She wanted the woodcutter, the storybook prince. And she had found one—for the next forty-eight hours, at least.
Finished, he turned to her, caught her watching him, but said only, “You ready?”
Standing, she slung the rucksack over her shoulder, where it joined the unstrung bow. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
He nodded. “I got the poison I wanted—which she didn’t finish testing, so I have no idea if it’ll work or not—along with a good supply of wolfsleep sap, which is roughly like chewing gum in your world, but also works on wounds. And this could come in handy.” He dug into his battered rucksack and held out three small lumps of greenish stuff that had the consistency of putty and an oily sheen.
Reda wrinkled her nose, though any smell they might have had was buried beneath the foul smoky taste that coated her mouth and throat. “What are they?”
“Wolfsbene.”
She eyed the stuff with new interest. “A repellant?”
“Not bane,” he corrected, “bene. As in benefits. It enhances their human forms, giving them added strength, speed and stamina. It’ll work for us, though not to the same degree. Think of it as rocket fuel for human forms.” He tipped the lumps into a small envelope made of smooth tree bark, and handed it over. “Keep this on you. I’ve got more, but I want you to have your own in case we get into a situation where you need it and can’t reach me.” He paused. “There are side effects, so only use it when you absolutely have to.”
She stilled. “What kind of side effects?”
“It doesn’t just energize the body—it, ah, dials the other systems up, too.”
“What is it with this realm and roofies?” she asked, flushing slightly because her first gut-level response to the idea wasn’t nearly as negative as it should have been.
“What’s a roofie?”
“Apparently this is.” But she pocketed the envelope, because she felt suddenly very tired, as if her body had been waiting for her to notice the ache of fatigue. She didn’t know how long she had been in the vortex, didn’t know what time her internal clock thought it was, but she could use some rest.
That wasn’t in the cards, though. If the pack was after them, they needed to move.
“Oh, and here.” He held out a roll of thick laminate that reminded her of the place mats at the waterfront lobster shack back home. “In case something happens.” She unrolled it and found herself looking at a map of entirely unfamiliar names and places, with Meriden Arch marked in ink and a couple of notes about trails and things to avoid. He said, “Basically, just head west, cross the canyon at the bridge and then angle almost due northwest from there at another day’s hard march. The landmarks and stuff are on there.”
A lump gathered in her throat, but she nodded and managed, “Thanks.”
Although she tried not to think about making the trip alone, it nagged at her as they retraced their route down from the wisewolfyn’s cave. She kept thinking of the furry gray body and the dead, staring white eyes, which started whispering in her mind, It could happen to you, too.
More, as they turned from a main road onto a narrower path that forced them to walk single file, with her following his rangy, seemingly tireless form, nerves tingled to life within her, tightening her stomach and making her want to curl up and hide.
Breathe, she told herself, hating the misfiring instincts that poured adrenaline into her bloodstream, making her too jittery to fight, to flee, to do something, anything!
The moon seemed too big, the crater shadows too irregular, the trees on either side of the trail too smooth, their joints too regular. The night crowded in on her, pressed on her.
Breathe, damn it. She focused on the trees and the darkness, the feeling of the bow on her back and the arrows she’d stuck in easy reach. You’re okay. You’re doing this to yourself. You’re—
Brush crackled suddenly on either side of her and huge shapes emerged, furred, fanged and growling. Wolfyn!
“Run!” Dayn shouted to her. “Go!”
Reda gasped and whirled to bolt, but there was already one behind her, then another and another. Within seconds, she and Dayn were surrounded by more than forty of the creatures, all with their heads down menacingly and golden fur spiked down their spines.
She fell back, gaping at the terrifying beauty of them. Candida’s inert body hadn’t prepared her for the shifters’ sheer presence. The wolfyns’ shoulders came up past her waist and their bodies stretched out, looking almost more like those of huge lions than wolves. Their coats had saddle marks that glowed reddish even in the moonlight; their heads were narrow triangles that made her think of wide-open spaces rather than dog parks, and their eyes were a vivid, vibrant amber.
A huge male stepped up to face her. He was the biggest among them, had the brightest markings and thickest fur. His forehead was broad, his eyes wise; they seemed to look into her and whisper, Come to me. I can protect you, cherish you, adore you.
Heat flared through her as she stared, transfixed.
Come to me.
She took a step toward the gorgeous creature. Reached out her hand to touch the thick, luxurious fur.
And all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER SIX
“NO!” DAYN BROKE free from the betas surrounding him, grabbed Reda and jerked her behind him. Then he got right in Kenar’s face and shouted, “She’s a guest! By rights and tradition, back off!”
The pack surged forward, but then subsided, growling as Kenar snarled a full-throated roar and sank back onto his haunches and then sprang erect, his form blurring as he changed. When the magic cleared, he stood there in his human form—slightly shorter than Dayn, bullnecked and square-featured, with heavy, powerful muscles and boxing-glove hands. His face was flushed, his eyes narrow with hatred. “She doesn’t have any rights if she’s traveling with a fucking bloodsucker—and, more, a Forestal murderer. Because that’s what you are, isn’t it, Prince Dayn?”
And, just like that, twenty years of peaceful coexistence were nullified by the crimes of a long-ago war. The wolfyn surrounding him growled and scuffled, their canine faces wrinkled with hatred. They weren’t just there because their alpha had led them; they truly wanted him dead. He didn’t see Keely, didn’t know what that meant. As for Kenar, there was hatred in his eyes, but calculation, too. He was using this somehow, or planning to.
Fumbling a little in his haste, Dayn palmed two blobs of wolfsbene from his pack and jammed one into Reda’s unresisting hand.
“Did the witch’s messenger tell you that she’s a blood drinker herself?” he demanded solely to buy time. Pretending to scrub his face, he gulped the wolfsbene, which was slimy going down, with an aftertaste somewhere between mint and mud. He grimaced but continued. “Or that she tortured and killed Candida?”
He heard Reda cough, hoped that meant she had taken her dose.
The pack members shifted restlessly, some whining at the news. But Kenar bared his teeth. “We killed her servant, which makes us even, claw for claw. More, he was loyal, which was more than I can say for the wise-bitch. How long had she known about you?”
The first shimmers of heat and power filtered into Dayn’s bloodstream, which was good, because the pack was closing in, shifting tighter, backing him and Reda into each other. Talking fast now, he said, “You’re believing the witch’s messenger over Candida? Did he give you any proof, anything more than a good story?”
“Yes!” Kenar roared, and the sound was echoed by his betas. “Yes, he offered proof. He used a spell to show Keely the sick, twisted things you made her forget! She was your lover. How could you feed from your lover? Oh, right,” the alpha sneered. “Because you’re a prince of the realm and you could make her think whatever you wanted. Fucking bloodsucker, disgracing my sister like that. Using her.”
Oh. Shit. Reda’s gasp had Dayn’s heart dropping, even as guilt knotted tight and sharp in his gut over what he’d done to Keely. Not just because of the feeding and the cover-up, but bec
ause he saw the politics now. “You son of a bitch. You’re going to use this to boot her out, aren’t you? I bet you’ve just been waiting for a good excuse.”
The wolfsbene was flowing hard and fast in his veins now, but there was nowhere to run. He went for his crossbow, bringing it up.
Kenar’s eyes lit with vicious fury. He signaled the pack forward and shouted, “By Right of Threat—kill them!”
Dayn nailed the closest beta in the haunch, aiming to wound but not disable. As the male went down howling and snapping at the bolt, Dayn grabbed Reda’s hand. “Come on!”
They made it only a short way before the ranks closed again. Reda had his back, fending off the creatures with sweeps of her unstrung bow as he sent two more bolts into the crowd. And over his shoulder, he said, “I’m sorry, Reda.”
But apologies didn’t fix anything, did they? Never had.
Grief and guilt rose up within him like old friends as he pulled his short sword. “I’m going to try to make a hole. Be ready to run and hang on to that map.” Because she would be running without him. There was no way Kenar would let him live now.
“Dayn.” Reda’s voice was choked, but that was all. And he didn’t blame her for not knowing what else to say.
Roaring, he swung the weapon in a glittering arc and surged forward with her right behind him. He made it through the first rank, knocked aside a big beta in the second, and—
Without warning, an arrow seared so close that he felt the vibration on his skin as it passed him and carved a nasty furrow across the next animal’s back.
“’Ware the woods!” Kenar yelled as another arrow sang past and glanced off the shoulder of an older wolfyn in the outer rank.
Not stopping to question the rescue, Dayn grabbed Reda’s hand and hauled her toward the gap that had just been punched in the line. “Come on!”
They flew across a section of open road, then across to where a huge rock face rose up thirty or so feet to a sloping plateau. With the wolfsbene flowing through his veins and the entire Scratch-Eye pack lunging after him, Dayn made it up the sheer stone face in two big bounds, dragging Reda with him.
They crested the top and charged along the downslope, which put them on a narrow ridgeline with dense scrub on either side, forcing the pursuing wolfyn to run parallel to them, howling and barking in challenge, anger and threat. But Dayn’s heart pounded and his muscles burned, propelling him faster than any human, faster even than most of the wolfyn. And Reda matched him stride for stride.
They soon outdistanced the bulk of the pack, until only a few of the fastest wolfyn were keeping pace where the ridge swept lower to flat ground and the scrub thinned along a narrow plateau that ended in the canyon: a wide chasm that was spanned right at this point by a narrow rope bridge.
As they charged down the steep incline and their pursuers closed on either side, Dayn said, “Stay behind me, but keep up. If we can make it across that bridge, we can pull the pins from the other side.” There were other ways across, but they involved a half day’s detour. She made a noise that might have been assent, might have been a whimper, but there was no time to stop and discuss options.
And there weren’t any other options.
Dayn’s pulse throbbed, thudding in his head and beneath his skin, and power seared in his veins, urging him on. When they broke from the last of the trees to the flat plateau that led to the bridge, there were only two wolfyn still following. Those two, though, closed in fast. Then, as if choreographed, they split and attacked, one from each side.
As they leaped, Dayn shouted, “Down!”
He and Reda hit the dirt and the wolfyn actually collided in midair. The larger one drove the smaller back and down; they landed hard a few feet away and scuffled.
Dayn dragged Reda up, ready to run again, then stopped dead as he saw that the two wolfyn weren’t struggling to get up and continue the chase. They were fighting.
And one of them was Keely.
The battle was short but vicious; within seconds, she rose to her feet, leaving the other lying stunned and still. Then she shimmered and changed, becoming her familiar self. Except that she suddenly looked entirely unfamiliar—still tall, gorgeous and stacked, but…he didn’t know what the “but” was, actually. It was there, though.
She looked at Reda. “You’re his guide?”
“So he tells me.” The women shared a look that excluded him, left him baffled.
“You knew?” he demanded of Keely. “How?” Then, because there was only one possible answer, he said, “Candida told you.”
“She wanted someone else to know, in case anything happened to her. When the witch’s servant came, I pretended I didn’t know, and tried to think of a way to get a message to you, warn you of what was going on, but I couldn’t.”
The guilt was a raw ache inside him. “I’m sorry. I would have told you everything, but…Kenar.”
“Kenar,” she agreed. And there was something in her voice that hadn’t been there before. Anger, maybe, or defiance. He wondered whether that was new or if, like her collusion with Candida, there were layers to her that he hadn’t seen.
“Thanks for helping us get away,” he said, knowing that must have been her. His eyes went to the still form of the unconscious wolfyn. “Will you get in trouble?”
“I’ll blame it on you.” She glanced back along the ridgeline, where growing howls warned that the rest of the pack was regathering. “You should get across the bridge and pull the pins.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Which way are you headed?”
“Northwest,” he said without hesitation, giving her his full trust, though far too late. “To Meriden Arch.”
She nodded. “I’ll tell them you went south, then. We’ll head for the log crossing down by Candle Pass.”
That would put the pack a solid half day behind them. “I’ll owe you one. Hell, I owe you, period.” He paused. “Keels, I’m sorry about the mindspeaking. I just…I had to feed.”
She shrugged, and her voice held only wolfyn practicality when she said, “I was pretty freaked out when Candida first told me, but she helped me get over it. And in the long run, it was a fair trade—I used you for sex, you used me for blood. That’s what people like us do—use each other.”
It was a hell of an indictment. And he couldn’t deny it.
He swallowed hard, very aware that Reda had drawn away from him; her arms were wrapped around her body as if she was freezing and she stared out over the chasm as if she couldn’t look at him. He wanted to pull her aside and tell her that wasn’t how it had been between him and Keely. Except that it was exactly like that—she had nailed it. They had used each other, and each been content with the deal. Now, though, with the wolfsbene running in his veins and Reda in the picture, the arrangement echoed cold and bloodless.
He didn’t have the luxury of time to pull her aside, though, or even try to reason through the sudden change inside him. They needed to move now, talk later.
To Keely, he said, “Be careful, okay? And be happy.”
“Go.” Her amber eyes went from him to Reda and back. “And hey…you be happy, too, okay?”
He didn’t know how to answer that, so he just nodded. “Thanks for everything. Business deal or not, you helped make the past twenty years bearable.” He didn’t kiss her goodbye, just as he had rarely kissed her hello. Theirs had never been that sort of a relationship. Instead, he nudged Reda toward where a low line of trees hid the edge of the canyon. “Come on. Keely will buy us as much time as she can, but we need to get across the bridge and drop it from the other side before the pack gets here.”
She didn’t say a word as they jogged toward the trees, but he didn’t know for certain if that was because she was shell-shocked by the wolfyn attack, upset over the Keely thing, or something else. Or all of the above.
But he did know for certain that his arrangement with Keely had nothing to do with his feelings for Reda. One had been business and practicality, wh
ile the other was entirely impractical and ill-advised. Yet even knowing that, he couldn’t keep his eyes off Reda. Part of it was the wolfsbene, yes. But most of it was her.
He wanted to crowd her, nip her, hurry her along. Instead, he stayed by her side, pacing her and guarding her flank as they reached the chasm’s edge and headed for the bridge. There were enough trees that they didn’t get a clear look at the spindly structure until they were nearly on top of it.
Reda stopped dead, her face going stark in the moonlight as she said, “Oh, hell, no.”
“It’s safe, I promise.” But, admittedly, it wasn’t the most inspiring sight. Four long ropes were strung from one side to the other: two suspending a sparse walkway of wooden planks that glowed nearly white in the moonlight, and two more lines at shoulder height for balance. Shorter lengths tied at gallop-stride intervals supported the fluid structure, which moved and rippled in the air currents that convected up from the depths. He nudged her forward. “You can do this. I’ll be right behind you.”
“No.” She backed up until she bumped into him, her back to his front, stirring heat and echoes of the earlier kiss he was trying to keep at the edges of his mind. “There’s got to be another way.”
“There isn’t.”
“What if—”
Hearing the first ominous hunting howl behind them, he came around in front of her and cupped her face in her hands. “We need to keep going forward, Reda. It’s the only way.”
He had meant only to take her attention off the bridge, but when he touched the soft skin of her jaw, heat washed through him, and something deep inside said, Mine. And when her eyes came up to meet his, need tightened to a fist in his chest, and that same something said, Now. He didn’t fight the urges, though maybe he should have. Instead, he crushed his lips to hers, swallowed her gasp and took them both under in a kiss that shouldn’t have been pure perfection. But was.
Lord of the Wolfyn and Twin Targets Page 8
