Royal House of Shadows Box Set: Lord of the Vampires\Lord of Rage\Lord of the Wolfyn\Lord of the Abyss (56 page)

He shouldered two bristling soldiers into the lake, and this time the splashes were followed by bloodcurdling screams. Then he was off the causeway, onto the island and charging toward the castle.

More shouts and another horn blast came, but they didn’t seem to be aimed at him. The castle was stirring with movement, as if he wasn’t the only unexpected arrival.

Dayn missed a step as he realized what that could mean.

It was happening, after all. He had returned in time, and unless he missed his guess, he wasn’t the only one. His heart surged and he accelerated toward the castle.

A crossbow bolt thrummed toward him and buried itself in the dirt; a second carved a furrow in his haunch and he missed a few steps. But healing magic surged within him, hot and hard, as if he were suddenly drawing strength from the soil of Castle Island. Within seconds the injury had closed up and he was running once more at full tilt toward the outer bailey and—

He skidded hard, nearly falling when the trail he had been following suddenly swerved and headed away
from the castle, toward the cluster of buildings at the other end of the island.

The sounds of footfalls and armor clanks rang out within the castle, calling to him. But his bond with Reda called harder. He could sense her now; he could feel her fear and despair.
I’m coming,
he sent along the bond.
Hang on!

And he bolted away from the castle, toward the woman he loved, because he finally knew who he really was: he was hers.

T
he trail led to the bestiary, which unlike the castle seemed deserted, at least of humans. Still in wolf form, Dayn slunk through the open doors at one end of the L-shaped building and padded up the long, barnlike aisle, which was flanked on either side by barred doors instead of the sliders he remembered.

The fur of his ruff bristled and his senses were maxed out. He could feel Reda’s energy, but he couldn’t track her using the bond. He could only look in every stall-size cell, his bile rising higher with each one as he caught sight of the beasts he had studied, the ones he had once tracked and hunted in all their wild glory, chained and contained, with much of their beauty stripped away.

A jungle liger lay chained to the wall; bare patches on its haunches showed where it had chewed its own fur away. A pair of demidragons slept huddled together in a corner, their normally dark scales bleached pale from cold and the lack of sun. A huge spider hung from the ceiling with its legs folded around its body and its multifaceted eyes glazed. The creatures seemed dispirited and uninterested…or, Dayn realized with a chill shiver, like they had been leeched of their life forces.

The sorcerer fed off everything, it seemed.

Then there was a fierce growl from up ahead, one that had Dayn’s hackles rising instinctively as he drew even with the doorway, where a smallish wolfyn male was pressed against the iron bars. The unfamiliar wolfyn’s ears were flat to his head, his amber eyes crazed with hatred.

“I’m a friend,” Dayn said in the simplified wolf-form language Candida had taught him on the sly. “I can help.”

The wolfyn didn’t show any recognition. Instead, he snarled at him and then danced back to snap at the bars, dig at them, and then pressed forward again, trying to get at Dayn. There didn’t seem to be any humanity left in the small male. Which, perhaps, was a blessing.

His snarls, though, had stirred up the other creatures, which stomped and shifted restlessly, starting to growl and snort.

“Hush,” Dayn snarled. “They’ll hear.” He moved on, caught a faint whiff of flowers and spices and charged to the end of the aisle, heart rocketing. “Reda?” The
word was a two-syllable chuff that sounded very like the wolfyn word for
heart.
Which was only fitting, as she had taken his.

He skidded to a stop in front of the cell that carried her scent. And stopped dead.

It was empty, the bars fully retracted into the floor and ceiling through some magical means. She was gone.

And the air beyond that point stank of fear and pain. The smell slammed into him, shutting down his senses. He couldn’t scent her from there, couldn’t track her.

“No.”
His stomach dropped. Frantically, he searched for the bond, felt her, but didn’t like what he felt. There was anger, which was good because it said she was fighting whatever was happening to her. But there was also terror and despair. And that wasn’t good at all.

“They’ve taken her.” The deep, resonant voice came from the opposite cell, and spoke a tongue he knew, though had never spoken successfully.

Heart galloping like a coal-black herd flowing over a green meadow, Dayn whirled and charged to the cell, which was so deeply shadowed that all he could see was a huge, indistinct shape in the corner. He pressed against the bars and said in the same language, “Where?”

And his wolf-form tongue said the word in a way his human tongue had never managed.

The huge shape moved, turned and came toward him, hooves ringing on the ground and striking sparks of metal on stone. The torchlight from the aisleway
glinted off a long, metallic spiral and lit the blink of fiery orange eyes nearly lost beneath a long, flowing forelock.

It was the biggest damn unicorn Dayn had ever seen.

“Let me out and I’ll show you.” The stallion’s eyes took on a hard, vicious gleam that reminded him that while the creatures might tolerate the wolfyn, they sure as hell didn’t like them.

Then again, they didn’t like anyone. And captivity really pissed them off. “I’ve got a better idea,” Dayn said. And hoped to hell he wasn’t about to make a fatal mistake.

“Go see what all that commotion is up at the castle,” Moragh snapped in her servant’s direction. “It’s upsetting the beasts.”

“Yes, mistress.” The gnome bowed his way out.

The training hall—at least that was what Reda thought it was, based on all the open space and racked weapons—echoed with the hollow thud of the double doors shutting behind him, cutting out the distant blare of horns, the nearer snorts and stomps of the caged beasts.

The witch turned back, eyes glittering dangerously. “Now. Where were we?”

Reda just glared. Her head hurt and the large stone chamber around her kept going in and out of focus, but she held doggedly on to consciousness, clinging to the stone-cold fury that had come over her when the guards had opened her cell door and she had made a
break for it, only to be struck down and dragged to her destination.

Pushed beyond fear and terror to a new place deep inside herself, where a hard and determined soldier of a woman existed, she wanted nothing more than to grab Moragh by her hair and dunk her head in the vat she was so carefully tending over a fire in the center of the big stone room. Or Reda could go for any number of the weapons displayed around the room; she wasn’t picky. What she was, however, was trapped in the center of a strange symbol drawn on the stone floor in glittering powder. It generated a magical field of some sort, an invisible wall enclosing her. She flattened her palms against it now. “I don’t know where you were,” she said in answer to the witch’s question, “but I was thinking about the scene where the wicked witch gets it, and wondering if I could get a vortex to drop a house on you.”

She didn’t let the bitch see the terror beneath her bravado, didn’t let herself think about anything beyond stalling for time. Dayn was on the island—she could feel his nearness through their bond—and he would come for her as soon as he could. She knew that just as surely as she knew she loved him.

And that she had to stay alive and whole until he arrived.

Moragh sneered. “You’ve got a smart mouth on you. Must come with that royal blood of yours.” She narrowed her eyes. “What are you, a quarterbred Medinian? Can see it in the eyes.” She bared her fangs and
dragged her fingertips across the leather-bound book she clutched open to her chest. “All the more power for me. When I’m done with you, I’ll be damn near invincible. Realm travel, magic, science—it’ll all be mine.”

“You…” Reda faltered. Her grandfather Medina had been a huge bear of a man, equally prone to laughter and moodiness, and everyone had said she had his eyes.

Something screeched outside, a high, keening call that raised the fine hairs on Reda’s arms.

Moragh darted a glance in the direction of the bestiary. “Don’t know what’s gotten into them.”

“The lost children are here,” Reda said matter-of-factly. “They’re going to kill the sorcerer.” Her heart drummed against her ribs.
Hurry, Dayn!

“Let them. Soon I won’t need the Blood Sorcerer anymore.” She lowered the book, scanned a page and then set the book aside to pick up a jewel-handled knife with a viciously sharp-looking cutting edge. Then, as she advanced on Reda, she recited a string of syllables in a low, sibilant tone.

“Don’t—” Reda’s voice cut out, her breath cut out,
everything
cut out as the magic that had held her trapped abruptly closed in on her, coating her skin. Panic lashed—she wanted to fight, attack, retreat, do
something,
damn it—but the magic held her, controlled her.

At a gesture from the witch, the grip of the magic forced Reda to drop her to her knees, spread her arms out to the sides and tip her head back, baring her throat in a terrifying position of obeisance.

No,
Reda screamed inwardly.
Nooo!

Her mouth dried to dust as Moragh advanced on her, continuing to recite strange syllables that didn’t make any sense to Reda, but coiled inside with hard, hurting intensity.

And suddenly, she wasn’t cold and controlled anymore, wasn’t confident, because for the first time since she had broken from her craven shell, it was painfully, elementally clear that being brave wasn’t always enough.

Benz had been brave, and that hadn’t saved him. He’d needed his partner to have his back.

Dayn, hurry!
But she didn’t know if the words got through, if anything got through. Panic bubbled in her, leaking weak tears from her eyes.

Moragh’s chant rose in its intensity as the witch stopped directly opposite Reda. Her eyes were burning with power, her face frighteningly beatific as she set the knifepoint at the hollow between Reda’s breasts.

Pain pricked and a drop of blood welled up. The sight made the love bites on her wrist and neck throb with memory, made the rest of her ache with sorrow.
I’m sorry, love. I tried to hold on long enough.

The witch ended her chant with a flourish, drew back the knife and—

Bang!
Moragh gasped and spun as the double doors flew open with a gunshot crash that reminded Reda of the ettin bursting into Dayn’s cabin. Only this time the creature that filled the night-dark doorway wasn’t a three-headed giant; it was a huge black unicorn with a
flowing mane and tail, hugely spiraled horn and murder in its fiery orange eyes.

And astride it rode a fairy-tale prince.

He wore a rebel’s tunic over his shirt and brandished his short sword as the huge unicorn lunged into the hall and flew toward Moragh. The witch screeched and backpedaled, bringing up her own smaller knife.

Dayn!
Reda didn’t know if she managed to say it aloud or if the word sounded just in their heads, carried on the love bond that suddenly flared fierce and proud. He heard her either way; his eyes locked on hers for a brief second, with a look that said everything that she was feeling.

The unicorn swerved to miss Moragh, did a sliding stop and bumped Reda, knocking her aside as Dayn performed a flying dismount that sent him right into the witch.

The second Reda’s feet left the powder-drawn symbol, the magic snapped out of existence. And she was free! She scrambled to her feet, backpedaling as the unicorn’s huge head swung toward her and the light glinted off its spiral horn.

Dayn landed swinging, but Moragh ducked and spun away, coming for Reda with the knife outstretched. The unicorn oriented, lowering its massive weapon, but Dayn got there first. He flung himself on Moragh and they went down together, rolling and struggling.

And then not struggling anymore.

Reda surged forward, heart stopping for a second and then pounding back to life when he moved, shifting
to extricate himself from the witch, who lay on her back, both hands gripping the handle of her own knife, which had been driven into her heart.

“She’s gone,” he said, voice rough with whatever it had taken him to get to her.

Reda waited until he looked at her. Then she smiled. “I’m not.”

His expression shifted, then cleared. “Ah, Reda.”

And then it was easy to cross to him, reach up and touch his dear face. “You left the others to come find me.” She wouldn’t have asked it of him, but it mattered.

But he shook his head. “I came for you first, dear heart. I don’t want to do this without you. Past, present, future—none of it matters if you’re not at my side.”

Her heart lodged in her throat as everything she had ever desired—even things she hadn’t realized she wanted—suddenly opened up in front of her. And, even better, she didn’t want to look at them yet. She only wanted to look at the man standing in front of her right then and there.

“I love you.” The words weren’t scary and they didn’t hurt, she found. But they mattered.

His face smoothed and his eyes lit. “My sweet Reda.” He drew her into his arms and kissed her, so his lips were against hers when he said, “By the gods, I love you, too. You’re it for me. You’re my life, my love, my one and only. I wasn’t born to be the king and I don’t want to play politics. I just want to be a man who’s in love with his mate.”

She kissed his jaw, nipped his throat and felt him
quiver against her. “You’re talking of kings and politics like the battle is already over. Sounds to me like it’s just getting started.”

“Duty calls.” He broke away from her as the unicorn moved up near him, then gathered a handful of the long black mane and swung himself aboard. Leaning down, he reached a hand for her. “And it’s calling for both of us. From now on, we’re a team, no matter what.”

As if that had answered a last lingering question she hadn’t even been aware of having, the last of the tension eased her heart, leaving only the warmth of their bond—and her love for him—behind. She took his hand and settled herself gingerly into position on the unicorn’s broad, powerful back. “Is he yours?”

The creature snorted disgustedly as it started out, moving easily despite the double burden and the slippery stone floor.

“I think it’s closer to say that we’re cautious allies.”

She laughed and moved up to snuggle behind Dayn and slide her arms around his waist. As the big black creature carried them down the training hall, she asked casually. “What’s a Medinian?”

“The royal family of High Reaches.” He shot a curious look back over his shoulder. “Why?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

He smiled. “I like the sound of that. ‘Later.’ Yeah. That’s good.”

She pressed a hand to her stomach, where the warmth of their loving bond had concentrated itself in a happy
glow. “My gut tells me there’s going to be a later, that it’s all going to work out okay.”

“Mine, too. And it also says that your gut is going to be saying to you something else in the next few weeks.”

“What?”

“Tell you later.”

Laughing, she pressed tight to his back and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Sounds good. Now, let’s help the others take care of ‘now’ so we can get to the later.”

“Deal.”

He covered her hands with his and the two of them moved in unison as the huge black unicorn cantered off, metallic hooves ringing on the stones as they headed for the castle, the coming battle…and the rest of their lives together in the magical kingdom of Elden.