Merlin didn’t dare move and give away the horror that rocketed through him. “That will not go well for you when the Emperor rises.”
“Which is why he won’t.” Marsum grinned. “You see? I keep the kitty cat safe. I keep all the jewels, and the Emperor’s power, and he will never rise.”
Merlin knew it was not so simple. But for now, he wasn’t arguing.
He closed his eyes and let his mind take him outside the box. Not an easy trick, but he could follow the ether to somewhere else. Wherever he was needed.
The light flashed around him and as suddenly as he’d been on his knees in Marsum’s throne room, he was sitting next to a tall, slim man with golden hair and eyes.
“Shem?” He stared at the lion shifter he’d thought long dead. Or maybe he was, and Merlin was just seeing a ghost. That was possible.
Shem turned to him. “Well, damn, Merlin. Thought you’d be fucked up shit creek by now.”
“I am. Infinity box.” He shrugged as if it were nothing. It wasn’t and they both knew it.
Shem sighed and then grinned. “Good thing I still had the girl’s notes.”
Merlin’s eyes popped wide. “What? You have my half-sister’s papers? Wait, you said had.”
“I told you I’d look out for her.” He frowned. “I loved her, you know. Would have done anything she asked and then some even though I knew what it meant.”
Merlin couldn’t stop staring at the shifter in front of him. “I don’t know what you did with those papers, but you need to get them to Ishtar. She is the only one strong enough to free me now.”
Shem shook his head. “No way. I promised I’d give them to Zamira when she was old enough. She has the bloodline to read the glyphs. Not many do, you know.”
Merlin’s jaw dropped. “You . . . gave them to Zam? What is she going to do with sheets and sheets of spells? She’s a shifter, Shem. Not a damn mage!” He could not believe Shem. Then again, part of him said he shouldn’t be surprised. Shem’s time with the Emperor had given him cause to be not right in the head.
Shem grinned at him and leaned back in his seat. “Well, that’s a matter of opinion. You don’t do genealogy much, do you? Because our little kitten has a whopping powerful bloodline that even you haven’t noticed yet. So . . . I’m not so sure Ishtar is the only one who can free you.”
Merlin lost his hold on the real world. His mind whirled at such a rate, he slammed back into the infinity box as if he’d really been gone and not just his mind.
Shem’s words swirled until they settled softly on his shoulders, and he let himself really look at Zam . . . through the eyes of a mage. Not the eyes of a manipulator. The dark hair, the green eyes . . . a powerful bloodline . . . “No way,” he whispered as the answer came to him. But even as he denied it, he knew exactly what Shem was talking about.
Zamira was far more than she looked to be.
Chapter Ten
The sounds of the early night I would consider normal in the desert were cut off by the howls of the hyenas drawing close.
“We can’t outrun them,” Maks said, reaching for his bow. I moved so Lila was behind me. Maks rolled his eyes. “My job is to protect you and take you to Marsum.”
“Yeah, well, that didn’t go so well for Lila earlier, did it?” I snarled.
He gave me his back as he pulled his weapons clear of his gear. Shotgun in one hand, small crossbow in the other.
“Lila, stay on Balder. Do not use your wings at all,” I said as I reached for the flail on my back. I paused, grabbed my bag and pulled the sapphire out of its hiding place under the one flap. I handed it up to her. “If they get close, freeze their scrawny asses.”
“Damn it,” she snarled but took the stone from me and rested it on her neck.
I whistled for Batman and he trotted to me. I positioned the two horses nose to rump, able to protect each other if the hyenas came at them.
The sound of heavy breathing and big padded feet on the sand snapped me around.
Two werehyenas crested the rise above our camp, tongues lolling out of their long snouts, their bodies with dark speckles and darker coats blending into the night so they looked like shadows come to life. There was a pause where they looked us over, looked at each other and snickered, and then they came at us.
There were no words between us as I moved beside Maks. I trusted him more than I trusted the hyenas, and that was about all I had at that point. “Lila, call out to me if more show.”
“On it,” she yelled back and then there was no more time for speaking. I yanked the flail out, the handle humming under my palm.
Here we go again was all I thought.
The werehyena on the right went for Maks and the one on the left came at me. I swung the flail, spinning the light weapon hard and fast. The werehyena dodged, zipped around me and went straight for the bags of gear.
“Oh, no you don’t, you fucker!” I was after him in a flash, shifting into my house cat form before I really registered that what I was doing was stupid.
I raced across the distance between us and leapt up onto his back, digging my claws in for purchase. The werehyena spun, snarling and snapping at me as I dug in hard. I hissed and spit right back at him as he whipped around in a circle, fighting to get to me.
“Get off me!” he roared as he fought to reach me. But I was just beyond the end of his teeth. I curled my claws deep into his flesh until I felt bone under one of them. Oh yeah, I had him now.
“Look out!” Lila screamed, and I turned my head to see a dark body slam into us, bowling us over and over. I hit the ground hard and the bigger animals landed on top, crushing me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear anything beyond the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
I tried to shift back to two legs, but my body wouldn’t budge. Under all this weight, my skin and bones refused to do anything for me. Panic laced my mind and heart as I fought to breathe, fought to do anything but lay there under the big body.
It went cold suddenly, gone from the heat of the body to a block of ice, and as quickly as it was cold, the body shattered around me.
I scrambled out, favoring a front leg as I gulped in a breath of air that had never tasted so sweet.
“Get on your horse,” Maks said. My eyes found him, a spray of blood across his face and his hands glowing with a pale yellow light. He clenched his fingers and the light went out. “I said, get on your horse.”
“She almost died, toad. Give her a chance to catch her breath,” Lila snapped.
Maks snorted. “More of those werehyenas are coming. You want to be here for them?”
I did not.
I forced my body to shift even though it hurt like hell when I was injured. There was a chance the shift itself would help the pain. I pulled myself through to my two-legged form with a cry of anguish, my right arm throbbing as though someone had taken a hammer to it.
Maks took a step toward me and then stopped, went and grabbed the horses and saddled them up quickly. I saw his hand flick over the cinch I’d cut and it was whole once more. So much for thinking that would slow him down.
I mounted up and Lila slid down Balder’s neck to rest between me and the pommel. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I leaned forward, urging Balder into a gallop. There was no sound of hyenas behind us, which meant we’d killed their two scouts. But with them dead, they would be able to find us easier with the scent of their pack mates on us.
We rode through the night; it wasn’t until after the sun rose that we finally stopped. At this rate, it wouldn’t take us three weeks to reach the Jinn’s Dominion. Then again, that was assuming we didn’t get eaten before we got there.
“We’ll stay here for a few hours,” Maks announced. As if he were in charge.
I arched a brow but kept my mouth shut. For the moment. He had Batman untacked and a fire going so fast I was sure he’d used magic.
“Think you can blur our trail?” I asked him. “Seeing as you’re going to be usin
g your Jinn powers out in the open.”
“Not one of my talents,” he said, and then he turned his back to me. Just like that, done with talking.
“You really are a dick when you’re a Jinn,” I growled.
Maks never moved from where he sat with his back to me, to us really. I stood there for the longest time staring at him. Because what the fuck was I supposed to do with this twist in my story? It was as if some sadistic author was laughing at me while she turned my life inside out. Knowing my luck, that was probably the reason for this stupidity.
I forced my hands to relax, to soften the death grip I had on my palms. Lila paced on Balder’s saddle that sat next to my foot. Her eyes said it all.
There could not have been a worse turn to our journey. We’d lost an ally and gained an enemy in one fell swoop. An enemy we couldn’t even kill because we both loved him and knew that Maks was still in there. Somewhere.
This was the first time since the night before that I’d let myself think on the change in our fortune.
My stomach rolled so hard, I had to clench my teeth against the rising tide of acid and bile. I fought that sensation and the prickling that announced an onslaught of tears.
No, I could not break down, not now. There were more things at play here than just losing Maks.
Kiara, Darcy, and the camel’s pizzle still waited for someone to save them.
The Emperor had taken an interest in me.
As had Marsum.
I had to finish what I started with Marsum. That was the only solution I could come to. And maybe . . . that would free Maks? I had no idea. The Jinn were a mystery to the rest of the supernatural world in many ways. We knew they were some of the strongest mages alive, that they were mean as one-eyed snakes and liked to hold power, but other than that, what we knew was based on observation in many cases, and not actual facts.
Basically, I had no way of knowing what would help him, or if there was anything I could do at all.
There was a chance Maks was gone forever, and that soured my belly in a twist that made my gorge rise.
“Lila, we need to eat.” I forced the words from my mouth. “And we need to rest a little before we move on.”
She bobbed her head. “You want me to stay here?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want you alone with him.”
He didn’t so much as flinch as I spoke. Before I thought better of it, I shifted to my cat form. I could hunt the smaller desert animals this way.
Despite her wing injury, Lila launched into the sky. I wanted to yell at her, but I was in no place to make orders. She knew her body best. If she thought she could fly, I wasn’t going to stop her. She shadowed me as I ran into the hills, the wind rippling my fur and whipping the tears from my eyes. Damn it, this was what I got for putting my heart out there.
Smash and trash.
I wrinkled my nose as I caught wind of small prey. A covey of birds launched in front of me, wings fluttering as they tried to gain altitude. I leapt and caught one around the middle, my mouth on its neck in a flash. I snapped the bone with a quick crunch, and before we hit the ground, the bird was dead.
Lila swept by with her own catch and we headed back to the campsite. I shifted back to two legs partway there, stumbled and went to a knee to catch myself. Lila swooped by and dropped her bird to me.
A flicker of white caught my eyes from between two hills and I found myself walking toward it. Like a white flag of surrender waving at us. Lila flew ahead of me.
“Whoa, Zam, you aren’t going to believe this.” She swung back and held herself in midair with only a slight hitch in the beat of her wings. “Seriously, come see.”
I picked up my speed and then jerked to a stop as I rounded the edge of the dune. Spread out across the ground were white feathers the length of my body fluttering along. I only knew one bird with feathers that white and that big.
The Ice Witch’s Raven. “She must be close. This does not bode well.”
“Yeah, no shit. Then again, she did bring you the flail back,” Lila said. I nodded and backed away.
“If the Raven is hunting, then we need to keep moving. Giving me the flail back means nothing as far as I’m concerned.”
I turned and headed the way we’d come. I couldn’t even bring myself to care that much about the Raven or the Ice Witch. She wasn’t the power she’d been without her jewel, and the Raven had returned my flail to me as Lila said, so . . . they weren’t out to get us. That being said, I wasn’t going to just sit by and hang out in their territory if I didn’t have to. Just because we’d escaped them once didn’t mean we could do it again.
“Let’s hope the Raven likes to eat werehyenas,” I said. Lila bobbed her head in agreement.
Still clear of the camp, I stopped, moving on autopilot as I gutted the birds and threw the warm innards to Lila. Even with the situation as it was, she hummed happily as she gulped her dinner down.
Her belly swelled with the amount of guts she slurped back and she ended up walking back with me the last distance, waddling side to side. Much as this was a total clusterfuck with Maks, Lila, just as she was, made me smile.
It was good to have a friend I could depend on.
As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I banished it. Because I didn’t want to jinx myself.
I’d lost enough friends in the last few years to know that nothing was forever.
Firelight flickered in front of me as I slid down the last dune to the camp. Maks faced the fire and was eating something off a plate. Dried jerky, by the look of it.
I tossed both birds into the fire. The smell of burning feathers cut through the air with a sharp tang. “You can have one if you want.”
“I don’t,” he said.
Lila bumped into my leg and I looked down at her. She had the edge of my pack and had opened it to show me something.
The top of a bottle peeked out at me. Țuică.
She shrugged as if to say it couldn’t hurt. She had a point. How much worse could it be? At least if I were buzzed, the pain might not be so sharp.
I grabbed the bottle and sat, poured Lila a cup, and then sat back against one of the saddles and stared into the flames.
“You think you are safe enough with me to get drunk?” Maks asked, his voice a deadly soft reverberation.
I shrugged and found that mean streak that resided somewhere along the edge of my spine. “You’re controlled by Marsum, and he wants me alive. Which means your job is to keep me alive, as evidenced by the fight back there. You better keep me alive or you’ll face your daddy’s wrath.” I tipped the bottle at him in a mock salute and then put the opening to my lips and chugged back a swig.
The sweet, far-too-strong plum liquor burned a pleasant trail all the way to my toes. Empty stomach, right, that was something to remember when drinking.
I closed my eyes and held onto the bottle. I wasn’t afraid of Maks hurting me. Him hurting Lila, yes, I was concerned about that. She snuggled against my side and put her head on my thigh, her breathing coming in slow, long draws. Healing her wing with the hacka paste would still draw on her energy, and sleep and food were the best things for her.
Maks broke the silence, surprising me. “Why would I . . . care about you at all?”
I opened my eyes and looked across the fire at him. The buzz of the liquor wasn’t doing what I wanted. I wasn’t getting numb at all.
“Because I’m fucking amazing.” I grinned, but it was hard to smile because my lips wobbled. “Because you’re like me, outcast and looking for a place in the world. Because . . . I have a great ass.”
I raised the bottle again, then leaned forward and dragged one of the birds out of the fire by a foot. I felt the heat but didn’t care as I bit into the flesh. Not quite cooked. What did it matter what he thought of me?
It didn’t.
I ate my bird and that helped to settle my stomach and the buzzing of the țuică in my veins. I should have made a sleep schedule to wake Lila and watch
for a bit, but somewhere between my last two chugs of țuică, I finally stopped caring about everything.
Hallelujah.
Not what I’d call my finest moments, but there you go. I was as broken as the rest of the world and handled it about as well when the chips were down. At some point, I managed to cap the bottle and stuff it back in my bag and then curled around Lila, my head on the ground, my face turned to the fire. I couldn’t stop the shivering, though; the daytime temperature was cold and the only spot of warmth was Lila and the fire. My back twitched and spasmed but I didn’t have it in me to get up and find a blanket.
Distantly, I heard Maks moving around the fire, and then something settled over me and I remembered nothing else.
The afternoon came around with a dull rumble of a distant storm. I groaned and pulled the blanket up over my head. “Lila, tell the storm to go away.” I whispered the words.
She mimicked my noises of discomfort as she shifted beside me. “Oh, my head. I drank too much.”
I managed to push to a sitting position. My hair was wild, tangled and sticking out in every direction.
The fire was gone, the bird I’d thrown in for Maks was gone, and he sat across from me, as still as if he’d never moved.
The blanket slid to my waist, pooling in my lap and over Lila.
I frowned, my fingers on it. I didn’t remember picking up a blanket, but then again, the hours between dawn and now were somewhat fuzzy, to be fair.
Maks said nothing to me as he stood and went to Batman. The horse shied from him, his ears flicking back and his eyes rolling.
I just watched, saying nothing as Maks stopped and held out a hand. Batman shook his head as if he knew something was off with his friend. The horses were always the first to see someone for who they really were.
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