Breathless, heart pounding, she knew with visceral certainty that something was wrong, but for a moment she could not give it a name. When the revelation finally came, it chilled her to the bone.
She glanced down at the water beside her-still barely more than a trickle of moisture among the rocks-and then at the empty blackness of the Forest that flanked the stream bed. The water was her lifeline; if she left it behind she would have no hope of finding her way out of this place. The wolves had given her an opening that would require she leave the water behind; if she stood her ground, the pack would soon be upon her.
They were herding her.
She realized that she had only two choices left: she could leave the moonlight and the water behind and flee like helpless prey through the darkness-the outcome they clearly desired-or she could make her stand here, dying as a knight of the Church was meant to die, and deny them their final triumph.
Not a real choice at all.
A strange calm came over her as she looked around for the most defensible position. The longer she could hold out, she told herself, the more of the beasts she would be able to dispatch to hell on her way out. But the trees weren’t as densely packed here as they had been at the site of her last battle, and there was no convenient cluster of them to use for cover. Finally she saw a place where thick black vines had established a webwork between two trunks. It wasn’t a solid barrier by any means, but she knew from tripping over such vines just how strong they could be. At least they would slow down anything coming at her from that direction.
It was the best she was going to be able to do.
Facing in the direction of her pursuers, her back to the tenuous barrier, she flexed her hand around the grip of her sword, drew in as deep a breath as her bruised lungs would allow, and prepared to face her final battle. G od, grant that I may serve Your holy purpose to the end…
Then-suddenly-the howling stopped. She held her breath, listening for any other sounds of pursuit, but all was silent now. Whatever had been crashing through the Forest in pursuit of her was no longer moving.
Shifting her weight uneasily from one foot to the other, she caught her ankle on one of the vines and tried to shake it loose. But it was caught on her greave and would not come off. With a wary glance at the shadowy tree line head of her, she reached down with her sword to cut herself loose — but her arm would not move freely. Then something took hold of her other ankle. And her left arm. And her chest. By the time she realized what was happening there were vines all over her, gripping her body like steel bands. She knew that she could not pull free of so many at once, and that her only hope was to cut her way out, but her sword arm was so entangled that she could not get it free. Panic flared in her gut as she felt one of the vines wrap itself around her head, but try as she might she could not shake it loose.
And then something stepped out of the Forest’s shadows that was not a wolf, and it stood in the moonlight before her.
A man.
He was tall and thin, with delicate features and skin so pale that in the moonlight he seemed to be carved from alabaster. His shoulder-length hair would probably have glowed a warm golden-brown beneath the sun, but in Domina’s cold light it was an eerie, ashen hue, and the halo of moonlight that crowned it lent to his entire face an unnatural luminescence. And he was clean. Unnaturally clean. His midnight blue surcote did not have so much as a speck of dirt on it. Even his boots looked spotless, though the ground beneath his feet was a muddy mess, and the hilt of his sword gleamed brightly in the moonlight. Suddenly she felt acutely aware of her own degraded state, mud-splattered and sweat-stained and probably reeking from all the vile slime she had been crawling through. It made his fastidiousness seem doubly unnatural.
His pale eyes fixed on her with an intensity that transfixed her, much as the gaze of a cobra might transfix its prey. It was impossible for her to look away.
“Who are you?” she whispered hoarsely.
His eyes were cold-so cold! — human in form but without a trace of humanity in their depths. She saw him glance down at her sword, and a strange expression crossed his face. Was he a creature of the fae, sensitive to the aura of faith that clung to the blessed steel? She tried to raise the weapon up so that she could protect herself with it, but the effort was hopeless. A fly in a spider’s web had more freedom of movement than she did right now.
He began to walk toward her. A knot of fear twisted in her gut as she tried to draw back from him; inwardly she cursed herself for her weakness. What was it about this man that unnerved her more than all the demons she had fought? Was it because the darkness she sensed within him had left no mark upon his physical person? With his delicately beautiful features and the halo of moonlight glowing about his head, he looked almost angelic. Benign. Was it easier to deal with monsters when they looked like monsters?
Then he was in front of her. It took all her strength of will not to flinch before the power of his gaze.
“So very brave,” he said softly. There was a faint inflection to his voice that she could not identify: an echo of lost lands and forgotten times. “You would fight me if you could, wouldn’t you? Even though the battle would be lost before you began.”
He reached down for her sword. She tightened her hand around its grip-but then he touched her and her fingers froze, and he lifted the weapon from her hand easily as if he were taking a toy from a child. For a moment he just looked at it, studying the Church insignia that adorned its grip. Whatever hope she might have had that the religious symbol would repel him faded as he ran one finger slowly over the design. A hint of dark amusement flickered in his eyes.
“What are you?” she whispered.
“A servant of the One God, in ways that you will never understand.” He put the sword off to one side of him, sliding its point into the ground so that it would stand upright just beyond her reach. Then he reached out to touch her face. She tried to pull away from him, but the vines were wrapped about her too tightly to allow her more than a few inches of leeway. His pale fingers stroked her cheek gently, a mockery of a lover’s caress. “Helplessness,” he murmured. “That’s your greatest fear, is it not? Better to suffer a thousand wounds in battle than to surrender control of your fate to another.” He smiled coldly as he brushed a lock of sweat-soaked hair back from her face; the grip of the vines was so tight that she could not even turn her head away from him. “How very sad, that in the end you must die in a state of submission.”
Anger welled up inside her suddenly, driving out all the fear and the despair; her entire soul was alight with white-hot indignation. I will not be your plaything! her soul screamed. She stared into his visage-so beautiful, so clean, so perfect in its vanity-and realized that she did have one weapon left. Perhaps it would not be enough to win her freedom, in this life, but she could claim her freedom as she headed into the next.
I know your weakness, she thought.
She hawked up phlegm from deep within her lungs. It wasn’t hard to do; her chest was full of the stuff.
“Fuck you,” she growled.
And she spat in his face.
He was clearly unprepared for such a move, and for a moment he did not react at all, as the glob of blood-flecked spittle on his cheek began to slide down his face. Then the human facade seemed to give way, and with a cry of fury he grabbed her by the edge of her helm, jerking her head to one side, bearing her throat. The spittle exploded into a thousand frozen fragments and fell from his face, but she knew he could still feel it there, like a slow-burning brand. Imperfection. Filth. Denial of his dominion. There was a black rage burning inside him now, more intense than any emotion a mortal soul was meant to contain, and she could sense the bloodthirst that welled up in its wake. Better than she could have hoped for.