by Elisa Paige
Startled, I looked up at him. Remembering Siska’s similar observations, I whispered, “Changed?”
“You’re becoming increasingly in harmony with what I am. With anzhenii.” Tenderly, Koda wiped the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. “It is why Owl found you on your way to Chicago. Why my friends have watched over you all along, even if you didn’t know they were there. And it’s how I’ve kept track of you, Sephti. Even without the necklace, I’m in tune to you now.”
“What do you mean, in tune?” I stammered. “And how do you know about the owl?”
His eyes were watchful, assessing my sudden anxiety. He gave me a little space without being obvious about it and I couldn’t decide if this was reassuring or even more alarming, that he saw so much.
“I mean only that I’m aware of you. Just as I’m aware of my brother’s general location, if I think about it. Nothing more, Coyote.”
Slanting a sideways look at him, I muttered, “You call me that when you think I’m nervous.”
He smiled gently. “When I think you’re feeling snared.”
I bared my sharp teeth at him in mock-threat. “If anything gets chewed off to escape a trap, the severed part won’t belong to me.”
“So fierce,” he murmured, the undercurrent of pride bringing color to my cheeks.
I stretched my booted feet toward the fire, thinking about what he’d said. I didn’t have any answers, either, but couldn’t deny how important Koda had become to me. How alive and jubilant I felt when we were together. How wretched I was when we were apart.
Knowing he was watching me, I lifted my head and smiled at him. It was tentative, fleeting. But he understood and much of the tension in his body faded away.
Clearing my throat, I changed the subject to an easier one. “How’d you get here?”
“My truck is down the road a bit, hidden near a trailhead. I walked from there.”
A comfortable silence built. Koda pulled me against his side, pressing my cheek to his shoulder, and I leaned into the embrace. Closing my eyes, I asked wistfully, “If things were different, if your people didn’t see me as their enemy, what might it have been like between us?”
Koda’s breath caught before he audibly swallowed. His voice became soft and seemed to originate deep in his chest. “One fine spring, I would attend that year’s Crane Dance, along with all the other hopeful suitors coming to see the young women. I would have eyes for no other and would spot you right away, dancing in your finery, with your grace and your strength stealing my breath. And I would worry that one of the other men would win you first.”
“Other men?” I grumbled.
“Shh. This is my story.” He kissed the top of my head. “Normally, a man would speak the next day with his mother and she, in turn, would speak with the mother of the young woman he hoped to woo. I am anzhenii and of all nations, however, so I would speak with the elders and tell them my intentions. Of course, they’d approve of my choice.”
“They damn well better.”
Koda chuckled. “All that long day, I would make my interest clear to the other men so that they would not dare interfere when my chance came. The waiting would be maddening, but I am a patient hunter—”
“Hunter, are you?” I teased. “Am I a coyote in this story?”
“You are Mockingbird, the one not chosen by the other birds to lead them because he talked too much.” Koda laughed. “As I said, I am a patient hunter. When night finally came and everyone was asleep, I would creep into your lodge. Gently, I would wake you and hold a flame so you could see me.”
Charmed, I tilted my head so I could look at Koda’s beautiful face, the way the warm, golden firelight danced across his high cheekbones and lit his dark eyes. Seeing me watching him, he smiled faintly, drawing my gaze to his lips before I blushed and started to move away.
He caught me with gentle hands before I could, his touch light, undemanding. Hunger replaced the fire’s glow on his features as he bent his head to me. Brushing a kiss across my lips, he pulled back the tiniest space to meet my gaze. His smile deepened and he fit his mouth to mine, kissing me with a sweet, hungry intensity that put the campfire’s heat to shame.
After a moment, we broke the kiss as if by unspoken consent. I pressed my face into the crook of Koda’s neck, smiling against his warm skin where his pulse beat fast and strong. Stroking his hand up and down my back, he cupped my cheek with his other hand and the tenderness of his touch was the most wonderful thing I’d ever felt.
Huskily, I murmured, “What would happen after I saw you by candlelight?”
His voice was just as rough. “If you found me pleasing, you would blow out the flame.”
Unable to resist teasing him, I laughed softly. “What if I didn’t?”
Ducking his head to meet my gaze, he gave me a mock-wounded look. “I would return the next morning and place myself in full view, just outside your lodge. Then I’d play my courting flute for you, the sweetest songs I knew. If you liked my music, you’d come out of the lodge and let me see you. I would know that you gave your permission for me to return that night and try again with my flame.”
Giggling now, I asked, “What if I stayed hidden?”
Koda grimaced with agony, making me laugh all the harder. “Then I would bring extravagant gifts—the finest meat, the softest deer skins, the most beautiful beads and jewelry, my best horses, anything that would convince you I was worthy. And if you accepted my gifts, I would, once more, return to your lodge with my flame—a symbol for my heart, my life.”
I reached a tender hand to his cheek, surprising us both. “I would have accepted you the first night, Koda.”
“Oh, Sephti,” he whispered. “I would have tried night after night until you did.” For the first time, he let his defenses fall and his face filled with hope and longing, and heartbreakingly, a deep, abiding grief.
It was the last that made me cry out, wanting to erase his pain. My hands rose to tangle in his long, silken hair and I leaned, yearning. Koda bent his head to me immediately, as if it had taken all his control not to before this. He kissed me masterfully, thoroughly, with a needful edge that told me he craved my touch the way I craved his.
Pressing into him, I whispered, “More.”
He deepened the kiss, his hands cupping my cheeks, our breath coming faster. Intoxicated by the taste and feel of him, my own desire flared brighter, hotter. My instincts began to stir, but with a savage thrust of will, I forced them into submission—an effort that wouldn’t keep them down for long. But dammit, I needed this…needed Koda’s touch, the feel of his hungry mouth on mine, his hands beginning to explore my body.
He pulled me onto his lap, cradling me against his chest and capturing my mouth in a rapturous play of lips and teeth and tongue. Of its own accord, my body arched against the hard, masculine planes of him, molding itself to languidly fit his form.
“Sephti,” he murmured. “Sephti.” Trailing his lips across my jaw to my throat, he nuzzled his way to the tender angle where neck meets shoulder. He nipped and suckled the flesh above my pulse, chuckling devilishly at my breathless sighs, and was moving south when we both froze.
The sense of an onrushing shift had us scrambling to our feet. I drew my daggers and had just placed myself in the best position to guard his flank when a fae and two bitterns solidified on the other side of the campfire.
Everything in me went rigid and my blood turned to ice. Panic and rage locked my throat and the breath whistled through my nose. Looking into tri-color eyes that stared malevolently back at me was Cian, the sadistic sonuvabitch who’d “managed” my stable, a bland euphemism for terrorizing, torturing and murdering at will.
But, hey, what’s a little agony to the Dark Fae? Especially when bittern are considered lower than animals and three times as disposable?
Cian’s presence was like the most foul, aggressive cancer. Instinct bared my teeth and tore a guttural growl from my throat. All the while, Cian’s brutal conditioni
ng demanded I drop to my knees, supplicating myself for whatever punishment he saw fit to dole out. Defiantly, I stayed vertical—chin high, shoulders squared.
“Sephti?” Koda broke the brittle silence. The warmth and concern saturating his voice thawed my frozen limbs and pulled me back from the horror of all-too-vivid memories.
I worked some spit into my cottony mouth. “Remember your promise to me, Koda,” I whispered without once removing my gaze from Cian and the two bitterns.
He frowned. “What promise?”
In English, I called to the fae bastard watching me from a safe distance. “What do you want, Cian?” The words were like ground glass in my throat.
Koda went rigid with black rage and the need for violence thickened the air. “That’s the iqit who—”
“Whipped the rebellious bitch daily,” Cian interrupted in the same silky voice he’d maintained, even while laying on the lash hard enough to slice skin through to the bone underneath. “Clearly, her punishments didn’t take.”
I got in front of Koda before he could launch himself at the mocking fae. “He’s trying to provoke a fight. Remember what I said—he is untouchable. Remember your promise!”
Grudgingly, Koda nodded, his glittering black eyes livid on Cian. Trembling and close to losing it, he gritted under his breath, “Only because you ask.”
Annoyed by our restraint, Cian taunted, “She always resisted being whipped. Our lord was quite impressed that it took at least three others to hold her. Bittern heal too fast for the pain to make the appropriate impression, so I ensured each rebuke lasted much longer by pouring turpentine and red pepper into them. It keeps them raw and festering, you see. Oh and it causes the most vivid, thick scars.” He cocked his head, smirking. “I fancy she’ll carry my marks for the rest of her worthless life.”
Knowing an emotional reaction from me would shatter Koda’s very thin self-control—his need for violence was palpable—I sheathed my daggers and crossed my arms over my chest. Standing hip-shot, I drawled, “So your purpose in ruining our pleasant evening is to remind me why I hate you almost as much as I hate Reiden?” I lifted one shoulder like a genuine shrug wasn’t worth the effort. “’Kay. So stipulated. You’re a repugnant sonuvabitch and I hope some day to watch your body rot into stinking putrescence. Run along now.”
His face febrile with hatred, Cian snarled, “I will beat the insolence from your fa—”
Koda gave me an approving glance, though his voice came out bored. “He sure is a lippy bastard. Did you have to listen to this crap all the time?”
I made a moue of distaste. “All day, every day and no off button.”
Cian was nearly apoplectic. “You somehow destroyed the tracer tattooed into your scarred hide, so my hunters couldn’t find you. You managed to keep yourself fed and avoid the coma. You survived the fire in Dallas and my little surprise outside. Somehow, you became aligned with the enemies of my Lord Reiden’s vampire ally—”
“Wow, I amaze even myself.” I grinned, working hard to keep the alarm tightening my gut from showing on my face. How the hell did Cian know so much? “Why don’t we fast-forward to the part where I can even tie my own shoes?”
He hissed, “Why won’t you die?”
I bared my teeth. “It would give you too much pleasure.” Pointing at the unmoving bitterns, not surprised to see no sign of emotion or curiosity in their expressions, I growled, “Why are they here?”
Cian composed himself, even as his eyes burned with loathing. “Your master, Lord Aedan, was assassinated yesterday, along with half the keep and all but a handful of bitterns.”
“Former master,” I snapped reflexively. Heartsick that the closest thing I had to family, my brother and sister clones, were all but gone, I kept my face expressionless. Displaying any emotion besides anger or disdain would be taken as a sign of weakness. “Who ordered the attack?”
“The Earth Kith’s lord, Göran, with support from the Water and Air kiths, else they’d never have succeeded.” Cian’s keen disappointment that I’d not visibly reacted to his stunning news brought a smile to my lips, deepening his glower. “Aedan’s lady, Althea, wants vengeance. To this end, she has directed me to command the following: In exchange for forgetting you ever existed, you are to destroy them all. Begin with Göran, include all their blood relations and make it messy.”
Despite my rigid control, my eyes widened the tiniest increment, bringing a smug grin to Cian’s thin lips. What Althea was offering meant complete freedom. No more hiding from the execute-on-sight order placed on me as a runaway bittern. I could settle wherever I wished. Make a life for myself for however long my kind’s span of years would run if not for the fae blood feuds.
Reining in my rampaging emotions, I studied my fingernails as if idly contemplating Althea’s offer. “Why me?”
“I am not in the habit of explaining myself, let alone my lady’s commands—”
In mock disbelief, I chastised, “You’re taking the wrong approach. See, here’s where you compliment my fighting skills. Shower accolades about how I’ve surpassed the genetic coding and survived outside captivity. The very things you complained about earlier.” I spoke with exaggerated slowness, as if Cian was too dense to understand. “Orders and commands didn’t impress me before I escaped. They mean even less to me now.”
It was irrelevant that I wanted to kill the lords anyway—the fae never did anything straightforward and Althea’s handing me what she had to know I desperately wanted stank of treachery. The twisted bitch was up to something and Cian was her mouthpiece.
He sneered, “Do you want to live free or not, bittern?”
Wide-eyed, I glanced around the campsite. “Seems to me I’m free already.”
“I could shift you from here, straight back to the stable—”
I snarled, “Not without touching me. Try it and I’ll slit your belly from crotch to chin, no matter who your brother is.”
Even the thought of the Huntsman’s wrath was terrifying, but I couldn’t show any sign of backing down. Besides, there was no way in hell I was going back to the stable. I’d die fighting, making sure I did the greatest amount of damage before I dropped.
His face purple with fury, Cian quivered with the clear urge to reach for the whip at his waist—something I’d been careful not to look at since I knew for a fact its black coils were stained with my own blood. “Very well,” he ground out, as if he was choking on the words. “That you still breathe after all this time loose is…surprising. Our geneticists will be…pleased to learn of your continued…success—”
“Faint praise.” I reveled in the pleasure of interrupting him again since it so thoroughly pissed him off. In the stables, no one dared even to look higher than his booted feet, let alone speak a word in his presence. The fact that Cian had swallowed his own colossal pride to say anything at all told me a great deal about the strength of Althea’s directive to him. Again, I wondered what the fuck she was up to. “When does Althea want the lords dead?”
Looking ready to explode, Cian glared. “Now. Today.”
I shook my head regretfully. “Nope, can’t do it. My calendar’s pretty full already.” Once I’d gotten past the initial devastation of seeing the bastard, I was having a fine time provoking him. “I can fit a couple assassinations in later this month, though.”
Koda masked a laugh behind a cough and I basked in the warmth of his gaze before returning my attention to Cian.
“Also, I’m not killing the families.” Resolutely, I shook off the memory of the young blonde girl, standing in a pool of her own blood and that moment as she turned and her terror-filled eyes lifted to meet mine. “Only the lords.”
Cian raged at my refusal but finally agreed with ill grace. “We have a conditional accord.” Pointing at the two bitterns, he said, “Your absence from training may have made you weak, softened your skills. Before our agreement is binding, you must defeat them both in combat.”
Koda swore. “You already acknowl
edged that she’s survived despite all the genetic controls you bastards encoded into bitterns. Making her fight—”
I interrupted smoothly, “Is a trifling. I agree, of course.” Koda swung toward me, defiance plain in every line of his body. Willing him to remain silent, I lifted a brow. “It is, after all, our way.”
Koda’s eyes flared with anger, but he gave me a short, stiff nod.
Cian’s smile was anything but pleasant. “You’ll note I said ‘defeat.’”
“I heard you the first time,” I gritted.
“Why the distinction?” Koda asked, managing to sound only mildly interested.
I flashed him an approving look. “I’m prohibited from killing them.”
“Which means she cannot rely upon the frenzy,” Cian said with a smug air.
His gaze sharpening, Koda murmured, “What about them?”
I shrugged as if it were of no consequence. “They are free to use whatever methods they choose.”
He visibly swallowed, but mirrored my casual tone. “They fight to the death, you fight to the defeat. Should be an…interesting match.”
I narrowed my eyes a fraction at his stumble.
Consummate manipulators and political animals, fae understood the value of allies, which was undoubtedly why Cian hadn’t questioned Koda’s presence. But even so, if he stepped in, interfered, or in any way expressed concern, he’d be implying that I was weak and needed his support. Like a school of piranha, fae and those they’d trained—including, dammit, my own people—had a keen eye for weakness. For fear. Like gasoline on a fire, both only fed their inherent addiction to orgiastic violence.
Which reminded me…
Turning to Cian, I said, “I have one condition for combat.”
“And it is?”
“We name the combatants. I want to know who I’m fighting.”
Snorting his impatience, he waved irritably. “The male is called Onas, the female, Târre.”
“With me, Sephti, being the third fighter.”
