A sudden image of Malik’s memory of the snow-covered plateau with Dilek a.k.a. Fur Jacket Girl werewolf, naked on her hands and knees inside an ash-marked circle, tethered by a leather collar and chain, slammed into me. Whatever had been done to her, this male was planning on doing to me.
Terrified panic rose up in me. I shoved it back. Forced my hand to slowly clench around Ascalon’s ring. Marc the innocent was gone. Carlson the guilty was easily within sword distance and, if the damn anaesthetic would wear off so I could move more than just my fingers and head, I was going to kill him.
Carlson the guilty moved to sit cross-legged out of my reach. He looked impassively at where I lay, the fire throwing half his face into shadow. ‘Yous ain’t no virgin, girl.’
I stared at him. It was a statement, not a question, surprising me, even though I knew he’d been lying earlier. Then I recalled his easy manipulation of Marc. However stupid he’d initially sounded by supposedly not checking his facts, he wasn’t. ‘No, I’m not,’ I said calmly, then realised my mouth had unfrozen and I could talk again.
‘S’pected as much.’ He patted his chest. ‘Yous don’t feel quite right.’
‘Then why didn’t you check?’ I asked, working on the age-old maxim that if the baddie wants to talk, let him; there’s always a chance he’ll tell you something you can use against him. Of course, I didn’t really have any other option than to let Carlson talk. But I was curious. Somehow, for all his manipulations, I couldn’t see this guy letting Marc try to mate with a non-virgin if it meant the younger male would die. Not that I’d have wanted Carlson to check. If I had my way he wasn’t leaving this cave, so there was no chance of him kidnapping any other poor girls, virgo intacta or not, ever again. ‘All it would’ve taken was a simple medical examination,’ I added.
‘Ain’t only the physical that counts,’ he said. ‘Yous gotta be able to take the shift. Gnome says yous probably magical ’nuff it’ll work. That’s why I were watching yous in the park.’
‘I heard,’ I said flatly.
He nodded, telling me he’d known I’d been listening. ‘Gnome said I should take the blonde, but ma nephew likes the girl. Knew he ain’t gonna agree to using her.’
The blonde was Katie. Whether Marc agreed or not didn’t make me like him any better. He was out of Katie’s life, for good.
‘Lad wanted this redhead. Only, like I says, she definitely ain’t a virgin. I seen her with the gnome one time.’ His mouth turned down. ‘If yous know what I mean.’
Ugh.
‘She got habits,’ he added.
Poor girl.
‘An’ once yous no longer intact, then even if yous shift, the mating kill yous.’
Nice. ‘So even though you thought I might not be a virgin,’ I said, voice dry as dust, ‘and even if I did shift, then this mating would kill me and your boy, Marc, you still decided I was the one. I’ll be honest, leaving aside the whole kidnapping and performing magical rituals on me against my will thing, doesn’t sound like you’re on to a winner with me. So why bother?’
‘We always birthed girl an’ boy kits till this last generation. Now we’s got four boy kits in need of mates. Ma nephew’s the first. If he ain’t getting a mate soon, he ain’t gonna live. If all of thems ain’t getting mates in next five years, then our pride is dead. Adults ain’t living once kits all gone.’
I snorted. ‘C’mon, you can’t really expect me to believe that?’
‘We’s already lost seven male kits,’ he said softly. ‘We’s descended from old, old tigers. Tigers ain’t livin much past they be twenty or so. Ma nephew’s twenty-four. Soon as his animal soul moves on, his human soul goes with it. Only thing keeps us all living is if we’s mated an’ having kits.’
Shifters had two souls? Was that the explanation for their long lives, the one Mary hadn’t got around to reading in the witch archives?
I narrowed my eyes. ‘But you’re older than him, and you’re not dead.’
‘I’s two hun’red an’ fifty-six. We’s ain’t ageing much once we’s mated, not till one of us passes. Ma mate, Shona, passed last month. It’s why I’s doing the ritual. I’s dying soon anyways. But if the ritual working, then ma nephew gets a mate an’ he’ll live.’
And shifters didn’t die as long as they were mated. It would’ve been interesting if I wasn’t chained up. Still, I felt some satisfaction that Carlson was dying, slightly less that Marc was too. Though if Carlson thought I was going to feel pity for them . . . ‘But I’m not a virgin. So the ritual was never going to work.’
He leaned forward. ‘The ritual ain’t finished yet. If yous shift, then we knows the ritual works. Not like when that chink weretiger tried it an’ killed them tree girls. It may be too late for ma nephew, but ain’t for our other kits.’
It all fell into place. He’d gone ahead with the ritual because even if it didn’t work out fully, he’d hoped to learn enough for next time. I was a fucking experiment.
‘So yous can sit up now, girl.’
The anaesthetic vanished from my body, aches and pains rushed in and I groaned and sat up before I could stop myself.
‘Sorry,’ he said in a tone that didn’t sound it. ‘It takes yous like that.’
I groaned again. Less from the pain and more to give myself time to scope out the cave. Ice slid down my spine as I saw I was in an ash circle, glyphs glowing at intervals around the circle’s edge, like the one Dilek had been in on the snow-covered plateau. Carlson was sitting outside the circle. I straightened, shoving aside the thick chain dangling from the collar banding my neck. It disappeared beneath the furs, so presumably was attached there. But there was enough slack in it to strangle him, if I could get him close enough. But then if he was that close, I could skewer him with Ascalon.
I looked him in the eyes. ‘What takes you like that?’
‘The mate bond. Means I’s got control of yous. Your body anyhows.’ He smiled, showing normal human teeth. ‘The ritual worked, girl. First part anyways. Yous got a part of me in yous now. Means I gits to tell your body what to do, and it does it. Yous can nod your head.’ Something shifted inside me and I started nodding, anger and fear ripping into me when I couldn’t stop, couldn’t even talk. ‘Yous can stop now,’ he said.
My head jerked to a stop. I glared at him, feeling the strain in my neck where I’d tried to resist him, and an alien magic – his – fluttering to life in my stomach. ‘That’s sick.’
‘Ain’t lasting for ever, girl. Just till the mating’s over. So’s yous ain’t ending up hurting yourself during the first joining. Cats ain’t built the same as humans.’
No way did I want to even guess what that meant. ‘Thought you said it wouldn’t work if I wasn’t a virgin.’
‘This bit does. Next bit don’t. Probably.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Means we’s both likely gonna die soon.’
Which didn’t answer my question, but I got what he was planning. He might not think mating with me was going to succeed, but he wasn’t going to pass on the chance. He was dying anyway, so he had nothing to lose, even if I did. Except I’d died before, at least three times, and I was still here. Being sidhe and virtually immortal has its advantages. Maybe he was the only one about to snuff it after all. Preferably with a lot of help from me. And, unlike normal cats, it didn’t sound like he’d got nine lives to play with.
‘If it works,’ I said, ‘I’ll kill you.’
He stared at me unblinking. ‘If mate bond takes, girl, yous ain’t gonna be feeling like that.’
That’s what he thought. No way was I going to be forced to mate for life with him, or with anyone.
‘But if I is dying,’ he added, pulling a square-shaped cloth-wrapped package from the backpack. ‘I knows there’s a chance you ain’t, you being a fairy an’ that.’
‘I’m sidhe,’ I snapped. ‘Not a fairy.’
He shrugged. ‘If the lack of mate bond ain’t killing you, then I want yous to look out for
ma nephew and his kin.’
I snorted. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. There’s more chance of me taking a swampie home as a house pet.’
‘The blonde girl of yours likes ma nephew.’
He meant Katie. I laughed harshly. ‘She doesn’t know him. And she’s never going to after this. He’ll be dead.’
He nodded, a sharp dip of his chin. ‘Yous ain’t necessarily wrong. Anyhows, if yous surviving, girl, it’s all here. If yous ain’t, then the pride knows to come looking for it.’ He tucked the cloth-wrapped package carefully back in the backpack, then jumped lithely to his feet, dropped his jeans – another fucking commando – and unwrapped the bandage from his torso. Underneath was a raw wound, still trickling with blood. Damn. It looked like someone had carved a chunk of muscle from his left side, right down to his ribs . . . nausea roiled in my stomach as I got it. He’d carved chunks off himself. Chunks he’d forced down my throat. Chunks that were now fluttering faster inside me.
He swiped a hand across the wound. It came away covered in blood. He flicked the blood on to the ash circle. I gasped as the circle set and his unfamiliar magic stretched inside me, as if something warm, wet and slippery was sliding around beneath my skin, a beat reverberating through me like I had a second heart. Carlson fell to the floor, morphing seamlessly into a chunky grey and black sabre-toothed cat. The cat crouched low on its belly, hackles raised, and let out a scream, part challenge, part something else.
My stomach cramped, doubling me over.
The cat screamed again.
My head jerked up, a film passed over my eyes and the light in the cave brightened as if bathed by halogen spots, even as the colour drained away to leave everything, even the flames, in shades of grey.
The cat peeled its lips back and hissed. Part of me was fascinated by the sharp detail of the stripes in its coat, its long, quivering whiskers; another part of me smelled the gamey scent of its blood. And wanted more. Wanted to tear its flesh and crack its bones. I threw my head back, letting out my own scream, the sound vibrating oddly in my still humanoid throat.
The other cat crouched lower, muscles bunching for attack, ears flat, tail swishing.
My stomach cramped again, pain and anger and hunger goading me.
The cat growled low, demanding my obedience.
No way.
I leaped, pushing off with powerful hind legs, claws extended, attacking—
The collar tingled with magic then tightened to a chokehold round my throat, snatching me back even as that alien magic ripped part of me clean away. I soared through the air to land on the other cat’s back. It yelped in surprise, then pain, as I clamped my mouth on the back of its neck, sabre-fangs sinking deep, slicing through muscle, tendons and bone to meet with a snap that jarred my head. The cat beneath me froze in submission, its heart pounding, breath panting from its parted mouth . . . Like the man part, it didn’t want to die. It wanted to take me as its mate, to have more kits . . .
The blood scent from its wound called. My stomach cramped a third time.
This cat wasn’t my mate. It wasn’t worthy.
It was prey.
I shook it.
Snapped its neck.
Killed it.
Fed.
Something warm, wet and rough licked my cheek. My eyes snapped open, and I stared up into a huge furry face. It looked down at me with curious copper-coloured eyes, huffed as if to say, ‘Get up, lazybones,’ and yawned wide enough to showcase a gut-liquefying set of sharp, white, sabre-toothed fangs—
I threw myself away, rolling until I slammed up against the invisible wall of the ash circle, the heavy chain and collar choking my throat, and froze, staring at the big cat a few feet away, whiskers gleaming amber, the very tip of its tail twitching. Gradually what I was looking at sank into my mind. The big cat’s coat was a mix of glossy golds, bronzes and dark reds, marked with black stripes. It looked as if someone had given an orange and black tiger a funky metallic dye job. If I ignored the black stripes, its coat matched my hair. And unlike the tigers in the zoo, its pupils were oval, like a domestic cat’s. Or mine.
‘What are you?’ I croaked, heart pounding erratically in my chest.
Its ears pricked forward, the look on its face saying, ‘You’re kidding me, aren’t you?’ Then, as if I was no longer interesting, it went and flopped down at the cave entrance.
I huddled there, trying to catch the thoughts running round my head like a frantic mouse. Who was the gold cat? Was it another shifter? Was the funky gold cat why I thought I’d shifted into a big cat and eaten Carlson? But there was no way I had, not when I was still stuck in the circle, still collared and chained. Not that I wouldn’t have killed Carlson . . .
There was no sign of his grey and black striped cat body. Or his human one. His backpack was still here, its contents strewn across the floor: the cloth-wrapped package containing the ritual (ugh), phone (no use here) and a bottle of water (damn, I was thirsty). His discarded jeans and the bloody bandage were piled next to it. There was no sign of him. Not even a bloodstain on the cave’s floor. So had the gold cat chased him off? Eaten him? And where had it come from? More important, what did it want with me?
Not a lot, I realised, as the gold cat rested its head on its (very large and no doubt very sharp-clawed) paws next to the cold remains of the fire, and dozed in the sulphurous-coloured sunlight coming through the entrance. Not far from the gold cat was my own backpack. Which was an unexpected bonus. I took a calming breath – the cat could wait – untangled myself from the chain, then scrambled up and paced my magical prison looking for a way out.
The chain easily let me move to the edge of the ash circle, but I couldn’t cross the ashes or get a handle on the magic in them to crack it. Nor could I break the padlock on the leather collar, or the chain, which was obviously thick enough to hold the big cat it was made for. I shuddered, trying not to think of Carlson’s plans for me, and shoved the fur-covered pallet aside. The chain was welded to a massive iron ring, drilled and cemented into the cave floor. Crap. I was never going to break that. I’d have to work on the collar instead.
I twisted my ring. Ascalon should cut through the collar with ease. But before I started sawing at my neck with a two-foot-plus-long and razor sharp sword, I needed to take care of at least one biological necessity. Dehydrated I might be, but still, nature calls. I chose a spot facing the back of the cave and sighed with relief.
My relief was short-lived as I realised even with the collar off, I’d still be trapped in the circle. And Carlson might be (with any luck) dead and gone, but Marc and the other grey and black stripy cat-shifter, Steve, could turn up at any time.
Damn. How long had I been here? Since yesterday, seeing as I still needed to relieve myself and hadn’t had any involuntary accidents. Which meant this was the Summer Solstice. The Forum Mirabilis auction was tonight. And something told me that, no matter what plans Hugh had in place to rescue the kidnap victims, if I didn’t get back for the auction, then any chance of the Emperor answering my question about releasing the fae’s trapped fertility would be lost.
Crap. What if I didn’t get free in time?
‘No,’ I said, the sound of my voice loud in the quiet cave.
‘No. This is Between. Like the Fair Lands time runs differently here – faster or slower – if you can make it so.’ And I could. The magic liked me. All I had to do was decide ‘slower’ and it would be so. I clenched my fists, determined. ‘Slower, definitely slower.’ Hell, I could be here a week or more, not that I was planning to, and still return the same afternoon I’d left.
But first to escape. And find Finn. No way was I going anywhere without him.
I eyed my backpack. As well as water, some handy wipes and other useful stuff, it contained salt. Salt would break the circle, and while I couldn’t cross the ashes, it didn’t mean things couldn’t get in. After all, Carlson had planned to do whatever with me in the circle. I frowned at the gold cat. I was pretty sure it was a sh
ifter, and while it didn’t seem able to talk to me in its cat shape, it still had ears and presumably a human brain between them.
‘Hey,’ I called.
The gold cat cracked one copper-coloured eye open.
I pointed. ‘Any chance you could bring me my bag?’
It opened the other eye and lifted its head. Finally, after what seemed an age, it rose with a lazy grace and nosed the bag before snagging it in its sabre-teeth. I held my breath as it padded over and then let it out in relief as it tossed the bag over the ashes, to thud at my feet.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
It huffed, almost like a laugh, then went back to lie at the cave’s entrance. Guarding it from outsiders? Or keeping me in? Whatever, I had my bag.
Ten minutes later I was watered, wiped and had one of Sylvia’s always-there BLT sandwiches filling my empty stomach. Thankfully, either by luck or design, her sandwich-replenishing spell on my backpack still worked here. I’d offered the cat water and half the sandwich, which it disdainfully declined by totally ignoring me. I wished I’d thought to ask Sylvia to do the same replenishment trick with the salt too; the plastic shaker was only half full. I started sprinkling it carefully onto the ash circle. As I made it about half way around, a strong breeze ruffled the gold cat’s fur, blew my hair back, and jasmine-scented magic tingled like electricity over my skin.
A girl appeared, sitting with her legs tucked under her to one side, in the middle of the cave.
I froze, half bent over, fingers gripping the salt. Gold Cat flattened her ears but otherwise didn’t stir. The girl was about my own age, raven-black hair curling extravagantly to her hips, dressed in a mediaeval-style dress in claret red that pooled around her like a puddle of blood. Her eyes matched the claret colour of the dress, and her cat-like pupils matched Gold Cat’s. And my own.
She was sidhe.
She was also a ghost.
I clamped my mouth shut on a scream as my stupid phobia hit, panic speeding my pulse. I swallowed the panic back. The ghost sidhe couldn’t hurt me, hell, she couldn’t even speak to me, since I can see ghosts but not hear them. Well, not unless it’s All Hallows’ Eve. Which this wasn’t—
The Shifting Price of Prey [4] Page 38
