Relief swept through me at the same time my battered body shed the numbness of adrenaline. I let out a sob and curled my knees to my chest. My left leg throbbed. My right tingled from knee to ankle. Bits of blackness flecked the corners of my vision.
But I’d be damned if I passed out now. I needed to find shelter, needed to see what the hell he’d done to me. Needed to try and heal.
With what remained of my strength, I pulled myself into a sitting position. The legs of my jeans were torn, the left shredded like someone had taken shears to the heavy denim. Blood flowed freely, but thankfully not with the tell-tale pulse of a damaged artery or vein.
Maybe I’d imagined how much blood I felt seep down my leg.
My hands shook as I fumbled for my pillow case. When my fingers grasped the cloth, I refused to think about the blood spatters that proved wrong my theory I’d imagined my injury. Instead, I dug inside until I found the heavy dagger. I pulled it out, removed it from the sheath, and dropped the leather back inside the case. No way was I going anywhere unarmed. Magic might come when I most needed it, but I didn’t dare rely on that. If I’d been holding this in the first place, I could have cut off his wrist the instant he touched me.
Still trembling on the inside, I managed to push my legs over the edge of the rock and drop to the forest floor. Another lance of pain shot through me as I hit, my injured legs screaming out in protest. But I took a tentative step forward, testing my weight—my legs would hold.
For how long, remained to be seen.
I took a quick glance around my surroundings and caught sight of a faint trail winding around the rock that I hadn’t been able to see from above. It led to an overgrown arch in the foliage. The only other way was where I’d come from—back to the camarilla. Nothing would make me go running for safety where I’d be ridiculed for my foolishness. Kale wasn’t right; I’d just been unprepared. Now that I knew what was out here, what could be lurking in the thick, I wouldn’t be caught off-guard again.
I took a wobbly step forward, my pillowcase dragging on the ground behind me. With all the rocks around here, there had to be a cave somewhere nearby. I’d find it, eat some of my rice cakes, and then see what sort of healing spells I could remember. So long as nothing major was damaged, I could recover without the aid of a formal healer.
Another deep breath gave me the fortitude to hoist my pack over my shoulder, and I braced myself against the rock, pushing off for another step.
Behind me, two low snarls rumbled in warning.
My stomach bottomed out. No, my luck couldn’t be this bad.
But sure enough, when I turned to investigate the sound, a pair of those godawful beasts stared me down. As I took a step backward, a third emerged from the forest, taking place behind the other two.
Twenty-five
To my left, flames erupted along the edge of the shrubbery. As another burst of terror shot through me, I took a hasty step back. Mirroring my motion, the wolves crept forward a pace. Their glowing scarlet eyes remained fixed on me, their muzzles curled in menacing snarls.
My leg began to throb, and with each pulse, blackness threatened the edges of my vision. The nightmare scene before me blurred, wiped away with the lightness of my head. Frantic, I scrambled to hold onto consciousness and struggled to remember something, anything, that might get me out of this alive.
But I was too weak. With the next searing burst of agony that shot up my thigh, I stumbled to my knees. As I hit the packed dirt trail, the fire to my left flared like someone poured gasoline on it. The resounding whoosh sent flames shooting out both sides of the burning pile of dried leaves.
I closed my eyes, one thought consuming me: Forgive me, Kale. He’d been right, almost. Only I hadn’t even made it to the Yaksini underground.
I breathed in and forced myself to stare down the trio of Jadukara. If this was the end, I wasn’t going to cower. I’d brought this on myself, and I would face the repercussions with what little strength I had left in my body.
When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by fire. Front, sides, and even behind me, it snapped and crackled, a deadly ring guaranteed to insure I couldn’t escape. I would have much rather had my throat torn out than the slow, painful experience of being roasted alive. At least the wolves could still finish—
I blinked. They were gone.
No, not gone. Between the shifting hues of orange, I could still make out their hulking shadows. But they loomed on the opposite side of the flames. And those flames…I blinked again, certain I was seeing things. Yet, there was no mistaking the way the fire pushed outward, away from me, widening the circle and forcing the Jadukara to retreat.
Confusion, hope, and more than a little astonishment sent a fresh burst of energy coursing through my veins. I pushed my weight onto my good leg and wobbled to my feet. In time with the shifting flames, I shuffled backward, each half-step taking me that much further down the path.
Another rustle in the trees, combined with the approach of a taller, broader shadow gave me pause. Had Kale come after me? Joy threatened to send me rushing across the circle. He must have. And right now, I had never been more glad to see him in my life. Even if he’d give me hours of lecture, and I’d be forced to admit I wasn’t as prepared for this excursion as I’d hoped.
The shadow grew closer, and I made out the clear form of a man. My heart skipped several dozen beats. Despite my earlier anger, a smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. His name hovered on the edge of my tongue.
Only, it wasn’t Kale who stood illuminated by the firelight. A tall man with long dark hair frowned at me. I didn’t recognize him, but the black cargo fatigues and long-sleeved black jersey gave him a soldierly appearance. Maybe he was one of Kale’s warriors. Could he have been the man Kale spoke to the night I’d arrived? It had been so long I couldn’t remember that man’s face, but the hair was similar.
Something about him, though, contradicted that thought. Something that made me uneasy, even as I recognized he’d started the fire that warded off those beasts.
My stomach knotted as he stepped through the flames. It hit me then—I couldn’t feel heat. My back was less than five feet from the knee-high blaze, and I felt nothing but the cool autumn air. Illusion, perhaps?
No, couldn’t be. If they were mere illusion, the wolves wouldn’t have backed away. So what then? And who was he? Not another Jadukara—that didn’t make sense either. Why ward off his friends?
Damn it. I was acting like a coward.
I cleared my throat and held his steady gaze. “Did Kale send you?”
“Kale Norwood?” He chuckled low. “Try again.”
Shit. Not a warrior. I scrambled back another several steps, turned, and prepared to bolt through the fire.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he cautioned. “They haven’t gone far. Are you injured?”
Suspiciously, I looked over my shoulder. “What’s it to you?”
He shrugged. “It’s not. Might matter to you, though. If they marked you, they can find you anywhere.”
“M-marked me?” He’d said enough to get my full attention, and I turned to face him. “What do you mean?”
He gestured at my torn jeans. “Did you bleed?”
“I…” I glanced down at my injured leg, remembering the blood I’d felt rolling over my skin.
He bent to his thigh pocket and pulled out a long knife.
“Hey!” I backed up again, my heels a mere inch from the fire. “What do you think you’re doing?” Reflexively, I tightened my grip on the dagger I held. Not that I could outmaneuver him—I was positive he knew how to use his.
His features went blank, and his hands stilled. He glanced at them then lifted his frown back to me. “Why did Kale let you come out here so green? Shouldn’t he be supervising you?”
Supervising me? My pride flared. I straightened my shoulders and glared. “I don’t need anyone’s permission to go anywhere. I can take care of m
yself.”
He paused a beat then nodded. “In that case, I’ll let you get back to it.” As he turned away, the flames around us dimmed by several inches.
Okay. Maybe that wasn’t the most brilliant thing I’d ever said. And now was clearly the wrong time to be snubbing help, particularly if the Jadukara had marked me. “Wait.”
He stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Usually I can take care of myself. I’m a little…injured…right now. That’s all.”
With another nod, he continued on.
“Okay, you’re right.” Damn, I hated admitting that. I rushed to follow. “Please don’t leave me with those things.”
That brought him to a full stop, and he faced me, a smirk dancing on his face. With the tip of his knife, he pointed at me. “Pride’s a bitch, isn’t it?”
I grumbled beneath my breath. “Who the hell are you?”
“That depends.” He lowered the blade until it pointed at my leg. “Are you going to let me look at that?”
I arched a brow. “Are you going to tell me who you are?”
“We can do this all night, lady. It’s the leg or nothing. I value the skin on my back too much to piss around.”
I heaved a sigh, dropped my pillow case, and muttered, “Fine.” Still grumbling to myself, I took a seat on the ground.
As he moved to crouch at my knee, I glanced over his broad shoulders at the odd ring of fire. It shifted with the ambient breeze, and faint streaks of blue shone between the orange and yellow colors. The more closely I inspected it, the more I could see the unnaturalness of it. The height never wavered, the surrounding debris never lit. It didn’t grow outward, and it didn’t shrink in toward us. It remained perfectly controlled in an equally perfect circle.
His fingers dipped beneath the long rend in my jeans, and I shifted my focus back to him. Compared to Kale, his face was more angular, more sharp and harsh, although the ruggedness held appeal. A day or two’s worth of stubble added to the shadows in his expression, and his gaze held intense concentration as he pushed the denim up to my knee. Warm fingers prodded the inside of my calf and ankle.
“Right here.” He tapped just beneath the hollow of my knee. “They got you good. I’ve got to cut it open.”
Before I could work what off my tongue, pain seared through me so fiercely I cried out and jerked away. “You son of a bitch!” Doubled-over, I clutched at the gaping cut in my leg. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Easy, ace.” Unfazed, he grabbed my ankle and straightened out my leg. “Hang on a second.” In circular motions, he passed a hand over my skin without touching it. A faint yellow-green light spanned between his splayed fingers and washed over the bleeding wound. Each rotation created a tugging sensation, as if he were literally fishing beneath my skin for a foreign object. I felt the surreal pull, but it brought no pain.
“What are you doing?” I asked, more curious now.
“You want to see?”
I frowned at the top of his dark head. “Um. I am seeing.”
He shook his head. “Nope. Not really. Look again.”
This time, when I looked down, I gasped. A second ago, I’d watched blood flow into the ground. Now, there was no blood. Only a silvery substance spilling over my skin and rolling across the earth. It didn’t soak into the loam, and I suspected it never would.
“Holy, shit,” I whispered.
“It’s habit to hide what normal folks wouldn’t understand.” He worked his hand down my leg again, hovering just millimeters away from my skin. “Almost got it all. Just a few more seconds.”
“What is that?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Bad stuff. The Jadukara can smell it miles away. They must want you something fierce. Usually, once they have you, they don’t go to the trouble.”
“He tried to eat me.”
“Not if he marked you like this, he didn’t.” Looking up from my leg, he met my gaze. Golden eyes glinted in the light of the fire. “Who are you?”
I’d never seen such unusual eyes. They weren’t tawny like some shades of light brown, and they certainly weren’t hazel accented by the light. Gold. Like my mother’s wedding ring that was hidden behind a loose brick back at the warehouse.
He tipped his head, and I realized he’d asked a question. The very same question I’d put to him. “I asked you first.”
He released my leg and pulled the torn fabric down to my ankle. “There, you’re good to go.”
“You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”
Taking his time with wiping his knife in the leaves, he made no indication he intended to respond. He carefully put the blade back in the small holster at his thigh, snapped the strip of fabric that held it in place, and seated himself on the ground cross-legged. Just when I’d decided he wasn’t going to answer, he spoke. “Marcus Wintergrave.”
“Oh.” The word came out heavily. In my head, I heard Kale’s bitter tone, the loathing in his words. The Noita are always dangerous. Suddenly wanting to be anywhere but here, I grabbed my pillowcase. “Well, thank you for fixing my leg.”
Marcus chuckled. “See why I put it off? You’d have never let me touch you. I see Kale has created quite the impression. Damned kind of him.”
The need to defend Kale possessed me, though I couldn’t explain why. “You’re lurking in their territory. Then you run from them. What do you expect?”
“So the faithful student defends her teacher.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice. “Where is the saintly Kale, by the way?”
I opened my mouth to tell him it was none of his business, but he waved off his own question.
“Never mind. Look, we’re both out here, and for right now the Jadukara are still close. You’re in no condition to take them on again, and my magic strength is wearing thin. Might as well stay together until morning. Sunlight doesn’t hinder them, but they’re pretty much nocturnal.”
His casual, almost friendly tone caught me by surprise. So quick was the one-eighty, it left me stumbling over my tongue. I snapped my mouth shut before some embarrassing, nonsensical sound came out.
“Are you hungry? I’ve got some food I’ll share back at my makeshift camp.”
Hungry. I couldn’t process what he was saying, no matter how I tried. And the idea of taking him up on the offer, despite my knotting stomach, felt like somehow betraying Kale. I blinked. Twice.
“Fresh water too. Jugged it from the spring just that way.” He tipped his head in the direction of the path I’d intended to follow. “You were heading there, weren’t you?”
Heading to the spring, or to the path, I didn’t know. But the promise of water had me salivating. The run-in with the Jadukara had taken more out of me than I’d realized. I’d take the drink, but I didn’t intend to volunteer much more information. “Um. Yeah.”
“Come on then. I have wards up there. We’ll be safe.”
He rose, dusted off the back of his muscular thighs, and gestured at the path. “I’ll follow.”
I hefted my pillowcase over my shoulder, but held onto my dagger. Any funny business and I’d…I’d…I didn’t know what I’d do with the knife. Give me some time to recuperate, though, and I was positive I could deal him some magical damage.
With a wary glance over my shoulder, I started down the path.
“You going to tell me your name?”
It couldn’t hurt, I supposed. After all, it wasn’t like I’d grown up in the camarilla. Kale had just pulled me off the street; I was pretty much a nobody. “Halle,” I mumbled.
“Aw hell.” His heavier footfalls came to a dead stop. “No wonder the Jadukara marked you.”
Well, so much for the idea of being a nobody. No need to keep up pretenses then. “Because my uncle is in charge of the Yaksini?”
“Because your dragon blood is a powerful thing.”
Twenty-six
It was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other as Marcu
s’s declaration registered in my brain. My dragon blood—somehow this total stranger knew. Or maybe it was just supposition on his part. Maybe the Jadukara had some history of biting anyone they encountered in hopes they’d discover the blood of dragons.
Yeah, right.
But if Marcus was taking a guess, and I reacted, I’d confirm any suspicion he held. So I kept moving, my mouth clamped tightly shut to keep from blurting my surprise while I scrambled for some other intelligent response.
Eventually, I decided to play it off and try to goad him into revealing more. I shot him a curious glance and forced a chuckle, like he’d just said the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. “What makes you think I have dragon blood?”
“I don’t think. I know.”
Okay, this was seriously creeping me out. Kale said he’d been hanging around. Had Marcus eavesdropped?
No, Kale and I hadn’t discussed my windwalker abilities outside, just locked away in our rooms. So how in the world did Marcus know?
Doing my best to remain nonchalant outwardly, I asked in a level tone, “So how do you supposedly know?”
“Simple. I’ve heard about you for as long as I can remember.”
“Do what?” My composure shattered, and I whirled on him, my mouth agape.
He let out a low laugh. “Finally got to you, huh?” He waved me onward with an amused grin. “Come on, I’ll fill you in. Let’s get out of the open first. Your leg holding up okay?”
I’d completely forgotten about my injury, but the reminder made me acutely aware of the dull throb in my calf. “Yeah,” I mumbled with a grimace. “I’ll be fine.” I wasn’t about to let him know how much I looked forward to sitting down.
He must have sensed my lie, because he slowed our pace and fell into an easy lope at my side. With an outstretched hand, he clasped my pillow case. “Let me carry this.”
Chivalrous. Hm. Still, Kale had warned me about the Noita. I pulled my pack away. “I’ve got it.”
“Stubborn too. That’ll get you hurt, Halle. Mark my words. The wise know when to admit they could use a little help.” More determined, he clutched my makeshift satchel again, this time pulling it out of my grasp. He slung it easily over his shoulder.
Before the Storm Page 20
