by Nyna Queen
Oh, shit!
Before Alex could say anything else to get the situation under control, Miyuke roared as her true teeth sprung free and she raced forward. The others were right on her heels.
Alex felt more than saw the movement behind her. Sending her knife flying in Miyuke’s direction, she swiveled around as one of the male shapers exploded out of the grass toward them. She crouched and jumped, bounced off the nearest maple tree and met him halfway, slamming into his side and knocking him off stride.
He rolled back to his feet like a mountain cat, black fangs bared.
He charged her.
Alex leaped aside and hammered a lightning roundhouse kick into his back. Something gave way. He went down with a howl and this time he didn’t get up. Likely something broken in his back. He would heal, but it would take some time, even for a shaper.
Three others were coming at her. A snake woman, who was the smallest and fastest of the three, reached her first. Her teeth rended Alex’s arm, glancing off the leather guards. Alex punched her throat and the snake staggered back, both hands clamped around her neck.
The two males raced at Alex from either side. She leaped straight up, letting them run headfirst into each other.
Ouch! A sucking noise escaped her lips. That’s gotta hurt!
Alex danced backward. These shapers were banking on their superior numbers and brute strength—which probably worked very well on the average prey they hunted in these mountains—but she had years of training, discipline, and, most important of all, Darken. The most lethal weapon in the entire realm.
Palming two more knives, Alex mowed down a frog and a spider, then dashed over to where her partner in crime was submerged in a thick knot of fighting. He was spinning like a whirlwind, his sword splashing blood like crazy rain. But she also realized that, while he was drawing blood left and right, and some of the wounds were definitely serious, he wasn’t delivering killing blows. And he wasn’t using his magic, either.
It had to be killing him to rein himself in, yet she understood the reason. True, these shapers were trying to kill and eat them, but they were starving and afraid and grieving. They had been cheated and lost family members. Alex understood their anger. And somehow she couldn’t help pitying them.
Although … she might change her mind if this woman didn’t stop trying to get a bite out of her neck!
Alex jumped to the side and kicked the woman who was trying to maul her in the chest. The woman stumbled back. Black eyes glared at Alex from under a mesh of thick white scars.
Ah, Miyuke. The great leader herself!
A slim gash on her forehead was weeping blood.
They glared at each other. The other spider bared her teeth and snarled.
Alex grinned and stretched her arms to the sides, taking a mocking bow.
Miyuke’s face twisted with rage and she jerked forward, to Alex’s left, the side that was weaker in about eighty to ninety percent of the population. Alex moved to parry yet within the movement the other shaper whirled around and reversed her attack, coming into Alex’s open right. Alex saw the feint, but too late, and Miyuke raked her unsheathed claws across her belly and along her side, drawing blood. If Alex hadn’t worn her leather guard, the stroke would have disemboweled her.
Swallowing a curse, Alex scurried out of reach and clenched her teeth against the burning pain in her side. And now she had underestimated her opponent. Miyuke definitely had more combat experience than the brawling rest of them.
This time it was Miyuke who smirked. She tauntingly raised her hand and licked the blood from one of her claws.
Looking forward to drinking my blood, bitch? I don’t think so!
They rounded each other, both assessing the other and waiting for an opening that wasn’t likely to present itself.
Suddenly, Miyuke jumped at Alex. This time she saw it coming a mile away and met the attack with furious speed. They slammed into each other and flew across the grass, clawing and snapping like two wild cats in a fight, teeth and claws flashing so fast they could barely be seen.
The pack leader was about as tall as Alex and very fast. Not to mention highly enraged. Well, Alex wasn’t exactly feeling cuddly either.
Alex got in a couple of good punches before Miyuke managed to scratch her right thigh. Fire seared through her leg. Alex growled and slashed at her opponent’s chest, opening four bloody lines across her clavicle.
They broke apart, both gasping for air. Alex pretended to sway a little on her feet. Miyuke’s sharp shaper eyes didn’t miss it.
“Is that all you got, little shaperling?” she scoffed loudly. As if Alex was that much younger than her! “That cushy city life make you weak, kitten.” The other spider shook her head in pity. “It’ll be a real shame to mar you pretty face but I’ll see that you body will be put to good use.”
“Are you going to make good on your promise, or talk some more?”
“So eager to die, little shaperling?” Miyuke scoffed, but she attacked head-on, just as Alex had hoped. Suppressing her shaper instincts, Alex stood her ground. Miyuke’s words had reminded her of something: she was a shaper, yes, but she was also her sire’s daughter. It was his voice that rang through her head now, just as it had done countless times back when she still lived in his mansion. Watching her brothers spar, he would walk along the training field, hands clasped behind his back, giving them advice: “If you really want to win a fight, you have to do something that your opponent won’t expect.”
So, instead of following her instincts and moving out of the way before countering the attack, Alex held her positions. At the last moment, her arms snapped upward and she caught Miyuke’s outstretched wrists, pushed her arms to the sides and head-butted the other spider.
Miyuke staggered, dazed, and Alex grabbed her shoulder, digging her claws into the soft flesh of her upper arm.
“Don’t worry, sugar,” she said sweetly, as her venom pumped into the other woman’s body. “I’m not a one-trick spider.”
The other shaper stared at her from shocked eyes, before lurching backward. A normal human would most likely die from so much venom within minutes. Miyuke wouldn’t die but she would feel as if she had a horrible hangover for a day or two. Sure enough, the pack leader had already pitched forward and was vomiting into the grass.
There wasn’t much time to celebrate, though, because Miyuke was immediately replaced by a scorpion who dwarfed Alex by at least fifteen inches. Sweet Jester, did he have giant’s blood or what? His true skin was visible on his brawny arms, a dark brown and black pattern winding along the backs of his hands, which were tipped with horny claws. He also had a stinger rising over his left shoulder—one of the poisonous appendices that were the most obvious source of inspiration for the shaper naming.
The stinger jerked forward with lighting speed, aiming for Alex’s chest.
Alex dove to the side, avoiding the poisonous stinger by a hair’s breadth. She backed away and the scorpion chased her, way too fast for his bulk.
He took a swing at her. She ducked and curled together in a ball, knees to her belly, then uncoiled like a spring, kicking his massive chest with both feet. He didn’t even sway. What the hell?
The force of her own kick pushed Alex backward and her head hit a tree. Pain blossomed in the back of her head and her vision blurred. Great! One single tree in the whole meadow. And she managed to hit it.
The scorpion bellowed and ran at her, hitting her with all of his weight. Like being hit by an angry bull! Alex’s ribcage cracked. His shoulder rammed into her chin and neck. Hammering pain exploded in her face. Alex saw stars. Her mouth tasted like wet cotton, then metal: blood.
She heard a strange buzz and the fighting around her suddenly seemed far, far away.
Through the haze, Alex was aware of the scorpion pinning her against the tree trunk with his shovel-like hands. He opened his mouth, saliva dripping from his dark teeth. A distant part of Alex realized that he was about to rip out her throat but
her body felt too heavy to obey her command.
She gazed into the darkness that was about to devour her, as a gush of red spilled out, splattering her face.
Alex blinked.
The world snapped back into focus. The volume turned up with staggering speed, taking her breath away and she gasped, tasting blood on her lips.
The scorpion’s eyes were wide and stared right through her. The tip of a sword protruded from his chest. Curious. It vanished, replaced by a dark, wet stain that quickly soiled the fabric of his brown leather vest.
The bull of a man dropped to his knees and Alex found herself eye to eye with Darken. He was holding his sword beside his body, dripping with blood. The deadly currents of his magic dissolved.
Alex’s lips were about to break into a tired grin when something moved behind his shoulder—
“Behind you!”
Darken grabbed her arms and spun her around. Her flying feet caught the woman behind him at the temple and she dropped like a log. Alex landed light on her feet and whirled around.
They stood, back to back, ready to strike. But the fight was over.
Around them, shapers littered the ground, groaning and stirring weakly. Most of them were more or less alive, as far as Alex could tell. In fact, the only one who was clearly dead, was the scorpion at their feet. He was the only one who had almost managed to kill her and Darken had punished him for it.
Something stirred at the edge of the thicket about fifteen yards away and Alex spotted Ruby who was watching them with huge, horrified eyes. She hadn’t joined the fight and was the only one still standing.
The girl tipped back her head and howled. It wasn’t a wolfish howl, more like the angry screech of a bird of prey, defending its nest. It sent Alex’s hackles up.
She gripped Darken’s arm. “We must go!”
He turned to her with a cold, dreamy smile, and for a second Death smiled at her through his eyes. Then he blinked. “Why?”
“Because Ruby just called for backup!”
And even the two of them couldn’t hope to win another round against a fresh mob of shapers. She was exhausted and pretty bruised and her ribs felt as if she’d been stuffed into a halfborn tumble dryer with a few rocks added for good measure. Darken might not look too worse for wear, but she’d bet even he was running low on energy.
“I don’t know about you, sugar, but I have no desire to end up in somebody’s stew. So how about we piss off?”
“Good call.”
Beside each other, they jogged down the meadow, followed by Ruby’s enraged shrieks.
It didn’t take long before they had left the meadow behind. They covered the bigger part of the remaining two miles without incident and Alex thought that they might actually make it, when a furious howl shook the trees behind them.
Alex risked taking a glance back over her shoulder and felt her heart drop. More than a dozen shapers were chasing them. Gaining on them fast. Extremely fast. Another minute or so and they would be upon them.
Shit, shit, shit!
Alex peered down the slope in front of them. It couldn’t be much more than half a mile to their meeting point with Hugh but they were running low on energy. And ungodly stamina or no, Darken couldn’t outrun a shaper. No fucking way.
She slithered to a stop.
Darken, of course, did the same.
“Run to the car,” she yelled. “I’ll hold them up.”
Scowling at her, Darken bashed the hilt of his sword into the face of the fastest of their pursuers. The man crashed down, immediately unconscious, his jaw likely broken. Darken didn’t even look in his direction.
“I’m not leaving you behind!”
Oh, damn him and his male chivalry!
“Don’t be an ass!” Alex snapped, as she threw a knife at the bunch of people behind them. “We are much faster!”
And by “we” she meant herself and all the other shapers behind them. “I’ll bring up the rear and come after you. Go!”
He looked like he wanted to argue some more, but the appearance of at least another ten very angry shapers on the hillside cut him short. He did the math and realized she could count.
With a curse, he turned around and sprinted down the remainder of the hill.
Alex followed him, but fell a few paces behind, drawing the shapers toward her and attacking only those who came near or tried to overtake her. Luckily, most of them just threw themselves at her, the obvious target, instead of trying to dodge her and follow Darken.
When Alex yanked a knife from the leg of a shaper woman and it almost dropped from her fingers, she knew she was done. Her breath was coming in short, harsh bursts and her arms were nearly too heavy to lift.
There were still a good dozen shapers on her heels but there was no way she could take any more of them on, without being in serious danger of getting herself killed in the process. So she decided to follow her own advice, and ran. Her legs were burning and every step felt as if she was stepping on a hot knife’s blade. She kept running, squeezing all the speed she had left out of her tired body, imagining that she could feel the breath of her pursuers on her neck.
Finally, the scarp popped into view, studded with thorny shrubs and stunted trees that clung to its edge at precarious angles, as if they were about to fall off. Darken was racing toward it at full speed, then veered left toward the small footpath that led down to the street.
Alex didn’t bother. When she reached the edge, she cleared the scarp in one giant leap, skidded sideways on the dirt-covered road and dashed forward, kicking up sand and tiny stones.
The road curved in front of her like a ragged belt around the mountain’s stony hip. The jeep was parked in a little lay-by, just wide enough to hold the bulky four-by-four and still let another car pass. Hugh was sitting on a log between the car and the mountain, working a tool on a small piece of carved wood, the to-go coffee mug, he’d picked up on the way here at a petrol stop, perched beside his left foot.
Alex sprinted toward him and yelled, “Start the truck!”
Hugh looked up, his eyes turning as big as saucers.
Alex waved her hands frantically, shouting at the top of her lungs. “Start. The. Fucking. Truck!”
Swearing, Hugh surged to his feet, knocking over the to-go mug and splashing coffee all over the surrounding dandelions.
With another wild glance in their direction, he waddled toward the truck, got in and threw in a gear with a loud clanging noise.
There was the sound of bodies landing on the road behind her, but Alex didn’t waste any time looking back. Darken reached the street right in front of her. In the last few meters, she overtook him and jumped, landing on the hood of the truck, denting it in four places. Within three seconds, she’d slipped through the open co-pilot’s window, kicked the door open and scrambled into the backseat. Through the back window, Alex saw Darken, almost there, with the angry mob right on his heels.
Come on, come on, come on!
A lean frog with an impressive set of needle-thin teeth broke away from the group of pursuers. Alex swiped a crossbow from the backseat, loaded it with a bolt strapped to the back of the co-pilot’s seat, leaned out of the window, took aim and fired, all within a second.
The bolt bit into the man’s shoulder. He stumbled but didn’t stop.
Then Darken was beside the car. He dove inside and pulled the door shut behind him. The blood-thirsty frog raced against it at full tilt and the truck careened, leaving the road with two of its tires. It smashed back down, jarring them horribly, and the shaper fell back into the shrubs, finally stunned. That would give him a hell of a concussion.
“Hit it!” Alex yelled at Hugh.
The old man floored the gas pedal. With a belch, the truck lurched forward, gaining speed as it rolled down the mountain road.
Alex turned again and looked out the back window. One by one, the shapers fell behind and finally disappeared as the truck arced around the mountainside.
A healthy shaper
after a good rest could keep up with a car or a magic-driven coach for a couple of yards in a burst of speed, but that was about it. A few howls of frustration and anger followed them down the road.
Alex dropped back in her seat, allowing herself to finally take a deep breath. Sweet Jester, every inch of her body hurt like a wicked bitch!
In the front seat, Darken was doing the same.
She inhaled and leaned forward, alarmed. “Is any of that blood yours?”
Darken slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so. Thanks to Rachel’s armor plates.” He was equally outfitted as she was. And to think that she’d first thought this was a bit much.
“What about you?” He turned, his dark, cavernous eyes full of deep concern. “Are you hurt?”
For once, Alex was too exhausted to be annoyed by the fact that he seemed so damn caring.
She took a quick inward scan. A rib or two might be cracked but that was hardly worth mentioning in her case. Same for the scratches Miyuke had given her. Raising her head, she checked herself in the rearview mirror and grimaced. “Not really. At least not yet.”
“What do you mean ‘not yet?’”
With a sharp smile, Alex presented the left side of her chin and neck to him, which were already turning all the spectacular shades of blue and purple, where that bull of a scorpion had squashed her.
“Your mother’s gonna kill me when she sees that bruise.”
THE master clasped his hands behind his back and turned to the assembled gathering congregated at the round table. Immediately, the hushed voices in the small room fell silent. Familiar faces looked up at him. He saw worry on those faces. Worry that shouldn’t be there.
Taking a step forward, he slapped a handful of papers on the table.
“It appears that our dear Stephane hasn’t taken our warning very seriously.”
Soft, conceding murmurs.
In fact, Lancaester’s senator didn’t seem overly fazed by the events that should have rattled any loving father to the core. On the contrary, instead of backing down, he seemed more than resolute in his efforts to get to the bottom of it all—a bottom that was better left in the dark. At all possible costs.