Skyla dropped to her knees in helpless horror as the guards continued to savagely beat her sister into a barely recognizable mass of blood spray and broken bones. The final blow was a fireball that left a blackened scorch mark on Rayne’s stomach as her T-shirt burned away.
The tiny magical connection between Skyla and her sister faded to nothing.
A guard bent to check the carotid pulse, then shook his head.
The blood-spattered, armor-hided guard held out her hand with another sparking fireball in her palm, glaring triumphantly at each of the cells. “Who elssse wantssss to die?”
From deep within the heart of Skyla’s beast arose an implacable rage, drawing her to her feet. She shuffled slowly backward to the far back wall of the cell. Taking two centering breaths, she focused all her attention on the bars as she gathered her carefully hoarded magic. Once she blasted through the bars, she would show the guards what she really was...
The next thing she knew, Lerro tackled her to the floor. With his full weight on top of her, he hissed softly in her ear. “Do not die.”
She snarled at him. “Let me go!” She borrowed her beast’s strength to buck him off so she could twist away.
He tackled her again and put his mouth next to her ear. “No one to live for?” His body shuddered, but he held on. “No friends?” His words were more breath than sound. “No mate?”
A powerful scent memory flashed through her, piercing the blind, black anger of her berserk beast. If she succeeded in killing the armor-hided creature, the guards would kill her as a warning to the others. Then she’d never even find out if her mate felt the call, or if he liked snow, or tasted as divine as he smelled. Her sister had died before ever finding her true mate. How could Skyla throw away her own chance?
Lerro must have felt her relax, because he rolled off her and crawled away. He fell onto his side, trembling and panting.
Rage and loss threatened to drown her, so she turned her focus to Lerro. She wasn’t all that surprised to learn he could talk. She very badly wanted to pepper him with a million questions, but that would expose one of his secrets.
A loud clatter from the corridor had her climbing to her feet. Everyone in the shifter holding cells knew that sound. “Oh look, the maids are here.”
Within minutes, a pair of guards dragged a four-inch hose in front of their cell. “Hug the walls. Now!”
She and Lerro flattened themselves against opposite walls. The guards opened the valve to unleash a forceful spray of soapy water onto the cell’s floor. Her bare feet ached from the cold. Lerro caught her eye, a newly intelligent gleam in his. He looked to the guards, then back to her again. A shudder racked him, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
Skyla looked at the burly human guards. As usual, it took two of them to hold the hose steady so it didn’t buck like a bronco. As usual, the water had a bit of magic mixed in with the soap and smelled of chemicals and metal. What was she supposed to be looking at?
She was about to risk a questioning glance at Lerro when it hit her. She’d seen it a dozen times and never thought about it. The magic of the bars should have repelled the water but didn’t.
She opened her magical senses wide and sent low-level probes to test the bars and the water, to see how they worked together. Unlike most of the lazy, brute-force spells she’d encountered in the underground prison, the interconnected security spells for the cell bars and doors were subtle and elegant. She sure as hell didn’t want to meet the dangerous and gifted wizard who’d created them.
She made herself look away, as if uninterested. Lerro was very much more than he seemed. She owed him twice, once for showing her the water magic, and once for preventing her from committing suicide.
Skyla wasn’t the right person to plan a great escape, but with Rayne gone, she’d have to do. She still planned to avenge Rayne’s death and do as much damage to the prison as possible, but she’d do it on her terms, and help as many people as she could in the process. Only together did they have a chance at freedom…
Continue the adventure in Heart of a Dire Wolf
Shift of Destiny Page 16
