Wyvern's Lair (Desert Cursed Series Book 5)

by Shannon Mayer

  Was that the answer to this riddle of bringing Maks back to me?

  “Don’t take this like you mean anything to me other than—”

  “A potential fuck buddy?” I had my face against his chest. “Of course not.”

  He grunted and I was the one who pulled away, looking up into his face. “You’ve never fallen for anyone, have you?”

  Marsum frowned and looked away. “Why would I do that? You can be manipulated if you let your emotions take over. Look at you, fighting for a horse. Look at Maks, doing exactly what I want him to do. Just to protect you.”

  “You wanted him to cut your head off?”

  He shrugged. “It was bound to happen eventually. Better that it be him and not one of the other Jinn with less power and less connections to power.”

  His hands slid from me, but we stood there, close enough that I wanted to touch him again. Crap, Lila was right; this was bad. Because I couldn’t see Marsum when I looked at him. I saw Maks.

  Confusion rocketed through me, and then a moment of clarity. He wasn’t wrong about emotions allowing you to manipulate someone. But could I do it to him?

  He’d killed my family; he’d wiped out the lions. Could I use emotions against him? Damn it, I was willing to try.

  I shook my head and took a step back. “You’re right. This is a bad idea.”

  “What is?”

  “Feeling anything for you.” I turned my back on him but not before I saw the shock in his eyes. Was it him or Maks, though?

  I sat by the fire and flipped a few bits of grass into it, making the flames crackle. “We need to sleep in shifts, to keep me awake. I can’t fall into the dreamscape again.”

  The pad of big flat feet on the stone turned us both to see Maggi riding in on that damn camel of hers. She lifted her hand. “They are driving us. I’m sure of it. They could have had me twice, but they backed off as soon as I took the direction they wanted.”

  “Not good,” I muttered.

  Maggi slid from the camel with a grimace. “I believe we are safe here for the night.”

  Easy for her to say. I shared a look with Marsum, and he shook his head. I didn’t like that I agreed with him to keep my last encounter with Ishtar to ourselves. I’d tell Lila, but, of course, she was still sound asleep. I reached over and pulled her into my lap, still wrapped in my cloak.

  Marsum sat beside me. “You can sleep. I’ll wake you if you slip into the dreamscape.”

  “How exactly are you going to do that?” I asked. He grabbed me and pulled me down beside him so he was spooning me on the ground. The fire in front and his body behind.

  “I’ll feel you twitch and dance. The dreamscape scares you.”

  “Good idea,” Maggi said. “The cuffs should connect you enough that even if you felt nothing for her, you will feel her fear as well.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered as he settled himself behind me. Protecting me.

  Marsum was protecting me.

  And I was going to let him.

  15

  The next two days were the same as we rode to the east, farther east than I wanted. There was no choice, though, unless we wanted to stop and have a chat with the ophidians and see if they would mind not driving us. Every time we moved off the hard, flat rock to the softer sand, they appeared within minutes.

  Four days, we had four days until the golden moons rose. Just thinking about that time frame made me sweat. Could we make it?

  Every step we took, I tried to figure out if what we were doing—where we were going—was right. The Wyvern’s Lair was close, and while I knew we’d have to go there at some point, I didn’t want it to be now.

  But the Emperor’s words from the dreamscape stuck with me. He never once said he would bring Bryce back to life, but free him. The Oracle had said that the Wyvern was part of the answer to bringing Bryce back.

  Then there was Ishtar. What would she have told me to do? What was she going to burn away in me, and would it have worked if Marsum hadn’t woken me? My nights were restless, with Marsum waking me at least three times each night as I slipped into the dreamscape world. Or was pulled there. That was more likely. Even without those dreams, the rest of my sleep was broken with nightmares I couldn’t escape.

  Because awake, one of the worst was right in front of me. Marsum holding onto Maks’s body, not letting him go. I didn’t like how easily he’d slipped into our lives and taken a spot that was not his. Even though I knew it would help me if I led him on, even though I’d started down that path, I didn’t like it.

  Of course, the thing that was forefront on my mind was a bit more personal than even all that.

  I put a hand to my chest and grimaced. A pang wrapped its way around my heart that had nothing to do with emotions and everything to do with the fucking stone I’d exploded against my chest. I needed to get this shit out of me, like digging out a splinter that had driven deep into the muscle. I didn’t feel it all the time, but I knew it was there, knew it needed to come out before it turned septic.

  “Hurting?” Lila flew around my head like an oversized bug.

  “A little.” I nodded ahead at Marsum who rode just to the side of us. He had his hand on his chest too, feeling the pain as it rippled through our bond.

  Lila dropped to the saddle. “I still don’t like that he’s holding you at night. I could wake you.”

  I laughed. “You sleep too deep, farting and snoring away.”

  Her eyes bugged open. “I do neither of those things!”

  “You do,” Marsum called over his shoulder.

  Maggi nodded from her camel—Demon she named him after he spat at her—“You do.”

  Lila hunched.

  I touched her on the head. “We still love you. Words are easy: like the wind. Faithful friends are hard to find.”

  She blinked up at me, a wicked gleam in those gemstone eyes. “The Passionate Pilgrim and don’t distract me. You talk in your sleep.”

  “You do,” Marsum said once more over his shoulder and again Maggi nodded.

  I shrugged. “Nobody is perfect.”

  Laughter from the other two, and I thought about how weird it was to be on this trip with two people who’d previously been mortal enemies of mine. What did that say about my friends that I’d replaced them with the Ice Witch and a Jinn master?

  I snorted to myself. A question that was stupid seeing as I hadn’t asked either of them to come along for this ride.

  “A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities.” I took the quotes down that same line, my mind caught up with what a friend was. What happened when an enemy became a friend? Or at least, not an enemy any longer?

  Lila squinted up at me. I raised my eyebrows and a slow grin slid across my face. “Did I finally stump you?”

  “No.” But she closed her eyes and tapped her claws on the pommel of the saddle in a steady beat that sounded irritated. “Give me a moment.”

  Marsum dropped back beside us, arched one brow and shook his head. “Julius Caesar.”

  “Damn it, Toad. I was going to get it!” She launched across at him and landed on his shoulder to smack him in the head. He pushed her away, and she barrel rolled around our heads. He turned to look at me, his eyes way too soft to be Marsum.

  “Hey.” I smiled back. Thinking it was Maks.

  It was not.

  He shook his head and urged Batman to hurry forward.

  “Well, shit,” I muttered.

  Lila flew back to me. “I thought it was Maks too.”

  This was where things were getting sticky between my heart and my head. Marsum was becoming a blend of Maks and the others, making it hard to see where one started and the other took off. What happened when . . .

  An idea hit the front of my brain, a horrible, terrible possibility that I hadn’t considered until that moment and it stole my breath in one fell swoop. Trying not to panic, I urged Balder into a trot, moving to the side of Maggi and Demon. The camel gave us a serious stink eye as it chewed its c
ud.

  “Don’t you fucking dare.” I pointed at his droopy face and he turned his head away from me, nose in the air.

  “You have something you want to say?” Maggi looked down at me.

  Like a bandage, I needed to just rip this question out of me before I was too afraid to ask, before the fear choked me. “Is there a time limit on splitting Maks away from the other Jinn masters?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  I tried to get the words straightened out in my head before I spoke again. “He seems to be more and more a blend . . . like he’s not always Marsum. He’s a mix of Marsum and Maks.” Oh shit, what if that was what was happening? How did you split them all apart? I mean, I knew that I was going to try, but what if there was a time limit on it? At least I had a direction where I could go to bring Bryce back. I didn’t even have a hint of where to start with Maks.

  Maggi looked to her other side, I assumed at where Marsum rode. “Why wouldn’t they become a blend? That is what they do. They assimilate the personality of the new host body, the dominant personality owning the others.”

  “But Marsum was Marsum, not your Davin, by what you’ve said. You said Davin was a decent guy, that he wasn’t an ass like Marsum,” I said.

  “Marsum is a very strong personality. And it was his body. The host body is always stronger. Or should be.” She squinted into the direction we were headed. “Do you see that?”

  I didn’t look at what she was looking at because I was too busy trying to get my head wrapped around what she was saying. Maks was strong. I knew he was. So why wasn’t it working this way? Or was I missing something? Only one way to find out.

  With pressure from my legs, I spun Balder and sent him toward Marsum and Batman, trotting alongside them. “I need you to answer a question.”

  “Do you see that?” He tipped his head toward the horizon.

  “Are you assimilating Maks?” I asked and he slowly turned his head to me.

  “What?”

  “Answer me. You have to. Are you assimilating Maks? Is that why you are softening toward me? Is that why you’re falling in love with me because you are getting his emotions?” The questions poured out of me, and with each one, I could see his face tighten further as if he wanted to not answer me, as if he wanted to tell me to fuck off. But, of course, he couldn’t. Those were the rules of the cuffs that bound us together. But maybe, also, I was hitting too close to the mark.

  His jaw flexed and tensed. I could see him prepping an answer.

  Before he could speak, an arrow landed between us, twanging hard into the ground, and actually sticking to the hard rock. No, not sticking, driving into it. The ground hissed and bubbled as the arrow burrowed in farther, actually wriggling. Not unlike the catch nets that Maggi’s goblins had used.

  “Maybe we can discuss this when we aren’t under attack,” he snapped.

  I steeled myself. “Nope, I want my answer now. There will always be something in the way.”

  Lila squeaked and clutched at the front of my shirt. “Zam, Zam, I think you need to look at what’s coming this way. Like, right now.”

  I finally looked and kind of wished I could have just kept my eyes locked on Marsum.

  Directly ahead of us was a writhing mass of creatures I didn’t at first recognize. To be fair, my first thought was gorc. But they were too light of body, too lean, and their bodies were covered from head to foot in a sand-colored cloth that floated in the wind. I’d heard tales of these things, but never seen them. They moved like the wind, and killed those who crossed their paths, but not before they sucked their souls out. They were known for being in the southernly regions of the desert. I’d just hoped we’d dodge them.

  Just what we needed. I kept my eyes on the group of sand wraiths. They didn’t have mounts; they just kind of floated on the sand, dust swirling up around them. The stories of people who’d encountered them often said they thought it was just a windstorm they were dealing with, at least, until they were attacked. Again, all stories and rumors said the likelihood of surviving something like this was not good.

  “What are they?” Maggi asked.

  “Sand wraiths,” Marsum growled. “They are second only to the Jinn in power and are fiercely territorial.”

  “Like every other supernatural creature, you mean?” Lila offered as another arrow snaked toward us in the air, landing with a thunk just ahead of us. They weren’t attacking, not yet.

  These were warning shots.

  “Worse than dragons, and that is not friendly fire.” Marsum looked around us.

  “They are directly in our path,” Maggi said. “If we let them push us, we will be back into the soft sand of the ophidians’ turf.”

  “And we probably can’t just run down between them? They look like floating bedsheets.” Lila sounded hopeful and doubtful at the same time. I knew how she felt.

  “No,” Marsum said. “Now that we are in their sights, we will have difficulty throwing them. But they aren’t attacking, so we have that much in our favor.”

  That’s what he thought. Already I could feel the oncoming fight, like smelling rain in the wind, knowing it was there just waiting to fall the second you hung your clothes out to dry on the line.

  A chorus of war cries lit up the air. Lila’s scales shivered and shimmered as she lifted into the air. “That can’t be good.”

  “Those weren’t warning shots, those were ‘get the fucking trespassers’ shots,” I said. “Now answer my question, Marsum!”

  He let out a snarl. “No!”

  Damn him. If he wanted it to be hard, then we’d do hard.

  “You wanna play dirty then?” I reached for my flail and pulled it from my back. “I’m tired of running, tired of being pushed in this direction and that, tired of the games.” I put my heels to Balder and he shot forward, leaning into the oncoming wind. As if he’d never been bit, as if he’d never walked the line with death.

  Lila raced along with me. “We really doing this?”

  “What choice is there? I’ll offer them an out first.” At least, that was what I hoped to do. I spun the flail at my side, almost lazily. The weapon was so light, I could make using it look exceptionally easy.

  I slowed Balder and raised my hand. “We want only to pass through. We are not here to fight.”

  Three arrows shot toward us, wicked fast, and it was only a combination of Lila’s speed and Balder’s quick response to my aids that we avoided them. Another round of war cries lit up the air.

  Just fucking awesome. “Guess that answers that.”

  I dug into the saddlebag for the sapphire and tossed it up to Lila. She took it, but there was a grimace on her face as though it pained her. “You got this.”

  “I know. I just hate how it makes me feel.” She slipped the harness on and I had no more time to watch her.

  The wind around us picked up speed, the bits of sand smacking into us and blurring our vision.

  “We gotta end this fast!” I yelled up to Lila.

  She bobbed her head and was gone in a streak of blue and silver. I urged Balder forward. Running would do no good here, they were out for blood.

  Or souls.

  Souls.

  They ate souls.

  Marsum was a soul. All the Jinn masters were.

  “WAIT!” I screamed the word at Lila and she stopped in midair, nearly taking an arrow. Marsum had wanted to run by them, wanted to get away as fast as possible and even now . . . I turned in my saddle to see him sitting far behind us, Batman dancing underneath him, wanting to be with us.

  He shook his head. Did I dare?

  “What if we offered you a soul to pass by?” I yelled at the sand wraiths. “Payment for passing?”

  The wind slowed and the sand wraiths glided closer to me, no arrows flying, no sand spitting. Balder pawed at the ground. I didn’t let go of the flail. “We need to pass. What if we give you a soul?”

  They moved together as if they were one creature instead of the
many that were obviously there. The voice that spoke for them rasped through the air, like sand scratching against rock.

  “You would give over a soul for passage?”

  “If we fight, I’ll kill at least some of you,” I held the flail up, “with this. You know it’s true. And there is a Jinn master behind me waiting to take you down if you harm me. Sure, we’d probably die too, but this way, we all win.”

  They flowed in and out of each other as if they weren’t quite solid. I wondered where they’d been created and then I realized it could have been Ishtar before her powers had been stolen from her.

  Not that it mattered. We had to face them.

  “Whose soul would you offer?”

  “What about a Jinn master?” I knew I was taking a chance, but this was too good of a chance to pass up. Creatures that ate souls? Maks had too many souls that weren’t his own in him.

  Oh, gods, if only I’d known the trouble I was about to cause myself, I would have swung the flail and fought our way through the wraiths. I would have taken the chance of dying.

  16

  “Lila, bring Maggi and Marsum close. Tell them we have to make a payment, but we can pass by the sand wraiths,” I said. “Do not tell them what the payment is.”

  “Do you really think he’ll fall for it?” Lila’s eyebrows dipped low. “I mean, he’s not stupid.”

  I grimaced. “It’s a chance to get Maks back. If we eliminate some, or maybe all of the other souls, don’t you think?”

  She nodded. “It is. To get Toad back, it is worth the chance.”

  With that, she flew toward the other two, and I was left alone to stand with the sand wraiths. I should have been afraid of them, but curiously, I found myself more intrigued. “Who made you?”

  “The one who creates all life.”