“Lila, he’s in trouble. I don’t know how, but we have to help him. He’s sick, and it’s killing him.” I finally lowered my hands and opened my eyes. “The energy around him is black and it’s literally sucking the life out of him.”
So much for looking into myself for my own power. Then again, I wasn’t surprised. I expected nothing more than to find exactly that—nothing. And now I’d found Maks. And I knew he needed us as much as the rest of my pride.
“Just how are we going to do that? We know he’s . . . possessed or whatever it is that’s going on. He wants to hand you over to Marsum.” Lila paced in front of the fire.
I scrubbed my hands against a tuft of grass. “I know. Maybe we need to find Merlin. He seems to know more about Maks and the Jinn than he should. Maybe he can heal him?”
Lila bobbed her head once. “And if we can’t find Merlin?”
She had a point. Merlin wasn’t exactly known for showing up when needed. More like showing up when you least needed him. Or when he wanted to try to kill you and then explain that somehow that was really helping you.
I frowned, drew in a big breath and got a distinct whiff of rotting compost. I wrinkled my nose and twisted around. “I smell garbage. Do you smell that?”
Lila turned her head into the wind and then shuddered and gagged. “Gods, that is awful. What is it?”
My brain kicked in, labeling the scent about two seconds slower than it should’ve as the strange shape sailed toward us through the black sky.
Woven ropes bound together, knotted with iron straps. I saw it all in a flash as the net landed on us with a heavy thud, pinning us to the ground. Or really, just me. Lila sat in the middle of a square of empty space, her luck so good that it landed neatly around her.
The rope and weight of it was across the back of my neck, my spine, my legs, and pretty much everything was held down—after my experience of being squashed and nearly killed by the werehyena because I was in my cat form, I wasn’t about to shift.
Already the struggle to breathe was a real thing; I fought for each breath.
“Shift! You’ve got bigger problems than the net!” Lila yelled as the ground rumbled under me.
“If I shift, it will crush me!” I yelled, fighting to get out from under the weight, but damn it, it was heavy. That’s what you get when being hunted by giants.
“I wanna wanna eat!” an all-too-familiar voice boomed from not far enough away.
“Balder.” I snapped his name and then let out a hiss. How he’d managed to avoid the net, I have no idea. I struggled and fought the bonds as Lila swooped around my head.
“What do I do?” Lila yelled.
I gritted my teeth, knowing I had no choice. If Balder stayed, the giants’ queen would eat him. She would crush Lila. I had to send them to safety. There was no way I was going to live through this. But Lila didn’t know that.
“Take Balder, find Maks!” I managed to get the words out while my lungs felt as though they collapsed within me.
He would come, if for no other reason than to take me to Marsum—assuming he was within distance for her to find. Assuming I could dodge the queen of the giants long enough to survive. The sound of hoof beats and then a roar from the big three-titted bitch told me Balder and Lila were out of range already. If they pushed hard, they might get to Maks if he’d stopped for the night. Maybe. I just had to hang on until then.
Two hours maybe? I knew I was being hopeful. Two hours was what I held in my head as the time I needed to survive.
Right, no problem. One house cat against the queen of the giants. I could do this. I could; no, strike that, I had to. There were too many others depending on me. I had to find a way to survive. And if Lila brought Maks back, maybe we could figure out what was wrong with him.
The net stayed on me as the queen leaned low and close, her breath as vile as I remembered. She sniffed a few times and my hair fluttered toward her. A sneeze came next, coating me with slime.
“Fuck off!” I yelled or tried to yell. It came out more like a wheeze with the weight of the iron balls.
“Oh, kitty, kitty, I remember you. You is a thief, thief.” She whipped off the net and I scrambled forward, fighting to get my legs under me fast enough to stand and face her. A thick finger flicked me in the middle of my back and sent me sprawling onto my face.
I rolled to my back and looked up at her, then grinned and waved. “How you doing, queen bee?”
She glared down at me, thick green snot dripping from her nose and her eyes. Sweet baby goddess, she was sick as . . . well, I would have said as a dog, but I felt bad maligning dogs like that. She wiped a hand across her face, smearing the bright green and now a strand of dark yellow snot all the way from her nose across her cheek to her ear. “You take my jewel, jewel.”
“Yeah, well, to be fair, you weren’t guarding it that well.” I reached slowly for the flail. Only it wasn’t there.
She held it up by her finger and her thumb. “You looky, looky for this, pretty?”
The flick in the back made a lot more sense now. She’d taken the one weapon that could do damage to her.
I raised both hands in surrender. Shifting forms would buy me a bit more time, but I’d leave that until the bitter end. I had more pressing matters. “What are you doing outside your territory? You lost, you big dummy?”
She flopped down so she sat across from me. “I kill, kill you in little time. First. Talk, talk.” She sucked in a deep breath and I realized she was winded. This sickness of hers might actually save my ass. But I wasn’t about to let my guard down. I watched as she placed the flail next to a meaty thigh.
I didn’t lower my hands. “Yeah, that’s what I was doing, asking you a question. So, let’s talk. What are you doing away from your territory?”
She shook her head and . . . shit, was she crying? “Giants dying, dying. All dying, dying.”
My jaw dropped open. “What, how?” Much as I disliked them, they were part of the ecosystem of our world. Even I knew that taking out a giant’s tribe would have consequences on the rest of us.
Her eyes narrowed and a bubble formed on the front of her nose as she breathed in and out. “Emperor does this to us, us.”
That first word was enough to make my knees weak and I had to lock them to stay standing. “The Emperor did this?”
“He come, come to me in dream. Say I owe, owe him. I say no. He takes lives.” She shrugged as if it meant nothing. “He make land dead, dead. Not just giants, land sick, sick.”
If not for the fact I was discussing this with the queen of the giants, I would have wanted more info. But I wasn’t sure how far I could push this conversation of ours. The sun had fully set now. As a black cat, I had the best chance of slipping away while the night ruled. I looked longingly at my saddle and my bag of gear. There was nothing I could do about it. I would have to leave it all behind if I wanted to have even a chance of surviving.
I had only one goal. Get to the flail and shift faster than I ever had before. Maggi and the Raven said I needed the weapon, and I wasn’t about to let it go so easily.
“You sure it’s the Emperor?” I tipped my head to one side. “Maybe could it be someone else? Some other mage? Merlin? The Jinn?” I was throwing the names out to keep her brain busy.
Not a lot of brains was going to work in my favor, and I could scramble said brains quickly if I forced her to think hard with all the questions.
She frowned and confusion was written in clear bold letters across her face. She snorted and a hunk of snot flew out of her nose and landed between us, the size of a goat. I stared at it, unsure if it was snot or a bit of her brain with the meaty deep red consistency it had going on it. For a split second, I thought it moved and I took a step back. My gorge rose and I struggled against the heaving that my body was sure it needed to do. I looked up at the sky, away from the glob of snot as I struggled to keep my shit together.
“I sure.” She breathed out. “I sure.” The wheeze in her
lungs was audible now as she rested. Her eyes were on me, never moving from her prey even as sick as she obviously was. Her stomach rumbled, giving me an idea.
I pointed at the fire and the roasting game hens.
“You can eat those if you want. Two birds, cooked up nice. Probably not more than a snack for you, but you should have them.” I gave a quick wave of my hands to point as I stepped away from the fire. Her eyes left me for a split second and that was all I needed. I launched toward her right thigh, diving for the flail next to her.
I hit the ground hard, knocked the wind out of my lungs and still managed to get a hand around the wooden shaft. I forced the shift from two legs to four and the flail absorbed into me, as did all my weapons and clothes. On four legs, I had nothing but a metal collar woven with scraps of material that indicated my clothing.
Before I could take another full step, I’d already spun and on four legs sprinted away from the queen of the giants. With the wind ruffling my fur and my heart beating double time so loudly, I could hear nothing else. That didn’t last.
I counted to ten before a scream erupted behind me, the sound deepening into a phlegm-filled roar that sent a flock of night birds high into the air. I wasn’t going to be fast enough to fully outrun her. I’d need Balder for that, but if I’d kept him close she would have eaten him first.
I was on my own.
I raced toward a pile of rocks and skidded around behind them, peeking out. The ground rumbled hard enough that the pebbles jumped and danced next to my paws. I crouched low and kept my eyes on her while she thundered toward me, her arms flailing left and right.
“I kill, kill you!” she roared and then coughed, hacking and choking on her own spit. She went to a knee and thumped a fist between two of her three breasts until she cleared her lungs. I didn’t move, despite the stench of her breath wafting over me.
A weird rush of emotions caught me off guard and I had to fight to keep myself still and not stand up.
I felt bad for her . . . and she’d tried to kill me. I hunched tighter to the rock, my mind racing. What the hell was this new emotional shit? I shouldn’t be feeling bad for a giant, certainly not one who would tear my head clean off if I so much as gave her an inkling as to where I was.
Yet I couldn’t stop the feelings. I couldn’t stop seeing the tears trickling down her face, mingling with the snot.
She sat back on her ass and I realized she was dying, right in front of me. She fell to her back and flopped her arms out to the side. Her chest heaved with such effort that her bones creaked.
I shifted back to two legs and slowly stood. “Queen Bee.” I didn’t know her name, but it was the best I could do. “How did the Emperor do this to you?”
Her eyes found me and the pain in them cut through me as if it were my pain, which was stupid. So stupid. Tremors shook down through my body and she smiled at me.
“You . . . not shifter. You magic, magic too. Like Emperor.” It was not a question she asked me. Her words did nothing to slow the tremors in my body.
I shook my head. “No, no magic. How did the Emperor do this?”
Her breath rattled. “In dream world. He poisoned my land, land. Nothing will live now.” Her eyes closed. “Name is Destry.”
I was close enough that she could have grabbed me. I bent to a knee and put a hand on her arm. She didn’t flinch.
“Destry, I can’t help you,” I said. “I have no magic.”
Her laugh was wet and pain-filled. “You do. You like mother. Powerful, powerful. I recognize you. Think you her.” Under my hand, I could feel her heart beating, but it slowed with each second that passed.
“Dying, dying,” she whispered. “Emperor will destroy all land. Your mother stop him. You stop him.”
I pressed harder against her arm. “I’m just a cat.”
“No. You magic,” she whispered.
“Magic cat?” I asked.
She gurgled and it took me a moment to realize she was laughing. “Magic pussy.”
I snorted and shook my head. “Dirty to the end.”
“Destry last of clan Bonebreaker.” She lifted the hand across from me and reached under her loincloth. I watched warily until she pulled from underneath it a small drawstring bag. “Give you this, this.”
She held out the drawstring to me and I took it. As it touched my hands it shrunk from the size of a large boulder to the size of an apple. Still warm from being against her skin, I rolled it in my hand.
“What is it?”
“Magic dust . . . make you see the magic in you. Sprinkle on skin. Make you strong, strong.”
I stared at the pouch and her arm flopped to the ground. I pressed a hand against her arm again. Her heart stuttered. I would have been her last meal. Her last attempt at survival.
And now she’d given me something that was important to her.
Fuck, and now I was tearing up. “I’m sorry for stealing your jewel.”
“No sorry.” She breathed out. “Jewel bad, bad.” Her eyes flicked open and she looked at me. “Sorry I try eat you. Can’t help it. Giant stomach.”
I smiled and she smiled back and the light flickered and died behind her eyes. In the night, the black of her iris gave one last final flare and then faded. Silent.
Her body shuddered and a new stench filled the air as her body let loose the last of its hold on life. I backed away, clutching the small bag to me.
I stood there a long time, close enough to watch over her, but not so close the smell reached me unless I took a deep breath. Destry of the Bonebreakers was a queen who’d died because the Emperor demanded his dues, and she refused.
I’d refused him twice now.
Shit, I was in trouble if he asked me again.
The pouch she gave me I tucked under my cloak. Magic dust; it was probably ground-up psychedelic mushrooms. But you never knew when a little magic would come in handy.
I took a few steps back from her. All I had left was a verse I remembered from when someone died of old age in the pride. I put two fingers to my mouth, then knelt and pressed them to the ground. “May you meet your ancestors in death, Destry, and may they hold you tight and not turn you away from your final place among the stars.”
The ground rumbled and cracked around her body, splitting in all directions. I stepped back fast, my eyes locked on the vines that erupted out of the ground and wrapped around her body.
Whispering vines that spoke of blood and power.
Laughing softly as they drove into her body like spears. Horror froze me as I watched them suck her blood, the vines bulging as they gulped her down, and her body shrinking right in front of my eyes.
This was the Emperor.
This was the death he would bring to our world if he were released. Which meant I couldn’t kill Marsum. I couldn’t take his jewel, no matter what anyone else said.
The sound of hoof beats turned me around. “Lila?” I shouted for her, thinking that maybe she’d turned around and come back without Maks. Because she’d not been gone long enough to have found him.
“Run!” Lila screamed. “He’s got other Jinn and the hyenas with him! They’ve got Balder.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lila’s shout didn’t give me much warning. But the idea that Maks had already hooked up with other Jinn was bad. Worse than bad was that they’d somehow snagged the hyenas.
I gave a low whistle for Balder. He whinnied off to my right as the three horses and riders circled me, a hyena chained to each. The werehyenas were, to say the least, pissed. They snapped and snarled, lunging at the end of their long chains.
I let my eyes go to Maks first. He was not on Balder, but another Jinn was. I glared at him. “That’s my horse.”
I gave a three-toned shrill whistle and Balder reared up, going from well-trained war horse to bucking bronco in 2.2 seconds. The other Jinn I didn’t recognize shot forward on a big black horse. That Jinn held his hand out and mist poured from his fingers.
Lila screamed
and I twisted to find her held tightly by Maks. He held her in front of him, wrapped up so her wings were bound flat against her body.
I reached for the flail but the mist hit me first, pinning my arms to my ribs. I shifted to my cat form and howled as I fell on my face, my front legs stuck back to my sides. I squirmed and fought, shifted back to two legs and booted the Jinn in the face as he bent close.
“That’s right, keep fighting. It’ll give me something to blame the bruises on.” The Jinn leaned over me, pale blue eyes visible and all but glowing in the dark. I snapped a knee up and caught him in the side, flipping him away from me.
“Vic, I told you to just pin her down.” Maks sounded tired, and then the bands on me tightened and my eyes shot to him. His hand was held out to me and thick gray sparkling mist danced around his fingers. My legs jerked together and my hands were forced to my back as tightly as if they were using iron bands.
Lila let out a roar that was both pitiful and heartbreaking. Defeat was not a good look on either of us. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see Maks’s face. I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t think about the betrayal he was clearly showing us. Maybe it was all Marsum. Maybe it wasn’t.
“Kill the dragon, Maks,” one of the Jinn said.
“NO!” I screamed the word and my eyes popped open wide. Whatever defiance and strength left in me came surging to the surface. I rolled around so I was on my butt, then rocked back onto my shoulders and flipped up onto my feet.
The werehyenas chattered their maniacal laughter at me.
I wobbled. “No, I need her with me.”
“We don’t need her,” the Jinn that went by Vic said. He looked at me. “What will you give me for her life?”
“The flail,” I whispered. “Take the flail.”
“No!” Lila yelled. “You need that!”
Vic tipped his head to the side. “What flail?”
I twisted so he could see my back. “The flail of Marsum.”
He crowed and I was jerked off my feet as he snagged the flail. I whispered softly, “Take his life, please.”
Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3) Page 15