Unleashed Fury (BloodRunes: Book 1) (28 page)

It made her wonder if they should trust
anything that came out of his mouth. He had lied to her. Lied about
who he was, and where he was from, lied that he was even a citizen
of the country. Perhaps he was leading them towards Treymayne so he
could sell them off as slaves. Old wives tales painted pictures of
Treymayne as a cannibalistic, barbarian country whose occupants
would eat your babies for breakfast. Layna rolled her eyes. She
didn't really believe anything like that, but she –

Her thought was cut short by Fly suddenly
lurching to a stop below her.

She realized with horror that while she had
been daydreaming, they had walked out onto a waterway. She could
see below where Fly's hooves had skidded, the snow had been scraped
off to reveal patches of ice. And not very thick patches. As she
watched, a spider web crack started beneath the hoof, and slowly
spread outwards in little spurts. Fly whinnied, his eyes round and
wide, and he swished his tail nervously.

She gently urged him to walk backwards, and
he took one step and then another. Terror rushed through her with
every cracking sound.

Then suddenly a hoof splashed through and Fly
panicked, throwing her off his back as he turned heel and ran. He
made it a few steps before crashing through the ice. Luck was with
him, however, and the bottom was only a few feet down where he
broke through. He used this to leap out to solid ground, limping
along the shore.

Layna wasn't so lucky. She skidded across the
ice where she had been thrown, unfortunately farther onto the
frozen river. Her muscles all seemed paralyzed in place, and she
watched Fly on the edge. He held his head low, and his breath came
out in great billowing clouds of steam. She tried to keep her
weight spread out, while keeping low to the ice, and she held her
breath, waiting for it to give way beneath her.

After a few moments it still held, and she
let out the breath, analyzing her situation. She was only about
twenty feet from the edge, but it was already cracked, and water
was beginning to seep up through at an alarming rate. Layna decided
that the water underneath was likely moving at a good clip.
Great
, she thought to herself. She briefly thought about
using magic, but since her only training so far had dealt with
making fire and healing, she didn't see how that was going to help
her.
Well, I can't just lay here forever.

She started slowly belly-crawling towards the
edge. She only made it about a foot before it suddenly gave way
beneath her. Her breath was knocked out of her by the shock of the
cold water enveloping her body. The last thing she heard as she
slid backwards into the cold abyss was her name being called.
I'm sorry Gryffon
, she thought, slipping into
unconsciousness.

When she woke she was snuggled deep in furs,
and warmth was emanating from a body next to hers. In her
semi-conscious state she cuddled up to it, and wrapped her arms
around the warmth. She was surprised when skin hit skin. She jerked
fully awake and realized that she was just about naked, and next to
another body – which she now identified as Gryffon's – who was also
scantily clad.

She lay frozen, unsure what to do when he
spoke. “Layna,” he said softly turning his head to look at her.
“Are you alright?” Layna nodded mutely and he started to move. “I'm
sorry. I'll get out of here now. You were just so cold and you
weren't warming up, I was afraid that if you didn't get warmed up
soon...” he trailed off.

She put a hand on his shoulder, halting his
movement. “Stay,” she said, giving him a weak smile, “you're
warm.”

He settled back down awkwardly and they lay
in silence for a minute. “I'm really sorry, Layna,” he said
finally. “I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't think it would matter
that I couldn't tell someone the whole truth. Lying to Jezebel and
trying to find out what she was up to didn't matter. She's an evil
person, I couldn't have cared less about betraying her. But I
wanted to tell you so many times, I just didn't know how...” he
trailed off again before repeating lamely, “I'm sorry.”

Layna hesitated, wanting to yell at him,
wanting to tell him how much he had hurt her, how much pain he had
caused. But she didn't, she couldn't, because deep down she knew
that the only reason it had hurt her so much was because she had
cared about him. And she still cared about him. So she said
nothing. Instead, she put her arms around him again, this time
purposefully. He put a tentative hand on the small of her back.

They lay there, taking comfort in the
closeness of each other for some time. Layna sighed, and buried her
face in the crook of his shoulder. He shifted and turned to face
her. His hand on her back drew her closer, and his lips found hers.
He kissed her gently, and a rush spread through Layna, every nerve
tingling in a burst of excitement.

She kissed him back, and he gave a small
happy sigh. “I was so worried about you, beautiful.” Layna felt
another rush at this nickname, and she snuggled farther into
him.

“Where's Charles?” she suddenly asked and
Gryffon laughed.

“That's nice pillow talk,” he teased. “He
went to go see if he could get us some pheasant for dinner. We
thought that some meat after your little swim would do you
good.”

“My little swim,” she repeated, and shivered,
though not from cold anymore. “Thank you for saving me,” she said
gratefully. “Again. I assume that was you who pulled me out.”
Gryffon simply nodded and she settled back down. He held her close
and they lay in silence.

“Am I interruptin’ something?” a gruff voice
asked from behind them. Gryffon grabbed for a knife that lay next
to the bedroll, spinning around in the covers.

He sighed. “Charles.”

The man chuckled. “Aye. It is me.”

“How went the hunting?”

In answer, Charles held up a large pheasant
dangling upside-down from his hand. He nodded at it. “Nice, yes?”
He dropped the bird unceremoniously next to the fire pit, and
turned his back to them saying, “I'm off to get some more firewood.
I'll expect you two lollygaggers to be decent when I get back. I
won't be doin' all the work whilst you two wrestle undercover.” He
headed off without looking back, trudging along into the
forest.

Gryffon shook his head and looked at Layna
who felt herself blushing. He leaned down and kissed her lightly
once more. “You are beautiful you know,” he told her. He pulled
their clothing off of the sticks he had propped them on to dry, and
he handed her hers. She dressed quickly underneath the covers to
stay as warm as possible, and then joined Gryffon by the fire where
he had picked up the bird that Charles had abandoned and had
proceeded to start dressing it out.

“So tell me about what you've been doing,”
Layna said after a pause.

Gryffon looked up from his messy work and
nodded. “Alright. What would you like to know?”

“Anything,” she answered and then she
amended, “Anything real.”

Gryffon let out a short puff of air. “Um,
okay. But you realize that what I'm about to tell you is highly
classified information.” She raised her eyebrows impatiently at him
and he went on. “I'm here as part of an extensive network of
spies,” he held up a hand to stave off the angry response he must
have seen coming from her and went on, “not because we're trying to
do anything bad to you, but for our own protection. Our borders are
closed to you for good reason, and we're not about to ignorantly
stand by and let you repeat history all over again. Remember what
we talked about before, about the Dark King?” At Layna's nod he
went on. “Well, in our histories you see the enormous amount of
lives that were lost or ruined because of one madman's rise to
power and influence on your country – well, back then
our
country. We've been aware of a secret organization which has run
rampant in your government since that time and we've been watching
for any signs of covert activity that could indicate that they may
be preparing to act out against us - Like I said, not because we're
interested in taking you over or anything like that, but for our
safety. It would be awfully easy to turn your people against ours
since we have been separated for so long. And even though it’s
commonly referred to as the other half of the country that became
Treymayne, Gelendan is actually much bigger. Even with our greater
talent and more widespread use of it, your sheer mass and
population would likely give you the upper hand should it ever come
to a dispute. There were rumors that we sent an envoy over and he
was brutally rejected, but I am not high enough up in our
government to know whether or not that is true. I do know, however,
that your current King is acting suspiciously similar to the Dark
King and could potentially cause us some real problems.”

“How so?” Layna asked, beginning to be more
worried now that her initial anger had worn off.

“Well, he has said he wants to put together a
lot of programs which could help your country like the research
into talents and so forth, but that's also what you do when you're
gearing up for war. If you were about to send a bunch of people off
to battle wouldn't you want to conveniently gather them all
together under the pretense of training them, and then have the
added benefit of really training them to your own purposes? Plus
there are the reports of ancient magical beasts being resurrected
which, if the rumors are true, could mean that he is reinstating
the blood rites and using them to create armies of magical
beasts.”

“I guess I could see how you might think that
he’s getting ready for a war. I heard similar conclusions by the
other nobles at Jezebel’s, but I’m not sure I can quite grasp the
whole blood-magic part. I know there have been rumors and all, but
there are always rumors about something. That doesn’t necessarily
mean that it’s true. Blood-magic has been gone since the fires
destroyed the knowledge, hasn’t it? And if that’s the case, why
would your borders still be closed? Hasn’t enough time passed? And
haven’t we stayed away from blood-magic here too? We disapproved of
what the Dark King did just as much as you do. So why?” Layna asked
curiously.

“Well, look what you did to us,” Gryffon said
defensively.

“I didn't do anything,” countered Layna.

“Alright. So perhaps we have been holding a
grudge for too long,” admitted Gryffon. “Nevertheless, there are
forces at work here that don't care about you or about me, only
about power and they'll step on anyone they need to on their way to
getting it.”

Layna sat in silence and pondered this for a
while, absently running the charm around her neck back and forth
along its chain. A movement caught her eye, and she saw Gryffon
wince as he brushed his arm across his front while he lifted a
saddlebag off the branch it was laying on. “Come here,” she said in
her best commanding voice and Gryffon looked at her, a tiny hint of
an amused smile playing on his lips.

He didn't comment on the tone, but simply set
the bag down and came over to her. She motioned for him to sit
beside her and he obliged, carefully lowering himself onto the log.
She reached over before she lost her nerve and unbuttoned his
shirt.

Her fingers trembled slightly and she ran a
finger down his chest. He watched her, his eyes lowering from hers
to her finger as it touched the burned portion. Layna fished in her
bag for more healing salve, and though the supply was running low,
she dipped her hand in and brought out a generous amount. Gryffon
opened his mouth as if to protest that he was fine, but she ignored
him and pressed it against the burn. He let out a hissing breath
that slowly transformed into a relived sigh as it worked its magic
on the wound. Layna whispered her own magic, willing him to
heal.

He closed his eyes, enjoying both sensations
and Layna allowed her eyes to take in the sight of him. His toned
muscles rippled underneath her touch, responding to the healing.
Though still covered with now-greenish bruises and slightly
disfigured by the horrible wound on his chest, he was a gorgeous
man. The most gorgeous man that Layna could imagine and she enjoyed
her own little shiver of pleasure at the closeness they had just
shared.

Gryffon opened his eyes and gave her an odd
look. Layna had the embarrassing thought that perhaps she had put
some of that emotion into her healing. She abruptly broke contact,
but Gryffon continued to give her that penetrating stare for a
moment longer before glancing down at his battered body. Several
more of the bruises had speed-healed to a more normal color, and
the burn had reduced its swelling substantially, becoming more of a
recognizable shape. Recognizable as some sort of shape anyway.
Layna had no idea what it was, and had no recollection of having
ever seen the symbol before. It was a definitely defined something,
grotesquely outlined in blackened flesh in the midst of the red
burn around it.

“Some new trick she learned,” Gryffon
murmured, lifting his finger to prod at it mercilessly. Layna had
to raise her own hand to bat away his. His relentless poking could
not feel good, and certainly would not be good for the healing
process. He caught her hand and held it. “Thanks again for the
healing. You probably shouldn't touch the power much more, though.
We don't want to call attention to ourselves by influencing
it.”

Charles came crashing through the woods just
then, a wild look on his face. “We have trouble,” he told them
shortly. He looked at Gryffon. “What is that?” he asked, staring at
the mark on Gryffon's chest.

Gryffon looked confused for a second, and
then annoyed at Charles' alarming statement and following
distraction. “It's a love token from Lady Jezebel,” he growled,
“and you were saying,” he prompted.

Charles gave Gryffon's chest another fearful
look, but seemed to realize that whatever trouble he had just
announced should take precedence. “We are being followed,” he
stated, “and not, by any human.”