Leoht (BloodRunes: Book 3) (17 page)

Layna nodded. “She thinks enough of herself
to assume she’ll get the better of us, she lives in a fantasy world
where she is all-powerful.” She paused for a moment and gauged
Gryffon’s mood. He seemed to be in fairly good one so she added,
“Luckily for me, she doesn’t realized what an amazing body-guard I
have.” She had meant it as a compliment, but his face hardened.
When he spoke she realized why.

“Having the Three inside your head certainly
does increase your talent.” He said in a monotone voice.

“I meant you,” she said softly and looked
away. He seemed determined to keep her at arm’s length. She just
wanted him to be happy. She had spent a fair amount of the silent
days fostering anger for him, but she had settled into a sad
resignation that he didn’t want to be with her, but she still loved
him and wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. If that meant
that he just wanted to save the world with her and then go back to
Lady Aria for his happily ever after, Layna wanted to enjoy what
time she had with him and after that she would wish him nothing but
the best.

A sharp crack suddenly filled her ears, and a
bright flash of light temporarily blinded her. She heard Gryffon
call out her name and she struggled to find the direction it was
coming from. Fly bucked her off his back and she hit the ground
hard, knocking the air out of her lungs. She immediately reached
for the power, and found that she couldn’t. Something cold bit at
her neck and she raised her hands to determine what it was. To her
horror, it felt exactly like one of the collars Katya had
explained, which would also account for her lack of talent at
present.

She blinked her eyes a few more times and her
sight slowly returned. A grinning man stood before her and Layna
gasped in recognition.

“Too bad you didn’t kill me when you had the
chance.”

*

Devon was busy examining the tracks in the
ground in front of them and Jezebel sat impatiently on her horse,
picking at her nails. “What is it already?” she snapped at him,
“Why are we stopped? I’d like to get this over with already so we
can get back to an inn by nightfall.”

He looked up at her and pursed his lips
together. “I think they may have backtracked here.”

“What?” she squawked at him.

“There are two sets of tracks here, the ones
we’ve been following and presumably the same party back the other
way. They must have hit something up ahead they didn’t like.”

Jezebel groaned and looked skywards, mouthing
‘why?’ She sighed and settled her gaze on his gaunt face. He wasn’t
looking very good. “Maybe it’s time to call it a night. We can
always kill her tomorrow after I’ve had a long bath and a good
night’s sleep in a nice feather bed.”

“Whatever you’d like, mistress,” since she’d
put the life-sucker on him he hadn’t once said her name. She
sort-of missed it, the way his tone always made it sound so
sensual...

The thought made her angry and she jerked on
the reins, forcing her horse’s head around so that they were
heading back down the same path they had just come from. She heard
Devon’s mount clomping along behind her.

They were so close to the little whore now,
she would have to make her decision soon about the method of her
demise. She had a few spells that she was contemplating using, or
perhaps a combination of all of them. But she doubted the little
slut would be strong enough to withstand even one, so she’d have to
choose wisely for the first one she threw at her pretty little
head. She growled deep in her throat at the thought of her pretty
head and Jezebel cursed Devon for the millionth at not properly
filling her in when her memory had been incomplete. If only she had
her complete agenda intact when the strumpet had been within her
grasp…she wouldn’t have left it to chance whether or not Aria used
the potion on her and certainly would have made sure that the task
went through to completion.

Devon hadn’t been able to find out anything
about the woman who had helped save her life and then apparently
traveled with Gryffon to cure her at the mouth. He seemed intrigued
with the woman, the fact that he had been unable to determine every
second of her life as he could with most people made his voice
tremble with excitement every time he spoke of her. It made Jezebel
sick. Men were so predictable. Thought with the wrong part of their
anatomy. She drained a tiny bit of his energy and was rewarded by a
slight moaning behind her. She felt a little better.

A sudden commotion sounded up the path from
them and Jezebel heard Gryffon calling out the name she so
abhorred. She spurred her horse in excitement. There they were!

She dug her heels into the side of the horse
and it pushed even harder, its sides heaving with effort. As they
rounded a corner, the scene of the clamor came into view. A strange
man was standing over her quarry and the whore had a strange
looking contraption around her neck which she was currently clawing
at with abandon.

Gryffon had been knocked off of his horse as
well by the looks of it, but was already on his feet and charging
towards the intruder with his sword drawn in one hand and his other
hand outstretched in a spell. Jezebel admired the sheer manliness
he exuded for a moment before charging into the scene. No one was
going to take away her pleasure of killing the girl.

The man looked up at all the people charging
towards him and he disappeared. With the girl. Jezebel yanked on
the reins and her horse skidded to a stop before Gryffon who was
rounding on her with eyes blazing.

“I was this close,” he held his fingers a
mere hair-length apart, “from stopping him you stupid bitch!”

Jezebel was surprised at how much his words
stung, and his menacing stance made her flinch. “What did
I
do?”

“He was feeling cocky and would have stayed
put just long enough for me to end him if you hadn’t shown up and
forced his hand to leave.” He marched up to her and grabbed her at
the waist, flinging her to the ground. He tore open the front of
her shirt and she gasped indignantly. She was caught between fear
and excitement.

“My my, Gryffon! If only I had known this was
how you liked it, we could have had so much fun.” She ran a finger
down his chest, but he caught her wrist roughly, a look of disgust
upon his face.

“Shut up,” he growled at her and unbuttoned
his own tunic, displaying her handiwork.

“Beautiful isn’t it?” she purred at him, “I
didn’t realize I was such an artist until recently. I’m sure you
must have felt the same connection that I have been feeling these
last few days?”

He ignored her and drew a knife from the
sheath at his boot.

“Ooooh,” she moaned, “What are you going to
do with that?”

“This,” Gryffon answered before plunging it
into her chest. She was hit by an intense burst of pain. She hadn’t
been expecting that. How dare he stab her! She looked down at the
hilt of the knife protruding from beneath her collarbone and held
her hands out above it in shock. Gryffon dipped his finger into the
river of blood that was seeping out from under the blade and anger
overtook her.

She laughed at him. “You think this is going
to stop me?” she screamed at him, pulling the knife roughly from
her flesh and ignoring the pain that spread over her, making stars
dance before her eyes and threatening to make her faint. “I’ll just
drain you until you are a pitiful little ball of jelly begging me
to let you live!” Blood welled up in the wound where it had
previously been stopped by the knife and she flung it back at him.
It hit him sideways and splattered him with blood - her blood - but
he was ignoring her. Ignoring
her
!

He raised his bloodstained finger to the rune
on his chest and his lips were moving as if chanting a - no…no, he
couldn’t know how to…she tried to drain the energy from him to heal
her wound, and found that the channel had been severed. His body
convulsed in pain and she had the fleeting hope that perhaps it
hadn’t worked after all. But he opened his eyes and looked up at
her…and smiled.

Then he bent down and retrieved the knife
from where it had fallen harmlessly to the ground when she had
hurled it at him. Fear surged through her, he wouldn’t actually
kill her would he? He advanced on her and she stepped back a
pace.

“You wouldn’t kill a woman, would you,
Gryffon?”

He stopped in front of her holding the knife
so tightly to her throat that she felt the tip of it prick her
skin. She grappled for the power, but between the fear, the pain,
and the shock, she couldn’t get a hold on it.

“You’re not a woman. You’re not even a
person.” He stared into her eyes for a long moment and Jezebel’s
heart beat hard in her chest, sending more blood pumping out of her
exposed wound. “But,” he said, wiping the blade on her already
ruined shirt, “I do have a real woman I need to save now thanks to
you. For your sake, she’d better be alive when I find her.
Otherwise I will have no other reason to live than to hunt you down
and make sure you’re dead.”

The pain in her chest overcame her, and
Jezebel sunk to the ground as soon as Gryffon released her from his
stare. She clutched at the wound, and the world around her went
black.

*

Gryffon tucked the knife back into his boot
and vaulted himself onto Axe, grabbing Fly’s reins as he passed.
The man’s transportation spell had been hastily constructed upon
Jezebel’s arrival and Gryffon had been able to track it to a spot
not far from here. When he was close, he dismounted and hung the
reins around a branch, moving silently through the trees. Years of
hunting allowed him to move without making more than a whisper, and
he knew that he was downwind of his target, so there was nothing
that should give him away.

He crept around a large boulder and peered
through a wall of vines on the other side. He caught a glimpse of
Layna, a large welt already appearing below her left eye. She was
bound at her hands and feet, with a collar firmly clamped around
her neck. He had to force himself not to surge forward to her
rescue right away and thanked his lucky stars she was still alive.
He had let his anger get the better of him when he’d stabbed
Jezebel, and though it had worked out well to rid himself of the
life-sucker, he never would have been able to forgive himself if
that extra minute had cost Layna her life. If only he had known how
to remove the rune earlier, he could have saved himself a lot of
headaches.

Layna’s captor was speaking to her. That was
a good sign, he wasn’t in a hurry to kill her now that he thought
he had her alone and vulnerable. Gryffon could take the time to
formulate his plan.

“Do you like your little necklace, my dear?”
he asked her, his voice gravelly. Layna didn’t answer and he
continued on. “It was designed with people like you in mind. You’re
the first we’ve gotten to try it on, however, since the King went
and broke the last model.”

“What do you mean, ‘people like me’,” Layna
asked him, her tone even and she looked defiantly up at him.

“The ones of the prophecy. You have a unique
parentage which gives you a special part to play. Unfortunately,
you are the one who will ruin all our plans. That means you have to
die.”

Layna looked out into the darkness and caught
Gryffon’s eye. He almost jumped backwards at the sudden look, he
hadn’t thought he was detectable. She looked away just as quickly,
but the gleam in her eyes seemed to reveal that she knew he was
there.

“So why am I not dead yet then?” she asked
the man brazenly, “You haven’t made any attempt to shield our
location and I don’t see anyone else here, so I assume your plan
was to dispose of me quickly and simply leave, so why the delay?”
Gryffon silently thanked her, she was giving him information he
needed to get her out of there.

“In such a rush to die, my dear?” The man
crouched down next to her and hit her hard in the face again. “It’s
not often that people survive my company. Since you did me the
favor of letting me go after our last encounter, I thought I’d
repay you with a little of my attention before we finish the deed.
That way you can die a happy woman.” He smiled evilly at her and
his hand caressed her face. She jerked her head away from his touch
and spit at the ground at his feet. He stood up and started
unbuckling his pants. “Well, you’ll die and I’ll be a happy man I
guess.”

Gryffon knew he couldn’t wait any longer,
though he did hesitate just long enough for the man to get his
pants down around his knees. Might as well use all the leverage he
could, if the man couldn’t walk, he’d have a harder time
fighting.

He burst from the trees with sword drawn and
was immediately blasted by a wall of hard air, flung from the man’s
hand. He hit a tree and scrabbled to regain his balance, pushing
forward again. This time he put up his own blockage and the two
shields met, sizzling with sparks in the air wherever they
touched.

Knowing he couldn’t count on Layna for
magical help with the collar on, he slid the knife in his boot free
once more and tossed it to her, his concentration on his shield
never wavering. He turned his full attention back to the assassin
not a moment too soon.

The man had gotten his pants back in place
and he was in the process of hurling a fireball around the side of
the shield. Gryffon readjusted his defense. That was an impressive
move. Usually the power could only be manipulated in a straight
line in offensive spells like that. Just who was this man?

He sent his own ball of fire towards his foe
and dropped his own shield. Knowing that the fireball would do
nothing but explode off the man’s wall of air, he instead took
advantage of the blast of light it would cause. He closed his eyes
and dropped to the ground, rolling with his sword extended towards
the man’s shins.