by Rose Francis
Oh gods below, she could smell him.
The wolf in her, its voice new in her bones, craved him. The wolf wanted to pin the man down right here, to tear his clothes off with razored claws and to rub his amazing scent over every inch of her body. She wanted to ride him naked under the moonlight, to claim this man as her mate for all of time.
But the woman in her knew better. They were on a schedule, a harsh timetable. It wouldn’t be long before the hyena was missed, before one of the alpha-spawn stumbled upon her scent, or before Conwynne did something rash in the heart of the Warmaw. The human and the wolf warred within her. The easiest solution was not to look at Farid, not to smell him. If she kept ahead of him, kept away, she could keep control.
“I’ll leave a trail for you,” she said in her musical, shifted voice.
“With what?” Farid panted.
“With these.” Lucia carved the wall with her claws, effortlessly gouging the stone, marking the maze as hers.
“You can’t take them all on yourself. You need me.”
“I do need you.” The wolf growled within her. She backed away from Farid, afraid of what she’d do. “So hurry.”
Lucia spun on her heels and bounded off, clawing the walls at every intersection to lead Farid towards the prison.
They passed no one else in the maze, but Lucia could smell other people. Behind every door, there were shifters. Thousands of her brethren lived and worked in the monstrous flying machine. Were they all bad people? Were some slaves or here under duress? It wasn’t right to hurt those who got in the way, just for getting in the way.
The wolf laughed at her weakness. None would get in their way. Even if they couldn’t see her, the shifters could sense a true alpha nearby. They’d instinctively hide or flee. Only the very brave or the very foolish would try to stop her. The brave, the foolish, and the alpha-spawn.
Running at top speed, it wasn’t long before Lucia entered the detention floor. It was just as she’d seen it as a ghost wolf. Hexagon cells were set in the floor, like a beehive on its side. In between the cells walked guards on metal planks, armed with swords and axes and bolters.
One of the guards, a bored-looking weasel shifter with a pointy face and drooping whiskers, looked up a fraction too late. Lucia’s claws tore his throat out as she hurled herself across the room in a storm of fury. Bounding leaps carried her five meters at a time, from plank to plank, over the cells. Most of the guards scarcely had time to draw their weapons, let alone use them, before they found themselves clutching ripped-open bellies or limbs dangling from severed flesh.
The howls of pain brought the alpha-spawn running.
Into the room, barreling like a dive bike, raced the horribly large bear shifter. Twin silvered battle axes, each larger than Lucia, hung in his hands. Behind him was a bird shifter, with large opalescent eyes and green feathers running in a ridge from between her eyes all the way down her spine. Two more shifters, a turtle man and a dog with a scarred mouth and yellow fur, followed hesitantly.
Lucia stood in the middle of the room, waiting for their approach. One on one, she liked her odds against the alpha-spawn. Well, maybe not against the bear. But against all four at once? Four who had clearly worked together?
Even the wolf knew it was madness to fight a pack by yourself.
Below her feet, in the darkness of the cell, a body stirred.
“Who are you?” A voice rang out, clear and cool and commanding. It was familiar from nights spent watching the pilfered memory crystal.
Lucia drew her glaive and swung down sharply, slashing through the cell bars, opening a way into the pit below.
“My name is Lucia Brightwolf. I’m here to rescue you.”
Prince Joaquin Muir of Sierren grabbed the edges of the bars, avoiding the sharpened ends impossibly sliced by Lucia’s glaive, and hauled himself out of the cell.
Across the room, the four alpha-spawn fanned out, spreading around the room, encircling Lucia. If they came at her on all sides, she’d surely lose. Unless she had more help.
“In the rest of the cells,” she said, pulling the prince to his feet, “are there men loyal to you?”
At the touch of his palm to hers, an electric shock raced through her. A thrilling, exciting feeling washed across Lucia’s skin. The prince’s eyes flew open, locked on hers.
Oh no.
The wolf inside her, it wanted this man. And his wolf, buried deeply inside him, wanted her. She’d heard stories about this sort of thing. The old tales were full of fated mates, of brave souls trekking across the waste to make their fortune, only to bump into a lonely, shy, simple peasant girl and feel instantly and irrevocably drawn to her.
But this couldn’t happen. Not now. Not ever. She loved Farid, didn't she? Wasn’t he the man she was drawn to?
“You are a far more lovely rescuer than I had ever dared hope for,” the prince brushed his lips against the back of her hand, tickling the fur there gently. “But I do not suppose you brought an extra one of those?” He flicked his eyes downwards, indicating her glaive.
“Sorry, just the one. But I know where we can get you another.”
From across the room, the bird shifter made a fast motion, and almost too late Lucia realized she’d thrown a silver-tipped knife at the prince’s back. Seconds before the blade would have severed his spine, Lucia snapped out her hand and caught it with two fingers on the blade. The silver burned her skin like fire, but she didn’t care.
Time was up.
“It’s not a glaive,” Lucia Brightwolf handed the dagger to the prince, “but it’ll have to do.”
“I’ve done more with less, I assure you.” He smiled at her and her wolf howled with need.
She was about to fight four monstrous alphas, and her wolf wanted babies. Perfect.
Lucia danced over the cell bars, her bare feet hopping from one plank to the next, and as she movedt she sliced downwards with her blade, opening every cell.
“Brightwolf!” the prince yelled. “There are things in some of these cells we do not want to free!”
“If they’re caged by the Suzerain, they’ll hate him as much as we do.”
The giant bear stood immobile at the edge of the cell pits. His eyes never left Lucia. He breathed in huge gulps, his shoulders rising and falling like waves in the ocean. His fingers flexed on his axe hafts, squeezing so hard the wood shrieked from the force.
The bird drew more daggers from behind her back—longer, thinner ones for slashing, not throwing.
The turtle and dog, clearly lower down the alpha pack’s hierarchy, approached Lucia from either side of the room. The turtle wielded a chain, long and thick, with a nasty mass of silver spikes on one end. The dog shifter wore spiked knuckles, gleaming brightly in Lucia’s shifted vision. Silver flickered from his mouth as well—his front fangs were capped with it.
The prince’s men, over two dozen of them, clambered up out of the cells. They wore variations on his uniform, blue pants and white tunics. Foxtail and Triptongue also pulled themselves out of adjoining cells.
“Oh, mistress Brightwolf! How good it is to see you! I told Foxtail you would come to rescue us, but she did not believe me. No faith at all in this one. But I knew. I knew! For we are your pack and a true alpha never abandons her pack!”
Lucia leapt twenty feet across the pits and shoved Triptongue back into his hole, as the turtle shifter lashed out with his spiked chain.
“Get down!” Lucia roared.
The turtle was an expert with his weapon and alarmingly fast. He hardly seemed to move, spinning slowly, pivoting on his feet, but his chain was a blur of death.
“Kill the betas,” the bear rumbled. “Kill the betas and the alpha will have no power.”
“No!” the prince screamed.
The turtle man’s face twisted into an ugly sneer as he spun the chain faster and then let go, rocketing the spiked end across the room. The heavy end of it thunked into one of the prince’s guards, killing the man instantly.
The yellow dog shifter sprinted around the perimeter of the pits, slashing at anyone who came within fighting distance.
The bear and the bird waited, blocking both exits, patient as stone.
“We have no weapons,” the prince whispered.
“You have claws,” Lucia said. “You are weapons.”
A soldier halfway between her and the turtle exploded as the spiked ball ripped him in half. The men began to panic and several dived back into their cells.
“If we charge them, we could overpower them.”
“You’re an alpha, aren’t you? Shift.”
The prince looked at her like she was crazy. “I’ve shifted twice in my life, both times during a full moon and with the help of the greatest sages in my father’s lands.”
Lucia closed her eyes. She tried to feel for the bonds of pack, but there were none between her and these men. They were not hers to command. In her mind’s eye she could see golden threads from the soldiers drifting like smoke through the air to the prince. They were his pack, but he didn’t have the training or skill to do anything with them.
“If I may, mistress.” Triptongue poked his head out of the pit he’d been pushed into. “I do believe one of these cells contains a rather nasty surprise.”
“Which one, Trip?”
“If I recall correctly—”
“Spit it out!” Lucia interrupted.
The gangly fox sniffed, and pointed across the room to one of the outer cells, opposite the turtle, near where the yellow dog shifter prowled.
Lucia took the planks three at a time, bounding across the room past the soldiers.
“She’s abandoning us!” one cried.
“Help us!” another called.
“Get down,” the prince yelled, as the turtle’s chain nearly took the head off a guard nearby.
The cell Triptongue had indicated was unlike the others. The door was made not of silvered bars but rather a black stone slab, shiny as a mirror. Lucia saw herself reflected in it, a powerful sight in her armor and fur.
The yellow dog backed away—he didn’t fancy his chances with her.
“You don’t want to open that,” he whined, bowing as he stepped closer to the wall.
If she didn’t change the odds, the alpha-spawn would pick them off one by one. If they rushed en masse, the bear would hew them to pieces. Nothing in the cells could be worse than the fate that lay before them.
Lucia jabbed the glaive into the stone. The blade sparked against the surface but penetrated it, sending cracks spiderwebbing out from the impact point. Lucia tried to pull back for another downward stab, but the glaive was stuck fast. Bracing her feet, she gripped the handle and pulled until her muscles screamed.
The sword would not budge.
The dog watched her with predatory eyes. He crept closer, inch by inch, fingers flexing as if he was imagining how they’d feel around her neck.
Lucia tugged. The dog crept closer. Behind her another of the prince’s men fell to the chain attack.
They were all going to die here.
“You’re not going to die,” the bear said, his voice like rocks falling. “Dying would be too good for you. You killed Gashly. You killed my friend. We’re going to catch you, tie you in silver chains and throw you in a cell. We’re going to laugh as your skin burns away, as your body eats itself with hunger. And then, when you’re broken and desperate and starving, we’ll feed you your little human friend that’s skulking around the corner. After that, we’ll bring you to the Suzerain himself. He loves to meet new alphas. He’ll scoop out what’s left of you and pour his own power in and you’ll be his forever and ever. Just like the rest of us.”
Lucia could see it, like a nightmare in her mind. The bear was forcing his thoughts onto her, into her. If she closed her eyes she could smell the cell he had picked out for her, could taste the dust on her tongue. She could see the chains binding her to the ground, silver chains no thicker than a thread, but enough to rob her of her strength and will.
The bear laughed and the vision changed. Farid was there trussed like a roasted pig, rubbed in seasonings, a strange fruit stuffed into his mouth. The bear and his bird friend tossed Farid into her cell, in that dark imaginary place, and she hadn’t eaten in a year. Her body was only bones and skin. She crawled over to Farid, jaws opening with a creak and . . .
The thwang of Jolene broke the spell. The bear shifter fell to his knees with a dull thud, clawing at his throat. Across the dim room, Farid emerged from the shadows, slotting another barbed bolt into his gun. He fired again, his shot taking the bear in the open mouth, embedding that nasty quarrel deep in the shifter’s throat. It would have killed an ordinary man instantly. But the bear shifter was tough, and an alpha, and a bear. With claws longer than Lucia’s hands, the bear ripped out his own throat, taking the quarrel with it.
The dog shifter ran to help the bear, giving Lucia just the opening she needed to grasp her glaive’s long handle and twist.
Blood rained down the bear’s arm, then slowed to a trickle as his alpha gifts healed the wound. He looked up with murder in his eyes. “A year’s pay for whoever brings me that human’s heart!” he roared.
That was all it took to motivate his men. They fixated on Farid, leaving off their siege on the prince’s guards.
Lucia could see what was coming. Farid could maybe have taken on one of the alpha-spawn if he’d had planning, backup, and the element of surprise. But alone and cornered he was no match for their unnatural gifts.
The pirate was going to die. But he held her heart, so she wasn’t going to let that happen.
Reaching deep into her feelings for him, grabbing the positive emotions like Conwynne taught her, Lucia pulled on the strength of her pack and twisted the stuck glaive with all her strength.
The blade threatened to snap. The handle whined like wood about to splinter. But it was the stone that gave first.
The shining black marble, polished and carved with a thousand mysterious glyphs, cracked underfoot. The glaive came free and Lucia toppled backward, out of the cell pits, and onto the stone ring that circled the room. The stink of shift scent wafted from the exposed cell.
“What have you done?” roared the bear shifter.
From the darkness under the cracked black stone, a clicking sounded. Like a thousand knives being tapped together, like a thousand hungry mouths clicking their teeth.
A scorpion emerged from the pit, an ugly mottled brown thing, twisted by the wasteland. It was larger than Lucia’s hand.
“Is that what they’re afraid of?” Farid asked.
“Run!” the prince yelled. “To the labyrinth!”
Lucia sprinted over the top of the pits, looking for Triptongue and Foxtail. She found them and yanked them effortlessly out of their cells. Her body sang with the change. She felt like she was getting stronger the longer she stayed shifted into her were form.
Another scorpion emerged from the black pit. Then another.
The hungry clicking grew louder.
The alpha-spawn huddled together at the far end of the room, opposite Lucia, her pack, and the prince’s men who were fleeing into the maze.
She wanted to see what was coming. It might come for her next, and she had to be ready.
The clicking faded away, like a monstrous creature taking a breath before it roared, and then out of the pit streamed scorpions, thousands of scorpions.
“It’s a myriad,” Farid said.
“We need to run,” Lucia said, unable to tear her eyes away.
The foot-long creatures shimmered as they fled the confines of their cell, merging first into hulking scorpion people, with skin covered in shaggy brown plates of armor, hands like pincers, and thick swinging tails waving over their shoulders, looking for somewhere to strike. And then when a critical mass of men was reached they merged again, forming a scorpion as large as the room.
It had a grudge with the alpha-spawn. The last thing Lucia saw before giving in and fleei
ng was the envenomed tail lashing out and spearing the turtle shifter so hard he was ripped in two.
The way out was easier than the way in. Lucia could smell their path, could see the claw marks she’d made on the walls. And any resistance they met fell swiftly to her glaive or Farid’s bolts. Halfway through the maze, headed to the Letherine, they stumbled on a storeroom and armed the prince’s men with ersatz weapons—clubs from chair legs, cooking knives as daggers, and a pair of heavy iron shears that the prince took for himself.
“Where are we going?” the prince asked.
“I have a ship,” Farid smirked at the man. “Don’t worry, your highness. I’ll save your bacon.”
The prince was not so different from what Lucia expected. He was brave and bold, handsome, and cared for his men. So why was she disturbed by him? Was it that the wolf in her wanted him so badly that it made the human side turn away? Or was it just that she wanted Farid more, and she knew that if she spent too much time with the shifter prince she’d fall for him and feel her heart rip in two?
Was it possible to love two men at once and not go mad?
The sound of marching boots alerted them to the approach of an entire platoon, so the lot of them squeezed into the storeroom and huddled in quiet.
Well, mostly quiet.
“Can you do that trick Conwynne did? Make us all invisible?” Farid whispered.
“This isn’t the time, man,” the prince warned.
“Conwynne has been practicing his gifts for sixty years. I’ve been doing this less than a month. I think I’m doing pretty good for myself, all things considered.”
Farid nodded, positioned himself across from the door so that if anyone charged in, Jolene would be the first thing they saw.
The prince sat near Lucia, too near.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” he whispered. His eyes shone in the darkness like blue flames. “I look at you and my blood cries out for you. The wolf inside knows we’re meant to be together.”
Lucia’s heart crashed in her chest. This was too soon, such bad timing. “This isn’t the time,” she said. “I can’t talk about this here.” Her wolf wanted him. It wanted to be naked in front of him, to stretch out on the floor with her ass raised high for him. A delicious heat filled her belly. She needed this man to mount her, to fill her up. To mate her as soon as possible.