“Tenzin,” he warned.
“Shirel, to me.”
Run, I wanted to scream. Run, Arianne, you bloody fool.
Yet, I knew that had Arianne run as I silently commanded, the panther would catch her before she covered a rod.
While I expected some fear, some recoiling from the oncoming menace, I wasn’t thusly entertained. Arianne stood silent, draped and hidden, behind the wealth of her hair. Who wouldn’t try to retreat from the advance of a dangerous predator? Most people would. Why didn’t she?
The men in purple and gold who guarded her found a measure of distance between her body and theirs. In a tight knot, they whispered and muttered, not protecting her. Why didn’t Brutal demand they slay the panther before it killed her? She’s his intended bride after all. Why didn’t she make a move, any move, to protect herself?
Why didn’t I remember whom the black cat approached?
Arianne finally emerged from the shelter of her midnight hair. Her smile almost dropped me to the ground.
My jaw wasn’t the only one to shift loose when Shirel rubbed her huge, sleek head against Arianne’s tiny form. So different were their sizes, the panther rubbed against Arianne’s chest. In a wild attempt to keep from falling, she grabbed the cat around her neck. Naturally, being Arianne, she hugged Shirel, lying her cheek against the top of Shirel’s rounded head.
The panther continued her affection, sliding her long, sleek body around Arianne’s body, her tail entwining Arianne’s throat. Did I just hear a giggle? Arianne, in keeping her small hands on the beast, turned and hugged every part of the feral cat. Both disappeared in the lengths of Arianne’s midnight tresses.
“Tenzin?” Brutal asked, his tone curious. “Is your beastie…purring?”
“She is, Your Majesty.”
I flicked my glance to Tenzin. He watched them, the girl and the panther twining and floating in a dance of mutual love and affection, with narrowed, expressionless eyes. A giggle rose from my belly and got as far as my teeth. Shirel never rubbed and purred on him.
“The power she has,” Brutal murmured.
How perceptive was that? Arianne did indeed have a power that no one else owned. Now Brutal recognized it, saw it before his very eyes. Ja’Teel didn’t, for he merely scowled. Tenzin obviously didn’t, for he snapped his fingers and called his cat’s name again. This second command Shirel also chose to ignore.
“Uh,” Brutal asked diffidently, clearing his throat. “Where were we? Ah, we were discussing your fate, my dear, now I remember.”
“Untie my ropes so I can contribute to the discussion,” I answered.
Brutal actually laughed. “You are a treasure, a treasure indeed.”
My eyes flicked from Ja’Teel’s stiff form and back at Brutal. Brutal nodded, slowly, his evil, mad smile widening.
“How I do wish things could be different between us,” Brutal said. “But as they are what they are, I’ll give you to whomever pleases me. Perhaps I’ll even create a lottery. Are you impressed, my dear?”
The idiots foolishly left my sword belted to my hips. They thought their ropes were enough. If I could get free—
“You and I will be married shortly,” Brutal went on, his genial mood still intact. “I, of course, will have you first. Being your husband and all, I must consummate the marriage. Then you’ll entertain anyone who made me happy. Ja’Teel, here, for instance.”
His slender, pale hand indicated the dark, long-haired brooding wizard. Then it waved toward his commanders and guards. “You’ll end up under the churning butts of my men, their very own royal slut. You’ll know who is taking you, every single one of them, before I break you.”
His dead brown eyes lit with unholy glee. He gestured toward Raine. “Wolf here will also entertain me. Chained, of course, to my bed. If your mind isn’t broken by then, and if his isn’t broken, either….” His voice trailed off.
I wanted to spit, but didn’t have the saliva. I wanted to scream curses, but had no voice. I wanted to show defiance, but all I showed him was nothing at all.
Brutal’s voice dropped. “Then Ja’Teel will do what that idiot Rygel didn’t have the belly to do. He’ll break them for you.”
He suddenly giggled, glancing sidelong at Ja’Teel. “And to think I didn’t have to get him addicted to tros first.”
This was it. He won, we lost. We did our best. What an epitaph, I thought, almost laughing wildly. We did our best. I had nothing left. My heart held no emotion any longer. No fear, no hate, no remorse, no guilt, no hope. ’Twas as though my soul opened up and emptied all out into the dirt at my feet.
“No point in burning the mind out of yonder princess,” Brutal waved a negligent hand toward Arianne, still hugging a purring Shirel. “She hasn’t a mind to break. But she’ll be my wife.” Brutal bowed, laughing. “Upon your death, I will, as the grieving widower, regretfully take a young bride.”
Arianne, upon hearing his words, straightened when Brutal spoke. Shirel paused, staring up into her face, her yellow eyes questioning. Absently, as though in a dream, Arianne stroked her round ears. Shirel leaned against her, long tail swinging from side to side, though her purring ceased.
I eyed her askance. Tossing her hair from her face, her stern expression as she glared at Brutal might have been chiseled from marble. No fear emanated from her. I felt the waves of anger pour from her and into Brutal. Couldn’t he feel it? Couldn’t he see it, written upon her face?
Apparently not, for his attention was for me, for Ja’Teel, for Tenzin behind his shoulder. His mind was occupied anywhere but at the one person more dangerous to him and his crown than any other.
She confused the hell out of me. She was but a slave, a timid creature with the shyness of a deer, a girl who seldom lifted her voice in anger. Yet she commanded the affection of a killer panther while in the hands of her enemy, had steel enough to glare at him with hate. She dared not eat, for fear of reprisal, yet within the merciless hands of a very brutal High King who planned to marry and rape her, she was nothing but pissed. Pissed but royally, to coin a phrase.
Those fools, Brutal and Ja’Teel, saw nothing but a cowed child. The guards knew, however, and edged away from her. Tenzin eyed her sidelong, his fingers making the sign against strong magic. He recognized in her the dark deadly mystery, the wild nymph plotting her vengeance.
“You can do what you will to my body,” I said through numb lips, desperately keeping Brutal’s attention away from Arianne. “But you’ll never have my soul.”
For the first time, Brutal showed irritation. “Now that was the stupidest thing you’ve ever said,” he snapped. “Until that moment, I respected you. I don’t want your soul. I don’t even want your scrawny, bony body, though it’ll be mine. I want your country.”
I managed a slight shrug, despite my hatred of shrugs. “You won’t get it. My father still lives and he’ll keep you out as he has for thirty years.”
“As your dutiful husband, I’m Prince Consort and your heir. King of Kel’Halla when your pa passes on,” he said. “May it be soon,” he added fervently.
In a manner of speaking, he was correct. But if my father knew what really happened…. He’d spit in Brutal’s face and deny him our borders. I hung onto that hope, when I had no other.
He brightened suddenly. “Think of it this way, my love. Once I kill you, you’ll no longer be suffering.” He tittered.
Gesturing toward Raine and Arianne, he grinned. “They will wish I had killed them, but I’ll keep at least my promise to them. They’ll live for many long years. As for the traitor Cephas—”
His dead eyes lit with fury and hate. “Cephas.” He spat the name as though tasting poison. “If he survives my troops, I’ll hang him. Slowly. He will dangle at the end of my rope for hours.”
“You really should have known better,” Raine said.
I wasn’t the only one who jerked in surprise. Brutal’s jaw dropped, as though the rock behind him had suddenly grown voice and chanted pray
ers. Ja’Teel’s pale face flushed first red then darkened in anger. His lips thinned, his eyes narrowed. The royal Sins stiffened their backs, their dark eyes not on me any longer, but on him.
Raine no longer slouched in a half-conscious daze. He stood erect, his hands bound and chained behind his back. Chains looped over and around his chest and shoulders. They might not have been there at all if one looked at his eyes.
His eyes were alive, alert and seriously pissed off. Weirdly grey and ringed in black, but Raine’s no longer. These were flat, inhuman, and deathly, deadly cold. The eyes I met in Lionel’s royal court in what seemed a lifetime ago. A gladiator’s eyes. A killer’s eyes. His eyes were a wolf’s eyes. His eyes were the still, chilling eyes of a born predator.
The warm, humorous, loving Raine disappeared. The Bloody Wolf returned.
While Brutal and I conversed like civilized people, the beast rose from the shadows and darkness.
In the distance, the wolves howled.
“What are you talking about, Wolf?” Brutal asked, once more playing the polite.
Raine nodded toward Ja’Teel. “He’s well aware of ehlu’braud’s nature.”
Ja’Teel snorted. “So you can feel one another, so what? Rygel can’t find you, even if he’s still alive.”
“Oh, he’s alive, all right,” Raine replied. “He’s on his way as we speak.”
Brutal and his pet exchanged glances. Of course, Brutal shrugged. What else would he do? “Even if he’s alive, he cannot possibly get here before I marry her. We’re leagues from where we, er, picked you up.” He tittered. “And we’ll be on our way to Connacht shortly after the ceremony.”
“Connacht?” I asked, confused.
“Yes,” Brutal said brightly. “I have ten thousand troops in the surrounding areas. I plan to restore the rightful King of Connacht.” Laughing, he offered a half-bow to Raine. “Always glad to help a friend.”
“You can’t invade with a mere ten thousand,” I scoffed.
“Oh, there’ll be more joining us, I assure you.” His dead, yet very much alive, eyes rested on me. “The Kel’Hallans.”
“Never,” I hissed. “They won’t follow you.”
“They’ll obey the King.”
“You aren’t going anywhere.” Raine’s wolfish growl tore my attention from Brutal.
“You’re tiresome,” Brutal said impatiently. “Silence, or I’ll have you gagged.”
“Your pet forgot something,” Raine went on, implacable.
“What might that be?” Ja’Teel snapped.
“I carry his blood.”
“What does that mean, his blood? Whose blood?”
Ja’Teel’s eyes widened in sudden comprehension and dawning horror. He understood very well, very well indeed.
“What’s he talking about?” Brutal demanded.
“I have magic in my fists.”
In a wild attempt at bravado, Ja’Teel sneered. “So? You don’t know how to use it.”
With a flat cracking sound, the chains suddenly broke and fell from Raine’s huge arms, his immense shoulders. They dropped in a steely slither to land at his feet. As though in relief from their obnoxious weight, Raine’s huge arms rose and stretched languidly over his head.
In the same instant, Shirel leaped away from Arianne. Her fangs bared in a silent snarl, she bolted swiftly to Tenzin’s side. He received her with a quick glance and a hand to his sword as Raine dropped his arms to his sides.
Instantly, his huge, bare muscled arms flexed. His hands clenched into huge fists.
Fists of rage.
As though an explosive device had been dropped among them, the guards surrounding him suddenly flew out and away, uniforms shredded. Most dropped bonelessly to the ground many rods away and lay still. A few more energetic of the troopers moaned and tried to get to their feet, blood pouring from their eyes and ears.
“You—”
Brutal managed only the one word.
The ropes broke from my bound wrists. I glanced down in time to see them slither and flop like dead snakes at my feet.
“Well now,” Raine drawled, “does it work something like that?”
“Oh, shit—”
“The wolves are coming!” Arianne suddenly shrieked, from behind. “The wolves know your name!”
Both Brutal and Ja’Teel glanced at her, distracted. I, too, turned halfway around at her very strange words. The wolves know your name? So what if the wolves knew their names—
The five or six troopers who had withdrawn from tiny Arianne suddenly collapsed, dropping to the tall grass, motionless. They lay dead of no known cause I could see. I saw no blood, no wounds, no bruising. They appeared asleep, save the glaze of death that slowly filmed their eyes.
Tossing her hair from her face, Arianne daintily stepped further away from them, holding her skirts up. A faint moue of disgust pursed her lips as she glanced up at Brutal. He stared at her, alarm finally growing on his face. As though only then realizing the danger he was in. As though he finally, only now, realized how dangerous she truly was.
His dead eyes slowly, as though oiled in molasses, travelled to Raine.
Raine’s fists came up. The steel cuffs over his wrists gleamed like dark pewter under the muted sunlight streaming through the netting. His fingers spread wide. Flames erupted from them like living lightning.
“Hell is in session,” Raine said.
Ja’Teel gasped in horror. Brutal screamed.
At the last instant before the hot, hungry flames reached them, Ja’Teel flung his arms up. The licking orange and yellow fire splashed harmlessly against his hastily erected shield.
Brutal flung up his arm and turned his head to protect his vulnerable eyes. Tenzin recoiled physically. His panther hissed, her round ears flat, bared her long yellow fangs as a long feline growl started low in her throat and rose in sharp feline crescendo.
Ja’Teel also flinched, as though not quite certain his shield would hold. He sighed in relief. Brutal hesitantly lowered his arm, blinking. Tenzin didn’t seem so sure, and began to back away from the pair, his hand still on his sword, his cat at his side.
Raine dropped his arms, allowing his fire to die.
“You expect that since Rygel has constraints upon him against the killing by magic,” Raine said, his voice soft. Mixed with the primeval sound of the wolves singing their death songs, his voice held a guttural growl deep within it. “That I do as well.”
Despite my love for him, fear niggled its treacherous way down my spine. The hairs on my neck stood up straight.
“Rygel was born to magic,” he went on, still making me wish for a rock to hide under. “I was not.”
“What—”
That seemed to be all Brutal could say. His eyes bulged in his narrow head.
Tenzin bolted, his black panther outrunning him, up the hill toward the royal commanders and troopers. Past the startled Synn’jhani, who, without orders, merely watched him streak past. Over the hill, the Tongu commander vanished down the other side. Who’s to say he did not see what was coming? Some small part of me envied him his freedom to run, and survive.
“Rygel was born unable slay with his powers.” Raine turned his head thoughtfully. “I was not.”
“Oh, shit,” Ja’Teel moaned, understanding flooding his pale, wan features. The scorpion tattoo glowed with a black menace against his pale cheek.
“There is no curse to follow me should I slay with magic.”
“What?” Was Brutal in love with the word?
Raine’s hand flung out, his angry fire belching out once more. This time, he didn’t aim it at Brutal and Ja’Teel, safe behind their invisible shelter. He pointed his right hand at the royal troops flanking the royal party. Shrieks of panic and agony filled the quiet air as his magic burned more than twenty Federate troops.
My belly roiled as I watched men burned alive, the stench of roasting meat sizzling in my nostrils. Inside their armor they burned. Their skin melted off their faces, mou
ths opened wide in their screams. Fire sucked down into lungs when they inhaled to scream again.
His left hand vomited fire, sending it upward and outward toward the soldiers and horses on the hill above, waiting attendance on their High King. The flames caught and ran, gleefully running from one horse or soldier to the next. Equine screams joined those of their riders as their manes and tails caught. I screamed with them.
“I like fire,” Raine spoke conversationally. “Fire cleans as it burns. This place needs a serious overhaul.”
He walked about, slowly, casually, as though he walked through a garden, inspecting the new growth of flowers. Flinging his hands left, right, turning slightly to point his flames behind his huge shoulders, he decimated the Federate cavalry. A one man killing machine, he mowed down men and horses without mercy. Like naphtha, his flames consumed his victims, engulfing them entirely even if a small spark struck.
Many had sense enough to flee, throwing down their weapons and either running, or spurring their horses hard toward the hills and safety. No few sought to shoot him down with bows and crossbows. One by one, as though flicking flies from the air, his fire crisped each arrow and bolt before they even came close. His returning conflagration burned the shooters where they stood before they had a chance to fire again.
Arianne ducked away, finding shelter behind his huge body. I hope he knows she’s there, I thought wildly, seeing Raine turn and fire his weapons, his hands, at anything that moved. In front, behind, to either side, Raine walked and slew at will.
Hell was in session, indeed.
None of his flames touched Arianne. Nor me, I suddenly realized. The heat of his fires crisped my skin, I smelled burnt hair, clothing and men, tasted its oily odor on my tongue. But not a flicker of fire came anywhere near me. It was as though I had my own protective shield.
Men, finding some guts to quell their fear, charged their horses toward us, bows nocked and aimed, crossbows armed. One by one, Raine flicked his fire. I had no choice but to notice he got better with practice. He no longer needed to mow his enemies down with enormous flames. Tiny flame points were thrown off his pointing finger like miniscule darts, arrows of flame that pierced armor and flesh as though through thin parchment. Screaming, burning, they fell from their horses, writhing in agony. Raine’s fire burned them up from within, consuming them utterly.
Catch a Wolf Page 45
