Return (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (39 page)

I have to face my father alone.

The events of the night had been a serious blow to whatever stability Ashlyn had been clinging to in her mind- and her heart. After finally working up the guts to tell Drake how she felt, or at least part of what she felt, he had outright rejected her, and walked away.

For almost a decade, Ashlyn had kept her feelings for Drake a total secret. She’d swallowed her jealousy over his somewhat confusing relationship with Trace, one of the Spartan assassins who now worked for the president of FLD, and told herself that her ridiculous crush on the vampire would pass soon enough.

Ashlyn still wasn’t sure what she’d expected from Drake. He was a ridiculously old, frustratingly square vampire who spent more time wallowing in his own angst than developing meaningful relationships with other people. Not exactly boyfriend material.

Vargo, the red-haired Spartan, had swept in the moment Drake was gone. He’d heard everything.

Ashlyn pursed her lips beneath her mask, remembering the feel of Vargo’s mouth on hers. Their first kiss had been about a week ago, in the village of Industry. That first time, she’d only kissed him as a distraction so she could get close enough to knock him unconscious. But tonight’s kiss was a different story. What she felt for Vargo wasn’t the same as the yearning she was experiencing for Drake, but the electricity in Vargo’s touch was undeniable.

If anyone felt responsible for her departure from Toryn, Ashlyn hoped that it was not Vargo. She wasn’t entirely over her initial dislike for him- they had been enemies for so long, after all- but he didn’t deserve to feel guilty.

Drake, on the other hand…

Ashlyn grimaced, still running, and followed the glittering orange path as it snaked around a single tree in the middle of the beach. She was getting closer to the forest now. Trees were popping up sporadically, a welcome change from the bare terrain she’d been seeing for the past several miles.

No, in all honesty, she didn’t want Drake to wonder if she had left because of him, either. This was something she had to do on her own. She couldn’t stomach the thought of Skye, their former leader, one of her closest friends and the man who had defeated Lord Angelo when it seemed all but impossible,
challenging her dad in combat. She absolutely had to face Lord Li alone. If she didn’t, she would never forgive herself, and in her heart she truly hoped that Skye would understand that.

Skye had been angry before, when she’d left Cosmea with Kou, intending to confront Lord Devlyn and try to reason with him. After her plan had completely backfired and she’d discovered that Kou was, in fact, Lord Devlyn in disguise, Ashlyn had felt more than a little stupid. But like most of her hair-brained schemes, things had worked themselves out in the end. She could only hope that what she was doing right now would achieve the same results, and anyway, she had no doubt that Skye would come after her once he realized she was gone. Her intention was to somehow locate her father before Skye found her.

Ashlyn ducked under a low-hanging branch, noting that she was in the outskirts of the forest now. She slowed to a walk, her thin-soled boots making no sound on the leaf-strewn forest floor. She must be close now, close to the
shift
army, close to…

…Her dad.

As if her fear over Skye’s reaction and the confusing situation with Drake and Vargo weren’t enough, she still had yet to come to terms with the fact that her dad was leading the
shift
army. She wondered if Kou had been reporting back to Lord Li. Her throat tightened at the thought. She hadn’t seen her father in more than eight years, and although her heartstrings weren’t exactly wrapped around his memory as tightly as they had once been, he was still her dad, and she loved him. The thought that she might have to fight him or- or worse,
kill
him- it wasn’t even anything she wanted to contemplate right now.

You’d better start contemplating,
she told herself harshly, trying to drudge up some good old-fashioned rage,
because you’re going to have to deal with it sooner or later, and hesitating at the wrong moment could mean a very sad end for you.

There was a rustling to her right, and Ashlyn started, thoughts scattering as she crouched low and whispered a word to dissipate the
reveal
magic’s trail. In the darkness, she could barely see a faint outline of another person, moving towards her carefully, not bothering to use any of the trees for cover. Relying on the darkness, perhaps? Ashlyn frowned. His movements were calculated. Deliberately slow.

He was trying to distract her.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and she launched herself forward, yanking the shuriken off her back as she rolled and came up on her feet. Behind her, where she had been crouching only a moment before, there was a
shhhhink
as a katana blade sliced through the air and hit the ground. Ashlyn whirled and took one step towards the swordsman, lashing out with her shuriken and landing a cut across the other ninja’s throat. He went down instantly. As she stepped back, turning, a throwing star caught her in the right shoulder. Ashlyn grunted with the pain and dropped to all fours as several more throwing stars, all smaller versions of her oversized hira shuriken, went flying overhead.

Reaching up with her left hand, Ashlyn yanked the star out, wincing as the jagged edge cut deeply. She rolled to the side and climbed unsteadily to her feet, using a broad tree trunk for cover. They’d caught her by surprise- she’d been too absorbed in her own thoughts to avoid walking into a trap.
Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Ashlyn clenched her shuriken in one hand, the throwing star in the other, and took a deep breath, then spun out from behind the tree, the hand holding her shuriken outstretched as the
ice
stane glowed blue within it. A translucent wall of ice materialized before her, and as she’d predicted, there was a flash of several more throwing stars that quickly embedded in the makeshift shield. Ashlyn sidestepped around the ice and flung the single star with easy expertise, aiming for the patch of blackness where her adversary had revealed his location. Sprinting across the dark forest, she reached the ninja moments after the throwing star reached its target. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Leaves crunched to her right, and once again Ashlyn ducked behind a tree. There was another rustling, this time to her left, and once more in front of her. Her heart sank as she realized that she was probably surrounded.

For a long moment, she stood pressed against the trunk of the tree, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Ashlyn raised her uninjured arm, clutching her shuriken tightly, and breathed a single word.

The
fire
stane in her shuriken sparked to life, casting a bright red hue on her surroundings and illuminating five ninjas, all of whom were wearing the sign of Toryn on their masks.

Ashlyn’s eyes narrowed, muscles tensing.

The first ninja charged, and she reeled off the tree trunk, reversing in mid-motion to slash backwards with the shuriken. It sliced cleanly in a diagonal motion across his back. One down. She ducked under the swing of another katana and spun in a leg sweep, flipping over his prone body, stabbing downwards with the shuriken as she somersaulted. Two.

The next ninja came at her with his fists. She ducked the first punch and blocked the second one, but somehow missed the third one and stumbled backwards as he connected with the right side of her jaw. Ashlyn shook her head, trying to collect herself, and blocked another punch from her right. No time to think- she grabbed the arm and moved aside, twisting hard enough that he had
no choice but to fall forward. She swung downward with her shuriken, aiming the flat side of the weapon for the base of his skull.

A sudden eruption of hisses and growls came from her left- and Ashlyn realized that they had the
shift
magic, or at least one of them did. She had barely turned to face the beast before it was on her, biting and roaring. It was one of the cats, the weakest of the
shift
monsters, but that didn’t make it any less deadly. Its jaws clamped down on Ashlyn’s right arm, and she yelped in pain.

There was no time to react- she gasped out a few words, and fire roiled around the big cat, singeing Ashlyn’s arms as well as she punched the beast, finally managing to knock it off with an elbow to the eye. Ashlyn scrambled wildly to her feet, clutching at her bleeding arm, her injured shoulder aching.

There were two cats; the one she’d hit was shaking its head as it extricated itself from the pile of leaves where it had landed. Ashlyn glanced to her left, at the closest cat. She’d have to make this quick.

Shouting her spell, she threw out her hand, and used the
fire
stane once more, flames exploding from the ground and consuming the poor animal. The cat screamed, but Ashlyn didn’t have time to see what happened next- she was already off and running. She ran by the burning beast, but had barely cleared the fire before she was knocked to the ground by the second cat. The shuriken flew out of her hands and slid across the leaf-strewn ground, the light from the stane extinguished the moment it left her grip.

Ashlyn quickly rolled before the animal could get a chance to pin her down, but the cat’s claws dug into her shoulders and it rolled with her. Ashlyn landed on her belly again, and threw her head back, connecting with the creature’s face and momentarily stunning them both with the impact. Stars sparked before Ashlyn’s eyes.
Panthers have hard heads,
she thought stupidly.
Who knew?
Gasping with the pain of the claws on her shoulders, she tried to remember which stanes she had in her armband. Which one could she use to get out of this? All that she had were
heal
…and
shift.

She twisted, trying to elbow the creature behind her, but the cat snarled and momentarily let go of her shoulder to take another swipe, gashing Ashlyn’s upper arm with its claws.

She knew then that she didn’t have any other choice.

Writhing and twisting, trying to at least make it difficult for the beast to get a death grip, Ashlyn cried out for help, the
shift
stane in her mind’s eye, desperately hoping that it would assist her in her time of need.

The change was immediate.

There was none of the agony that she had seen in Tag’s transformation, none of the gruesome rearranging of bones and shifting of tendons. Ashlyn had no reason to scream because there was no pain. It was instantaneous. One moment, she was in her human form, pinned to the ground and completely helpless against her attacker, and the next moment, a sense of clarity settled over her. Every sense was heightened, her body humming with energy and anger. Ashlyn twisted and lunged upwards, sinking her claws into the other cat’s neck and dragging the creature beneath her own body. She ripped and tore at her adversary, tasting blood but too furious to stop.

At last the big cat lay still beneath her, and it was only then that Ashlyn took a breath, the air feeling strangely pungent in her lungs. She backed off the other cat, slowly, adjusting to the fluid movements of her own limbs. After a moment, she realized that the darkness was no longer darkness. As a cat, she could see in the dark. She wondered briefly what daylight looked like
through a cat’s eyes.

Hesitantly, she tried to form words, something to stop the magic, but all that came out were a few growling noises. It worked despite its simplicity, and in another heartbeat Ashlyn was herself again, sore and bleeding- and
naked,
what the
hell
- but alive.

She propped herself up gingerly against a tree trunk, shivering, murmuring the words to mend her wounds as the
heal
stane glowed sweetly in her armband.

She allowed herself a moment to contemplate what had just taken place. She had taken on the shape of a panther, but the soldier she’d taken this particular
shift
stane from had been a bear. Was it possible that each person shape-shifted into a different animal? Or could you control the animal you shape-shifted into once you were more experienced with the magic?

Also, by no means did she feel like a master of the magic, but Kou had previously told her that the
shift
magic was dangerously addictive. Yet she felt no different. There was no pull from the
shift
stane. There was no lingering pain from the shape-shift, which had certainly been almost anticlimactic in comparison to Tag’s awful and agonizing transformation that she had witnessed in the basement of her home.

Perhaps the unnaturalness of his shape-shift was because he did not truly belong to the Li bloodline? Perhaps true Li heirs were able to transform without the pain?

She wasn’t sure, and she didn’t really want to find out.

With some effort, Ashlyn managed to pull herself upright, and made her way towards where her shuriken was lying on the ground. She eyed the fallen ninja closest to her, wondering if his clothes would fit her.

The first strains of dawn were filtering through the trees.

If FLD hadn’t already discovered that she was gone, they would soon.