Alterant (11 page)

Cathbad grinned.

Kizira thought for a moment. “That’s why the Medb are rabid for that island. No queen has been immortal since Queen Medb herself, and even she eventually died.”

All humor fled Cathbad’s face. “But
I
am the one who must succeed above all when the time comes or the curse
will
be reversed. If that happens, we could all be destroyed.”

More riddles. No wonder she’d grown up hating puzzles.

Kizira just wanted all of this to end. She wanted the power to have a life away from the poison she breathed every day, but she’d never see that life if Flaevynn became immortal. Kizira would never have battled to earn her place as the most elite Medb priestess had she known she’d lose her free will, bound to the ruthless queen for as long as Flaevynn lived.

The queen had tolerated Kizira this long only because Cathbad had convinced Flaevynn that Kizira played a vital role in destroying the Beladors.

She just didn’t know her entire role. Yet. And she couldn’t live with herself if she destroyed Qu—.

She would not think about that. Not here.

Cathbad’s gaze swept over her with a pained expression. “I know you think I only use you as Flaevynn does in all this, but ’tis no’ true. I care about what happens to you, girl. The less you know the safer you will be.”

She ignored the way her heart clutched at his claim of caring when she had no doubt he’d play her like a favorite instrument. And she’d be compelled to dance to the music.

The Medb Coven was no place for the vulnerable or the meek. She asked, “Where’s the logic of keeping me in the dark all the time when I’m the one being sent in to face Alterants, Beladors and every other being out there with a grudge against the Medb? And don’t tell me it’s for my safety.”

“’Tis.”

“Right. Flaevynn just stuck me with me a deadline to
find two of the Belador Alterants in forty-eight hours. That’s
two days
or she’ll lock
me
up down here! The best shot I had at catching one Alterant this morning slipped through the fingers of bounty hunters I hired. How am I supposed to find two anytime soon?”

He sat quietly, thinking on something, then whispered, “’Tis dangerous to care deeply for someone you fear losin’.”

“I learned that at my mother’s knee when she found my pet rabbit and gave it to the cook.” Anxiety rippled across her neck again, but no one knew who she protected. She repeated silently,
I have no one to lose. I only care about serving the Medb. I have nothing that matters to me.

“So you have no one to protect?” he asked in a way that challenged her to lie.

Panic flared, threatening to take hold.

He couldn’t know.

She flooded her mind with everything from happily serving the queen to thanking the day she’d been born Medb. “No, I have
nothing
to protect except you, and you have more power than me.”

He slapped his knee and grinned. “Alright, now. I know who can help you locate
three
Alterants.”

Kizira perked up. “Three? Really? Who?”

“The Belador you saved when you were eighteen.”

Her chest muscles constricted and her grip on the desk tightened. He couldn’t know about Quinn. If he did, that meant he knew . . .

Cathbad’s brown eyes narrowed with shrewd understanding. “You know the Cathbads are gifted with sight. I
saw you meet him in a vision. Saw how you stopped our warlocks from killing him, then this Belador risked his life to save you from the warlocks. ’Tis why I think your heart is soft.”

Oh, no, no, no.
That was exactly what had happened when she’d met Quinn. She’d been sent out on her first task to prove she was worthy of becoming a priestess. Her Medb warlocks had attacked Quinn so quickly that he’d had no chance to defend himself. But when the warlocks had started torturing him instead of taking him captive, she’d intervened to stop them.

And they’d turned on her, accusing her of high treason by protecting an enemy—an immediate death sentence for any Medb.

Badly wounded, Quinn had struggled to his feet. He’d used his powerful mind and the element of surprise to kill the warlocks.

Cathbad knew . . . but he’d obviously not told Flaevynn. Kizira asked, “Why didn’t you tell the queen?”

“Because she would no’ ha’ understood that even a Belador plays a role in fulfillin’ the curse. If you wish to hand the queen at least two Alterants in forty-eight hours, you will need this Belador’s help . . . and mine.”

She’d seen Quinn only in rare situations since that initial brief affair, and every time they’d been adversaries. There was no way he’d help her locate the Alterants, especially Evalle, whom Quinn watched over like a younger sister.

Kizira shook her head. “That Belador will not help me capture the female Alterant Evalle.”

“He will once I tell you how to persuade him.”

“What if I can’t persuade him?” She wouldn’t put Quinn at risk, no matter what. But if she didn’t play this out with Cathbad he’d know he could use Quinn against her.

“Then you risk Flaevynn learnin’ the truth behind this man.”

She stared silently. He could not know
everything.

He nodded and answered, “Oh, but I do know everything. I know you care for him, which is why you will do as I compel you if you wish him to live.”

Welcome to life as the lowest pawn in a deadly game.

EIGHT

E
valle stumbled forward, tripping over a bulging root covered in ferns. Her vision cleared from teleporting. But not the urge to upchuck the pizza she’d eaten.

She held her forehead for a few seconds until the nausea passed, then she turned slowly to assess her surroundings.

It looked like she’d been dropped in a jungle that smelled of damp earth and decaying vegetation constantly composting. Water drizzled over her face and streaked her sunglasses.

If not for her unusual optics, she’d have been blind in this almost-total darkness. That meant her twenty-minute visit to the Nether Realm hadn’t lasted five hours in the mortal world this time, or she’d have been facing sunshine.

But how long would a day or “more than a day” in the Nether Realm translate into human time?

Or had Loki meant one day in the human world?

Who knew, but she had to get back to Atlanta—with three escaped Alterants in tow—and help stop an Alterant massacre.

At least she could offer the three Alterants she took back a chance at real freedom.

She used a finger to squeegee water off her forehead.

Warm water soaked her shirt. Glancing up, she couldn’t even make out cloud cover through the thick
canopy of hardwood trees and tropical palms. Hidden somewhere up there were critters that chirped, screeched and chattered.

So this was where Tristan lived,
if
she’d landed in his spellbound prison. When she’d first met him in Atlanta, he’d said his cage was in a South American jungle, but not the specific location.

And that had been when they’d been on speaking terms, before she’d used the Ngak Stone to return him to captivity.

A tingling warmed the skin on her chest. She looked down.

The amulet still dangled from her neck.

Thank the goddess she hadn’t lost it. She always worried about losing some part of her clothing or her sunglasses in transit, but she instinctively put a hand on her glasses to hold them when she teleported. If the leather thong holding the amulet had come loose while teleporting, would the necklace have landed at her feet or ended up in another part of the world?

She didn’t know. Now the thing was heating up even more.

Just like it had before she’d been ambushed in Atlanta.

The jungle stilled. Not a chirp to be heard.

She didn’t have to be hit over the head to figure out this silver disk was acting like some kind of warning device, but why? Nicole’s spell on the amulet was long gone. Opening her senses wider, Evalle tried to determine if the danger approaching was of this world or preternatural.

No energy touched hers.

That ruled out preternatural.

Regardless of where she’d landed, she couldn’t use her supernatural powers to harm a natural creature of this world.

She needed a defense plan or someplace to hide if she didn’t find Tristan soon.

What did he use for shelter here?

She suffered another swipe of misery at sending him back to isolation in this place. From her perspective, living in a jungle beat being confined in a basement for eighteen years, but she doubted Tristan would see it that way.

She couldn’t blame him.

Loss of control over your life sucked even if you lived trapped in a castle, like Brina.

Poor Brina could never leave the Isle of Treoir except in a holographic image. Doing so would put the whole Belador tribe at risk of destruction.

Hair stood up along Evalle’s arms.

Two bright eyes, probably yellow, peered at her from between wide palm fronds and froze the blood in her veins.

She could tell it was a large jungle cat but not much more.

For a moment, her heart leaped to the hope that the animal stalking her might be Storm in his black jaguar form. But even if he could track teleportation he couldn’t have found her in another country—and on another continent—this quickly.

She’d probably never see him again and wouldn’t be able to help him find the woman he was hunting either. If she didn’t satisfy the Tribunal’s demands, the list of people she’d let down would continue to grow.

The animal watching her didn’t blink.

Running generally excited a predator, but she couldn’t stand here all night. She had to find a hiding place before daylight, too. With her deadly intolerance to sunlight, she’d fry faster than fish in hot grease the minute rays hit her skin.

And end up just as dead as being eaten by a three-hundred-pound, four-legged killing machine.

Evalle took a step back, then one more.

Another set of predatory eyes with narrow black centers appeared several feet to the right of the first cat. A hunting party, or just taking advantage of a snack dropped in front of them?

Both cats moved forward at the same time.

Game on.

She swung around and dove headfirst into the jungle, swatting low branches and thick undergrowth out of her way. Thorny vines clawed at her clothes and arms. Her boots sucked in and out of wet bogs of mud. She felt as though she ran against a current of energy, like swimming in a resistance pool.

Even her natural Belador speed was useless here, which pretty much confirmed she was inside Tristan’s enclosure. She couldn’t see any other reason she’d slow down to the speed of a human.

She could hear the snap of twigs and rattle of vegetation as the cats stalked her at a steady pace. She hurried ahead, willing herself to outrun them in spite of her mind arguing that was unrealistic.

When she entered a moonlit clearing, she stopped in the center and turned slowly.

Three more sets of yellow eyes faced her from the other direction.

Now she got it. The first two cats had been herding her.

The amulet around her neck warmed and glowed again.

Great. Like these cats needed help finding her in the dark?

All the cats converged at one time.

Golden jaguars. Must be a mother and her grown cubs.

Evalle fisted her hands and crossed her arms in front of her like an X, prepared to block her face and eyes. She couldn’t even use her dagger because the blade was flush with supernatural power. For a moment, she considered shifting into her beast just to frighten them away, but that would probably backfire here even if she didn’t have to worry about having to face the Tribunal again.

The largest cat, likely the mother, started moving in a fast stalk and prepared to leap off the ground to attack.

Evalle braced herself for sharp claws and fangs ripping into her body.

The roar of an animal that sounded much larger than any of these cats shook the trees surrounding her clearing.

Power burst into the open space, flowing between her and the closest cat, and shoving the attacking feline back. The other jaguars perked up at the noise, alert to a new player.

She’d have liked to mark that as a positive sign, but the sound of heavy footsteps bearing down on her warned she had something far deadlier than these animals to face.

Someone who wanted more than her death.

Tristan would want to see her writhe in pain.

A giant beast shoved small trees aside with no more
effort than if they had been saplings. He stood taller and greater in bulk than her Alterant beast form and stomped forward on feet twice the size of a human’s. Forty feet away, he paused and dropped his head back, roaring a long, guttural sound.

Chills crawled up and down Evalle’s spine in spite of the damp heat.

The jungle cats skulked away unharmed but clearly intimidated by the beast in ragged jeans that actually fit his huge legs. Where had Tristan gotten clothes?

He stood with hunched shoulders, cracked lips pulled back to show uneven, razor-sharp fangs. Long arms dangled at his sides, fingers tipped with curled claws. Shaggy locks of matted, dirty-blond hair hung in clumps between scaly patches and leathery skin that covered the vicious angles of his face. Beneath a jutted forehead, a broad nose flared and black eyes glowed hot in the darkness.