Authors: Madelyn Porter
Realization came slowly.
First it was the drip, drip, drip of water on stone. Next, the hard ground
littered with pebbles that seemed to find each and every nerve ending along the
backs of her thighs and ass. Then, the cold—not so bitter as to be unbearable,
but chilly enough to be uncomfortable. Finally, the smell. She coughed, her
lungs automatically trying to expel the scent from her body. The rank odor of
decay and death filled her mouth as she gasped for air, leaving it with a bad
taste.
Rachel blinked again,
trying to clear the fog clouding her mind. But it wasn’t her shut lids that
kept her from seeing. Her prison was as black as a grave. By the smell, she
assumed the assessment wasn’t that far off. From a solitary life in America to
being held prisoner in an English cemetery.
“What the hell am I doing?”
She forced her brain to concentrate as she steeled her nerves. “Now is not the
time to dwell. I am here and I need to find a way out.”
By sheer willpower she
managed to push off the ground, awkwardly rolling from her back to rest first
on her elbows, then finally up on her hands. She tried to pierce the darkness,
but could only make out the faint outline of shapes, giant blocks and curves,
walls and ceilings.
“Find a way out,” she
repeated, this time like a command. Raising her hand over her head, she stood,
reaching towards the ceiling. When her head didn’t hit anything, she reached to
the side, sweeping her fingers back and forth as she inched first one way, then
another. “Find a way out, Rachel. She put you in, you can get out.”
Three days.
Douglas felt like he hadn’t
been able to breathe for three very long days. That’s how long it had been
since he’d found out Rachel and William were missing, since he’d smelled her
blood on the ground. Blood. Not a lot of it, but blood nonetheless. Logic told
him that she’d heal from such a wound, but what if they injured her more? There
was no ransom, not even for Chief William. If they didn’t want money, then…
The traitors had already
tried to kill them.
Douglas growled, grabbing
his head. He ran his fingers into his hair, pulling hard. His body yearned for
sleep, but his mind wouldn’t shut off. How could it? She was out there. Every
part of him wanted her, yearned to hold her close. He never thought he’d feel
so much for a woman. Other shifters had the luxury of a single mate, but his
lot was different. He always thought there would be a part of him that would be
held back from women, a part that wouldn’t connect, a part that would be able
to let go.
Unlike humans, his kind
didn’t need months or years to know they were in love. They trusted themselves
more, trusted their instincts, and every instinct inside him was telling him to
grab his woman and lock her away from the big, bad world. Only he couldn’t find
his woman.
“Chief Douglas.” The
purring sound of Lisbetha’s voice came from behind. The woman had a grace to
her actions and a softness to her words. Douglas frowned. It was an irritating
grace and softness, so persistently nice and calm, always lurking a few steps
behind him. “Magda sent me to find you. She’s worried that you haven’t eaten
since you’ve come back to the manor this afternoon.”
“I doubt she’s worried,”
Douglas said under his breath.
“Very well. Then I’m
worried.” Lisbetha touched his arm. “People are beginning to wonder at your
mood.”
Douglas frowned. His moods were
no concern of hers, and it was presumptuous of her to even mention it. He
glanced at where she touched him, intent on telling her as much, but her wide
eyes found his and he hesitated. The clear depths looked so sweet, so earnest,
he couldn’t yell at her. Instead, he shrugged off her touch under the pretense
of turning. “I am going to search the forest again with my men.”
“But,” Lisbetha said softly
behind him. He ignored her. She yelled, “But you’ve been out there every day
for the last four days! Stay inside. Let me tend to you. Nothing can be done
right now.”
Douglas stopped. Four days?
He looked at his hand, ticking off the days on his fingers. She was right. Four
days, not three.
Lisbetha’s footsteps crept
up behind him. He walked faster, leaving her to stare after him.
Four days.
“Almost time, chief,” St.
Joan whispered, smiling at the man tied before her.
William growled, half
drugged by powerful sedatives. Tiny trails of blood lined his naked body, but
the wounds beneath them had healed. They were meant to torture, to keep his
body weak. The drugs kept him lucid enough to understand, but dazed enough not
to fight back too hard. His shoulder hurt from where he hung off the ground.
His arms had been stretched to the sides, suspending him off the earth. The
ropes that held him were wrapped around two thick trees. He had tried to free
himself, but the swinging motion threatened to pull his arms out of his
shoulder sockets.
St. Joan’s dark eyes reminded
him of a feral cat. There was a wildness in them not seen in tamer animals.
Though graceful, her body jerked and stiffened at any sudden noise in the
distance. She tried to hide the reaction, but some things were so innate they
couldn’t be helped. The woman had not been raised in society. He pictured her
roaming the American wilderness, living in the backwoods somewhere as a
dirt-covered child. He’d seen her type before—reclusive, inelegant, socially
awkward, yet dangerous and lethal. The instincts of the animal had been fed
within her, but the human part of her had been neglected to the point it was
now only a shadow of the mountain lion inside. It was what made her a perfect
claw for hire. She would not be loyal to her clan, but to herself and to a very
limited point, her employer.
“Twice you got in my way,”
she continued, pacing like a caged animal. Her dark hair flew unhampered about
her shoulders, uncombed. She didn’t even register her own nakedness as she
moved. “Three, if you count Bert, but I don’t. The leopard was a good fighter.
Stupid but loyal. It will be hard to replace him. Very inconvenient.”
“Twice?” William mumbled.
He tried to concentrate, tried to remember that he needed to know who hired
her. It was difficult, but he managed by staring at her mouth for the words.
“I was sent to burn the
bitch,” St. Joan said. “You stopped me. I don’t get paid if I get stopped.”
“Who?” he managed.
St. Joan laughed. “No, no,
no, Chief, not that.”
“Why?”
She laughed harder. “Who
cares? I was offered a lot of money to go to Colorado, track and kill the
shifter bitch, and to take out anyone who got in my way. It was a beautiful
fire, was it not? I was so excited to see my target owned the sanctuary. So
much wood and leaves and kindling. I had hoped it would spread across the
countryside like my last forest fire, but the explosion when the generator went
was glorious.”
“Rachel was your target?”
Fear consumed him. Why did someone want Rachel dead? Was it because of his
interest in her, or was it something unrelated?
“Yes, but guess what, Chief?
You got in my way. I don’t think my employer expected you to be there, but it’s
not my concern what she expected.”
“She?” William clung to the
word.
St. Joan laughed. “Ah, now,
did I say too much?”
“Who?”
“Do you want to hear or
not, Chief? This is my story, not yours, but the point of this dialog is
coming, I promise.” St. Joan arched a brow. A bird squawked and her eyes darted
in the direction of the noise. Her body stayed tense for several moments before
she began to move again. “She was a hard one to track in the city. Then I
caught the scent in the forest. It’s so much easier in the forest. She couldn’t
hide from me. But you interfered. You saved her from the house. I watched her go
in and she did not come back out. She should have burned, so crispy, so pretty
and charred.” St. Joan rubbed her shoulder. “I don’t appreciate being injured.”
“My apologies,” he mumbled
weakly, hoping the sarcasm translated in his slurred voice.
It must have because she
opened her mouth and screeched. Birds took off in startled flight. She smiled
to herself as she watched them, seeming very pleased with the effect.
She rubbed her shoulder
again. “Twice.”
He made a confused noise.
“Uh…?”
“Twice you bastards injured
me,” she yelled at him. “You just won’t die, at least not by claw, not by fire,
not by wreck.”
“So you used a tranq gun?”
“Not elegant, I admit, but
effective. You see, I decided I don’t have to kill you. There are much better
ways to inflict damage and make you pay for my injuries.” The mountain lion
shift swirled in the woman’s eyes, fighting to be released. The animal was
powerful, perhaps too powerful for the human St. Joan to fight.
“How?” William prompted,
trying to keep her from turning. She kept glancing at the sky, as if she might
find a meal with the birds she’d stirred up.
“Soon you will need to
eat.”
“I will be fine,” he said.
“You might, but the wolf
won’t. He’ll want to eat, and you’ll need to shift to heal. The drugs will keep
the human in you from taking control, and in this forest there will only be one
thing for you to consume.” Her laugh was demented, more so than before. “She
will be tasty, Chief, so tasty, and so easy to catch. She’s not as strong as you.
I smelled her. She neglects her wolf and it is weakened from it. Her hunger
will drive her to find you. Yours to find her. When you smell her meat you will
not be able to resist it. And when her blood is in your mouth and on your hands,
you will never forgive yourself, and the Duncanis will never forgive you. The
clans will war, and your peace will be gone into a lifetime of battle and
death. Fitting revenge, I think. Such beautiful chaos. My skills come in handy
in chaos. So much money to be made.”
“You should not have told
me this,” he said. “I will remember.”
“I count on it,” she
yelled. “Know my name. Know I bested the great Cononious chief. There are many
who would thank me for it, many who would offer their protection. Why do you
think I took you and not the Duncanis? He is born into his throne. But you? You
are just a beggar wolf pretending to be something he’s not. All mighty and
high. Needs to be knocked down a couple branches off the fake family tree, that
is what everyone thinks of you.”
Her words stung because
there was truth in them. He wasn’t born into his station. The old chief chose
him. Tobias had been a hard man to know, and a harder adoptive father to love.
William was never sure why the chief chose him to be his successor, why he was
lifted up so high.
“The bitch will be dead and
I will be paid well for it.” St. Joan smiled as she made her way to a medicine
vial and syringe she’d tossed by the base of a tree. Picking it up, she shoved
the dirty needle into the top of the vial and drew out a big dose. “Why don’t
you nap a bit, Chief, before your big hunt? I need to make arrangement to free
your prey.”
William tried to kick at
her when she got closer to him. She hissed and shoved his leg to the side,
twisting him in the air as he hung. Her needle caught his thigh as he swung
back, jabbing him hard. He fought the injection but she was quicker. The
medicine burned its way into him. Everything became a blur as his limbs
deadened into heavy, useless weights.
William opened his mouth,
but any threat he would have made was lost under a slacken jaw. His eyes rolled
and his head dropped forward. There was nothing he could do.
St. Joan’s hand ran onto
his cheek as she pulled his face back up to meet hers. He felt her breath on his
lips. “She will be so tasty. Happy hunting.” As his mind lost the fight with
oblivion, he felt warm lips move against his.
Rachel didn’t move as the
thin ball of light drew steadily closer, growing in diameter. She stared at it,
unsure that it was actually there. After days in darkness, she couldn’t trust
her eyes. The light bounced, moving up then down in a steady rhythm, like a fat
speck of white, glowing cotton caught in the wind. It made its way
progressively forward, taking what seemed like hours to cross the inky
darkness.
She wasn’t sure when it
happened, but more specks had appeared behind the first, and their combined
glows threw light onto her prison cell. Her eyes ached from endless hours of
shifting to see her way in the darkness, a fruitless activity until this
moment. She detected a flutter inside the light. Wings? Arms? A tiny smile?
“Fairies?” The small
being’s body blurred with movement, so it was almost impossible to see more
than a glimpse within the shifting motions. Even as her eyes began to recover,
it was hard for her shifted vision to focus in on the creatures. When she
concentrated her hearing, she could detect a high-pitched buzzing but couldn’t
make out a language.
Looking beyond the fairies,
she saw the inside of her prison for the first time. No wonder she couldn’t
find a way out. There was no door within the stone hole, only the marks of her
claws as she’d tried to dig her way through the walls. The fairies had entered
through a crack in the ceiling, near a round hatch. In the dark, the hatch
would be undetectable, but now with the light, she could see it carved into the
stone.