“You are a tradable item.”
“Ian won’t trade himself for me,” she said flatly. “He knows better. You want us both dead, so why should he give you the satisfaction?”
“The leopard does not interest me. He can be dealt with later. He will die, as you will die, but at present your deaths have no value. What I want is the Lowe pride-lord.”
Sierra sucked in a breath as she finally understood. “That’s what you’re after. To get Kurt to accept your challenge.”
He smiled cruelly. “He believes in honor, does he not? He will not allow you to suffer on his behalf. A messenger has been sent to say that if he meets me in battle, I will release you.”
He wouldn’t release her. They all knew that. Even Kurt must know it. But Kurt would feel responsible for her and so he would come anyway.
“The Lowe has two days to reply. After that, for every day he delays, we will send him a piece of you. A few fingers first, then ears or nose or a breast. You must hope that he will come before you are missing too many parts.”
Pointless to hope. This man was incapable of mercy. She would be tortured to death whether Kurt came or not. All she could hope for was to anger him so much that his hand might slip and he would kill her outright. She opened her mouth to spit defiance at him, then felt as if a light, smothering, invisible palm had been placed firmly across her lips, preventing her from speaking. Behind Arrhan’s back, she saw the mage, Iseya, finish making a tiny, arcane gesture.
Arrhan seemed disappointed by her silence. He waited a moment for her to speak, then satisfied by her apparent submission, waved an indifferent hand.
“Take her away.”
Harath caught her uninjured arm and pulled her back toward the edge of the clearing. She gasped in pain as the movement jarred her broken forearm, then hearing herself, realized the gag had been lifted. But its warning had been enough and she was silent as Harath forced her through the crowd.
A familiar face crossed her dazed vision. She stopped for a moment to look at Kihain and Harath allowed it, grinning triumphantly. Kihain was laughing and joking with the men around him, part of the pack now, accepted. He saw her and fell silent abruptly.
“Does your Way condone this, Kihain?” she asked reproachfully.
The other Shifters brayed with laughter. Kihain just stared back with no expression at all, his eyes blank and cold. It was Harath who answered.
“He has learned at last that Arrhan is stronger than the Way.”
Sierra turned away, saddened. Kihain had finally chosen his path, his conscience no longer bothering him. He would be happier now, but she couldn’t help mourning the loss of the man he could have been.
“You grieve for him,” someone said. “Why?”
Sierra looked around in surprise and saw Iseya standing beside her. The mage’s eyes were remote and cool.
“I liked him,” Sierra said simply. “I’m sorry he has lost his Way.”
“It is a difficult road to follow and there are other imperatives.”
Belonging. Acceptance. She couldn’t really blame Kihain.
“It seems so.”
“Come,” said Iseya. She dismissed Harath with a gesture, then led the way to an edge of the clearing where a lumpy sack rested on the ground. “Sit.”
Sierra folded wearily onto her knees in the grass. She was weak with pain and glad to get off her feet.
“Your arm is hurting you,” Iseya remarked, sitting down beside her.
Of course it was hurting. It was broken. Sierra started to say something sarcastic to that effect, then remembered the way Iseya had kept her from speaking before. That spell had been a kindness on Iseya’s part, a warning that discretion was the better part of valor. And it reminded her that Iseya was as much to be feared as Arrhan, even with her magical abilities muted. Sierra closed her mouth and was silent. Then she caught her breath as Iseya reached out and touched her arm.
“My spells do not work in this world as well as they should,” said Iseya. “So this may cause some discomfort.”
That was an understatement. Sierra had to clench her teeth to keep from crying out as an agonizing burn spread out across her forearm from where Iseya’s fingers rested upon the break. For a moment the pain was as sharp as when the break had happened, then slowly it began to dull. After a while, the burning stopped and Iseya took her hand away.
“Move your arm now.”
Gingerly, Sierra did so. Her arm moved without pain. She looked down at it in surprise and saw that there was no sign of the break at all. When she ran her free hand over her forearm she could no longer feel the sharp ends of broken bone.
Iseya leaned forward and brushed her fingertips along Sierra’s jaw. Even that hot, aching throb slowly faded, then was gone.
“Thank you,” sighed Sierra with real gratitude, then looked at Iseya in puzzlement. “But why did you heal me?”
“You must remain in good condition until your usefulness is over.”
“I would be just as useful with a broken arm and in pain,” said Sierra wryly.
Iseya shrugged. “So you would. But pain is unnecessary.”
Sierra glanced to where Arrhan was talking to his lieutenants. “
He
would not say that.”
“No. However, I am a mage and I have my own rules of conduct.”
“He won’t like you defying him.”
“He has not told me not to heal you. Therefore I am not defying him.”
Sierra looked sideways at her, knowing that this was the defense Iseya would use if Arrhan noticed and became angry. One had to tread lightly and be ready to split hairs around a man of his kind.
“If he had ordered you not to heal me, would you have obeyed?”
Iseya’s gaze did not waver. “Yes.”
“Despite your own rules of conduct?”
“Yes.”
Sierra looked at that proud, remote face. Iseya’s actions were so contradictory that they were bewildering. Nothing about her made sense.
“Why? Why do you follow him?”
“He is my Lord.”
“But you are a mage. That means a great deal in your world, I was told. Those rules of conduct. You mages have your own version of the Way, don’t you? Why have you abandoned that?”
“As Kihain has found, honor is a lesser inducement,” Iseya said calmly.
“The Way fails easily when it comes to self-interest, it seems,” Sierra said bitterly. But Iseya remained impassive and did not react to her weary stab at mockery. “Kihain needs to belong. But that doesn’t apply to you.”
Iseya’s gaze went to Arrhan. “There are other imperatives.”
“I see.” From the way Iseya was looking at Arrhan, it suddenly became clear what Iseya’s imperatives were. “You’ve given up a lot for him.”
“I did what I must.” Iseya’s cool gaze came back to her. “And I will continue to do so.”
That was a warning. Iseya might have healed her just now, but she would not go against Arrhan’s wishes in any other way. She would not free Sierra and she would not oppose anything Arrhan chose to do to her.
“I am releasing the barrier that held you in this clearing,” she said now to Sierra. “It was only there to guard against your first panic and it is wearisome to maintain. Do not attempt to escape. Our people are everywhere in these woods and they will only bring you back. In what condition is debatable. It would amuse them to damage you and Arrhan cares not, since you need only to be breathing to be useful as a hostage. Intelligent cooperation from you is required if you wish to remain unharmed.”
Sierra let out a little breath. “What you’re saying is, be circumspect and live.”
“Precisely. There is human food in the sack. Enough for several days. Eat what you will. We can always get more. Beneath the sack is a fur that you can use for warmth. The nights are cold and we will not light fires that might be seen. The cold does not bother us since we only need to shift into lion to be comfortable. But humans cannot shift, so you will need it.”
“You are kind,” said Sierra dryly.
“No,” said Iseya, rising to her feet. “I am not. I am only practical.”
“I understand.”
“Good. That must be some comfort, understanding why things must be the way they are.”
She gave Sierra a crooked smile and walked away.
Things were the way they were because of Arrhan’s ambitions. Simple as that, she thought irritably. She looked into the sack. They must have raided some convenience store for the food collected there. They themselves could eat their kills raw while in lion form, but she would need her meat cooked and they refused to light a fire that might betray where they were. The contents of the sack were an odd assortment. There were chocolate bars and chips, but also some packages of beef jerky, several pop-top tins of spam, liverwurst and kippered herring, a couple of loaves of bread, and a bag of plastic utensils. She wouldn’t starve before Arrhan got around to killing her.
Interestingly, there was also a small packet consisting of a towel wrapped around a comb, toothbrush, toothpaste and a travel-sized bar of soap, all still in their blister packs. Iseya must have ordered these items be collected for her. Sierra couldn’t see Arrhan caring in the least for her comfort and none of his henchmen except perhaps Kihain would have spared a thought about it unless directly commanded.
Iseya was a difficult person to understand. Her sensitivity to Sierra’s needs jarred against her complete indifference to any atrocities Sierra might be subjected to. Sierra considered that, frowning.
For Iseya, nothing mattered except what Arrhan wanted. She was obsessed by him. As I am obsessed by Ian, thought Sierra. But there was a difference. However much she cared for Ian, she would not do for him what Iseya was doing for Arrhan. She would kill to protect Ian. She
had
killed that lioness. But she could not harm anyone who was completely helpless or did not threaten her or the people she cared about.
Unlike Iseya, it was beyond her to abandon her own beliefs and morality to subject herself completely to someone else’s will. Maybe that meant she didn’t really love Ian. Sierra bit her lip and thought that over. The question of ethics. “It is a difficult road to follow,” Iseya had said, speaking of the Way. What was the point at which love turned to obsession?
If Ian behaved like Arrhan, it would kill everything she felt for him. Was that a failure in her? But she could only act in the way that felt right to her. The way Iseya was acting felt wrong. Besides, Ian would never behave like Arrhan. The leopard side of him was violent and deadly and dangerous, was entirely capable of killing. But then, so was she. So was anyone when it came down to defending one’s life or the lives of the people one loved. Neither she nor Ian would kill except in defense of their own.
Ian was not and never would be the egotistical sociopath Arrhan was.
He would be searching for her now. But she didn’t want him to find her because that would mean his death. Even if he came with all the Wade County Shifters behind him, there would still be no chance of winning, as heavily outnumbered as they were.
The thought of him, though, was like a hand stretched out in support. “Like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” She rested gratefully against it, the way travelers in the desert must have rested thankfully in the shade of that rock. Just thinking about him, thinking about his protectiveness and love and care, gave her strength.
He did love her. He had tried to tell her so, but she hadn’t let him. She had been too fearful, guarding herself against hurt too fiercely to see that there was no need for fear, that he wasn’t the player she had thought he was, but a man of integrity who would never ever hurt her or let her down.
Oh, Ian
, she thought.
I’ve been such a coward! And now I’ll never be able to tell you and set things right.
Chapter Eleven
Arrhan had broken her arm.
It didn’t matter that the mage had healed it almost at once. For Sierra to have suffered even one second of pain was insupportable.
“Easy, Ian,” said Nick quietly beside him.
“Yes,” he said in a rigidly controlled voice.
He wanted to storm in there and get Sierra out right now. But that would only get them both killed. Going berserk at this point would accomplish nothing.
He had held himself on a tight rein ever since Gregor had come to the Lowes’ to tell him that both Sierra and Kihain were missing. It had been late in the afternoon by then because no one had suspected what had happened. They had all thought Sierra was somewhere about the house and Kihain in the barns. Kurt had torn strips off Gregor for leaving Sierra alone with Kihain, but Ian couldn’t blame Gregor. Kihain had behaved so well while he was with them that all of them had lost their original suspicions of him.
It wasn’t Gregor’s fault. It was his. His fault for trusting Kihain, for liking the boy and wanting to believe in him. His fault for having made Sierra vulnerable by going to her for help in the first place, for becoming involved with her at all. If he had stayed away from her, she would never have been caught up in this mess, would never have come to Arrhan’s notice, would be free from harm instead of threatened with death and mutilation. If only he had left her alone, she would be safe and working on her pottery in her own house right now, blissfully ignorant of Shifters and their war.
Guilt and rage were vultures tearing at his insides. He was terrified for her and his need to rip Arrhan into shreds for having dared to hurt her was overwhelming. But he would not give way to emotion.
This was not the time for emotion. This was the time for the leopard, for that cool, calm, cunning predator, always planning, always in control. Time enough for rage once Sierra was safe.
Arrhan’s messenger arrived to proclaim Arrhan’s ultimatum in a ringing, derisive voice, grinning insolently all the while. Kurt lost control and almost struck the man, but Ian caught his arm in time.
“He may be scum, but harm him and they’ll take it out on Sierra,” he said grimly in Kurt’s ear.
Kurt spun away in frustration. “Get him out of my sight before I forget he came under a flag of truce and nail his hide to my living room wall!”
The smirk on the messenger’s face turned vicious. “Two days, Lowe. Then we begin to send you pieces of your human pet.”
“Out!” roared Kurt, his fangs bared and his mane bristling.
The messenger cringed involuntarily—a conditioned response to an enraged pride-lord. Then he recovered himself, spat furiously on the floor and swept out.
“I’ll meet the challenge,” Kurt said harshly once the man had gone. “Today! And at the rendezvous point Arrhan has chosen. I should have agreed to the challenge back when he first issued it. If I had, this poor child wouldn’t be in danger.”
“Not today,” said Ian flatly from where he was spreading a topographic map on the table. “Tomorrow.”
Kurt turned to stare at him in disbelief. “What?”
“We planned for this contingency, didn’t we? Not for Arrhan taking Sierra, but for when we learned his location. Now we know where that is. But getting all our ducks in a row takes time.”
“We can’t leave her with them all night! God knows what they’ll put her through! You heard that scum. Arrhan can do plenty to her while still keeping her alive as a hostage. For God’s sake, Raeder! What kind of man are you?”
“Stop it, Kurt!” said Nick urgently.
Ian didn’t know what expression was on his face, but Kurt fell abruptly silent. Ian’s fingers suddenly hurt where his hand lay on the table. He glanced down blankly and saw that his claws had extended and had scored deep gouges into the polished wood. Very carefully, he detached his claws from the tabletop, retracted them and shook away the splinters.
“You go off half-cocked and you’ll get us all killed,” he said through stiff lips. “You go in there screaming ‘
Banzai
!’ and you’ll be dead and so will she and so will the rest of us. Right now they outnumber us four to one. We need manpower. Those prides you contacted said they would send help if you asked. So ask. Get on the horn and call in every damn favor you’ve got coming.”
“Okay,” said Kurt in a surprisingly subdued voice.
“Even moving at their fastest, they won’t be able to get here until tomorrow. Any kind of mobilization takes time. Once they arrive, Abel will help you coordinate the troops the way we originally planned.”
“Right,” said Abel and stepped to Kurt’s side.
Ian shoved the map across the table. “There’s the plan. Don’t deviate from it.”
“It’ll be the way you want it,” muttered Kurt. “Where are you going?”
“My place. I’ve got my own calls to make.” He picked up a duplicate map, folded it and shoved it into his pocket. “It’s not about just the Lowe pride, Kurt. If he takes that, he’ll go on to take others. That can’t be allowed to happen.”
He looked up at Kurt. The pride-lord flinched.
“So we do this right. We do it by the numbers. And we don’t fuck up.”
He waited a moment to make sure they all got the message, then headed for his car fast. Nick came with him.
“The eyes, Ian,” said Nick mildly as they climbed in.
“What?”
“Your eyes have gone leopard. You don’t want your hands noticing that.”
He suddenly realized he was seeing things in tunnel vision. No wonder Kurt had been so unnerved. It was the narrow focus of an enraged predator in the killing zone, only a hair’s breadth away from blood and death.
He was that close to going berserk. It was driving him insane, the thought of what Sierra might be suffering and his inability to rescue her, shield her from that.
“What kind of man are you?” Kurt had asked. But he could not afford that killing rage right now, couldn’t afford to think of Sierra out there all alone in the darkness that was falling—frightened, vulnerable, no match as a human for the Shifters who had her. He had to stay frosty, had to stay in control and stop thinking of the danger threatening her. Otherwise he would be useless when it came time to act. That time was not now.
With an effort he forced his vision to go back to normal. “Better?”
Nick glanced at him, then nodded. “Human now. You could maybe also ease off on the accelerator a notch. You’re well over the speed limit. Abel might be back with Kurt, but he’s not the only cop around.”
There was still so much to get done and so little time in which to do it. But he did slow down a bit.
The house was dark when they got to it. Annie had left early and the hands were at the bunkhouse. Just as they got to the front door, something moved in the bushes next to it.
The scent was what got to him first. He knew who it was before his consciousness took it in fully. He reached Kihain in one snarling leap and slammed him against the side of the house.
“No, wait!” gasped Kihain as Ian’s hand clenched on his throat. “I can show you where she is!”
He almost ripped the boy’s gullet out. His claws were fully extended and he could smell the blood where their points dug into Kihain’s flesh. Nick was standing still, making no move to interfere. He could kill the boy and Nick would not stop him.
It was Kihain’s lack of resistance that broke him out of that red haze of murderous fury. He could not kill an unresisting enemy, even when it was fully justified.
He flung Kihain away from him. “We know where she is.”
“You do not.” Kihain staggered up from where he had fallen and leaned against the side of the house, rubbing his bruised throat. “She is not at the meet-point they told you of.”
“We know that. She’s in a clearing at the north end of Perdur. We know exactly where she is.”
He shoved open the front door and headed for his office. Kihain stumbled after him.
“How…?”
“We tracked you,” said Nick, following behind them.
“But I was careful to leave no tracks and there is no scent trail!”
“Ian had Gregor put a homing device in the heel of your boot the day after you came to us.” Nick smirked. “You have magic, we have technology. You led us right to Arrhan.”
“Then why have you not gone to get her back?” Kihain yelled at them.
“Why are you here?” Ian asked harshly, ignoring that.
“I came to show you where she was. To take you to her.”
“To lead us into an ambush, you mean.”
“No! No! I swear it! Ian, you must come! They will hurt her! They have already hurt her!”
“I know. Arrhan broke her arm. Nick and Gregor saw.”
Kihain looked away, unable to meet his gaze. “Iseya…Iseya healed her. But Iseya will not continue to do so if Arrhan orders otherwise. I overheard her telling Sierra so. Arrhan… Do you not know what he will do to her?”
“Didn’t you when you took her?”
“I gave my word,” said Kihain in a very low voice. “Before I came to you, I gave my word to bring her to him. I could not…I could not break it. And they swore they would not hurt her. They said that merely her presence as Arrhan’s captive would be enough to force the Lowe pride-lord to meet the challenge. But then Arrhan…” He swallowed hard. “I could not believe that anyone would harm so defenseless a being! Now no one holds my oath. What they threaten to do to her cannot be allowed. Ian, you must help her! Otherwise they
will
do it! They will!”
“Tonight?”
“Not tonight. I heard Iseya speaking to Harath. In two days, if the Lowe pride-lord does not come. In two days they will begin to hurt her, and she is helpless and unable to prevent it.”
“Whose side are you on, kid?” growled Nick. “Do you even know?”
“Hers,” said Kihain. His eyes were burning with intensity. “Hers!”
“Come here,” said Ian. He took the folded map out of his pocket and spread it out on his desk. “Do you understand maps?”
Kihain looked down at it. It was another topographic map focusing on the clearing and the area surrounding it.
“It is a picture of the land. It is very detailed,” said Kihain, startled into admiration. “Is this your technology?”
“It’s Nick’s technology,” said Ian dryly and Nick grinned. “He’s very good with things like that as long as he’s got binoculars and a computer with the right program at home to help him.”
Kihain frowned. “I do not understand.”
“It doesn’t matter. Do they have pickets, uh, sentries, guards, outliers?”
“All. And in constant motion.”
Ian handed him a pen. “Show me.”
He and Nick watched Kihain mark the positions on the map, then exchanged glances over the top of his head. Kihain’s markings corresponded with and enlarged upon the data that Nick’s observations of the area had already revealed.
“Straight goods,” said Nick.
“All right,” said Ian. “We’ll take one more chance on you, boy.”
Kihain looked up hopefully. “You will come then?”
“We’ll come, but in our own time.”
“I can take you to her, right through the outliers. They will not see us.”
“They’ll have a watch on her. One shout and we’re all dead. Then what will they do to her in retaliation? No, we play this my way.”
“I will do whatever you say.”
“You’ll go back tonight. You’ll keep an eye on her until we come. You said they wouldn’t harm her for two days, but there are all sorts of ways to harm without reducing her usefulness to Arrhan. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” whispered Kihain miserably.
“So if they try to hurt her in any way, you will stop it. Or die trying.”
“I swear it,” said Kihain intensely. “On my honor and my life. Which is forfeit to you for what I have done.”
“It is,” said Ian in a flat, hard voice. “Remember that, because I
will
claim it if I survive when all this is over.”
“If I too survive, I will turn myself over to your justice. My oath upon that, pride-lord.”
“Go.”
Kihain went.
“Will he keep his word?” Nick asked wryly. “Or will he turn his coat one more time? All this spinning around like a top is making me dizzy.”
“Guess we’ll find out,” said Ian tonelessly and reached for the phone.
* * * * *
Sierra hoped the night would be uneventful. Retreating to the edge of the clearing, she wedged herself between two huge roots of a massive oak. With its wide trunk at her back and the roots protecting her flanks, the only avenue of attack left open was directly in front of her. Of course, that wouldn’t be any protection at all if a Shifter really wanted to attack her, but at least it gave her some illusion of safety.
She didn’t sleep well. There was constant movement in the clearing as Shifters came and went, and she kept having the uneasy sense of being watched, which she probably was since they wouldn’t have left her unguarded. But no one approached her, for which she was profoundly thankful since gang rape would not have been considered damage by Arrhan, only an amusing diversion for his followers. Iseya must have given orders that she was to be left alone. Only a word from Arrhan would have countermanded that, but he seemed to have forgotten she existed, the way one would forget a gnat once it stopped buzzing in one’s ear.