Daughters of Artemis

by Della Buckland

  Instead of heading east at the branching of the river, which would have taken them straight to the clan of weretigers, they traveled along the western bank, chasing the setting sun. There was a wooded area downstream before the waterfall that the wolves regarded as the cut-off for tiger territory. They'd still be inside that border in the woods near the waterfall, but Yun had at least assured them they shouldn't be bothered there by the tigers this time of year.

  It took a couple days, but their pace had been steady, and they were at the final bend of the river. Katya could hear the faint rush of falling water against stone, and it made her smile with pride and relief. It was when she had paused to close her eyes and breathe deeply that Yun's hand slid down her arm to her wrist. "Mmm... What is it, Yun?"

  The grip tightened, and the acrid scent of feline unease pulled Katya from her rest. Her eyes snapped to Yun, but the far off look to those pale, golden eyes told her Yun was concentrating on one of her other senses. She swallowed thickly. "Yun?"

  She received no answer, but an instant later, feline growls sounded from the trees, and black and orange flashes caught the light through the grass. Before she even had a chance to bark out a warning, the tigers were upon them, slashing through the pack's middle. A million sounds erupted all at once as everyone scrambled to react, and Katya shouted a curse as she sprang from the front of the group back toward the middle and the tigers, dropping her pack to free up her body.

  "Betas, shift! Protect the pack!" Cries rang out around Katya as the betas followed her command, all but two of them. She pushed her way to them and growled, watching them cringe back while the other wolves met the tigers with yips and howling battle cries. If they thought the tigers were fierce, they would see she was even worse to pick a fight with. "Now is when you prove yourselves and protect this family. Shift and help, now!"

  With a look at one another, the two wolves nodded, and she clapped them both on the back before taking in the sight of the attack. They had an advantage of numbers—half a dozen tigers alone didn't stand a chance—but the shifted weretigers had cut them in half. Most of the fighters were on her side at the head of the pack. The mothers and adolescents in the other half had herded the children into a tight group on instinct, but they were scrambling about, unorganized in their fright.

  "Mischa!" Katya yelled over the fray, relieved when her friend's head turned in the other half of the pack. "Get them out. Move upstream along the riverbank. Just get them to safety!" She'd never asked Mikhail to take charge before, but with so many of the wolves shifting, it was instinct. He could be trusted.

  A chill ran down her back at the thought of treachery that sparked through her. Dmitri. She'd watched him for a while, but he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary other than take an extra guard shift or two a week back and gossip like she'd expected. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned on her heel, nearly toppling into Yun, who had stayed close and silent, though her eyes were full of panic. The fearless weretiger was scared now? She didn't have time for this. "Don't just stand there!"

  Yun shook her head. "I cannot fight. Not against them. Please..."

  Katya growled but forced herself to breathe deeply. Getting angry at Yun for her lingering sense of honor wouldn't do either of them any good. Yun wasn't an alpha, probably wouldn't have been even if she'd been in a tiger clan. She probably needed direction, and if she wasn't going to fight, there wasn't much else she could do. Katya pulled Yun along by the arm, thankful that Yun's bones had healed adequately and that Yun followed with her usual feline grace. "I need you to help heal, then. You're pack, damn it."

  A yelp of pain caught Katya's attention, and she instantly found where Faina had fallen, her pelt slick with blood. She quickly positioned Yun toward the wounded wolf. "Twenty paces forward, all right? Pull her back toward the river and have her shift back for you."

  One of Yun's arms broke free of her hold and pushed at her shoulder, trying to turn her awkwardly. "They're coming!"

  She stopped fighting the push and spun as Yun pointed. More weretigers were running toward the front half of the pack, and it wasn't their fierce expressions that made Katya's heart skip a beat. Sunlight glinted off their knives, and she pushed Yun forward. "Get moving!"

  Katya shouted a battle cry that drew attention to her and the weretigers that were trying to flank them. She couldn't spare another thought for Yun; she just had to trust that Yun would take care of herself. Katya pulled her own knives from their small sheaths and motioned to the alphas of her pack that hadn't shifted yet. They brandished their own weapons and charged with her at the small group of weretigers.

  Growls and hisses were all around her the instant the two lines hit one another. The clang of metal deflecting metal, cries of pain and anger from those who didn't manage to dodge fast enough. Katya darted away from an incoming slash and used her momentum to dive down into the legs of one of the weretigers locked in a hold with Sergei just a few paces away. The man yelped in pain and rolled on the grassy ground before rebounding. Anyone less agile would have broken something in the fall, but these damn tigers were hard to injure, even harder to kill if they knew how to fight.

  Katya sank into the calm, cold place inside her that thrived on the action and adrenaline, that absorbed the heat of battle and made her stronger, faster, and focused. She engaged one of the tigers, blocking, attacking, and side-stepping to avoid her opponent's blade. By the time she was able to disarm the bastard, she already sported several shallow cuts. They stung, but the pain was good. Numbness would have meant poison in these parts. She'd take the pain over that.

  Even without his weapon, though, the tiger fought. His hands, elbows, and legs were just as deadly. If she hadn't seen Yun spar with the wolves a couple times in the last few weeks, she'd have never kept up with his fluid attacks. He knocked one of her knives away, but instead of fighting to keep the blade, she gave it up and took advantage of his awkward recovery to trip him and send him sprawling to the grass. Her other knife was embedded in him before he could get away. He made to roll away, but staggered, gasping and hissing his pain as he fell back to the ground.

  Even in the heat of battle, Katya didn't like to see his face twisted like it was with shock and pain. She pinned him easily and drove her blade home again, ending his suffering as swiftly as she would have a fallen buck's during the hunts.

  The immediate threat gone, her icy eyes darted up and around the fighters. Several wounded on both sides, a couple fallen wolves, including Ivan just a few paces away, but an equal number of tigers were motionless in the blood-streaked grass. Sergei was growling fiercely at his opponent nearby, a bulkier tiger who pushed and pulled at him as they both tried to break their lock on one another's knife hands.

  Katya rolled off her own kill and aimed before throwing her knife. It sank squarely into the weretiger's back, and the shock of the impact gave Sergei the advantage he needed to dispatch the man quickly. He flashed her a smile, and she returned it. The tigers were far outnumbered now, and impending victory began to warm her from the inside out.

  But if they were about to win, why did Sergei's smile fade like that? She began to turn, and all she saw was a flash of metal surging toward her, far too fast and close to block with her bare hands. In a flash, the metal was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and she was sent rolling backward, toppling over herself. When she regained her sense of direction, her eyes widened, and she froze.

  The male weretiger that would have killed her a few seconds ago had been blocked not by her fellow alphas, but by Yun. Her lover was bloody from elbows to fingertips, large strips of cloth missing from her shirt and pant legs. Katya couldn't help but stare as Yun hissed, baring her teeth at the man, who simply looked at her, momentarily stunned. There was fire in Yun's eyes unlike anything Katya had ever seen, even in the couple of months they had been close. Did the male tiger see that fire? What could he read in those eyes?

  Katya could only guess what silent communication happened between Yun and the w
eretiger, but the man recovered, sinking into his fighting stance again as fury swept over his features. "Traitor!" he spat at Yun, taking one step toward her. "Feral outcast! You help these wolves? Let them replace us?"

  "No," Yun growled, matching the tiger step-for-step in a seamless mimicry that astonished Katya as she watched, stunned to inaction. "I am mate to the Alpha Wolf here."

  The tiger's laugh grated on Katya's ears and echoed oddly. She finally snapped out of her trance, glancing around only to see that the tigers had disengaged, not retreating, but watching, human and shifted tiger alike. They all watched the tiger facing off with Yun. He had to be their clan leader, the strongest of them. It made fear worm its way into Katya's chest, and she staggered upright with a helping hand from Sergei. Without the tigers attacking, the wolves stood down. A couple of the more bloodthirsty of her pack were being held back, kept from making kills during this strange pause in the action. The wolf pack might not have the same exact honor code the tigers were rumored to follow, but even her pack wouldn't attack someone who refused to fight back.

  "They have made a bitch of you," the Alpha tiger sneered. "They bring poachers on their tails. They ruin the balance!"

  "They are family," Yun growled back. "Leave us and return to your season."

  If the man were in tiger form, Katya was sure he would have bristled, his fur put on edge to make him appear bigger in his anger. He hissed at Yun and rushed forward. The attack was fast, and Yun's block flowed into an attack that was dodged almost too quickly for Katya to follow. They fought the same way, their bodies locked in a killing dance that only seemed to speed up the longer they engaged.

  Katya's heart pounded in her chest, and only Sergei's strong grip on her arm kept her planted in place, reminded her to stay still or risk the attack starting again on the pack. Duty said she couldn't interfere, not if the rest of the pack could be spared by Yun fighting this Alpha tiger. Still, as Yun took a hit, she thought her heart would burst out of her throat from fright.

  Yun recovered just fast enough to counter another wave of attacks, and Katya watched in awe as she wove in and out with the Alpha tiger, slowly turning the tables, putting him on the defensive. Katya had known she was a good fighter, but she had never seen Yun move like this before, as if she were an extension of the wind, whipping and curling around her opponent until she found a weak point to exploit.

  A sickening crack sounded, followed by a roar of pain from the Alpha tiger, and when Yun darted back, Katya could see two of the Alpha's fingers bent in the wrong direction. He staggered a couple steps, cracking the fingers back into place, and Katya's eyes flashed back and forth between Yun and the Alpha male. A glint of metal in the grass caught her eye, and she all but gasped, stiffening in Sergei's grip.

  That was her knife, the one she had lost in her own fight with the tiger she'd managed to kill. It was only two paces from Yun, and when the Alpha tiger turned aside to grab his own discarded knife, Katya couldn't stay silent anymore. "Roll left, Yun! My knife!"

  There wasn't time to yell out any other instructions, no time to direct Yun perfectly to the knife, but the sound of the Alpha male's knife dragging against the ground for a moment must have made sense to Yun. Katya watched her roll and flail just a bit in the grass. The Alpha tiger must have fully realized Yun's blindness for the first time, because his triumphant growl chilled Katya's very blood, and he rushed at Yun.

  Katya shouted a warning and struggled against Sergei's grip, but just as she broke free, trying to sprint to Yun's aid, Yun grabbed the knife and moved faster than Katya could follow in her panic. The Alpha tiger blocked her view, but he had stopped in his tracks. In the space of a heartbeat, his whole body jerked, and then fell back, revealing Yun, panting hard, both hands gripping Katya's knife, the entire length of the blade slick with fresh blood.

  Silence fell thickly over the entire group, but a palpable energy thrummed up through the shock, and after several seconds, one of the tigers shouted, "Retreat!"

  Every remaining weretiger, shifted and human alike, responded immediately to the shouted word. They snatched up their wounded and retreated into the trees with as much speed as they could manage.

  "Let them go!" Katya barked, finding her voice again at the sight of a few of the wolves trying to run after the retreating tigers. "It's over," she said again, her eyes returning to Yun's trembling frame. She crossed the space between them quickly and eased Yun's hands down, lowering the bloodstained blade. Her other arm wove around Yun, hugging her gently even though it made her own wounds smart a bit. When had that gash in her arm gotten so big, anyway?

  Katya let out a slow exhale, taking comfort in Yun's scent for a moment before pulling back. "You all right?" she asked, only to get a mute nod from Yun. Yun's eyes were moist, and she refused to look up and meet Katya's gaze. It made her worry, but a call from Mikhail made her head snap over. Little Ilya was propped on his hip, and Mikhail held a knife in his other hand. The blade was clean. God, Katya had never been happier to see a clean blade. She gave Yun a squeeze before jogging over to meet Mikhail. "Mischa! Are you—"

  "Not a single scratch," Mikhail interrupted, adjusting Ilya on his hip. "There were a few tigers waiting for us upstream, but they seemed just as reluctant to hurt us as we were to hurt them. They might have attacked the pack, but they weren't keen on killing the women, children, and omegas."

  Katya sighed her relief and squeezed Mikhail's shoulder before mussing Ilya's hair. The lower ranks of the pack were all right. The upper ranks had taken a hard blow, though. She was sure of it. Turning around, she ran a hand through her hair, but then cringed and cradled the wound at her arm. "Casualties?"

  There was shuffling through the group, murmuring, and then Katya remembered. Counting casualties and the wounded was a task that had always gone to Ivan. With Ivan dead, it fell to Dmitri. Katya growled low in her throat as her eyes scanned the pack, and when Dmitri stepped forward to give her a number, she charged him.

  Dmitri fell without much of a fight, but when Katya pulled his knife from the sheath at his waist and pressed it menacingly to his throat, he stilled completely.

  "You," she accused, practically spitting the word into Dmitri's face. "You lying son of a bitch. All those extra guard shifts, those times you insisted on hunting alone and always came back empty handed. What did you tell the tigers, that we were planning to attack so they should make the first move? That you would take the pack elsewhere if they helped make you Alpha? You led them right to us, didn't you?"

  Dmitri's pulse practically jumped along the sharp edge of the blade at his throat, and his jaw trembled. He made to answer, and Katya growled again, wanting him to think twice about his words. His eyes were wide as they searched above and around the gathered pack. If he was looking for help, he wasn't about to get it. No one would dare stop her with the mood she was in. Dmitri's throat worked, and he finally choked out, "I didn't do anything, Katya!"

  "Bullshit!" Katya barked. "How many? Tell us the count. How many dead and wounded, Mitya?"

  Dmitri winced at the way his pet-name became an insult. That or the way Katya just barely nicked the skin of his throat with the knife. "Five d-dead. S-Sixteen wounded."

  "Five dead. Five dead!" Katya reared back with the knife, and she could hear the gasps around her as she howled her anger. She surged forward, and the sound of the knife burying deep cut off all noises and sounds of protest from the pack. Breathing hard, Katya glared down at Dmitri's ashen face and the blade hilt-deep in the earth a fraction of an inch from his head. "You remember all five of those names, Dmitri, and remember them well. If I find out this was your doing, I will rip your throat out myself."

  Taking hold of the knife's hilt, Katya stood, withdrawing it from the earth. "Everyone, gather near the river. Sergei, take a small team and separate our dead from the tigers. Take the tigers’ bodies to the opposite river bank." Katya let out a calming exhale, nice and slow. "It's time to set up camp and tend our wounded. Yun?"

&nbs
p; Katya looked up and scanned the surrounding pack, but Yun's pale, striped face wasn't within sight. "Where is Yun?" she asked firmly.

  "I saw her walking downstream," one of the women in the crowd called out. "Down toward the falls."

  "Shit," Katya cursed beneath her breath. "Set up camp. I'll fetch her myself."

  Just the time for Yun to go off, right when they needed her healing skill the most. It didn't sit well with Katya, and she handed Dmitri's knife to Sergei before striding quickly down the riverbank, waving off his attempt at getting her arm dressed first. She tore a bit of cloth from her ruined shirt and wrapped it around her wound as she walked, following the tree line toward the nearby falls.

  She finally spotted Yun after turning a natural ledge in the stone. The river moved quickly there, and the sound of water falling on stone seemed to echo in the small, sandy glen. Yun didn't turn when Katya called her name, and when Katya stepped close enough to see more than Yun's back, her heart leaped into her throat. The dagger Yun had used to defeat the Alpha tiger was still clutched in Yun's hand, but the point rested against the bare skin of Yun's forearm.

  Katya crouched carefully next to her. "Yun, what are you—"

  "I should do it," Yun choked out, and Katya could see two fresh tears fall from beneath the thin curtain of Yun's dark hair. "I should end my life, restore balance, retain my honor as a tiger."

  Katya reached out, covered Yun's hand with her own. She tried to guide the dagger away from Yun's wrist, but Yun's grip tightened beneath her hand with just the slightest tremble. "You were protecting me, Yun. You saved my life and protected the clan because we've become your family."