from the short amount of sleep. Well, fuck, so much for slipping away unnoticed. I put my hands on my hips.
“Tell him to protect the pride as the enforcer. That is the job I gave you, isn’t it?” I said.
He pushed to his feet. “Yes, but what does . . . wait, were you going to leave without us?” His eyes widened and then narrowed. “You were, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” I threw the word down between us like a gauntlet. “And as your a
lpha—”
“I object,” Shem said.
“Me too,” Benji chimed in.
Fuckity shit piles, talk about getting cornered. Time to be the grownup here. “You all don’t get to decide on this. I am your alpha.” I drew a breath and straightened my back further. “And I am not taking you all into the blasted lands to watch you die. This is my journey to bring Bryce back to us, or at the very least free his soul. Until I’m back, Kiara is in charge. Shem and Ford, you will support her in this.” I forced each of them to make eye contact with me as I spoke.
Ford started to speak. “I don’t—”
“Care what you are going to say,” I finished for him. “This is not your choice. This is what being part of a pride is about, this is what being an alpha is about. Putting others first.”
The frown on his face could have cut through rock.
Lila sat up on her haunches and placed her front claw on the top of my head. “Trick and I will go with her, we will help her get through this.”
“Why does Lila get to go?” Ford folded his arms across his chest. “I’m at least as helpful as her.”
Lila reared up. “Because I need to speak to the Oracle, you idiot!”
Ford lowered his arms. “Maybe I want to talk to the—”
I cut him off again with a swift snap of my fingers. “No. Don’t even try it. I’ve got to save my brother. Lila goes—”
“To see if my curse can be removed.” A shiver ran through her tiny body as she spoke.
When Ford opened his mouth again Ollianna was the one to step up. “The final leg of the journey to the Oracle is no small task, Ford. And should not be taken lightly. The Oracle herself is capricious at best. Their best chance is to go in with as few as possible.” She stepped forward. “And since you cannot command me, I will be coming with you.”
My jaw dropped, and I snapped it shut so fast my teeth clicked.
“Oh, tricky,” Lila muttered. “And I agree. I want the witch with us.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Jesus Murphy Christ on a flea-bitten donkey,” I muttered under my breath.
Lila snickered. “That’s a new one. I like it.”
Oracle’s Haunt: Desert Cursed Series Book 4 Page 18