We trudged in silence, our breath fogging in the air as a residue of moisture settled over us like a chilly blanket. It was in my hair and suspended on the tips of my lashes. Damn, I missed the warm kiss of the sun on my face. How did anything live here?
A strange reedy noise cut through the silence, rising up to echo around us. Irina came to a halt, her arm up, hand in a fist. Erebus grabbed my wrist, arresting my progress. We stood, breath pluming in the air to join the thin mist rising off the ground, and waited.
Irina’s shoulders relaxed, and she turned to face us, a reassuring smile lifting her lips. “I think—”
Something hit her from the side, swept her off her feet, and was gone, taking her with it.
What the fuck?
Erebus let out a yell and then we were both in motion, running full force through the forest, leaping over roots and crushing bracken beneath out leather boots.
Up ahead the shadowy form carrying Irina was still visible but moving incredibly fast. It was taking us off course, parallel to the river on the other side of this forest. Irina’s limp body hung off the creature’s shoulders like a sack of potatoes.
Thank god for my state-of-the-art prosthetic, the damn thing was almost bionic, but the rest of me wasn’t, and I was flagging. Second wind required. Channelling the fire inside me, I forced it into my limbs, urging myself on. And then we were breaking from the cover of trees and into a clearing.
Erebus came to a skidding halt, and I put on my brakes. Irina was lying on the ground, in the centre of the glade, unmoving. The creature was gone.
“Erebus?” I took a step to stand beside him.
He scanned the area, his body tense and ready for action.
“It’s a trap,” Erebus said
“Yeah figures.” The creature had lured us here.
Irina groaned and raised a hand to her head. “What…”
The same reedy sound we’d heard just before Irina was taken filled the air again, but this time I recognised it for what it was—laughter. They were laughing at us, whatever they were. The sound grew in volume, seeming to come from all around us.
We were surrounded.
Erebus moved quickly and hauled Irina to her feet. She shook her head to clear it and quickly assessed the situation. We fell into formation, back to back, circling, our eyes on the tree line around us. The prickle across my spine and the gooseflesh running up my arms told me we weren’t alone. Something was watching. Several somethings.
And then they stepped into the clearing with us, cutting through the mist with their long snouts and yellow eyes. They stood on hind legs, mimicking our stance, but there was no way these things were human. And that laugh, damn if it didn’t remind me of a hyena. They didn’t attack though. It was almost as if they were waiting for something. And then it came floating into the clearing—a tiny light cutting a path through the mist. It skipped toward us and the creatures grew still and silent.
What the fuck was going on? The light hovered over Irina, then Erebus, and then came to settle on me. I batted it away, and the creatures growled and snapped as if enraged by my actions, but they still didn’t attack.
Fuck this, I was queen and these were my lands. Even this shitty forest with these fucked up creatures belonged to me.
I lowered my sword and stepped forward, chin high. “Is this how you treat your queen?”
The light whizzed toward me again, and this time I didn’t bat it away. It settled on my hand, the sensation warm and tingling, and then it floated back, growing larger and brighter until it was impossible to look at it. I turned my head away as a flash like lightning lit up the clearing, and then darkness descended once more.
“You are Ibris’s spawn,” a hoarse feminine voice said.
I blinked at the woman standing before me. She was practically naked except for a crude bit of fabric wrapped around her crotch, her hair was a long nest of tangles covering her breasts, and yet there was something almost regal about her bearing.
She’d called me Ibris’s spawn. I locked gazes with her. “Yes. I am your queen.”
Her lip curled and she growled low in her throat. “We do not have a queen. We do not have a king. We are the forsaken, the betrayed and the lost.”
“What do you want?” Erebus asked.
She cocked her head. “We wanted fresh cock and cunt to swell our ranks. But instead we have found flesh, and with it, vengeance. We have the spawn of our enemy.”
Vengeance? What the heck had Ibris done to them?
“You cannot hold your new queen responsible for the actions of her father,” Erebus said.
“Yes. We can.”
I looked to Erebus “Do you know what she’s talking about?”
His jaw ticked and he shook his head slightly. “No.”
The woman threw her body forward, and as her hands hit the ground they morphed into huge paws, the rest of her followed on a wave and then we were staring into the red eyes of the largest canine creature I’d ever seen.
Around her the other bipedal hyena-type creatures began to giggle. The sound grated at the inside of my skull, setting my teeth on edge. My muscles tensed, ready for action a split second before my brain recognised they were about to attack. Adrenaline surged through my veins, hot and potent.
Yes! This was what I needed.
The beasts attacked as one.
Erebus’s roar of rage slammed against their laughter, turning it into snarls and hungry growls. Irina let out a whooping battle cry, and it was on. I slashed, spun, and jabbed. Fur split and sprayed blood. It painted my face crimson, heady and intoxicating. Yes! This was the ticket. This was what I craved. The thrill was an expanding bubble in my chest and my body moved on instinct, taking them down one by one. Yips and whines replaced the ferocious snarls.
“Stop. Stop!”
The female’s plea cut through the red haze in my mind, and I faltered on an upward swing, pulling back short of eviscerating my opponent. Its claws whizzed toward my face. Arms grabbed me around the waist, pulling me to safety.
Erebus’s voice was an angry growl. “Damn it, Kenna. Focus.”
“Stop! Please!” The woman said.
The remaining creatures dropped to the ground and bounded away toward the tree line. The woman stood before us, her body a mass of welts and open wounds. It certainly wasn’t my handy work. I glanced at Irina and then Erebus who both shrugged.
She stared at the carpet of dead beasts, and then placed her hands over her face and began to sob.
Oh fucking hell. I was so confused right now. “Seriously? You’re gonna cry about it? You started this. You didn’t have to attack us.”
She raised her head, her red eyes blazing. “And your father didn’t have to bind us to this place. But he did. He bound us. Look what we have become!”
Around her the hyena men began to whine softly, the sound rising up like a mournful cry.
“What are you talking about?” Irina asked.
The woman held up her hands, and several tiny lights emerged from the trees. They hovered a metre above the ground and hung in the air around her.
“We are close to home and yet so far,” she said. “Trapped in this in-between place of darkness by your father. My people, the wisps, were refugees running from a mad Twilight king toward a new future under djinn rule. We travelled through this very forest to get to the djinn lands, only to be captured by Ibris’s guards and presented to him. He was kind and listened to our plea for land of our own. For a place to call home. Orin had destroyed our forest home to build his city, and then when we’d protested he’d sent guards to eliminate us. But Ibris offered us a home. In exchange, I was to accept his attentions.”
“Attentions?”
Erebus cleared his throat and it clicked. Attentions as in sex? My cheeks heated.
The woman watched me carefully. “He took pleasure from my body, so different from his djinn concubines. My twilight nature excited him. His attentions were enthusiastic, and at first I merely
endured for the sake of my people, but I am ashamed to say eventually I began to crave his touch. He kept me locked away in a chamber for thirty days and nights. And I began to burn for him. I began to believe his pretty lies.”
The mournful cry grew louder, and then ebbed.
“On the final day, Ibris’s guards came in the dead of night. They woke me roughly, took me from the chamber and drove me to the edge of the forest. You can imagine my confusion. Why was I back here? I asked them. Where were my people? They threw me into the forest, and when I screamed and railed and tried to rush out, I could not leave. I was trapped.”
Erebus inhaled sharply. I shot him a glance, but his brow was furrowed as if deep in thought.
“Some kind of spell.” Irina said. “I sensed something as we entered, but now it makes sense. It’s a barrier spell.”
“Yes, and we have been trapped here ever since. At first we fed off the flora. It made many of us sicken and die. But the ones that survived realised that if our race was to continue we would need to evolve. Over the centuries, through selected matings, we have become what you see today. We are able to thrive on the flora and the flesh of djinn that pass through this dismal place.”
My father had done this? I stared at the dead bodies of the beasts. If they hadn’t just tried to kill me, maybe I’d feel more sympathetic toward them. Maybe I’d feel worse about killing her people, but there was no guilt in survival. Plus her tale was off. It didn’t correspond to what I knew of my father or the king Ibris had been.
“You shouldn’t have attacked.” I stood my ground. “I’m sorry for you plight. I truly am, and if you’d asked me for help then I’d have been happy to assist you. But you chose to attack us. You chose vengeance.”
She shook her head. “A century trapped in this dead place, a century scavenging and fucking our way to survival. What would you have done?” She swept a hand toward the beasts hunched on the ground around her. “These are my children.” She tracked the lights surrounding her. “Our children.”
The lights expanded, sweeping over the clearing until several more wisps joined her—men and women, but none as imposing as the woman with the loin cloth and tangled hair.
“Ibris did this to us,” she asserted again.
“No.” Erebus said. “I recall this tale. Or some of it at least. The wisps came to the palace, although I wasn’t aware what you were back then. Ibris spoke of your leader, a most beautiful female. He was enraptured. He wished to make her his concubine. He hoped that once she’d lain with him she would become enamoured and agree to stay, but then one day she was gone.”
“No. That is a lie.” The woman said. “His guards took me and put me in the forest.”
“Yes,” one of the other wisps said. “Guards woke us in the middle of the night and brought us here also.”
This was beginning to sound dodgier by the second, and a horrible suspicion began to form in my mind. “And when you were trapped here you were furious at Ibris, right?”
“Of course.”
“And you attacked the djinn attempting to pass?”
“Yes, we did.”
“What of the Twilighters?” I raised a brow. “Did you attack them?”
“No. Our anger is directed at Ibris and his djinn.”
“And then a few years later Ibris was assassinated,” Erebus said. He shook his head. “We wondered why our spies never returned when sent this route. Why our intelligence on Twilight and its mad king’s movements was so thin. And now we know.”
I lowered my everlight blade. “My mother is a Twilighter. She has nothing but good things to say about my father. They were in love. I don’t believe this was his doing. Guards can be bought.”
The woman blinked at me, her mouth parting slightly as if under a revelation. “You think this was Orin’s work? That he paid those guards to do this to us?”
“You said you were fleeing from him,” Irina said. “Is it such a leap to accept that he may have tracked you, found out about Ibris’s plan to help you, and then turned it to his advantage?”
“Your presence in the forest benefited no one but the Twilight king,” Erebus added. “Why would Ibris trap you in here? It would serve no purpose to him. In fact it just made his life more difficult.”
The wisps began to murmur.
These people had been hurt by Orin. There was no doubt in my mind about that, but there was no time to fix this now. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. And if there’s a way to lift the barrier and set you free I’ll find it.”
The woman let out a shuddering sigh. “All this time …”
Erebus lowered his sword. “Kenna we need to go. We’ve already lost too much daylight.”
“I’m sorry. I truly am, but right now we have an important mission to complete, and we need to get going.”
“You are headed to Twilight?”
“Yes.”
“The forest is fraught with danger. Allow my children to guide you.”
Her eyes strayed to the fallen, all bloody and torn.
A hollow sensation filled my chest. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” She sighed. “You did what you had to. They would have ripped you to shreds and we would have never known the truth of our confinement.”
Erebus sheathed his sword and the remaining beasts bounded past us into the tree line beyond.
“Go, they will clear you a path to the river.” She fell to her knees amidst the carnage we’d created, and the other wisps followed suit.
Erebus gripped my elbow. “Orin has much to answer for. Let’s strike the first blow by liberating my people.”
I nodded and tore my gaze away, swallowing the lump in my throat as Bella’s humanity wrapped itself around my heart and pierced it with guilt. Orin would pay for what he’d forced me to do.
8
BRETT
Baal’s office was a haven of privacy after the heat of all those gazes in the board room. Brett had held his own and kept his chin up, but their obvious horror had almost been too much. The impulse to punch them in their faces had been a difficult one to squash.
“They’re mobilising salt trucks to the gates as we speak,” Baal said.
Brett hovered in the doorway. “And what’s the official story?”
“The truth. Finally. The people deserve to know what we’re up against. They can’t protect themselves if they don’t know what’s coming. An emergency broadcast goes out later today.”
Brett glanced at the coat closet, their way back to Baal’s residence and on to the fifth dimension to see Kenna. But as much as he wanted to see his friend again, he needed to be taking action. Lindrealm needed all the Fearless they could get, and despite the changes in his physical appearance, he was still Fearless.
“I’m staying here.”
Baal smiled wickedly. “I thought you might say that so …” He strode over to his desk, bent down and retrieved a box. He placed it on the table. “I took the liberty of having this made for you.” Baal slid it across the surface of the desk. “Go on, open it.”
Brett flipped open the flaps and stared at the dark fabric inside. Was that what he thought it was?
He lifted the fabric out—huge items of clothing, large enough to fit his new frame. But not just any clothing, this was a Fearless uniform. If he’d still had tear ducts his eyes would have been misting up right now.
Baal cleared his throat. “I’ve promoted you to patrol leader, and I’d like you to be in charge of coordinating the defence efforts here in my absence.”
“What about the chiefs? They’re never gonna go for it. You saw the way they looked at me.”
Baal shot him a wicked smile. “Taken care of. There isn’t a human alive that can resist my persuasion.”
He’d used his djinn mind control mojo on them? There may have been a time that this would have pissed Brett off. But not any longer. Lindrealm was about to be at war, and as far as he was concerned, Baal could mind control the fuck out of whoever it took to save th
eir arses.
“Thank you.” Brett laid the uniform back in its box. “It doesn’t solve the problem about being out in public though.”
Baal’s eyes were filled with compassion. “I cannot speak for the whole population, but having lived among humans for some time, I have seen that they treat their heroes well, and when the broadcast goes out later you will be a hero. You sacrificed who you were to protect Lindrealm. The people will stand by you.”
Baal grabbed a set of keys off his desk and chucked them at Brett. “Your new bike. It’s been customised for your new form.”
He really had thought of everything. “You were pretty certain I’d want to stay.”
Baal shrugged. “You endured torture for these people. I assumed you may want to stick around to make sure it was worth it.”
“You assumed correct.”
“I’ll let Kenna know what’s happening.”
“Tell her to focus on the fifth dimension. The hoard needs to be kept under control. I’ll keep an eye on Lindrealm.”
“I will pass that on, but you know Kenna, she’s a woman with a mind of her own, and if Lindrealm is attacked, don’t be surprised to find her by your side.”
Brett chuckled. The sound was like gravel and broken glass. He clamped his mouth closed.
“If you need to get a message to me you can do so by sending me a text.”
“A text?”
Baal smiled. “I had a friend and shamateck make me a little something.” He handed Brett a small device, more a pager than a phone with a keypad to allow for texting. “I won’t be able to respond, but I will receive your message, and I will find you.”
“A tracker?”
He nodded. “I will speak to Caldwell about your cure.”
Brett tucked the pager into his pocket. If anyone could find a way to reverse what had been done to him, it would be Caldwell—the man who’d created the serum. He’d take the antidote, but not until his world was safe from Orin. This form, although horrific, afforded certain benefits in battle. Benefits that he knew he’d have to draw on sooner than he’d like, because his gut told him that time was running out for Lindrealm.
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