And murder. Because amid the strewn wreckage of the wisewolfyn’s supplies and household goods lay a huge mound of gray-buff fur. “Candida,” he rasped, crossing to her and going to his knees. “Gods. What did she do to you?”
The wisewolfyn’s eyes were a pale, milky white, her throat torn open, her body badly burned, with patches of fur gone and the angry red flesh pitted with deeply charred stripes. A length of sword-stock metal protruded from the dying fire, suggesting the means for that torture. And torture it had been. The witch, Moragh, had hurt her, burned her, no doubt mind-raped her…and most likely all while he and Reda were hiding together in the small cave, waiting for the wolfyn to move on from the standing stones.
Again, he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he had realized the ettin hadn’t stumbled through the vortex accidentally, if he’d been paying attention to the magic fluxes in the air…
“I’m sorry.” Reda gripped his shoulder.
Resentment welled up, though he knew it was misplaced. It wasn’t her fault they had gotten off to a rocky start; it wasn’t anyone’s fault. But it all sucked nonetheless.
“She was strong,” he grated. “She resisted the mindspeak, tried to hold on to her secrets.” Thus, the hot iron. “The magic got to her in the end, though.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Her eyes.” He gestured stiffly. “The white is a sign that she’s been emptied out by mindspeak.”
Reda sucked in a quiet breath, but didn’t move her hand from his shoulder. Her grip was firm and strong; it said, I’ve got your back and I’m sorry. And maybe even I’m here for you, which was something he was very unused to.
After a moment, he continued, “The wolfyn normally revert to human form when they die. This says…shit, it says to me that Moragh stripped her all the way down to feral before she died.” Which would have been a horrible fall for the proud, highly civilized wolfyn. She would have hated dying in wolf form, would’ve hated him seeing her like this. And she would have despised knowing that the witch had broken her.
“Should we do something for her?”
It took him a couple of heartbeats to figure out what she was asking, but far less than that to see that it was impossible. “No. We need to get moving.” He pulled himself to his feet, hating the necessity. At the question in her eyes, he added, “Moragh sent her servant to tell the pack that I’m a blood drinker. Odds are, they’re already on the hunt.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”
“Why? You didn’t do this.”
“I didn’t stop it, either.” He turned for the back of the cave. “Grab what you think you can use.”
“Does she have any archery equipment?”
He stopped and turned back with a raised eyebrow.
“I was a junior archery champ three years running. The family rule was that each kid had to get good at a weapon. I think my father wanted to…” She shook her head. “Anyway, I can shoot. And I’m going to need a weapon.”
“In that trunk over there,” he said, gesturing. “Grab whatever crossbow bolts you can find, too, and another waterskin.”
“Got it.”
While she rummaged, he took a deep breath and faced the back wall of the cave. Then, tapping into the energy flow that enabled the powers of the wolfyn, he said softly, “Let that which is hidden be revealed.”
The rock face shimmered and then disappeared, revealing stacked rows of brightly painted, intricately carved drawers.
Behind him, Reda gasped and something clattered.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s just low-level cloaking magic. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to someone like me.”
Which just reinforced the fact that they came from two completely different worlds that intersected here, in this strange halfway realm. The knowledge tugged at him, but he ignored the tug and focused on the racked drawers trying to figure out which of Candida’s tricks he could use to keep himself and Reda alive long enough to get to Meriden Arch, and from there, gods willing, home. And, in his case, to war.
At the thought, he reached first for the small red-capped leather tube that contained a smaller glass flask. An inch of amber syrup clung to the bottom, barely moving when he shook the carrying case.
“What’s that?”
“Poison,” he said without looking at her. “I’m going to use it to kill the Blood Sorcerer.”
REDA DIDN’T LET HERSELF dwell on the way the things she found packed away were familiar yet not, knock-offs that were ever so slightly wrong in their details. She didn’t let herself dwell on how seeing Dayn do magic had shaken her to her core and, more, how it had aroused her, as if her libido was reacting to a surge of power she hadn’t felt anywhere else. But while she was so busy not thinking about all those things as she loaded her rucksack with additional provisions and strapped a dozen arrows on the outside, she had far too much leeway to think about the clash between the pretty bedding and clothes in the trunks that lined the wall…and the wolf carcass that lay nearby.
Only it wasn’t just a wolf, was it? It—she—had used these blankets, worn these clothes, chosen the now-broken knickknacks. Candida, she thought, glancing over at the motionless form, not sure if what she was feeling could be classified as pity, revulsion, confusion or all of those things at once. Probably the latter. She pitied the woman who had hung an abstract slash of color on the wall, yet reviled a species that, even in war, could enthrall, seduce, use and then discard women. It was a long time ago, she reminded herself. But still. The potential was there. More, the power was there.
Yet Candida had died trying to protect her blood-drinking friend.
Apparently finished gathering what he wanted, Dayn moved away from the racks to cover Candida’s body with a heavy woven robe. He stood for a moment, whispering what she thought was a prayer, or maybe an apology.
Her heart bumped lightly in her chest and a new warmth moved through her, strange and unfamiliar. Tenderness.
He’s a blood drinker, she reminded herself, but the warning bounced back with a rebuttal that came from deep within her: perhaps, but he’s also a prince. Those things were both his birthrights, and both were labels that did nothing to describe the man himself. Dayn the blood drinker was dark and sexy; Dayn the prince was driven and determined to fulfill his promises. But at the same time, Dayn the man was very real.
Back home, her friends said she was too picky, that every man came with a mix of good and bad things, that she had to find a mix that worked for her rather than holding out for Mr. Perfect. What they hadn’t gotten—what she hadn’t been able to make them understand—was that she wasn’t looking for a flawless man; she wanted one that was larger than himself, who cared about more than his car and flat-screen, and whether or not he got promoted at work. She wanted someone who combined her father’s rigid code of ethics and military heroics with her mother’s empathy, whimsy and lust for adventure.
She wanted the woodcutter, the storybook prince. And she had found one—for the next forty-eight hours, at least.
Finished, he turned to her, caught her watching him, but said only, “You ready?”
Standing, she slung the rucksack over her shoulder, where it joined the unstrung bow. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
He nodded. “I got the poison I wanted—which she didn’t finish testing, so I have no idea if it’ll work or not—along with a good supply of wolfsleep sap, which is roughly like chewing gum in your world, but also works on wounds. And this could come in handy.” He dug into his battered rucksack and held out three small lumps of greenish stuff that had the consistency of putty and an oily sheen.