Maiden's Wolf (In Deception's Shadow Book 3) (4 page)

And still they
served their dark master.

If death could
not defeat them, what hope did his people have?

But fire could
destroy them. His mother had proved that.

He didn’t share
his mother’s strength of fire magic, taking after his lupwyn father. But even
so, had he, or the other Elementals, had some advanced warning about the
acolytes’ specific powers, he or others of his kind might have been able to
strike more efficiently at this new enemy. Perhaps even landing a crippling
blow before the acolytes could bring to bear whatever dark power they wielded.

There was one ray
of light in this defeat. At least none of his pack were close enough to attempt
a rescue and get enslaved themselves. Unfortunately, the great distance also
meant he had no way to pass the critical information about the acolytes on to
his people or any other Elemental before he died. Or worse, was enslaved.

While Silverblade
was mentally running through alternate scenarios, the leader stepped down from
his horse and approached.

“Ah, I see I won’t
have long to study you, either. I hadn’t thought the Elementals were so
fragile. Alas, I’ll remember that for next time my master wishes to fill his
ranks with stronger servants.”

Silverblade’s
enemy knelt next to him and studied him for a moment. “You look human, but
obviously are not one of our short-lived kind.” He pointed to Cymael’s body
next. “I heard you call this one mother. You are a mixed breed?”

Silverblade
didn’t know why his enemies cared and just wanted to say to get on with it.
Closing his eyes, he willed his body to remain relaxed and conserve what
strength he had left.

The acolyte
walked a half-circle around him. “Come now, what species was your father? My
master thinks there might be promise in breeding hybrids. Hybrids are often
stronger than either parent if you pick the bloodlines well.” The acolyte
chuckled. “Personally, I think the Divine Speaker may also have an eye for
beauty. Your mother was certainly a stunning specimen.”

Rage ignited in
his soul, rushing to fill the numb void that had been growing in his chest.
With the new heat of rage chasing away the chill for a few brief seconds, he
snarled in wrath at the acolyte. But that was about all he could do, his body
too weakened by blood loss and the acolytes’ feeding to do more than quiver.

Silverblade’s
attention shifted from what the acolyte was saying to a new, strange sensation
crawling along his body, sending nerve endings dancing and flaring in pain.

Now what?

His rage was hard
to hold onto as more of the unknown power flooded his body, distracting him.

At first he
assumed this was some new power of the acolyte’s, but strangely, the feel of
being fed upon diminished, masked by the new power.

Or he was growing
numb to the sickening sensation of the feeding and this new power was just some
other trick in the priest’s arsenal. Without his Larnkin to interpret this new
strangeness, he didn’t trust himself or his senses, not with them fading in and
out, like he’d drunk the heady wine of the spring rite festival.

“Strange,” the
acolyte said as he leaned down. “You just vanished from my mind. What is it you
do, Elemental?”

Silverblade
didn’t know what the acolyte was referring to but he felt a stirring in the air
and ground around him. He didn’t have enough power left to light a candle or
make the grass shiver in a conjured breeze. He certainly couldn’t make the
ground shake. If he still had power over that element, he’d have ordered the
earth to open below their feet and entomb them all.

The tingling
sensation changed to a warmth, as a new power kindled in his chest. At first
Silverblade mistook it as the last of his flaring rage. But no, this wasn’t
emotion, this was magic, and not the cold, sucking power of the acolytes.

He didn’t know
what it was, but it couldn’t be worse than what the acolytes were about to do
to him. It almost felt like another Elemental was trying to help him. But it
didn’t feel like one of the other lupwyn scouts, and he knew of no other Elemental
in the area. Opening himself to that power, he embraced it, studying it.

If he had the
power, he would have warned away the other from trying to help. Surely the
acolytes would now be able to track another meal.

Silverblade
decided he wasn’t going to let that happen. Whoever was trying to help him
didn’t deserve to have the acolytes sniff out his or her back trail simply for
trying to help. With a savage twist and the last of his lupwyn agility, he
reared up and snapped the neck of the acolyte on the right, and then kicked out
to shatter his nearest knee. The injury wouldn’t kill the acolytes, since this
Divine Speaker seemed able to reanimate his servants. But from what Silverblade
had already noted, the same monstrous magic couldn’t heal, couldn’t unmake
damage to its servants.

Let it see how
well it would command servants with no useable joints. He kicked out at a third
acolyte, catching this one in the hip. The wet sound of snapping bone and
cartilage was his reward. He rolled to his feet and staggered toward a tree,
balancing there for a moment while he gathered his bearings. Ah, there was the
river.

And directly in
his path to a likely watery grave stood the leader of the acolytes.

Silverblade’s
hands closed into fists and he wished for a lupwyn’s lethal claws. Instead, all
that answered his desperation was that other foreign power. It continued to
flow into him even as the acolytes fed.

“You cannot
escape, and even the river will not free you,” the acolyte said. “Come, stop
fighting. Surrender. You will lose in the end anyway. If you give in now, you
may join us and preserve your soul.”

Silverblade knew
a lie when one was spoken. If he surrendered to this acolyte, he wouldn’t have
either life or soul. Death he didn’t fear, but to have his soul tainted or
changed or destroyed—that inspired true dreaded.

He shook his head
to try to clear the ringing and the noise. The burning in his breast
intensified as the foreign power continued to flow into him.

Before there was
only despair, but now, with that other power gathering in his bones, hope
rekindled in his heart. That other power was a healer’s magic. Now that he was
marginally stronger, he could sense its soothing, green essence even over the
taint of the acolytes’ chilled magic.

There was a
powerful healer nearby and the fool was trying to help him.

Unfortunately, he
only knew of one healer within a moon cycle’s travel of his present location,
and there was no way he wanted that young, untrained female anywhere near these
monsters. He wouldn’t be responsible for Beatrice’s death.

If he could only
shapeshift back into his lupwyn form, he’d be able to outrun these acolytes. He
just needed to stall them a little longer for his Larnkin to gather power and change.

After dismounting
from his horse, the acolyte’s leader came to stand at Silverblade’s side and
looked down at him.

The creature that
had once been human held out his hand. “Come, my master prefers living
servants. Death has the unfortunate consequence of dulling the mind.”

Silverblade supposed
it would. He glanced at the acolyte’s outstretched hand, wondering if he could
shapeshift yet. Whatever the young healer was doing, his Larnkin was growing in
strength. He could even sense some of its emotions. The clearest was terror.
More advanced communications were still beyond them.

But Silverblade
didn’t need words. He knew that it was his doom offering a helping hand up
without needing his Larnkin to confirm it.

“Will you not
serve? My master’s offer is for a limited time.”

“Serve or be
consumed?” Silverblade challenged. “Someone needs to tell your master he
doesn’t inspire confidence.”

The acolyte
flashed a smile. “No, I don’t suppose he does. I wasn’t even offered a choice,
you know.” Again, the hint of a smile. He crouched down next to him. “I’m
called Acolyte Brennan Ironsmith, by the way. And you are?”

“Not your friend,
comrade. Or servant,” Silverblade said, his voice raising with each word. “You
killed my mother. I will never serve your master!”

He lunged for the
acolyte’s throat. The power which usually made his shift fast and painless was
sluggish to respond, but claws sprang from his fingers and fangs lengthened in
his mouth as his body began its change. He would gut his enemy, his mother’s
murderer.

Rage and the need
for vengeance fueled his strike, giving his weakened body strength once more.
Warm blood coated his fingers, but he’d barely registered the sticky substance
before two acolytes were dragging him from his prey.

His head cracked
against the ground, slamming against an exposed tree root hard enough to blur
his vision. He gritted his teeth and bit back a groan.

These creatures
would
not
see his pain or his grief. Had he a choice, he’d show them no weakness
at all, but whatever dark power allowed them to feed upon his Larnkin had left
him weak as a day-old pup.

And he was
certain he was going to die.

Beatrice followed
the tug of her magic back towards the human-held lands of River’s Divide. Her
gelding plodded along at the same slow pace, even though every instinct cried out
for her to go faster. Worse, the horse must have picked up on her nervousness,
because he kept slowing and trying to turn, clearly wanting to join his herd
mates back at the wagon.

She would have
let him too, if her healer’s magic hadn’t been spurring her onward.

Somewhere, about
a day’s ride back towards River’s Divide, there was a magic-wielder who needed
her help. The closer she got, the more details her magic was able to discern.

The Elemental was
a lupwyn male, and he was hurt both emotionally and physically. He’d been in
the company of others, but she felt as if each of those other lives had been
snuffed out. She shared his impotent fury.

Logically, she
knew she couldn’t do anything to save the other poor lupwyn—the distance was
too great. But her magic demanded she try. Besides, no one should die alone
surrounded by enemies.

The consciousness
behind her magic—her Larnkin, if she was to name it properly—reached out to the
lupwyn and instigated some kind of powerful link. Her awareness of the lupwyn
and his surroundings magnified tenfold. His pain, both physical and emotional,
flooded into her.

Her Larnkin
seemed to note both as if sympathizing with the lupwyn, but merely reached
deeper into the host until Beatrice sensed the second Larnkin. This one was
greatly damaged—he was dying and that knowledge invoked a fierce response in
her own.

Rage. Rage and
the need to heal that other Larnkin raced through her body.

The Larnkin did
not communicate verbally, instead a burst of emotions and ancient memories were
exchanged.

Beatrice only
caught the briefest hint of their strange exchange, but even so, she sensed the
Larnkin she was host to somehow knew that other, dying Larnkin. He was
important to hers in some unnamed way.

With a new
desperation, her own Larnkin fed power to that other one through the newly
formed link. A flood of magic, like a raging river in the spring, rushed down
the new link to aid the lupwyn’s Larnkin.

Beatrice made no
claim of knowing what her Larnkin actually hoped to accomplish, but from what
she could sense, the magic she fed the other Larnkin was being drawn away by
the acolytes, too.

“I know you wish
to aid him,” Beatrice said aloud, hoping to reason with hers. “But you’re
merely feeding the acolytes more power.”

As if in answer
to the vocalization of her thoughts, her magic flared suddenly and a
breathtaking pain burned across her chest.

The intense heat
centered over her heart. She hissed in equal parts fear and pain.
Instinctively, she slapped one hand over her heart in a useless motion of
self-protection.

Her skin felt hot,
even through her clothing. Was this punishment for questioning her Larnkin or
some new, dark magic the acolytes mastered?

Grunting in pain,
her heart racing with nervousness and reaction, she peeled back her vest and
glanced down at the creamy skin of her breast. There was now an intricate,
tattoo-like mark stamped upon the skin over her heart, and the strange symbol
glowed to her mage sight.

The sight didn’t
reassure her or answer her earlier question, and she had the overwhelming desire
to turn her horse and gallop back toward her family.

Chastising
herself, she drew a shaky breath and ordered her quivering stomach to calm.
Foolish panic had never done anything to keep her alive.

Well, she wasn’t
dead and there wasn’t the drain on her magic like she would have expected from
an acolyte’s feeding, so this was something else. Dangerous, perhaps? Actually,
it most certainly was. Anything she didn’t know or understand was instantly
dangerous.

The heat and pain
slowly ebbed and her shocked mind began to work.

Whatever the mark
was, it was clearly a working of higher magic. She just didn’t know if it was
caused by her healing magic or some power the lupwyn possessed. But she was
relatively certain it wasn’t something darker brought about by the acolytes’
twisted power. Her own magic didn’t consider it a threat.

And she knew well
what the flip-side of her healing gift did to anything it considered a threat
to her.

At the moment,
she didn’t have time to worry about this new oddity.

She could feel
the lupwyn growing weaker, his Larnkin being drained of its life force. Her own
healing power redoubled its efforts and she poured more of herself into the
healing.

She might have
been tempted to quit had her Larnkin allowed that. And yet, this lupwyn felt
familiar to her now that she was more closely linked to him. As unlikely as it
might seem, she was sure this was the same male who patrolled her lands,
watching for any signs of human patrols encroaching upon lupwyn lands.

She’d never seen
him up close. He’d rarely been more than a shadow among the trees, but her
magic had acknowledged his presence and tracked his whereabouts.

For his part, he
never threatened any of her family.

Old Mother had
said he was a neighbor and to treat him with respect and he would do the same.

Somehow, she knew
the lupwyn being attacked by the acolytes was this neighbor, and her heart went
out to him.

Perhaps it was
her empathy or that her Larnkin was making some headway, but she found herself
suddenly in his mind, sharing his anguish and slow death.

*****

The burning in
his chest intensified to the point Silverblade began to wonder if he wasn’t
about to burst into flames. Not that he could do anything to prevent it. He
might even welcome it, if it would give him a swifter death than what the acolytes
had planned.

“Fight if you
must, lupwyn, but in the end you will do as I say,” Ironsmith said as he dabbed
at the ragged claw marks that followed a bloody track from his right shoulder,
down across his collar bone and halfway to his waist.

The damage was
substantial and bled profusely, but the strike hadn’t landed where Silverblade
wanted. He’d been aiming for the acolyte’s throat. So much for dying surrounded
by silence. Now, he’d still have to listen to Ironsmith’s reasoning tones as
they drained him dry and turned him into a soulless husk.

Over all the pain
and anguish, the fiery magic continued to burn in his chest, going to war with
the cold, sucking power of the acolytes. But there was another power as well,
until he had trouble distinguishing them all. Frowning in concentration, he was
able to differentiate between the three distinct powers. The acolytes’ magic
was cold and lifeless. At war within was another power: dark, deadly, and
predatory. And dancing and weaving through and around the other magics at war
within him was a green, soothing magic—a healer’s power. She still hadn’t given
up. He almost wished she would. His poor, battered body couldn’t take much more.

As he lay there
and panted, his lethargic senses sorted through everything and it occurred to
him that the green power alone was sustaining him. If not for that, he was
certain one of the other powers presently at war for possession of his body
would have killed him by now.

He almost wanted
to curse the fool of a girl for prolonging his torture. While at the same time,
another part of him was thankful to have another being with him at the end. A
lupwyn was never meant to be alone and she was proving better company than the
acolytes. But he wouldn’t be responsible for leading them to the defenseless
healer.

“Young
healer,”
he called out along the magic that linked
them,
“You need to run as far and as fast as you can. Go in any direction
that isn’t toward me. You cannot save me. You’ll only lead the acolytes to your
location.”

*****

The lupwyn was
able to communicate with her.

Surprise engulfed
her mind. Beatrice had never been able to link her mind to a stranger’s
before—not that she’d ever tried. The only others she’d ever managed to speak
mind-to-mind with was Old Mother and Roan, and only then because they were
family. She hadn’t even been able to reach her friends, the Stonemantle
sisters.

But this lupwyn
she could touch easily, and that gift seemed to flow both ways as more of his
thoughts and emotions entered her mind.

He thought her
young, not much more than a child. Although she could feel his age, and
compared to him she was young. But then, so would any human seem in comparison
to this lupwyn.

She learned more
about him with each passing moment. One of the companions had been his mother.
There had been other acquaintances among the casualties as well. But that one
had been the hardest, watching the light go out of his mother’s eyes and being
helpless to prevent it.

Beatrice knew he
wouldn’t long outlive his mother if she didn’t do something. So she did the
only thing she could over the distance, she shared more of her magic and
strength with him.

All the while,
the new mark on her breast continued to throb and burn as more of its foreign
magic and power flowed into her from some other source. Whatever it was, her
own magic didn’t consider it a threat. Her Larnkin may actually have been
drawing on power from elsewhere.

She didn’t know
where ‘elsewhere’ was, but if it helped her save a life, she’d accept it and
deal with any consequences later.

*****

Another mind
brushed along his and he felt the healer’s thoughts and emotions. Young—very
young—and female. It confirmed his earlier suspicions. The healer helping him
was Beatrice.

“Not so young
as all that, lupwyn.”
Her reply held a hint of
exasperation.
“And you know my name, so you’re ahead of me on that one. You
can explain how later, after we figure out how to get you away from this group
of acolytes.”

Other thoughts
and emotions were shared across their newly forged link, and he glimpsed her
deep hatred for the acolytes. It only made him want her to flee faster and farther.

Silverblade
wasn’t about to allow some young innocent to sacrifice herself just for him.

“Stop sharing
your magic!”
he barked along their link.
“Go!
Flee! The acolytes will come for you next.”

Another wave of
exasperation washed down the link and into his mind.
“What makes you think I
can control this? I can’t, if you must know. So I suggest you get yourself away
from them. You’re a lupwyn. You can outrun them. Follow this link and I’ll get
you further from them and see what I can do to heal you.”

“Noble
sentiment, but I can’t run. I can’t shapeshift. I can’t even stand.”
Admitting such burned his pride but it was true.

“Hmmm. Let me
think for a moment.”