Zurlo, Michele - Torment [Daughters of Circe 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (27 page)

“Come in,” she called. “It’s not locked.”

The handle turned, and the heavy wood structure creaked inward. Soren’s blond head and the tip of one boot peeked into the room. The rest of him stayed behind the door, hidden from view. His demons were in the hall where she couldn’t see them, but she could hear them clearly. They didn’t like what he was about to do.

“Are you hungry? I don’t know what you like, so I had Alethea make up a whole bunch of stuff.”

Torrey strove for a sad, serene smile, all the while marveling at how quickly her innocence had disappeared. Living for thousands of years and hundreds of lifetimes jaded a soul. She needed to be with Shade. She needed to know it wasn’t all pointless.

“My last meal?” She laughed a weak laugh, ending it with an undisguised grimace. The burning in her side had morphed from pain to an anticipatory tingle. Her body was nearly ready. “I’d love a big, juicy steak. Salad with Caesar dressing. A baked potato loaded with sour cream and butter. Oh, and chocolate cake. There’s no point in counting calories anymore.”

Guilt motivated Soren. He missed the energy she couldn’t quite disguise in her tone. With a brief nod, he disappeared. Minutes later, he reappeared. A tray, laden with more than the foods for which she had asked, was balanced in his hand.

In a feat of dexterity that dazzled Torrey, he lifted a heavy oak table half-filled with hand-carved, wooden statuettes of wolves and brought it over next to the bed without upsetting a single thing on it. He slid the tray onto the table and sat on the edge of the bed.

Torrey studied the blond hair curling to his collar, the strong, sexy body that was so similar to Shade’s, and the stunningly handsome face featuring teal-green eyes that would stop the hearts of millions of women. Riley had found him attractive. She had flirted with him before he threatened Torrey and kidnapped Riley.

The demons wandered the room, each keeping one eye on the waning daylight streaming through the window and the other on the pair on the bed, preparing to share a meal.

“I remember the first time we met,” Torrey said. Her head rested against the pillows behind her. She didn’t try to move her head or sit up. She couldn’t tip her hand before it was time. “Shade was so nervous about introducing me to you. He didn’t care what the rest of Lyton thought about me. He only cared that you accepted me as his mate.”

Soren busied himself with cutting the steak into bite-sized pieces. Torment twisted his features. “If I could find a way to stop doing this to you, I would. From the way Shade forgave me last time, I knew you would return. I tried to avoid human settlements. I did so well for so long.”

Torrey raised a weak hand to rest on his forearm, the closest part of him to her. “I forgive you, Soren.”

His breathing became labored as he struggled, fighting his emotions. “You forgave me last time, too.” He came around the other side of the bed to rearrange her pillows to hold her in a semi-upright position. “That doesn’t mean I can forgive myself.”

Sympathy surged inside her. She knew she should be angry. Shade was furious. She supposed she would have embraced that emotion if she actually believed this was the end, again. “You’ll be free of them one day, Soren. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but I have to believe that one day you’ll be master of your own destiny.”

He speared a cube of steak and held it to her lips. “I wish I had your faith. I wish I had your hope.”

Faith and Hope, two things she had tried before. They hadn’t worked.

She opened her mouth to offer words of comfort once more, but he stuck the fork through the opening.

“Eat, Torrey. I can’t do this again. I don’t want you to make me feel better about sacrificing you and killing anything that remains of my brother’s soul.”

She let him have his torment and his anguish. Self-pity would keep his attention focused on himself and not the fact he was feeding the wolf growing inside her.

Given how much food he had brought, she didn’t eat much. When he left, he didn’t look back.

The moon rose early. Soren returned to catch Torrey napping. The lamps in the room were on, disguising the moonlight in which she basked.

He lifted her carefully. The movement jarred her side. She whimpered, but didn’t tense her body or open her eyes. The tea he had given her with dinner had been drugged. If she had been human or just a witch, she would have slept through most of the ceremony, waking just in time to give over her power and die.

However, she was not just a witch. Was there a name for the new breed Shade had created? A were-witch, perhaps?

The drug had no effect on her at all.

Soren whispered an apology in her ear. He added a plea that she stay far, far away from him in her next lifetime.

Sounds found their way into her ears. Soren descending the steps. The murmur of the villagers as he entered their sacred circle in the center of the village, not far from the manor house where Soren lived.

Weddings were performed there. Once upon a lifetime, Shade had wanted to marry her there. Instead, his brother had killed her on the altar where they would have spoken their vows.

He set her on the altar. She was glad he hadn’t unwrapped her body. Riley had offered clothes, but Torrey refused them on practical grounds. First, they would bother her cuts and bruises. Second, they would only be shredded when she shifted her shape.

Somewhere in the back of the crowd, Shade waited. Torrey knew he was there, not by scent or sound, but through the ancient bond that had only grown stronger as her body transformed.

Soren stood above her and began the ritual. “Friends, we gather here tonight to right an ancient wrong, to pay a debt long owed.”

Torrey opened her eyes, keeping them unfocused as if she were still medicated. She lay on a long stone table, polished smooth from years of weather and use. A bower of white pines interspersed with maples surrounded the sacred space. The opening was large enough for the majority of the townspeople to surround the raised platform and watch the ceremony. From the looks of it, many of them were in attendance.

Soren wore a long black cloak trimmed with red silk, something reserved for the leader of the pack. The table on which Torrey lay came to his waist, the perfect height for slicing and dicing. Behind Soren, a bonfire blazed, lighting the clearing with brilliant orange light.

He had thrown back the hood to address his audience.

The demons approached her body, hovering around the offering in anxious anticipation.

“Witches have long hunted werewolves. They have treated us as animals, chaining us and caging us like wild beasts, using us as their chattel. They cast charms over us to keep us docile.” His words, laced with charm and weighted with mania, rang out over the crowd and were met with hostile cheers.

“Tonight, I exact revenge on one of the most powerful of their kind. Tonight, I will sacrifice a Daughter of Circe, our original enslaver.”

The crowd cheered. Soren was forced to pause, to let them express their approval.

“Circe never enslaved us.”

Torrey cringed. Her head turned, automatically seeking the sight of her lover. Shade wasn’t supposed to reveal himself this soon. Or so completely. Having run through the forest from his cabin as a wolf, he was naked.

The crowd booed and hissed. Shade tried to approach the altar, but Tiffany and her three lieutenants grabbed at him. He growled. “This is between Soren and me. Stay out of it.” He shook free of Tiffany, who signaled Flynn, Demetrius, and Marius to release him as well.

Soren’s demons jumped onto the altar, shouting orders to kill Shade.

“She created us.” Shade’s voice boomed over the noise of the crowd. “She made us and this is how we repay her? We sacrifice her not once, but twice?”

Soren growled at the demons. “Don’t. You ask too much already.”

A gentle rain began, falling from the cloudless night sky. Torrey called on the power of the moon. Her bones stretched, pushing her mouth and nose into a new shape. Teeth elongated. Phalanges lengthened, and her fingers curved to form claws.

The change seemed to take forever. Torrey was hyperaware of each tiny alteration. White hairs sprouted from every follicle on her body, and there were a lot more of those now than there had been before. Shaving her legs was going to be hell.

Her fur was the color of pure moonlight. There was no pain. Even the fire that raged inside soothed her like a warm hearth in winter. Yet, in linear time, the transformation was instantaneous.

Without hesitating, she launched her attack. She had no formal fighting skill or training. Maybe it was instinct and maybe it was luck, but she locked her jaw around the neck of the nearest demon. As a witch, she could not touch the creatures that existed between two worlds. Now that she had the power of fire, she could melt the boundaries.

Fragile bones broke between her teeth. She pressed a large paw to the demon’s back and tore the head from the body. With the flick of her neck, she flung the head into the flames. The words of a spell sounded in her head, allowing the fire to breach dimensions to incinerate the small sphere.

The three remaining demons squealed in fear. They screamed for Soren to kill Torrey. Stealing her power was no longer the objective. She was a threat and she needed to die.

Soren, lost in the fever of his compulsion, changed. Just as Torrey predicted, he was a stunning wolf. Unlike Shade’s dark fur, Soren’s was a swirl of colors. Browns and golds mixed with black in a subtle mingling of shades made brilliant by the fire’s light.

He leapt for Torrey, whose trajectory had taken her to the second demon. Shade, a black mass rocketing from the shadows, caught his brother in midair. The two fell to the ground, a ball of snarls, claws, and teeth.

Torrey didn’t spare them a thought. She knew Shade intended to fight to the death. If she could kill the demons, Soren would be free. They would all be free.

The second demon fought. He slashed at her eyes with his long, curving claws. Those pointed ears turned out to be bone, not cartilage. The two other demons joined the fray, using their natural weapons expertly.

A sharp jab sliced into her right rear thigh. Torrey wheeled around, grabbed the culprit in her mouth, and threw it into the fire. The magic words rushed through her mind without consciously being called forth. Fire burst from the specially built pit, showering sparks in all directions.

The last two demons tried to flee. Snarling, Torrey gave chase. Moving away from the fire took away her best disposal method. She didn’t know how else to make sure they were truly destroyed.

The crowd parted. Villagers shifted shape as they jumped out of the way. Torrey appeared as a mad wolf. She tore at the air and chased nothing.

She was attacked from all sides. The witch who had managed to steal the power of a wolf would not be suffered to live. Because she was from human stock, she was smaller than even the most juvenile wolves. Mass was mass. A large person formed a large wolf. A small person, relatively speaking, formed a small wolf.

Powerful jaws clamped around her front and rear legs. Teeth sank into her haunches. A frustrated howl sounded from deep inside. The pain was something she could bear. Failing in this mission wasn’t.

She wheeled, snapping at the wolves that held her. When she was free from one set of jaws, another arrived to take its place. Just when it seemed she was fighting a losing battle, the tide turned. Wolves she successfully disengaged did not return to the fight. Torrey’s flagging hope grew.

Then the last set of jaws was gone. The wolves she defeated surrounded her, watching with wary eyes. Hatred and distrust were palpable forces. They wanted her dead. They wanted her gone. Yet, they didn’t attack.

In the distance, vicious snarling and growls indicated Soren and Shade still fought. Nobody seemed concerned. Nobody seemed to want to watch or interfere.