by Lucy Lyons
“I’m here because I was sent . . . Master Shedu,” Portia replied to Maria, pointedly ignoring Onyxis and me. “The High King of the Court of Light wishes you to return to Fairy immediately and forget about this mission of yours.”
Her words sounded like she was talking about Maria’s promise to protect the lesser Fae more than the hunt. Maria flinched then stood taller and threw back her shoulders.
“Send my regards to your father, Portia, but I will not be returning to Fairy any time soon,” she intoned without emotion. She approached our little standoff, and her posture relaxed slightly. “I do regret missing you when I was there.” I glanced at each of them in turn then at Onyxis. We’d been in Brazil for less than a day, and Maria had seen us off in Washington before our flight.
Time is different in Fairy, Clay, Onyxis’s voice resounded in my head like a bell. Maria may have been there for a century of their time or a few moments. There isn’t much use for time when you’re immortal, she clarified, and I shook out my fur to cover my surprise, much as Portia had her gleaming metallic feathers.
I felt Ashlynn’s barely controlled anger before her hand brushed my arm, and I moved to the side to make sure she stood next to me and not behind. Portia despised her role as protector for the Fae-kin, and I wanted her to see us as a united front that didn’t need her protection any longer. We couldn’t force her to accept or like us, but we could remove her from the equation all together if Maria would allow Fae-kin to be Red Daggers and take on the authority to go with the responsibility we already had.
“Again. I was commanded to come,” Portia spat at us. “I want nothing to do with this hunt. Who cares if greedy humans are killed by the thing they seek to destroy?”
“Wait,” I said, forcing my tongue to make human sounds with difficulty. “What do they seek to destroy?”
“A better question would be what don’t they?” she scoffed. “You should know—you are one. What do your fellow men destroy in this part of the world?”
“The rainforest,” Ashlynn ticked off on her fingers as she answered, “indigenous people, several endangered species, both predatory and prey animals . . .” She shrugged at me and sighed. “I was with Greenpeace in college. You get to see a lot of pain and try to stop a lot of damage, but it comes at you in a landslide.”
I nodded and filed the information away for a quiet time when we weren’t facing off with a Fae who’d been sent to stop Maria from helping us. Onyxis had the same idea, it seemed. She shifted her weight to a fencing stance and placed herself between Portia and Maria, flicking her voluminous, scarlet robe back to reveal a rapier in her left hand.
Ashlynn bared her katana and bounced on the balls of her feet as she prepared to fight. She’d been looking for a chance to prove her strength against the Red Dagger captain since the first time Portia had poisoned me during a sparring match at the dojo. I glanced back at Maria, but she remained inscrutable, and I lengthened my claws with a sigh and stepped forward so I’d be the first to fight her. With all the sparring we’d done and the times she’d poisoned me after the first, I was immune to the venom that dripped off the talons she now unsheathed.
“I don’t want to fight you, Portia. It’s a waste of my time and energy, and we’ve done this dance before,” I carefully articulated around my fangs. “Just go back and tell whomever sent you that I’m to blame for your failure to bring her back.”
“Is that the answer then?” she called out to Maria. “Are you hiding behind the wolf and his mate?”
“I’ll return when I’m ready and not before. I hide behind no one, Portia, as you are aware.”
Portia blanched for the first time since I’d known her. “He won’t be satisfied with that,” she countered. It sounded like she was pleading.
“Then don’t go back until I can come with you. He’s your father. If you can’t deal with him, what makes you think I want to? He hates me.”
Portia mumbled something even I couldn’t hear, and I automatically leaned in to listen.
In hindsight, what happened next was entirely my fault, but in the moment, I’d simply lost track of who I was facing upon learning that the terrifying Cetan, High Fae and captain of the Red Daggers, was afraid of her father.
Pain exploded in my face as talons swept across my cheek and forehead, and behind me, Ashlynn shouted a curse. I fell to the ground and blindly swept out with one arm, but Portia easily avoided the sweep. I cleared the blood from my eyes and looked just in time to see Ashlynn slash her katana across Portia’s chest as the Cetan fell back from the attack, wide-eyed with surprise.
I held back and let Ashlynn fight, my gut clenched in worry that she’d take a hit from those wicked venomous claws without a medic near enough to save her. Ashlynn parried and rushed her opponent, wasting no energy on talking or a single misplaced blow, and I started to watch the fight just for the beauty of their skill.
“You’ve taught your mate well,” Onyxis observed, and I wondered if she’d been poking around in my thoughts without me noticing. I didn’t respond but agreed that for how recently she’d begun her weapons training with Colette, our closest vampire friend, she had grown more than proficient.
Ashlynn drove Portia back to the closed door and waited, panting for the Cetan to advance again, but Portia folded her hands in front of her and turned to face Maria again.
“It seems that I was beaten by an arms expert and must allow you to stay,” she drawled, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Ashlynn glanced back at me in shock and rage and drew back her sword for a heart strike, but I managed to reach her in time and held her back.
“She’s goading you. Don’t fall for it,” I growled aloud, making sure Portia heard me. “Her best weapons are her talons, and she needs you within reach to poison you. Leave her be. You won, no matter what she says. We all saw it.”
Ashlynn was shaking and white with rage as I held her arms by her sides and tugged her back to Onyxis’s side. Portia stood with her arms folded, leaning against the door, but as I scowled at her, she shook back the long feathers that cascaded down her back instead of hair, and I knew Ashlynn had shook her bad.
Don’t believe the attitude she’s putting off, Ash. You scared her. Watch her closer and you’ll see, I told her silently. She pressed her face to my chest as I held her then turned her head to watch the Cetan out of the corner of her eye. She pulled away from me and rolled her shoulders, striding back toward our tent. The glare she tossed over her shoulder told me she was done with us all for the night, and I knew if I went back to her, all I’d be doing was sleeping.
But we’d made magic already, and now that I’d shifted in front of the men, I figured the least I could do to make up for any shock I’d caused, was to take the next guard shift. I said as much to Maria, who nodded and said something in Portuguese to the men, who nodded and pointed me toward the north end of camp facing Mount Roraima.
I took up my post in a wild cashew tree and wished for a moment that I’d shifted back so I could have pockets for the fragrant nuts I found on the limbs around me. I climbed higher, almost to the top of the canopy, and scented the air before settling in to scan the inky darkness of the forest floor. After I’d been still for a few minutes, the sounds of nocturnal animals came to life all around me, and I listened to the music of the night until the sun rose without any disturbance from inside or outside the camp.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The sky to the east began to lighten, and in the predawn gray of morning I felt a change in the air that had nothing to do with nature and everything to do with magic. I mentally checked the protective circle to make sure it was still active and dropped from the branch where I’d spent the last hours of nighttime, landing without a sound on the mossy floor below.
I could smell animal and man, but it wasn’t a shifter. The man smell was all too familiar to me from the flight down to Brazil, and the animal scent was too foreign for me to decipher, beyond the basic identification of feline and male.
The man had made a wide berth around the camp and stopped short of where I was waiting, veering north toward the base of the mountain instead. At least the circle’s doing its job, I thought, wondering where the other guards had been when this man had walked within feet of the camp without noticing us.
The glamour that had hidden the camp from outsiders had also prevented the cat from attacking so close to its border, but I picked up the pace and tried to close the distance between us before the creature decided it’d had enough of following and went into kill mode.
The undergrowth of the forest, mosses, saplings, and fungi made it easy to run silently as I followed the trail of spicy cologne and anticipation to a cave at the foot of some craggy stone walls I assumed were the beginning of the mountain. The opening was hidden behind fallen rocks and ferns with wide, feathery leaves, and I almost missed it altogether, passing by once before doubling back to catch the scent I’d lost.
With a quick prayer that I wasn’t making a stupid choice going in alone, I ducked into the opening and was hit with a sparkling light far brighter than anything I would’ve expected heading below ground. The cavern or tunnel extended back far enough that I couldn’t tell which it was, and the light from the flashlight the man had left behind ricocheted off crystals growing from the walls and floor, causing the entire space to look like it was full of dancing wisps.
I tried to reach out for Ashlynn or Onyxis, but something about the cave or the crystals (or my own ineptitude as a telepath) prevented me from reaching them, and I considered going back for them. As I reached the mouth of the cave, I heard a scream, and without thinking I spun around and raced back inside, shutting my eyes to the flashing lights and pushing my way clumsily through the crystal corridor, opening them again when there were no more spots dancing behind my eyelids. There were more screams, accompanied now by the tang of fresh blood, and I rushed ahead, not thinking of what I might encounter.
I nearly raced headlong into a manmade circle surrounded by tired seats that had been carved out of the stone. Sitting around the circle were men in brightly colored, feathered cloaks, watching the giant, black cat in the center as it toyed with the game hunter. The man, who had been brimming over with swagger and false confidence when I last saw him, was huddled against the stone wall of the pit, holding his guts in and whimpering in pain and terror.
The jaguar advanced on his prey slowly, and I followed suit, slipping into the pit and hugging the wall as I snuck up on the big cat, hoping the man was too focused on his attacker to see me and give me away. The pit was filled with the stench of death, some of it so old I couldn’t place it, some so new the copper tang was still thick and cloying in my nostrils.
I glanced at the audience, trying to sniff out whether they were intent enough on the show that I could step out of the shadows, but none of the figures moved, not to watch, not even to breathe, and when I got close enough, I finally understood why. Beneath the fluttering, waving cloaks were statues of men, carved to depict an audience painted in blood.
That was the death I’d smelled when I entered the arena. I didn’t know what period of history the statues were from or what they represented, but I knew death magic when I smelled it, and I was surrounded by it.
Satisfied that I hadn’t missed a living soul with a voice among the silent statues, I continued to advance on the pair as the jaguar sliced the man’s shoulder, flaying the skin down to the bone. The man managed to scream again, but when he did, he was looking at me. Sitting in a pit full of bloody statues about to be eaten by a cat bigger than any natural jaguar I’d ever seen was apparently not as terrifying as the face of an American wolfman in the jungle.
I was afraid to say anything, knowing that my fangs made human speech difficult, let alone when trying to calm a terrified man and avoid fighting an animal that had more right to be where we were than I did.
The man’s eyes shifted to me again, and I saw the cat’s ear twitch a split second before he spun almost faster than I could see and lunged for me, claws outstretched. He caught me across the chest, and I fell back with a roar then threw myself at him and grappled him to the floor. I tried to speak to his mind, sending him pictures of him leaving the cave and hunting elsewhere, but he tossed me off and pinned me to the wall, snarling and snapping inches from my face. The wolf wanted to fight him, to tear his throat out and add his blood to the centuries of sacrifices that already painted the statues, but I held back from a full shift and instead used that energy to force him back onto his haunches.
“Sit, goddamn you,” I snarled at him, holding him back with my energy alone. Unbelievably, the jaguar sat, tilting his head to one side and regarding me with more curiosity than fear or anger. I paced between the man and the beast, unsure of what to do next, when the cat shimmered and before me stood a man, with skin like night.
“Are you going to do something, wolfman?” he asked in a clipped, British accent.
“I’m not sure any longer,” I confessed. “I thought you were an innocent animal acting on instinct. Now I know you’re capable of discerning between right and wrong. I think we’ve been looking for you.”
The man stood and clenched his fists then opened them to reveal claws just like mine but the color of black ink. “He deserves to die, wolf. I won’t let you take him. There’s too much at stake.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, mate, but he’s human, and I can’t let you kill him, no matter how foul he is.” I balanced on the balls of my feet the way Ashlynn had, feeling the strength of my legs under me as I poised myself to parry his attack. The businessman-turned-hunter was no longer making any sound, and when I glanced behind me, he was slumped over, his bent pose the only thing keeping him from bleeding out.
Faintly, I could hear his heartbeat, and I took a step toward him, only to go flying across the pit. Fortunately, the jaguar had sent me flying the direction I was already going, so I hit the wall next to the man and tumbled at his feet.
I managed to avoid jostling him and pushed out with my power again, shielding myself and the man like the witches in my life had taught me. The man paced just outside the field of energy I’d created the way he had the circle of protection around the camp, huffing and snuffling at us in irritation.
“You can die in there, slowly, or die out here, quickly. It’s all the same to me,” he taunted. “The sacrifice must be made. If you leave, I’ll forget I ever saw you, and you can hide behind your strange American magic with your human trackers. They’ll never lead you back here. Their belief in the power we hold is too strong.”
I didn’t ask what he meant—I didn’t have to. Above me, another statue began to form from the stone of the cavern. I felt the strange magic building around us, pressing in on my flimsy shield as it sought the blood that would make it whole and add another figure to the diorama of Aztec sacrifices that had been watching silently for centuries.
“I can’t let you take him, cat,” I growled and pushed more energy into the field, while it closed in around me.
“The gate must have fresh blood to stay locked. I don’t enjoy this any more than you would, but it needs to be done.”
The statue continued to form, and the pressure increased until I thought it would crush me where I knelt. My wolf roared and clawed at my insides, demanding to be set free to fight against the unseen evil that was crushing the life out of me. I fought the pain from both inside and out, screaming my frustration as my walls finally collapsed completely. I turned, helpless against the magic that wanted to siphon the life from the man, but my shield had held on long enough to stop it. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to keep the life from seeping from the man, and he had died while I fought to protect him.
The jaguar-man howled and swung wildly at me, his first swings missing as he frothed and hissed at me. I blocked a third swing, and he surprised me with an upper cut that rang my bell and made my eyes water.
“What have you done, you fool?” he snarled, catching me with a fist to the gut and kicking me in t
he face when I fell to the ground. “There was so little time for the spell to be completed, so little room for error to keep the gate closed. Now it will escape.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.” My fur fell away, and I stood, leaning against the wall as I tested my legs and tried to straighten up past the pain of what I figured was a broken rib.
“No. Of course, you don’t. You came to my country, decided you were enough alpha to make decisions about things you know nothing of and in the process released a power that no living being can put back again.”
I glanced at the body at my feet, a man I hadn’t even liked but had tried to protect, just as I’d been trained all my life.
“I protect humans. It’s what I’ve always done, what I’m sworn to do.”
He scoffed and pointed at the corpse on the floor. “That man you were sworn to protect was a black-market dealer. He sold stolen goods, poached animals, kidnapped children for the sex trade—whatever came across his desk that he could move at a profit.”
“Things you could’ve told me while I was trying to survive the magic of this place,” I snarled, sneaking glances at the unfinished statue near the top of the tiered seats.
“You don’t belong here. My people protect this place. We have for a thousand years and until now, no jaguar has ever failed to reinitiate the lock.” He rubbed his hands over the tattoos on his bald head and cringed away from the body on the floor with me.
“I’m sorry. I was only here to investigate other murders, preternatural murders where the victims were burned. Obviously, that’s not the case here. What can I do?” He was staring at me with wide eyes as I spoke and sank to his knees, shaking his head and muttering, repeating the same phrase over and over.
