Emperor’s Throne: Desert Cursed Series, Book 6

by Mayer, Shannon

  The ground rumbled and the air around me shivered . . . and the fog began to move and swirl around us. A grin slid over my face as the mist was forcibly pushed away until there were only patches here and there.

  But the smile didn’t last, not when I saw for the first time what we were facing in its entirety.

  “Balder,” I whispered, my heart plunging to the soles of my feet, my hand tightening on the flail, “my old friend, we’re going to die.”

  6

  Merlin

  Strange to find that after all Ishtar took from him, he could still think, and feel pain, and wonder just what was happening around him. Mind you, he was supposed to be dead.

  There had been a moment after Ishtar had let him go that another set of hands had touched him, and he’d had just enough strength left to weave a little magic through her.

  A desire to help him.

  It looked as though that last spell had worked.

  “Hold still,” a low whisper curled through his ears. A woman’s voice. Not Flora’s, though. Someone else, someone young and a little familiar.

  Hands brushed over his body which sent shooting pains flying along his nerve endings, drawing a gasp from his parched lips. Parched. Again, not something that should be happening if he were dead, which meant he really had survived Ishtar. Pain, thirst, those were concerns of the living, not of the deceased.

  “I said hold still. You’ll pull out the stitches. As it is, you’re going to have some serious scars.”

  Merlin forced one eye open, the other he wasn’t sure . . . was it gone maybe? He wanted to lift a hand and touch his own face, but there was no energy within him to even do that. Damn Ishtar and her pettiness.

  Talk about an eye for an eye.

  One slow blink revealed a gray ceiling above painted with a bright sunburst in brilliant gold, red, and yellow flames, lions circling it, running between stands of trees and water that spilled out in tendrils of multiple rivers. Golden Bright Lions with their mouths open in a silent roar. The fresco was stunning, and Merlin’s heart beat a little faster.

  This was better than he could have hoped for.

  A face leaned over him, blocking the view. Long golden hair that curled at the ends, bright golden eyes, full lips. An angel for sure. Or a devil for keeping him alive and making him suffer, he wasn’t sure yet.

  “I don’t know if you remember me,” she whispered. She brought a cloth to his face and wiped it across his brow. “The fever finally broke, but you’ll be weak for some time. You have to stay quiet. You can’t make a sound or she’ll kill us both.”

  She turned; there was the sound of water dripping, and then a metal ladle was against his lips and the cool liquid pooled into his mouth. It hurt to swallow, the first few gulps were like sandpaper in his throat, but it eased, and he drank down two more full offerings.

  “That’s enough, more later,” the girl said. Girl, woman. She was a Bright Lion, one tied to Ishtar and she was helping him, just as he’d hoped.

  His curiosity got the better of him. His spell would have only worked if there had been a desire to help to start with, even if it was just a seed. “Why?” He managed the single word and she went still in her movements, just pausing for the briefest of seconds before continuing to move through the motions of cleaning up.

  “You would help Zam. And she is my alpha. I won’t abandon her like the others have. Even Ford has turned from her because he wants her and she loves Maks.” She rotated her head toward him and her eyes narrowed into slits that made her look even more catlike as they glowed gold with her emotions. “You will help her.”

  His lips twitched, working toward a smile. “Yes.”

  She smiled for both of them. “Then we stay quiet, you heal, and when we can, we escape.”

  “Name?” He whispered the word as sleep began to tug at his eyes.

  “Kiara.”

  *_*_*

  She watched him slide under the sleep that only came to those who’d been injured badly or were coming back from a deep sickness. Fatigue nipped at her heels, but she still had much to do. Telling the others that she was not well had kept her confined to her room for the time it had taken to bring Merlin back from the brink.

  That Ishtar had asked her to remove his seemingly lifeless body from the throne room on that night had been a slap in the face. That was a task normally given to a human or a slave. But from the minute she’d put her hands on him, she’d known she had to help him.

  She hadn’t cared what Ishtar would do to her if she was caught. Her lips tightened as she thought about how they’d all been fooled by Ishtar, how they’d thought she’d loved and looked out for them. Just like she, herself, had been fooled by Steve. But Zam was not like that, and she’d always watched out for her, like the family she was, no matter that they were different kinds of shifters. It still churned in her guts that she’d believed the lies Steve had told her about Zam. About her being weak and jealous. When that wasn’t the case, not at all.

  Kiara would not make that mistake again.

  The low snarl that trickled past her lips was out before she could catch it. But then again, there was no one to hear her. No one to stop her from expressing herself.

  With everything in the room tidied, she stood and glanced at Merlin. She’d sewn his one eye shut; the orb had been totally destroyed. The rest of the multitude of wounds that covered his body were either bandaged or stitched closed by her hand, so in theory he’d survive. But he was so weak, and she wasn’t sure how long they had before they would need to slip away. She stepped out of the room, closing the wooden door tightly behind her. She needed food for herself and for Merlin if they were going to get through this.

  No, they would get through this, and then they would help Zam.

  Darcy had come to the door a few times while Kiara had been “sick,” but she’d kept it shut, and kept the incense burning heavily to mask the smell of the wizard. Even now, the incense bowl was burning away, keeping the room full of the smell of sage and saffron.

  In bare feet, she padded silently down the hallway, the cold, smooth rock below her feet that had once been such a comfort, a feeling of home, now chilling her. This place was full of dangers she’d never realized, and she had to find a way to navigate them on her own.

  The main hall opened ahead of her, and dinner was underway.

  Everyone was there. Ford, Shem, Steve, Darcy, Ben, and Frankie the half-Jinn, half-lion shifters, and Asuga. They were all eating, and the only one who was talking was—no surprise—Steve. Asuga was curled up to him on one side, Darcy sat on his other shooting daggers from her eyes at the younger cheetah shifter.

  “I can’t believe she’s sending us out. And for what? A loser.” He slapped a hand on the table.

  Darcy shook her head. “She must have reasons. I trust her. Even if it seems . . . strange.”

  Kiara slowed her steps, in part to not alert them to her presence, in part because she wanted to hear more of what was happening.

  But Steve lifted his head in her direction right away and had the nerve, the damn nerve, to wink at her.

  Her spine bristled and if she’d been in her four-legged form, all the hair would have stood on her back right down to the tip of her tufted tail. She walked slowly to the side table where the food was laid out. She spooned up the soup, and put together a large plate of food, mixed meats and a few slices of flatbread. Balancing it all carefully, she turned and walked back out of the room.

  Footsteps behind her, quick, hurried and heavy, sent her pulse hammering in her throat. She’d face Steve one day. She was sure of it, but not now, not here. The timing was terrible and she couldn’t risk it, not for Merlin’s sake.

  “Hey.”

  A breath of air whooshed out of her and she turned her head to the older, crazier lion that she was less than sure of even if he was Zam’s uncle. “Shem, what are you doing? I’m still not feeling well.” She didn’t take another step, though, because what if he figured out that she
wasn’t sick? It would blow her cover and Merlin’s.

  “Are you with child?” His question was blunt and hurt her in a way she was trying not to think about.

  An answer didn’t want to form on her lips as she struggled to find the words. So she just shook her head.

  Shem leaned down until his mouth was barely off her ear. “You need to tell them you are, or they will want to know why you are really sick, and then the real secret you hide will be found out. I think you don’t want that.”

  Her eyes went wide and the plate rattled in her hand as a tremor ran through her. Shem smiled. “Here, let me help you, you must be awfully tired.”

  Suddenly Steve’s wink made more sense. He thought she was still with child? But he knew, she’d told him that she’d lost the baby when they’d been trapped by the Jinn. The stress had been too much, and the animal side of her aborted so she could escape easier. Shem took both bowl and plate from her and followed her to her room.

  She moved on autopilot, opening the door and letting him in, then shutting the door behind them both. “How did you know?”

  Shem lowered the bowl and plate to a side table, then crouched next to Merlin. He waved a palm in front of Merlin’s face before he answered. “I saw you take him out.”

  “I took him out the back, toward the cemetery,” she said.

  “But you were gone a long time.” Shem kept a hand floating above Merlin’s body. “Long enough that I noticed. Far longer than needed to dig a shallow hole and bury him. So I followed his smell, and it led all the way to your window.” He lifted both bushy eyebrows at her and she frowned.

  “I used a scent diffuser.”

  “But I was looking for him. I thought the same thing as you, that if he wasn’t dead, we need him.” Shem sat back and gave a heavy sigh. “You did good with him. But you need to sleep. I will watch over him.”

  Kiara’s jaw twitched and she reached out with one hand, placing it against Shem’s face, then slowly curled her fingers into his skin. “If you try to fuck me over, Shem, I will tear your goddam throat out if it’s the last thing I do.”

  He raised a hand and placed it over hers, slowly loosening her fingers. “I would expect nothing less from someone who has learned from Zam.”

  A flush of warmth, maybe a little pride, slid through Kiara as she lowered herself to the pallet bed she’d made on the floor. “Wake me if something happens.”

  Shem nodded, blew out the candles in the room and then sat next to her. “You got it, Alpha.”

  Kiara woke hours later. The door was closed still, and the smell of two men filled her nostrils, reminding her that she was not alone in trying to get help to Zam. She sat up, wondering what had pulled her from her sleep. The clatter out her window drew her to her feet, and she was at the shutters in seconds, peering out. All she could see was the hind ends of two horses, the riders indistinguishable under the cover of darkness.

  A tap on the door spun her around, and a whiff of male lion made her hurry to the door. “What do you want, Ford?”

  “She sent them after Zam, Kiara.” The sorrow in his voice was thick enough to cut through every defense she’d been putting up. “Zam is in trouble, and Ishtar sent Steve and Darcy in to finish the job.”

  Kiara flung the door open, already knowing what she had to do. “Then why are you standing there looking sad? We have to stop them.” She looked back at Shem who was awake, barely. “Get him,” she pointed at Merlin. “We leave now.”

  Though how she was going to get them past Ishtar, she wasn’t fully sure, but she had to try. Damn it, she had to try.

  7

  Zamira

  The fog around us cleared away with Maks’s magic pushing it along, and the sun was suddenly there on the eastern horizon, lighting up every horrible thing we faced. Like . . . the entire army of reptilian creatures that encircled us, too many deep to ever survive. Hundreds, we faced hundreds of armed creatures that stood on two feet, then dropped to their bellies to run across the hard ground like big-ass geckos easily over twelve feet long when taking their tails into account. Their ranks formed and reformed as they shifted around us, waiting for some signal to attack.

  Maks and Bryce were to the left of me. “Can you call any gorcs?” I whisper-shouted at Maks, trying to think of just how we were going to do this. How the fuck would we survive?

  He shook his head. “Nothing close enough.” His eyes met mine, speaking volumes. He was exhausted, all his power used up between battle after battle.

  So there it was. My answer was simple—we wouldn’t be seeing the end of the day.

  My eyes found Bryce’s and I saw there what I already knew. There would be no getting out of this. I backed Balder up until we were side by side again with Maks and Batman. I looked down at Bryce who was on my other side, bright red blood on his muzzle.

  “They taste like desert lizards,” he said. “I think she’s made them bigger, stronger, just for this.”

  I didn’t know how that was possible, not when she didn’t have the stone of creation. I reached for the red stone that had belonged to the Wyvern. But the thing was, I had nothing left in me as far as the magic went either. I was tapped out.

  “She drained us,” Maks said softly, “knowing we’d throw everything at the frogs, taking Lila and Trick out of the picture, then sending this army against us.”

  Checkmate indeed.

  I swallowed hard. “Then we go down swinging.” I looked to Bryce. “Sorry to bring you back to this side of living, only to get you killed again.”

  He snorted. “At least we go down together, as family.”

  “Give us the stones.” The voice rippled not from one throat but all of them at once.

  I shrugged, feeling that strange sense of knowing how this would end, and embracing it. To Balder, I whispered, “If I fall, you run. Run fast and hard, find Merlin if you can, get you and Lila out of here.”

  He looked up and back at me and gave me a slow nod. I took my pouch with the stones from my waist and tucked them into the saddlebag with Lila.

  To the reptiles, I smiled. “Make me.”

  There was one more moment of pause, like either they were shocked, or Ollianna wasn’t sure she’d heard me correctly—because again, I was certain she’d be watching this.

  The reptile men rushed us, and the fight was on like Donkey Kong, as my father had said more than once, even if I didn’t have a clue what he meant. It sounded good.

  I swung the flail, slammed it into the head of one reptile as I spun Balder to the side, pulled the spiked ball free, and swung it across my body to the other side of us. The weapon didn’t stick as hard as it could, and even as I thought it, the spiked balls smoothed out, the metal becoming as slick as if they’d only been made that way, and they bounced off heads and bodies even better, making for faster wounds. Better injuries that didn’t slow me down.

  Thank you, magic weapon. The handle warmed against my palm.

  All around me, bones broke and snapped as Maks and Bryce hammered at the reptiles, the roar of Bryce as he challenged them, the boom of my shotgun as I pulled it loose and used it until the shells were spent, the grenades gone.

  I dropped the gun as the sun rose in the sky, brightening the clouds. Maks bled from multiple cuts and bites on his arms, Batman had a chunk of flesh missing from his hip, Balder had bites all down his side.

  It won’t be enough. You need to dig deep and pull on the magic. You have to kill them the way you did the frogs. Marsum’s voice was loud inside my head, distracting me. A reptile grabbed me and pulled me out of the saddle, its clawed hands digging into me hard, squeezing me tightly. I twisted in its hold as I fell, shifting out of instinct back to four legs.

  I landed lightly, knowing there was a chance to save my brother and Maks. “I have the stones!” I yelled and then bolted, using my small size to my advantage, running for all I was worth, dodging between the reptile men’s legs, over their bodies as they dropped to all fours. I bounded and spun, just
small enough to be hard to catch, big enough to be too fast.

  I was at the edge of the reptiles now and I could see the open desert. I would take them west, I knew it was a chance that wasn’t great, that maybe I wouldn’t get far but . . . everyone else would be alive. Lila, Maks, Bryce, Balder and Batman would be able to go on.

  Balder would run, the way I’d told him to.

  Idiot, they won’t go on, not without you. You are the driving force here.

  “Well, help me then!” I snapped as I passed by the last of the reptile creatures. I dared a glance back and they were following me, the seething mass of scale-armored bodies and flashing teeth as they scooted across the ground. Dust flew up around them. I bolted, running as fast as I could, stretching out and for just a moment wishing I had Lila’s ability to shift size.

  I’d been that jungle cat I was meant to be just once, and to own that shape again would give me the chance I needed . . . I didn’t close my eyes but wished with all the hope and energy I had in me that my luck would turn for once and I would be able to at least die with my real four-legged form.

  That I wouldn’t die hissing and spitting, crushed in a set of hands that could easily wrap around my entire body.

  The tang of metal bouncing off a rock next to me scooted me sideways. More thwaps around me said it all. The reptile boys had found something to shoot at me.

  Over and over, the metallic bolts hit the ground around me to either side as I zigzagged, running flat out for a section of high rocks that I could use for cover.

  Belly low to the ground, I gave it all I had, turning on what was left of my speed, panting for breath.