by Leigh Evans
Wake up and smell the blood, Hedi. You’re still here, still thirsty, hind leg still caught in the trap’s metal teeth. Victim to the squeezing pressure of its jaws …
Wait a minute.
I drew in a breath, listening hard to my body.
Son of a bitch. I wasn’t in agony anymore. Instead of shrieking about unendurable pain, my body nattered about being uncomfortable. It whined about the continued squeeze of the trap, it moaned how my back, my rump, and my shoulders were aching with cold, and it topped off its list of complaints with a mention of my punishingly dry throat.
Unbelievable.
I slit my eyes open a fraction. Through the veil of my wet hair, I saw my own hand—very mortal and dirty—curled in a half fist. The lower trunk of the tree beside me had most of its bark clawed off. Little hunks littered the ground, as well as what looked like a canine’s nail. I looked beyond that and saw the ribbon of the river. Early-morning mist scudded over it.
I was “me” again.
The sun had risen while I slumbered, and I had gone through the metamorphosis of wolf to mortal without waking. I had two arms again. Fingers that curled and would be soon put to work. A very human and distressingly dry tongue that was busy exploring the inside of a mouth and rejoicing over the fact that it was filled with teeth, not a canine’s pointed fangs.
Me, me, me.
Was I still caught in the trap? My leg felt heavy and hot but not … I moved my leg slightly and cringed when I heard the metal monster grating sickeningly on my anklebone. Goddess. I couldn’t feel my foot or my ankle. Everything right up to my knee was numb. Shit, shit, shit. How long could a foot last without blood moving through it?
What if my foot had already turned black? I squeezed my eyes shut again in dismay. I knew I had to check, but knowing that your body has suffered grievous injury and seeing it in gritty detail are two completely different things. One’s intellectual; the other’s emotional.
Open your eyes, I told myself. You’ve got to look.
But I don’t want to look.
You’re stronger than you think you are, I reminded myself. And besides, you’ve got magic. She can spring us out of this trap.
Now there’s a plan.
I felt for magic-mine and found her, brooding in my gut. I gave her a mental poke and told her to rise. She curled into a tighter ball of “don’t want to.”
Seriously? Was she sulking that she’d been the odd girl out while my wolf and I had bonded? That was beyond ridiculous. The only time she tolerated being girl-to-the-power-of-three was when she sensed the possibility of mayhem and murder.
Enough. She can murder the trap.
I gave her another tap, this one firmer. Grudgingly, she entered my bloodstream. My chilled body heated as her magic coursed through my veins, spreading upward. Past my heart, past my shoulders, down my arms. To each one of my cold, clawed fingers.
I felt stronger.
All right, I thought. I’ll count to three. Then, my magic and me will pry apart the teeth, and following some requisite screaming we’ll be free. Ready to hobble to Daniel’s Rock.
We can do this.
Yup, I was feeling pretty damn optimistic when a young man spoke up and nearly scared the crap out of me. “I tell you the dead woman’s wearing an amulet.”
“She’s not dead,” replied a woman.
“Near enough.”
Shit.
* * *
Cautiously, I eased my lids open a fraction. I saw my arm, plump and white, but no sign of the speakers. Which meant the squabbling duo had to be behind me. My spine crawled at the thought of them observing all parts of my naked vulnerability. I wanted to clench my thighs, but if I did that I’d lose the whole element of surprise.
I willed my body to lay lax as a Penthouse babe’s while I figured out who they were.
Were they Fae or Were? Foe or friend?
I inhaled lightly through my nostrils and found no scent, except for horse. Fear rose a notch; who rode while others ran? The Fae.
“It does not matter if she’s alive or dead. Find something to pry open the trap.” The woman’s enunciation was refined, her tone dismissive.
Holy crap. I could understand her perfectly. She was speaking in Merenwynian and I could understand every single plummy word. Hell’s bells, I could even detect the gaping difference in class between the two of them. She was top-drawer; he was not.
My skin prickled.
Lexi had said he’d take my agony and I was painless. He’d promised to bestow upon me the gift of language and I was following their conversation as easily as listening to the radio.
Ergo, Lexi had visited me last night.
He’d also promised to send help. Were these Fae the help? They sounded more like body-looters.
The young male’s tone ripened with disgust. “Who’d waste precious gold on a wolf’s choke restraint? Besides, I told you—I saw an amulet.”
Yep. Looters.
“I see no pendant.”
“I didn’t say ‘pendant,’ now, did I, Mis-tress?” The young male broke the salutation into two long syllables of poorly suppressed irritation. “I said ‘amulet,’ and you cannot see it because it moved. It scuttled under her hair.”
The woman drew in a shocked breath. “You forget your place, mutt. I am—”
“The Fae who doesn’t know how to get back to her own castle. You don’t know these woods, do you? Not like you know the ones you nip off to in the middle of the night.”
“You are insolent,” she said in a low voice.
“Aye, and proud of it.” The male walked into my sight line and I was treated to a quick view of rough clothing and a hank of medium brown hair and incredibly grimy feet. Had he ever worn shoes? His feet were so soiled the dirt looked part of him.
He held a burlap sack, tied with a piece of rough twine, which he placed down with distinct care. He bent to pick up a stick.
Hit me with it and it will be the last thing you do, I thought.
My eyes strained to follow him through my downcast lashes as he moved around me again. My Fae swelled at my fingertips. My ankle might be held immobile between a trap’s teeth, but now that I was in my mortal shell I was not helpless anymore.
I had magic.
“Your kind are always dreaming of the found treasure,” dismissed the woman. “It’s likely a wolf collar, and if not that, it’s but a chain with a trinket on the end of it. Wolves don’t wear amulets.”
“The Son of Lukynae did. I saw him when they brought him to Wryal’s. He wore one and they couldn’t get the bleeding thing off him.” He drew in some air sharply through his nose; then he clicked his teeth. “She doesn’t carry the scent of the Raha’ells or even a Kuskador, even if with my own eyes I can see the bits of fur from her change.” His tone turned flat. “She’s a mutt like me.”
The male walked past me again, the stick in his grip tapping a tuneless beat against the side of his leg. “But I don’t recognize her,” he said thoughtfully. “And I know all of my own kind.”
“You don’t need to,” the woman dismissed. “Help me open the trap. Once it’s off her leg, we can leave.” I heard a creak of saddle leather and the slide-thump of a person dismounting. Leaves shivered as she tied her mount’s bridle to a tree.
“Who is she, then?” Feigned nonchalance in his tone, caution marked by the tension of his naked toes. “What does she mean to you?”
“I will stand for no more of your questions, Mouse.”
Mouse? How do you live down a name like that?
With bravado, it seemed.
“We’re not in the castle anymore, Mistress,” he said, sinking into a crouch before me. “And you hired me to lead you back to it.” He balanced himself on the backs of his heels. “You know what the Royal Court would say if I brought them an amulet?” The stick dangled from his grip. “‘Are you hungry, mutt? Here is a joint of beef. Are you tired, mutt? Here is a soft, warm bed.’”
I don’t think so, bu
ddy.
Merry, who’d been so silent and still, stealthily unfurled two arms of ivy. I allowed some of my Fae essence to stream from my fingers.
The woman huffed. “More likely they’d say, ‘Let’s torture the insolent mutt.’”
“Indeed?” He rose to his feet. “Well then, perhaps it’s best if we leave the lass here.”
“You will help me,” she spat, low and mean.
“I can leave you flat, Mistress,” he said very softly. “I could leave you here and none would be the wiser.”
“Help me free her and I’ll pay you double.”
“You’ve paid me nothing so far beyond a promise of riches,” he said dryly. “Before I set her free, you’ll tell me the truth of why we had to slip out of the castle, sly-like, and who this woman is.”
“I marked our trail. I know the way back. I’ll go back to the castle, and tell them that you ran away. They’ll set the hounds on you.”
“I’m not supposed to live beyond a few more winters anyway,” he said with remarkable cheerfulness. “And before I die, I’ll tell them all about that secret passage you just showed me. They think you spend your evenings alone, polishing the pretties, don’t they? But now they’ll watch, and perhaps they’ll begin to wonder about your unexplained absences.”
A very pregnant pause stretched between them.
“I don’t know who she is!” she finally snapped.
At last, I saw the edge of her skirt out of the corner of my left eye. She had very small feet and one of them was tapping with distemper.
“Right. I’ll be leaving now.”
“I had a bad dream,” she said reluctantly.
“I’m missing my chores and earning myself a few stripes on my back from the cook because you had a bad dream?” A snort of derision. “Did you partake of the mead last night?”
“You know full well I do not drink.”
“Then tell me another one. How were you able to send me such a clear thought-picture that I knew where this place was without having to stumble about in the woods?”
The woman audibly swallowed, then whispered, “Because I was visited in my sleep last night.”
“Stars,” said Mouse. “Forget my threats; you’re damned already.”
“The mystwalker said if I didn’t free this woman, she’d never leave me alone. She’d visit me every night for as long as I lived if I ignored her request.” Her voice turned venomous. “To have that … creature … inside my mind. It would be unbearable.”
Everybody’s a hater.
“Help me free this mutt from the trap,” cajoled the woman. “I’ll pay you well.”
“I’m wondering if your idea of payment and mine are the same, Mistress.” Mouse shifted onto a knee to reach out with his stick. The pointed edge of it scratched a line along the slope of my shoulder. Cool air chilled the damp skin on my neck as Mouse’s tool lifted my hair.
“See!” he exclaimed. “It is an amulet.”
His thieving hand went for Merry, and I went for him.
The horse neighed in fright as I lurched upward, my magic erupting in streams of green florescence from both hands.
“Get Mouse!” I told my talent. Invisible to him but so very tangible to me, a coil of green magic shot out toward the teenager, who’d only just realized that not-quite dead was a very different thing from all-the-way dead.
His own eyes flew wide in shock when my magic found his neck.
Then Merry sprung, very much like that thing in Alien, except she’s pretty and that face-chewing creature is really ugly and she’s much smaller and wasn’t intent on impregnating him—okay, she was nothing like that monster in Alien. She was Merry simply being herself: an amulet with attitude and the proven ability to spring at someone’s face and latch on. I heard him scream, saw his hands go from his throat to her.
And then, that quickly, and with that much lack of compassion, I dismissed him. I didn’t give a rat’s ass that his cry got chopped off mid-note or that it was already turning into a choking rasp.
I didn’t give a crap.
I was already rolling on my left hip, searching for his mistress. Because of the two, she was the bigger threat. She might have magic to match mine. She was—
Stars, she was the Gatekeeper.
Chapter Eight
I’m not sure if we said, “You!” in unison. It’s possible, but there was a lot going on and in the end that became just another detail I never completely nailed down for the memory book.
I know we gaped at each other.
We did that much.
Then Mouse, who’d been making interesting choking, rasping noises behind me, decided tearing at his neck was useless and that it was time to put his all into the alternate option of flight. The boy got to his knees and started power-crawling away from the big bad, which in this case was me, Merry, and my magic.
My right arm had been torqued behind me—I’d rolled as far as I could onto my opposite hip in order to blast the Gatekeeper with the magic streaming from my left hand—and suddenly, without any warning, I found myself being rolled in the boy’s direction.
Hell no. I was not turning my back on the Gatekeeper. She was not going to make another clean getaway.
“Grab her too!” I told my magic.
There’s nothing my Fae likes more than a good target, and as it turns out, she’s very adept at multi-tasking. Two targets? No problem: I had two hands. My chest flared hot as she quickly split evenly between the two.
“She has magic!” the Gatekeeper screamed.
Well, duh. Though having magic wasn’t doing me a helluva lot of good. The boy was dragging me—my leg, Goddess, my leg—and Merry’s chain was scoring into the back of my neck, and the Gatekeeper was struggling behind me, and with each one of her jerks my left arm flirted with the idea of separating from its socket.
It all pissed me off.
I counteracted the boy’s retreat with a sudden lurch of my own, throwing myself backward so that I lay flat on my back. A second later, Mouse fell on top of me. His knee drove into my belly.
I hit him, right on top of his head. “Get off me!” He tried, but Merry was still very much engaged with torturing his nose and cheek. “Merry! Knock it off!” I shrieked. “I’m drowning here.”
Perhaps it was the tone, because she dropped Mouse as if he were the plague carrier of plague carriers.
Gasping, Mouse rolled right off me.
My leg felt wrong. All that sudden movement, plus the aborted jackknife I’d attempted when the mutt had kneed me … it had led to a distinct sense of wrongness. The sort of awful that compels one to look. But it was so hard to see because the Gatekeeper was thrashing about as if she were having a seizure and that kept jerking me around. But finally, I got up onto my elbow and looked down.
I saw the trap and my gaze recoiled, flitting over to safer territory. The bits of blood-tacked fur underneath the chain that was attached to the thing—the evil biting thing—and from there to small puddles of post-change effluence, and the long, raking claw marks made by a creature who’d tried to drag herself away from the thing—the evil biting thing—that had held her fast all night and still held her.
Yes. Still held her.
My gaze lurched back to the thing and to the piece of meat clamped between its jaws. And finally, I forced myself to behold my own flesh—and by that I mean the kind of pink, mangled hamburger stuff you’re never supposed to see.
Oh my Goddess.
I looked away, past Mouse’s shoulder, to the canopy of trees. Green leaves, tall trees. Trunks wide as an old sailing ship’s mast. Bark. Boughs. Sun breaking through the long spars. Focus on that. Give yourself time. Don’t throw up. Don’t turn girlie. And beyond all other things, don’t let your chin crumple.
I knew I wouldn’t come out of it without some scarring and had braced myself for some mangled skin, but never in my wildest dreams had I anticipated the bracelet of festering gaping holes.
Goddess, holes.
I took another shuddering glance. And when I saw the creamy glint of bone beneath the freakin’ holes, my anger exploded.
I am part wolf, you know? That makes me stronger than I look. And I’m part Fae, which makes me prone to prissiness and acts of casual cruelty. And I’m indisputably a female with a mangled ankle, which needs no qualifier whatsoever.
This wolf-Fae-woman was on the point of nuclear fusion.
I flung my arms wide—spread open—just like my mum did whenever she was about to let forth a rant about kids who would not behave. My magic was still attached to Mouse by the neck and the Gatekeeper by her waist and thus we were still miserably tethered together, so they went for a very short ride.
A thud as Mouse tumbled to my right, and lighter thud as the Gatekeeper hit the dirt on my left.
I lay there, arms flung wide, flat on my back, chest heaving. And truthfully, I had zero concerns for their relative health. All I was thinking was, Keep them off me, and, Oh sweet heavens, my leg. It was a cease-fire—at least for me.
Until she croaked, “Kill her!”
Really?
Completely attuned to all the glories of me—magic, wolf-strength, girl-power—everything fell into place. I didn’t have to think things through. I didn’t have to speak to my magic and tell her to tighten up and get ready for the lift. I didn’t have to question whether I had sufficient muscle mass to do what I wanted to do.
As Yoda taught, I thought not.
I simply did.
I raised both arms, and Mouse and the Gatekeeper went airborne. They dangled above me, living puppets kicking their heels. The boy’s face was kind of purple. The Fae’s boots stopped at her thick ankles. Interesting.
And then she said, “Foul creature!”
Ah, screw it.
I slapped my hands together and their noggins hit with an audible thump.
* * *
You really can knock some sense into someone, given enough reason and complete disregard for the subsequent demise of a few thousand of their brain cells. However, my strength had come from the same source that gives ninety-pound women enough muscle mass to lift Volkswagen Beetles off their beloved. And as we all know, that’s usually both spectacular and short-lived.
