“My love,” Diana’s voice whispered huskily, drawing his attention with another fragrant cloud, there seemed almost to be a thread of impatience to her voice in that one word. “Don’t make me wait. I need you.”
“Yes,” he murmured, his cock surging impatiently.
It didn’t matter why he was wearing the armor. He would be divested of it quickly enough. He pulled away its lacings and let it drop loudly to the floor. She sighed happily, a rosy mist exiting from her mouth as she drew nearer, her hand stretching out toward him. Enticing him nearer. He was nearly close enough that if he sprung forward, he would be able to pull her up into his arms.
“Silvas?” a familiar voice called. It sounded strained with tension and he scowled. Who was interrupting his intimate time with his mate?
He growled low and menacingly as he turned away from his mate. He would deal with the intruder and then return to sink into Diana’s sweet heat. He scowled as he was unable to focus on the stranger. Their figure blurred and warped every time he tried to focus on them. It had to be a threat. He didn’t know of any being within the Eternal Forest who had such capability. He bristled with hostility as his eyes narrowed on the threat.
“It’s a terrible monster, my love,” Diana whispered behind his back in a soft breathy voice. “Show me your strength and dispatch it quickly and return to me. I will show you such pleasure. It has been ages since I’ve had a strong male in my bower.”
He cocked his head at the strange turn of phrase, but he couldn’t afford to be distracted now. His lips curled back from his teeth as he advanced on the stranger.
Chapter 25
Diana froze as she watched Silvas stalk toward her, his expression a picture of utter menace. Just moments before he had been talking to the shadows just beyond her line of sight. She thought she heard a voice emerge, but she had had difficulty catching the words. His agreement, though, had been clear. Her heart thumped painfully behind her ribs. For an instant, he paused. He cocked his head and he slowed slightly, but once more the air filled with the sickeningly sweet smell and his expression once again became aggressive, the gray bands in his eyes blown out more than she had ever seen before.
Fear pounding painfully in her chest, she raised her arrow in a warning. “Silvas? What’s gotten into you?” A perplexed look crossed his face and she felt a shift of awareness along their bond as if he were fighting with himself, but it was fleeting as his brow drew down and his face hardened. Her stomach sank as she realized that he was staring at her without any recognition. Instead, he was advancing on her as if she were the enemy.
His posture radiated hostility. His head tilted forward, brandishing his dangerous antlers, and his long tail was slashing through the air behind him.
“Please,” she choked out. “Please, stop. I don’t want to hurt you.”
His lips peeled back in a cruel snarl and he lengthened his stride.
He wasn’t stopping!
She choked on a fearful cry at the way his face wrinkled in a terrible grimace. The angle of his head cast much of it in dark shadows, all except those glowing white eyes and the teeth flashing at her. She stumbled back, her arrow dropping free to the cavern floor at her sudden retreat. She noted its fall with dismay but didn’t take the time to stop and retrieve it. She shied away, uncertain in the face of his fury, her mind desperately trying to grapple with the sudden change that had overcome him.
The male who faced her was a stranger to her. His hand tightened around his sword, his face a terrible mask of fury. This was not the same male whose hands and mouth had studied every inch of her body, or who held her close to his chest. In his eyes, she was a threat, and his reaction was terrifying. Her breath escaped her in a small cry as she noted that her attempts to evade him had successfully back her into a corner of the cave with little opportunity to escape.
Desperately she cast her gaze behind him. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she immediately stilled as she saw a woman grinning triumphantly. Her crimson lips were stretched inhumanely wide, her large yellow eyes gleaming in the dark like a predator. Diana was out of time.
With a roar, Silvas leaped forward, his sword arcing through the air. A cry tearing from her lips, Diana tugged sharply on the bond between them as she raised her bow to block the downward swing of the blade. Power flooded her, and she pushed every bit of it through her as the weapons connected violently. The resulting crack of the strike from where the bow slapped the flat side of the sword was thunderous as power unleashed and rolled, bringing loose rocks falling to the cavern floor. Diana’s eyebrows winged upward as the sword, knocked free from his grip, skidding loudly against the rocky ground some distance away.
Silvas’s head turned, his gaze tracking the movement of the sword only briefly before he turned back toward her with a furious roar. Diana, possessing a good idea of the source of her sudden strength, whispered an apology as she yanked on their bond again, infusing herself once more with incredible strength. Without hesitation, she raised the tip of her bow, striking him full-strength against the cheek, providing the opening to dart out of the way with an unaccustomed burst of speed.
She teared up, knowing that she wouldn’t get far. Already she could hear Silvas’s snarl and the slide of his boots across the floor as he headed toward her, preparing to attack again. She was under no illusions. She would not be able to hold out in a long-term fight against him. She ran blindly, knowing that at any moment Silvas would catch up to her. It was humbling to know that if he hadn’t finished bonding with her, she would already have been caught. She could hear his boots getting louder as he quickly closed the distance between them.
“Destroy the intruder!” the woman screamed, her voice rising into a terrible shriek. Another burst of mist shot from her mouth and thickened as it hit the air.
Diana felt something within her stutter, and then her perception sharpened as she focused on the woman. There seemed to be a shift in the air around the lithe figure that almost reminded Diana of a mirage. She was not what she seemed, and she was using Silvas. This had to be the sorcery of the strix. The woman’s mouth parted impossibly wide, jagged teeth showing between the perfect lips in an enormous, devouring maw. Immediately she could envision the child-eating creature hiding behind the beautiful illusion.
“Eat this, bitch,” Diana bit out as she pulled a new arrow from her quiver.
Pressing her lips together, she raised her bow and pulled the string taut. Her breath still in her. Sighting down her arrow, she took aim, and released the arrow as she exhaled. The sharp snap of the string sounded overly loud to her as it sent the arrow soaring toward its target. She watched it fly free as a hard body slammed against hers. The rake of claws burned where they dug into her flesh, but she smiled as a pained cry filled the air.
The weight above her shifted and Silvas bellowed loudly as if in agony.
Chapter 26
Anguish filled Silvas as he watched the arrow slice through the air toward his mate. Her cry shattered through him as it hit true, burrowing into her chest. A burst of power followed so strongly that he crouched low, every part of him crying out to reach his mate and try to save her. He dug his claws deeper into his enemy, hatred filling him as he watched his mate stumble back. Power wavered around Diana and he frowned in confusion, a sharp pain piercing his head as the air rippled and blasted from around her.
In that blast, the world around him shattered. Bewildered, he watched as his private chambers fragmented and fell away, leaving only coarse gray stone. A sickness filled his stomach. If this had all been an illusion… He looked toward his mate. Where Diana had stood a monstrous female shrieked and pulled at the arrow lodged in her breast.
Silvas shook his head in denial. Where was his uxorem?
A feminine whimper of pain reached his ears and he looked down, his chest seizing painfully as he beheld his mate. Blood welled up around his claws, and though he hadn’t yet dug them in terribly deep, he could clearly see the wounds left up
on her delicate skin and the tracks of blood staining her flesh red.
His hand fell away briefly before he hauled her up firmly into his arms. Fear flooded her, and the rancorous scent filled his lungs. She obviously thought that he was still under the influence of the strix.
“Shh, I have returned to myself. All because of you,” he whispered against her skin.
She held herself stiffly in his arms for but a moment longer before relief filled him as her weight sank against him. A low sob rushed from her, tearing into his heart. Silvas clutched her tightly to his chest. He didn’t want to consider what could have happened if she hadn’t broken the enchantment. He had been certain that he was fighting a threat and had been prepared to deal with it accordingly. It had seemed so real. He had no doubt that the magic was being fueled by the power of Nocis. No ordinary strix would have been able to deceive a god so easily.
If the problem didn’t lie within himself.
That was an unsettling thought. Had he spent so much time refusing his proper place that he had become weakened as any other immortal? If that were the case it was no wonder the Eternal Forest was so vulnerable to attack.
Straightening, his eyes narrowed on the creature who had caught him in her illusion. He heard Diana scramble to her feet at his side. Never taking more than part of his attention off the strix, he shot his mate a warning look, cautioning her to stay back. In his peripheral vision he watched as she curled her lip in disgust and surmised that she wasn’t going to listen to him. He comforted himself with the fact that, although she was a bloody mess, she wasn’t nursing any gaping wounds. He cut her a disapproving look which she completely ignored.
Silvas grit his teeth, but after what had just happened, he didn’t feel like he had any grounds to rebuke her, nor could he argue with the fact that she had most likely saved them both. Swallowing his objections, he slid his body between his uxorem and the strix with a clear warning growl rising in his throat as he faced off with the monstrous sorceress.
Her wings flapping angrily, letting loose pale gray feathers into the air with every burst. Even as he stepped forward, she stilled, her wings laying monetarily limp at her sides as she turned her head, following his advance.
As he stalked toward her, Silvas noticed that the centuries had not been kind to the strix. He suspected that the illusion of the beautiful dark-haired woman in the feathered cloak bore some semblance to what she had looked like when she had obtained the sword: fertile, ripe womanhood at the height of her beauty. It was clearly not a new ruse for her. She had attempted to use that illusion against him, but had switched tactics quickly when her power failed to take hold of him. It was only when she had adopted the guise of Diana that she had found a weakness to exploit.
Now, however, there was no hiding what she was, and how the magic of the sword had unnaturally twisted her. She was not made to wield such divine power. Her skin hung withered from her frame, and she suffered from large balding spots not only in the feathers on her body but also in the mane of hair that fell from her head. Only clumps of scraggly white hair remained. Rheumy yellow eyes focused on him shrewdly, yet there was something off in those depths. While Nocis had extended her life unnaturally it had not kept her young, healthy, or sane. Madness gleamed in her yellow eyes as she watched him, her wings jumping excitedly at his every step.
Wheezing as she held a withered arm over her wound, a wild cackle of laughter escaped her. Mora swung her head rhythmically but with no purpose, her dark gray lips pulling back from the jagged remains of her teeth. Though her limbs were thin, her torso was bloated. From her condition, he suspected that more was left to rot from her meals than what she had succeeded in bolting down. Few of her teeth were left, and her lethal claws were broken down to fragments. His stomach turned as he imagined the pain that her victims had suffered, slowly bleeding out from where the broken claws ripped and scoured them rather than the quick brutal death that the species was known for. Parts of her mouth were stained with rot, saliva slipping frequently from her gaping mouth. Mora was a terrible shadow of the lethal, regal nature of a strix.
He felt another unfamiliar twinge of guilt.
All of this because he had rejected his purpose and discarded Nocis.
Silvas met her eyes, the sword in his hand held out from his side, ready to strike. “Where is the sword Nocis?” he demanded, his voice rolling through the cave.
“You will not take mine,” she spat, dark fluid flying from her lips as the raspy words were barked in a shrill voice at him. “You will die. Your pain will be mine to feast upon, your sorrow as I kill your female the wine that I shall drink. And then I will tear your flesh and swallow you until you are nothing more than rot and filth to be scraped from the floor.”
“Looks like we are going to have to get it the hard way,” Diana commented in a hard voice.
His eyes cut to his mate and her lips thinned, her hand tightening around her bow. She gave a slow nod of her head. She would follow his lead.
Keeping the tip of his sword pointed toward the floor, he moved closer, circling. As he circled, his eyes strayed around the nest, looking for any sign of the sword. Wherever she had it, she kept it hidden well away. He could feel the pulse of its power, but his eyes could not locate it. A wave of power rocked the cavern as Mora raised her wings, snapping them with a burst of power. Energy arched through every blast, blue tendrils lighting up the air. The power contained the distinct bite of Nocis and it called to something in Silvas’s blood.
He snarled as he braced himself against the current of power. Nearby, Diana wrapped her arms around a column to keep her steady on her feet, her bow clattering against the stonework as she maintained her grip on it.
Mora’s voice broke into a series of sharp words, and a blast sent both Silvas and Diana flying back to a far wall, their bodies impacting loudly. His breath whooshed out of his lungs and his mate’s cry was mostly drowned out by the percussions of power that continued to hit them.
Baring his teeth, Silvas felt his fangs and claws grow, energy pulsating from his antlers as he swept a clawed hand forward against another lash of energy. His magic burst from where his claws struck the ether. Each time he struck out with the aetheric claws, the blood red lines of power rolled through the air until they slashed into the strix. Mora shrieked, her body jerking.
An arrow whistled by his head. It startled him briefly, but a grin stretched wildly across his lips at the spark of aelven power that flowed from the forged tip. There was no way to guess how Diana’s power would manifest, but the sparks of aelven light that sprayed in its wake stirred an excitement within him. It sunk deep and the strix writhed with a blood-curdling scream. Diana immediately loosed another, her aim true as Silvas darted forward to drive his sword into the soft belly of the strix and end her life.
The sword struck, releasing a thick flow of black ichor over his hands. Mora jerked away, dislodging the blade as she struck out, sending a wall of wind tearing into him with the tiny stones from the cavern floor. Disoriented, he swung his blade again, taking pleasure in the way it bit into her once more, but the strix bared her teeth. Even as she twisted in pain, she slapped him away with her wing. A piercing shriek filled his head with bolts of pain.
At his side, Diana cried out as she crumpled. He turned to make his way back to his mate, but she flashed him a savage snarl as she drew to her feet once more. Tears of pain streaming down her cheeks, she raised her bow and let loose another series of arrows. Half missed their target, but the satisfying sounds of the hits echoed through the cave.
The strix’s shrill cry ended with a wet, choked sound as Mora gurgled, two arrows buried in her throat. Claws raked down the flesh in an attempt to dislodge them, blood spewing. Silvas sent another volley of aetheric claws that had Mora stumbling back, her feathers darkening as the blood seeped from her copious wounds. But still, she stood!
Circling around, he stepped close to his mate, his eyes scanning the strix. Between his sword, his aetheric cl
aws, and the aelven arrows, the strix should have been brought down many times, even if drawing the power of Nocis from wherever it was hidden in her nest. Cursing, Diana tossed aside her bow, her quiver empty. Pulling out her sword, she gave it a slow practice swing to warm up her shoulder. She gave him a small, tight smile, her own blood streaking down her body, not only from the wounds he had inflicted in his madness but also from the strix’s magic ripping into her.
“Silvas… I don’t know how long…”
A soft smile curved his lips. Even wearied she was at his side. He couldn’t ask for more in a mate. Perhaps his mother’s meddling had worked in his favor after all. Reaching a hand for her, his thumb caressed her cheek. “Only for as long as you can manage,” he murmured. “When you cannot, find a place to hide until it is finished. I will protect you, uxorem. You’ve done more than enough.”
Her lips parted as she met his eyes, but after a considerable pause, she nodded in agreement.
Dropping his hand, he squinted around the room, his eyes skimming over the strix attempting to steady herself. “If only I knew where it was,” he muttered. Turning his gaze back toward Mora, he stiffened at the sight of the large strix charging toward them. Her claws reached outward, the broken remnants hooking as her mouth opened wide soundlessly. Without her enchanted voice, she was falling back on her most basic attack.
Silvas stepped away from Diana as they both raised their swords. When the strix leaped forward, they moved together as one, striking, driving their swords into the creature. Silvas reached up and dug the claws of his opposite hand into Mora’s wing. A papery tearing sound rang out as he wrenched the wing, tearing it viciously with the full force of his strength. Blood splashed as the strix gurgled pitifully, her yellow eyes shining with hate.
Forest of Spirits Page 17