by R. F. Long
Poor Jeren didn’t know of the duty of Service, didn’t have a clue what this meant. She struggled to his side and her fingertips brushed his arm. Without a thought, Shan swept her into his arms. It might be the last time. He held her, the horror crawling up inside him undimmed by her presence.
“Shan?” she gasped at his tight grip. “Shan, what is it? What’s happening?”
But he couldn’t answer. How could he find an answer?
“Ylandra,” a Fey’na woman shouted, pushing her way to the fore. Lara, little Lara, grown to womanhood now, moving like the fluid warrior she was rather than the awkward child he remembered. “Even you can’t be so cruel!”
“What is it?” Jeren whispered frantically, drawing Shan’s attention back to her and to her alone. “What has she done?”
“Jeren, I…” Words failed him. He just pulled her against him and buried his face in her hair. Its sweet fragrance engulfed him and he breathed it deep, hoping to keep it with him somehow, to keep her with him.
She went on asking what was happening, but he put her voice from his mind. He had to.
“You can appeal this,” Indarin was saying. Shan barely heard him over the uproar of arguing voices. “Springmoot is not long and Ariah is coming. The Seers too. Ariah can overrule—”
“Take care of Jeren,” Shan told his brother and allowed his arms to drop from her so Indarin could pull her back.
Jeren didn’t resist, though he saw panic in her eyes, confusion and pain. She didn’t understand. May the gods help her, she didn’t even know what this meant. How could she? And he couldn’t explain it now. There wasn’t time, not to tell her everything.
He cursed himself. “On your life, brother, keep her safe and train her well. Explain. Be kind.” He tore himself free from his heart’s desire, walked to Ylandra and knelt at her feet.
Jeren gave a single bewildered sob, but he didn’t dare turn around, not even for an instant.
“Very well, Sect Mother.” Venom poisoned his words. “I am yours. Bind me.”
The Wolf's Mate: A Tale of the Holtlands, Book 2
Chapter Three
Lost and suddenly very much alone in the midst of the divided Fair Ones, Jeren swayed on her feet. The world rocked around her, pitching her about like a fair-day juggler’s balls. The raised voices and angry gestures swelled around her with the thunder of the waterfall at home. And Shan knelt before the Sect Mother and pledged himself to her. Quiet words, said with bitter resentment, wrenched out of his mouth and he kept his eyes locked on the ground.
Ylandra waited patiently, only once deigning to glance towards Jeren. In the Sect Mother’s gaze, she saw…what? Triumph?
Indarin’s hand tightened on her arm, his fingers digging into her skin uncomfortably, but she didn’t flinch or squirm. Whatever was happening, it was wrong. It was so wrong. “Bind me,” Shan had said. What did he mean and why were they all outraged?
Shan’s voice fell silent and Ylandra took a collar of knotted thong from her belt, where it had hung by the knife-sheath. Woven with beads that glinted in the sunlight, the collar might have been a pretty thing in other circumstances, but now it made the block of stone inside Jeren’s body harden even more, weighing down inside her, crushing her spirit. The warriors murmured uneasily as Ylandra tied it around Shan’s neck and his head drooped to his chest.
“Come,” Ylandra commanded and, like some kind of tame dog, her wolf-warrior followed.
Inside Jeren’s body the weight tore open a great and endless pit and she was falling, falling down…
A firm hand caught her elbow as her legs started to give. Indarin jerked her upright and forced her to stand. “Can you walk, True Blood?” he asked brusquely.
Whatever shreds of dignity remained to her were all she had now. Jeren nodded stiffly.
“Good. They’re looking for weakness, to see you crack so they can report it to Ylandra. There are some here who would run to her gleefully. Do you want that?” Indarin kept his voice so low that even among the heightened senses of the Fair Ones, only Jeren could hear him. He led her away, each step carefully measured—not too quick, not too slow.
The thought of Ylandra gloating over the hysteria of a weak Holtwoman made Jeren’s blood leap like fire. It was even worse than being torn away from Shan. No. She’d never give Ylandra the satisfaction. Jeren wasn’t sure how the Sect Mother had done it, but whatever duty she had placed on Shan had forced him away. She had made him her servant. No, worse. Her slave.
Indarin must have sensed Jeren’s iron will reasserting its control for he released her. She didn’t miss the fact that he wiped his hand down on his hip as he strode ahead of her. Like Shan had been once. Disgusted. But still with her. Just like Shan.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“To find you a billet. Or would you rather leave?”
“Not without Shan.”
There was a moment of silence. Indarin’s step didn’t pause, but his breath hitched for a moment. “And if that is not possible?”
That hadn’t occurred to her. That very fact made her feel strong once more.
“I’ll find a way to make it possible.” She glanced over her shoulder. They were far enough away by now, weren’t they? Darting out her hand she tried to pull Indarin into the lee of one of the tents.
He didn’t budge, just looked down at her hand and then back to her face, his eyes hard as polished river stones. She released him and stepped back into the shelter. After a moment Indarin followed her.
“He called me his mate, didn’t he?”
“Yes. In a formal way. Those words would ordinarily have bound you both together for life. Shan must have been desperate. He would not have voiced them lightly.”
Jeren’s stomach clenched and heaved. Desperate. Is that what he thought? Shan wouldn’t have said it if he weren’t desperate? For a moment she just wanted to slap Shan’s brother in the face. But it would have been like hitting stone. Desperate indeed.
“What did Ylandra say? What is the duty of Service?”
“Ah.” Indarin looked away, over his shoulder, back towards the centre of the village. “The only thing that can break the bonds of mate to mate. He’s tied to protect the Sect and the Sect Mother. In times of war, one of the warriors may be selected. Legends say they gave up mates, family, everything, but in practice…well, it hasn’t been necessary since I was a boy and then, those chosen had not yet mated, had nothing to lose and so embraced the honour.”
“Are you at war?” Jeren asked hesitantly, half afraid of the answer. They had reason to war against River Holt, after all. Her brother had killed one of their own, on their sacred land. And now Shan was back with news of what had almost happened to him and what had happened to their fellow warrior, Ha’ledren…
More deaths. More torture. More blood on Gilliad’s hands.
Indarin’s upper lip rose in a snarl.
“You met the Fell’na in the mountains, True Blood. They are encroaching on our tribal lands, more so this season than ever before.” He sighed, and suddenly his eyes looked so like Shan’s that tears stung Jeren’s own. “We are always at war with them.”
“And she took Shan because of me?” she asked, uncomfortably aware of the tightness in her throat.
“She took him,” came a new voice, the woman who had shouted from the crowd, “because she’s a selfish, vindictive bitch who has coveted Shan since first she came here.”
The Fey’na woman stepped towards them, slipping around the edge of the tent on silent feet, and Indarin rolled his eyes to the heavens before he turned to face the newcomer.
“Lara, this is neither the time or the place—”
“Really? That didn’t unsettle you? That she took your own brother despite his having claimed a mate? She’s destroying everything this sect is meant to be, Indarin. She’s doing the Fell’na’s job for them. I am not alone in thinking this.” Her silver eyes flashed and she swept her long braids back from her sculpted face with a hand
that only slightly betrayed her with a tremble.
“Then it must be raised at Springmoot,” he replied firmly. “Not gossiped and bandied about in camp. If it discomforts you, try another sect.”
Lara’s hands balled into fists at her sides. No trace of a tremble now. “This is my sect as it was my father’s, Indarin. As much as it is hers now.” She nodded at Jeren. “And her mate’s—your brother, Ylandra’s slave.”
“Lara…”
The female warrior folded her arms. “Our Sect Mother just made Jeren swear to obey her with one breath and stole her mate with the next, once she knew there was nothing else to stop her.”
Jeren seized the silence that followed. “Shan’s not my…not my mate…” Gods, even as she said it, she wanted to take it back. She loved him. That was what it meant, but they had made no formal declaration, no handfasting or ceremony of binding. And “mate” sounded so…primal, so… Something melted inside her. It sounded so like something Shan would say.
Lara and Indarin cast her scathing glances.
“He claimed you as such,” Indarin replied at last. “He did so in front of us all. Do you mean to tell me that he never discussed it with you first?”
Her face heated and she studied the ground. Indarin made a noise somewhere between a snort and a growl.
“Ever rash, my little brother. His quest for vengeance, his life decisions, his choice of a mate and the time he chose to tell Ylandra…”
“He knew how she felt?” Jeren whispered. That was worse, far worse. But he couldn’t have guessed what she would do, could he?
Lara’s hand brushed against her shoulder, a gesture of comfort, or an attempt at such. “He wanted to make sure you were safe, no matter what the cost.”
Jeren just nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Lara backed off again, though she didn’t leave. Her bright eyes watched Jeren and Indarin without a blink.
Indarin relented at last. “Well, we must find you a bed and some suitable clothing.”
Jeren glanced down at her ragged gown. Once it had been worth more than most people would see in their lifetime. Now she’d be lucky if someone gave her a copper penny for the remains.
“There’s room in my tent,” Lara offered.
“I’m to stay?”
“You’re Sh’istra’Phail, in training at least. And born with innate magic, so your training will fall to me,” Indarin told her firmly. Jeren thanked the Lady he didn’t say serpent-born, the phrase they normally used to describe those like her, cursed with magic in their blood. “It was his last request.”
Jeren shuddered. They made it sound like he was dead. “And Shan?” Hope buoyed with her words, but Indarin’s answer sent her heart crashing down again.
“Don’t expect to see him again, Jeren. Any moments together will be stolen and such a theft severely punished. He belongs to the sect. He belongs to Ylandra.”
“Until Springmoot,” Lara said. “That’s any day now. Once she arrives, Ariah will put a stop to this. You’ll see.”
Indarin sighed. “Unless Ariah rules in Ylandra’s favour. No Ariah has ever ruled against a Sect Mother in all the long years. Why would she? To do so would undermine her own authority. No. Don’t count on that. It’s a thin hope. Now, you should rest. Tomorrow we will begin your training.”
***
Jeren’s owl found Shan at sunset. It watched him with a sullen glare while he cleaned his sword, repacked his belongings and spread out the cloak made from the wolf’s pelt on the floor of his solitary tent. He would be alone now, forever, and it was Ylandra’s fault. He wanted to be angry about it. No, he was angry. He wanted to express that anger. He wanted to defy her and march into the main camp, to seize Jeren in his arms. But duty demanded his obedience, not Ylandra. His duty. So he stayed.
Jeren’s jewellery glittered in the moonlight. He’d have to find some way to get the sapphire necklace and gold bracelets back to her. It was only fair. Would she accept them as his goodbye, he wondered? Could he safely leave them outside wherever Indarin had billeted her? Or perhaps he should give them to his brother for her?
As he wrapped them up in the length of material that had once been a petticoat, his heart began that dreadful ache again. He knew it too well. He’d felt its kindred pain for all such losses. But this was worse. His sister and the wolf were dead. That Jeren was still alive ought to make it easier to bear, but somehow it didn’t.
Shan held the wrapped treasures to his chest and closed his eyes, trying to force his emotions under tighter control. He had no idea how long he knelt there, but a voice broke his meditation, not the voice he prayed to hear.
“There you are,” said Ylandra lightly. “I wondered where you’d got to. You missed the evening meal, but there might be some left, the most wonderful rabbit dish with rosemary and—”
“I wasn’t hungry.” He kept his eyes closed, gripped the necklace tighter. “I thought it better that I rest.”
“Probably wise,” she replied, unfazed. “We will start early in the morning.”
“Start what?”
“Northeast. One of the settlements reported movements of Fell’na nearby. The Red Fox Sect took the duty of guarding them but I have heard nothing else in seven days.”
He frowned. Normally runners travelled from sect to sect with news regularly. To hear nothing from the Red Fox for more than a week when they were close by was more than odd. It was suspicious. “The Fell’na we encountered in the mountains were overly bold.”
“They are overly bold everywhere these days. I want to find out where they have holed up and why they are invading our territory, particularly here and now, so close to Springmoot. They’re arrogant indeed to think we’d allow it.”
Arrogance . She was a fine one to speak of arrogance, but Shan kept his peace and held himself perfectly still. She would see no reaction from him. Nothing more than duty owed.
“You’re the finest warrior of our sect, Shan.” When he didn’t reply, she touched his shoulder, her fingers trembling ever so slightly. “One day you will understand, I had to pick you.”
“She’s my mate.” Three words. That was all. The only words he could manage to bite out while controlling the surge of rage and betrayal. Was she asking for forgiveness? After what she had done?
“She’s a True Blood, serpent-born, a Holter. She’s everything you hate!” Ylandra blurted.
Black and red threatened the edges of his vision, blurring the darkness, staining it with blood, with the need to draw blood. He clenched his teeth together and forced his breathing to calm, but barely. Ylandra’s hand retreated as if she sensed the rage. He was a killer by training, by inclination, by fate. Why did so many people forget that? Why did they think—?
“You have another destiny, Shan’ith,” she told him, her voice firm once more. “And I will not allow you to cast that aside for a—a woman. What you saw at the Vision Rock—”
He twisted, rising at the same time, his body surging towards her. Amid the blur of his fury he saw Ylandra’s face pale, her eyes widen. She took a step back and it gave him a single point of satisfaction.
“I should never have shared what I saw with you,” he snarled.
Ylandra swallowed hard, her own anger surging to the fore now, her pride wounded by her own reaction. “But you did. And I am going to help you fulfil that fate whether you will it or not, do you understand? She can have no part in it. Battle with the Fell’na is the duty of the Sh’istra’Phail since first the gods created us, and you, Shan, you will be the greatest of—”
“The gods didn’t create us, Ylandra. Don’t deceive yourself. We’re killers, no more, no less. Even our own people would disown us if they didn’t need us. They hate us. Despise us because of the blood on our hands. But I never realised we ever betrayed our own. Not before today.”
Ylandra sucked in a breath and the air between them chilled. The moments passed slowly before she spoke again. “You should move your tent nearer mine if you are to be my bodyguar
d. I will need to keep you near. Now, if you please.”
And with that she left, moving slowly, gracefully, but Shan was not deceived. Her hands curled at her side, ready to grasp a weapon, ready to defend herself if needs be. That she believed he might attack her both revolted him and gave him hope.
Petty, vindictive Ylandra—how was she chosen as a mother to them all? And yet he knew how. She was loyal, a devoted friend, a caring heart in times of pain. She was devoted to the sect. To many of the younger ones, she had been seen as a paragon, an ideal. That was the Ylandra he remembered.
That was before he left, when Vala was still Sect Mother. He wondered how many thought that now?
Having just finished pitching his tent, Shan began the tedious task of dismantling it to move some twenty feet nearer to Ylandra’s. There was no point in arguing. There was logic to her stated reasons, though they were not her only reasons, and few could argue against her when it came to logic, or the security of the Sect. No one defied her. She had become accustomed to that.
Shan rolled the wolf skin cloak up, with the necklace inside it. He was by nature law-abiding and dutiful.
It was time for a little defiance.
The Wolf's Mate: A Tale of the Holtlands, Book 2
Chapter Four
Jeren dozed fitfully. Across the tent Lara’s breathing was deep and even now. Jeren wished sleep would claim her so easily, but the only person she had ever slept alongside was Shan and so every breath she heard just reminded her of his absence. She did her best to at least silence the sobs that came in the darkness, but she could do nothing about the tears. Her eyes had swollen, her throat felt raw. Shan was gone. Nothing mattered anymore.
From outside she heard a wolf howl in the distance, lovelorn and lonely. Something jarred within her. She knew that sound, knew it like the beating of her own heart.
Anala.
Quick as thought, Jeren scrambled out from under the blanket and pulled on the tunic Lara had given her. It was too long and a little too snug, but she didn’t care.
