by Scott, Amber
Ailyn held her breath. She stood very still, scanning the trees and shadows. Something moved. The outline of a deep gray wolf emerged no more than a furlong in front of her.
A scream climbed up her throat, only to stick there. She tightened her fist around the hilt of her dagger. The wolf, as large as any she’d ever seen, inched closer. Again, it growled, its hackles rising. Fangs baring. Dinna run. Dinna show fear. Ailyn backed up a step, two, three. Something met her heel. She backed over it daring not to look at what she hoped amounted as nothing more than a gnarly root.
The wolf tipped its puckered snout to the sky. Its fangs were pale silver blades in the darkness. Blood showed on its mouth. Maera’s torn wings flashed in her mind’s eye. Her beautiful wings. The beast’s howl ripped through the still air and sent terror trampling over every thought in Ailyn’s head. She turned. Every brown-blooded Fae knew outrunning a wild creature was impossible, yet she could not stop her legs from attempting just that. She fumbled forward, panting. She tripped over a rocky outcropping, cutting her palms when she hit the ground.
The beast’s huffing breaths closed in. She righted herself and plowed onward.
The wolf growled at her heels. Ailyn screamed. She could not outrun the wolf. But she wouldna let it kill her. She halted and tucked low, dagger in hand. She rolled onto her back, blocking her face with one hand and aimed to plunge into its ribs, to where its heart would beat its last.
Her back hit the ground, but the teeth her arm anticipated did not come. Neither did the press of flesh under her knife afore it popped through. The wolf’s paws hit her chest, knocking the air from her. It captured her wrist in its mouth. But no pain came save from her fall. Ailyn gasped, shocked.
Steamy puffs hit her face. Its nostrils flared. Its deep, amber eyes bore into hers, but it did not bite through her arm. Ailyn’s hand shook, her dagger shaking with it. She readied to kill it but something stayed her hand. The wolf growled. Her wits collected enough for her to make a fist, thankful to her brother for day after day, hour after hour of his tutelage. The beast was no straw man and her favored hand wasna tied behind her back.
Her good hand was free. Ailyn curled a fist and punched the wolf in the face. Her knuckles crunched with pain. With a grunt, its jaws tightened on her arm. Pain shot up the length under its bite. Then doubled when its mouth went slack.
“Oomph.” The wolf collapsed atop her, crushing her brief moment of wonder over her own feat.
Ailyn wriggled to free herself. When it lurched to one side, she thought it was awaking. She drew her fist back again. Instead, the stranger stood above her.
“Hell’s fury,” he said, staring at the fallen wolf, his chest heaving. “You clobbered it.”
Ailyn got to her feet, not sure whether to be happy to see him, or to clobber him as well. “I’m lucky to be alive, no thanks to you, and that’s all you have to say?”
He gave her a withering look, adjusting Maera in his arms. “Are trouble and you bedfellows, lass, or do I get to add ‘cursed’ to my list of attributes?”
He set off, stepping over the wolf with as much concern as he might give a tree stump. Ailyn sheathed her dagger and followed, the glow of her narrow triumph receding fast. The wolf was enormous. How she had managed to knock the animal out she’d have to evaluate later, once life returned to some semblance of normality.
She caught up with Quinlan and Maera. “Where are you taking her?” She dared not ask him what had taken him so long. Because she’d then recall how foolish she’d felt in thinking he’d lied to her. And feel shameful all over again that he hadn’t.
“The O’Donnell tuath isna far.” He whistled and clucked his tongue, gaze darting.
Ailyn was reminded of her fellow guard calling his stallion. This world of mortals was proving uncomfortably similar to her own. “You’ve a horse with you?”
“Aye. A true boon it would be if ye’d help me find him, ’ere my arms give out completely.”
Her gaze went to his arms. The muscles strained, bulging, making her belly quiver. The banquet, Maera, the veil, the wolf. The chaos was showing its marks on her awareness. The mere sight of a man’s arms shouldna affect her so. Neither should the sight of his strained, muscled neck. She tore her gaze away, searching for a horse.
She probably should have slain that wolf. Too late now. Ah, but if her brother could see her now. Years’ worth of training, forgotten in the face of trouble. First, going to the glade on her own, then allowing Maera to pass the veil. Trusting a mortal who certainly would kill for her meager magick—which was proving nonexistent here anyhow.
The mess she’d made. How would she ever begin to right so many wrongs? She could start with returning her liege home. Safely. Without getting them both slaughtered and in time to prevent a total collapse of the century-long, four-tribe alliance.
“I ken you’ve had a rough go of it, Ailyn, but we’ll be needing our wits about us, you and me, if we’re to make it away from that power.”
Ailyn’s cheeks heated over the dash of salt to her wounded pride. Were her ruminations so transparent? She set her chin high and scanned the wood, treading with care and in step with him. “Can you call it to you again?”
The hard look he gave her softened by degrees. He clucked and whistled again. His arms shook with strain. A low, mournful howl sounded. His gaze shifted. “You didn’t kill the wolf,” he said and laid Maera gently onto the ground. “It will be coming for you.”
“Coming for me?” she sputtered. Aye, she should have slit its throat. Nothing to do but right the mistake. She grabbed her dagger and strode to the wood.
Quinlan grabbed her arm. “There is no time. I know of a place where we can find cover, but I’ll need your help, lass.”
“Not lass. Ailyn,” she said, too late realizing how petulant her correction must seem, all events considered. “What do you need of me?”
He hesitated a moment. “Fine. Ailyn. If we’re to be familiar, call me Quinlan. Keep watch for your wolf as I attempt a fool’s trick.”
Ailyn frowned but nodded all the same. A fool’s trick did not rouse much confidence. Mankind had no magick left. She could actually feel just how little remained, and he would ask the goddesses for a fool’s trick? She might be better off carrying Maera herself.
But she had agreed, and setting off in this similar but foreign world might get her killed all the same.
One thing did console her. Her sword arm had recovered enough from the wolf’s attack, the wound now at a mere throb. If the wolf came, she’d not fail again.
Maera lay very still, barely breathing. The man knelt at the base of a tree, shaking his head. Ailyn shook her head as well. His wide shoulders were at odds with the slender trunk and low hanging branches. She was beginning to see what he meant by a fool’s trick. This fool had no idea how to beckon the power of the wood. Not that she could do better in either realm. It pained her to watch as he retrieved a short tallow and placed it on the ground, murmuring words as he attempted to do what she couldn’t guess. Light its flame, perhaps?
Did mortals have magick after all? She watched and waited, feeling the air for the prickle of an incantation. She felt naught but the damp cold.
A stillness settled around them, though. The kind of stillness that hearkens a storm. Ailyn bent to Maera, checking her breathing, her wounds. Her pallor remained, and these moments felt a waste. “Perchance I can take a turn carrying her.”
He shook his head, waving her off.
Ailyn stepped around so that she could see his profile. He had his eyes closed. He whispered words she could not understand. It was no wonder mankind had lost its connection. Look at how they went about it! “What are ye trying to conjure there,” she asked, the urge to take Maera on her own increasing moment by moment.
He glanced up at her, frustration masking his face. “I grew up hearing of the old ways. It’s a protection spell,” he admitted and lo but, he clearly hated his honesty.
“You’ll never accompli
sh it if you dinna even believe it exists,” she said. She wanted to say more, far more. But she could not risk his discovering who she truly was. “Have ye never done such a thing?”
He got to his feet looking ready to kick the tree over.
“The wolf is the least of my concern. A wolf I can handle. I ken you can as well. But everything in me warns me against that force.” His eyes glittered in the dark.
Her throat went a little dry. “Force?”
“You dinna feel it then? Did not see it?” He ran both hands through his hair. He looked to the trees, to Maera, closing his eyes as though desperate for some measure of patience. “It sounds mad. I ken as much.”
Ailyn swallowed. The old ways. Fae ways. Her ways. Before the goddess cleaved their worlds in two, the only way to protect the magickal from the non. Except some magick remained. That which mankind grubbed away before the veil sealed shut. And mankind missed the magick. So much that they would kill for it given the chance.
“No. I believe you.” She should sense it, too. She should feel things. The breath of life in these trees, the whisper of an answer to her questions. Was it this place...or was it her? What might the veil have robbed her of?
How could she evade a dark force she could not feel? How could she possibly save Maera in a world that did not speak to her?
He faced her. “I will not boast of having any talent in the old ways. I thought perhaps…it matters not now.” He shook his head. With a frustrated sigh, he retrieved the tallow, putting it back inside a small satchel at his waist.
He’d come prepared?
A man with no talent, no clear faith in magick, had come prepared to attempt a spell?
“We need no magick here,” she said, the lie sounding incredible, yet he did not scoff. “But I agree. Staying will invite danger. Have you enough strength to carry her further if I help?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched.
Another mournful howl penetrated the still night air. Closer this time. Much, much closer.
“Grab yer dagger, lass. It sounds like you’ll be needing it.”
Chapter Five
Quinlan scooped the lifeless woman back into his arms. He understood naught about this night. A simple, albeit risky, errand to confirm what befell the local herd had become far, far more. The wolf’s strident calls coupled with the inky energy seeping closer. He forced his bafflement aside.
Should this poor woman die, it would be in his arms as he did all he could to prevent it. “If that wolf has the taste of your blood on his tongue, he likely won’t let go of ye till he’s drunk it.”
Ailyn’s mouth fell open. She snapped it shut. “I’ll kill it first.”
Standing as she was, arms wide, a blade in one hand, a fist made of the other, she looked like a warrior princess, alive and breathing from a bard’s tale. He could have laughed at her bold but hollow words. “If you were out to kill it, lass, ye would have. I dinna mean any insult. You might have made the same choice, but I’ll not be waiting about like a feast on a platter.”
She considered him a moment, then dropped her warrior stance with a glare. “Is the power you felt gone, then? Is it just the wolf?”
Quinlan shifted the woman’s weight in his aching arms. “ ‘Just the wolf,’ she says. Just the bloodthirsty wolf it is.”
He set off, shaking his head. He’d not be explaining what he could not fully appreciate, a phenomenon he could not describe to another soul, save Breanne. Or his grandmum, had her spirit not passed many a moon before. He strode through the trees, an idea forming. The wolf would keep to the cover of the trees. Would the magick as well?
The sea meant taking the lass and her friend away from Breanne’s home, though. As such, he risked the woman’s life. She needed a healer. Fast. But the closer two of the three devils—the wolf and the dark energy winding about his calves, fingering up the backs of his thighs—mattered more.
The lass strode with him, her dagger ready, her dark auburn braid tossed and bounced with her long strides. The pull on his legs weakened. He took heart in that. Another howl echoed through the trees, fainter. He smelled the briny sea air before he heard the crush of waves far, far below the tall, steep cliffs he’d played near as a child, giving his parents the frights of their life.
The thicket of trees gave way to rock and grassy heather. Quinlan pressed forth, the pull at his legs lessening to mere wisps. Could the power follow his trail, track his scent like a wolf? At least the wolf had given up, mayhap found its pack, chin low in shame—bested by a wee flame-haired colleen.
Och, wee wasna the right word. Tall, she was, with curves of a woman grown. Her bravado though, struck him as childlike. Fierce, aye, but uncertain. She kept up, wary as she still was of him, stealing scowls his way.
They broke through the trees. A whip of salty wind hit his cheeks. A blast of sweet freedom. The tendrils pulling him evaporated. The weight in his arms lightened. Alarmingly so. He dared not set her down, but the urge to check her heartbeat and breathing gripped him hard.
Quinlan scanned northward, praying to Christ that his memory served him well. Aye! There, barely discernible in the dark, less than two furlong. “The old Druid’s hovel,” he said to Ailyn.
Her eyes widened as her gaze followed. “Druid?”
“Aye, the nearest shelter, abandoned some ten years now, but a shelter nonetheless.”
Ailyn hesitated, making Quinlan come up short. “What is it, lass?” Did the magick now pull at her instead? Had she seen something?
She shook her head, her eyes searching his. “I’ve no other choice, do I?”
Quinlan frowned. “Choice? Do you jest, lass?” The woman nearly interrupted a dark rite, then fled, next attempted a swim in nigh frozen waters, felled a wolf, questioned every word he spoke and now, after he’d done aught but prove his mettle, wasna sure about shelter? “Bah.”
Quinlan lost his last shred of patience with Ailyn. There was only so much chivalry a man could force upon a damsel before he left her to her damned distress. He headed for the small home with one thing in mind and one thing alone.
A warm fire.
“Infernal female logic,” he muttered.
He adjusted the limp form in his arms, hoping Heremon’s abandoned hovel might have long-forgotten dry peat and wood for a good fire. His damned bones were nigh frostbitten. The weight he carried fatigued his arms nearly as much as the lass fatigued his nerves. He strode with purpose, guilt be damned.
The silence behind him told him volumes. She likely stood as stock-still as he’d left her, letting the distance gape between them. Did she not fear for her friend now? Where had the panic that sent her into icy waters flown to? Guilt gnawed a bit deeper. He’d no call to force her to be helped. She was a woman grown with a mind of her own—baffling as it might be on a man—as strong as any other, if not failing at the moment, in his humble opinion.
“Wait!” she called to him.
Sighing with relief, Quinlan paused, glancing down at the form in his arms. “She’ll not be leaving you behind, after all. Rest easy.” Not that the woman needed encouragement. Her raven-haired head bobbed limply as he adjusted her weight once more before turning around. When he did turn, she’d closed the distance and the wild light in her eyes had hardened into a fierceness he was beginning to recognize. She might not like this role she’d been handed, but she’d be filling it. He could see as much, and it banished his guilt.
“What are you standing about for?” she asked, as though he’d been the one who hemmed and hawed over life and death.
Quinlan arched one eyebrow, snorted, and resumed his trek to the old Druid’s forgotten home. The door eased open with a loud whine. A gust of the briny air swathed over his cheeks, cooling his brow where he’d sweated from the exertion. Ailyn entered first, took inventory of the room, looking left and right then pointed.
“Will these do?” She gestured to a pile of moth-worn pelts.
Quinlan nodded, and after she shook them out a bit, he kne
lt and settled the woman in his arms onto the makeshift bedding.
He frowned. “Why does your friend have sense enough to wear shoes, but you dinna, lass?”
Ailyn matched his frown, her cheeks reddening. “I removed mine.”
Quinlan shook his head, deciding any attempts to talk sense into her would be futile. Aye. She took hers off. What other explanation might he have hoped for, after all? Her feet looked damaged, and though she fidgeted under his stare at them, wearing breeches prevented her from hiding them.
“Sit,” he ordered, pointing to one of the two chairs in the small room, but didn’t wait for her to comply. Instead, he searched the next room for some sort of salve. Breanne certainly would have kept supplies here back when she studied with Heremon. He found several promising jars, but realized he had no way of knowing which to administer.
Better to leave such matters to Breanne.
He glanced about the small room for the makings of a fire. Naught but a woolen blanket. Unless he dismantled the only chair in the room. Might be their only option. The nearing groan of thunder warned of a storm. On foot, he’d risk getting caught in the downpour, though the wolf would not be a risk anymore, his death of cold certainly would. He needed to fetch Breanne. The healer was the limp woman’s only hope. Breanne would know what to avail of in her old mentor’s home. “Stay put,” he said.
Her chin tipped a notch up, but she jerked a nod of compliance all the same.
“I’ll be after some wood. Dinna open the door for any other. And if ye hear scratching instead….”
She shivered. “I’m not daft.”
That remained to be seen, all actions considered. But a moot point it was now. He let the heavy door thud shut and listened for her to bar herself and her friend in. A new level of dampness clung to the air. Dawn would approach and the coldest hour alongside that storm. A flash of light broke through the gray canopy of sky.
He used the search for firewood as a space in which to think. How much would he share with Breanne once he darkened her door? In truth, asking her to come at all might be a poor notion. Between the storm, her husband disliking their speaking, and her belly being swollen with an unborn babe, begging her aid seemed wrong. He knew Breanne, though. She’d be furious if she could help and wasn’t even asked. He found some peat and branches, which he broke over his thigh, enjoying the tight snaps in the air. A lonely sounding howl echoed in the air amid another rumble.
