Beauty's Beast

by Jenna Kernan

  Was he a Skinwalker raven then? But he wasn’t. She could tell from his scent, and he lacked the brown aura. So how then could he be born of a Skinwalker?

  She won’t be safe there. If you see a Toe Tagger, kill it before it kills you.

  She glanced about for any sign of the horrible monsters that her father said lived in this place.

  “She did not mention you.”

  And then it came to her. Bess was married to a Niyanoka. Was this Cesar’s son? A chill rippled through her. Soul Whisperers spoke to the dead. They were dangerous and avoided even by their own kind. Samantha took another step back.

  “My father sent me.”

  “His name?”

  She hesitated, not wanting to give a potential enemy any information that could help him. But if he was whom he said, he would learn this soon enough. Should she trust him? She didn’t trust easily and rarely outside the family. She had trusted Nôdi, the chief of the Dogrib fishing camp, and look what had happened as a result.

  Her upbringing had made her paranoid, but it had not given her the skills necessary to tell truth from lies. She wished she were a Truth Seeker. Those Niyanoka could always tell if someone was lying. Her entire life had been about lies and running and hiding. She was sick of it.

  Alon waited for her answer with a stillness that unnerved her. Samantha drew a deep breath, as if preparing to bungee jump from a bridge.

  “Sebastian. That’s his name.” Now she waited. First Alon’s eyebrows lifted to still greater heights and then his mouth tipped down as he nodded.

  “I can bring you to our home. But unfortunately my parents are not here.” He motioned to his right.

  “What? Wait. My father asked them to bring me to Bess.”

  “And she is not here. Only I am here.”

  “But...why...” Her words fell off.

  “As you said, the Thunderbirds don’t make mistakes. So it must be that you are meant to be here with me. Ill-conceived choice, I fear.”

  “Can you contact her?”

  “Not at present.”

  She didn’t know what to do now. She couldn’t go back.

  “I can offer you the hospitality of our home, but we best get there before dark.”

  That snapped her from her musing. Why before dark?

  Alon started off, and Samantha had to stretch her legs to keep pace while trying to keep from staring at him as he moved with such perfection. “So you are the firstborn of the first two Halfling races, a Seer of Souls and a great bear. Is that correct?”

  It was a detail Samantha never spoke of, a secret that could bring death to her family. Just the mention of the word Seer caused her to stumble. He caught her before she fell, swinging her ahead of him as he captured both her upper arms.

  Again that awareness tingled from the point of contact.

  This man knew her most dangerous secret, yet she knew nothing of him but his name.

  “I am the second born. My brother is first by several minutes,” she whispered. “They told you?”

  “My parents trust me. Where is your twin?”

  Again she equivocated. “He was sent to a friend of my father’s.”

  “Nicholas Chien or Tuff Jackson?”

  Samantha blinked in astonishment. She did not know what to say. Alon knew the name of her father’s three closest friends. Was the son of a friend also a friend?

  Chapter 3

  Samantha didn’t know what to do. She had never been on her own before and wouldn’t be now if not for her own willfulness. Because she had saved one human, her family were all running scattered to the four directions and at the mercy of strangers.

  She had to find Bess Suncatcher, and she was not certain that Alon was really the Skinwalker raven’s son.

  “If you are a bear like your father then can you also heal wounds?” asked Alon.

  Samantha hesitated and then inclined her chin. One corner of his mouth turned upward as if this pleased him.

  “I am also a twin.”

  “Identical?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I have a sister.”

  “Older or younger?”

  His mouth went grim and he did not answer, but instead turned away. “Follow me.”

  She didn’t, so he stopped and turned back, his face now somber and his eyes troubled.

  “Samantha, don’t be so frightened.”

  She straightened. “I’m not.”

  His eyes rolled skyward at the lie. “I can hear your heartbeat.”

  She glared but did not deny her disquiet again.

  “I will see you safely to our home. You have my word.”

  She believed him. But why did she believe him?

  “You are a Halfling?”

  He glanced back and then blew out a long breath. “Yes.”

  “What are your gifts?” she asked.

  His eyes shifted to the undergrowth and then flicked to the branches.

  “I do not consider them gifts.”

  She waited but he said no more. He cocked his head. She listened, scented the air and found no threat.

  “Best be off.” He set them in motion again.

  Samantha thought back to her mother’s teaching. Niyanoka could be born with any gift, not just the ones of their parents, and there were so many. Some were born with more than one. She strode beside him as she tried to recall them all. Clairvoyants, Truth Seekers, Dream Walkers, Memory Walkers, Peacemakers... And then she recalled something else. He had said she was born of the first two Halfling races. She stared at this man, heeded the warning that prickled over her skin and dropped back a few more steps.

  “Why did the Thunderbirds carry you?” he asked. “What threatened your life?”

  “Ghosts,” she said. “Ghosts and the enemy of my mother, the Spirit Nagi, Ruler of all Ghosts.”

  This time it was Alon who lost his footing. He drew up short and turned to scrutinize her.

  “Nagi?” he asked as if for confirmation.

  She nodded, studying his drawn face. He was right to look so concerned. The ruler of the Circle of Ghosts was a dangerous foe. Merely helping her placed him and his entire family at risk.

  “I understand if you do not want me near you, Alon.”

  “You are worried about my safety?” His voice rang with incredulity. He closed his eyes for a moment and braced his hand across his forehead as if suddenly struck with a terrible headache. “He is not near. That much I know.” He remained where he was, motionless, his head bowed as if in deep thought. “And there are no ghosts about.”

  She gaped. “How...how? Do you see them, too?”

  Only Seers and Skinwalker owls could see ghosts. And only Seers could send disembodied spirits to the Ghost Road, though her father said that an owl could sometimes trick a ghost into leaving a human host. Terrible possibilities emerged in her mind.

  “I can see them.” His hand dropped to his side. “And I can feel them on my skin.”

  Tingling fingers of terror danced like ice water down her spine. He could feel the presence of ghosts?

  “What are you?” she asked, unable to keep the panic from creeping into her voice.

  He did not answer, only jerked his head to scan the open meadow beyond the line of trees, catching the movement an instant before she did.

  Something flashed before them, diving into the open space. Samantha stifled a scream until she recognized the brown and white feathers of a swooping harrier hawk. This was no threat, at least, not to her.

  She crouched, still looking for ghosts. They appeared to her as wisps of smoke of various colors, usually at the periphery of her vision. The sunlight that streamed down on the grassy field made spotting them much more difficult than in the darkness and clear cold air of the north. It was another reason her father kept them so far north—so they could see the ghosts before the ghosts saw them.

  Before them, the sun streamed down on an open field. At the center of the meadow the snow had receded completely, and lush green shoo
ts sprang up amid the bowed yellow grass. The lush landscape reminded Samantha again of how far the Thunderbirds had carried her.

  It took only an instant for the raptor to snatch up a hare. The rabbit screamed pitifully as it was whisked without warning into the sky. But the hawk had managed to sink only one set of talons into the rabbit’s back, and so it kicked and writhed. The hawk flapped and flew in a crazy pattern as the struggle continued. Samantha and Alon watched in fascination.

  The hawk released the hare. The rodent fell against the trunk of a downed tree and then rolled beneath. The hawk shrieked and flapped, but it could not fly beneath the thick cover of broken branches to reach the wounded hare.

  “No dinner for him tonight,” said Alon, revealing that he had been rooting for the hawk, while Samantha favored the hare.

  She stepped out from cover, crossing quickly to the downed tree. The hawk knew her on sight, recognizing the superior predator, and quickly turned tail.

  Samantha reached between the cage of dead limbs and retrieved the dying rabbit.

  “Broke his back,” said Alon, considering the creature.

  Samantha carried the hare by the hind legs. Bleeding, torn and broken, it still waved its front paws in a pitiful effort to escape.

  “Do you like rabbit?” he asked, as if she planned to make a stew. But she had no appetite for this little creature.

  “It’s in pain. Help me find some stones,” she said.

  He cocked his head, obviously confused. “Stones?”

  She nodded, laying down the rabbit to search.

  “How big?”

  Despite their speed, by the time she had the healing circle ready, the rabbit was no longer breathing. Samantha chanted, hopeful to find the creature’s heart still beating, but when she had healed the rabbit’s wounds and repaired its spine, it was very definitely lifeless.

  “Damn it!” she cursed.

  “It looks good as new.”

  “It’s dead,” she said, pointing out the obvious.

  “And you don’t like rabbit stew?”

  She made a sound of disgust.

  “Its soul is gone,” he said.

  “Yes, I can see that. Thanks.”

  She met his aggravated stare with one of her own.

  “It’s just a rabbit,” he said.

  “And you’re just a man.”

  His mouth quirked at that. He rose. “Wait here. It didn’t go far.”

  What didn’t? she wondered.

  She watched him stride a few steps away and scoop down to snatch something that she could not see. When he turned, she saw why. There was nothing in his clenched fist.

  He returned to her and sank to his knees before the little corpse. Then he shoved his fist right inside the rabbit without making a mark. His hand now seemed as insubstantial as smoke. Samantha gave a little shriek of surprise and tumbled to her hindquarters. He opened his hand and withdrew it.

  “What in the name of...”

  But before she could finish, the rabbit sprang to its feet and darted to cover. She gaped at the place where it had vanished before turning her attention back to him.

  She pointed. “It was dead.”

  He nodded.

  “You brought it back to life.”

  “No, you did that. All I did was return its soul to its body. If you hadn’t fixed it, the soul would have just leaked out again.” He placed his hands on his muscular thighs. She stared at those hands, which now seemed as substantial as her own, but bigger, broader and more threatening. “I can remove souls the same way.”

  She swallowed back her rising panic. She knew of only one creature who could harvest souls. She rolled to the balls of her feet, now in a low crouch.

  “Just what the hell are you, Alon?”

  “Exactly what you’re thinking. I’m a Halfling but not like our parents. I am born of Nagi. A Naginoka, Samantha.”

  Samantha shot to her feet as if fired from a gun. A Toe Tagger! How could Alon be a Toe Tagger? Toe Taggers were ugly, hideous. She’d seen them attacking her father, seen their quills, gray skin, bulbous yellow eyes and their long, vicious fangs.

  Why would the Thunderbirds bring her to him?

  She stared at Alon. He was so attractive that his gaze brought her pulse racing even now.

  Samantha rose and backed awkwardly away, her fear making her joints stiff.

  He followed her slowly, hands open, extended—hands that could retrieve a soul or remove hers.

  “Samantha, stop.”

  She didn’t. Instead she did what her father had told her to do, what she had been doing her entire life. Samantha turned and ran.

  She plunged through the forest, dodging about the huge trunks of the sequoias, thrashing through the underbrush, tearing up the ferns in her wild flight.

  Nagi. He was the son of Nagi. The child of her enemy, the Spirit who had hunted her family throughout her entire life. A Toe Tagger, like the nightmare creatures she saw bearing down on them.

  Why would the Thunderbirds drop her like a live rabbit into the nest of a hungry hatchling eagle?

  She stifled a sob as she raced on.

  Her heart beat in her temples as she tried to pull the air past the fingers of dread closing her throat. She gulped, gasped, wept as she ran. She understood now why her mother had not wanted to send her to Bess Suncatcher. Why she had asked which one would go to the raven. She had known.

  Why had Alon said he was the son of Bess Suncatcher? He wasn’t, couldn’t be.

  The brush slashed across her legs as she fled. Still in human form, she ran with the speed of a bear, thirty miles an hour, charging through the woods, snapping branches the thickness of her wrist as if they were swizzle sticks.

  Was he still behind her?

  She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw nothing.

  How far had she come? Far enough for the adrenaline to ebb, deserting her now, turning her knees to water. The drum of her heart yielded to the buzz she recognized as dangerous. She’d run too far, too hard. Her body demanded rest. She could hear nothing but the unnatural hum in her ears brought on by a lack of oxygen to her brain. Samantha glanced about, slowing, gripping the tree trunk before her for support.

  Where was he now?

  Sweat soaked her clothing, trickled down her back and beaded upon her face. She used her sleeve to wipe her forehead, and she realized her fingers were tingling.

  But she’d escaped him.

  “Samantha?”

  She jumped, spun and faced him. He stood some four feet before her, in a grove of ferns that brushed his bare hips. From what she could see he was naked. His mouth now dipped down in an expression of disapproval. Why wasn’t he sweating? Where were his clothes? She must have sprinted six miles, and yet his breathing was normal. He had not a hair out of place, as if he’d just dropped from the sky. She glanced up.

  Had he?

  “Leave me alone.” She managed the words between gasps for breath.

  He stepped closer, leaving the ferns and giving her an eyeful. His skin was flawless, he was extremely well-endowed and his abs were as taut and defined as a male cover model’s.

  Samantha crouched. If she couldn’t escape, she’d attack. She swung at him with one arm, a blow that would have sent any ordinary man flying, but he absorbed it without even rocking on his feet. Instead, it was she who ricocheted backward, something that had never happened to her before.

  She turned and fled again, back the way she had come, the surge of adrenaline buoying her up, giving her energy. How had he caught her? Why hadn’t she heard him coming?

  This time she ran until she dropped, falling to her knees behind the cover of a downed tree. She waited, listening, but could hear nothing but the roar of her blood and that warning buzz in her ears. She wondered if she might faint.

  She crouched, trembling like the rabbit she had become. Gradually the sounds of the forest returned—bird song, the whine of insects, the wind in the treetops.

  She placed her ha
nds on the rough, damp bark and lifted her head like a prairie dog searching for her pursuer.

  He appeared a moment later, his hair looking mussed as he drew on a gray T-shirt and slipped into his long-sleeved dove-gray shirt. When he’d fastened the second-to-last button and tucked the shirt’s hem into his gray jeans, she noticed his feet were bare.

  He stared directly at her as if he knew where she hid. She was on her feet and running again before he spoke, but she heard him calling for her to stop. She’d die running first.

  The sudden weight of something striking her lower back hurdled her forward. His arms wrapped about her and they toppled together onto the loam of needles. He took the brunt of the fall but then rolled her so fast the world blurred for an instant.

  Samantha found herself lying on her back, staring up at Alon, who now straddled her hips. He’d hooked his lower legs across her shins, pinning them to the earth. He had already gained possession of her left wrist. She took a swing at him with her right, but he blocked the blow with disquieting ease, securing her other hand. He trapped her wrists above her head. His wide torso was now poised above hers, his breathing slow and steady, as she gasped for the air she lacked.

  She bucked and he shook his head in disapproval. Did he expect her to surrender just because she was beaten? She writhed in a vain effort to dislodge him. He tilted his head to study her, his expression confused.

  It took only another moment to recognize that she had found a man who was stronger than she. Her brother, Blake, could pin her on a good day, as could her father. But she had never met an outsider with the strength of a bear who was not a bear. Her body went cold and her stomach cramped at the realization. She was dead.

  She strained her arms, twisting, but his easy grip did not yield.

  “Stop. You’re hurting yourself.”

  Why didn’t he move to finish her?

  The dread ebbed against a groundswell of anger. This was not some game, at least not to her. Finally, she laid her head back, gritting her teeth against the fury of her defeat. Samantha went still, but her muscles remained taut, ready for any opportunity.

  He was a Halfling, but like none she’d ever known. Born of Nagi. Born of a living ghost.