She's No Faerie Princess (3 page)

She knew it was a demon even though she'd never seenone before. In fact, she couldn't think of a single soul whohad. The creatures had been banished from the humanworld and then from Faerie ages ago at the end of the Fae-Demon Wars. They were supposed to be bound totheir own world, the Below, not lurking in the middle of Manhattan to prey on any Fae who happened to travelby.

Apparently, no one had bothered to mention that to thisfellow.

She could feel its hot, fetid breath at her back and pouredon a fresh burst of speed. She had no idea what could begoing on or where the beast could have come from, butshe didn't intend to slow down long enough to ask. Shedidn't intend to slow down at all. She may not have met ademon before, but she knew enough to realize she didn'twant to meet this one. Everything she knew came fromthe stories of her people, and her people weren't exactlythe biggest fans of those who walked Below. A fewcenturies of violent conflict could do that to a relationship.

Casting a frantic glance around, Fiona looked for anescape route or a hiding place or a weapon or a miracle. She wasn't picky, so long as it kept her alive past thenext five minutes. If she could just get back to the gate,she might be able to dart back through and lose herpursuer. The meager store of magic she'd brought withher from home would never be enough to cast any sort ofeffective defensive spell and she obviously couldn'tgather up any mortal magic, but in Faerie she'd be ableto tap into the magic of the land if the demon managed tobreak through the wards and follow her there.

Considering her current options seemed to boil down tothat or getting her heart ripped out of her chest, it mightbe worth a try.

Tucking her head down, she lengthened her stride to itslimit and called up her last reserves of speed. Praying herluck and her ankles would hold, Fiona ran flat-out straightfor the trunk of a huge old pine tree and darted suddenlyto the side, digging in her heels, spinning on a dime, andheading on an angled path back the way she'd come.

The demon snarled something that she was glad not tounderstand. Just the sounds struck her as foul andcorrupted, and she shuddered even as she ran.

She heard a horrible roar and a rending and glancedback over her shoulder just long enough to see thecreature grab onto the same pine she'd spun aroundseconds before to stop its forward momentum. It worked,but the tree didn't survive. Its roots tore free with a painfulsnap, and the demon tossed it aside like a stick ofkindling to crash to the forest floor.

Fiona did not take this as a good sign.

Hauling in a ragged breath, she decided the smallreserve of magic she'd brought with her might just haveto do. If the demon got much closer, she wouldn't haveany choice but to throw whatever power she had into aspell and hope it would be enough. She just hoped itwouldn't come to that, because a spell that strong mightdrain too much power from her and leave her completelyand totally vulnerable.

She gathered her legs beneath her to leap atop the firstof several boulders gathered together in a wideoutcropping at the edge of a small clearing in the trees. She needed to get to safer ground, and failing that, sheneeded to get to ground the demon wasn't on.

Behind her, she heard it roar as it reached out with onegrotesquely elongated arm, its claws catching around herankle and stabbing through the heavy leather of herboots to scratch the delicate skin beneath. She cried outreflexively and grabbed onto the stone with both hands. The cruel grip on her leg made her teeth clench againstthe urge to whimper. She felt the first real welling of fear

when the demon began to pull, reeling her in with the slow deliberation of a fisherman with a bite on his line. Her grip on the rock began to slip, and the tips of her fingers scraped raw as her body slid backward over the rough surface. Wriggling desperately, she twisted her hips to get a better angle with her free leg and sent her booted foot slamming into the beast's skull just between its malevolently glowing eyes.

The demon roared again and stumbled back a handful ofsteps, but its grip never wavered. It dragged her with it,shaking its great horned head to clear it. Fiona foundherself dangling upside down above a carpet of stoneand pine needles, gazing directly at the monster's oddlymisshapen legs. It took her a minute to realize that theyweren't misshapen, just jointed backward like a goat's. She almost expected them to be covered in fur, butinstead the skin looked like tightly woven plates of matteblack scales. Instead of feet, it had cloven hooves and Fiona found herself idly wondering if it had a tattoo of a Baphomet pentacle on the back of its skull.

Her arms waved in a search for purchase and balance,grabbing desperately. Her hands felt only air, and herheart nearly stopped when something slammed into thedemon from behind. The great beast reeled, thrown offbalance in a way her single forceful kick hadn't managed. The creature launched her hard toward the tree line,wobbling on its feet as Fiona felt her spine slam againstthe base of a stately elm.

That's gonna leave a mark.

Blinking, she pushed herself up on her elbows andpeered through her momentary double vision to see

where the demon had moved to. It wasn't like she could get up and run at the moment, but it never hurt to know which direction the death blow would be coming from. She hated to be caught unprepared. Instead of getting a clear view of the demon that had attacked her, Fiona found herself staring at the back of a very unfamiliar figure. This one might not have looked all that big in comparison to the demon, but even the half-dazed Fae could tell he was enormous. Standing close to seven and a half feet tall, he put himself directly between Fiona and the beast and set off a low warning growl that made something finally click in her mind. The newcomer was Lupine. A werewolf.

He stood in his were form—half man, half wolf—hugeand hulking with muscle but somehow still sleekcompared to the demon. That monster had the thick,bulging musculature of a troll and the long, skeletal skullof a bull, topped off with two curling horns that grewbackward from just above its sunken, banked-embereyes. In contrast, the werewolf looked lithe and graceful. His muscular form rippled with power, but on him itlooked right and natural under a thick, healthy pelt ofsilver-gray fur.

She couldn't see the werewolf's face, but she finally got aclear look at the demon, and the clearing was smallenough that she could smell the filth of it, like coal anddecay and the choking stench of burnt flesh. It crouchedfacing her and the Lupine, its too-long arms brushing theground, dark shining nails combing through the forestdebris.

The two powerful figures eyed each other for severaltense minutes, neither making a move forward. Each

subtle alteration in the position of one evoked a mirror image in the other. Then the demon shifted its soulless gaze from the Lupine back to Fiona, and the werewolf's warning growl turned into a vicious snarl.

Just that quickly, the battle began. The first attack was ablur, a lightning-speed crash of black and gray, dull, scalyskin against thick fur. She almost expected the groundbeneath her to shake with the violence of the impact.

Both figures shook and twisted and grappled and roaredin primitive fury. Hoof and claw dug into the mess ofearth, stone, and organic litter that covered the ground,seeking purchase. Claws slashed across scales and fur.

Fangs glinted, and muscles bulged and shifted. Fiona'seyes widened as the Lupine seemed to briefly hold hisown against the impossibly powerful demon.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, the demonlowered its massive bovine head and rammed its hornsdirectly into the werewolf's stomach. Fiona heard a loudwhoosh as the impact drove the air from his lungs. Hisclawed hands raked furrows in the creature's flesh evenas he went airborne, landing at the opposite side of theclearing from Fiona at the base of another tree.

She winced in sympathy at the dull thud of his landing,but she had no time to wonder how he was feeling. Theminute the demon shook him off, it turned back towardher, perfectly clear in its focus on her as the preferredtarget. Which made no sense. Everything she knewabout demons told her they were indiscriminatelymurderous. They didn't care about the identity of theirvictims unless someone told them to. Normally, theywould just attack whatever stood more clearly in theirpaths. So why was this one so intent on ripping out her

heart when she assumed the werewolf had a perfectly

good heart of his own?

Something here didn't add up.

Fiona pressed her back against the tree trunk and keptthe demon clearly in her sights. It looked like the cavalrythat had ridden to her rescue might be having someproblems of its own. She'd never been much for sittingaround wringing her hands and waiting for help—yetanother reason that she made such a lousy princess. Unlike her aunt the queen, who liked to send her knightsinto the fray to deal with any problems, Fiona preferred tohandle everything on her own. That way there was noone around to tell her what she was doing wrong.

The demon stepped slowly forward on its crouching,satyric hind legs, spewing puffs of yellowed, noxious-smelling smoke from its nostrils. Holding her breathagainst the stench and her own unease, Fiona leveredherself into a sitting position and took a deep breath. Sheraised her hands before her as if to ward off the monsterwhile she grabbed a thin thread of the magic left insideher and pulled hard.

It yanked free of her in a flash of bright blue energy andswirled into a small, powerfully glowing tornado ofmagical energy. The demon uttered something in aguttural snarl of pain and rage and stumbled a few stepsaway. Squinting against the glare in her hands, Fionawatched it stumble backward, right into the force of the Lupine's renewed attack. Between the light and the noiseand the violent clash, she felt like she'd gotten caught upin a lightning storm. She could only hope the demon did,too.

At least it seemed to hate the disc of bright blue light shehad conjured up. Its reflexes seemed slower this time,and it appeared to have trouble tracking the werewolf'smovements. It didn't see its opponent duck beneath aclumsy blow and dive toward its hind legs, claws flashing. With two quick slashes, the Lupine sliced through thetendons at the backs of the monster's legs, sending itcrashing to the ground and bellowing in rage.

Quickly, instinctively, Fiona jumped up from her tree, lightbalanced between her fingertips, and raced forward. Shestopped a few steps short of the felled demon, took aim,and sent the swirl of light flying toward the creature'sgaping mouth as if the light were a Frisbee and thedemon were an overeager border collie.

She should have stopped a few steps shorter. As themagic missile made impact, the demon lashed out withone arm and caught her across the lower torso with thetip of one glistening claw. It sliced through her clothing asif she wore cobwebs, and she gasped at the fiery pain ofher skin parting unnaturally, leaving a crimson line in herpale flesh.

Dazed, she looked down at her injury with wide, confusedeyes. The pain registered along with the ticklish trickle ofblood across her stomach, but she stayed on her feet,unmoving. She couldn't even raise a hand to cover thewound. Weakness crept over her, making her swaywhere she stood. Her little magic trick had taken more outof her than she had planned.

In the background, she thought she heard a roar thatsounded more like an angry werewolf than an attackingdemon. She wanted to ask if he was all right, but she

couldn't form the words. She just stood there and tried not to fall on her face even as the demon began to stir and struggle to right itself. The roar came again, louder this time, and then the Earth tilted on its axis as Fiona's legs collapsed beneath her and sent her sinking into darkness.

CHAPTER 3

Walker wanted to grab the woman and shake her forbeing so stupid as to rush up to the demon like that. Thenhe wanted to thank her for distracting the demon with thatspell of hers. And finally, he wanted to get a better look atwhat he remembered as being a truly fine backside, thistime without the distraction of a rampaging demon to dullhis pleasure. But at the moment, he had other things todo. Like getting them both the hell out of Dodge beforethe demon learned how to run with severed Achillestendons.

Walker scooped her unconscious figure up in his armsand sprinted for home. The demon reacted about aspositively to that as Walker had expected, but thankfully,the injuries slowed it to a point where the combination ofwerewolf speed and the thick tree cover foiled its pursuit. That didn't mean Walker slowed down any.

He ran a good two miles before he felt safe in slowing toa brisk, ground-eating trot.

Through it all, the woman in his arms remained limp andstill. He wasn't sure if she was asleep or unconscious, buteither way, she was so out of it that he contemplatedsetting her down for a minute so he could shift back tohuman form before they left the park. The general rule for Lupines stated they shouldn't walk in were formanywhere they might be seen by humans. Wolf formcould be written off easily enough as the appearance ofan especially large and long-legged dog, but there wasnothing in the human world that could account for aseven- or eight-foot creature covered in fur with theposture of a man and the facial features of White Fang. The human mind was only so elastic.

In this case, Walker weighed his options and decided thatif he stuck to the alleys on the trip back to his apartmentand didn't get too close to any streetlights, he'd be betteroff going as he was. If he shifted back to human, hemight not risk psychically scarring a wandering humanobserver, but he did risk spending the night in a cell witha public-indecency citation hanging over his head. Giventhe way his night had been going so far, he didn't havetime to go to jail.