Rebel: The Blades of the Rose (25 page)

“Thank you, I think,” Catullus murmured. As he carved a path through the dun-colored fog, he wryly mused that the assessment of his character was rather accurate. Yet, if that meant ensuring the safety of the Blades, including Astrid, then he was willing to live with the price of his intellect.

 

Sitting in the opaque fog with only a wolf for company, expecting an attack from ruthless exploiters, waiting for the friend she had spurned, Astrid understood in a sudden, silent crash that the quiet, insulated life she had tried to create for herself was entirely over. The thought did not trouble her. Something had always felt wrong about secreting herself away in her cabin. Years of deliberate numbness ensured she never examined this feeling overmuch. She could pretend to herself that being a solitary mountain woman was precisely the existence she wanted.

Nathan had changed all that.

He circled her now, never still, padding on silent wolf's paws as he patrolled. He might have been angry at her decision to stay, but he'd compromised, meeting her will with his own. In all her years, even as a Blade, she'd never met a man his equal.

“I know why you became an attorney,” she said softly. She did not want to raise her voice, lest she alert any Heirs to her presence, but Nathan's hearing caught her words. She could tell by the swivel of his ears.

“To fight,” she continued. “From the inside. Happiness and power were taken from you by the government, by people who weren't your own. And you do not want anyone to go through what you experienced, to be hurt as you have been hurt. The best way, the most devastating way, was to take the establishment apart from within the very system that most harmed you. Am I right?”

Nathan made a low sound of surprised agreement. He stopped his pacing, continuing to peer into the thick fog, though his ears were turned to her.

“It is like me, with the Blades,” Astrid said. “Perhaps it was because I had no brothers or sisters that, as a child, I wanted for little. Whenever I saw anyone being denied, or subjugated, it…enraged me. I could not bear it. Why should one have everything, and the other, nothing? Had it been an option for women, I may well have gone into law. But,” she sighed, “it was not an option. And what the Blades offered me was so much more gratifying.”

Although he continued to keep his surveillance, Nathan backed up so that Astrid was able to place a hand on his back. He gave a rumble of approval. Beneath his fur, inside his form of a wolf, she felt him, the essence of who he was, a call that resounded within herself. So strong, these feelings. They engulfed her but, she was beginning to understand, they buoyed her as well.

“Push me,” she said, “I push back. I have always been that way. My mother called me Little Star, but more as a jest. Nothing precious or twinkling about me. More like a nova,” she snorted.

The sound Nathan made seemed to say,
I like you this way.

“Thank you.” She smiled. Here she was, conversing with a wolf. Surely some women would appreciate this arrangement—no opportunity for a man to speak back. But Astrid welcomed the time when Nathan assumed his human form. She needed his words, the sound of his voice.

“We are a pair, aren't we?” she murmured. “A couple of born scrappers. I should think we would tear each other apart.”

He broke from his vigil and turned to her. Astrid's hand still hovered in the air from where it had rested on his back, and he pushed his warm muzzle into it, closing his eyes. One paw he placed upon her lap.

Her heart, freshly mended, did not fall to pieces. Yet it trembled. And became stronger.

Nathan suddenly pulled away with a growl. He faced out, staring into the fog with vision far sharper than her own. Astrid leapt to her feet, pistol in hand. Nathan started forward, then glanced back at her, as if deciding whether to attack whoever approached or to stay with her. He stayed, sinking into a ready crouch. Meanwhile, his growl grew louder, more menacing. Even Astrid's blood chilled at the sound.

“How many?” she whispered to Nathan, then cursed when she realized he couldn't answer her.

There was eerie, thick silence, all sound muffled by the dense fog. Then Astrid heard it. What seemed like slow, steady hoof falls, but the fog played havoc with sound so that she could not tell their number. And above the
clop-clip
of the horses, another sound, strange and fluting, like a creature of air and sky keening. Perhaps the Heirs had summoned some unknown beast. She had fought creatures before. She could again. And not alone.

Astrid glanced over at Nathan. His lips peeled back to reveal long, deadly teeth that demanded blood. The bristles on his back looked made of steel. She had witnessed him kill to protect her before. She might again, within moments. Astrid wanted to spare him the numb pain of becoming too accustomed to killing.

A column of wind pushed over her and she braced her feet. She cocked her gun. Aimed into the fog.

The yellow mist began to twist and churn, blown by this new wind. A circle of clearing air emerged, features such as tree trunks and grass materializing. She peered into this radius of visibility.

A figure strode forward. In its hands was some kind of rope or chain that it swung in circles, causing a breeze to drive away the fog. Behind this figure was another, this one mounted, and leading two horses. There were more than two men in the Heirs' party. Yet she could not allow herself a moment of solace. Not until she was certain.

“North is eternal,” she called.

Nathan tensed at her words. He did not understand their significance.

Almost immediately came a response from the figure swinging the chain. “South is forever.”

The man on horseback added in an eastern American accent, “West is endless.”

Then the three of them spoke in unison. “East is infinite.”

Astrid felt relief wash over her, at the same time that her heart seized with anxiety. “Easy,” she said to Nathan. “These are friends. They are Blades.”

Nathan rapidly changed into his human form, but the frown had not left his face. As he donned his clothing, Astrid stepped forward. The fog cleared even more, showing her details of the man with the chain, which he quickly stilled. Another amazing invention. She might have known.

Gleaming boots, even here in the middle of the wilderness. Perfectly fitted trousers tucked into the boots, and an equally perfect dark coat. If she had any doubt who emerged from the fog, those doubts were banished the moment she espied the black-and-silver embroidery on the waistcoat.

“Catullus,” she said.

“Astrid,” Catullus answered.

And suddenly, she and the man she regarded as her closest friend stood facing each other. Four years after they had last spoken. Because she had run away and spurned his every effort to contact her.

For some time, she and Catullus stared at each other. He was still, as always, sculpturally handsome, his eyes dark and clever behind his spectacles. Wariness, too, in his gaze, as if he was unsure whether she would bite him.

“The goatee is new,” she said.

He touched it reflexively. “I started growing it shortly after you left.”

“Ah,” she said, feeling awkward. She glanced up at his close-cropped hair. “No gray hairs, either. I was not so lucky.” She heard Nathan come up to stand beside her, but it was almost impossible to turn away from Catullus. Dimly, she was also aware of the man on horseback dismounting and approaching their group.

“Astrid,” said Catullus, and the sound of his voice was so familiar it nearly made her weep, “why in God's name are we talking about grooming habits?”

Her laugh was strained. “I think…it is because I am…” She searched for the right words. Profoundly sorry. Deeply embarrassed. Angry. Joyous. “Glad to see you.”

“Are you?”

She blinked. “Of course I am.”

“I did not know what sort of reception I would receive.”

In truth, had he tried to see her less than a month ago, she might have chased him off with her rifle. But much had changed since then.
She
had changed.

“Folks,” said the gangly, fair man standing beside Catullus, “you think we might have this touching reunion later? Seeing as how there's a gang of Heirs out there who'd just as soon roast us for supper.”

“Agreed,” Nathan said.

Astrid gave a guilty start. She had been too immersed in her own spectacle to have given Nathan proper consideration.

She quickly introduced Nathan to Catullus, who then performed the same service for the other Blade, a man called Max Quinn from Boston. Both Nathan and Catullus gave each other a thorough sizing-up, two prime males eyeing each other for possibility of threat. There was no mistaking Nathan's proprietary hand on her shoulder. Astrid was at once amused, irritated, and bashful, made more so by Catullus's raised, questioning brow. She wondered what Catullus might think of her, to have a man besides Michael in her bed, especially since it was her grief over her husband's death that had driven her to self-imposed exile.

“What the devil are you doing out here, Astrid?” Catullus demanded. “Quinn and I find your cabin in shambles, a body rotting away inside, Heirs on your tail, and we're apparently trespassing on some powerful tribe's territory.”

“I've been trying to figure out what's going on for a week now,” Quinn added, “and I can't understand it at all.”

Astrid drew a deep breath, then, as concisely as possible, related everything that had transpired since the moment she arrived at the trading post. Nathan filled in details in his precise, direct fashion. By silent agreement, she and Nathan did not discuss their growing attachment, and especially not the times they had made love. That would be akin to discussing sexual techniques with one's older brother.

As they related all that had happened, Catullus nodded and absorbed information, while Quinn made soft, colorful curses of amazement. Occasionally, Catullus asked questions, but mostly he was silent and attentive.

When at last Astrid reached the end of her narrative, exactly to the moment when Catullus and Quinn arrived, she took another breath. “And that is why Nathan and I are making such haste. We have to get to the remaining totems before the Heirs do. They will want the Sources to control the shape changers, and we cannot allow that to happen.”

Catullus and Quinn shared a look, and that made Astrid very, very nervous. She clenched her hands into fists as Nathan's hand tightened at her shoulder, offering support.

“The Heirs aren't here for the totems or the shape-shifters,” Catullus said.

“Perhaps they came on a scouting mission for Sources,” Astrid answered. “But when they encountered Nathan, they found what they were looking for. They kidnapped him.”

“I allow,” said Catullus, “that when presented with an opportunity to acquire more Sources, the Heirs took that opportunity. But, Astrid, that isn't what brought them out to Canada in the first place.”

“What
did
bring them here, then?” Nathan demanded.

Catullus stared at Astrid, and the chill seeping into her had nothing to do with the lingering fog. “You, Astrid. They came for you.”

Rain began to fall, clearing away the fog. It was a chilly, steady rain that ran down the back of the neck and turned the ground to mud. None of this registered with Astrid. She could only stand and gape at Catullus, burning cold.

“No,” was all she could say.

Catullus's expression shifted from wariness to something akin to pity. “Yes,” he answered. “They left England with the express intention of abducting you, and taking you with them back to their headquarters in London. Our inside source confirmed it.”

“What do they want with her?” Nathan demanded. His voice was steel and stone, a weapon.

Catullus sent Astrid another sympathetic look. What he said next made her heart stutter to a stop. “They have the Primal Source.”

Not once in her entire life had Astrid fainted, not even when Michael had had to take a bullet out of her shoulder without a drop of whiskey to sedate her. Yet she wasn't aware until she felt Nathan's steadying hands on her that she'd even begun to list. The world grew nebulous around the edges as she struggled to comprehend what Catullus just said. If it was true, that the Heirs did possess the Primal Source, nothing could be worse. For everyone.

“Steady, love,” Nathan breathed, supporting her.

She shook her head and tugged herself away, needing her own strength, but her legs would not cooperate, and he wrapped strong arms around her to keep her upright.

“Astrid spoke about this Primal Source,” Nathan said to Catullus. “Can you tell me more?”

“It is the first Source,” Catullus explained, “the one from which all other Sources originate. There is no Source more powerful, and to harness its power for oneself is to be in command of the world's magic.”

“I don't see what that's got to do with Astrid,” said Nathan.

“Africa,” Astrid muttered. She managed to rouse herself enough to stand on her own. “Michael and I were studying the Primal Source in Africa, learning its history, its abilities. Not to exploit, but for the sake of knowledge. If Blades knew more about the origins of magic, we could protect it better. And while Michael and I studied the Primal Source, Heirs tried to take it. There was a fight. The Source was safe, it disappeared back into nature, but Michael…” She knew how this story ended, with her covered in Michael's blood and a solitary boat trip back to England.

“Mrs. Bramfield knows more about the Primal Source than anyone,” Quinn said. “That's why the Heirs need her now. They want to use her knowledge to exploit the Primal Source even further.”

“Further?” Astrid repeated with a sick dread.

Catullus nodded briefly. “Not long ago, the Heirs' dark mages activated the Primal Source. And that means,” he added, addressing Nathan, “that they can now use its power. But they want Astrid's expertise to capitalize on it.”

“With the Primal Source under their command,” Astrid said, “there is nothing standing in their way of utter dominion. Their dream of England's imperial supremacy will come true. If they know how to feed the Primal Source their wishes, they will have everything they want.” She felt the urge to scream, to tear the earth apart with her bare hands. Activated the Primal Source. Nothing, not a damned thing in the entire world, could be worse.

“This makes sense,” Catullus said, thoughtful. He seemed so calm in the face of complete disaster, but, then, he'd had a good deal longer to accustom himself to the idea than she. “It must have been when the Primal Source was triggered, that's when Sources everywhere became charged with even greater power. And Astrid's earlier, long exposure to the Primal Source had already imbued her with some of its strength. After the Primal Source was activated, it must have also increased its strength within Astrid. In the case of Lesperance”—he nodded toward Nathan—“Astrid and the totems' response to the awakening of the Primal Source enabled your latent abilities to emerge.”

An awful thought struck Astrid, and she turned to Nathan, furious with herself. “I did this to you,” she gritted. “Your change into a wolf, your kidnapping. And the Heirs' being led to the totems. It was all my doing.”

“Enough,” he said, jaw tight. He gripped her shoulders, facing her, direct and unwavering. “None of that's true. The Heirs alone are responsible, not you. And I'm not sorry at all about being able to change. It's made my life a hell of a lot more worthwhile.
You
make my life worthwhile.”

She swallowed hard, taking him in, as rain pattered around them. Nothing back. He held nothing back, and she kept giving him meager handfuls. He deserved better than that. She would set things to rights.

But not now. Now the world was verging on complete subjugation. After giving Nathan a look that stated clearly that they were far from finished in that discussion, she turned to Catullus. “I thought the Heirs were after the totems, but they are not. If so, we oughtn't lead those sons of bitches to them.” Thank the gods she was with other Blades, and Nathan, who were long familiar with her unladylike language. No one blinked or looked askance at her words.

“You know Heirs,” Catullus said grimly. “Once they know of a Source, they must claim it for themselves. Especially now that each Source is more powerful than ever, thanks to the Primal Source.”

“We have to get the remaining totems before they do,” Quinn said. He glanced up. “Looks like the rain's finally stopping. Sure miss my old saloon back home, but,” he added with a grin, “if I didn't like dragging my gangly behind through the mud, I wouldn't have become a Blade.”

The plainspoken American helped lighten the group's mood as everyone muttered their agreements. It took a special breed of fool to become a Blade of the Rose, a combination of courage, determination, and masochism.

“You must know where the next totem is,” said Catullus.

Astrid and Nathan glanced at each other. In truth, they had been so busy avoiding the Heirs and then waiting for Catullus and Quinn, they hadn't discussed the whereabouts of the totem.

“The Earth Spirits' medicine man told us a legend,” Astrid said. “From that, we piece together our direction. We have only just acquired the first totem. As for the next…”

“
Travel the path of the solitary hunter,
” Nathan recited, “
to the gray forest.
”

Everyone pondered this. “They never give much, those legends,” said Quinn. “Like the ancients are trying to drive us out of our minds. Crazy bastards.”

Catullus made a wry laugh, and it reminded Astrid of the many nights she, Michael, and Catullus used to sit by the fire at headquarters, talking about missions until they grew hoarse and their sides ached from laughter. No denying it now, there was a decided strain between her and Catullus, a strain that she had engendered.

For now, they focused on what needed to be done. “Which path?” Catullus asked. “Which hunter?”

“Bears hunt alone,” Astrid noted.

“As do hawks,” said Nathan.

But they already knew the totem they sought belonged to either the bear changers or hawk changers. Which left them exactly where they had been earlier.

In frustration, and to quiet the chaos of her heart, Astrid turned away to gaze at the broad meadow stretching just beyond the foothills where she and the others stood. She had found a measure of stability out here in the wilderness, and sought that stability now. Twilight was coming soon, and the sinking sun caught the dispersing rainclouds in bands of fiery pink and gold. The rain washed away the dank London fog, leaving the air tonic and clear as it hovered over the meadow. The broad field was not perfectly flat, rather dipping here and there. She would not have noticed these small hollows, but rainwater had collected within them, forming gleaming shapes scattered across the surface of the meadow.

She peered closer. “Those pools,” she murmured.

Everyone turned to see what had captured her attention.

“They look like tracks,” Nathan observed.

It was true. The pools were not scattered randomly across the meadow. They stretched in groups in a rough line over the grassy expanse. Each group was composed of a larger, ovoid pond with five small ovals at the top.

“Human footprints,” Catullus ventured.

“No.” Astrid recognized the shapes of the tracks. “Bear. They look very similar to human prints.” She pointed to a series of other pools, smaller than half the ponds. “Those are the front feet. Bear tracks.”

“Damn big bear,” said Quinn. Which was an understatement. The trail was one of a bear of enormous scale.

“A legendary bear,” Nathan amended.

“And look,” Catullus said, directing their attention further. “The trail leads to those mountains beyond the meadow.” Sure enough, the giant tracks did precisely that, heading toward soaring gray peaks capped with glittering snow.

Astrid said in wonder, “The gray forest.”

The four of them, three Blades of two countries and one shape-changing Native, stood in silence as they saw the task that lay ahead of them. Difficult enough to scale the bear totem's mountains, but the Heirs were somewhere out there as well, ready to kill, ready to capture Astrid. She'd no doubt that, if she did manage to wind up a prisoner of the Heirs, she would be tortured. For that was the only way she would divulge anything about the Primal Source.

She also had to contend with the towering monument of her abandonment of Catullus, her rejection of his friendship, which cast its own bleak shadow. And the fact that every day, every moment she spent with Nathan, he'd become as necessary to her as blood. Her heart rebelled at the notion at the same time as it rejoiced.

Such a byzantine maze she found herself within. To consider all of it at once was to court paralysis. She had to keep moving.

“We know our path,” she said, breaking the silence. “Now we must pursue it.”

 

First, a campsite had to be found. Even with Nathan's sight to guide them, traversing the wilderness in darkness had its dangers. And everyone sagged with fatigue. The day had been long, tumultuous. Every day afterward would be the same.

As Quinn and Catullus readied their weary horses, Nathan drew Astrid aside. He softly ran his long hands down her hair, over her face, tracing warmth and emotion that almost made her sigh. Today alone, she had seen him scale mountains, face down a mythical beast, challenge and defend her, and now he touched her tenderly—not reverentially, not as though she was made of sugar, for he knew she had more resilience than that—but the gentleness of his hands upon her filled her heart to bursting.

“I'm with you through this,” he said. “Every step, I'm beside you.”

“We have help now on the mission.” She flicked her eyes toward Catullus and Quinn.

“More than the mission,” he said, linking their hands together, “and the totems, and the Primal Source. You aren't alone. We fight together.” The dark heat and promise of his eyes soothed and inflamed.

She rose up onto her toes and pressed a kiss to his mouth, soft and ardent. Their mission had changed, yet his strength had not. It grew, as did her own, because of his support. “Knowing that is enough,” she whispered against his lips. “And I'm sorry we are to lose our privacy, for many reasons. Not the least of which,” she added with a small, wicked smile, “is that I want you. Quite fiercely. Nothing like seeing a man intimidate a giant ice wolf to ignite the passions.”

He nipped at her bottom lip and growled. “I'll terrorize whole packs to be alone with you.” They drew closer, body to body, and it was a wonderful torment.

Hearing Catullus and Max finish with their horses, Astrid drew reluctantly away. She missed the heat and solid strength of Nathan immediately, but turned to face the other Blades, standing and holding the reins of the animals. Catullus's expression remained carefully neutral.

“I spotted a dry site in the meadow,” she said. “It's high enough to keep us out of the damp, but not so high that we'll catch the wind.”

“Glad somebody knows what to do out here,” Quinn replied. “Our guide hightailed it.”

Astrid started. “Your guide
abandoned
you?”

“He tried to have us turn around.” Catullus's voice was also deliberately toneless.

“But what if you didn't find me?”

“Have I ever turned back or abandoned a colleague?” Catullus answered.

“No,” she said after a long pause. “You may have new whiskers, but you are still Catullus Graves, tireless and obstinate.”

Hard to know whether it was the lowering sun glinting off his spectacles or a flare of old, shared humor that she saw in Catullus's eyes. She hoped it was the latter. Having glimpsed what she and her erstwhile friend once shared, she found herself with a powerful yearning. Nathan's presence showed her what she had so ruthlessly denied.

Wordlessly, the four travelers made their way through the foothills to the site Astrid had identified. While waxed canvas tarps were laid down atop gathered tree branches, Astrid built a fire pit and set up a line on which everyone could dry their soggy clothing. One at a time, they slipped away to change into dry clothes. The moment of utter disrobing in the frigid air stole Astrid's breath, but she hastily pulled on fresh garments, grateful that at least some of her belongings had been spared a tumble into an icy crevasse.

Everyone gathered close to the fire, warming their hands and watching their rain-drenched clothes steam. It had not escaped Catullus's notice that Astrid and Nathan would share a pallet that night, but he said nothing. A tight silence spread like a sail, buffeted by winds of tension. Several times, Quinn attempted conversation, but his efforts were met with awkward, monosyllabic answers.

“Say, Lesperance,” he said, rising to his feet, “I bet we'll need more kindling. I'll need your wolf eyes to help me find some. There's a pal.”