“Shan?”
“Shh…” He brushed his long fingers down the line of her jaw and her skin shivered beneath his touch. Her lips parted in a gasp of surprise as the tip of his forefinger played across her bottom lip.
In the back of her mind, some instinct struggled wildly. This was wrong. Shan’s smile never looked so hungry, nor quite so ravenous as this. If anything, this smile reminded her of her brother Gilliad, and her subconscious mind rebelled to see it on Shan’s handsome face.
Then he kissed her.
Shan’s hand closed on the back of her neck, tangling her hair in his fingers so she was trapped. In his strong grip she couldn’t help but let him have his way. And this kiss was far more than his chaste and respectful kisses of the past. Even they stirred every sense she possessed. This time he sent her desire out of all control.
She clawed at his shoulders, hungry for him, desperate despite her discomfort or fear. It wasn’t right. She knew that. Her heart hammered against her ribs as all the time he held her in check, pushing her relentlessly back down onto the soft furs. This was wrong, she knew that. Shan wouldn’t act this way. His honour was everything to him. And his honour would not allow him to do this to her, not without vows exchanged, a handfasting at the least. But this new, dark-eyed Shan was different. His mouth consumed hers, his kisses tearing away some vital part of her pitiful resistance.
Jeren opened her terrified eyes wide as the first jerk of energy within her snatched away her remaining breath. Now his lips devoured not just her own, but her very life force, tearing her soul and her very essence out with his kiss. Her body sagged, helpless under the enchantment, and her consciousness flickered like a candle in a gale. This wasn’t Shan. Couldn’t be Shan. But then, where was he?
The light in her gutted once more and went out.
The sight of the grey wolf drew Shan through the night. Fluid and beautiful, she crossed the snow without leaving a trail. As she looked back, her glance beckoned him on. It was almost too late when he realised his mistake. Anala would never deliberately draw him away from Jeren. The wolf’s ghost had brought them back together, had helped them to escape.
Dismissing it as another animal, albeit one almost as beautiful as his former companion, he turned his back. As he did so an alien movement caught the corner of his eye and the wolf was gone. Dull dread beat hollowly inside him as he looked instead to find a woman standing in the snow. Her eyes glistened, completely black without iris or white, and her long hair trailed behind her, as black as the smoke of a funeral pyre. Beneath the wolf skin draped around her shoulders she was naked, her pale skin both a lure and a warning.
“What are you?” he asked on a hitched breath.
She smiled, her lips parting to reveal sharp canines. “Am I not your desire? Both woman and wolf?”
Shan frowned and curved his left hand on the hilt of his sect knife, the right one against his sword. Both weapons felt cold, but wholly real. The only real thing about the scene before him. He acknowledged it to himself, swallowing hard on the lump in his throat. “You are not Anala’s ghost.”
“No.” She stepped closer and her features shifted subtly, her hair paling and rearranging itself in a thousand slender braids. Now his sister stood before him and yet he knew it was not, if only by the deviant gleam in her unnaturally black eyes. It could not be her, for Falinar would never look at her own brother in that way.
Shan slid the sect knife free. It formed a comfortable weight in his hands, his anchor in reality.
The woman’s gaze darted down to it for the briefest moment and when they returned to his face, her features had changed again. Her hair was brown, the deep glossy chestnut of Jeren’s hair. She flinched back from him.
“Shan? What’s wrong?” Her voice rang out in the night air—definitely her voice, every nuance correct. “Don’t you know me?” She reached out with trembling hands. But her eyes were still wrong. So desperately wrong.
Shan shook his head, trying to clear the image, but it remained before him, the human girl he loved, scared of his sudden aggression. Her face paled and she bit on her lower lip, as she always did when unsure.
He almost dropped both knife and sword. His eyes lingered on her face, then dropped down her nubile length. The perfect curve of her side. Without even the trace of a wound. Not even a scar. Flawless.
She stood no more than two feet away from him when he slashed out with the blade of his sect knife.
With speed and dexterity far beyond any mortal, she twisted aside and all her pretence fell away.
“You’re not my Jeren!” He kept the knife between them, and fear clawed at the back of his throat, though he used everything in his power to push it down.
The creature laughed, her illusions tumbling to the snow like the spring thaw.
“No. And soon your Jeren will be our Jeren and you, Shanith Al-Fallion, will be mine.”
“Never.” The word was a low growl. “You’re Fellna. You’re everything my people despise.”
She turned away, her body twisting to smoke and shadows, but her voice lingered on the breeze like a taint. “So is she.”
Jeren!
Shan sprinted back to the camp, the knife heavy in his hands, the sword dragging at his arm with every step. He tore over rocks and through deep snow, reckless in his haste.
The dark form of a Fellna cradled her, leaned over her mouth like a lover. But instead of kisses, it stole her life. Jeren’s arms hung limp at her side, her eyes stared vacantly at the skies overhead, and a thin covering of frost glistened on her perfect skin and twisted through the strands of her chestnut hair.
“No!” Shan tore the creature off her and held it so it could not dissolve into mists and shadows. His knife flashed moonlight for the second before it bit into the darkness. The Fellna cried out in a tongue close enough to his own that he recognised a curse. Then it sagged in his grip, nothing more than deadweight. He dropped it and pulled Jeren from the ground, gathering her in arms that suddenly felt weak, helpless.
Her body hung from his grip, so cold, dangerously cold, and her heart fluttered like that of a wounded bird.
“Curse it, Jeren,” he whispered, trying to rub some warmth back into her body. “Can I not leave you alone for a moment?” The feeble attempt at humour to rouse her fell sickeningly flat. He kissed her unresponsive lips and his heart plummeted when she remained still and cold as stone. “Jeren!”
“She’s ours now,” a teasing voice carried on the breeze and he jerked his head up to meet the threat.
“No. I’ll keep her from you, Enchassa!” He rubbed Jeren’s arms furiously, trying to will her stolen life force back into her while the Fellna sorceress, the Enchassa, laughed.
“If you had the fire of the desire you claim to hold for her, that might do you some good. But it isn’t proper is it, Shan? You can’t save a lover with your love alone unless she’s your wife. That would shame you. And so would mating with a creature like that.”
“You won’t touch her.” He slashed towards the figure as it coalesced from the darkness. He came close but didn’t strike flesh. Her smile didn’t fade, no more than she did.
Beautiful as night, her skin like water under a moonless sky, iridescent waves of hair tumbling down her back, she moved towards him, each step more bewitching.
“She’ll be our thrall. Her magic ours to use. There’s so much magic, so much power. It flows through her veins. She will be ours. And so will you.” She sighed with pleasure, the noise rippling through the air to caress his skin, setting the sensitive hairs vibrating with alarm and unwilling desire. “Ah yes, you can feel it too, Shan. Part of you even wants it. Come with me now, join us, and spare your people.”