In Deception's Shadow Box Set: Book 1-3

by Lisa Blackwood

  “I’ll go wide and come around behind them,” Autumn Shadow said as she started away from him. “Once I take down one, the others will be distracted and you can finish them off.”

  It was a sound plan, but instinct said it was too obvious. “Wait,” he started to say just as a silver net dropped out of the trees to land on the female.

  She snarled and thrashed, trying to free herself, but Silverblade knew how futile it would be. He and the other pack members watched and waited, looking for more traps, but he didn’t see any.

  That didn’t mean there weren’t. But the acolytes were coming closer—he could feel as they started to feed.

  “Help her,” he ordered Beta and Plains Hunter. He’d have to keep the acolytes busy while the other two helped Autumn Shadow.

  Circling around behind the acolytes, he burst out of the underbrush and charged, catching the closest acolyte by surprise. Using teeth and claws, he destroyed the crossbow, and then swiftly disabled this acolyte like the others before him.

  Discarding his latest enemy, Silverblade lunged again, this time trying for Ironsmith. The acolyte was too fast, his poised sword slashing at Silverblade’s middle. He missed getting eviscerated by a hand-span. Changing tactics, Silverblade lunged and rolled to the side. When he came up behind a tree, he put it between himself and the acolytes.

  Unslinging his longbow, he stepped around the tree and nocked the arrow at the exact moment a tangle of ropes dropped over his head and shoulders, snagging the bow and fouling his shot. The combined weight and draining magic of the spell net buckled his legs under him, and he fell forward onto his hands and knees. No, not again!

  Across from him, he watched as Plains Hunter broke away from Beta and Autumn Shadow, racing to his aid. The male only made it halfway before an acolyte’s spelled crossbow bolt slammed into his side. Plains Hunter staggered a few more strides and then collapsed. Dead. It had been a heart-shot.

  Silverblade howled his rage and grief and fought against the net trapping him, but it was as if the net had sealed itself to the ground.

  A shadow fell across Silverblade as Ironsmith knelt next to him.

  “Ah, it’s nice to see that the only prey to ever have escaped me has returned to give me a chance to fix that mistake.”

  ***

  Beatrice clung to the back of the lupwyn she was riding. The male was unknown to her and not of her pack, but he was a massive creature—nearly the size of a santhyrian, only heavier-set. When he’d come alongside her and his thoughts had flowed into hers, she’d seen that he wanted her to leap up on his back.

  Without a moment’s hesitation she had.

  She’d been running so hard up to that point, she’d thought her lungs would bleed or her heart would burst, and that would be all right as long as she reached Silverblade in time. With the pack’s help, she could heal anything. And with this stranger’s help, she might just make it to Silverblade in time to save him.

  To either side, the trees were nothing more than shadowy blurs as she and her new friend sped through the forest. Her magic told her she was getting closer to Silverblade with each beat of her heart. It also told her he was being fed upon by acolytes again.

  At last, they burst into a small clearing, one filled with too many acolytes.

  Off to one side, Ironsmith knelt next to Silverblade, who was caught in one of those cursed spell nets as she’d expected. She leaped from the lupwyn stranger and landed hard on her hands and knees.

  Even as she was scrambling to her feet, she called on her death magic. Before she’d even locked eyes on the first target, she lashed out at the acolyte with her power. A second and a third died just as quickly as her rage mounted.

  The acolytes needed to die. Now. All of them. She was tired of them hurting the ones she loved.

  The stranger who had carried her here reared up and drew two swords, the bright blades flashing in the dim light filtering through the tree canopy.

  More members of her new pack arrived. Some attacked the acolytes, while others worked to free the trapped Autumn Shadow.

  With twin flashes of silver, she saw the stranger’s two blades cut through the air, weaving a wicked pattern that the acolytes could not counter. Another of the acolytes fell, his leg severed below the knees.

  It opened up a path between her and Silverblade. She ran, her death magic striking out at any acolyte that came too close.

  From the corner of her eye, she noted when more members of the pack flooded into the clearing and started to pull down the remaining acolytes. Ahead, Ironsmith turned his back on Silverblade and began picking off members of the pack.

  Beatrice heard Silverblade’s growl even over the sounds of battle.

  Her death magic was already flowing toward Ironsmith when she redirected it to Silverblade’s location instead. She had promised her mate that he would have Ironsmith.

  Her death magic curled around the net trapping Silverblade and made short work of the individual rope fibers.

  Ironsmith was just pointing his loaded crossbow at her heart when she looked back at him.

  ***

  Silverblade felt the ropes trapping him start to fray, but he also saw Ironsmith aiming his next bolt at Beatrice’s heart. He did not think. Rage simply ignited and a phoenix’s fire magic came to his call, even while he was still in full lupwyn form. The ropes burned to ash and he surged to his feet to direct the next blast of magic at the crossbow in the acolyte’s hands.

  Both the crossbow and the hand holding it vanished in a ball of fire and ash.

  Ironsmith staggered back, surprise etched on his face.

  While he was still off-guard, another lupwyn—the one Beatrice had been riding when she’d first entered the clearing—grabbed Ironsmith by the throat and slammed him against a tree. The acolyte had to be feeding off the other male, but the newcomer showed no discomfort.

  “He’s mine to kill!” Silverblade shouted as the fire magic continued to build within him. The symbol of the Twelve branded on his chest began to throb as if it was sympathizing with the fire magic. “If you kill him, I’m going to beat you.”

  “Ah, I was just going to hold him for you so he doesn’t slither away.” Humor glinted in the newcomer’s eyes as he continued to strangle the acolyte. “It’s not like he can really die this way, correct? I’ll leave the killing for someone else. Mother doesn’t think I’m old enough for all this yet.”

  It took him a moment to recognize the new male, but he did after a moment. Later he might regret threatening to beat the Lupwyn Queen’s youngest son, Prince Caltanwyn, but at the moment, the magic within him was swelling to new levels. It felt almost as if…

  Silverblade lunged away from the other two as he underwent an uncontrolled shift. Flames danced along his skin, but did him no harm even as his fur vanished. All along his back, a new pressure built and with another wave of heat and Elemental fire, wings emerged from his back. A moment later, he knew he had a matching tail and long, upright crest. By design or accident, his Larnkin had stopped short of shifting to full bird form and he still possessed his human body. Which was good. He wanted to wring the life out of Ironsmith with his bare hands. Or perhaps carve out his heart, He flexed his talon-tipped fingers. Both methods held appeal.

  “Silverblade, are you all right?” Beatrice asked as she came up behind him.

  He heard her pause and then start walking again as the fire coating his feathers died down and extinguished itself after another moment.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Hmmm, you’re a phoenix. And I can feel that your Larnkin exhausted itself to accomplish that.” There was a question in there somewhere, he knew. But Silverblade was too tired to dig for the answer. All he wanted was to finish Ironsmith. He turned to look for his prey.

  “You look like your mother,” Prince Caltanwyn added, still holding Ironsmith pinned to the tree.

  “I am my mother’s son. And that bastard killed her.”

  “If you’re going to blast thi
s one with Elemental fire, mind if I move first?” Caltanwyn unsheathed one of his swords and stabbed Ironsmith with it, pinning him to the tree, and stepped back.

  Ironsmith coughed blood and then spat. “You can kill me, but Lord Master Trensler is even now seeking a way into the domain of the one you call the Dead King. You won this battle, but just lost the war.”

  Beatrice stepped forward. “What are you talking about?”

  Ironsmith gripped the hilt of the sword and pulled it free. Off-balance, he staggered forward toward where Beatrice and Caltanwyn stood. The lupwyn prince snarled, ready to attack the acolyte again.

  “Don’t kill him yet!” Beatrice shouted. “We need to know what he knows.”

  “Perhaps,” Silverblade said as he summoned a tiny flame of Elemental fire to dance between his spread fingers. The tiny blue flames curled around and crawled up onto his open palm. With a disdainful flick of his wrist, he sent it flying toward the acolyte. A moment after it struck, Ironsmith vanished in a wall of purifying flames. In the eerie way of the acolytes, he made no sound as he died. “But he threatened my mate. Besides, anything he told us would have been a lie.”

  Silverblade simply stood and stared at the place Ironsmith had been. It was done. Over. Yet he felt nothing. And then Beatrice stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, and he knew he would be all right.

  Grief could come, he knew and Beatrice would soothe the ache, making it bearable.

  “You’re too damnably tall.” Beatrice hissed under her breath. “I was going to kiss you, but I can’t reach. You’re even taller as a phoenix than you are as a lupwyn.”

  Silverblade reached down to hoist her up and Beatrice obliged him by wrapping her legs around his hips. Her lips pressed against his and he was more than willing to be distracted for a while.

  Caltanwyn cleared his throat.

  With a sigh, Beatrice broke the kiss, but he still felt her lips ghosting against his as she said, “It’s over. We won.”

  “This battle,” Silverblade said. “But if Ironsmith’s last words are to be believed we have a big problem. If Lord Master Trensler has already managed to invade the Dead King’s domain, we will have to act quickly.”

  “We will deal with that tomorrow, if it has indeed come to pass. Besides, the Twelve are coming together. More will likely make their way to us.”

  Caltanwyn cleared his throat. “About that. One more has come to join your ranks.”

  When Silverblade looked at the much-younger lupwyn, it was in time to see him discard his armor and the padding underneath, exposing his chest. One of the symbols of the Twelve had burned away his fur, leaving behind the shimmering mage mark.

  Silverblade laughed and gave Beatrice another swift kiss. “I see your words are already coming to pass. Tomorrow, we will see where Lord Master Trensler really is. Tonight, we will lick our wounds and rest.”

  By the lack of fighting sounds in the distance, they knew the battle was over by the river as well. But there would still be much that would need their attention, not the least of which would be the uneasy truce with the humans of River’s Divide. Silverblade decided in that instant, politics was the job of leaders. Ashayna and Sorntar could deal with that mess. If it looked like the younglings needed help dealing with the humans, Silverblade would offer it, but if not, he was more than happy to sit back and simply be a soldier. He was no diplomat.

  Glancing sideways at Beatrice, where her death magic still flickered about her and the pack bonds glowed silver-bright upon her body, he decided she didn’t look very diplomatic at the moment, either.

  “Come,” he said. “We should go see if our leaders require anything of us. And we will introduce the newest member to them as well.”

  ***

  When they emerged from the forest, it was as they expected. The battle was over and the last of the acolyte bodies were being disposed of by Ashayna Stonemantle. She used the fierce, fiery power of the destroyer, saying she didn’t trust the acolytes’ master not to try and resurrect his minions out of the dust.

  When she was finished, there wasn’t even ash. With the battlefield purified and the land rid of the last traces of acolytes, she turned and walked to her father. She seemed hesitant until he reached out and took her in a rib-cracking hug.

  From what Silverblade understood, humans had very little knowledge of true magic, only the lies the acolytes had told them.

  So it was reasonable to assume that even the seemingly stoic Ashayna Stonemantle had dreaded telling her father about her magic. It might take the humans a long time before they trusted those with magic, but one father accepting the magic of his daughters was a start. Perhaps one day, Beatrice would be able to walk freely among her people again, too.

  “My ‘people’ accept me just fine,” Beatrice said as she gestured at the pack surrounding them. “Although, maybe they are used to more variety, since their alpha is half-phoenix.” She grinned and stroked a hand up under his wings. He felt her healer’s magic running over him again, learning his new body. She clearly delighted in his ability to change his shape.

  Her fingers found the wing joints on his back and began to explore. Perhaps he should tell her that was an erogenous zone for the phoenix.

  Hmmm, or perhaps he wouldn’t. Just yet.

  Chapter Forty-One

  In the days following the battle with the acolytes, an uneasy peace fell over the port city of River’s Divide. General Stonemantle, his senior advisors, and city officials met at the outskirts of the city and there treated with the kings and queens of both the lupwyns and the phoenix, the Council of Elementals, and the Leaders of the Twelve.

  Silverblade was content to stand at the back of the tent with the stallion mage, Shadowdancer, and his herd mistress, Sorsha Stonemantle. Beatrice and Caltanwyn were on his other side, and both seemed bored out of their minds. He couldn’t blame them for yawning and fidgeting—politics and treaties were not his favorite pastime, either.

  Beatrice started to run her fingers in his feathers again. The night before, he’d taught her about feather care and mutual grooming, although it was purely the grooming part he’d been interested in. Besides, she was being subtle and he doubted if any of the humans would notice.

  Occasionally, one of the human advisors or city officials would glance toward the back of the tent, but their eyes would slide past him and land on the stallion mage. Beatrice had explained that long ago, the people of the empire once worshiped a mythological creature called a centaur. The stallion mage looked very much like one of those creatures.

  It suited him well enough if the humans wanted to stare at Shadowdancer instead of him. Although, by the stallion’s darkening expression, he was getting tired of all the stares.

  Silverblade was just settling in for a long wait made tolerant by Beatrice playing with his feathers, when there was a commotion outside the large tent. It sounded like a company of horses.

  A female voice full of authority rang out. “Where are my daughters?”

  There was a greater commotion outside as guards shifted and changed locations, and he was certain he heard a sharp, ‘get out of my way’ followed by a, ‘now, you idiot!’

  “Lady Stonemantle, if you will give us but a moment…” a human guard said.

  “No, I won’t give you a moment.”

  The tent flap was thrown aside and a woman, just beginning to show the markers of time in her hair, came storming in. She was immaculately groomed, hardly a hair out of place. If he hadn’t heard the horses with his own ears, he would’ve assumed she’d been in the camp for some time, for she looked nothing like a woman who had just galloped from River’s Divide for this meeting.

  She covered half the distance to the table, halted sharply, and scanned all the faces of those present within the tent.

  “Well, there’s two of them, at least.”

  Lady Stonemantle made straight for her daughters, undaunted by the number of nonhumans in the room. After looking them both over, she
gathered them in her arms for a swift embrace and then turned her attention back to the Crown Prince of the Phoenix, likely because he was the one person of authority on the side of the Elementals that she’d already met.

  “I thank you for bringing two of my daughters back safely, but there seems to be one missing,” Lady Stonemantle said with a tilt of her head. Her sharp gaze warned the others in the room to speak only the truth, or risk a mother’s rage.

  Silverblade was pleased that he was not in any way related to this matriarch. He had met Beatrice’s grandmother several times during his scouting mission, and Old Mother, while gruff, was also plainly spoken. There was no political intrigue or doubletalk to worry about.

  No, he did not envy the Crown Prince of the Phoenix inheriting Lady Stonemantle as a second mother. But then again, perhaps Lady Stonemantle would seem pleasant compared to the prince’s own mother, Queen Talnarra of the Phoenix.

  Ashayna Stonemantle looked less than happy and explained that Lamarra was still back in the Elemental city of Grey Spires, under the protection of another. When Lady Stonemantle’s eyes narrowed, Prince Sorntar jumped in to smooth things over as much as possible.

  Silverblade wasn’t really listening any more. At least they both still had mothers. Pain lanced through his heart, fresh grief welling up within his soul, threatening to choke him. After a few deep breaths, he managed to master his emotions enough not to betray them outwardly. Even killing Acolyte Ironsmith had done little to dull the pain. He hadn’t expected that it would, but he’d still hoped.