Reaper (Dragon Prophecies Book 1)

by Hickory Mack

  Something made scuttling noises nearby, and she peeked over to spot a fat little groundhog digging around in the dirt. Elsie watched it for a little while until it scampered away. Looking up at the sun she noted the time, and anxiety struck. Another attack would come soon.

  Wren returned with an armload of green plants and a frown. "You do not appear to be resting," she criticized, noting Elsie pacing in circles. She glanced around as though looking for a reason for Elsie’s behavior. “Did something happen?”

  Elsie continued pacing but looked over, completely unsurprised to see that a feral goat had joined the stag in following the spirit around. “Nothing happened, and I did get some quiet time. It was nice.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” Wren repeated, hand on her hip with her brows crinkled together in confusion.

  “I’ll be having another attack soon, and it’s making me nervous,” Elsie snapped, immediately regretting it. “Sorry, I’m not—”

  “Forget about it, I understand,” the spirit soothed. “I was hoping you’d be able to get a little nap in, but I guess that was wishful thinking. Maybe a sleeping spell will do the trick next time.”

  “Do you have to use spells?” Elsie asked curiously. She wasn’t even mad that the spirit of the wild was threatening to magically put her to sleep because she didn’t believe Wren would do it. Most high-level magical creatures could simply direct their magic to do what they wanted it to. A spell was typically used for more intricate magic. Setting the plants she’d gathered down, Wren shook her head.

  “A figure of speech,” she said. “I found some ramson. I hope you don’t mind the taste of garlic and onion. These are the most nutrient-packed plants I could find nearby. They’ll help your cells detox, and they’re an even stronger antiviral than regular garlic. I’m hoping that getting some of this in your system will help you.”

  She handed Elsie one of the leaves. It was as long as her hand and nearly as wide before narrowing down to a white stalk with a small white bulb at the end. It gave off the distinct scent of garlic.

  Elsie inspected the wild garlic while Wren took out the little frying pan. “Do you have any olive oil in that pocket dimension of yours?” she asked, clearing out a safe place for the fire.

  “It’s practically impossible to get olive oil so far up north these days. I only have vegetable oil,” the reaper replied, and Wren nodded, though she didn’t look terribly happy about the substitution.

  “That will have to do.”

  She put just enough oil in the pan to cover the bottom, then let it heat as she cleaned the garlic, revealing a handful of mushrooms at the bottom of the pile. Elsie picked one of the little brown lumps up with a crinkle in her nose. She’d never been fond of mushrooms, the nasty, slimy things. But... she’d never seen one like this before, and as she rolled it around in her palm, she noticed a distinct lack of slime.

  “Those aren’t easy to find here, and I didn’t want to range too far to get more,” Wren told her, catching the doubtful look on her face. “They’re full of good things for your body, too.”

  The spirit muttered under her breath as she cooked, and the scents of onion, garlic, and mushroom filled the air. Elsie retrieved the plates and brought them over when Wren was ready. She had to admit it looked and smelled pretty darn good for some random plants she’d picked out in the forest.

  Wren handed her the plate filled with food, then touched her forehead gently. “You have a fever,” she murmured, taking the plate back and putting more on it. “Eat it all. It’ll help.”

  “Okay,” Elsie agreed. She didn’t see how it would help, but she was hungry, and if it helped the spirit feel better, she’d eat every bite. Before she could step away, Wren wrapped a hand around the glowing blue chain attached to Elsie’s cuff and gave it a hard yank, pulling it toward her. Elsie’s mouth dropped open, imagining Frost’s reaction to being yanked around.

  “Get over here,” Wren demanded in a harsh tone, then turned to fill her own plate as if she’d done nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Is he really going to let you talk to him like that?” Elsie questioned, remembering to close her mouth. She had the distinct feeling this wasn’t going to go the way Wren expected. He may very well decide to eat her, and it wasn’t like she could do anything to stop him.

  “He will if he knows what’s good for him.” The spirit chuckled darkly, taking a bite of the greens. “He’s still a brute of a beast, but he’s not as strong as he once was.”

  Elsie wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. She’d never encountered a demon stronger than Frost and couldn’t imagine what he’d been like in the past if he’d lost some of that power. That didn’t sit right with him being a mere demon. And if he wasn’t king of the shadow dimension, what did that make him? Was Frost some kind of god?

  Spotting Wren eating heartily, she hesitantly followed her lead. The leaves were pleasantly crispy, while the bulbs were soft and tender. The taste was overwhelming, like eating a concentrated raw clove of garlic. She sniffed as the pungency of the meal cleared out her nasal cavities.

  “It’s good,” she laughed. “Very strong, but tastes great.”

  “Its strength will become yours,” Wren stated solemnly, looking through the trees at the approaching wolf. His movements were stiff with anger, and his eyes were locked on Wren. She kept eating, watching the monster of Elsie’s childhood nightmares with near disdain. He stood several feet away, his fur bristling, but he didn’t make a sound. Somehow his silence combined with that fixated stare was far more frightening.

  He gave Elsie nothing, not a single insight into what was in his mind; his entire focus was on the spirit. She held her fork aloft, forgotten, transfixed by the tension between the two beings. While she was distracted by the wolf, Frida snuck a piece of mushroom off her plate. The cat gagged and squeaked angrily before running halfway up a tree after spitting it out.

  “One would think you would show more concern for the creature your life is tied to. Where were you while this woman was left alone?” Wren asked, her voice low, but the condemnation was clear. Frost was still silent, but some communication passed between them. Wren’s eyes widened slightly, leaving Elsie wishing she could hear what was being said. The spirit was practically seething.

  “I was forced to relocate a shade while you were out harassing the local wildlife,” Wren hissed, making Elsie set her fork down in shock.

  She’d never encountered a shade, and she never wanted to. They were the souls of creatures from another dimension that would eventually have become demons of wrath and destruction, pulled through Earthside by shamans and given corporeal form. Twisted and convoluted, forced to obey the shaman’s every order, they became shades. Creatures so dark and sinister, they eventually turned on the one who created them, left to roam the world with no master.

  They were known to latch onto people they encountered, infiltrating their dreams and feeding off their memories. Tormenting them until they were nothing but a shell of their former selves. The technique to create them was difficult, and only a shaman with nothing to lose and everything to gain dared to attempt it; as such, there weren’t many of them in existence. Though nobody knew exactly how many of them were around, Elsie’s best guess was there were fewer than two hundred.

  Frost’s gaze shifted to Elsie, and his lips curled as he spoke to Wren.

  “Yes, it was coming straight for her. You’d have known that if you’d been paying attention,” the spirit snapped.

  Elsie wasn’t like a shade’s usual victim. Most wouldn’t even know it was there, but she would. Not only would she see the magical trail where no creature was visible, but her ethereal magic would reveal it to her if it came too close. There would have been a fight, and in her current condition, she didn’t know if she could beat something with that much spiritual power. Especially something harboring that much resentment and rage toward the living.

  “I didn’t even feel it,” she muttered, looking into the trees.
<
br />   “No, you wouldn’t have noticed. Not while you’re so preoccupied with the curse you’re under. Your magic is dwindling,” Wren said gently, then shot a dirty look at Frost. “He would have noticed, though.”

  “I probably could have taken it,” Elsie bluffed, sitting up straighter to try and prove it. A quick shock of pain in her lower back made her face go pale and her eyes widen. She gave a quick gasp as her body tensed, readying herself for what was to come. Wren crossed the space between them in a heartbeat, touching her face, searching her eyes for pain.

  “Reaper?” she asked, her voice tense. Elsie focused on her breathing, trying not to panic. It was getting harder every time, and she knew that one of these days she’d be a sobbing mess on the ground, but not this time. She let out a sigh of relief and gave the spirit an apologetic smile.

  “Not yet,” she said finally. “A false alarm.”

  It bothered her, though, hitting deeply how bad this was getting. She was a magical creature. She didn’t get random aches and pains, and certainly not pain like that, making her feel like she’d been stabbed.

  “Finish your meal,” Wren suggested, standing and returning to her own plate. “Then we’ll keep moving. I hope you’re right about those mages.”

  “So am I,” Elsie replied. “Riven is a good person. She’ll help if she can.”

  She finished her food quickly and helped clean up. Wren took her bag again and set off, keeping a close eye on Elsie’s movements while also throwing stern looks Frost’s way. Apparently the spirit hadn’t let him off the hook for slacking yet.

  Elsie’s steps had slowed considerably, and though neither Wren or Frost said anything about it, she caught them both keeping their eyes on her many times. Even Frida seemed to be watching her more closely than usual.

  She pressed her lips together firmly, hoping they’d continue their silence on the matter. Elsie knew damned well what she was doing to herself by not drinking the contents of that little vial. She was killing herself. But she needed this chance the mages could potentially give her. She wasn’t willing to give up her freedom so easily.

  The longer they walked, the more nervous Elsie became, expecting the pain to come crashing in at any moment. Every few minutes, she cast a glance toward Wren, suspecting that the spirit had added some kind of magical protection to the meal she’d made. It was the only explanation her stubborn brain could accept for why the next attack hadn’t yet come.

  After a few hours, Wren came to a stop, putting her hand on Elsie’s arm.

  “What is it?” she asked, and the spirit touched the tips of her fingers to her lips.

  “We’re getting close, and I am going to stay with you as I promised,” Wren told her, then looked to the stag and goat. With her nod, they turned, vanishing into the woods. “However, I have a deep dislike for mages in the modern age, and they have no love for me. There is a deep divide between us, and I do not want this to cause problems for you. So I will take another form while we are among them.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Elsie told her. “I wish you would have told me sooner. If you have such a serious amount of discord with them, you don’t need to force yourself to come along.”

  Wren scowled at her. “Wouldn’t you miss me too much if I didn’t?”

  Elsie was at a loss for words when the implications of that question struck her. The most ridiculously beautiful woman she’d ever met was catching feelings for her, and it was more than just lust and teasing. What surprised her most was realizing the spirit was right. She took Wren’s hand, twining their fingers together.

  “I would.”

  Wren kissed her, but it was nothing like her previous kisses, all soft and sweet. This was needy and hard, demanding that Elsie give in. She smiled and drew the spirit closer, a hand on a luscious hip as she parted her lips, taking Wren’s mouth as her own. Yes, she would miss her if they parted ways, and she poured that revelation into their kiss, showing her would-be lover just how true it was.

  “I’ve decided you’re mine. I’m going to be the one taking care of you from now on,” Wren said, and though she’d said it before, it somehow held more weight this time. Elsie smiled against her lips.

  “I might even let you get away with that,” she murmured, and she meant it.

  “For now, just survive. If the mages are unable to help you, you must take the medicinal elixir,” Wren stressed, stroking her hair, and this time, Elsie nodded in agreement. If the mages couldn’t help her, she’d have no other choice.

  “I will.”

  Wren kissed her one more time, a soft, lingering parting before stepping back and changing into her deer form. She was solid white, with big blue eyes and dripping in hair and gold embellishments.

  “Even as a deer you’re too beautiful to be real,” Elsie muttered, and Wren flicked her tail in amusement.

  She led the way, looking back at Elsie often and choosing the easiest paths. Frida scrambled up a fallen tree and leaped, stealing a ride on Wren’s back. Elsie winced, thinking of the cat’s claws, but the spirit didn’t complain about it, so the alebrije got to stay.

  The scent of a fire wafted in the air, and Frost lifted his nose with interest. He was staying much closer since Wren’s warning, but he wasn’t acting any friendlier than usual. Elsie was about to ask him what else he smelled, but his ears went flat and he whirled around with a snarl.

  Elsie turned to see a spear pointed at them from high in a nearby tree. The owner of the magic trail she’d seen earlier had revealed herself. A woman in red-dyed suede stared back, her dark hair pinned away from her face. A mage. And judging from the bits of magic surrounding her, she was a fire mage. Wren was at her side in an instant, her hooves irritably striking the ground in warning.

  “Don’t any of you move,” the mage said, the tip of her spear pointed at Elsie’s chest. “I will not hesitate to kill you.”

  Chapter 12

  SAINT

  He slid to a stop in the slick mud, letting the rest of the demon pack surge ahead of him. There it was again. The persistently nagging feeling that he needed to turn around. A feeling that was growing stronger every day. His pack sister turned back, whining at him to catch up so he wouldn’t be left behind. She was one of the few who hadn’t given up on him, though he’d given her every reason to.

  After Elsie had all but destroyed their bond, he’d wandered without purpose for months, unintentionally starving himself as he couldn’t bring himself to hunt anything. Sari had been the one to find him in the depths of his desolation, dragging him back to her pack, filled with demons who would welcome him without question. Despite his clear case of apathy, the others had tried to bring him into the fold in the beginning, and four years later, they were still his pack in name only.

  As amazing and kind and caring as they were, these people were not his family. Every member of the pack he’d grown up in were killed by the hunters the very same day he had been captured to be given to Elsie as a gift. He’d watched his brothers fall, one by one, but in the end, they had kept him alive. They’d told him his family had to die so he’d have no reason to try and escape. They had made certain there was nothing left to run back to.

  He’d hated her then. Only his dependence on her for survival within the Hunter Clan had stopped him from killing her. Over time, that changed. She’d protected him, again and again, many times to her own detriment, and he’d come to love her with a depth he couldn’t begin to describe. Elsie had been his reason for living, the only person he still considered family, though she’d made it abundantly clear in their last moments together that she didn’t want him.

  Sari bumped his shoulder with her snout, tearing his mind away from the memories that plagued him. She didn’t like it when he dwelled on his past. On too many occasions it had led to another bout of depression that was growing noticeably harder to dig himself out of every time.

  She wasn’t the same as him. None of the pack were. They were the outcasts, the wolves, hounds, dogs, an
d coyotes without a home of their own, all running together as one. They’d even accepted him, though his kind had historically run most of their kind into the ground. Saint was a wolfhound, almost twice the size of even the largest wolves in their pack.

  His melancholic temperament made him so unthreatening that they didn’t care what kind of canine he was, but it was especially true of Sari. She treated him as though he were important to her, though he knew he didn’t act like he belonged. He’d yet to feel like he deserved the kindness they shared with him.

  Sari whined at him, her thick wolf tail wagging slightly, encouraging him to keep running with everyone else. A whine left his mouth, and Sari licked at his muzzle, trying to placate him. She didn’t know what was wrong with him. None of them did. He’d never spoken a word to a single member of the pack. He rarely left his hound form, more content to hide within the demon than to face his pain.

  She’d taken on the job of looking after him without a hint of resentment. Maybe she was hoping he’d come out of his shell one day, or maybe she just pitied him. Either way, she was the closest thing to a friend he’d allowed himself to have. Saint couldn’t bring himself to trust anyone, not after what he’d been through. He’d thought he would be with Elsie for the rest of his life.

  He looked back in the direction his instincts told him to run and shook out his fur. For the first time since they’d separated, Elsie was close by. He could be with her by the next day if he started running right now. His muscles bunched up, ready to spring into action the moment he made the decision, but he hesitated, the reasoning part of his brain going against his demon.

  He had worshipped Elsie, and she’d rejected him the moment she realized they’d formed a bond. He could still feel her and her rejection, every single day of his life. Saint wanted to believe she’d come for him, and that’s why she was so close, but a louder part of his mind reminded him that if she’d wanted him, she could have come at any time in the last four years. She hadn’t.