Shadow Runners

by Shadow Runners (lit)

  “Your men?”

  Sonja felt her face heat. “Yes,” she said a little stiffly. “There was a little … uh … confusion.”

  The man laughed. “I’m guessing there was a lot of confusion. Jarek seemed to think he had his woman with him.”

  Sonja glared at him. “Well, he didn’t! I’m his woman! That was my sister!”

  The man studied her thoughtfully for several moments. “Well, then that’s his problem and not mine to sort out.” He stepped back. “Tell him when you find him that Naile of the Leopard clan sends his greetings and we are even,” he said with a chuckle.

  Sonja chewed her lip. “How long since they passed this way?”

  “Just before the moon set—mayhap two hours, but they will have released their mounts. Horses tend to behave badly for beast men,” Naile said wryly. “Especially those of the wolf clan.”

  The comment cheered her considerably and yet it set off alarms. If they were no longer mounted, she realized, then they would be able to hear her coming. She considered that as she guided the horse along the narrow trail that led into the deep woods and finally, when she was certain she was well beyond the Leopard men, she pulled the horse to a halt and climbed down. Leading him to a tree, she tethered him by the reins, lifted her skirts to remove one of the underskirts, and tore into strips. When she’d covered each of the horse’s hooves, she tore another strip and wove it along the bridle to dull the ring of metal and finally tied one over the horse’s muzzle. He balked, but she was more determined than he was and she finally managed to secure it so that it would make it harder for him to catch the scent of the wolf pack.

  As Naile had said, horses didn’t much care for beast men and this one had already sorely tried her patience when the men of Leopard clan had appeared.

  He made it clear that he wasn’t happy with any of the rags she’d adorned him with, trying to dance away from her when she led him to a rock she could use to climb up again. It took her two tries, but she finally managed to throw one leg over his back. The bastard promptly danced in a circle, trying to throw her off, but she held onto him with grim determination until she was firmly seated and then drove him into a gallop until he’d run off some of his bad humor.

  Her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep by the time the sun rose. She considered whether to go on or stop and finally gave in to the need to rest. Her weariness, she realized, would cloud her judgment and she’d made enough mistakes. She kept moving until she found a small stream to water the horse and cool her own parched throat and then found a secluded spot in deep shade, used the remainder of her petticoat to form a makeshift rope to picket the horse so that he could graze, and curled up to rest.

  The sun was already settling when she woke, but the repose had given her time to assess her situation. She couldn’t afford to catch up to the others—not when she still had unfinished business. Tanya, she knew, would already have adjusted her own plans and would be looking for an opportunity to elude them and meet her at their rendezvous.

  Having dealt with them before, she knew it wasn’t likely that Tanya would be able to make it without help, but she wouldn’t be able to help Tanya if Jarek managed to catch both of them.

  It would be better, she realized, to trail them. Jarek was on his own turf now. He wouldn’t be concerned about being followed, and he wouldn’t be trying to cover his tracks. Even if he did, Tanya would mark their trail for her and she wouldn’t attempt to escape them until they had taken her where she wanted to go.

  It was most unfortunate that she’d been in such a tearing hurry to catch up with them that she hadn’t thought to gather up provisions while she was stealing the damned horse!

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I don’t know what in the gods damned hell is going on, but something just isn’t right!” Thorne growled. “She acts like she doesn’t even know us!”

  “Acts being the key word,” Jarek snapped. “I don’t know what she’s up to either, but I don’t believe for a minute that she doesn’t know exactly who we are!”

  “I don’t think she’s acting,” Byron said worriedly. “I don’t think she knows who we are because I don’t think that’s Sonja.”

  Jarek glared at him furiously but the doubts that had been nagging at him since he’d found her in the great hall seemed to suddenly solidify in his mind as certainties. He fought acceptance even as a cold wave of fear washed over him with the thought that, if Byron was right, Sonja might still be in the castle and in seriously deep trouble. “That woman may have fucked up my head, but there’s nothing wrong with my senses. I kissed her! You think I don’t know my woman’s scent?”

  Even as he said it, he realized he didn’t believe that himself anymore. Mayhap he never had. Mayhap he’d just willfully blinded himself, because despite the fact that his senses had been telling him her taste and scent, even the feel of her body was Sonja, something inside of him had instantly disputed that assessment.

  He realized abruptly what it was. He’d been in a state of chaos then, felt so completely out of his element that he’d been unnerved even before the great hall had erupted into turmoil. The moment that had happened, his instincts had surged to the forefront and he hadn’t been able to think about anything but getting Sonja away from the danger as quickly as possible.

  Yet absolutely nothing about her behavior had rang true, said ‘Sonja’ to him, even before he’d reached her. He’d been staring at her from the moment he’d first glimpsed her, willing her to look his way. Her mannerisms—the way she held herself, the way she smiled, even her laugh hadn’t been quite right, hadn’t been quite Sonja. He’d dismissed it, he realized, told himself it was just a part of the role she was playing.

  Fury surged through him. He should have known the moment he kissed her that he’d been duped!

  Not that she’d tried. She had tried to elude him when he’d kissed her. She’d told him very frankly afterward that Sonja wasn’t going to be pleased about it.

  He’d duped himself. He didn’t trust Sonja because he knew she’d been playing them from the first and because he didn’t, he’d begun to dismiss anything that conflicted in any way with his preconceived notions.

  He scrubbed a shaking hand over his face. “Gods! There is no telling what Sonja has gotten herself in to!”

  Rafe and Thorne stared at him uneasily. “You think that we left her back there?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know that she was there at all!” he growled angrily.

  “Tanya seems very unconcerned about it,” Byron said tentatively.

  Jarek’s face hardened, but after a moment he became thoughtful. “She is cool. I will grant you that—and that should have been my first clue that she was not Sonja, but there is no point in hashing that any longer. I still have the uneasy feeling that we are being duped, that she is in fact Sonja and we have fallen for her latest game. If we concede the possibility, however, that that part of Sonja’s tale was the truth and this woman is the sister she told us of, then can we assume by her coolness that Sonja is safe? Or is she cool simply because that is her nature and she is not worried because she does not care what sort of danger her sister might be in?”

  “Or,” Thorne put in, “she is cool because she is Sonja and we have been completely duped!”

  “This makes my head hurt!” Rafe growled. “I am inclined to trust my beast senses and they are telling me that that woman is Sonja. Mayhap it is possible that she could have a twin sister who was like her mirror image, but it still does not seem possible that the scent would be the same, gods damn it! You and Byron are blood brothers, Jarek, and your scents are not just the same! Anyone with the senses to detect it would immediately notice both the similarity and the differences between the two of you.”

  “But they are not twins!” Arman pointed out.

  “Twins are only brothers—or sisters—who make the journey in the womb together,” Thorne said impatiently. “They are still two different people.”

  “So we ar
e none of us truly convinced that there are two people and that we do not hold Sonja?” Jarek demanded in disgust.

  The question threw all of them into deep thought.

  Arman and Byron who had always been inclined to behave as if they were twins despite the fact that they were not even blood brothers, exchanged a long, speaking look. Typically, Byron spoke for both of them. “We were inclined to believe her when she told us of her sister,” Byron reminded him. “We are still of the same mind.”

  “Unconvinced!” Jarek said sardonically.

  “Mostly convinced,” Arman countered, reddening.

  “I am also mostly convinced,” Rafe said, making a complete about-face from his earlier assessment.

  “Aye,” Thorne agreed.

  Jarek swept them with a look of disgust. “I am mostly convinced, gods damn it, if it comes to that, but should we act on mostly?”

  Thorne began pulling at his lip thoughtfully. “She does not behave at all as Sonja. Much of the difference is very slight, granted, but it was always clear to me that Sonja worked to appear cool. I do not get the sense that this woman has to work at it. She is far more sure of herself and harder to ruffle. Beyond that, she kneed me in the balls when I tried to snuggle closer to her last night!” he complained angrily. “I do not believe Sonja would do that.”

  “You do not know Sonja at all well then,” Jarek said dryly. “She did not rebuff us because it was in her best interests not to. I do not think we can take it for granted that she welcomed us only because she did not put up a fight.”

  All of them stared at him with varying degrees of disbelief, anger, and dismay. He could not blame them. He did not like to think it any more than they did, but they had to consider that she was not as they were, not one of the beast people. She would not be guided by her instincts as they were. It did not follow that she had felt the same call of the blood and spirit that they had. For him, it had been far stronger than the reasoning side of his brain that had warned him that she was deceptive and not to be trusted. He had been at war with his doubts and his instincts from the beginning even knowing that it was possible that she was involved in something that he would not be able to accept.

  Because he couldn’t make himself believe that she was.

  His instincts were winning the war. He had done no more than mark her the once and already she was deeply in his blood and he could not let go. He could not think of much else, in point of fact, beyond finishing what he had begun and binding himself to her. It unnerved him that he could not be certain that the binding would hold her to him as his mate as it would have if she were one of them, and that still did nothing to dissuade him.

  He realized after a moment that that was the answer he had been searching for. He felt a desperate longing to complete the ritual and make Sonja truly his, and yet he had felt uncomfortable at the thought of completing it once he had ‘Sonja’ despite the fact that he had promised himself he would the moment he got his hands on her again.

  If he felt no doubt at all, he would have given her the second mark the night before.

  That did not particularly help him to come to a decision, unfortunately, since he had already acknowledged the doubt. “I think we must trust that if our suspicions are true and we have taken Sonja’s sister that she is not concerned because she has reason not to be—either because she knows that Sonja was not there or because she knows that Sonja escaped. I do not like to think that there is any possibility that Sonja is trapped in Thalon, but if she was, and if she was taken prisoner, then we can still free her. If she was slain because we made a mistake there is nothing we can do to change that now.

  “We will take the woman to the cottage, find out from her where Sonja is and go after her. We still have time before the change over of watch. If we are quick about it, there is still time to rescue her from whatever folly she has embroiled herself in and complete the mating before Loki and his pack can challenge our rights to her.”

  “He can still challenge us,” Thorne said pointedly, “and he has made it clear he will.”

  “Mayhap. If it is done right, however, she will reject him and he will have no recourse to that.”

  The others looked doubtful that that was possible and Jarek felt again the anger and frustration that he had dealt with since he had captured Sonja. He could deal with those doubts, however, when she was safe. The most important thing was to be certain she was safe.

  * * * *

  Tanya was pleasantly surprised by the cottage. She could not imagine what there was about it that Sonja could quibble with! It was hardly squalor! In point of fact, there were many wealthy merchants who did not have a house nearly as grand!

  Of course, the lords and ladies had far grander mansions, but it wasn’t as if she and Sonja had been born to wealth themselves!

  The inside was a bit of a disappointment, she decided. It was clean enough, but clearly the residence of men—not filthy but certainly not tidy! Beyond that, it had little to offer by way of comfort beyond the fact that it was a sturdy, well built structure and comfortably spacious. Only a little money and an eye for comfortable furnishings could very quickly transform it, however, and although she and Sonja were not wealthy by any means, they could certainly contribute the means to purchase proper furnishings!

  It was sadly in need of a proper kitchen, she quickly discovered! The men apparently made do with the hearth in the great room from the looks of it. Whoever had designed and built it, however, had been very clever indeed! There were cisterns on the roof to collect fresh rain water which was then fed into the house as needed and where it was needed. The bath tub was built of stone, which she thought was very crude indeed until she discovered that it could not only be filled merely by pulling a lever, but it could be filled with heated water via a fireplace and caldron specifically designed to heat and deliver the water directly to the tub.

  The guardrobe was even more of a marvel. The waste flowed out and was assisted by a flush of water if necessary. She had not seen the like of it except in the most modern castles and mansions!

  She could be quite content in such surroundings, especially with the men she’d traveled with. She could only conclude that Sonja could not have seen the cottage, as curious as that seemed, or she would not have thought that she would be giving up creature comfort for love.

  She was certain it was love even though Sonja had not said it. No doubt, if that kiss had been anything to go by—and she was certain it was—they were remarkable lovers, but Sonja would not be enamored of them only for that reason. She had lost her head over them, and that was because they were remarkable men, exceptional in every way, not just because of their prowess in bed.

  They were also remarkably pig-headed, she thought wryly.

  She had not made any attempt to escape because she was completely content to have them escort her in relative comfort and complete safety across lands known far and wide to be extremely dangerous to anyone who did not belong there. Yet they had watched her like a hawk as if they expected her to bolt at any moment.

  Of course, that was because they were too pig-headed to take her word for it that she was not Sonja! And Sonja had undoubtedly sorely tried them!

  She could not help but grin at the thought. No doubt they were not at all accustomed to being outsmarted by a mere female, particularly one who should be further handicapped by being a natural.

  Unfortunately, it seemed clear that behaving submissively was not going to get them to let their guard down. It worked like a charm on men of their world, no matter how many times they ‘broke character’ and proved they weren’t nearly as submissive as they appeared to be, but undoubtedly Jarek and his bunch had gotten Sonja’s measure in that respect.

  Well, she thought dismissively, she would have to see if she was as good as Sonja!

  Sonja had been right. It was by far faster to travel through the Shadow Lands under escort of some of its natives than to have to go around. The only question was, had Sonja managed to fol
low them? Or had she been forced to take the long way around?

  She thought she must trust that Sonja had not been far behind her. If all had gone as it should have, Sonja should already have been outside and waiting. Sonja would’ve seen that she was with her beast men and followed. She trusted Sonja’s resourcefulness.

  Instead of meeting her at the rendezvous point as they had originally intended, she would have to try to meet up with her sister in the woods and cross the border into Doral with her. From that point, they could pick up the plan, collect their reward and then ….

  Well, Sonja had already claimed the cream of the crop as far as she could see, but it would not hurt to return with her and look about to see if she could find a beast man, or pack, of her own. One certainly couldn’t become bored with domestic bliss with such a wonderful variety of handsome men!

  It also couldn’t be argued that there was no better place for her and Sonja to choose to retire! They were far too memorable to have managed to be successful assassins if not for the fact that they had been careful to pick and chose their targets as men who had so many enemies that they would not be missed! It had also been a tremendous asset that they were identical and no one—save the beast men who did not believe it!—knew that they were two women and not one.

  It could not be said that they had no enemies, however. Less successful assassins despised them for being successful and considered it more of an insult that they were ‘a woman’. They would not mind eliminating the ‘competition’ and would be hard to convince that they’d retired—especially if they struck first and asked questions later! Then, too, their patrons were not altogether happy with them. They were all too willing to offer a reward for eliminating their problem but when it came down to time to pay almost without fail they balked and had to be convinced—and each time they were forced to do so, they left new enemies behind.