Killing Time (23 page)

Intently focused on the power of my will, they knew it was concentrated on them. And while they weren’t testing my strength—not yet—I could feel their coiled readiness to exploit any opening I might slip up and give them. Consequently, I had to remain vigilant, unassailable. Much like the Cold War, it was the threat of retaliation that maintained the brittle peace.

After twelve hours of this, I had to acknowledge that my faint hope either bittern could be pulled from their automaton-like existence was delusional. Nothing in the world around us even registered with Onas and Târre. The gorgeous Canadian Rockies, the brilliant blue sky, a magnificent waterfall we drove past—none of it drew their gazes or elicited the slightest flicker of emotion from them. The only time they seemed to take note of the world flowing past our windows was when four elk leaped across the road a quarter-mile ahead of us. A hungry light burned in two sets of silver eyes and Onas’s lips parted, the edges of his sharp teeth just visible.

Dryly, I told Koda, “Looks like some cheeseburgers would be a good idea.” I flicked a glance at Târre, craning her head to keep the animals in sight as long as possible. “Soon.”

He nodded, his gaze sweeping the rearview mirror as he observed the bitterns. About a mile later, he exited the highway and pulled into a combination gas station and fast food restaurant. Koda parked at the gas pump farthest from the convenience store and gave me a quizzical look. I breathed deep and scrounged up a shred of energy, just enough to camouflage the bitterns’ and my features and appalling condition. I was hoping the truck’s tinted windows would mask anything my glamour didn’t quite hide.

“Okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “I’ll be quick.” His hand on the door’s handle, Koda gave me a soft smile, worry and anger darkening his eyes. Then he climbed out, shutting the door behind himself. He got the gas going and walked into the restaurant to get the food. About five minutes passed and he came back out carrying a big bag and a tray of drinks.

I turned in my seat to kneel so I could face the bitterns, swallowing the pained hiss as my leg’s stitches stretched uncomfortably. Hating myself the whole time, I brutally pushed my will onto them until both dropped their gazes. Pushing harder, I figured it was a better option than allowing them to attack Koda for the food the second he opened the truck’s door. Only when they were visibly cowed did I wave him forward to hand everything in. When he reached across to put the bag and tray on the hump between our seats, I ignored the anger radiating from him, knowing it was directed at the situation and not at me. He shut the door and finished with the gas pump, then climbed into the driver’s seat. Starting the truck, he pulled out onto the surface street and retraced our route to the highway.

The scent of cheeseburgers filling the pickup brought a pained, hungry sound from Târre. Onas growled threateningly, his silver eyes narrowing as he focused on the female.

“Enough!” I snarled in Fae. The last thing we needed was for the two of them to battle over the food. Without removing my hard gaze from the bitterns, I said to Koda, “Is there someplace private we can go to feed them?”

He shot me a sharp look. “We’re on interstates now with traffic all the way between here and the other side of the U.S. border. Unless we go some distance out of the way, there’s nothing.”

I could feel the skin of my face tighten. If the bitterns didn’t eat soon, their hunger would override my control. “This should be interesting.”

Reaching one-handed into the first bag, I took out a paper-wrapped burger and handed it to Onas, tacitly acknowledging his seniority over the female. Only by keeping the pressure on him, giving myself a massive headache, did I keep him from snatching the food from my hands. Even as I was reaching for the second burger, Onas had shred the paper wrapping and was tearing into the food like a ravening animal.

Târre was only marginally better, simply because she was yet another level below me in rank, which required her to be that much more careful. But when the food was in her grip, she fell on the burger just as savagely.

To prevent a squabble between them, I tossed two more burgers to each, having to cuff Onas when his eyes lifted to meet mine and he stiffened, threat implicit in his posture. I cursed under my breath. That he was acting aggressively, even with my will hard on him, told me he was going to be a real problem. He ducked his head and murmured the proper apology, the formal words coming out with more growl than sincerity. When his sharp gaze lifted to Koda and a speculative expression crossed his face, I lunged, resolutely not giving in to my arm’s agonized protest as it slammed into the back of my seat.

Catching Onas by the throat, I squeezed, allowing my short nails to dig into his flesh. “He is untouchable,” I hissed in Fae.

The bittern made as if to raise his hands in an effort to free himself and I tightened my grip until his face went purple. He gasped something which sounded close enough to a sincere plea for mercy and I released my hold, sinking back into my seat but keeping my focus on him.

Koda swore, livid. “How long is it going to be like this, Sephti?”

Breathing through the pain of my throbbing arm, aching ribs and leg, I stayed concentrated on the bitterns. I hadn’t missed Târre’s keen interest in Onas’s condition or the calculation that crossed her features as she considered attacking him in that moment, while he was weakened.

“Sephti?” Koda prompted. “How long?”

Hurting and heartsick, I wanted to slump in my seat, put my head back and just freaking let go. Harsh reality kept me erect and alert, though. After a long moment of wrestling with the truth, I finally admitted, “As long as they are around. They’re too…too…”

“Rabidly psychopathic.” Koda’s tone dripped loathing. “Your grand plan, the one that has you risking your life, is for creatures like them?”

I flinched, but made my voice stay steady and strong, since anything else might precipitate an attack from the backseat. “No. It’s to keep my people from being made into creatures like them.”

He swore softly under his breath and flipped on the truck’s headlights with a lot more energy than necessary. Suddenly, he swerved, taking an exit right before we would’ve passed it. I caught the tray of drinks to keep them from falling and making a horrible mess, shooting a look at him before returning my attention to the bitterns.

We wove through a series of streets until we came to a warehouse district, where Koda slowed the truck as he studied the increasingly run-down buildings we passed. Finally, he seemed satisfied by one with broken-out windows and trash blowing across its weed-strewn parking lot. Graffiti layered on top of graffiti made me think of the way animals mark their territory—each successive creature coming through to urinate on the same spot in an effort to prove who was bigger and badder.

That humans chose to do this with paint was just one more mystery to me. At least the paint smelled a little better.

Koda pulled around the building’s corner and turned off the headlights. “We do this my way now.” Climbing out of the truck, he went to the back end and dug around in an old-fashioned trunk I’d noticed but hadn’t thought anything of. When he came around to my door and opened it, I looked at him quizzically. “Bring them.”

Dragging myself out of the pickup, I stretched surreptitiously, trying to work out the kinks from having sat in pretty much the same position all day. Never one for headaches, I had one now and it felt like my brain was trying to force its way out through my ears.

Koda was looking at me, hard, his sharp eyes cataloging my growing exhaustion and the care I was taking to mask it from the bitterns. He brushed a loose strand of hair back from my cheek, smiling faintly at my indrawn breath. “Hold them just a little while longer.”

I nodded, barking a rough command that had the two scrambling to kneel at my feet. Getting them moving took another order, then the four of us entered the dilapidated warehouse.

“Have you been here before?” I asked Koda, keeping the bitterns well back from him as we followed him deeper into the abandoned building.

“No.”

“Then how’d you know—”

His shoulders tightened. “Every city has its cast-off sections. All you have to do is look.”

I’d noticed the same thing and had used such areas to hide when I escaped the stable.

We made our way across shattered glass and past a strange variety of broken shopping carts, collapsed boxes, a refrigerator without its door and a one-legged table. Apparently, the building had been used as a dump, although the thick layer of dust on everything indicated no one had been here in a long while.

“This is a good spot.” Koda indicated an area in the center of the abandoned structure’s farthest section. His tension had increased to the point that he seemed to vibrate with it.

His extreme discomfort in Târre and Onas’s presence added to my own uneasiness and I ratcheted my hold on them that much tighter. A tickle had me swipe at my nose and I was astonished to see a smear of blood across my knuckles. Having a nosebleed blew my mind, since this had never happened in all my time in captivity—keeping yourself alive required both physical skill, unfaltering alertness and the ability to mentally push your fellows at all times. As the consummate survivalist, I couldn’t figure out why less than a day dealing with just two bitterns should cause my nose to bleed. Or, come to think of it, why I had such a killer headache. I’d been so busy bracing against the throbbing pain that I hadn’t really thought about how strange it was that I hurt.

Giving myself a mental shake, I watched Koda spread a small buckskin square on the floor. Directing the bitterns to kneel where he pointed, I sat facing the pair on Koda’s nearer side.

Taking a fistful of sweet grass from a pile by his knee, he made a small fire, waving his hands in the smoke so it wafted over his head. Inhaling, he seemed to be talking to himself in another language, but the words had a rhythmic quality to them. As if he was speaking the lyrics of a song.

“Tighten your hold,” he said quietly, his eyes flicking to mine and darkening as he spotted the bloody nose. When I nodded, he removed a large bone-handled knife from its beaded sheath and held the blade in the sweet grass smoke. My will was so hard on the bitterns that I’m not sure they even saw that Koda was armed, something that would normally have set off their instincts. The added effort did awful things to my headache.

Lips moving soundlessly, Koda cut six quarter-inch-wide strips from the buckskin, each about twelve inches in length. He reached up to his head and carefully plucked four strands of his long black hair, then looked at me. I understood what he needed, and pulling out four strands of my own, I handed them to him.

After winding our hair into two separate lengths, he braided each with the buckskin strips into two necklaces. I couldn’t tell how he kept them from unraveling, but when he held his hands over the sweet grass smoke, the plaited ends looked solid and of a piece.

Still murmuring under his breath, Koda moved toward Onas, blurring into motion as I hadn’t seen him do since we’d fought what seemed ages ago. When Koda was again still, the bittern male wore one of the braided necklaces. A moment later, Koda did the same with Târre.

“Okay, Sephti,” Koda said. “Relax your will.”

With great relief, I let my mental muscles release. He said a handful of words I didn’t understand, activating the bindings, and then the bitterns were writhing on the floor. Heads thrown back, defiant howls tearing from their throats, Onas and Târre fought Koda’s woven collars while we watched.

Remembering how I’d done the same thing, I had to turn away. “I hate this,” I whispered.

Koda wrapped his arm around my waist and drew me to his side, keeping a careful eye on the thrashing bitterns. “The threat they pose is too great and the strain of holding them is harming you. It is this or kill them.”

I nodded, leaning into his solidity and allowing myself that comfort. It seemed interminable, the length of time before my animalistic kin accepted the bindings. But in truth it was the space of a few minutes before they stopped fighting and sat up, panting from the expended effort. Looking toward Koda, they bowed their heads in unison and spoke in Fae.

I blew out the breath I’d been holding, feeling the aching muscles along my shoulders and neck begin to relax. I hadn’t even been aware that I’d held them taut or that I hadn’t drawn air while the bitterns struggled.

“What did they say?” he asked.

“‘By your will.’ They’re acknowledging your higher rank.” My mouth twisted. “But don’t get cocky. They’ll rip your throat out at the first opportunity.”

“Yeah. I kinda figured.” Koda looked down at me, his expression softening as he pulled me to his chest. “You okay?” He tilted his head so my face was pressed against his neck and jaw and gently wrapped his arms around me. I inhaled, filling my senses with his scent.

“Will the bindings hold them?” I asked, my voice muffled.

I felt Koda extending his awareness, gauging the bitterns’ strength versus whatever he had imbued into the braided necklaces. Surprised, I lifted my head to look up at him. It was the first time I’d had any sense of his mentally reaching out like that. Hadn’t, in fact, known he even could. Maybe his observation that I was becoming a different person wasn’t so far off after all. Maybe this had something to do with how difficult it had been to push my will onto the bitterns.

Maybe I didn’t want to think about it right now.

I sensed the bindings flare and looked over to see Onas and Târre slip sideways, flat on the floor.

Koda kissed the top of my head. “The bindings will hold well enough. I also knocked our ‘guests’ out, but we should still be careful and sleep in shifts.” A soft smile curved his lips. “You’re swaying on your feet, Sephti. I’ll take the first watch.”

In truth, I was exhausted. But with his lush mouth just inches away, I wanted so badly to kiss him. All it would take was a tilt of my head, the slightest elevation of my face and our lips would meet.

Then I remembered how he’d looked at Onas and Târre, how he’d called them repellent and alien. True, he’d insisted I was nothing like them. But the thing was—to my greatest shame—that wasn’t entirely accurate. Yes, something was happening to me. Somehow, I was changing. But the instincts were still there, inside me. I still categorized everything with a pulse based on its threat level. I still carried a bittern’s cursed DNA with all that it entailed. And I still dragged along a ton of fae baggage—the lords and their assassins who’d be thrilled to see me dead, especially if it meant they got to torture and kill anyone important to me first.