by Lori Devoti
Desperate for silence, or at least an inability to hear the other witch, she started humming…a dead monotone note that made her feel even more alone, desperate.
“You could take me to Alfheim. Reunite me with my body. Then I’d fight with you, defeat the elves,” Amma whispered.
Marina dug her palms into her closed eyes. Defeat the elves. It wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want Amma’s power to gain more power for herself. She had wanted Amma’s power to secure her freedom, to know she was strong enough to stand up to her uncle and the elf lords, to fight for her own rights and happiness. To keep from being a pawn ever again.
But her plan had backfired. Everything had backfired. And now Raf was here, reminding her how good things had been, could have been, if their time together hadn’t all been a lie.
“Release me,” Amma urged.
The truck hit a pothole. Marina’s body jerked into the air. The paint can she’d stopped earlier collided with her head. And all she could do was lie there, shake with the disappointment of what her life was, always had been, always would be.
“Get over it!” Amma’s voice broke through her melancholy. “How do I keep getting stuck in such weaklings?” Then there was silence, blessed silence.
Marina waited, sure the witch would be back to taunt her, but minutes later she hadn’t made a peep. Marina sat up, rubbed dirt from her face and clothes and ran a hand through her tangled hair.
Amma was right. Marina had to get over it. Running, hiding wouldn’t fix her life. It was no way to lead a life.
Raf had said he was here to take Amma. He must be working for the elf lords. They must know.
If Marina gave the witch up, would the elf lords, at least, leave her alone? Her uncle might still look for her, but Raf would be off her tail. She wouldn’t have to struggle with the longing she felt every time she saw him, worry that he might pop up again, and remind her of what she’d thought they had. The idea was solid, practical. She would give Raf what he wanted. In return, why wouldn’t he let her go, a head start…something?
Hope flickered inside her. Her resolve began to grow.
And what reason was there to keep Amma? The witch had made it clear she wouldn’t help Marina, not unless Marina carried her back to Alfheim herself and released Amma’s spirit into her body.
Marina couldn’t do that. She would be walking into her uncle’s and the elf lords’ hands.
So, what good was keeping her?
Marina sat up, peered over the truck’s tailgate. They hadn’t gone far; she recognized the street.
Not waiting for the truck to slow, she slung her leg over the vehicle’s side and leapt to the ground.
She was going back…to Raf.
Chapter 3
R af paced around the room. He should be chasing down Marina. He was sure the other hellhound was, but Raf had signaled Joarr before Marina escaped. He needed to wait for the dragon to arrive before taking off after her.
Worst case, he’d take her back from the bounty hunter. The other hellhound didn’t worry him.
Raf strode back to the window and stared down at the street. Traffic was picking up. A bicycle wove between cars. Two men argued near a mailbox. But no sign of the dragon.
He had almost decided to give up, to leave and find Marina, when the sound of wings beating against the air drew his attention to the horizon. The dragon, cloaked in fog, moved steadily toward him. He landed on a rooftop one building over. His scales shone silver for a second and his silvery blue eyes gleamed, then the fog around him grew thicker, impossible to see through. Raf waited, watching. Slowly, the fog cleared and the ice blue dragon was gone. In its place stood a man, dressed all in white. In one hand he held what appeared to be a lantern. He raised it above his head, gestured at Raf.
The hellhound shimmered, solidified on the roof next to Joarr.
The dragon-shifter frowned. “Where is she?”
“Escaped. There are bounty hunters after her. I let myself get sidetracked.”
“Humph.” The dragon arched one brow. “By the hunter or the elf?”
Raf crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll get her back. Do you have the needle?”
Joarr reached into his pocket and pulled out a sliver of silver. “The elf lords were quite generous. They insisted I take the needle, the vessel—” he held up the lantern “—and a few niceties for my cavern.”
“Did they?” Raf asked. The dragon and the elves had a history, not a friendly one. He knew anything Joarr had gotten from the elf lords had not come freely. “What will you do with her, once you have her?” he asked.
“The lovely Amma?” Joarr ran the heavy chain connected to the lantern through his closed hand. “I may keep her for a while. In lieu of what she cost me—seems a fair exchange.”
Raf didn’t know what had happened between the witch Amma and Joarr in the past. He had met the dragon when they were both trapped in Gunngar. Joarr, locked in his dragon form, had been positioned by the elves as a watchdog to the chamber where Raf had been imprisoned.
Not a willing watchdog, and not one allowed any freedom.
The elves had put him there, but surprisingly Joarr seemed fixated solely on Amma. Finding her. Toying with her.
Whatever had passed between them, Joarr hadn’t forgiven or forgotten.
But Amma wasn’t Raf’s concern. From all he’d heard she was no more deserving of his pity than Marina.
“I’ll contact you when I’ve found her again. Stay close. I don’t want to risk another run-in.”
“Afraid of losing her? Not very confident, are you?” The dragon angled his head to the side.
Raf suppressed a growl. “Stay close,” he replied, then he shimmered.
One pass around the building told Raf what Marina had done, where she had landed when she climbed down from the room.
The other hellhound had gotten this far, too. Raf could smell him.
Raf’s lip curled into a snarl. He wasn’t worried about the competition, but that didn’t mean he didn’t resent it.
Marina trudged through the streets. She’d found a hooded sweatshirt lying on a bus stop bench. She’d pulled it on, jerked the hood up to hide her hair.
The thing smelled of stale cigarettes and wet dog. She ignored the stench, told herself it was added camouflage, hiding her scent from any other bounty hunters.
Three blocks from the building where she’d escaped Raf her steps began to slow. Something wasn’t right. She felt a tickle, an edge of annoyance. She stared at her feet. They refused to move.
Amma.
“You cannot be serious,” Marina said. She gritted her teeth. The witch was impossible.
“Without me, you will have nothing,” the witch said.
“I thought you wanted me to let you go?” Marina argued. She grabbed hold of her pants, tried to tug her leg forward.
“I want you to take me to Alfheim—to my body. Not turn me over to the hellhound.”
“I’m not going to Alfheim with you inside me and not helping me. I am not going to Alfheim at all.” Marina concentrated, managed to move her foot a few inches. “I’d be walking into a nightmare. The elf lords would have you and I’d be lost somewhere in the middle, stuck between the elf lords and the royals, two dogs who want to own me.”
“What’s your choice? Staying here in the human world?” Amma scoffed.
“Yes. Staying here in the human world. Cleaning toilets and gathering up cigarette butts is a better life than what waits for me in Alfheim—a far better life. Here, I’m free,” Marina replied.
The witch seemed to mull this over. Marina took advantage of her silence, and general disappearance, by hurrying toward her goal. She was less than a block from the building when Amma decided to let loose of her magic.
Marina’s hands shot overhead; power surged through her body, up her arms and out her palms. She could feel Amma inside her, twisting her, aiming…for what Marina didn’t know.
She cursed—Marina and Amma. M
arina because she had lost control of her own body. Amma, Marina assumed, because the witch had missed her intended target, whatever it was.
Humans around Marina scattered. Screamed about electrical lines and a woman being struck. It took a few seconds for Marina to realize they meant her, thought she had been hit by a fallen power line. They didn’t realize the electricity arching overhead was coming from her body rather than flowing into it.
The street cleared. In the distance there were sirens. Marina lay on the ground, panting, exhausted.
To her right something growled. She rolled onto her stomach, pushed herself onto her hands and knees. A black hellhound, his eyes glowing red, stood staring at her.
Her heart slowed. She pushed herself up, onto the balls of her feet, ready to run. She’d come looking for Raf, but hadn’t expected to see him like this. Every hair on her body stood up, every ounce of instinct said flee.
Behind her, she heard another sound, another growl. A second hellhound stood behind her. This one golden. Which, if either, was Raf? Surely the dark-haired one…but the other hellhound, the bounty hunter, he’d had dark hair, too. Was the golden yet another mercenary? How many could there be?
Power crackled into her palms. “Kill them,” Amma murmured. “I’ve no desire to be trapped inside a chew toy.”
Marina stared at the blue glow of power that colored her flesh. If she killed the hellhounds, it would buy her time. And now Amma was cooperating. She could go back to her original plan, or work out something else with the witch.
Her hands itched; her fingers curled toward her palms, then straightened.
Kill the hellhounds and escape with Amma on her side. It was what she had wanted, except…What if one of the dogs was Raf?
Raf had found the other hellhound. He’d been trailing him more than Marina. Raf had known where she was. He’d sensed her approach and concentrated instead on the bounty hunter who was after her. The other hellhound had shifted. So Raf had, too.
Now the other male had her trapped, or thought he did. He must not have seen the magic streaming from her hands, shooting skyward. Raf had. He knew Joarr had, too. He suspected Joarr, flying hidden by the sudden fog, was the target.
Amma must be working with Marina after all.
The other male leapt, his trajectory clear—Marina. Raf held his breath, waited for the elf/witch to let loose the power he’d just seen shoot from her palms. But she hesitated, glanced over her shoulder at him then back at the hound already too close to touching her.
With a roar, Raf surged forward, knocked Marina to the ground. Then twirled and stood over her as the other hellhound landed and turned, too, his hackles raised, his eyes glowing red.
Raf had stolen his prize and the other male wasn’t happy.
Too damn bad.
Raf widened his stance and lowered his head. Let his jaw drop enough his lower teeth would appear. Then he raised his upper lip, letting show his intention to keep the prize as his own.
The other hellhound seemed unintimidated. He paced to the side and back again, his eyes darting from Raf to Marina. He was waiting for her to run, Raf realized, planned on shimmering and grabbing her if she did.
Raf backed up until his hind foot touched her leg. He could have shimmered her then, but that would have left the hunter undefeated, still thinking he could take Raf, and steal Marina. He had to be beaten, taught.
“He wants you to run,” he projected the words into the elf princess’s head, hoped it was enough to keep her in place.
The bounty hunter lunged, his jaws open, aimed at Raf’s throat. Raf bent his front legs, let the other dog land on top of him, then stood, charged forward and flipped the hunter onto his back. As the other male struggled to right himself, Raf moved in, stepped over him and wrapped his jaws around his neck. Squeezed.
“No bounty here,” he said telepathically.
The hellhound below him kicked with his hind legs, bucked his weight against the pressure of Raf’s jaws. His toenails dug into Raf’s stomach; his feet pummeled Raf’s gut, making it difficult to breathe. Raf returned the favor, squeezing more tightly around the other male’s throat.
“How much are they paying you?” Raf asked. “Is it worth being killed for?” He dug his teeth in deeper, tasted the other male’s blood.
The bounty hunter twisted, managed to pull his neck free. He lunged to his feet. Skin tore; a hunk of his fur dangled from Raf’s teeth.
Raf spit it out, cursed, then bounded to the side, stopping the hunter from moving closer to Marina. “The hunt is over. You had that—you just didn’t get the prey.”
“It’s not over until I get the prey.”
“Or I kill you,” Raf replied.
The hunter grinned, stalked left, then right. “There is that possibility.”
Behind him, Marina shifted, murmured. Power snapped. The surge of magic sent the hair on Raf’s hindquarters to a stand. She was at the advantage. His back was to her. She could kill him now, or at least damage him seriously.
The bounty hunter jerked his head to the side. His gaze shot behind Raf…to Marina. “What was that?”
There was another surge, this one bigger than before. Every hair on Raf’s body shot upward. His eyes watered. He spun.
Streams of power tore from Marina’s palms toward Raf. He dropped to the ground, felt heat sear over his back, past him. The other hound cursed, fell.
Raf sprang to his feet, his gaze locked on the elf princess. Her chest was moving up and down; her eyes were wild. “Tell the elf lords to go to hell,” she muttered. Then she turned on the ball of her foot and pointed her palms at Raf.
Marina had lost control of her own body. Amma had convinced her to let the witch take care of the bounty hunter, but Marina hadn’t realized that once Amma was given rein, it would be so hard to pull her back.
She struggled against the pull that had made her raise her arms. Her body twitched with the effort. Pain shot through her, brought tears to her eyes, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t strong enough. The witch was winning, was going to shoot down Raf just like she’d shot down the bounty hunter. Destroy him.
Magic sizzled down her shoulders, through her arms toward her hands. Raf, in dog form, golden and beautiful—just as beautiful as when he was a man. She’d realized which dog Raf was after he’d spoken in her head, but knowing wasn’t enough. Not if she couldn’t control Amma.
He stood frozen watching her, not moving. Why wasn’t he moving?
She wanted to scream at him, but Amma had taken control of her throat, too. Marina was nothing but a puppet, trapped inside her body, forced to watch what the witch was doing, the destruction she was about to unleash.
Marina fought harder, managed to curve her fingers slightly, but she knew it wasn’t enough—that the magic arcing through her would blow her hands open, blast out of her into Raf. She squinted, tried to close her eyes to block the sight, but even that didn’t work.
As she steeled herself for what was about to come, air hot and humid dropped down around her. The magic building inside her vanished and like a marionette whose strings had been cut she crumpled onto the ground.
Raf reached two fingers through the net and touched Marina’s throat. After the dragon had dropped the piece of elf magic on her, she’d collapsed, been unconscious since.
“She’s fine,” Joarr growled from his position across the room. The dragon, back in his white suit, leaned against the brick wall; the lantern dangled from his hand. “Let’s get on with it while she’s out. Keep it simple.”
Raf let his touch linger, absorbed the steady feel of Marina’s pulse beating against his fingers. The even cadence reassured him, as did the up and down movement of her chest. Still, he fought the urge to pick her up and cradle her against his chest.
Joarr pushed himself away from the wall and stalked across the room. “She was going to kill you. You realize that, don’t you?”
Did he? Raf pulled his hand away from the elf princess, curled his finge
rs into his palm, tried to hide the slight shake of them, even from himself. Marina had blasted at the other hellhound without hesitation, could have done the same to him. Like an idiot he’d stood there, given her plenty of time.
But she hadn’t.
“Here.” Joarr held out his hand. Pinched between his finger and thumb was the needle.
“How do we know it will work?” Raf asked, for some reason reluctant to touch the sliver of metal.
“It worked before,” Joarr replied.
“Not really. I was there. She plunged it into her arm over and over, nothing happened.” Back in Gunngar, Marina had tried to use the needle to drive Amma into her body, but it hadn’t worked. Not until Amma had been forced from her current host’s body and been left with no other options had she moved into Marina.
“Not there. In Alfheim. It’s how the elf lords pulled Amma’s spirit from her own body, before they transferred it to the necklace.” Joarr lowered his brows. “Do it, or I will.” Then with a huff, he added. “It won’t hurt her.”
Raf took the needle and kneeled beside Marina. Her breathing was even, but as he reached through the netting, she stirred. The needle brushed her skin. Just that tiny touch left a zigzag of blood behind it. Marina’s eyes flew open.
“Yggdrassil’s roots!” Joarr leaned forward and grabbed the needle.
Marina’s eyes widened and her mouth opened as if to scream, but Joarr ignored her panic and plunged the needle into her flesh. Just as quickly, he jerked it back out.
Marina’s hand slapped over her arm where the needle had pierced her; she sucked in a breath. Her eyes rolled upward and Raf thought she was going to faint again. Instead, her spine straightened, hardened as if forged of steel. She sat there, no readable expression on her face.
Raf leaned forward, afraid to touch her. His hands were shaking again; a band had tightened around his heart.
His voice hoarse, he asked, “Did it work?”
