Lera of Lunos

by Alex Lidell

  Griorgi laughed again. “I’d get you one at the next opportunity, though the cost of keeping it charged might turn your stomach. Not everyone who likes meat can slaughter the animals, and you are much too dainty for such things.”

  “I might be persuaded to change my mind,” River said, releasing a small breath as one of the side doors opened to reveal Coal, Tye, and Shade—the latter bloody and swaying on his feet. River pushed his worries aside for later. If the males were here, it meant Autumn likely had her shield in place, ready to keep Griorgi from getting away no matter what happened.

  “I’m glad you see it that way.” Ignoring Coal and the others, the king pulled a set of bracelets from the inside of his tunic. The design somewhat echoed the vambrace he wore, though the metal was dull and, in place of rubies, held a line of stones so dark they swallowed the light.

  Just like that shield Emperor Jawrar had erected to protect against River’s attack.

  “Put these on.” Griorgi tossed the cuffs to River, who caught them on instinct.

  At once, bile rose into his throat, the corruption and wrongness of the things twisting his magic.

  Griorgi held up a hand, his eyes suddenly as dark as the obsidian stones. “There is something I’d like you to see, River—before you do something unwise. Wait here.” Rising from his throne, Griorgi stepped into the Gloom, the air about him rippling as he disappeared. Two heartbeats later, the male was back.

  And he had Leralynn with him.

  River froze.

  From the girl’s wet hair and robe, he guessed Griorgi had snatched her right as she was finishing a bath. Writhing against Griorgi’s grip on the back of her neck, Leralynn curled in on herself, her right eye swollen shut, the left hooded with deep bruising. A gag in her mouth prevented speech—but didn’t mask the sounds of fury and horror in her throat.

  Terror filled River, each muscle in his body tightening with the need to fight. To kill. He didn’t notice rising or filling himself with all his magic until he had already done it. Knew his quint brothers were doing the same on the edge of the room. One more breath and River would bring down the whole damn palace. Half the kingdom. Anything.

  “Stop.” Griorgi shoved Leralynn to her knees, exposing the girl’s neck—a collar of darkness encircled her throat. A leash running from the collar was looped around Griorgi’s wrist. “Coal can explain the details of this little tool to you, I’m sure, but in short—”

  Leralynn jerked, her hands clawing at her throat.

  “Won’t help, luv,” Griorgi told the girl, his voice filled with perverted sympathy. “Only River’s obedience can help you now, I’m afraid.” He gestured at the bracelets in River’s grip.

  Leralynn shook her head, her one good eye flashing in defiance. No. Don’t.

  Nausea rolled through River, his pounding heart stilling as Leralynn’s lips darkened from a healthy pink to a deadly, airless blue. Another moment and the bastard would kill her by accident.

  “Stop.” River held up the bracelets. Whatever the corrupt things did, they would do it to him, not Leralynn. That itself was better. “Let her go and I’ll do as you say.”

  “Get to it, then.” Griorgi waved his hand. At the other end of the leash, Leralynn drew a rasping breath, as if granted a tiny sliver of air. “I’m attempting to let her live so as to keep you from throwing a tantrum in the middle of Slait and killing hundreds of my people. But putter about too much longer and I will snap this pretty little pet’s neck and find another incentive.”

  Leralynn’s face darkened again, all sounds of breath stopping.

  River could feel Coal, Tye, and Shade’s rage and panic from across the room, pulsing off them in waves. They wanted to do something—something dangerous, possibly fatal for one or all of them—and they would. If River didn’t do something first.

  His throat closed, his hands obeying. There was no choice, not if Leralynn was to live. All his plans, his shields, his ideas—how quickly none of them mattered any longer. Eyes on the girl’s neck, River snapped the odd metal around one wrist and then the other, shuddering as a cold rush chilled his core. As if liquid Gloom had spilled into his blood.

  On instinct, he reached down for his magic, seeking its comfort to fend off the darkness. The power blazed to life—and struck that dull metal around his wrists. For a moment, an utter absence of sensation raced through his body. And then a shock wave painful enough to drop him to his knees.

  “Don’t touch your magic,” Coal yelled, though it was much too late.

  Leralynn gasped, stretching toward River.

  “Quiet, pet.” Griorgi yanked on the girl’s leash so hard that she fell backwards. “It’s time for us to be leaving.”

  As Leralynn’s back connected with the floor, a bloodcurdling roar echoed off the stone walls. That roar was the only warning anyone got before a seven-hundred-pound tiger streaked across the room at Griorgi. The large cat’s green eyes flashed with wildness, his teeth glistening murder—his mind oblivious to any defenses the king had in place.

  23

  Lera

  I scream into my gag as Tye’s tiger rushes for Griorgi. Scrambling to my feet, I throw my hands forward to ward off the animal—as if such a gesture could possibly halt the male before he meets whatever Mors-backed shield Griorgi has around him. Pain shoots across my ribs.

  The great cat pivots, changing direction with a predator’s practiced grace.

  A breath of relief fills my tortured lungs—only to freeze again.

  Pushing off the marble floor, Tye’s tiger pounces. Seven hundred pounds of muscle shove into me so hard that my bones scream. The leash Griorgi has around my neck snaps in two, nearly taking my neck with it. Staggering beneath Tye’s force, I crash into the nearest wall, the room blinking in and out of darkness. When my eyes clear enough to focus, I find the tiger crouching over me, his maw flashing all his flesh-tearing teeth.

  No fear. No fear. No fear. I force myself to inhale slowly despite my racing heart.

  “Lera!” Shade shouts.

  Tye’s tiger whirls on him. The low, menacing rumble coming from the cat’s chest carries nothing of his fae partner’s reason. Twisting his great head around the room, the tiger roars the same warning to all the males in it. Mine. Stay away.

  “Stay back, Shade,” I call, careful not to look at the dark-haired male. To do nothing to give Tye’s tiger reason to worry for his territory. My mind races. With River shackled, we are all at Griorgi’s mercy.

  “Well, this is intriguing, isn’t it?” Griorgi straightens his blue jacket cuffs, watching the scene unfold with an arched brow. His corrupted resemblance to my River fills me with sick dread, his dark bulk and sour scent as disturbing now as when he snatched me up from the bathtub, leering at the naked parts of me meant only for my males. The rising scream he clamped inside me with one hard hand feels like it’s still there, tearing at my throat. As are the lupine whimpers I heard through the door when the bastard stepped out, leaving me bound. Griorgi examines his fingernails for a moment. “One mindless beast, one mortal whore, a princeling with a bit in his mouth, and two sets of damaged goods. Quite an army. Tell the brains of your operation to stop braiding her hair and get out here.”

  “Autumn isn’t he—” River’s protest dissolves into a bellow of pain. I flinch. The normally smooth planes of his beautiful face are contorted, his large hands pulling at the bracelets with such force that I fear he’ll break his bones.

  I realize I’m moving only when Tye’s tiger roars his displeasure, forcing me back to the ground. River’s howl of pain continues on and on until he slumps unconscious to the floor. I hold back a scream. Blood drips from his wrists and mouth, a puddle of viscous red slithering across the white marble floor.

  Griorgi sighs. “Well, one can’t have everything he desires all at once.” He crooks a finger, beckoning Coal and Shade to him. “I will take only those with a full set of wits, small as they might be.” He points to River. “Pick that up and let’s move
. You know what will happen to your commander if you even consider disobeying.”

  Terror races through my veins as Coal and Shade hold the slumping River between them, Griorgi herding the trio into the Gloom. As Coal steps into the rippling air, he turns toward me long enough to mouth, “Stay away, mortal.”

  “We have to go after them.” My mouth is thick, my swollen face moving sluggishly, as one of Kora’s quint sisters helps me out of the throne room. With Tye’s tiger on alert, it took the female an hour just to get to me without being eaten, and twice as long as that to help me into the corridor. I may not have my own magic or be able to sense the bond as acutely as they can, but I can feel my males growing farther away from me with every minute that passes. Dull panic spreads through me with each heartbeat. They’re gone. I can’t believe they’re gone. I grab the woman’s clothes, clutching the material in my stiff fingers. Image after image of horror races through my thoughts. “Where is Autumn?”

  “In her bedchamber. Shouting loudly enough to wake the stars.” Putting a hand around my waist, the female guides me to Autumn’s room. I barely register the richly upholstered walls or gilded sconces, the thick carpet that swallows our footsteps. When she opens the door to unleash Autumn’s shrieking, I realize the place is warded for sound.

  “There was no choice,” Kora shouts over Autumn’s cries. “He’d just have snatched you as well.” Sitting on Autumn’s bed, Kora holds my flailing friend in a bear hug, the gouges along Kora’s skin betraying signs of a battle. Seeing me enter, Kora turns Autumn to face me. “Look.” She shakes Autumn’s shoulders. “Griorgi would have killed her. There was no choice. There isn’t one now.”

  Autumn gulps a breath, her puffy eyes widening when she sees my bruised face. “We have to go after them.”

  “You can’t go after them,” Kora snaps, plainly not for the first time. Her blue eyes flash at me. “We go after him now, and the bastard gets everything he wants. You. Lera. The males. Everything. We will win the war, but we lost this battle the moment those shackles snapped onto River’s wrists.”

  “I—” Autumn and I both say together.

  “No!” Kora glares at us both, her tone chilling the room. “There will be no suicide. If either of you thinks you will face Griorgi and survive just now, you can start by trying to get past me. And then that rabid tiger in the throne room. I’ll have the servants ready to mop up whatever bloody bits are left behind.”

  24

  Lera

  “Tye?” The throne room door shuts behind me on silent hinges, the midnight bell’s distant toll a surreal sound against the darkness. Lifting the lantern, I survey the cold space.

  Across the marble floor, the tiger cracks open one green eye and watches me curiously.

  “You have no idea what happened, do you?” I bite my lip, wondering if I might not envy the animal’s oblivion. On the off chance that the other males are somewhere close, I reach out with my mind, trying to feel for a hint of Coal’s essence. I come up with nothing. Again. Only an emptiness that coats my core in darkness.

  For the first time, I fully understand Shade’s choice to remain in wolf form after his twin’s death. I’d give a great deal to dull my emotions just now. They are alive, I remind myself. You’d feel their deaths if they happened.

  Yes, River, Shade, and Coal are alive. Whether they’re wishing it were otherwise just now is a different question entirely.

  Wincing, I set down the pair of blankets and bowl of milk I brought along. Despite the hours that the palace healer spent working on me, my body still hurts every time I move, but the pain is welcome. Deserved. I might be unable to disagree with Kora’s reasoning that we need a plan before taking action, but that does nothing for the hole in my chest. I spread out one of the blankets. “We can’t let you out of here in tiger form, but I thought lying on a marble floor might be . . . I brought this.”

  Just when I think the tiger will not condescend to move, the great cat lumbers to his feet and pads over. Lowering his face into the bowl, he sneezes, sending droplets of milk flying. Lifting a pink nose, the tiger glares at me disapprovingly.

  I cross my arms. “I’m aware that you aren’t a vegetarian, but if you think I’m hauling a plateful of dead rodents in here for your dinner, you have another thing coming.”

  Tye’s tiger shifts his whiskers, his expressive green eyes saying, “Who said they needed to be dead?”

  Ignoring the indignant feline, I take the second blanket into a corner as far from the throne—from the memory of Griorgi—as possible and curl into a ball. Tye might be a tiger just now, but I’ll share a marble floor with him over a bed alone any day. Or night.

  I wake to the scent of clean lavender sheets mixed with a pine-and-citrus smell that wraps around me as tightly as the down coverlet. Blinking against the morning sunlight, I find Tye in his fae form, sprawled on the bed beside me, green eyes trained on my face. His heavy arm is a solid weight on my waist.

  “Where—how—what time is it?” My words muddle in my mouth. It hurts to move. It hurts to live.

  Tye brushes a hand down my hair. “About ten in the morning. Long enough for Autumn to have filled me in on what happened.” His face is tight, the pain behind his eyes as palpable as my own. “I shifted back around dawn and thought relocating off a marble floor was worth the effort.”

  Reaching out, Tye pulls me against him, burying my face in his muscular shoulder while his arms encircle me tightly. The lub-dub, lub-dub of his heart echoes through my flesh, spurring on my own.

  “It isn’t fair,” I whisper, lifting my head enough to find his green eyes. My hands tighten on Tye’s bare skin, nails digging into his flesh. “The two of us here, in this soft down bed, while the others are held in shackles.”

  The corners of the male’s mouth tighten but he doesn’t pull away, his own hands digging hard into my muscles instead. “No. It isn’t.”

  I stare down at him. The hard lines of his face, his penetrating gaze, the sheer power vibrating off his sculpted muscles—he’s a citadel of strength. The rage of a battle I never got to fight in the throne room surges through me, making my heart pound. A fire blazes to life in my chest, wanting to burn the world out of sheer spite. To do something, anything, to punch through the veil of despair. I draw a sharp breath. And, with the next bang of my heart, close my mouth over Tye’s.

  My tongue punches into his mouth, assaulting his with savage fury.

  Tye growls, the sound vibrating his chest. Mouth still on mine, he twists us to shove my shoulders into the mattress, which bounces slightly beneath the sudden attack. Tye’s teeth scrape my lip as he pulls away, towering over my body as he straddles my hips. His hard hands grab my shirt, ripping it in a single, deafening motion.

  The tearing fabric bites my skin, my heart quickening in response. My muscles coil, buck, fight against the immovable weight pinning me to the bed. “It isn’t fair,” I half shout, half sob, the pounding of memories bruising my soul. Griorgi’s leering shadow. His hand over my mouth. Bathwater splashing everywhere. River twisting in pain on the throne-room floor. Coal’s blue eyes blazing into mine one more time before disappearing into the Gloom. “It isn’t—”

  Tye catches my wrist, and I realize I’ve just struck him. Was going for another blow. Overpowering me, the male pins my assaulting arms over my head in a vicelike grip. With his thighs bracketing my hips, one hand pressing my wrists into the mattress, he grips my gaze.

  I let loose a shuddering breath, my sex clenching as helplessly as the rest of me.

  Tye’s nostrils flare, no doubt taking in the harsh arousal. As if my body, unable to fight, demands a substitution.

  Baring himself with an efficient motion, his green eyes fierce over mine, Tye positions his shaft at my opening and thrusts hard. Again. Again. The throbbing head of his cock finds the vulnerable spot inside me and gives no mercy, each stroke igniting a mix of pleasure and pain. A carnal hurt so strong that it echoes through my body, fighting back the darkness, if
only for a moment.

  “Harder,” I say through clenched teeth, riding the furiously growing need inside until it explodes beyond control. My body teeters on the edge of release, flashes of memory interspersing with blasts of sensation. I jerk against the restraints, flailing for freedom that I don’t know what I’d do with.

  Tye’s hand on my wrists tightens. Holding me in place with his weight, his legs, his gaze, the male grants me no freedom, no quarter, no choice but to feel him to the exclusion of the world. His chiseled chest and shoulders rise over me, damp with sweat, filling my view. The rhythmic, relentless pounding through my wetness grows to consume my universe. When I open my mouth, Tye’s lips descend punishingly over mine. Taking away even my speech.

  Surrender washes over me with his next stroke, my mind quieting to let zings of pleasure shoot through my sex, down the backs of my legs. My toes curl, my fingers tightening against air as my channel clenches around the male’s hardness. When the tsunami of release comes, tears finally flow with it.

  Tye cradles me against him when we finish, letting go only long enough to dip a washcloth into water. Wiping the moist towel over my face, he gently traces the slopes of my cheekbones, my bruises that are a pale yellow now, thanks to time and healing magic. The water’s coolness is welcome against my steaming skin, as is the slow, rhythmic brush of Tye’s breath against my hair.

  “Tell me we’ll get them back,” I say into his chest.

  “We’ll get them back,” answers a voice too high to be Tye’s.

  Shifting, I turn my face toward the door and find Autumn, fully dressed in determination.

  25

  Lera