To Seduce an Omega (9 page)

The way the youngster bit back her tears and pretended she was brave made Viola proud. Then a branch creaked on her right. To her left a twig cracked under an unseen enemy’s foot. Heart racing, mouth dry, Viola kept her back to the murder thorn as she edged away from the narrow tunnel Iris had squirmed through. Tansy had made a good job of hacking a pathway through the bush’s sharp spikes. Iris should be as safe in her nest as Sleeping Beauty had been surrounded by her forest of thorns. Viola’s heart pounded so loud she thought it would burst. Her knee hurt, and terror curdled her soul, but she’d keep Iris safe no matter what. Straight ahead, something moved. “Who’s there? What do you want?”

Mocking laughter echoed toward Viola. She pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked her bow. “Come any closer, and I’ll shoot.”

All around her, emerald eyes glowed in the dark. Her hand shook, but she took another step away from the narrow gap between the branches. “I’ll shoot.”

A loud hiss startled her so much she almost dropped her bow. The branches rustled, and huge creatures with lions’ bodies and women’s faces stepped into view. Tansy had been right when she called these beings cat women.

Viola swallowed hard and tried to count them. “Stay back or else.”

These hybrids presented a bigger target than the one Viola had daubed on a tree trunk outside her home.
Surely I can hit one of them
. Her hands trembled, but she kept her bow raised and prayed her bravado would scare them away. Inside, she admitted the best she could do was draw them away from her sister.

One cat woman stalked closer and swatted at Viola with her claws. She hissed when Viola’s arrow sank into the pads of her paw. The sound chilled Viola’s soul. The creature sank to the ground and used her teeth to pull the arrow from her foot. “You’ll pay for that.”

Heartened, Viola fired again and again, but her first arrows flew over their heads when she misjudged her shots. These cat women were nimble on their feet as they knocked her arrows from the air as though playing a game. A lucky shot caught one in the thigh, and another shot grazed a cat woman’s shoulder. None of the cat women came closer. Instead, they spread out in an arc before her and taunted her archery skills until she’d emptied her quiver.

Out of arrows, Viola yanked at the murder thorn. A foot-long spike came loose in her hands, and she tried to use it as an arrow. Aerodynamically unstable, it flew about two feet to the right, then dropped to the mud track and skidded along the dry ground.

Driven by her fight-or-flight reflex, Viola tried to tear a branch from the murder thorn. Spikes dug into her hands and gouged deep furrows in her arms. The branch bent but didn’t break. She pulled harder, needing a weapon to keep these things at bay. The damn bush proved stronger than her.

Clawed hands landed on her shoulders, pulling her backward and shoving her to the ground. Her heart beat as though she were a small bird trapped in a cage. She stared up into a ring of glowing eyes, then looked past them to the night sky. After tonight, she might never see the moon or the stars again. She just hoped these women didn’t kill her in front of Iris.

One of her captors pulled an arrow from her thigh, then kicked at Viola’s twisted knee. She didn’t even try to stifle her scream.

The kicker stared down at her. “This one’s broken. She won’t make good breeding stock. Let’s kill her now.”

Another cat woman stepped forward. “Stand down, Leona. She’s got more guts than most of their women once we’ve cornered them, although I don’t understand why she didn’t turn primal. We should add her courage to our gene pool. Once the males have bred her a couple of times, we’ll let you play with her before we kill her.”

One of the cat creatures bent and snapped a silver cuff around Viola’s ankle. Just as when she’d shoved that arrowhead beneath the bloody rag, she expected the contact with silver to scorch her skin. Instead, she felt nothing. Not for the first time, she wondered if her birth father had even been Lykae.

Maybe he’d been part of that Fae trade delegation that had been due just before her mother vanished. That would certainly explain her mother’s excitement when she heard the Fae were returning. Only, whatever his species, her father had abandoned her to the Rock Prowler pack and forgotten she and her mother even existed.

If Viola ever learned to flash—and maybe her father’s species couldn’t—she’d move into the human world and try to build a life there. Always assuming she got out of this mess.

One of the cat creatures kicked Viola so hard she curled into a ball. As she turned onto her side, another of her captors bound her hands behind her back. The leader pulled Viola to her feet, but with her hands tied, she staggered until she found her balance.

There’d been a fifteen-year gap between her mother’s disappearance and the first Lykae female to vanish. Now Viola wondered if the cat creatures had taken her mother too. Those disappearances had been more a slow stream than a noticeable wave, and always the women were from families who’d had a falling out with the alpha.

Zebadiah’s duty should have demanded he protected the pack’s she-wolves, but he’d sat back in his stone tower and gloated while his enemy’s mates or sisters vanished. After King Caleb announced a death penalty on anyone flashing without his authority, no one had dared leave Rock Prowler territory to garner support from the other packs. She wouldn’t be surprised if the Lykae king was as complicit in the cat creatures’ attacks as Zebadiah.

The cat women’s leader turned toward the murder thorn and stared straight at Iris. “Consider yourself lucky you’re not on our list, little girl. Remember, when you’re a woman grown, we’ll be back for you and your friends.”

Viola wanted to reach out and comfort her half sister, but surrounded by cat women, she didn’t dare risk it. The best thing she could do for Iris was to let these creatures take her. Legs trembling, head swimming with fear, she let them bundle her away. The leader pulled her off balance, and the last thing Viola heard as they flashed her away was Iris’s despairing wail.

Chapter Nine

Titus blinked awake. His head pounded, and he felt as though cotton wool smothered his brain. His vision blurred, and his arms ached. He pulled his arm down and growled at the fire around his wrists. When his eyes focused, he glared at the silver cuffs that shackled him to the wall. His wrists burned where the cuffs touched them, but someone had stuffed strips of fabric inside them in an effort to stop them from scorching his skin.
Silver. The blasted things are silver
. Some bastard had chained his wrists to the wall either side of his head. He could neither stand nor lower his arms, so he hung there and swore vengeance on whoever had done this to him.

Another concerted yank at the chains set his flesh on fire again. Once he broke free, someone would suffer for this. Another few blinks to fully clear his vision, and he focused on Viola’s face as she stared down at him.

“You didn’t need to drug me. I couldn’t have been more wrong about you, and by way of apology, I took down a gazelle and left it on your doorstep.” He shut up when he realized he sounded like a human’s pet cat presenting its owner with a dead mouse, but then Lykae didn’t keep pets. Usually, just being around their inner beasts traumatized domestic animals. Then again, Lykae lived to be the baddest things out there.

Viola staggered backward. “Thank goodness you’re awake. It wasn’t me that gave you knockout drops, but they’ve kept you out for hours. I worried you might never wake. As near as we can tell, it’s early afternoon now. And really? You brought me a dead gazelle? That’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in years.”

His inner wolves howled with satisfaction that he’d hunted and provided for a woman he needed to claim as his true-mate, but they still raged at the silver restraints. Whatever drugs he’d ingested, they left him light-headed and weary. “At least I’ve done something right, then. If you didn’t drug me, who did? And where the hell are we?”

Viola sat before him, one leg curled under her, her twisted knee stretched straight out but covered by her long skirt. “Do you remember Tansy talking about cats with women’s faces? She was right. They hunted me down, but Iris burrowed into the murder thorn you rescued Tansy from.”

Titus’s hackles rose. “Did they hurt her?”

Viola shook her head. “They threatened her, but thank goodness they didn’t do more than that. I thought they intended to kill me with her watching. It was almost a relief when they flashed me here and threw me in their dungeon with Tansy and Daniel. We’ve been here most of the night and half of today, but you scared me when you wouldn’t wake up. We can’t find a way out, and I think those things might be nocturnal. Titus, as near as we can tell, it’s just before midday, so we’re probably okay for a while. I daren’t even think about what’ll happen when it gets dark.”

Solid stone walls surrounded them, and a small grille high above let in the tiniest glimmer of daylight. The only way out was through a thick oak door, but it wouldn’t last long against his primal beast. Except, with the silver binding him in human form, he could neither change shape nor flash away. Hell, he couldn’t even stand up. He’d never felt so useless in his life.

Concentrating hard, he felt the fog clear from his brain, and his thought processes went up a gear. “Cat things? They sound like sphinxes to me, but they’re so damn reclusive some wolves claim they died out a couple of centuries back. Your pack’s territory abuts Condita, the sphinx homeland and the forgotten territories. Did no one ever need to explore the surrounding land?” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me. Zebadiah forbade it.”

Viola nodded. “Do you think he’s conspired with the sphinxes against his own pack?”

Titus jaw tightened, and he spoke through gritted teeth. “When I get out of here, he’s going to answer some questions. Anyway, your cat creatures. Are their bodies like oversize versions of lions?”

Viola thought a moment. “I’ve only ever seen pictures of lions, and that was back when I could afford books. Elspeth sold most of her books after her husband died. From what I remember, I think so. In their shifted form, they have long tails with a tufted end and sleek bodies covered in fur. Just like Lykae, they can turn human at will. My hands were bound when they dragged you in here and chained you to the wall. Not long after, I got my hands free and tore strips off my skirt to keep the silver from branding your flesh. It’s not a good shield, but it’s the best I could come up with.”

His smile blossomed as lopsided as his broken nose. “You did well. I’d have been in a bad way if you hadn’t thought on your feet.”

Viola winced at his words, but for the life of him he couldn’t understand why. Behind her, a woman whimpered.

“Who’s there?” Titus demanded.

Viola shook her head. “They captured Daniel and Tansy too. Those damn sphinxes had a list, and they came looking for the four of us. At least they didn’t want Iris.”

In the far corner, Daniel sat hunched around Tansy as she huddled on his lap and sobbed against his shoulder. He frowned and stroked her hair. “I feel so bloody helpless. Those things plan to force Tansy and Viola to mate with their males. Once they’ve bred a few cat babies, they’ll kill our women. From what they said, it won’t be a pleasant death either.”

Tansy sobbed harder.

Titus growled and yanked at his chains. His muscles bulged, and his face turned bright red. The stench of cold silver scorching his flesh filled the room, but he never made a sound. The chains didn’t give an inch.

Viola shuffled closer to him and laid her hand on his arm. “Stop. Please. Save your strength in case you get a chance to escape later. It’s probably too late for the rest of us, but the whole town knows how you decimated Zebadiah’s private army. You have to get out of here and tell King Caleb what’s going on.”

Titus’s primal wolf clawed at his chest. It wanted out to protect its mate. Even his natural wolf bared its teeth and paced inside him. Still trapped in human form, Titus gave the chains a final tug. Despite the fabric padding inside them, his flesh burned. Not that he winced or complained. Instead, he turned his amber-eyed glare on Daniel. “Why the hell haven’t you gone primal and busted the women out of here?”

Daniel extended his leg and revealed the slim silver cuff clasped around his ankle. “I’m as useless as you. Only Viola seems unaffected by these silver bands. In fact she used the rough edges on hers to saw through the rope around her wrists. Once free of her bonds, she untied us. Your chains are beyond us, though. Sadly, Zebadiah and his thugs beat Viola’s wolf forms out of her before they even developed, so she can’t flash away and fetch help.”

“That’s impossible.” Titus growled. No one should lay a hand on his Viola and live. Once he escaped this cell—and he never doubted he would—he’d hunt down her attackers and see that they died slow, painful deaths. No one hurt his hedgewitch and lived.

Again he tried to yank his chains out of the wall, desperate to get free and comfort her. His beasts went wild inside him, and a growl rumbled from his throat—all suppressed anger and violence. “Come on, hedgewitch. Tell us who your real father is. Since the silver doesn’t affect you, I’m guessing he’s not Lykae”

She wrapped her arms around her chest and looked away. “I’ve always wondered. Everything changed after my mother vanished, so I guess that’s when Zebadiah realized he wasn’t my father. All I knew was that Mom had left, and Pops wanted rid of me.”

Titus still studied her slender frame. “My best guess is that your father was Fae. They have the same thick, straight hair as you, and while mostly they’re olive-skinned, some share your coffee-and-cream complexion. Is there any way your mother could have bedded a Fae?”

Behind her, Daniel gasped. “That explains a lot.”

Viola kept her gaze downcast and shook her head. “My memories are hazy. Six years old, remember? I do know Mom put on her best gown and danced me around the room when she heard a Fae trade delegation was heading back to Prowlerville.”

Daniel’s head jerked up. “I was in my early teens, but I remember your mother vanished just before they arrived. About seven years before, the Fae visited in a royal procession to trade for our stock of fire opals. Of course, we don’t have many, but apparently their only other source was the Elves, and after their Fae-Elf war, they’d rather pay over the odds and trade with us. It’s funny what you remember as a kid. I know the Fae bought every bottle of wine we stocked.”