The Edge

by Annie Windsor

  But these weren’t cats. Not really. Were they?

  Another sharp pain dug at Ezri’s belly, and both men snapped their gazes back to her.

  They know , she thought with a flare of desperation. The labor—they sense my pain!

  Had they come for the child, then? Her innocent unborn? Her one reason for living?

  Rage stormed in Ezri’s mind, blending with the pain in her loins. She hoisted the shovel on reflex.

  “You’ll have to kill me,” she shouted, sounding twice as brave as she felt.

  Both men parted their full, tempting lips, flashing bone-white fangs, top and bottom.

  Deadly, hooked fangs—and they were growing.

  Chapter 3

  Méchant, or Chant to the few souls who knew him, kept the woman in the corner of his vision as he loosed a powerful roar.

  This incarnation of Ezruli, one of The Seven, the Redevence soul he had been watching off and on since her charmed childhood.

  It had been years, though. And now, she was…more beautiful than he expected. As if she had gathered more of her ancient Nubian blood and the Old Powers known only to the Redevence. And she smelled…better than he expected. Like anthemis—sweet apple or chamomile—beneath the dirt and sweat and blood and murder. By Anu, even those earthy scents made her more attractive.

  More alive.

  He gnashed his fangs once. Twice. The age-old spell compelling him to protect the Redevence bloodline mingled with something more personal. Something rarely known to Chant despite his seemingly endless years.

  A wicked, possessive desire.

  Somewhere in the chill depths of his dark defender’s heart, he wanted this Ezruli to live—though she was but minutes or hours from death, or the Old Powers wouldn’t have summoned him.

  Across the clearing, Alain narrowed his glittering eyes at Chant. The Empêche’s bellow of challenge pummeled the dry air.

  Chant’s instincts bristled. He tried to force his thoughts from the woman, but he could not. Her golden skin, those cold-crystal eyes, the dark hair in disarray about the perfect curves of her shoulders—and her full, taut nipples. Wine-colored. Blood-colored.

  His travel-parched throat burned at such a forbidden thought.

  Protect. Preserve. These were the duties of the Montre. Never, ever feed on the Redevence. Never on the Redevence.

  Alain shifted to the left, quiet in his movement.

  Chant eased to the right.

  A slow, deadly dance, this. A stalking, with one of the seven oldest souls alive as the prize.

  With this Ezruli as the prize , Chant added to himself, feeling that possessive desire again. And then most of his attention turned to Alain, his hated sun-twin.

  Given half a chance, Alain would attack the woman and the babe she carried—and Alain was dead-fast.

  Mais, oui. But not fast enough. Chant clenched his fangs. His strength grew as the sun sank lower. Alain’s physical power as a human would be diminishing. Any second, the Empêche would be forced to desperate action.

  Without warning, Alain leaped toward the woman, arms outstretched, fingers turning to animal claws as he flew.

  The stench of melting iron blocked all other scents from Chant’s nose. He sprang like the leopard he became each day, feeling the power of sinew and bone fueling his great pounce.

  He slammed into Alain mid-air, before the Empéche bastard laid a single claw on his prey. Pain pounded Chant’s body like a hundred hammers as he tumbled to the ground with Alain. Fur scattered. Alain was half-beast now, but still holding stubborn to human form. Great hooked nails tore rents in Chant’s chest, his sides.

  Like fire, burning. Knives, slashing.

  Chant roared, but refused to surrender his advantage.

  Alain roared back just as Chant gripped the back of the Empêche’s furry neck.

  The woman didn’t scream. For this, and for the ancient spirit restive in her soul, Chant respected her.

  Alain struggled hard in Chant’s relentless grasp. Chant’s lip curled at the sun-warmed flesh he held.

  “Damn you to the last circle of hell!” Alain growled as the changing took his shoulders, his neck. He tried to rise, but could not best Chant’s strength. The Empêche’s mind filled with images of slaughtering the woman. Ezri, she was called, in this time, this place.

  Alain wanted to murder Ezri, kill her babe, and thus eliminate one of the Redevence Chant had been created to protect.

  Chant’s wounds felt like nails drilling his flesh, but still he held the bastard, roaring and shouting at the same time. He fought to get his fangs close to Alain’s throat. Tearing the flesh and blood from an Empêche, especially this one, would give him great pleasure—though it would not kill Alain. Only a proper mam’bo could take life’s spark from the spell-born.

  Vous ne lui nuirez pas , Chant told his double mind-to-mind, as he could do only in those few twilight moments each day, when they could choose the same form and thus not be blind to each other’s thoughts. You will not harm her.

  I see you haven’t forgotten formal French despite your slumming. Alain thrust a claw dangerously close to Chant’s eye. You seem to like this incarnation overmuch. What is it, brother? Do you want to fuck her?

  Using his greater weight to hold down his sun-twin, Chant turned his gaze to Ezri, who still stood by the buckboard. She held her swollen belly, and her nostrils flared with the force of her breath. The ends of her breasts seemed huge. In need of relief. The sheen of sweat on her golden skin made Chant want to run his tongue over every inch of her flesh.

  By the old gods, yes. He wanted to fuck her now, ripe and fertile as she was. But he would wait to fuck her until after she had delivered her precious cargo. He would likely want to fuck her a century from now, when she was long dust and Chant had been left to guard her heirs.

  A fine madness seized his heart even as he caught the undertone of chamomile and fresh blood radiating from the woman. He opened his fanged mouth to tell her his feelings, but instead barked, “Bring me a rope, Ezri. You have one in the wagon, oui?”

  The woman stared at him, and then at Alain, who was almost fully in his night-shape. Her furious expression communicated two things.

  Firstly, she didn’t like to be ordered about by any man. And second, she didn’t know which man-beast to trust—the one who had been human and became cat, or the one who had been cat and turned to human.

  “Choose well—and soon,” Chant rasped, using all of his strength to force the writhing Alain harder into the ground. “You must trust one of us. And me, I just saved you.”

  Ezri seemed to consider this, then whistled to her chien, her dog—perhaps her familiar—and disappeared around the far side of the wagon. In seconds, a coil of rope sailed over the top of the buckboard and landed at Chant’s side.

  He grabbed it with one hand, murmured a quick spell to reinforce the twists, then used it to truss Alain’s legs.

  The Empêche was reduced to howling and hissing, since it was now full dark, and all human vestiges abandoned him. He could have spoken if he chose to, but his fit of temper brought out more and more of the leopard within.

  Working quickly, and without oozing blood since he hadn’t fed in more than a day, Chant backed away from the huge, struggling leopard, located a stick, and began to draw a seven-pointed star around the beast.

  Alain flailed and growled. If his leopard-eyes could have killed, Chant would have fallen dead with each step.

  But Chant kept up his etchings, falling into the gentle patois of the city he had called home since its founding. “No roaming tonight, mon ami. Mais, non. You be stayin’ right here.”

  For it would be morning before Alain had the strength—and the full-human voice—to break the star’s magik. Chant had the night to get Ezri to safety. Only a few short hours to hide her, to help her deliver her babe, then spirit them both to better protection.

  And then she will live. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll be the one. The first of the Redevence t
o remember.

  And what happens then…to her…to me…to the world?

  There would be time enough for such deep questions when he’d finished his work. Chant turned quickly to the wagon, already beginning his voluntary transformation back to leopard, this time flight-ready.

  But Ezri had fled.

  He cursed and nearly bit himself in fury.

  You must trust one of us , he had told her.

  Apparently, he had been wrong.

  Chapter 4

  Ezri ran like her mother told her to run if she ever saw a spotted cat, like the gods were bringing all their wrath. Her feet fairly flew, Papa Loa matching speed beside her, and neither of them looked back. Ezri’s breath caught hard in her chest as her swollen breasts bounced.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. In all her childhood nightmares, she had a fair chance. Half-starved, dying of thirst, covered with a dead man’s blood, nine months pregnant, in labor—now, she had no chance at all. Dread tore at her like her birthing pains.

  From behind her, unearthly cries rose from the clearing.

  “One of those cats, killing the other.” Her heart pounded harder.

  And then she smelled that smell again. Sulfur. Melting iron.

  “No. No!” She clutched her belly as the pains made her stumble.

  Something whipped the night air above her, stirring the parched pines.

  Ezri stumbled again, looked up—and talons fastened on her shoulders. Firm, yet gentle.

  She screamed as something dark and massive swept her and Papa Loa from the ground like they weighed no more than rabbits.

  The dog whined.

  “Let us alone!” Ezri pounded on the claws, but to no avail. Before she could accept what was happening, the pressure on her shoulders eased. The talons gathered them higher, and higher, until she and her dog rested in a neat cage of bird toes. Like a princess and hound in a carriage.

  Warm wind swirled across Ezri’s half-naked body.

  Her mind spun and another labor pain drilled her back against the leathery bars. Moonlight played against the creature carrying her, and Ezri thought it looked like a bird with a cat’s head and a body covered with fur.

  Papa Loa barked, and Ezri started to scream again, part from fear, part from pain and abject frustration—but a soothing voice washed across her thoughts.

  Be at ease, ma boo.

  Ma boo . A Cajun way of saying, “my sweetheart,” or “my love.”

  Boo. Ezri hadn’t heard that term in years. Not since her father last spoke it to her mother, before all the bad things happened. It brought an image of the bayou, wet with heat and full of secrets. The good kind of secrets. The kind you seek like treasures. The kind that don’t break your heart.

  Ezri felt calm descend, as if sent by magic.

  In fact, it probably was. Her eyelids fluttered and her hands once more cupped her belly.

  No panic remained in her heart. She believed, at least for this minute, that her babe would be safe.

  A labor pain seized her once again—but the sensation felt distant. Almost like experiencing someone else’s hurt. Ezri supposed she might have passed into dream-time, or died.

  “Are you a god?” she whispered to the cat-bird who held her prisoner.

  A sultry laugh answered, running pleasant chills along Ezri’s entire body.

  Mais, non, Boo. That would be you.

  Chant flew like he had never flown before, tearing through the star-laden sky. A trail of sulfurous clouds marked his wake, the exhausting consequence of his flight. His magik wouldn’t hold long. The babe would come and Ezri might die before he landed.

  No!

  Helpless rage left him in a screeching roar.

  He sensed prey beneath him—human and animal alike—freezing where they stood, paralyzed by the sound.

  By Anu, if he didn’t feed soon, he would lose his own consciousness and lie dormant until one of his kind found and restored him. Or until an Empêche fetched a mam’bo to spell his death.

  Ezri’s pounding blood beat a rhythm into his head and heart. Hunger blazed, burning away all other sensation, but he fought the bloodfever with every ounce of his self-control.

  Chant wanted this woman to live, and yet his instinct, his very nature drove him to feast on her warmth, her life. He wanted to break every taboo, fight the very magik that made him, and bite her, deep and hard. Drain her well and make love to her as she changed.

  It was all he could do to hold the simple healing charm and stay in the air.

  He had to get Ezri to the Atachaflaya basin, to the safety of Maison de Lune. His manor, out near infamous Cane Island .

  My lair.

  If he got her that far, perhaps he could save her and the child.

  But, then, who will save them from me?

  * * * * *

  The next Ezri knew, Papa let off a soft whine, and she heard the wet padding of his feet.

  Then, she realized powerful arms pressed her tight against a chest with muscles like carved stone. She was still moving fast, a prisoner, but this time tenderly carried by the dark Loa who fought the cat in Arizona .

  And yet, was this god-like man not a spotted cat himself?

  A cat who could take human form.

  Or a human who can take cat form…

  It was then that Ezri felt the damp heat of the night air. It washed her dry skin like a welcome bath. Frogs croaked a virtual symphony, and crickets—dear god, the crickets!

  Only one place sounded so noisy at night. Only one place felt so stiflingly, wonderfully hot.

  Eyes wide, Ezri took in the sights offered by the burgeoning moon.

  Trees reached skeletal fingers across the stars. Spanish moss hung in curtains from branch upon branch. Thin vines twisted through thick vines, strangling saplings without mercy. Moonlight glinted on black swamp water, broken only by massive cypress trunks and root tips most folks called “knees.” Snakes slithered here and there through the deadly ink, or coiled and dangled from low-slung boughs. Owls hooted over frogs and crickets, and other sounds—shrieks and grating cries Ezri couldn’t and didn’t want to identify—filled her ears. The hunters and the hunted, playing night’s endless games on…

  “The bayou,” she whispered, holding tight to the man’s smooth, hard neck and shoulders. “Down in the basin. You brought me home to die.”

  At this, the man slowed his step long enough to growl, “You will not die, and neither will the child. I give you my word.”

  The man’s bass whisper blended with the song of the swamp, and his touch melded with the sultry heat.

  Ezri felt caressed—body, mind, and soul. She flinched from the intimacy, yet found herself hugging the man tighter. Her extra senses nudged her. Told her she should know him, that she had known him in some before-time. Another place, another life. His embrace felt powerful, comforting, and more than anything, right.

  “Who are you?” she managed as another pain gripped her belly. Dizziness took her before the man could answer—but suddenly, Ezri remembered. Even as she sank into depths as treacherous as the bayou’s ebony water, Ezri remembered.

  Méchant. You are called Méchant, and you are…you have…always been…mine.

  Desperation seized Chant by the time he kicked open the darkened oak doors of Maison de Lune. Ignoring the dog that followed him, ignoring the candles that exploded into flame as he passed, he strode across hand-crafted red marble and mounted the broad staircase commanding the foyer.

  The master suite lay at the end of a long hallway on the third floor. Chant’s canopied four-poster with black silk sheets and drapes was a holdover from his time in France . He found mementos comforting—and sometimes handy.

  With infinite care, he placed Ezri on the bed and propped her against an abundance of pillows.

  Her lids fluttered. For the briefest of moments, she opened her crystalline eyes. “The baby. She’s coming.”

  “I know.” Chant’s starved-to-faint pulse accelerated.
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  Once more, Ezri drifted out of consciousness.

  Gazing at the fine lines of her face, Chant lifted her hips and eased a pillow beneath her backside. Everything about this woman drove him to new heights of protectiveness, from her strength and courage to the ancient soul ensconced in her being.

  Ezri didn’t struggle as he slowly removed her soiled skirts and cleared the field for birth—a birth well underway and going poorly, from what he could tell.

  Breach.

  Already hemorrhaging.

  Bloodfever pounded Chant’s senses. He bit his tongue in an effort to bridle the urge to settle this emergency the easy way. Already, he could feel his fangs sinking into Ezri’s sweet neck. How it would feel to take her, blood, body, and spirit…

  No!

  He bowed his head and stood. He could not feed on the Redevence. He would not.

  And then Ezri grabbed him by the shoulders.

  The action and her strength startled Chant so badly he snarled and almost bit out of instinct—and then he clamped his mouth shut.

  Ezri was…floating.

  Her bruised, earth-covered body drifted even with his gaze, and she kept her iron fingers clamped near his throat. Her eyes, once piercing and direct, now bored through him like diamond-tipped heat.

  “We’re passing,” she whispered, but the resonance of her voice shook the air like approaching thunder.

  Chant couldn’t speak. As he stared at Ezri, he saw the shifting, the blending, of all she was and all she could be. He saw the fully human woman, and he saw her fearsome spirit-rider.

  “Don’t let us die,” Ezri commanded. “Don’t let us die,” her more human voice echoed.

  The spirit-rider faded, and Ezri released her hold on Chant. She sank back to the pillows, trailing her long fingers down his chest. With her eyes, with her hopeful half-smile, she begged for her life.

  For the life of her baby.

  Bloodfever and confusion wracked Chant, along with an overwhelming desire to surrender to his instincts, to the orders of his spirit-master.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he managed, his words no more than rasping sand in the wind.