The screams of the last one that had been tied to the ground, used in base and vile manners, cut and bled into the dirt, had long faded, along with her life.
But Tedrey could not look.
He had already seen too much.
Too many.
Their spent, lifeless bodies were piled behind the tree at his back, and thus he could not look that way either. He could not again look into those staring, vacant eyes that still held the stark remnants of fear and degradation and pain.
However, in the diligent frenzy of ritual and sacrifice that had now gone on, one after the other, for two days, Fenn had even gotten caught up in it and took his turn with the others, using and dispatching the women.
They were animals.
Monsters.
Tedrey had known cruelty in his life, but he could not…
He would not…
His mind simply would never be able to reconcile this.
And thus, he focused.
As they were so very involved in their endeavors, and thus paid him little mind, Tedrey focused on the ropes binding his hands, which he hoped to free and then he could see to the ones binding his ankles.
And then he would flee.
He would want to save the ones at his side, the ones taken by Fenn, Thom and their brethren. The ones agonizing beside him, dreading their turn.
But he could not.
There was Golden Thomas, and Fenn, and nine others had come with Thom, to join the eleven with Fenn.
Tedrey had to manage to escape them all and get to Birchlire, which was closest, and warn King True.
Unless he could somehow find a loft and get ravens dispatched, not having a single coin to pay an aviast to send them.
But to save this land and all others, he had to leave the women behind.
He had to leave them to this fate.
And he had to ignore the burn in his gut at the fury he had to swallow at what had befallen the pile at his back, what would befall the terrified at his side, what he had seen that he knew he could never erase from his brain, what had been lost by all of them for this maniacal crusade.
He felt the rope at his wrists loosening and took heart, only to stop when he felt something else.
The beginnings of a quake was coming from under them, the loose dirt about him shimmying.
And then he braced, for it started slow, but it came fast and strong.
“He rises!” one of the men shouted jubilantly.
“It’s working! Quick, release her and discard the body. Bring another,” Fenn demanded.
“She is not drained yet,” another man said.
“Do what I say!” Fenn ordered zealously.
The quake shuddered to a halt, and as they went about their business much more enthusiastically, Tedrey dismissed the turn in his stomach and took advantage of their diverted attention, picking with great care at the knot at his wrists.
When a woman was selected, they divested her of her gag, thus her screams rent the air, and the men fed on them as this time, Tedrey forced himself to watch.
Forced himself to study them each in turn. Forced his focus to them to make certain they were tuned to what they were doing, and none of them turned to Tedrey.
Forced his memory to carve their visages in his brain, for he hoped one day to find them all again and make them pay for this desecration.
It took some time, the clouds covering the dawning sun, before the rains came.
Tedrey worked at his wrists.
The men brutalized.
The knot slipped free. His hands fell free. And Tedrey almost did not catch his cry of joy before the next quake came.
Thus, Tedrey did not move a muscle.
For this one felt different.
It felt unlike the other, which had been a powerful shudder. Like the earth below them seemed to be speaking and very much wished those who walked it to listen to its message.
This had another meaning.
A sinister one.
And as the men before him ambled about excitedly, the man at work on the miserable girl tethered to the dirt cried out his release, right before, suddenly, he cried out for a different reason as the earth underneath them broke open.
The man was tossed one way.
She rolled the other.
And Tedrey stared as it seemed beings were forming from the mud.
With the stakes she’d been tied to no longer stuck in the ground, the woman who had been being used struggled to her feet and raced into the forest with ropes and rods dangling from wrists and ankles.
No one paid her mind at what seemed to be happening in the clearing.
The women at his side started scuffling on their behinds to get away, as the men who had wrought this catastrophe milled about with wonder and jubilation, watching the breaking of the earth with zealotry awash on their faces.
And then Tedrey saw two men and a number of women form from the sludge as if erupting from a swell at the center of the earth.
The rain pelted them as they stood in the mire, gazing about.
And as the rain cleaned the mud from them, Thom cried joyously, “Jell!”
Thom rushed forward.
“No!” the man wearing filthy robes of what Tedrey thought was a Go’Doan priest cried. “He is my—!”
“Kill him!” the woman, standing closest to the man between her and the priest, a priest that was G’Jell, shrieked.
But that man was already moving.
And then there was naught in that clearing but the sound of the driving rain as all went immobile when the man took Thom’s head in his two hands, and with a terrible crunching noise, crushed it in an explosion of gore with no apparent effort.
Tedrey blinked against the rain as the man released Thom, and he fell lifeless to the muck.
Good gods.
“You were saying?” the woman asked Jell.
“But Thom was my—” Jell began.
“Release those girls,” the woman commanded.
The man who had killed Thom did not move.
“And do not let them flee!” she shouted, and the other women scurried after Fenn and the retreating Rising priests. “I said, release those girls,” she repeated her order.
And as the man who killed Thom looked side to side, carefully, Tedrey moved the hands that he’d left held behind him, forgotten in the spectacle, to his ankles, where, trying to mask his movements, he worked on the ropes at his feet.
“Did you hear me!” she snapped to the man. “Release those girls!”
When no one did her bidding, she turned to Jell.
“You do it,” she bit out. “He’s always like this when he makes the surface. Like he’s never seen trees before.”
“Daemon?” Jell called tentatively.
The ropes at Tedrey’s ankles fell loose.
He thus poised to take flight.
“Daemon?” the woman asked snidely.
“Daemon? Look at me,” Jell bid to the unmoving man.
“What do you speak of? Daemon?” she spat.
Tedrey did not take flight.
With their attention on each other, and the Rising contingent gone, he took his chance.
He crawled swiftly to the women who were all scooting, but not as one, willy-nilly, to get away in all directions, which would get them nowhere.
He put his fingers to the ropes at the wrists of one, these ropes also tied to two others, with a line leading down to bind their feet.
“I let you go, you help me release the others,” he whispered to her.
She shook her head, tears of panic escaping her eyes, spittle mixing with rain dripping from her gag as she panted behind it.
“You help me get as many loose as we can,” he pushed.
Her head kept moving frenziedly in denial.
He loosened her.
She immediately tugged the binds from her feet and bolted.
Gods dammit.
“He has given you a name?” Tedrey heard the woman dema
nd.
“I will help you,” he heard whispered.
He looked to another woman who had somehow nudged her gag free and moved to her.
“Daemon, we must find the others. We must find them, for they are our friends, and then be away from this place,” he heard Jell say.
“When did he give you a name?” the woman asked.
Working as swiftly he could with wet fingers on slick ropes, Tedrey released the girl. She freed her feet and instantly shifted around, her hands going to the ropes on the next.
“Run west when you are released,” he instructed. “Take cover and call to any that race after you. We will meet up, move as one, it will be safer.”
The girl he was working on nodded to him.
He released her.
However she did not bolt, and she did not do as he said.
Once she had her feet free, she turned and put her fingers to the ropes of another.
“Have you two, the both of you, been conniving?” the woman’s tone was becoming shrill. “Against me?”
“You will be quiet.”
This was a new voice, a smooth one. A calm one.
An attractive one.
Even an alluring one.
Tedrey chanced a glance to the clearing to see the three of them facing off against each other.
Paying he and the women no mind.
They had time.
But they had to work quickly.
“Hurry,” he encouraged, loosening the binds of another, who in turn moved to help.
“You do not tell me what to do. I am your mistress,” she retorted, and Tedrey heard a pained cry and a thudding splash.
He’d struck her.
Tedrey did not look to see if he was correct.
They only had three women left to go.
He turned to the second he’d released who had stayed. The others he sensed, but did not chance to look, were huddled behind them and waiting.
“Draw them away, quiet, but quick,” he ordered.
She nodded, stood and moved.
“We found one,” he heard called and glanced up to see four of the women who had emerged from the earth shoving Fenn into the clearing, his hands tied behind his back.
Tedrey’s fingers slipped on the wet ropes.
Gods be with me, gods be with me, he chanted in his head. Just get this done. Just get it done.
He let her loose.
“Go, go,” he hissed at her.
She fumbled with the ties that bound her feet, got free, but slipped as she tried to stand, took the hand another was holding out to her, and then they were away.
It was he and the first he’d released who had stayed to help now working on the last two girls.
“You take them. I will follow slowly, so if they notice, I can distract them from your leaving,” he instructed before warning, “I do not think the new is any better than the old.”
“You must go with us,” she urged.
He opened his mouth to reply but did not as more words came from the clearing.
“Put him to his knees,” the woman, clearly having recovered, demanded.
“He keeps his feet,” Jell ordered.
“Knees!” she shouted.
“Feet!” Jell bit.
“He is not yours!” she yelled.
“He has always been mine!” Jell yelled in return.
Tedrey looked up, the end of the rope beginning to slide free as Daemon roared, “Enough!”
“As we planned, we will—” Jell began, looking to Daemon.
“You planned?” the woman countered. “We came to the surface to save those girls.”
“Oh, gods, no, only two more,” his mate whispered in the same terror he had, for they were mentioned, and that might gain attention.
“I said…enough!” Daemon snarled.
“Just get them to their feet and go,” Tedrey demanded, forcing the hoops of the ropes over the heels of the woman he was working on.
“But—” his comrade began.
“There are only two of them. They can run connected. Untie their hands later, get them to their feet and go!” he nearly yelled as the earth beneath them began to shake.
She took his cue, slid the ropes over the heels of the woman she was assisting, and Tedrey and she got the girls up.
They started away, the last two still connected, and Tedrey followed them, backing away slowly, watching the clearing, his arms out to either side like they could fend off an attack, giving them a head start just in case those in the clearing noticed him, waiting for his chance to turn and run.
But as he did this, his eyes riveted to the man in the middle.
Daemon.
He had bent with a shoulder dipped, as if he was going low to gather momentum to swing up and strike.
But when he swung up, he did not strike.
He emerged.
The women holding Fenn all screamed.
Fenn barked a shout of shock and staggered back into them.
Jell and the woman froze.
And Tedrey’s blood turned to ice and his feet stopped moving.
For now, there was no man.
There was only…
A Beast.
He was twice his original height.
He had a hump on his back.
The entirety of his body had short, coarse fur, except around his neck, where there was a long, thick mane. His legs were painfully thin with long cloven feet. But his arms were beefy, with enormous hands that had long, lethally-clawed fingers.
Tedrey could not see his face, for it was turned from him, but he saw the head had short fur above that mane, it sloped forward in a flattish way, and now it turned toward the women, who took one look at it and scattered like mice.
But Fenn stood still, as if he was stunned, staring up at the creature, his face a study of amazement.
Or repulsion.
And then Fenn’s body jolted as the creature struck out with its claws, opening four lines of gore across Fenn’s chest.
Fenn’s knees gave out, and he began to fall, only to be struck by another swipe, this opening up more of his body, including his throat in a gash so deep, his head began to list backwards off his neck.
It did not.
For the creature tore it free, lifted it over his head with the neck pointed down, and tipped his own head back, allowing Fenn’s blood to seep into its open mouth.
Abruptly, however, he tossed Fenn’s head to the side, turned, and in a mighty sweep, he caught up the woman and Jell, both of whom had been preparing to run away.
He did this in the thin, overlong fingers of only one of his huge hands.
He lifted them up with not an ounce of apparent effort and tossed them across the clearing, away from Tedrey.
The woman slammed, back against the tree, and Tedrey heard the break.
Jell went rolling between some trees.
And the creature followed them, with each step transforming from the Beast he was back to the man he used to be.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said, standing, now naked, and human, hands on his narrow hips, looking down at the groaning woman then into the trees toward Jell. “I’m not done with you yet. No, no. We’re just beginning. And to be certain things are straight, you both are mine.”
And on those words, Tedrey unfroze.
He turned.
And he raced into the woods.
He did it knowing it was the end of The Rising.
But it was the beginning of The Rising.
He also knew one more thing.
At all costs.
He had to get to King True.
The End of Part Three
To be continued…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KRISTEN ASHLEY IS the New York Times bestselling author of over sixty romance novels including the Rock Chick, Colorado Mountain, Dream Man, Chaos, Unfinished Heroes, The ’Burg, Magdalene, Fantasyland, The Three, Ghost and Reincarnation, Moonlight and Motor Oil and Honey series along with seve
ral standalone novels. She’s a hybrid author, publishing titles both independently and traditionally, her books have been translated in fourteen languages and she’s sold over three million books.
Kristen’s novel, Law Man, won the RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award for best Romantic Suspense. Her independently published title Hold On was nominated for RT Book Reviews best Independent Contemporary Romance and her traditionally published title Breathe was nominated for best Contemporary Romance. Kristen’s titles Motorcycle Man, The Will, Ride Steady (which won the Reader’s Choice award from Romance Reviews) and The Hookup all made the final rounds for Goodreads Choice Awards in the Romance category.
Kristen, born in Gary and raised in Brownsburg, Indiana, was a fourth-generation graduate of Purdue University. Since, she has lived in Denver, the West Country of England, and now she resides in Phoenix. She worked as a charity executive for eighteen years prior to beginning her independent publishing career. She currently writes full-time.
Although romance is her genre, the prevailing themes running through all of Kristen’s novels are friendship, family and a strong sisterhood. To this end, and as a way to thank her readers for their support, Kristen has created the Rock Chick Nation, a series of programs that are designed to give back to her readers and promote a strong female community.
The mission of the Rock Chick Nation is to live your best life, be true to your true self, recognize your beauty and take your sister’s back whether they’re friends and family or if they’re thousands of miles away and you don’t know who they are. The programs of the RC Nation include: Rock Chick Rendezvous, weekends Kristen organizes full of parties and get-togethers to bring the sisterhood together; Rock Chick Recharges, evenings Kristen arranges for women who have been nominated to receive a special night; and Rock Chick Rewards, an ongoing program that raises funds for nonprofit women’s organizations Kristen’s readers nominate. Kristen’s Rock Chick Rewards have donated nearly $130,000 to charity and this number continues to rise.
You can read more about Kristen, her titles and the Rock Chick Nation at www.KristenAshley.net.
BOOKS BY
KRISTEN ASHLEY
The Dawn of the End Page 45
