Hair of Gold: Just Right (Urban Fairytales Book 6) (14 page)

And that is pretty much how we wound up with the three mares we rode the following week, after a Wolf Moon. I almost wretched when we had to take the heads of the fallen wolves that attacked the town we had been passing through at that time. If werewolves had stayed in wolf form after death, it wouldn't have been so bad, but as they revert back to human, I felt a butcher as we did the grisly task.

I told my girl after we paid for the horses and some supplies with the blood money, “No more. I feel somehow more the monster I have become after doing that. We will find other ways to get our supplies in the future. The dead deserve dignity in death.”

I got silent agreement from the siblings, they looked as disturbed as I was about desecrating the dead.

We had covered five times the ground we could in a day on horseback than we could ever have hoped for on foot. My choice of horses has subjected me to endless ridicule from my beloved as well as my inexperience riding. Since I spent most of my life with my brothers and they couldn't get near horses, so I never had the need nor opportunity.

We found that I made horses nervous, but not as much as my bears had, unless I was emotional or upset, then they tried to get away from the predator in their midst. The only horse that wasn't skittish around me was an old nag. She was smaller and getting a little swaybacked, but still had a few good years left in her.

Gret often joked that she was so old she couldn't smell the bear on me. She always joked about my bear smell, but I caught her on many occasions, pulling my hair to her inhaling deeply as we shared my blankets. She liked my musk, and it made me smile, it made me feel less of a monster.

We heard rumors of the demon we stalked, that it was on the move again, terrorizing nearby villages near the coast. When we changed directions to intercept, Gretel started getting antsy and anxious. When we stopped to make camp just a day away from the coast, I asked in concern, “Are you alright love? You've seemed tense since we got news of the greater demon earlier.”

She had shrugged and took a seat next to me on the log I sat on while starting a fire in the ring of rocks I had arranged on the sandy loam of the thinning forest floor. She just laid her head on my shoulder, and I absently reached a hand up to stroke her silky hair. I smiled at how soft it was, unlike mine, which was starting to take on the coarseness of the outer coat of a bear, the inner layers soft as goose down. We ignored those changes, just like the thickening of my nails which were getting as strong as claws.

Hansel answered for her in a haunted voice, “Inima de Argint.”

I squinted at him as I tried to translate then looked down at Gretel who was just staring into the fire as I asked, “Heart of silver?”

Hansel nodded. “Yes, the Tower of the Sea. Rapunzel's home.” So Inima de Argint was a title then?

I froze and looked back down at Gretel. Rapunzel was her hero, she tried to do right by her with every decision, to do her proud even though she had disappeared. I believe that the choice she made as a changeling to be on the side of right, of good, was influenced by this Rapunzel woman.

I hugged her tightly to my side, and she exhaled and straightened a little to snuggle in tighter to me and give me a smile. She said with surety, “That's where the Scales are heading, I'm positive of that. Those bastards had to have something to do with her and Eve's disappearance. We'll most likely find the demon there if it hunts them.”

I nodded to her, and she shrugged and said as she gathered her wits and confidence back around her like a shroud of protection, “We head southwest on the morrow then. To Inima de Argint.”

I smiled at her and nodded once, affirming, “Da.”

Then Hansel said with mirth in his tone as he stepped up beside us, “Now that our destination is determined, let's prepare supper, I'm as hungry as a bear.”

I grinned at the man as I shoved him playfully with a little of my augmented strength for his barb. He oofed as he tripped over the log and fell flat on his back. Gretel pointed at him and said through her toothy grin, “You asked for that brother.” Then she turned to me and agreed with him, “I'm hungry as a bear too.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, then scrunched my nose and gave her a peck on the lips. Hansel pulled himself back up, dusting dirt off his britches as he complained, “Why does she get a kiss when she says it?”

I shrugged. “You're pretty Han, but she's prettier.”

She gave him a smug look as he grumbled, “I'm not pretty.”

We all chuckled and then I went to work making a soup and biscuits for us. I preferred to make the meals, I was so used to preparing food for others, and it calmed me. I think they knew this because they rarely stepped in to take the task from me or help out. I appreciated them giving that to me, it made me feel part of their family. The feeling of family was the most important thing to me since I had lost mine... twice. I would never lose my new family, never again.

I whispered to Gretel as she pulled away from me to start setting up the bedrolls, “I love you.”

Her eyes seemed to sparkle, and she gave me an almost shy smile as she tucked her hair behind her ear and said within a single heartbeat, “I love you too.”

I caught the scent of salt on the air, telling me we were close to the North Sea, and I paused when I also caught the scent of brimstone and sulfur off in the distance. Demons. I exhaled as I stirred the soup pot, knowing that my girl was right, and we were on the right track. And knowing that tomorrow was going to be a trial if the demon was as powerful as we thought.

The next day we didn't speak much as we broke camp. I loved waking up in the wilderness with Gretel curled into me to take in the heat of a bear which I generated. She had woke me with a kiss on my nose, then we spent ten minutes just staring into each other's eyes, our hot breath mingling until she kissed me with a red hot passion.

I giggled softly and blushed as she wiggled her eyebrows. I whispered, “Gret, your brother is right there.”

She just grinned then frowned when he mumbled, “And he is awake. Get a room you two. When is the honeymoon going to be over?”

I threw my bundled up cloak, which I had been using as a pillow, at the man and hit the back of his head with it. He always joked that Gret and I acted like an old married couple. I looked back into her deep brown eyes of my love and sighed. I wondered, could we wed?

As we rode silently, I kept glancing between the siblings, Gretel's anxiety was plain and Hansel's concern for her was just as easy for me to see. There was nothing to be done for it, so I did the only thing I could and rode at her side, lending my silent support.

By midday we could hear the surf crashing in the distance as we crested a rise to see a rocky shoreline. My nostrils flared, and my horse started side stepping nervously and snorting. Gretel's horse reared a little and moved away. She asked as she patted her horse's neck as she tried to calm it while her eyes scanned the horizon, “What is it, Kat? You're growling.”

I was? I blinked realizing a low thrumming growl was coming from my throat. I tightened my grip on my reins and calmed myself. I squinted sheepishly, “Sorry. It is a demon, I caught its scent on the wind. We are on the right track. You were right moya lyubov.”

I smiled at her blush at the endearment, then she inhaled deeply, I saw Hansel doing the same as he sat straighter in his saddle as the horses calmed as I let my bear nature fade into the background, waiting, stalking, patient, and preparing for a fight with another predator. I sighed at that thought, I was starting to view myself as bear now.

She scrunched her lips to the side and shrugged, “I smell nothing but the sea. We don't have that super sniffer of yours.”

I looked up imperiously, lifting my chin high, and cantered past them toward the rocky shoreline. This got snorts of amusement from the siblings. About half way down the hill we found a small rock overhang that gave us shelter from the vicious winds that were whipping up the hill, carrying sand with the violent gusts.

We prepared a midday meal and went over the stories of this demon we were on the trail of. By all accounts, it seemed more powerful than any we had encountered thus far. It had laid waste to an entire village who dared send a dozen men out to confront it. It left one woman alive to tell the tale. The traveler that told the tale said the woman had been driven half mad by the things the demon forced her to witness.

She told the traveler that just being near the beast made her feel as though she was losing her mind. The evil and corruption flowed off of it like heat from a fire, tainting everything it touched. I mused, “This creature sounds like it is kin to Styche the Trickster himself. I should take it head on and hold its attention while you two strike from a distance. If it looks as though he may best me, then you turn and run. Don't look back.”

Hansel spoke first since Gretel was narrowing her eyes at me and glaring. His voice was soft as he said, “We will not leave you to face the beast alone...” Then he added, “sister.”

I swallowed as I felt my eyes watering up. That was the first time he had called me that. It seemed to me like he was acknowledging the bond between Gretel and me, recognizing that we were mates. And that he approved of me, for his sister whom he protected with every fiber of his being.

I was knocked out of my thoughts by Gretel's fist slamming into my shoulder as she stepped past me to start making a ring of rocks for our campfire. I muttered, “Ow.” It didn't really hurt, but she had a lot of force behind it, and it would possibly have flattened me before I had the Kodiak Amulet. The years of fighting by my side had strengthened her and honed her abilities over the years.

She said, trying to keep her anger in her tone but failing, “Oh shut up woman. You'd know if I hurt you. Don't make asinine plans that include us leaving you behind again, or you'll feel the next strike.”

I blinked and grinned at the woman who was fighting one of her own, and I deadpanned, “I love you too.” This did get a smile that she hid away by turning her head from me and running her hands back through her wind-tangled hair.

Three heartbeats later Hansel said from where he was tending the horses, “Yeah, what she said.”

I snorted and covered my mouth with a hand as much out of embarrassment as to hide my silly grin which I knew would get me in hot water with my girl if she saw my amusement at them.

Then I sighed as I dropped my hand, knowing the feeling that was buzzing through me, keeping me warm... it was family. That singular feeling of serenity that one gets when they know that they belong and are surrounded by loved ones.

I leaned in when Gretel cupped my cheek in her hot hand, knocking me out of my musings. I smiled at her again aware of the cold spot on my cheek from our encounter with Isla all those years ago. She gave me a questioning look, cocking one eyebrow in prompt and I grabbed her by the waist and spun her around as I said, “It is nothing moya lyubov. Help me prepare lunch?”

She just nodded, eyes on me and we made some goat cheese sandwiches with some of our supplies. We baked the apples we had picked along the way from an abandoned farm as dessert. I mused out loud, “I wonder how much farther to Inima de Argint.”

She said as she ate a piece of baked apple from her dagger, “No more than an hour's ride north along the shoreline from this point. The path looped down below it just back there, it can be approached only from one direction.”

I cocked my head, she seemed intimately familiar with the area. I asked, “So you've been to the tower before? I hope we are not too late, not that something happening to the Scales would necessarily be a bad thing.”

She shook her head and said cutely, mimicking my accent, “Nyet.”

Hansel supplied as he bit into a second apple, unbaked, “Before we met you we traveled here when word of Rapunzel's disappearance reached us.” His tone turned sad. “When we reached the hills above the tower, Gret couldn't bring herself to investigate in case...” He trailed off then shrugged and supplied instead, “Then it would make it all true.”

I nodded in understanding. Nobody wanted to believe their heroes could fall. But I have lived it again and again and refused to see it happen once more.

I absently placed my hand on the metallic protrusion in the middle of my chest. A hand on mine brought my eyes to my girl's, and she gave me a sad understanding smile. I smiled back and took her hand. I exhaled and said, “Let us confront a demon then shall we?” She nodded and gave me a predatory grin.

We broke camp and started down a well-traveled path, fanning out into our hunting formation, with the siblings at my back. I could feel the hair prickling on my arms telling me they were holding their defensive magics at the ready as I used my enhanced hearing while my nostrils flared, taking stock of the unseen world around us.

I pulled my mare up short as we threaded between some boulders on a ridge above the sea as the smell of demon got more intense. I looked to one of the boulders to three long, ragged cuts in the stone. I sidled over to it and placed my hand on the slashes, spreading my fingers wide, then crooked three fingers. It was a claw-mark, and it stank of darkness and brimstone. My hand could barely span between two of the three claw marks.

I bunched my hand into a fist, my nails making a grinding sound on the stone, leaving little furrows in it, a small pantomime of the demon's mark. I looked to my companions and said over the intensifying, howling wind which was whipping through the gap between the stones, “Either he isn't afraid of being followed, or he is deliberately leaving a trail.”

Hansel offered, “Or both.”

I silently repeated to myself, “Or both.” It may be confident that it could take on anything the mortal world can throw at it, it was after all, stalking the Scales, who may or may not be immortal. And if something or someone were foolhardy enough to track it, it would most likely enjoy showing them the folly of their decision.

I nodded back and said as my nostrils flared again as I drew air over my tongue to taste it, “Da. He is close.”

I drew my blade and narrowed my eyes while Hansel unclipped his whip from his side and let it drape down the flank of his horse. My girl gave me a determined nod, and I led the way through the gap just to pause again in shock.

I blinked and muttered, “Klyanus' bogami.” I had never seen such a sight. There out in the rough waters maybe a hundred yards from the shore of a great cliff, a great tower, rose from the North Sea, white foam from the choppy waves assaulted its base in the wind storm.

It looked to be an immovable stone monolith with its crenelated ramparts, and great shuttered windows defying the elements. There was a rope suspension bridge slung across from a rock landing on the cliff by the shore, to the base of the stone tower. I could taste silver on the wind.

With my senses heightened I could hear Gretel murmur under her breath as she maneuvered her mount beside me, “Inima de Argint... Heart of Silver.”

I tore my eyes from the tower to see two figures approaching the landing near the rope bridge, leaning into the wind. I couldn't make them out clearly from our vantage point, but it had to be the scales. My eyes darted around the area, looking for any other movement, but the grasses and sparse trees that dotted the landscape below, between the rocks that littered the shore were all being whipped in the wind.

Then my attention was drawn to the cliff face itself, where there was an odd darkness and motion that went against the flow. I couldn't see it clearly, but I just knew that it was the demon we had been hunting, and the Scales were walking right to it, unaware.