The most recent of memories broke free: lying curled up against Dayn while he slept; hearing a twig crack in the distance, then the voices of men talking in low undertones as they searched the forest; learning from them that Moragh had used up her magic summoning the Feiynd and couldn’t track Dayn by his father’s spell anymore, but knew he had to be near where the dragon died, injured.
Her nose was closing up from the smell, cutting off her air, sending panic higher even as she tried to slow her brain down. One thing at a time. Do the gag first. The knot is in the back. But. She. Couldn’t. Move. More flashes: the men moving on; her trying to wake Dayn but failing; the debate—she had promised to stay with him, but they would be circling back soon. Her slipping from concealment, heart pounding with no real plan other than to lead them away. Not into the Dead Forest, but where? The shrine, she had thought, she could lead them to the shrine. Would a vortex scare them and buy her some time to double back?
The stone was cold and hard beneath her, the knot tight and greasy. She concentrated on those inputs, made herself relax and suck on the thin trickle of oxygen leaking through her gag, then try the knot again.
The memories were coming faster now, clearer: her following the men, her mouth sour and her heart drumming against her ribs; finding them and circling around to where she could lead them to the trident-topped tree, and then…
A blow from behind. A man kneeling on her, pushing her face into the dirt. A coarse, terrifying discussion about what to do with her, then the decision to bring her unspoiled to the witch for questioning. Another blow, then darkness.
Darkness.
She sobbed against the gag, curled around herself, fingers useless on her bonds. The low, ragged noises stirred the creatures around her; from a little distance, echoing as if down a corridor, she heard metal dragging on stone followed by a low, rumbling feline growl that didn’t sound like anything she’d ever heard before. Then, farther down, a bugle that was part elephant, part trombone.
This was no barn. The noises belonged to creatures that would be kept in a zoo.
Or, in this realm, in a bestiary.
“No,” she whispered into her knees. “Please, no.” She didn’t remember if the questioning had happened yet, but the too-deep sleep and numbing fog made her think of the vortex magic. Had the witch bespelled her? Had she blabbed? “Dayn?” she called, torn between equal fear and hope. “Are you there?”
There was no answer from her fellow prisoners; not even a growl. But faint warmth stuttered to life within her, moving slowly through her body, surging with the beat of her blood.
He was alive. She let the thought fill her, chasing away some of the chill and unlocking her muscles. Did he know she was on the island, captured? Or did he think she had taken off on him? She didn’t know how much he could sense through the bond. Her thoughts churned with new unease: Would he turn his back on duty and come after her, or would the kingdom’s needs outweigh the bond? She didn’t know which she would prefer; she only knew that she hated being part of the inner war she imagined him fighting. He was an honorable male, her bound mate. Yet he was also a prince of Elden.
She should have left when she had the chance, she knew. But although that would have been the better, more honorable thing to do, all she could think was, Hell with that. She wanted Dayn, wanted a future with him even if she had to fight for it. Because she loved him.
“Love,” she whispered softly as the small kernel of warmth unfurled from a point to a glow, and then to new strength flowing through her with the beat of her heart. Yes, she thought. This.
She loved him. Not because he was a woodsman, a prince or a hero, but because he was a vampire and a wolfyn. It didn’t make any logical sense, went against everything rationality told her she should feel. But her heart didn’t care about any of that. She loved him, pure and simple. She didn’t need to have faith in the feeling, didn’t have to believe in it for it to exist; it simply was.
That revelation spurred her, got her moving again. Her hands stopped shaking; her stomach unknotted and she uncurled herself from fetal uselessness. The chains clanked and dragged as she repositioned herself against the cot, using it to support her weighed-down wrists as she craned and went to work again on the knots, starting with the top one this time.
It gave almost immediately, and the blindfold fell away. Success!
She blinked against the sudden blaze of light, squinting until it resolved to rather anemic amber firelight coming from torches set in brackets outside her cell.
Because that was most definitely what it was. The space was the size of a large box stall; indeed, there was an iron hayrack in the corner, and places to hang buckets. But the door wasn’t made for a horse or donkey—or none that she had ever seen before. It was made of iron bars that ran floor to ceiling, with no lock, no hinge, no nothing. Magic.
She sank back, heart thudding as bile rose.
“Oh, Dayn. Help me.” Her lips shaped the words, but no sound came out. She hoped—prayed—he could sense her need through their bond, though. Because there was no way she was getting out of this one on her own.
DAYN. HELP ME!
At the sound of her voice, his head whipped up from the faint trail he’d been following. “Reda?”
His feet kept moving, but he turned inward as their bond suddenly grew stronger than before, amped by the fear he felt in her, along with an echo of hopelessness that terrified him. She was in trouble!
Adrenaline fired through his veins and his secondaries broke the skin, bringing the added aggression of his blood-drinking ancestors. “Hang on. I’m coming,” he said, both aloud and in his heart. “Hang on. Don’t leave. Don’t—” He broke off, stopping dead at the edge of a churned-up patch of forest, where booted footprints were layered deeply and skid marks showed the impression of a human body just about her size. “Reda!”
The impressions were hours old, the body that had made them long gone. “No!” Gods, no. Who had taken her? Thieves, outlaws, soldiers? All equally dangerous, equally horrifying.
Pulse thundering in his ears, he sent magic into the bond, acting on instinct because he didn’t know much about the connection or how it worked, especially with someone from the human realm. Reda, where are you?
There was no answer. Only the fear.
He took two running steps after her. But then he stopped, heart hammering. This wasn’t going to work. He needed to move faster, couldn’t risk losing the trail. Reda needed him, and she needed him now.
Deep within him, magic spun up. Not his blood-drinking powers, but the other. Be true to yourself. Know your priorities. It was his father’s voice, but he wasn’t sure if it was a memory or a message.
He stood for a moment in the center of the churned-up clearing, hands fisted at his sides, body shaking with the pull of the forces that were trying to tear him apart. His birthright demanded that he not give in to the lure of the wolfyn form. And his sibs, his honor and the people still living in this blighted land needed him to get his ass to Castle Island before the zero hour, which was approaching fast. Every shred of logic and rational thinking he possessed said that had to outweigh Reda’s need. More, if he changed now, if he gave in to that magic, he put himself that much farther from his true self.
It felt like that was already happening, though, every time he thought about not going after Reda. She was his mate, his love, his other half. Without her, he wouldn’t be living; he would be simply existing, as he had done for the past twenty years in the wolfyn realm. Without her, he wasn’t himself.
He looked up into the night sky. “I’m sorry, Father. I wish I could be the kind of son you wanted, the kind of prince Elden needs. But I can’t. This is who I am.”
And he changed.
Pain flared through him, familiar even though it was only his third time making the transition. He gritted his teeth as flesh stretched and tore, tendons realigned and the ground grew suddenly closer to his eyes as his body reshaped itself into that of a huge
wolf. A hunter. And today, if needs be, a killer. Because he would kill his own countrymen if that was what it took to keep his mate safe.
Rage and feral aggression flowed through him, calling to the beast within, and he threw back his head and howled.
Birds fled from nearby trees and several large creatures crashed in the brush, fleeing the predator that was suddenly among them. He didn’t pay any attention to them, though; he was wholly focused on the scents that suddenly flooded his system as he put his nose down and bolted along the trail.
In his father’s time, the smells of oiled leather, honed steel and grain-fed horses of a cavalry detachment would have been a relief. Now, though, the details coiled new fear inside him, chilling his blood and warning that she hadn’t been taken by thieves or outlaws, but by soldiers.
The sorcerer had her.
He hit the road and turned toward the lake, running with his head up now, both because the scent was so strong and because he knew where he was going—which was where he’d been going all along. Not home, but to a reckoning.
He flashed on his father’s memories of the castle’s fall—blood splattering the stones of the courtyard, ettins fighting their way up to the second level, where the families lived, the king and queen despairing. Only it wasn’t his parents he saw now; it was Reda standing alone, trying to fight her way free of the creatures that grasped and clawed at her.
In the waking dream, she looked straight at him. He didn’t hear her voice, though, and the bond had gone frighteningly dim. Hurry. He had to hurry! Ignoring the panicked scatters of the villagers, he blew through a town and then blasted along the edge of the lake, body flat to the ground, claws biting into the ground, legs eating up the distance to the heavily guarded causeway. He heard shouts up ahead, saw a ragged band of men assembling, hastily armed with broken pikes and ancient-looking swords.
He didn’t have time for this, didn’t want to hurt them, so he just put his head down and charged, bulling through their line and sending them flying. An arrow whizzed in from the side, but he snapped it out of the air and broke it in his jaws, the moves automatic, instinctual, as if he’d always lived in this body.
Shouts followed him onto the narrow causeway and a rasping horn blared an alarm. On either side of him blurred the polluted waters of Blood Lake; up ahead, the huge, scorpionlike creatures formed ranks, clashing their claws and whipping their tails as if to say, Bring it on!
Hatred hazed his vision red. He had seen them through his father’s eyes kill the soldiers who had been his friends, his comrades. The feral fighting instinct of an alpha male said to kill; the priorities of a mated man said to get the hell to the castle.
As he neared them, he gathered himself to leap over the huge creatures, saw their tails whip back and forth in expectation. Four strides. Three. Two. He coiled, faked a spring and ducked under the closest two, slashing at their legs on the way by.
The things screeched high, anguished screams, and the causeway behind him exploded to slashing, clacking chaos. He heard a couple of splashes, but didn’t look back. He was done with looking back.
He shouldered two bristling soldiers into the lake, and this time the splashes were followed by bloodcurdling screams. Then he was off the causeway, onto the island and charging toward the castle.
More shouts and another horn blast came, but they didn’t seem to be aimed at him. The castle was stirring with movement, as if he wasn’t the only unexpected arrival.
Dayn missed a step as he realized what that could mean.
It was happening, after all. He had returned in time, and unless he missed his guess, he wasn’t the only one. His heart surged and he accelerated toward the castle.
A crossbow bolt thrummed toward him and buried itself in the dirt; a second carved a furrow in his haunch and he missed a few steps. But healing magic surged within him, hot and hard, as if he were suddenly drawing strength from the soil of Castle Island. Within seconds the injury had closed up and he was running once more at full tilt toward the outer bailey and—
He skidded hard, nearly falling when the trail he had been following suddenly swerved and headed away from the castle, toward the cluster of buildings at the other end of the island.
The sounds of footfalls and armor clanks rang out within the castle, calling to him. But his bond with Reda called harder. He could sense her now; he could feel her fear and despair. I’m coming, he sent along the bond. Hang on!
And he bolted away from the castle, toward the woman he loved, because he finally knew who he really was: he was hers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE TRAIL LED TO THE bestiary, which unlike the castle seemed deserted, at least of humans. Still in wolf form, Dayn slunk through the open doors at one end of the L-shaped building and padded up the long, barnlike aisle, which was flanked on either side by barred doors instead of the sliders he remembered.
The fur of his ruff bristled and his senses were maxed out. He could feel Reda’s energy, but he couldn’t track her using the bond. He could only look in every stall-size cell, his bile rising higher with each one as he caught sight of the beasts he had studied, the ones he had once tracked and hunted in all their wild glory, chained and contained, with much of their beauty stripped away.
A jungle liger lay chained to the wall; bare patches on its haunches showed where it had chewed its own fur away. A pair of demidragons slept huddled together in a corner, their normally dark scales bleached pale from cold and the lack of sun. A huge spider hung from the ceiling with its legs folded around its body and its multifaceted eyes glazed. The creatures seemed dispirited and uninterested…or, Dayn realized with a chill shiver, like they had been leeched of their life forces.
The sorcerer fed off everything, it seemed.
Then there was a fierce growl from up ahead, one that had Dayn’s hackles rising instinctively as he drew even with the doorway, where a smallish wolfyn male was pressed against the iron bars. The unfamiliar wolfyn’s ears were flat to his head, his amber eyes crazed with hatred.
“I’m a friend,” Dayn said in the simplified wolf-form language Candida had taught him on the sly. “I can help.”
The wolfyn didn’t show any recognition. Instead, he snarled at him and then danced back to snap at the bars, dig at them, and then pressed forward again, trying to get at Dayn. There didn’t seem to be any humanity left in the small male. Which, perhaps, was a blessing.
His snarls, though, had stirred up the other creatures, which stomped and shifted restlessly, starting to growl and snort.
“Hush,” Dayn snarled. “They’ll hear.” He moved on, caught a faint whiff of flowers and spices and charged to the end of the aisle, heart rocketing. “Reda?” The word was a two-syllable chuff that sounded very like the wolfyn word for heart. Which was only fitting, as she had taken his.
He skidded to a stop in front of the cell that carried her scent. And stopped dead.
It was empty, the bars fully retracted into the floor and ceiling through some magical means. She was gone.
And the air beyond that point stank of fear and pain. The smell slammed into him, shutting down his senses. He couldn’t scent her from there, couldn’t track her.
“No.” His stomach dropped. Frantically, he searched for the bond, felt her, but didn’t like what he felt. There was anger, which was good because it said she was fighting whatever was happening to her. But there was also terror and despair. And that wasn’t good at all.
“They’ve taken her.” The deep, resonant voice came from the opposite cell, and spoke a tongue he knew, though had never spoken successfully.
Heart galloping like a coal-black herd flowing over a green meadow, Dayn whirled and charged to the cell, which was so deeply shadowed that all he could see was a huge, indistinct shape in the corner. He pressed against the bars and said in the same language, “Where?”
And his wolf-form tongue said the word in a way his human tongue had never managed.
The huge shape moved, turned an
d came toward him, hooves ringing on the ground and striking sparks of metal on stone. The torchlight from the aisleway glinted off a long, metallic spiral and lit the blink of fiery orange eyes nearly lost beneath a long, flowing forelock.
It was the biggest damn unicorn Dayn had ever seen.
“Let me out and I’ll show you.” The stallion’s eyes took on a hard, vicious gleam that reminded him that while the creatures might tolerate the wolfyn, they sure as hell didn’t like them.
Then again, they didn’t like anyone. And captivity really pissed them off. “I’ve got a better idea,” Dayn said. And hoped to hell he wasn’t about to make a fatal mistake.
“GO SEE WHAT ALL THAT commotion is up at the castle,” Moragh snapped in her servant’s direction. “It’s upsetting the beasts.”
“Yes, mistress.” The gnome bowed his way out.
The training hall—at least that was what Reda thought it was, based on all the open space and racked weapons—echoed with the hollow thud of the double doors shutting behind him, cutting out the distant blare of horns, the nearer snorts and stomps of the caged beasts.
The witch turned back, eyes glittering dangerously. “Now. Where were we?”
Reda just glared. Her head hurt and the large stone chamber around her kept going in and out of focus, but she held doggedly on to consciousness, clinging to the stone-cold fury that had come over her when the guards had opened her cell door and she had made a break for it, only to be struck down and dragged to her destination.
Pushed beyond fear and terror to a new place deep inside herself, where a hard and determined soldier of a woman existed, she wanted nothing more than to grab Moragh by her hair and dunk her head in the vat she was so carefully tending over a fire in the center of the big stone room. Or Reda could go for any number of the weapons displayed around the room; she wasn’t picky. What she was, however, was trapped in the center of a strange symbol drawn on the stone floor in glittering powder. It generated a magical field of some sort, an invisible wall enclosing her. She flattened her palms against it now. “I don’t know where you were,” she said in answer to the witch’s question, “but I was thinking about the scene where the wicked witch gets it, and wondering if I could get a vortex to drop a house on you.”
Lord of the Wolfyn / Twin Targets Page 20
