Shifters After Dark Box Set

by S M Reine et al.

  From the corner of my eye I saw the woman with the babe shove it into the arms of the second woman, then approach with a look of disgust.

  “Rutting pig,” she muttered, quite distinctly.

  Grabbing the man mauling me, she pulled him off and made quick work of the wrist tie herself. By the set of her jaw, I knew I had no friend in her, but the man…

  I tried to catch his gaze, but couldn’t. Head hung low and eyes downcast, he was clearly ashamed at having been thrust aside by the woman. “Please, you know I’m no witch or demon. Did my flesh feel evil? Do I have any whiff of hell about me?”

  I saw him start to raise his head, whether in assent or not I would never know for the woman slapped me, hard, across the mouth, then forced a piece of rope between my teeth. The sharp fibers cut into the corners of my lips as she tied a tight knot at the back of my head, yanking strands of hair in the process.

  She pushed me forward, my hip protesting, giving out as I stumbled. I tried to catch myself on the knee of my good leg, but the weight and momentum made my balance ungainly. I fell instead, only able to twist at the last to land on my upper arm rather than on my face.

  More pain, more bruises sure to come.

  Two men returned, bearing large stones, easily the weight of a grown wolf each.

  “Take her to the river,” Gunter ordered the man who only moments before I thought might be my benefactor. I tried again to catch his eyes, my own pleading with desperation, when he glanced my way. But he averted his gaze and focused instead on a point of my body that would neither guilt him into acceding to my plea nor tempt him again into his arousal.

  He hoisted me to his shoulder and traipsed behind the men carrying the stones. The women followed, their younglings in tow. When I turned my head, I saw the small boy, Cavin, solemn-eyed, pacing beside his mother, her dirty skirt clutched in his small hand. I had thought the parents might perhaps spare their children this. The fae would not have, though, so I could not fault these women for teaching their children the honesty of what they were and what they did.

  At the river’s edge, the man holding me slid me unceremoniously to the grassy bank. It was not a hard fall nor was it a gentle one. My ribs and hip protested. The man backed hurriedly away, as though I were bathed in flame, not wishing to give the woman with the babe cause to shame him again.

  A stone slammed into the ground beside me, scraping my arm as it came to rest against me. The man who had been carrying it knelt beside me and wrapped a length of rope about the stone. “Waste of a good rope,” he said over my head.

  “Leave a tail of it you can hold to,” Gunter said. “We’ll get it back after.”

  Another stone dropped to my other side, the second man wrapping it with rope too. The first man studied me, not the way the younger one who had been so aroused had, but with a furrow to his brow. “Not much to tie to that it won’t slip off.”

  “Try her neck, then,” Gunter suggested.

  “Oh, aye, that could work.”

  The rough rope snaked around my neck.

  “Make it a slipknot.” Gunter bent closer to watch the preparations.

  My head pounded. The stench of the men, the pain in my body, the closing loop at my throat. But still I recognized the slough of leather and the soft thud of hooves over the sward. And even as my slowed wits came to realize what it meant, the men about me scrambled to their feet.

  “What goes here?” Alain’s clear voice washed over me like a benediction, the restraint in his tone admirable.

  “Caught us a she-witch, we did.” Gunter laid a possessive hand on my head. “She tried to spell Esselt’s boy. So now we’re following God’s law.”

  “I see. That would be the Fifth Commandment?”

  I heard Gunter mumbling his way through them.

  “Something about killing,” Alain prompted.

  “Now look here, that’s about men, not witches or demons. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Seems pretty clear to me. Besides, this is our affair. You have no claim on us.”

  “You mistake if you believe that.” The timbre in Alain’s voice hardened. I struggled to remain conscious.

  “These are free lands and this is my clan. I have a right to rule it as I wish.”

  I tried to remember what weapons Gunter and his men had. Hunting knives certainly. No need to warn Alain and Pel about those as every male on the isle would have a knife or dagger about them. I had seen no swords, and none would have dragged a bow to the river, hauling the stones and me as they had. Gunter’s brave words, then, would be meant to mislead the princes into assuming Gunter had more power in this play than they.

  I heard the soft swish of cloth as either Alain or Pel dismounted.

  “You mean you have a right to rule it as your king wishes. This wood belongs to Pellam, who I remind you, is king here.”

  Gunter spat at the prince’s feet. “It’s borderland. Palatine. It belongs to no one but me.”

  “My brother and I are here to clear up that misconception.”

  “Unless you’re the king himself, I can’t see how you matter.”

  “If you were to know we are the king’s sons and that, while here, we speak for him, perhaps we’d matter then? As I said, this wood is claimed.”

  There was a pause at that, and as I regained my wits, I guessed Gunter was losing his. The fog before my eyes lessened, and I could see Alain staring down the trapper. He stabbed a finger my way. “That woman, too, is claimed and under our protection. Release her.”

  “Your pardon, Highness, but she’s no woman. A witch at best. A demon at worst. Nothing that deserves protection. Unless she’s witched you. If it’s a spell you’re under—”

  The slur of steel against leather sounded loud in my ears. Alain had not moved, so I shifted my gaze to Pel, who now held up his sword is his expert grip.

  “In the name of the king whose blood we share,” Pel said, “we are taking the woman, with your permission or no.” The words were calm and measured; not so the threat in them nor in the blade poised unwavering before him.

  The other men beside me faded from my field of vision as they backed away. Gunter swallowed hard. He was a proud man, and the pain on his face made it clear he acceded only under duress right before he bowed his head and said, “As you wish.”

  Now that my life was no longer forfeit, I turned my head, slowly, to look into the faces of my captors. The youngling Cavin stared back, wide-eyed. For a moment I wondered what of this he would remember, what of this he would tell his children’s children. A great tale of princes and witches and swords drawn in the name of a king.

  Alain was at my side in but a moment, scowling at my wounds. He gestured to the two men who had tied the stones about me. “Undo these ropes then hand her up to me. And if you aren’t gentle in her handling…” He had no need to make the threat clearer, not with Pel standing guard, his sword still drawn.

  Alain patted my hand before he rose to mount his horse. Though I knew I’d be with him again in but a moment, I could hardly bear that he’d left my side so soon. But the trappers were quick at their work and under Pel’s dark stare they lifted me as gently as was possible to Sol’s withers without so much a finger straying inappropriately across my flesh.

  Still, my hip cried out in agony as Alain caught me in his comforting embrace. I bit my lip and whimpered with the pain until I shifted to a position I could tolerate.

  “Comfortable?” he asked. I laid my head against his chest and nodded. We both knew the lie, but it had to be endured for a short time at least. “We’ll go slow,” he assured me as he turned Sol’s head away from the trappers and kneed him into a walk. The generally spirited stallion seemed to know now was not the time to jostle or challenge his riders as he moved off at a slow and even pace. From my eye’s corner I saw Pel, horsed again, following.

  Pel turned in his saddle to face the trappers as we departed. “The wolves of this wood are the king’s. See that you take no more than you need to live. An
d be more merciful in killing them than you intended to be with Brinn.”

  We moved off, in what direction I cared not. I was safe. And once again I owed my life to the princelings to whom I was no longer simply soul bound but heart bound as well.

  23. Brinn

  Once again the earth magic that flowed so freely in my veins stood me in good stead. The same magic that gave such long life to the fae healed my bruises and soothed my hurts within a couple of days. On the third day, my hip was bearing weight.

  Not that the pain was lessened in those first few days for there was pain of its own associated with forcing tissue to heal more swiftly than nature intended. And pain—or at least the memory of it—lingered even after the swelling and bruising subsided.

  The brothers doted over me, bringing me sweet, fat summer berries picked wild from the wood and carp caught fresh from the creek nearby.

  “Don’t,” I pleaded outwardly, though inwardly my heart sang with the attention.

  Traitor heart.

  Did it not remember Edern or what I had yet to do to break this bond?

  I couldn’t afford more debt between us. Gratitude was cost enough. Affection was entirely too dear.

  “Don’t?” Alain repeated, his dark eyes glittering with amusement. “And will you tell us tomorrow not to sleep and the day after not to breathe? How can we not wait upon you?”

  “Why would we not,” Pel added, “when waiting upon you is that which pleasures us most right now?”

  That was a forgivable lie. There was a thing to be done that would pleasure us all even more. The thing we held ourselves against, each in our own way, for our own cause.

  Such displaced honor that we all upheld to our sorrow, not our joy.

  ~ ~ ~

  On the fourth evening I shifted and brought the princelings a brace of quail that had had just gone to roost and were easily taken. They spitted and roasted the birds while I dined on a third. In woman form, I appreciated cooked flesh but the hound craved raw.

  I lay between the brothers while they sat by the fire to eat. Pel absently stroked my ears when I put my chin on his thigh. Alain cooed over my wounded hip that was very nearly well that I presented him as I curled against him. Without thought, he laid a protective hand over the jut of my flank.

  I shifted, slowly and deliberately, not moving otherwise.

  For a moment I thought the hands I had startled into stillness might flee the touch of the soft flesh now beneath them.

  To my delight, though the tension of the moment communicated loudly through the tremble of their fingers, both hands, schooled to chasteness, remained on me well into the night.

  ~ ~ ~

  Some while later, after the princelings had retired to their blankets and I’d closed my eyes to catch a last bit of healing rest, I woke, not knowing why in that first moment, only knowing something disturbed my sleep. I lay frozen, breath pent, not willing to give myself away should it be something hunting for fae or hound or me.

  A breathspace more and I knew something indeed was on the hunt.

  Even in sleep I must have recognized the voices in the night, for when I came awake my ears were perked to hear them. Edern’s strong bay rose and fell with rhythmic sureness while the sweet belling of my Hunt sisters, Melyd and Rhian, chimed in counterpoint to him. I trembled to be with them, hardly recognizing that I had shifted to my hound form in my eagerness to run.

  If not for the bond about my soul I would have been off hearing Dinistriwr sound Hurry. And when Herne’s horn cried Away, I whined my frustration of not being with them.

  No! To the seven hells with whining like a prisoned thing. I pointed my nose toward The Hunt, threw back my slender head, and howled my heart away.

  Alain appeared beside me at once, his large hand clamping around my muzzle. “Hush,” he commanded.

  Hush? I glared at him over a ridge of knuckles as my breath rasped through my distended flews. Just risen from sleep on this warm night, Alain was splendidly naked. In other circumstances, I was certain I could appreciate that more than now. I clawed at the hand that held me, scratching hard and deep.

  “God’s bane!” he shouted, surprise loosening his grip for the quick moment I needed to snake my muzzle out and prison his first two fingers between my jaws. I exerted only enough pressure to hold them there—a threat, not an attack. I trusted to the wrinkle in my nose and growl in my throat to warn him I was fully prepared to follow through.

  “Let me go.” It wasn’t a plea, but there was urgency in his voice. “For Pel’s sake.”

  Over the clamor of a score of Gabriel Hounds baying in the night I heard the cry of Herne’s horn, Dinistriwr, change. Turn, it commanded.

  Turn? Had they heard me? I strained to tell which way The Hunt now ran.

  “Brinn.”

  I recalled the near-forgotten fingers between my teeth. To my left, Pel, sweat-damp and dream-caught, struggled to wake.

  The baying sounded nearer. I parted my jaws and Alain eased his hand from my mouth before hurrying to wake his brother.

  My skin prickled with the urge to shift. Should I meet The Hunt as hound or fae? My body decided for me, melting with familiar ease into my very anxious, very naked fae self. I stretched to drive the last of the hound from my bones and listened to the blast of Herne’s horn and the rolling thunder that was his steed as they drew close.

  Nearer still, Alain was helping Pel to his feet. I turned an eye to them as the risen moon bathed them in soft relief—the broad expanses of chest, the rounded firmness of their flanks, the shadowpools of curls that ended in blooms of resting flesh. So very different, yet so very alike.

  It was, I tried to convince myself, the excitement of The Hunt drawing close that stirred my blood and shortened my breath, not the sight of these two virile men who strode toward me, draping tunics over their nakedness as they came.

  Not for the first time I found the modesty of men irksome.

  Beneath his brother’s steadying hands, Pel trembled to every blast of Herne’s insistent horn, mad with the presence of the fae so near. In Alain’s touch and concern, I could see he thought his brother’s response to the greatest magic of the fae a failing. I knew better, of course, and that his trembling was the only outward sign of the great battle that roiled within him as that magic galloped closer. It spoke to me of a deep and abiding courage.

  Pel’s silent courage and Alain’s selfless protection washed across me, as palpable as waves on water, amplified tenfold through the bond that vibrated like heartsong between us.

  No! The bond and the feelings that flowed so freely through it were unnatural. I had no care for these valiant brothers.

  Not when Edern would soon be here to free me from them.

  Alain slipped away, only to return in a breathspace, pressing Pel’s sword and buckler into his hands.

  “What will they do?” Alain had to raise his voice to be heard above the closing pack.

  I remembered the thirty men we had slaughtered so easily, taken unawares as they had been. By Alain’s set jaw and grim expression it was clear he recalled it too. No matter how talented they were with those blades, they would be overwhelmed. The only question was how many of my folk would die tonight too.

  “They will kill you,” I said. “And you them. Unless I would have it otherwise.” I watched his face, then Pel’s, closely, looking for fear. There was none. Only resignation to the fight ahead.

  “Is that what you want?” Pel asked, still managing to keep his head.

  For a moment I wondered what would happen to Pellinore when the magic of The Hunt crashed full upon him. It would be like a blind man suddenly given all the visions of the world inside his head, then having to ignore that miraculous assault in order to nock an arrow to fell a leaping deer he cannot see.

  Pel was merely blind now, but The Hunt would cripple him in ways never imagined. If it came to that, perhaps a swift death would be best. And if Pellinore was lost, what would his doting brother have left in t
he world?

  A shiver ran through me. I was rationalizing the inevitable, not examining the question Pel had asked. What did I want?

  Edern, of course. But at what price? Was I willing to sacrifice all?

  “No,” I answered at last, but the word was torn apart and lost in the commotion as the first of the hounds swept in.

  Back to back, Alain and Pel faced my kindred as they circled round, ears laid back and tails stiff with uncertainty. Edern, big-boned and taller than the others, was easy to spot as he advanced on the princelings, cautious of the steel they wielded, but all-too-ready to offer challenge.

  Which thing happened next I cannot begin to guess as time seemed to constrict like a noose around me. Pel staggered under the onslaught of magic that surrounded him. The pack, eerily quiet now, set themselves, waiting only on word from Herne to attack. Edern, ever impetuous and waiting on no one, lunged, thinking Pel to be the weak point. I plunged into the pack without thought or heed, without even certain plan as to whom I defended. Edern? Pel?

  And then Herne thundered in, scattering hounds as his great horse, Taryn, named for the fury of the thunder, slid to a halt before the princelings.

  “Hold!” The command rumbled across the glen like a storm unleashed. Edern whipped around with a snarl as Alain reached a steadying hand to his brother.

  Pel grit his teeth and even as I watched somehow found his way to the center of the magic that infected him. It was not a thing he could ever wield, not a thing he could ever banish. But it was a thing he could conquer, accept and find a place of strength in. He found that place now and rose like an avenging angel from under Alain’s hand.

  I took a step toward Herne, looking to him for the answer to the question in my heart.

  Edern shifted and ringed his arms around me, a gesture at once tender and possessive, making it clear to whom I belonged.

  Yet I belonged to no one. Betrothed to, yes. Bonded to, indeed. But belonged to? Never.