Pride and Perdition

by Kaye Draper

  I stared down at her. Fae were fucking terrifying. She said that like it was nothing. And I honestly believed she'd do it.

  Hisashi drifted over, Halstad, Con, and Kai following along behind him. "We need to stay close together," he said, his blue eyes meeting mine. "Don't do anything stupid to get us separated."

  I rolled my eyes at the way he said that—as if I was prone to life-threatening idiocy. "Yes daddy."

  White brows raised and one corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. "I'm really not into that, babe."

  I shook my head and turned to find Halstad glaring at me. Not that I was surprised. Glaring was what he did. "What?" I demanded.

  He flipped up his goggles and stared at me with his mismatched eyes. They were glowing as he called up his magic, one eye purple flames and the other liquid gold. "He's not kidding," the mage grumbled. "Stay close, gryphon. Me and the fox will keep you lot shielded, but we can't do that if y'all go spreading out like idiots."

  I crossed my arms and returned his glare. "Whatever you say, grandpappy."

  He held my gaze for a beat, and I swear the corner of one eye twitched. "I don't care what you call me, since I'm not one of your fucktoys. Just don't get dead or I won't get paid."

  I growled and waved him away. "Just...go piss someone else off for a change. Oh! I know—why don't you go on over there and make friends with our new allies? The ones in that corner there. Yeah. The murderous looking ones. I heard they love mages."

  He turned away from me and went to stand at the edge of the yard, staring off past the thin screen of bushes and saplings toward the open field on the other side of the river.

  "I almost feel sorry for him," Evalyn commented.

  I turned to her and she smirked. "It can't be easy, having to deal with a mirror image of yourself like that."

  I swatted at her. "Fuck off."

  Kai laughed, then pulled her dagger, her face full of ancient shadows. "It's getting dark."

  I nodded and my little group of freaks moved closer. I might give Hisashi and Halstad a hard time, but I really didn't want to be noticed by fucking black dogs or fae blades tonight. Evalyn joined us, since she was magicless, and her fae spread out around us as we made our way out of the tall trees by the cabins and across the river. Granite, the troll, and a few of Evalyn's fae stayed behind to guard the jet, since we'd be fucked if we didn't have a way back out of here once we nabbed Oisin. And also, because I didn't trust the gargoyle any farther than I could throw him—which, since he was made of stone, wasn't fucking far.

  There was no bridge, the water was over my head, and the current was strong. I emerged on the other side slightly winded and sopping wet. The water was fucking freezing, since it really was winter here in the real world, and my t-shirt and leather pants clung to me uncomfortably. Luckily the breeze was still warmed by fae magic, so once I was out of the frigid water, it wasn’t quite so bad.

  Of course, Kai was across the river and waiting for us in seconds. And the fucking mage magically flash-dried himself. I shared a miserable look with Con as the human shivered beside me. It sucked not to be able to shoot magic out your ass whenever you needed it.

  The field before us was dotted with a thin scattering of trees and glittered with pockets of fae reality as the moon started to rise, casting odd shadows everywhere. I could sense others there, fae spectators in the tall trees on the other side of the thin stretch of saplings, waiting for blood to be spilled. They'd probably keep the hunted on track, prevent them from trying to escape as the hunters herded them toward the towering rock monoliths off in the distance.

  We crouched low, camouflaged in the underbrush and the darkness, mage magic and Hisashi's cool power keeping my pride hidden from prying eyes. Evalyn's fae lurked around us, practically invisible under their own inherent stealth and fae magic.

  I jerked when a low, keening sound reached my ears. It took me a moment to understand what I was hearing. A horn. It blew again, starting low, then rising to a ringing pitch that echoed down the valley before us.

  Then I saw him. A ragged looking fae male, with pointed ears and sharp teeth. He fled over the long grasses as if hell itself chased him. Which, yeah. It kind of did. He was followed a few seconds later by a wave of about a dozen others in exactly the same frantic state.

  As the first fae made his frantic way down the open field, a howl split the air. Every hair on my body stood up as the hound howled in the distance, scenting its prey. "Shouldn't we help them?" I whispered as I watched the fae flit in and out of shadow, visible one moment, then gone the next. Some tried to use speed to stay far ahead. Some appeared to try to escape into the heavier woods on the far side of the meadow but were repelled by the spectators.

  Halstad put a hand on my shoulder, his magic biting into me, making me heavy, as if he feared I would jump up and haul ass out there to my death. "No. There's nothing we can do about that. And we need the distraction."

  I clenched my teeth together. Someone being hunted down like an animal was not just a distraction.

  "You're an asshole," I muttered.

  Halstad just chuckled. "Yep. But I'm an asshole who's stayed alive through more shit than you could imagine. So shut the fuck up and stay down, gryphon."

  I suppressed the growl that was building in my chest and stayed put. As much as I hated letting someone suffer, the only thing that mattered right now was getting Oisin back. I had to admit, somewhere in my black little soul, that I'd gladly sacrifice a dozen men if it meant Oisin came back to me.

  Maybe I was spending too much time with murdering mages.

  The hand on my shoulder was steadying, grounding. Whatever was in Halstad's past, he held an air of competent command that I recognized immediately.

  "Go," Evalyn whispered softly.

  We moved as one unit, scurrying from shadow to shadow under the thin, spindly trees toward the thicker forest on the other side, where the ancient monoliths towered in the distance, visible even in the moonlight.

  It was all going really well. Until the first wave of hunters arrived on foot.

  About twenty fae, all on foot and toting various pointy weapons, jogged into our little area of the forest, hot on the heels of the fleeing prey. A few stopped to knock arrows and send them arching up into the sky, so that they fell blindly on the area where the fleeing fae were headed. A scream rang out in the distance.

  The fae hunters poured around us, deflected by whatever magic Halstad and Hisashi were constantly chanting under their breath.

  But then a call went up—like a howl, but not from any hound. Evalyn froze where she crouched beside me under a pathetic apple tree. "Oh Gods, a truffle pig. They have a truffle pig."

  I squinted at her, even as Halstad let out a soft "well, fuck."

  "What the hell do you mean, a truffle pig? There's a pig?" What did pigs have to do with anything?

  She shook her head, her eyes glinting wide and luminous in the moonlight. "It's slang."

  She didn't have time to explain, as a huge, lumbering boar of a man came crashing through the area where we were hidden. He was humanoid, but he had a long, wrinkly pig snout which snuffed and snorted as he sniffed the air and ground. "Intruders," he snorted to the other fae around him. "I smell a human! And something else. Something tasty."

  Shit.

  Chapter 11

  Chaos erupted around me. A gunshot went off and a fae huntsman hit the leaf strewn ground in a spray of blood and didn't get up. A hand grabbed my wrist and I acted instinctively, lashing out with my talons to sever the delicate hand from its owner's wrist. I found a tall, skinny fae with red hair and glowing red eyes bearing down on me with a scythe, not the least bit perturbed by the loss of his hand.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  I dove into a summersault, rolling out of the way just in time to avoid the blade. I was so busy dodging my attacker that I didn't have time to spare for my pride. I just hoped like hell the stronger ones were protecting the weak. Con and Evalyn didn't have a chance
on their own.

  A ball of mage lightning hit a nearby fae in the gut, and he jerked and jittered with electricity before he collapsed in a pile of charred flesh. I dry-heaved at the scent but managed to grab my knife and plunge it into the lithe fae who was stalking me. He clutched his chest, but I'd managed to hit him right in the heart. He fell to the ground as the glowing light faded from his red eyes.

  Feeling sick and overflowing with nervous energy, I yanked my knife out of him and turned to meet the next attack with my fists. No more stabbing if I could help it. I really wasn't cut out for killing people, even when they were trying to kill me.

  Probably some gryphon golden-hearted-valor bullshit.

  A whistling sound found my sensitive eagle ears right before a jolt of searing pain lit up my right shoulder. I staggered, confused for a moment as I stared down at the arrow shaft sticking out of me.

  "Damn it!" Halstad's low growl was followed by a wave of magic that encased me in some sort of bubble.

  Growling, I grabbed the arrow shaft and yanked. Which...wow, that was fucking stupid. I howled and went to my knees as the thing refused to budge, sending a fresh wave of pain through my shoulder and a trickle of blood down my chest. Can you blame me? I mean, really. I’d never even seen a fucking arrow like this one up close. It was like something from the middle ages. Fucking backward, medieval clans.

  Halstad reached me in a couple of short, angry strides. He crouched down, still holding one hand up to maintain the magical shield around us as he stared into my eyes with his own mismatched orbs. "This is gonna fucking suck," he advised me.

  I bared my teeth at him. "Get me out of this damned bubble."

  He nodded. "Snap that fletching off, since you've got two hands." Growling, I did as he said, grasping the thick wooden shaft of the arrow and snapping it off, hissing when that caused a fresh wave of pain.

  Wrapping his magic-casting arm around my good shoulder to brace me while he kept the hand free for casting, Halstad pulled me against him and used his other hand to forcefully push the fucking arrow all the way through my shoulder.

  I screeched into his ear and he grunted but didn't stop. Turning me away, he grabbed the arrowhead at my back and pulled the shaft all the way through. Flinging it aside, he stood and gave me a hand up. "Alright?" Sweat was pouring down his face from the exertion of holding onto the shield.

  I gritted my teeth but nodded. Now that there wasn't something embedded in my skin and muscle, the wound would knit back together. "Thanks."

  He stared into my eyes for a beat, and I thought he was going to speak. But he just spun, dropping the magic that protected us. "Get everyone close together again. I think the fox and me can put the illusion back in place and hide us a bit longer. I doubt they brought more than one truffle hunter."

  I watched as he stalked toward the massive pig-beast, pulling a vial of something off his belt and dumping it into his hands before casting some sort of net-like magic into the air. The big pig-guy struggled and grunted, but was caught. Kai darted in and danced past the truffle hunter's flailing limbs to sink her knife into the base of his skull, severing his spine in one precise, effective movement.

  She danced away and went back to protecting Con, slicing at any fae that got near. "To me!" Halstad called out to the others.

  They slowly drifted closer to him. Hisashi was farthest away, standing over Oisin's sister in a tornado of wispy white tendrils as he flung fae away like toys. The fae who were on our side were pushing back most of the hunters. I made my way to the fox, having to push through the wind as if I was in a tropical storm.

  "Hisashi," I shouted. "Get closer to Halstad. That pig guy is down."

  Silver eyes met mine and for a moment he seemed lost. But then he focused and moved, Evalyn sticking close to his side.

  Once we were all grouped together again, Hisashi and Halstad managed to weave together another cloaking spell.

  Evalyn's fae melted into the sparse trees and twisted shadows like smoke. I was still panting, adrenaline bursting through my veins.

  "We have to hurry," Evalyn hissed. "That was just the first wave. The nobles with their mounts and hounds will be here any minute."

  We moved through the open spaces in one big, ungainly blob, sticking close, tripping and bumping into each other in the most bumbling parody of stealth I had ever seen as the confused hunters divided their attention between finding us and running down their original prey. Finally, we crested a rise and the monoliths came into clear view, reaching up above the surrounding trees.

  There was something eerie and breathtaking about the place. I wasn't a magic user, but I could feel it there, thrumming beneath the ground and in the stones, massive pillars of rock carved by time and ancient people, echoing power, bouncing it around the circle and the bowl of a massive cavern like some sort of stone age satellite dish.

  "Move!" Halstad urged, pushing me and making me stumble.

  "The central cavern," Evalyn said as she jogged along at my side. "That's where he'll be kept to channel the power. No doubt the bastard has already started to drain Oisin. I can feel the magic in the earth. He’ll just be finishing off a corpse when the public gets here, and no one the wiser."

  I glanced at her as she called her fae helpers to her. "You're not going in with us?"

  She shook her head, her eyes fierce. "I want to see my brother, but I have more important things to do just now. He'll understand."

  I bared my teeth at her. "More important?"

  She heaved a sigh. "You wouldn't understand. I know you'll keep him safe, sister." She darted up and pulled me to a stop, pushing up on tiptoes to kiss both of my cheeks. "The Goddess keep you and bless your heart."

  Then she was gone in a flurry of honeysuckle-scented breeze and fae stealth, her entire entourage melting away into the smaller standing stones and trees like ghosts. "Well fuck."

  "There's mages in there," Halstad commented helpfully with a gesture at the cave. "Let's go get your boy. But tread carefully. Shit's about to get real."

  Chapter 12

  Shit's about to get real, my ass, I thought as we crept closer to the big cave, the echoes of magic bouncing around me like a giant ping-pong ball, intensified by the glyphs and runes etched into the stone by ancient hands. "Shit was already real, asshat."

  Kai nudged me with a sharp elbow. "Focus, Gesa. Magic users. Make things go boom."

  I flipped her off and sent my gaze to Con, who was holding my gun in a white-knuckled grip. "Careful of that thing with all the magic," I warned.

  Kai moved closer to our human. "We'll be fine," she whispered. "You just worry about Oisin."

  I nodded. Halstad and Hasashi paced silently at my side, damned near glowing with magic. Kai and Con followed behind us. All we had to do was get Oisin, drag his snarky ass back across the woods to the jet and fly home. No biggie. Piece of fucking cake.

  I hoped Oisin could walk.

  I hoped we could make it back across the woods again.

  I hoped Granite and the fucking jet were still waiting for us when we got there, and this wasn't all some sort of sick joke for Derek fucking White's amusement. I wouldn't put it past the demon to just dump us here and leave us stranded.

  Warm light flickered at the entrance of the cave, probably from a torch or fire. One of Oisin's father's black-clad, collared mages was standing at the entrance. His hands flared with fire at our approach. An evil grin spread over his face. "Oh good," he said in a growl. "I was wanting a bit of a challenge."

  He lobbed the fireballs at our group, but Halstad deflected them with a flick of his wrist. Hisashi kept right on walking forward, his hair and clothes whipping around him in an invisible wind. I kept pace with him. No fucking mage was keeping us from our mate.

  It was terrifying, really, how easily Halstad overtook the other mage with his magic, incapacitating the guy, then sucking all the air out of his body, leaving him blue and dead at the cave entrance.

  I really needed to learn more about
my supposed allies before I just went along with them willy-nilly. Shit. Where the fuck had White gotten his super-mage?

  The warm glow of flames flickered along the walls, growing stronger as we made our way inside the cave. A low fire burned in the center of the room, and the stone floor was etched with runes. Five more mages waited inside, the last couple blocking the long slab of a stone altar from me.

  Hisashi growled beside me and I echoed his rage. I didn't have to be a canid shifter to smell the sweet scent of Oisin's blood hanging in the air.

  The mages tried to cast some sort of net over my pride, but Halstad sensed it and reached up a hand, the skin pulsing with blue-black veins as he grabbed hold of the magic and ripped it out of the air with a grunt of effort. The mages looked a bit dumbfounded. "It can't be," one of them whispered, his creepy black eyes fixated on our mage. "They're just fucking stories."

  Halstad smiled at the mage who had spoken. "Didn't mommy ever teach you at least some of things that go bump in the night are real?" He winked his purple eye and power pulsed from him. "Boo."

  The mages scattered and renewed their offensive. Each of us squared off with one of the fuckers. The mage I faced thought he was going to fry me with one of those damned lightning balls, but I had news for him. I'd been training for speed. I darted in close and punched him in the face.

  Magic users never learned that some people didn't fight by throwing things from a distance.

  He staggered backward but managed to zap me with one hand. I hissed as burning energy jolted through my body, about to fry me. A big hand on my shoulder eased the pain, pulling the lightning out of me like extracting poison. Then Halstad was gone again, off pummeling his own opponent with some unseen force. The poor guy looked like he was being hit with invisible fists.