The burgundy leaves in front of him rustled, and a set of amber eyes peered out between them, a black paw reaching out and scratching impatiently at the sand. Nell’s voice crackled from behind the bushes. “Wot the hell are ye waitin’ fer?”
Gareth smiled, and followed the panther and ladybird into the multicolored forest.
Seven
Millicent slowed once again, waiting for the knight to catch up. At least he moved quietly, barely rustling the leaves and vines. Her nostrils flared as she scented the air once again. The duke’s men had found their cave, and had quickly turned tail in pursuit, making enough noise to tell her she would reach the bridge long before they did, even if her nose hadn’t been able to track them by their stench. But her beast scented something else, a familiar smell she couldn’t quite remember…
He said he didn’t care whether she broke his curse or not.
Millicent snorted and ducked beneath a low-hanging branch, weaving through the fall of moss draped over it. Nell muttered something, and blew out her breath as if she’d received a face full of the stuff despite Millicent’s maneuvering.
Millicent stole a glance behind her. Nell carried bits and pieces of the jungle with her, moss and twigs and leaves. But the knight moved like a dancer, barely touching the forest, as if he had become one with it. Or as if it cleared a path for him. His golden-blond hair curled in the humidity, across his forehead, down his smooth shoulders. His naked chest gleamed with perspiration; his hose stuck to his legs, outlining the muscles in his thighs with every step he took. It hurt to look at him.
Those brilliant blue eyes caught her gaze for a moment, and Millicent quickly turned back around. Back by the pool he had made her want him, his face tender and his body aching for her. How had she allowed this to happen? Didn’t her mother teach her that men used soft words and gentle touches at first, but soon grew bored and either left, or lusted for the fury of the beast?
No. She had to be stronger than her mother. For what would happen if she allowed herself to succumb to this man? Even if he seemed different than the men her mother had known, he would still disappear back into the relic, and would stay within until the relic chose another. She could not even consider that she would be the one to break his curse, for she did not have enough love in her heart to manage something so significant. She was a dark beast of the Underground, and he, a golden man of light from above. She would not allow what she had overheard to sway—
Millicent came to an abrupt halt, Nell sliding a bit forward on her back. The tree line ended, nothing but a smooth expanse of crystal rock stretching out in front of her, a jagged chasm separating the forest from the next tunnel. Millicent tensed, and Nell plastered herself even closer to her back, burying her face in the thick ruff on her neck. Her were-beast could cross the distance in a blink, long before the duke’s men caught up with them, but the knight would be too slow. By the time he reached the chasm, he would be dodging bullets, and the only way across was a bridge of crystal, an odd tubular growth that had fallen across the gap and would be slick as ice.
The trees rustled, and Millicent turned and pinned Gareth with her gaze, hoping he could read the warning in the eyes of her beast. He understood, but did not appear concerned with the threat of peril. She kept forgetting his long years, and imagined he must have faced worse odds than this. He nodded, glanced up at the open ground before them, then quickly back into the forest, where the loud progress of the duke’s men could now easily be heard.
“Don’t wait for me,” he commanded.
Millicent’s beast gave him a short, low moan, then she turned and leaped out of the forest, her paws sliding across the smooth surface until she gained the trick of maneuvering across it, using her claws for some sort of purchase. She used all of the speed and strength of her were-self to reach the bridge, but stopped and turned before crossing it, for the sound of Gareth’s strides had faded too quickly behind her.
He had managed to make it only a few yards past the tree line. The duke’s men stood beneath a scarlet-leafed tree, the reflection of the glowing color making them look like so many devils. The men who held pistols leveled them at Gareth. The motley assortment of twisted creatures and scavenger shape-shifters accompanying them hesitated, waiting with eager anticipation for the volley of gunfire.
Millicent growled.
The sound of the discharge shook the walls of the cavern. The flare of light made her blink. The smoke from the weapons exploded in a cloud and drifted upward, and even from this distance, the sharp odor made her snort. Gareth stumbled, regained his footing, and continued to run toward her, until she could clearly see the grim determination on his face. And the blood running down his chest.
Their eyes met for a timeless moment—his so round and as blue as the sky—and then his steps slowed, and he looked down, clutching at the gaping hole in his chest. He looked back up at her, his handsome face twisted with some emotion… perhaps resignation, or sadness.
He fell face forward, his hair a tumble of gold around his head and shoulders.
Millicent screamed, a caterwaul of sound that rivaled the puny noise the pistols had made. She leaped toward Gareth, but Nell yanked on her fur, hard enough to bring tears to the beast’s eyes.
“Don’t be a fool, gel. Look to yer left.”
Within a cluster of spindly fanlike trees stood a circle of predators, their sharp eyes taking in the duke’s men, Millicent and Nell standing near the bridge, the fallen knight. That familiar smell she had scented earlier… now she could place it. The baronets from the ball still followed her. The Master of the Hall of Mages had not given up his own search for the relic.
Lions, tigers, wolves, jaguars—some as black as Millicent herself, leaped in her direction on stealthy paws, their silence more foreboding than if they had growled and screamed their bloodlust. But they had to cross the line of sight of the Duke of Ghoulston’s men, and although the hyenas and jackals headed toward the knight’s fallen body, the monsters eagerly pursued the baronet shape-shifters.
“Ach, let them fight it out, gel, while we make our escape.”
Millicent could not leave Gareth to the scavengers. She must save him. Her muscles tensed to spring, and Nell yanked on her fur again.
“Don’t be foolish. Do ye think in all his centuries, this is the first time the knight has died? He is immortal, gel, but we are not.”
Nell. She must protect the old grandmother. But a few days ago, she had been willing to give up Gareth to the duke’s twisted evil. Bloody hell, when had he become so important to her that she would risk Nell’s life over his?
Nell was right. Gareth was immortal. He would end up back in the relic, in the same clothing, the same healthy body. She had witnessed his power of healing.
And yet, Millicent still hesitated.
The lion in the lead of the pack of baronets snarled, his black lips twisted in a smile as his prey stood there and waited for him to reach her.
Millicent closed her eyes as a shudder wracked through her from head to tail, then turned and carefully put a paw to the makeshift bridge. The crystal looked like nothing more than a felled tree lying across the chasm, round and smoother than bark. One slip, and they would fall to their deaths, with plenty of time to consider her clumsiness, given the unknown distance to the bottom.