by L. L. Raand
How is it the Queen did not sense your weapons? Sylvan asked, iron being one of the few substances that could counter or even destroy Fae power.
“We have shields as well,” was Rafe’s simple and no doubt truthful answer. She smiled, magenta shards slashing through her obsidian pupils. She was far older than Sylvan had realized, a well-kept secret, apparently. Rafe was Risen, a Vampire in full possession of her powers and strong enough to lead her own seethe. Yet she served Jody Gates. The new Liege Lord was amassing power of her own, it seemed.
Sylvan chuffed. Jody chose well sending you.
“My Liege is wise.”
Hunt Master, Sylvan asked, leaving the always tangled mesh of Vampire politics aside, do you know where we are?
The Hound lifted its massive muzzle to the sky and drew deeply. Air rushed into its bellows-like lungs with a tornado’s force. After a moment, her answer filled Sylvan’s mind. “This was once a minor realm. When the Faerie Queen came to power, those who resided here remained loyal to the old Queen and closed their Gates, choosing to remain until their power waned and they slowly faded.”
Yet it is not empty. Or dead, Sylvan said, scenting a dark and pungent force, like roiling death, on the air.
“No, not any longer. Whatever powers hide here, they have not restored the knowe to life. We have little time before all the exits disappear.” The Hound swung her head toward Sylvan, fiery eyes glowing hot. “Can you sense your wolf?”
No, Sylvan said. Something is blocking my connection to my Prima and my Pack—to everyone except Niki.
Rafe gave a dark laugh. “Sorcery. Powerful, but not unbreakable.”
If you can open a path for us, Vampire, Sylvan said, her wolf snapping at her restraints, do it.
Rafe slipped in front of them, and the three formed a shield at her back. Extending both iron blades in a cross at arm’s length, she opened her arms wide in a sweeping circle, spoke a few words in an ancient tongue, and what had appeared to be only a thick, heavy miasma of rot clouding the air parted before her blades.
Enchanted iron? Sylvan didn’t ask what she knew would not be answered. She shuddered as her mate bond blossomed within her along with her connection to Pack and the resurgence of her power. The rush of air through the rent in the foul magic brought a plethora of scents, some living, some dead. And there, a thin filament she recognized.
Trent.
I have her, Sylvan said.
“Then take us there, Alpha,” the Hound growled.
Sylvan reached for Trent and bounded into the Gate.
Her wolf was injured and surrounded by danger.
* * *
Trent stood her ground, forelegs planted, head lowered, haunches bunched and preparing to spring. The thing in her path hissed and waved two distorted limbs from its leathery chest, pincer-like claws opening and closing. Once, it had been a big cat. Now, it was a horror, the sinuous and graceful body of a mountain lion deformed into something that stood on two short, jointless rear legs, beneath a torso covered with mottled fur, a cavernous midsection, and a bulging chest stripped of everything except bone and swaths of decaying muscle. The head was earless, with yellow, slitted eyes, a long, misshapen jaw with upper canines that hung down below the hinged and gaping maw.
Trent hoped it was dead and not something that knew what an abomination it had become. The claws snapped out, faster than she’d anticipated, and fire ignited in her shoulder. She landed hard on her back twenty feet away.
Too slow, too weak.
The wound in her rear leg, still leaking blood, had sapped her strength, and she struggled to rise. She was no match for the size and speed of the cat-thing, but she would not die on her back. Struggling against the pain and slowly encroaching darkness, she managed to get up and face the thing again.
Readying for the blow, she growled her challenge. Come, try me.
She drew a breath and prepared to leap with the last ounce of her strength. An infusion of strength struck her like a fresh wind blowing down from the mountainside. The Alpha had come! Trent howled, leaping at the same time as the cat-thing pounced, and managed to rake her claws across its belly as she flew past. Being smaller had its advantages now. With some of her strength regained, she pivoted as she landed and jumped clear as the creature screamed in frustration, pulled its oversized overbalanced body around, and crouched for another attack.
Sylvan soared into the clearing and landed on its back. The massive wolf, twice Trent’s size, clamped down on the creature’s spine, her powerful shoulders and jaws wrenching at it. The creature reared up, and Sylvan’s body whipped from side to side. Niki struck at its hindquarters, and the Hound tore into its exposed underbelly. Entrails and foul ichor spewed from the gaping wounds.
The flame in Trent’s shoulder spread into her chest, and she dropped to the ground, dizzy and weak. Her breath was tight, her heart pounding. Through her dimming vision, she caught flashes of steel and a shadow circling the creature, too quickly for her to make out, cutting and slashing.
The creature fell with a long, keening cry, and Trent closed her eyes. She hoped her Alpha could hear her thoughts.
Tell Zora I died like a wolf, fighting.
Chapter Fifteen
Shadows fell across the clearing, the sky turning an oily black and swirling above their heads like grasping fingers, blocking out the sun. The air grew dense with a suffocating presence, stealing the breath from Zora’s chest. She stood on the spot where Trent had disappeared, ringed by Ash, Jace, and a phalanx of Timberwolf warriors.
“Stand,” Zora ordered, broadcasting her power with primal force. Whatever came through the next tear in the veil between realms, they would face, and they would defeat. This was her territory, her Weres to protect, and she would not fail.
Several of the less dominant warriors dropped to all fours, compelled to give rein to their wolves in the presence of an Alpha. Jace steadied herself, confident in the strength and will of her warriors. A slash of black lightning tore through the suffocating barrier above them, and in a flash, as if sucked into a whirlwind, the oily mass disappeared, leaving clear sky behind.
Jace gave a cry of exultation. Her Alpha knelt in the center of the clearing a few feet from Zora, with Trent’s wolf in her arms. Torren and Niki dropped at her side, and a Vampire ghosted away into the cover of the surrounding forest, almost too quickly to be seen.
Zora leapt forward, landed in front of Sylvan, and reached for Trent. “Give her to me.”
“No,” Sylvan said in a snarl, rising to her full height, Trent cradled against her chest. Power rolled through the clearing, and the rest of the Timberwolf Weres shifted into pelt. “She is mine.”
Zora’s canines gleamed and a growl burst from her chest. “She is mine.”
Sylvan’s eyes glowed gold and pelt rolled beneath her skin. “You would challenge me now?”
“I would have her,” Zora thundered.
Niki eased forward at the same time as Ash stepped to Zora’s side.
“Alpha,” Niki murmured, “Zora seeks her mate.”
“The wolf needs a healer,” Ash murmured gently to Zora, “and we have none here. Her Alpha might be able to save her.”
Zora shuddered, warring with her frantic, enraged wolf who knew only that a strange wolf kept her from her mate. “Can you heal her?”
“There is poison,” Sylvan said. “Something unknown to me—but she is strong. If we have time—”
Torren slipped into Zora’s view, her gaze drawing Zora into a deep well of seductive power. “I can counter the poison, but the process will tax her body. By your leave, Alpha Constantine, I will tend to your mate.”
Sylvan stiffened. “Trent is bonded to me. I can feel her.”
“Reach in, then, Alpha,” Torren said, “and search her bonds. See what her wolf has done.”
With a snarl, Sylvan centered her power, connected to Trent’s wolf—injured and furious—and read the tangled bonds mired in dark magic in Trent’s spirit. She
met Zora’s gaze, held it. “Her wolf has chosen, but you have not yet claimed her, nor allowed her to claim you.”
“She knows I am hers,” Zora said. “As do I.”
“Then help me protect her.” Sylvan knelt and gently placed the unconscious wolf on the ground. Tarry fluid oozed from a row of ragged tears in her shoulder, the flesh puckered and inflamed.
“Give her your power, both of you,” Torren said.
Sylvan reached out to Jace and her warriors, drawing them closer and amplifying their strength. She buried her fist in the ruff on Trent’s neck. Zora knelt on the opposite side of Trent’s still form and pressed her hand over Trent’s heart.
Torren crouched between them, her magic glowing like an incandescent prism. She placed her spread fingers directly over the wound, and then her hand disappeared inside the wolf. Trent twitched and whined, and Zora snarled.
“Hold,” Sylvan murmured.
Pelt burst down Zora’s chest and over her arms, her wolf riding hard beneath the surface. She trembled, forcing her power into Trent, reaching for the connections that she’d never been able to ignore and that now only her ties to the Pack could equal.
Torren whispered on the wind, more music than words, a slowly rising symphony of sound that drowned out the scent of rot and the putrefaction destroying Trent’s shoulder. Slowly the festering flesh receded until a raw, red wound remained, free of the oozing black death.
Torren withdrew her hand, and the light around her dimmed. Trent’s wolf sighed and settled into an easy sleep.
“We are in your debt once more, Lord Torren,” Sylvan murmured.
“As am I,” Zora said.
Torren, paler even than usual, rose and stepped back. “She will need time to heal, and all the strength you can give her.”
“And you,” Sylvan said, “need to recover what you have given her. Go now, and take Rafe to safety too.”
“I will find my Lady and await you at your Compound, Alpha.” Torren bowed and was gone.
Zora, her hand still on Trent’s chest over the steady beat of her heart, felt some of her fury drain away as the fear slowly settled. She met Sylvan’s gaze. “I would have her now.”
“If she so chose,” Sylvan said, leaning back, “then it shall be so.”
Zora lifted Trent’s wolf into her arms. “I must return to Clan home and ensure the safety of my Pack.”
“My wolves are coming,” Sylvan said. “Once we secure this area, I will meet you there.”
Zora looked to the sky. “And what of those in the beyond? Are they coming also?”
“We saw no others where we found Trent,” Sylvan said. “The enemy may have departed, for now.”
“For now,” Zora said.
Chapter Sixteen
The fire searing through Trent’s chest seeped away into the fading blackness. With the first glimmer of light, warmth, like the embers of the fire pit in the center of the Compound, flared deep within her, bringing a sense of peace and safety that burned away the agony and quieted the terror. She basked in the light and basked in the connections that bound her to Pack. She clung to cords of silk and steel that whispered of strength and power, tenderness and compassion, lust and need. Cords that were new and wild, yet somehow familiar. Her wolf rose within her, stretched, breathed freely, growing stronger with each passing second. The light eclipsed the last dark slivers of pain, and she opened her eyes to fingers of dawn sliding through the window high above her head.
“Good morning, Wolf,” a husky voice murmured in her ear.
Trent laughed, feeling the silken cords tighten around her heart with joy and expectation. “Good morning, Wolf.”
Zora kissed the angle of her jaw and nuzzled her neck. “How is my wolf this morning?”
My wolf. Trent’s heart leapt, and her wolf howled in answering joy. “Yours, as always.”
“And the pain?” Zora asked gently, skimming a hand down Trent’s bare flank.
The touch, both possessive and claiming, ignited Trent’s core. “I am healed, Zora. How long?”
“Almost a day.” Zora nuzzled Trent’s neck, a low rumble of invitation vibrating against Trent’s throat. “You are a stubborn wolf. You refused to give up.” Zora kissed her, her grip on Trent’s hip tightening, the press of claws the only sign of her wolf prowling close to the surface. “I would rather you did not risk another wound like that again.”
“Stubborn,” Trent teased, seeking to ease Zora’s worry, “but yours.”
Zora shifted her naked thigh over Trent’s hips, her center pressed to Trent’s flesh. She was hot and open. “Not yet mine, though, are you?”
Trent grasped Zora’s shoulders and drew Zora atop her until Zora straddled her, sex to sex. The need that had simmered deep inside Trent for weeks flared into mating lust, and desire raced through her. She growled and, claws bursting free, raked them down Zora’s back. “I have been yours for the taking always, Alpha.”
Growling as the faint slivers of pain stoked her sex frenzy, Zora’s eyes blazed gold and her canines gleamed. She rubbed her clitoris, hard and proud and hot, over Trent’s. “You know, if I take you, you will be mine, and I will not let you go.”
Trent lifted her hips, urged Zora deeper. “I am yours already, and I do not want to go anywhere you are not.”
“And if I must challenge your Alpha for you?” Zora panted, her skin shimmering with sex-sheen, her abdomen etched in muscle and quivering with the pressure to complete the mate bond. Her sex pulsed, full and flushed with hormones and ready to explode. “Answer quickly, Wolf. I cannot wait any longer.”
“I would submit to any punishment to prevent that,” Trent said.
“That I will not allow. Do you trust me?”
“I love you,” Trent said, “with all that I am. I trust you, Zora, but I would not see you hurt.”
Zora grinned, an Alpha predator’s grin. “I would not lose a fight that I fought for you.”
Trent lifted her chin, exposed her throat. “I am yours, as I’ve ever been.”
“I would not have you submit, but I would have you accept my claim.” Every muscle taut, Zora softly pressed her canines against Trent’s throat, barely piercing the skin. “Choose now.”
“My wolf already has.” Trent pushed her fingers through Zora’s hair, clenched tightly, and drew Zora’s head to her chest. “I am yours. Take me.”
With a lash of power, Zora settled her hips deeper between Trent’s and locked her sex to Trent’s with her clitoris riding Trent’s cleft. Joining them body-to-body and heart-to-heart, she pierced Trent’s flesh just above her breast. Trent arched, the rush of power rocketing into her loins and exploding from her sex. Her clitoris pounded with each pulse of her heart as she emptied over Zora’s sex. Zora drenched her as she released, their victus fusing, their unique body chemicals joining, reconfiguring, and linking them heart, body, and soul.
Zora’s head snapped back, a snarl of passion and possession rolling from her chest, bombarding Trent with fury and need. Trent arched from the bed, clamped her jaws down at the angle of Zora’s neck and shoulder above the pounding lifeline, and buried her canines, claiming as she had been claimed. Zora pumped between her thighs, sending her into a shower of racking pleasure as their sexes fused again.
Zora collapsed upon her. “The next time we’re in a battle, you fight by my side, not in front of me.”
Trent chuckled. “You are mated to a warrior, Alpha. My wolf will always fight for you.”
Zora pushed herself up on both arms, glared down at her mate. “You will fight for me and our Pack, Prima. But never alone again.”
Trent answered with a growl and a kiss.
* * *
When Trent emerged from Zora’s quarters, the first Were she saw was Loris, standing guard at the end of the hall. She’d sensed him outside Zora’s room, just as she’d sensed all the Snowcrest Weres from the instant Zora’s bite had joined her to Zora and, through the commingling of their very atoms, to the Pack. The Snowcr
ests, her Pack now, would have felt her bond join theirs as well, and some would not be happy.
Some would think to challenge. She wouldn’t mind a fight, but she would not destabilize Zora’s Pack now, in the midst of a war. And Zora would see any challenge to her mate as a sign of disloyalty.
Trent moved quickly, before Zora could do what needed doing for her. If she was to lead at Zora’s side, she must claim her place and hold it on her own. With her own power. She leapt the length of the hall and landed a few inches from Loris. His eyes held tinges of gold, his wolf on the brink of challenge.
“Don’t,” Trent warned, putting every ounce of new power into her tone. “We are on the brink of war, and the Alpha will need her general.”
Loris quivered, a cascade of fine dark pelt dusting his throat and upper chest. He breathed deeply, nostrils flaring as he drew in Trent’s changed scent. Now she carried the scent of Zora and their mate bond.
Trent held his gaze, letting her wolf rise, and growled softly. Do not test me.
Loris’s eyes widened at the unspoken command.
Softly, lethally, Trent whispered, “Yield, Wolf, or you will die.”
Gasping, Loris lowered his gaze as he lifted his chin.
Trent pressed close, her chest to his, her groin to his. She could make him submit, sex and soul, but she clamped down on his throat without drawing blood. She held him in her grip until he whined softly and relaxed against her.
“Prima,” he murmured.
“Imperator,” Trent replied and, with a final roll of power, released him.
Zora appeared at Trent’s side and slid an arm around her waist. “Are you done, mate?”
Trent’s sex readied again at the first scent of her mate, and she slid her hand beneath Zora’s shirt to caress her abdomen. “Not yet.”
“I should hope not.” Laughing for a heart-stopping instant, Zora sobered and nodded to Loris. “We need to see to our soldiers. Join us.”
Loris saluted. “Yes, Alpha.”
When Trent and Zora stepped outside together, Loris on Zora’s left in his usual position, Zora paused and surveyed the training yard. Snowcrest soldiers and Timberwolf warriors milled about. Sylvan Mir stood with her centuri in the very middle of the yard, as if she’d been waiting there the whole time Trent had been healing.
