Defiance (Rise of the Iliri Book 3)

by Auryn Hadley

  At first, she'd thought the awkwardness was simply because they were on their own. While Jase was the more veteran of them, Sal was the ranking officer. He'd always said that was the way of their kind, but then her body had decided it could wait no longer. He'd been the perfect gentleman, understanding that she had no interest in bringing a child into war, but that's when everything started to change.

  After that, Sal had assumed it was simply the hardships of the road. Long days on horseback and splitting the watch gave them little time to do more than talk. Conversation had run dry, and he was still holding himself away from her. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been wrapped in those tattoo-covered arms. He'd become withdrawn. Sitting beside him now, she missed how close they'd been before this trip started.

  She sighed and grabbed her mare. After pulling her cloak black-side-out around her shoulders, she swung her body onto Arden's back. With legs as short as hers, it was the only way to reach the saddle. Jase wasn't much taller – both of them small compared to any human – and their war horses were bred to be massive. She tossed one last look at him before squeezing Arden into a lazy walk.

  "He wasn't any good you know," she mentioned to the road.

  "Prolly na," Jase agreed, glancing at her once. "Things are so strange here. I can na imagine treating a woman the way they do. It's hard for me, ya know?"

  "Is that what this is about?"

  "Is what about?" he muttered.

  Sal wanted to snarl but tried to keep her tone casual. "I know it's been a long time since our last job – and this one doesn't count. I thought that's why you were so annoyed with me."

  He didn't reply.

  That had to be it. It wouldn't be much longer now, only about a week until they would be able to truly kill again. After being on the road for almost three months, a week seemed like the blink of an eye. Sal looked at Jase astride his blue roan mare – but glanced away before he caught her.

  Around them, snow turned the world black and white. He reminded her of a statue in his shades of grey: beautiful in a harsh way. If Zep were here, he'd tell her how to fix this, but relationships were the one thing she'd never been able to master.

  "Sal" he whispered, breaking into her thoughts.

  "Yeah?"

  "It is na just me? Ya see that?"

  She nudged Arden over, looking across his horse. There, on the side of the road were a few spots of vivid red, brilliant in the monochromatic world. Her eyes met his, but he quickly glanced away.

  "Jase," she almost growled, "you're going to have to stop doing that eventually. But yeah, I see it."

  "K." He still didn't look at her. "Do we ignore it or follow it, Lieutenant?"

  Annoyed now, Sal sat deep in her saddle halting her horse. "Ok, first, let's deal with this." She waited for him to raise his head. "What is wrong, Jase? It's been almost three months, and now you won't meet my eyes, you have barely talked to me lately, and you're addressing me by rank?"

  He continued on a pace, still looking at the garnet colored specks before reining in Raven. "Do ya really think it's a good time for this?"

  "No," she had to agree. "Just stop calling me Lieutenant and let's figure out what's bleeding."

  He nodded once then guided Raven forward, intent on the trail of blood. The two mares became more alert as their riders sat up in the saddles, but trudging through the drifts was cumbersome work. Step by step, they followed the droplets as the spots swelled and ebbed in the virgin snow. After nearly a kilometer, whatever they were tracking had left the side of the road and moved toward the trees. The person or animal was bleeding freely, but the footprints had long since been blown away by the wind.

  Jase glanced up at her once, his deep blue eyes holding hers while he slid off his horse. A snarl wanted to take over her face. She knew he was trying, but his submission made her crazy. As he followed the blood trail, she dismounted, sinking to her shins in the frozen white.

  Maast, Jase whispered into her mind.

  He hadn't sent a thought to her in months. Sal wasn't sure which shocked her more, the cursing or his touch on her mind. Without Arctic to stabilize their mental link, it was rare to hear him in her head and, so far, had only happened when they were touching. She struggled to catch up, her short legs reaching through the drifts.

  When she neared the tree, she saw it. Laying in the snow was a large beast, nearly the size of an iliri. It resembled something between an otter and a mastiff, yet not quite like either. Its body was covered in dense, white fur, allowing it to blend into the snow. The beast's eyes were closed against the pain. Its muzzle was short and she could see sharp teeth as the thing's mouth hung open, panting. Arrows riddled the animal's body. Its blood seeped slowly, staining the snow a deep burgundy. Oddly, Sal felt nothing but pity for it.

  She slipped her knife from her belt. "It's still alive. We can't leave it like this."

  "Nah, Sal, look." Jase pointed. "She has pups."

  "Fuck, seriously?"

  It lay on its stomach, head turned to the side, forelegs tucked to its chest. Now that he'd pointed it out, she could see what appeared to be a pair of tails hidden between the animal's legs and her throat, the pups trying to burrow into the snow.

  Sal dragged a hand across her head, pushing back her ears in frustration. "Damn that's going to make her a lot more dangerous."

  "Prolly." He shrugged, then let the silence hang between them.

  But she couldn't just walk away. Wanting to see how much strength the thing had, Sal decided to move closer to the bitch – cautiously. One small foot moved, the pup trying to push farther under its mother and away from her strange smell. From the other came a tiny whimper. The poor things had no idea their mother was dying, but they probably couldn't survive without her. Especially not in the middle of an Anglian winter.

  Hoping to reach one before the bitch had a chance to attack, Sal knelt slowly. Just before her fingers could touch the little white leg, she checked the creature's face. It hadn't moved. Hadn't even flinched, but staring her down were a pair of white, slit eyes.

  Sal jerked away in shock. She landed on her ass in the snow and scampered out of its reach. "Maast, Jase, look at her eyes. Look at her damned eyes!"

  "Ayati," he breathed at the same time. "She has iliri eyes."

  The beast snarled, her gaze locked on Sal. Their eyes were identical. Both Sal and the animal in the snow had perfectly white eyes, broken only by the vertical pupil in the center. Both she and the beast were the color of the snow. Both of them had mouths filled with teeth sharp enough to rend flesh from the bone. Only one of them had fur.

  "Sahvarr grauori, nas vahn ilirri."

  "I'm na crazy am I?" Jase asked softly, both of them frozen in place. "She... Did she say iliri?"

  "Sahvarr nas vahn ilirri," the beast repeated emphatically in a weak whisper.

  "Savar nas vahn iliri?" Sal asked. It sounded almost like her species' native language, but none of the words were quite right.

  Somehow, she pulled her attention away from the bitch long enough to glance at her partner. He stood behind her, his mouth open, frozen in shock.

  "You know what it means, don't you?" Sal kept her voice low.

  He nodded, her words breaking his trance. Creeping to his partner's side, he spoke directly to the beast in Iliran. "Sahna ast iliri. Kierna edst iliri. Dru nas vaun iliri. Za ast dru?" Pausing, he looked over to Sal and translated. "We are iliri. She is iliri. You are not iliri. What are you?"

  "Savar vahn grauori. Ayme. Nee, Ayte e grru, vrrg zasht eene," the poor beast panted out.

  "Fuck," Jase hissed, diving toward the bitch. Sal drew her blade, her immediate reaction to protect him from the injured creature. As he neared, the bitch lifted her head with a whimper, exposing the pups laying lethargic from the cold. Jase grabbed the first, handing it back toward Sal. It yelped, but nothing more than the mother's eyes moved, watching.

  "Her babies are freezing," he explained, "and she's begging fer help."
/>   Chapter 3

  When his words registered, Sal let her weapon drop into the snow. She grabbed the pup, freeing Jase to reach for the second. Each one was as long as her arm and as cold as ice. Their shivering bodies snuggled close to the warm iliri who held them.

  Sal wrapped hers, a white pup with grey points, inside her cloak against her chest. Jase opened his shirt, his numb fingers fumbling with the buttons, and pushed the solid white form next to his skin. He carefully cradled it against his belt, securing the pup with one arm as he reached back to lightly touch the mother's face. Whispering to her in his native tongue, Sal could just follow the conversation.

  "We won't let them freeze, mother. Have no fear. Now let us help you?"

  The bitch managed to nod, a movement so sentient Sal couldn't explain the emotions running through her. This wasn't a beast; it was a person. One just like her.

  "I'm getting meds," she said. "Tell her I will be back and that I'm not taking her child." Then she turned for the horses.

  With the lump held tight to her chest, she ran through the snow, whistling for the mounts. Arden heard her, and the mares begin trudging their way. Sal grabbed a rein and hauled her horse back, trusting Jase's mare to follow placidly.

  The animal still bled onto the ice-encrusted snow. Sal knew she had to help this creature even if she didn't know what it was. The bitch might look like a common animal, but that didn't always mean anything. Sal had been called that enough in her life. It didn't make either of them any less deserving of help from a stranger.

  Struggling to balance the squirming pup, she rummaged through their medical supplies. The little guy let out an immature growl at being treated so unfairly. Sal cooed to him but kept searching until she found a long acting antibiotic and the most potent painkiller they carried. Hopefully, it would work on whatever this thing was as well as it did her kind.

  "Jase, take this little guy. I'm going to need two hands for this." She offered the pup. "Damn I wish we had Shift or Risk with us."

  "Yeh, I know," he agreed. "I told her yer gonna help, but warned her it'll hurt." Since Sal was focused on arranging the medicines for easy access, he went on. "I do na know what she is. I do na know if she'll bite. Maast, kitten, be careful."

  Sal nodded and stepped around to the beast's back, her words for her partner. "Tell her I'm going to stick her. A painkiller first, then medicine."

  Jase translated. The bitch simply closed her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly. Hopefully, that really did mean yes. Resting one hand against the creature's fur, on her shoulder, Sal felt for someplace that could handle the injection. When her fingers found dense muscle, she gently pushed the needle deep inside. The creature made no move to attack. Repeating the process on another muscle, she injected the antibiotics. In moments, the bitch's breathing began to ease.

  "I hope I did that right. Maast, I've never been trained on anything but us." Sal looked up at her partner. "Ok. I have to cut these arrows out of her. Toss me my knife? I dropped it over by you."

  His arms full of the babies, Jase tried to juggle the small creatures who'd warmed up enough to become active. One began chewing on the edge of his cloak, obviously feeling better. A pleased look crossed his face as he flipped her steel blade across the gap between them, aiming at the ground beside her.

  "You make a cute dad, Jase." She reached for her weapon with a smile. From the corner of her eye, she saw his body twitch in surprise but ignored it. "Does she have a name?"

  "Dru vau kanna?" he called to the animal, avoiding Sal's comment.

  The bitch answered, "Ya, vahn Worau," with her tongue lolling from her mouth.

  Sal could understand that much. "Worau." She rested her hand next to one of the shafts and spoke in heavily accented Iliran. "This is going to hurt, and I make sorry."

  "Nee," the female, Worau, growled. Please.

  Turning the sharp edge away, Sal bent over the first shaft. Steel was the sharpest and most consistent material she'd ever used, but it was so rare that it was considered a myth to some people. Hopefully, it'd make this hurt just a bit less. She made a cut with a quick twist of her wrist. Worau whimpered once but didn't move more than the expected flinch from pain. Sal reached for the next, repeating the process on all four arrow wounds.

  "And here I thought learning my own language was just to get in touch with my history," she grumbled before switching to Iliran. "Ok, be strength, I need to pluck these from you."

  "She means be strong, she needs to pull the arrows out," Jase corrected.

  Sal grasped the arrow near the skin. Pulling with all her might, the head cut as it came free, and Worau whined. Sal moved to the next, refusing to dawdle and leave the creature in pain. After pulling them all, she returned to staunch the blood from the wounds. The beast never made an aggressive move. She was as willing as any patient Sal had worked on – which wasn't many.

  "I'm going to need more material to stop this. Worau, are you still with me?"

  "Ya," the bitch said as Jase made his way to the horses.

  Rummaging in the packs, he struggled to balance the pups at the same time. It didn't take long for him to return, but when he stopped before her, his eyes shifted over her shoulder. The bandages hung forgotten in his hand. Sal knew he was watching something, but the bitch still needed her. Still, Jase wasn't the kind to be paranoid. Something was out there. Carefully, she reached down and grabbed her knife, sliding it into the top of her boot before taking the gauze. Only then did she glance over her shoulder.

  A pale line of forms moved in the trees. She couldn't get a count, but there was definitely more than one.

  "Worau," she asked the bitch, "What is in these woods?"

  "Grauori," Worau panted.

  Sal pressed the material to the wounds, binding it tightly. "Jase? Are those friends or foes back there?" she asked in Glish.

  "I do na know," he whispered. "The horses are fine, but they've been fine the whole time."

  Normally their mounts would react to the presence of a predator, but they were trained to carry injured iliri. The thought made her glance down. Injured. Her hands were covered with blood.

  "How do you feel?" she asked him, holding her palms up. Deep maroon blood coated them.

  His eyes widened. Staring at the strange red of the blood across her palms, he pulled the pups to his chest. Slowly, his head began to rock from side to side. "Sal, I'm fine. I'm completely fine."

  "Me, too."

  She didn't feel the stirring of desire blood usually caused. Even the sight of her fellow soldiers' blood had some effect on her, but Sal couldn't think of a time her friends had ever been hurt that she hadn't been in the midst of battle. Blood didn't exactly cause the reaction in her. It was the feel of cutting skin or unexpected pain that did it, yet she'd cut the beast to remove the arrows.

  Sal stood, thinking over that as she rinsed her hands in the snow. Once clean, she moved to her partner's side and offered to share his burden. He passed her the white pup; it was female. Looking at the little face, Sal caressed the child's head, amazed at how close the features were to her own.

  "She's lovely, Worau." Wanting to keep the creature calm, Sal sat in the snow beside the mother and held out the child. Her grasp if Iliran was weak, so she kept to simple words. "It's going to be a bit before we can move you and there's something in the trees behind us."

  "It's my pack," Worau whispered. "Can you call to them?"

  "And say what?" Jase asked.

  "Tell them I need Grauf." Her voice was obviously too weak to make it that far.

  Jase passed his pup to Sal, catching her eyes with a warning glance, then brushed his hands across his back to check his weapons. She nodded. Once they were ready for anything, he called out to the trees in clear Iliran.

  "Our friend Worau needs Grauf. She's been shot and her children are cold."

  His words snapped across the winter air. The beasts in the tree line stopped, listening for a moment before pushing out as a group. Each of
them was a shade of white. As they neared, Sal revised her impression. They weren't just beasts. This was a very organized pack of predators.

  At least nine large creatures walked toward her on four legs. Each foot had a thumb and fingers splayed against the snow. So many pale eyes looked at them, their pupils slit. One male -- or at least Sal thought it was a male -- moved ahead of the others. He glared into Jase's eyes.

  "Look away," Sal whispered in Glish, the sound of her voice causing the beast to turn his attention to her.

  Their eyes met – and held. Sal casually petted the pup in her lap but could not force herself to break the gaze.

  "Sal," Jase whispered.

  She said nothing, merely stared. Less than two meters away, the beast tensed, still moving closer. His lip began to curl, his long teeth showing, and a rumble came from deep in his throat. Sal's own lips lifted in response.

  Shifting the pups to the ground beside their mother, she rolled to her feet. Her eyes never left the male's and her ears locked back against her head. When he leaned toward her, she tensed, ready for a true confrontation. Her instincts demanded that this male show his submission.

  "Umso!" he barked in his language.

  "I. Am. Iliri." She growled each word in her own tongue. "I do not submit."

  The spell was broken. The male took a step back, his muscles relaxing, and let his eyes fall to the ground. "That's my mate," he whined in the same twisted form of Iliran Worau used, "and my children."

  Sal just stepped back, leaving the pups beside their mother. Once out of reach, she grabbed Jase's arm and pulled him with her. The iliri kept their steps slow, never taking their eyes off the strange beasts, but the male rushed in. Sal was shocked to see him squat, not sit. With one paw, he reached up to caress his mate's face. They looked like hands. His fingers and thumb were short but still more iliri than she'd expected. All but ignoring the strange creatures beside him – Cyno and her – he began to speak softly, grabbing his children and pulling them close.

  "They do na move like wolves, but they do na look quite like us. Sal? What are they?"