Hearts & Wishes

by Shiloh Walker

  Passing out around a zealous maniac just didn’t seem a good idea. But she couldn’t fight it too much longer. As her body seemed to get heavier with every passing second, her head started to spin.

  Fighting was only going to exhaust her sooner but even knowing that, she clawed at his hands and struggled to break free. Everything whirled around her and her vision darkened and then abruptly brightened but it was ridiculously fuzzy.

  The crushing pressure in her lungs, the desperate need for oxygen, released with a speed that left her head reeling. At first she didn’t realize he’d let her go and then she sagged, falling down to the ground, sucking in sweet, sweet air. Sweet cold air.

  Sunlight dazzled off the snow and she squinted up at Bordelain, then all around them. A mountain?

  Shit. The bastard had teleported them while he was smothering her. She hadn’t even realized it. His lips curled in a cold smile. “This is one of my few safe places left that haven’t been discovered by your father or his blasted warriors. Ever been to the Rocky Mountains, Holly?”

  Mute, she shook her head.

  “A pity. A lovely place. You won’t be enjoying this visit, I’m afraid.” He bent low and when he would have touched her, she cringed away.

  Bordelain hesitated and then moved with blurring speed, fisting a hand in her hair and jerking her close. She felt the burning in her mind as he forged inside, battering down her shields with pitiful ease. The power inside him was staggering—too huge and too inexorable to fight.

  She tried to anyway but it accomplished nothing as he tore through her mind and effectively bound her magic—then wrenched at it.

  “Takes more than just one elf to contain magic permanently, but only one to rip it out. Too bad for you, Holly. I’ve more need of your magic than you.”

  She screamed in agony, shuddering as part of her was ripped out, as if he’d torn a chunk of her flesh. He might as well have, it hurt so much.

  His words were a jumbling rush, making little sense as they rattled around inside her skull. He let go and she fell back, totally drained, into the cold, hard-packed snow. The cold air bit into her flesh like knives. Her body, no longer used to frigid temperatures, seemed to freeze to the point of sluggishness and she could barely move.

  “Weak fool.”

  “Fucker,” she muttered, arguing with the voices inside her head. Most of her life, she’d known that was what most people saw when they looked at her. A weak, spineless piece of fluff. Stupid, helpless and spoiled.

  Now, as she lay shivering and weakened in the snow, weakened by his assault on her mind, those words burned inside her as though they were embers.

  “What did you say, Holly?” Bordelain asked, his tone bored. He nudged her with the toe of his boot. “You really do need to call out to your daddy, dear girl. Don’t worry, he’ll hear you. I only stripped away some of your power. You can call him. He’ll feel you. He’ll sense your pain and your need if you call for him.”

  She swallowed. Shook her head. She sure as hell was not doing that.

  “Come now. Don’t be stubborn. I’ll make you scream eventually, might as well save yourself the pain. Scream for him. He’ll rush to save you and if I know anything about that elf, it’s that he’s too hotheaded. He’ll come to you…” His voice had turned soft and cajoling.

  Yeah. She knew Nikolai would come for her. Come in blindly. But it wasn’t her father’s name dancing inside her mind.

  Crouching down, Bordelain stared at her. “Is it really worth suffering over? Do you have any idea how painful it is to have the magic ripped out? It’s like having an arm torn clear off your body and no way to stop the bleeding but you can’t die from this. You’ll only wish for death. Bring him to me…and perhaps I’ll go a bit easier on you.”

  She shuddered, doubled over and wrapped her arms around her middle, tried to think past the pain. Couldn’t let him control her like this. No, she couldn’t do that. A weird snarling sound echoed around her, bouncing through the mountains, growing louder and louder and then a scream shattered the air.

  Her scream, as Bordelain kicked her, aiming the blow right in her lower back. “Scream for him, you stupid little bitch!”

  She screamed…for Rhys. Again.

  Chapter Eight

  Torn out of a self-induced trance, Rhys felt her scream even before he heard the echo of it in his mind.

  She was in agony.

  And reaching for him, forging a link between them that, while new, was stronger than anything he’d ever felt. Using his telepathy, he strengthened the bond and followed it.

  Following that link and the agony he sensed coming from her, was like following the flickering light of a candle left to burn in the window in the dead of night. Faint at first, but as he moved closer and closer, the light of her agony burned stronger and hotter. Hot enough that he had to fight to urge to howl as he sensed the depths of her pain.

  What had been done to her?

  He couldn’t tell.

  She was cold—shivering and shaking with it—so cold that it bit into her like a pack of ferocious goblins, ripping and tearing. He didn’t waste time trying to establish a deep enough link to speak with her. No sense in it.

  Something had happened to her, he could feel it, though he didn’t know what.

  Whatever strange bond had forged between them was too new for that. But he didn’t need to speak with her to find her. He hadn’t ever done any tracking using far-sight first but he didn’t need it now.

  The soothing creams and maroons of his hotel room faded away, replaced by a sky of eye-searing blue and mountain peaks covered with blinding-white blankets of snow.

  It was cold, but he was only barely aware.

  There was no way cold could really penetrate, not with the heat of his anger warming him as he saw Lain standing over Holly’s huddled form, drawing back his foot to kick her.

  There was a huge rock, several feet in diameter. Rhys reached out with his mind and jerked it up. Heavier than hell but he never even felt the weight of it as he sent it hurling toward Lain.

  Lain’s own insanity must have deadened his senses because he never seemed to sense Rhys’ presence until he heard the whistling of the air as the rock came flying toward him.

  He spun and threw up a hand but he wasn’t fast enough to deflect it. The rock struck him, and powered by Rhys’ magic, the rock and Lain’s body went flying back. There was a sickening thud as Lain crashed into another rock, this one the size of a car.

  His head smacked back but Lain was purely elfish. His bones were as dense as steel and, though the blow left him temporarily dazed, it didn’t stop him.

  Rhys’ lips peeled back from his teeth. That was just fine. He wanted to stop Lain. Stop him by ripping the man limb from limb, by painting the pristine white snow red with blood.

  Lain shoved up off the rock, braced his legs and stared at Rhys. Rhys lunged for him, howling like a wolf and taking the other man down. He drove a fist upward, just below the rib cage, striking toward the kidneys. His head went snapping back as Lain lashed out, punching Rhys in the nose.

  Blood flowed, his eyes watered and temporarily blinded, Rhys struck by instinct, balling up his fist and punching Lain in the throat. A harsh, gagging sound filled the air and Rhys shook his head, clearing his vision and then he held out a hand. A plate-sized rock flew into his hand and he used it as a club on Lain’s face.

  An enraged, pain-filled scream echoed through the air.

  An ominous rumble echoed around them but neither of the men heard and if they did, they paid it little attention.

  Higher up the mountain, little bits of rock and snow started to slide.

  * * * * *

  Bryan hadn’t lied when he’d said he would know if Holly was in danger. But this came without warning, slamming into him like a punch. He teleported, following his bond with Holly, ending up in what looked like a hotel room, the walls painted a soft cream, rich, deep red velvet hanging from the windows and covering the unmade
bed.

  But Holly wasn’t here.

  There was a hell of a lot of pain in the air—pain that somebody had attempted to shield from prying eyes. It probably worked just fine on those who had psychic gifts rather than empathic but it hit Bryan like a double-fisted punch, laying him low and leaving him half sick.

  Whoever it was, was already dead. The stinking nimbus of death still lingered in the air and Bryan could do nothing to help. Something rippled in the air and he recognized the feel of Rhys’ magic but five more heartbeats in here was going to drive Bryan mad.

  He teleported out, letting his magic carry him away to someplace dark, quiet and peaceful, just for a minute. Just long enough to shore up his shields and brace himself.

  Then he focused on Holly again.

  It was faint but the connection was there. Something was terribly wrong, though and as he followed the link, he finally figured out what it was.

  Her magic.

  Half of it ripped away—painfully so—leaving her half in shock from the pain.

  The rest of her shock came from the cold. It hit him—a vicious bitch, punching him right in the chest. Instead of cringing away from it, he let it in, let his body welcome the cold and add an additional buffer between the agony he’d left behind him and the agony that lay before him.

  Holly huddled on the ground, her face nearly as white as the snow she lay in and her eyes so dark they appeared black in her face.

  As he ran toward her, he felt the rumbling in the earth. Foreboding filled him as he shot a look up the peak. It was far off still but eyesight sharpened by his mixed blood saw it well enough.

  A wall of ice, snow and rock, coming toward them with a force that would obliterate everything in its path. Including them. Grabbing Holly out of the snow, he turned and faced the men currently trying to kill each other.

  Bordelain—his gut pitched and rolled as he stared at the man responsible for half this mess, a man who had threatened his father and made the old man so damn paranoid with fear and worry that he’d put his family through hell. Trying to protect them, but hell was hell, regardless of the intentions and skewed logic.

  Let the snow come for that one, Bryan didn’t care. An avalanche would kill an elf as easily as it killed mortals. But he couldn’t leave Rhys.

  Bryan squinted his eyes, focused on Lain. The man was a bottomless pit of rage, a skewed self-righteous sense of justice, a convoluted mess of blind zeal. He might have been sane once but as Bryan let the man’s emotions wrap around him, he knew that Bordelain had kissed sanity goodbye long ago.

  He might be totally closed off from sanity but he could still feel.

  Bryan’s gift didn’t work very well as a weapon, at least not in the long run, because people always found ways to fight through emotions they couldn’t accept. But all Bryan needed was a few seconds. Hell, all he had was a few seconds.

  As the shaking in the earth increased and the rush of snow and ice became a roar in the air, he gathered Bordelain’s emotions and wove them into an ugly web, flinging it at the man. Bordelain had managed to flip Rhys over and was trying to choke him but Rhys continued to fight, seemingly unhampered by the hands around his neck as he pummeled Bordelain’s rib cage and torso with vicious strikes.

  Bordelain flung himself back from Rhys, shrieking, sobbing like a lost child. Rhys moved to follow but Bryan intercepted him. Jerking his chin up toward the encroaching ice, Bryan didn’t bother saying a word.

  Rhys’ eyes flew wide.

  Neither of them wasted another breath of time. They teleported out just as the snow and ice came rushing at them. Bryan’s last sight of Bordelain was watching the man stagger to his feet, his back to the coming snow, and seeing the force of it strike.

  Even with his enhanced vision, he couldn’t track what happened to Bordelain. With any luck, the snow pulverized his body. And with any sense of justice, it hurt like hell.

  * * * * *

  “We didn’t have much choice,” Bryan said quietly as he let Rhys take Holly’s still, rigid body the moment they alit within North Hall. The solarium was quiet this time of day, the soothing sounds of a water garden drifting through the air and the occasional sound of birdsong.

  It was warmer in here, more like true summer instead of the everlasting, artificial spring that was present in the rest of the environome. Small tropical trees and plants grew in abundance but the peaceful atmosphere made little difference to Rhys as he sent Bryan a cutting look. “There was no reason to bring her here just yet, Bryan. I can take care of her.”

  Shaking his head, Bryan said, “She needs a healer. Bordelain used his own magic to strip some of hers out—he gutted her energy level, probably planning to strip her completely and take her magic for himself. A nice nap and a pat on the back aren’t going to heal that. She’s hurt. We can’t see it but I can feel it. She needs healing.”

  Snarling, Rhys spun away, dipping his head low to press his cheek to Holly’s. She was so still. Through the fragile bond, he could feel the pain as it cut into her and he wished a thousand bloody deaths on Lain.

  But the bastard was buried under ice, rock and snow and in all likelihood, dead almost instantly. Instant was too damn good for the likes of that bastard but what could Rhys do? He couldn’t bring the dead back to life and he couldn’t turn back time.

  She whimpered—a pitiful tortured sound low in her throat—and curled into him. Her fingers clutched at his shirt, squeezing tightly and her body tensed as taut as a bow string.

  “Shhh,” he murmured against her hair. “Hush, precious. I’ll make the pain go away, I promise.”

  He sent Bryan a commanding look. “Do something, damn it.”

  Bryan crossed to them.

  “I’ve already called for Ganessa,” he said. Bryan’s mouth twisted in a grimace and he added, “But we’ll have company before she gets here.”

  Rhys watched as Bryan brushed his fingers across Holly’s brow. The only physical sign of pain that Bryan showed as he forced a wall between Holly and the agony burning inside her was a slight tightening around his eyes. Bryan wasn’t any kind of healer but anything that dealt with emotions, he could manipulate, including pain. The pain had to be borne, though and as Holly relaxed in his arms, Rhys knew where the pain had gone.

  Voice gruff, he told Bryan, “Thank you.”

  A faint smile quirked the younger man’s lips. “Don’t thank me yet, Rhys.”

  The sound of footsteps drawing nearer, fast, had Rhys scowling once more.

  “Don’t let me kill him, Bryan,” he said flatly. “Holly wouldn’t be too happy and since she just agreed to marry me, I don’t want her pissed off at me yet.”

  “Congratulations—and let me advise you of the same. Also, good luck and you’re fucking crazy, Rhys.”

  The door to the solarium crashed open with a force that echoed throughout the room. Birds squawked in alarm and then fell into silence. The very air around them chilled as Nikolai stalked into the room, black hair streaming behind him, his face an emotionless mask.

  When he saw Holly, he paused.

  A look of terror entered his eyes and Bryan moved to intercept his father.

  “She’s fine, Da. Just needs some healing.”

  Nik moved around Bryan and went to grab her from Rhys. “Give her to me.”

  But Rhys couldn’t. Letting go of her would be like willing his heart to stop. He just couldn’t do it. Instead, he cradled her protectively against him and partially turned, shielding her from her father.

  Nik’s eyes narrowed. But anything that he might have done or said was interrupted as Ganessa glided into the room. The strongest healer among them, Ganessa had been the one to save Bryan’s life when he’d been so badly hurt as a boy. She’d also restored his hearing, something that modern human medicine had been unable to fix. Soothing and peaceful, she still commanded attention when she entered a room and this time was no different.

  Silently, she moved to stand by Rhys, reaching up to lay a hand on H
olly’s head. Her features were smooth, carefully blank. Holly could have been bleeding internally, her life leeching away and one would never know by looking at Ganessa. “Poor girl. Come, Rhys. Let’s find a place to lay her down so I can do something about all that pain.”

  “What’s going on?” Nik growled.

  But Rhys had no patience to explain and even less desire to say much of anything to Nik. Friend or not, her father or not, his stubbornness was what had made Holly run away from the Reach and at the worst possible time. Until he could face his old friend without wanting to strangle him, Rhys figured it was best he keep some distance between them.

  He left the solarium, following along behind Ganessa, holding Holly as though she was made of spun glass. Behind him, he heard Bryan’s low, steady voice, making explanations, keeping it short.

  Bryan managed to stall his father enough so that when Rhys laid Holly on a bed in a nearby room, Nik didn’t have time to claim the chair across from Ganessa as the healer settled down to examine Holly. Rhys sat on the bed, holding one still, pale hand in his, staring at Holly’s face. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Nik took a position at the foot of the bed, watching Holly with equal parts of relief and worry.

  And speculation.

  Every so often, Rhys felt Nik’s gaze slide to him, felt the weight of Nik’s thoughts pressing down on him. Nik was no fool. Rhys’ protectiveness and his refusal to turn Holly over to her father was pretty much all it would take for Nik to figure out the way of things.

  The air in the room grew colder, tighter, as Nik’s rage started to grow.

  Time passed. Minutes ticked away until easily an hour had come and gone. When Ganessa took a deep breath and straightened away from the bed, Nik demanded, “Is she well?”

  Ganessa smiled. “She is. Or rather, she will be when she wakes up.” Her gaze slid to Rhys’ face and then to Bryan’s. “There is a great deal of pain inside her, though, pain that I can do nothing about. I cannot ease matters of the heart.” Her last words were directed at Nik and her eyes, soft and brown, darkened. “The wounds there need to be dealt with before they fester and scar.”