by Traci Loudin
Zen rolled his shoulders back, metal screeching on metal. “But that’s enough reminiscing for one day. Now that we’ve got access to alien DNA again, who knows what we Ageless can accomplish in the next century? But in the immediate future, the tracking device is much more important to find.”
With that, Zen left through the way they’d come. The breeze whispered past, and Korreth and Jorrim followed.
Chapter 27
Nyr drove her heels into the stallion’s flanks, heading to intercept Azaiah east of Searchtown before he could reach Kaia. To keep up the charade, she yelled, “Run, Kaia! They’re coming for you!”
Surrender to us, and no harm will come to any of you, the Wizard’s insidious voice whispered at the back of her mind.
Still at a distance from Kaia, Nyr reined in, putting herself between Azaiah and his quarry. She couldn’t change into her feline form without scaring her stallion out of its mind, so she waited. Her horse bowed its head to snatch at the grasses all around them.
It’s not who you think, Caetl’s voice said inside her mind. They made a decoy of their own.
Another horse left Searchtown, following her trajectory through the grasses. Caetl, that you? she asked. We weren’t sure where you were and thought... She trailed off, realizing he could sense she’d thought the worst.
I know. I decided to follow you as soon as I realized—
Her connection with Caetl snapped. His voice had been swallowed as though he’d fallen into a pit, but still he rode toward her.
His words suddenly returned. Perhaps being closer will give me better control.
As the first horseman neared, Nyr recognized the face beneath his hat and realized why Caetl had been trying to warn her. She smirked at the Wizard. “Looks like I was right after all.”
His horse at a trot, Caetl would soon reach them, though she wasn’t sure how he planned to help.
With a slight smile, the Wizard said, Come with me, my dear. His voice inside her head was louder, more powerful. We’ll take down Kaia together.
Nyr tapped her horse’s sides, charging him. To her surprise, Caetl cut her off. Her stallion turned its head at the last moment and let out a whinny. Their knees touched as their horses trotted alongside each other.
“What are you doing?” she growled.
He grabbed her reins. I can’t protect you anymore.
She yanked at the reins but failed to break his grip. “Yeah? All the more reason to kill him now and be done with it.”
Caetl wouldn’t release the reins, and with one bad hand, Nyr couldn’t pull them away by force. Looking down at her forearm made her angrier—a good emotion to have at a time like this. She’d need every scrap of strength she could muster to thwart the Wizard’s plans.
“Let go, you idiot!”
The Wizard smiled as he galloped past them toward Kaia. “Keep her busy, Caetl!”
Nyr whipped back around to see Caetl slide off his saddle and drop bonelessly to the ground. Nyr threw herself off her stallion and ran to kneel beside the mystic. He’d landed facedown in the grass. Nyr rolled him onto his back and checked his collarbone and ribs for breaks.
Caetl’s eyes rolled back into his head. His mouth hung open, letting out a chilling moan.
“What’s wrong with you?” Nyr shook him by the arms. “Is the Wizard doing this?”
The horses startled and dashed off. Something moved in the grasses at her flank. She shot to her feet as a feline, thinking the Wizard must have brought some more of his toy soldiers.
“Neula!” Her eyes went wide. She’d assumed her friend had died in the skirmish. With her attention on Neula, she didn’t see Jaul until he was right beside her. “What are you doing here?”
Before she could recover from her surprise, Jaul struck with a backfist to her head.
She collapsed to the ground beside Caetl’s inert form. Her vision swam for a moment. She climbed to her knees and then to her feet, keeping her swollen forearm away from her body.
“We’re all that’s left, Nyr.” Where once his eyes had held nothing but lust and admiration for her, his expression now filled with loathing. His pupils dilated to let in as much light as possible. “You led us into a trap, and you dare to ask why we’re here?”
Nyr flinched from her former lover, keeping her body between him and her injured arm. He roared and charged at her. Nyr sidestepped, raking his arm and shoulder with her claws as he stumbled past. She and Jaul had tussled before, and his movements were predictable.
She kept the other feline in her line of sight, turning as Neula prowled toward Caetl. “What have we here?”
“Leave him alone,” Nyr said, but she couldn’t let her guard down. She had no doubt they meant to kill her.
Jaul stepped between them as Neula kneeled by Caetl. An unfamiliar worry for Caetl’s wellbeing distracted Nyr, but she liked this positioning better from a tactical standpoint. She could take them one at a time.
“Another of your new friends?” Neula’s voice filled with poison, her claws poised over the mystic’s face.
Nyr couldn’t protect him and herself; she knew that. She was too weak, with only one arm to attack and defend with. They wanted to hurt her, and if killing Caetl might distract and cripple her, they wouldn’t hesitate. The best thing she could do for Caetl was to ignore the threat.
Nyr gave a halfhearted feint to test Jaul’s reaction speed. He blinked at her.
“You betrayed us for a boy and a Joey,” Jaul spit the word, “just because they wore your trophies around their necks?”
“This guy wears one as well, Jaul,” Neula called from behind him.
“I couldn’t let Klin have them.” Nyr’s stayed light on her feet, feeling her way over the uneven, bumpy ground. “I’m sorry for hurting our friends, but I’m glad you and Neula are alive.”
“You’re glad?” Jaul’s ears went flat against his head in rage.
Nyr’s feline lips twitched up in a smirk. “Of course I’m glad, lover. Only the strong survive, you know that. And I always knew we three were the strongest.”
This time Jaul’s footwork was more precise, not committing himself to any one attack. He rained blows down on her, and with only one good arm, Nyr took most of the hits. She let out a yelp as his claws raked her ribs.
Her world tilted when she took a blow to the face. She fell, blood and fur flying.
Still he came after her. She waited for him to close the distance before throwing out a foot. He tripped, and his momentum made him fall beside her. She pushed herself to her feet.
“We don’t have to fight,” Nyr said to Jaul’s back. “I never wanted to admit it, but these necklaces are slave collars. Help me fight the man who holds my leash, and we can join back up as a clan in our tribe’s sight.”
She cursed as a blur of stripes came at her from the other side. Neula tackled her to the ground in a frenzy of claws. Lightning arced across Nyr’s vision when she felt her forearm bend, and she let out a roar of pain.
Her broken forearm made a good defense impossible. So she attacked, lashing out with her legs and flipping both of them over. They rolled over and over in the grasses, until Nyr ended up on top with one of Neula’s elbows pinned beneath her knee.
Nyr hesitated. “It doesn’t have to be this way—”
What felt like an arrow tearing through her skull made her clutch reflexively at her head. She screamed as the Wizard yelled in her mind. Neula bucked and threw her off.
Nyr tumbled to the ground over her broken forearm. Screaming and crying, she landed on her back with a bump in the ground digging into her shoulder blade.
The pain in her head doubled compared to before. A distant part of her wondered if the Wizard’s alliance with Zen had amplified his power somehow.
Get up and fight! Caetl urged.
His mental shout was a balm compared to the Wizard’s; the mystic fought in his own way. The ringing in her mind cleared.
Before Nyr could register her surroundings, someon
e kicked her in the ribs. Neula danced away to avoid a counterattack, but Nyr couldn’t find the strength to get up. The rock at her shoulder blade dug in deeper when she coughed.
She knew the end of the fight drew closer. When Neula tried to jump her again, she was ready. As Neula’s momentum carried her forward, Nyr kicked upward with both heels. She both felt and heard floating ribs crack.
“No!” Jaul yelled, and it was as if time slowed down.
He caught Neula as she fell back. Frothy blood poured from her mouth in a cough, her pupils contracting into slits as her eyes went glassy.
Nyr felt cold. She’d come to terms with her friends’ deaths, believing they’d died on the battlefield. But the idea of killing them herself—her stomach tied itself in knots.
Jaul laid Neula on the ground as Nyr fought off nausea from the pain and horror. Gasping for air, her breath rasped in her chest.
“No… No, no, no,” she moaned. She struggled to her feet, to better make her case. “These necklaces, Jaul. As soon as I put it on, he started whispering things to me. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you… I was… ensorcelled. How could I admit that to any of you? Even if you’d managed to free me, you would have considered me weak…”
“But we wouldn’t have killed you!” Jaul exploded up from the ground, catching her by the throat with both hands.
He didn’t squeeze or try to choke her—he didn’t have to. If he extended his claws, he would lacerate the arteries in her neck and kill her before she could say another word in her defense.
She wanted to reason with him, to make him see that none of this had been her choice, but it was too late for that. She’d killed Neula. This was a death she deserved.
A buzzing noise came from the direction of Searchtown, becoming louder every second. A small dot in the sky grew larger—Dalan’s pet bug. Nyr found herself at peace. At least Dalan would know she had died justly. He wouldn’t try to avenge her.
As she came to that conclusion, Jaul turned toward the sound, perhaps fearing an unfamiliar weapon. Only one of his hands rested against Nyr’s neck, and her instincts took over.
Knocking his hand aside with her bad forearm, Nyr ducked down as he swiped at her. Inside and under Jaul’s defenses, Nyr made two quick slashes. The first was a distraction, a strike to his abdomen with her bad hand, which protested at the impact. The second was a subtle gesture, a precise rake on the inside of his thigh using her three longest claws.
A killing strike her tribe called the Lover’s Caress.
Jaul fell back, his eyes wide as he clutched his thigh. Nyr’s stomach lurched with every throb of her forearm, but she pushed the agony aside as she watched her former clanmate, friend, and lover bleed out in the grasses.
She went numb.
“Wear that pretty scar for me, Nyr,” Jaul said as his blood painted the earth. “Remember me.”
He relaxed into death’s embrace, and his eyes lost focus.
Nyr stood frozen, unable to tear her eyes from his body. His lips turned pale from bloodloss. His pupils would remain forever slitted. She shook her head, recalling how she’d once considered his eyes too compassionate for a member of the Tiger Clan.
She raised a hand to her neck, remembering the kisses that had once grazed softly over her bare skin.
Her fingers found only fur matted by blood.
“I will remember you, Jaul.”
Stickiness oozed down the side of her face. He’d hit her as well, but because of her downward trajectory, his claws had sliced her face instead of her neck. Part of her wished his strike had landed as intended, so she could die with the last of her clan.
A man’s frustrated scream refocused Nyr’s attention. She’d always been able to compartmentalize on the battlefield after a friend went down.
Except this time you’re the one who killed him, Nyr thought. Or had that been the Wizard’s voice? It was impossible to tell the difference.
When she glanced back to where Caetl had been, he was gone, and so were the horses. Not far to the north, three figures rose from the grasses.
As Nyr sprinted toward them, Caetl pointed a gun at Kaia. He fired once, twice. The Wizard stood apart, watching Kaia shift ages to recover from the wounds. Kaia knocked the gun from Caetl’s hand, forcing him back.
With open hands, the mystic hit and grabbed at her, trying to take the decoy satchel. Her sudden shifts in age let Kaia slip from his grasp and recover from his strikes. She was wearing him down.
Nyr felt a corner of her mouth twitch in admiration at her strategy.
“What’s the matter, Wizard?” Nyr called. “Too cowardly to fight her yourself?”
The Wizard didn’t tear his glance away from the fight. “Now that I’ve emptied Caetl’s mind… I can do whatever I want with my little puppet.”
The Wizard’s glee-filled voice enraged Nyr. She unsheathed her claws with the intent to rake through his every age.
The Wizard winked, and Caetl threw himself toward her. Nyr jerked back. The mystic lost his footing as his forward momentum carried him farther than expected.
He recovered and lunged. Nyr met him with her fist lodged in his gut. His weight forced her backward, and she rolled over her back, springing to her feet with less grace than she would’ve liked. She was tired, but a fight involving the Ageless would not be quick.
Behind the Wizard, Kaia took advantage of the distraction and fled. Ignoring Caetl, Nyr closed the gap to the Wizard and slashed him across the chest. A blinding flash of pain seared her vision, turning the world black as she collapsed into the grasses.
Something collided with her ribs. When it happened a second time, she lashed out, pulling on someone’s ankle, knocking whoever it was to the ground. Unable to see through the pain, she threw herself onto the man and pummeled him with her good fist instead of claws, fearing it was the mystic.
“Caetl! I’m Nyr, your ally, remember?” She tried saying it simultaneously aloud and mentally, unsure if it worked. “You’re Caetl, a mystic. Wake up!”
He’d been right to condemn her ability to control her own thoughts. As she pounded the body beneath her, a crescendo built in her mind, rising from the depths of her subconscious.
“C’mon, Caetl. Force him out,” she shouted, or thought she did. She couldn’t actually hear herself over the noise in her head.
The man underneath her slipped away. On her hands and knees, she tried to follow him over the uneven earth. The pain in her head increased until her skull was too small to contain it. If she didn’t do something, she would black out.
Nyr got to her knees and forced her eyelids open, which required all her energy. As her eyes fell on the Wizard, Caetl tackled her from the side, smashing her to the ground and jarring her broken forearm.
The scream tore at her throat, but she heard nothing over the steadily increasing noise. Kicking and thrashing, she did everything she could to fight Caetl off without killing him. The pressure in her skull built until she barely registered any pain from the blows he rained down on her.
This was it.
Then all the noise and pain and pressure in her head just… stopped.
“What are you doing?” an angry voice boomed.
He spoke again, the sweetest sound she’d ever heard, the bringer of relief from pain. “Where is Kaia? She’s the objective here, not this unworthy filth. Or have you already forgotten our plans?”
“She fled when I had my mystic attack the feline.”
“Why didn’t you send the mystic after Kaia? You can keep the feline busy well enough on your own, even from a distance. In fact, you both should have gone after Kaia.”
“I don’t appreciate being talked to like a child.”
Still on her back, Nyr cracked an eyelid and gazed into the clear blue sky. A giant stood over her. She blinked and noticed the cyborg cradled a body in the crook of one arm. Soledad.
Nyr’s thoughts snapped into focus—where the Ageless went, her two slaves followed. The two Purebreeds cou
ldn’t be far behind. Nyr twisted toward Searchtown but could see nothing through the tall grasses.
Soledad dropped into the grasses beside Nyr and didn’t so much as moan. Though they lay only inches apart, Nyr didn’t feel the woman’s breath.
“Fine.” Nyr cringed at Zen’s voice, her head clearing. “You look after the unconscious women, while I go after our target.”
The ground trembled.
“Oh,” Zen said, his footsteps pausing. “I almost forgot. Gryid may follow us as well, and I consider it your fault he’s here. He’s wearing one of your devices, so you deal with it.”
Nyr gathered her strength, knowing she’d only get one chance to take the Wizard down. Tensing, she prepared to rise and leap at the Wizard in one smooth motion.
Then a familiar face blocked her field of vision and leered down at her through one black eye and a busted lip.
“Hello, feline.” Azaiah grinned, his tail twining in the air. “What do you say we finish what we started?”
His tail whipped toward her.
Chapter 28
As the tail-horse, Dalan galloped across the grasslands. He lost sight of the other figures behind a slight dip in the field.
Caetl? Can you hear me? Dalan had been trying to reach the mystic since leaving Searchtown, but never caught even a whisper of a foreign thought.
His horse-like mind reeled in fear at the scent of blood. The very strong scent of blood. As he crested the hillock, Dalan spied two bodies in the grass. His breath caught.
Matted in several areas, the grass told of a lethal battle. He approached a lithe female body and took a shaky breath of tainted air when he discovered she wasn’t Nyr. A large pool of blood surrounded the male feline, and scratches covered his body.
Nyr had survived vengeance once more.
A vision from Saquey blocked his view, showing Azaiah riding after him. He heard the hoofbeats and shook his head to clear the vision. Though he lunged into a gallop, Azaiah caught up to him and leapt from his saddle. His momentum knocked Dalan over and they collapsed to the ground, the Changeling’s tail wrapping around Dalan’s muscular neck.
