Defy

by Raine Thomas

  “Lie,” Tate said. She couldn’t help herself. Her fear combined with the enormous lie energy that resonated from his words prompted her to speak before she thought better of it.

  “Shut up, female,” Eirik growled, pressing the kris against her skin once again. “Do not deign to call me a liar.”

  She shut up.

  “How much longer?” Zachariah asked. “I am not known for my patience.”

  “Ask the female you are choking.”

  He didn’t look away from Eirik. Instead, he briefly squeezed the female’s neck to get her attention. “How much longer?”

  “I don’t know,” she said hoarsely. Although her throat was open enough for her to breathe, he was still applying pressure. “We’ve come as far as I can bring them. The trail ends here.”

  Tate pieced it together then. The markings around the other female’s eyes. The unusual sword she had been carrying. The fact that she stopped walking just a few feet away from the sacred artifact being hunted by the Mercesti.

  She was somehow able to find things that other beings couldn’t.

  Tate’s eyes widened when Zachariah glanced at her. She looked at the scroll just beyond where he stood and then back at him, hoping he knew what she was trying to convey. Then she felt Eirik look between her and Zachariah.

  “What is your second power?” he asked suddenly.

  Before she could answer, a voice called out, “You are surrounded. Release the females and we will let you live.”

  The Mercesti all looked up, as did Tate. All along the mountain were Waresti as far as she could see. Of course, they were shimmering blue-green. To her eyes, at least.

  The Lekwuesti female took advantage of that moment of distraction to gain her release. She managed to use her elbow to catch Sparky hard in the ribs, then twirled fast to her left to get out from under his single-handed hold. Unfortunately, she tripped over the fallen sword, sending her careening into the Mercesti holding the howling animal.

  Movement and noise flowed from the Mercesti as they unsheathed their weapons and weighed their chances against the Waresti soldiers. Tate watched the events in front of her unfold with a clarity that bordered on slow motion.

  She knew the female had miscalculated. As that thought hit her, she lifted her unbound hands, grabbed Eirik’s knife hand, and spread her legs for momentum in a downward lurch while dragging his hand away from her. Then, holding his arm straight out from his body, she used her boot and smashed him in the knee as she lifted her elbow to catch him in the throat. He went down, though she knew it wasn’t for long.

  The group of Mercesti blocking the savage-sounding creature had been jostled enough by the Lekwuesti’s forward motion that they were quickly thrown apart. Even as Tate escaped Eirik’s hold, a figure shot like a darting shadow and knocked the Lekwuesti to the ground.

  The female’s horrifying scream cut through the unfolding noise of battle.

  Tate fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the first fabric she could find—her torn panties. She then reached into her boot and retrieved her slayer grass blade, wrapping it in fabric even as she moved. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Sparky assuming what appeared to be a defensive stance, but she hoped she was quicker. He could get hurt.

  Rather than trying to stab the awful being tearing at the Lekwuesti’s throat, since she doubted that would do any good, Tate did the next thing that came to mind. She sliced open her hand, got as close as she dared to the pair on the ground and flung her blood at him.

  He looked up with lips and wicked teeth coated in blood. His red eyes latched onto her. A whimper caught her around the throat, but she didn’t let it escape.

  Instead, she said, “Come and get me.”

  Sophia and Quincy watched from their position among the trees. It was chaos. Mercesti fled into the woods to try and get out of sight of the Waresti. Those remaining on the mountain who refused to flee in the face of battle or were just unable to do so quickly fell to the Waresti coming down the mountain. Sophia spotted Alexius among them and knew this wasn’t a random offensive maneuver.

  “Let’s go help,” Sophia said as she watched Tate and the Lekwuesti free themselves from their captors.

  “With what weapons?” Quincy argued, though she could see he was having a hard time restraining himself. “You can’t shift. Your injuries—”

  “We can’t just sit here,” Sophia argued.

  Then she lost her train of thought. Tate somehow managed to knock Eirik to the ground. At the same time, Sophia watched in a blur of confusion as a figure shot out of the crowd and tackled the Lekwuesti. She noticed Zachariah reaching for something at the small of his back and realized he had pulled out a tomahawk. His flat red eyes shifted to Tate, and Sophia felt certain he was going to kill her.

  Tate did something as she neared the screaming Lekwuesti that caught the attention of the savage creature. Her actions succeeded in stopping the frenzied attack. Unfortunately, it also left her vulnerable to the two armed males at her back.

  I have to get to Tate, she thought with a surge of panic and protective instincts as Eirik raised his kris and Zachariah’s tomahawk gleamed in the moonlight. I can’t shift and I have to get to—!

  Before the thought fully ran through her head, she was airborne.

  Chapter 38

  Tiege watched the events unfold from the top of the mountain. He couldn’t go down to Tate because he had to keep himself focused on casting his illusion. Generating hundreds of Waresti that all looked different and moved in unique ways was a massive drain on his energy. It was the biggest and most complex illusion he’d ever attempted.

  Clara Kate and Ini-herit remained with him, as did a few Waresti. Their actions were necessary to protect him from the Mercesti charging the mountain. Maintaining his focus as C.K.’s blessed butterfly swords flew and Ini-herit protected her back with a Waresti blade had sweat trickling down his temples. When some of the Mercesti took flight as a skirmish broke out down at Tate’s location, he used his power to send some of the Waresti illusions after them to keep it realistic.

  He managed to maintain his grip on the illusion even through the female Lekwuesti’s screams, though every instinct in him wanted to drop it and hurry to aid her. He maintained it when a Mercesti managed to get in a strike to C.K.’s upper arm and her blood sprayed in his direction. He maintained it when Ini-herit beheaded that Mercesti.

  But he lost it when he saw Tate standing between the gruesome Mercesti with blood dripping from his mouth and Eirik…who lifted his black blade with the clear intent to run her through.

  Tate realized her mistake about two seconds after she got the attention of the savage Mercesti attacking the other female.

  She had trained for nearly all of her seventeen years for something like this. Up until that moment, she had been rather pleased with her efforts to defend herself and the Lekwuesti. She thought she did her parents proud. But she had always trained with her twin at her back.

  Tiege wasn’t with her now. She knew her mistake was fatal.

  In the split second of time she had to realize her error, she sensed Eirik on his feet. She felt the slight breeze caused by the lift of his weapon. She heard the blade slicing toward her unprotected back.

  Then she was grabbed from her left and flung so hard her feet left the ground. She heard the sound of a weapon sinking sickly into flesh. Her side flared with projected pain. It was all she registered before she careened headlong through the illusion that everyone saw as a rock face and shattered it into a nova of eye-searing light.

  Ariana wasn’t sure how injured she was. She felt Deimos bite her, and it hurt every bit as much as she feared. But it ended almost as quickly as it began.

  In these many days among the Mercesti, she had learned to manage her fear. Despite her terror over Deimos’ attack, it didn’t incapacitate her. Even as she watched him turn to address the Kynzesti, who held a strange knife and taunted him with a hand dripping with blood, she started to roll
out from under him.

  She almost didn’t make it. Deimos sensed her actions and jerked back to her, reaching out with clawing hands to grab her skirt. A series of movements, the sound of pain and a brilliant flash of light distracted him, however.

  This time, it was Deimos who screeched. Ignoring him, Ariana scrabbled to her hands and knees and spotted the Kynzesti. She was sprawled on the ground and struggling to get to her feet.

  Right beside a pedestal housing a piece of parchment.

  Not bothering to look in Eirik’s direction, knowing that he was moving at least as quickly as she was if the grunt of pain hadn’t come from him, she leapt toward the Kynzesti and the scroll. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the hope that one of the Waresti surrounding them would fly to her aid. She hadn’t noticed that the number of Waresti soldiers had reduced dramatically just about the time the light burst around the scroll.

  She got to the pedestal at the same time the Kynzesti managed to stand. They both reached for the parchment. Ariana’s fingertips brushed it.

  Before she could get it, she was suddenly flung against the Kynzesti and wrapped so tight she couldn’t breathe. The world shifted around her in a dizzying swirl. Though she failed to see how, she realized they were flying.

  And she also knew Eirik had the scroll.

  Zachariah spit blood out of his mouth and did what he could to staunch the blood leaking from his side. He should have known that damned female would be the death of him.

  The injury slowed his reaction time. He normally would have countered Eirik’s strike with one of his own and killed the bloody bastard. But the combination of being off-balance from tossing Tate out of the way and the hard strike beneath his ribs had prevented it.

  Instead, he staggered away from where his instincts told him he needed to be—between Tate and Eirik.

  The noise from the fleeing and battling Mercesti around them reached his ears. He smelled fear and death on the night air. Flashes of orange, red, and—unexpectedly—silver and blue-green energy lit the dark sky as Estilorians took flight. The sharp pain in his side eased into numbness, something that probably should have alarmed him but instead helped him regain his feet. Still, he knew that even the few feet separating him from Tate and Eirik were too many.

  Fortunately, Nyx decided to make her appearance then. He watched as the kragen swooped down, curled her tail around Tate and the Lekwuesti, who were standing all but on top of each other, and yanked them up into the sky just as Eirik reached them. Tate managed to get a kick into the side of Eirik’s head, though whether by accident or design, Zachariah had no idea.

  “Deimos!” Eirik shouted as he grabbed something from the top of the pedestal in front of him. He spoke a few more words, but they were unintelligible.

  Zachariah switched his hold on his tomahawk even as Deimos leaped at Eirik. Flicking his wrist, Zachariah let his weapon fly with a strike that should have split Eirik between the eyes.

  It ended up soaring through the air…right into the chest of the Waresti second commander as he came in for a landing.

  Sophia couldn’t believe she was flying. The energy surging through her was both foreign and beyond welcome. Although she knew she was now a visible target to the Mercesti with crossbows, she couldn’t imagine ever extinguishing her wings now that she’d finally called them forth.

  After a minute, she realized that she was getting higher and higher. She couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  “Sophia!” Quincy called out to her. “Stop moving your—”

  Panicking, she locked her wings. Then she fell.

  “Extinguish your wings!” he shouted.

  “No!” she returned, and started flapping again. She watched as he hurried to pace her. “I just learned how to extend them, for all holy sake. What if I can’t do it again?”

  She saw a look that might have been understanding enter his silver eyes. “You’ll be able to do it now, Sophia,” he said in a gentler tone. “Do you feel it?”

  Puzzled by what he meant, she frowned and started to tell him no. Then she actually paid attention to the energy that flowed through her. It seemed to come from her heart and filtered out into her wings. “Yes, I do.”

  “That’s the energy you need to call forth from now on when you want to extend your wings,” he said, holding her gaze. “You will be able to do it. But now isn’t the time to test your abilities.”

  Just then, they were both almost knocked to the ground by a large, black mass. Sophia intuitively corrected her balance in the air as Quincy did the same. They both looked at the same time in the direction of the kragen that had just blown by them. And they easily spotted Tate and the Lekwuesti in the animal’s tail.

  Quincy caught her gaze. “On second thought…”

  “Yeah,” she said with a determined nod. “Let’s go after Tate.”

  “Alexius!”

  Clara Kate’s shout reached Tiege from where she and Ini-herit flew overhead. It reflected his own horror at seeing Zachariah throw his weapon and hit the Waresti second commander.

  Tiege hadn’t wanted to take the time to get into the flight harness with Ini-herit after his illusion dissolved, so he ran down the mountain trying to get to Tate, using his kamas to clear a path. He lost sight of his sister as he made his way through the crowd. The noise, flashes of blinding light and chaotic motion disoriented him. But he forced his way through the crowd in time to see Zachariah’s deadly strike. Not seeing Tate, he reasoned the Mercesti who had just tried to kill Alexius had done something to her.

  Using his momentum as he raced downhill, Tiege launched himself into a low dive and roll even as Alexius staggered back. He sliced the back of Zachariah’s knees with his weapons as he came out of the roll, causing the Mercesti to hit the ground. Tiege regained his feet, encircling Zachariah’s neck with the curved blades of his blessed weapons with the intent of separating his head from his body.

  “No!”

  Tiege managed to stop himself at Alexius’ cry. He stood over Zachariah with his kamas around his neck and looked to Alexius for a reason why he should spare the male who had struck him down and obviously done something to Tate. He noticed the Mercesti’s skin burned where the blessed weapons touched him, but he didn’t make a sound.

  “But he tried to kill you,” Tiege pointed out as Alexius pushed himself back to his feet and yanked the tomahawk from his chest. Although blood accompanied the weapon, the wound didn’t appear fatal. The armor he wore had saved his life. “He was going to kill Tate. We don’t even know where she is. He probably did something to her!”

  “You must be Tiege,” Zachariah said, startling him. He hadn’t even looked over his shoulder.

  C.K. and Ini-herit landed next to Alexius. They held their weapons at the ready, but the Waresti had largely dispersed the Mercesti in the immediate vicinity.

  “How did you know that?” Tiege demanded.

  Moving slowly, the Mercesti reached for the small of his back. Tiege dug his kamas deeper as a warning. Zachariah didn’t even flinch as his blood flowed from the inflicted wounds. Instead, he pulled out two nunchucks from beneath his tank top.

  “Give these back to your sister, would you?” he asked as he held them up. “It appears I missed my chance.”

  Tiege looked at the weapons as realization sank in. He had the fleeting thought that the blessed nunchucks didn’t hurt Zachariah. Then Alexius said, “Tiege, he was aiming for Eirik.”

  Without another word, Tiege removed his kamas, took Tate’s nunchucks and stepped away from Zachariah. “Where’s my sister?” he asked.

  Zachariah pushed himself to his feet, which Tiege knew had to be painful after the injuries he had caused to the backs of his legs. “She and the Lekwuesti were taken somewhere safe just before Eirik and Deimos—” He cut himself off, closing his eyes briefly. Then he added, “Disappeared.”

  “You are injured,” Ini-herit stated.

  Zachariah caught the elder’s gaze, but didn’t reply. Blood had soak
ed his tank top from the slices around his neck. Ini-herit stepped closer to him. The Mercesti didn’t move and watched him with wary eyes. Ini-herit reached out. When his hands touched Zachariah’s neck, there was a flash of white light. Both males hissed in pain and backed away from each other.

  Clara Kate hurried to Ini-herit, who rubbed his hands against his thighs. He shook his head.

  “I cannot heal you,” he said to Zachariah.

  “You may not be able to,” came a voice. Tiege looked up as Uncle Gabriel approached, followed closely by his dad. His uncle caught Zachariah’s eye and added, “But I can.”

  Chapter 39

  When Nyx’s tail once again wrapped around Tate, she went through what could only be described as a mental conniption fit. She immediately flashed back to when she was snatched out of the air at Sophia’s flight lesson, a moment that had left her scarred in more ways than one.

  At first, she was startled, confused and disoriented. She felt the Lekwuesti smashed up against her and she realized they were lifting off the ground. Her body was flung in several directions until she was held in a more stable, horizontal position with the Lekwuesti wedged up against her left side and part of her back. Her mind took a couple of minutes to process what had occurred.

  Eventually, though, she regained her senses enough to figure out what had happened. Above her soared a silent black mass. She knew it was the kragen.

  “Nyx!” she shouted above the wind soaring in her ears. “Put us down! We have to help Sparky!” When she didn’t receive any kind of response, she started struggling against the confines of the kragen’s tail. “Nyx!”

  “You’re stabbing me with your blade,” the Lekwuesti said near her ear.

  “Sorry,” Tate replied, and stopped shifting.