Ash (The Elemental Series, Book 6) (21 page)

round us the ground heaved, bucking hard as she lashed it into an earthquake that rocked through the countryside. I bolted forward, down the slope while her back was to me. If I could get to her fast enough, I could knock her out and that would be that. In theory
,
at least, that was possible.

I made it to the first standing stone and pressed my back against it, breathing hard. The world shook and bucked like a wild horse trying to throw a rider.

“Bend for me!” she screamed into the wind. I looked out into the swirling snow to see Norm crouched, uncertain. I made a sign for him to stay where he was. He gave a tight nod and then flattened to the ground.

I did a quick look around the standing stone. She still had her back to me. Now was the time. I leapt out and around the stone, tackling her to the ground. We rolled and she screeched as I scrambled to get a hand in her thick hair. Under the cloak I drove my hand, snagging a huge handful of . . . white-blond hair. I didn’t pause even while I knew it wasn’t Cassava. Wild blue eyes stared up at me, all but frothing in anger as she stared me down, her lips moving in a spell. I whipped her back, slamming her head into a stone. Her eyes rolled and she slumped. The red cloak spilled open to show her wearing nothing underneath; she was as naked as the day she was born.

“Norm, calm the weather, please.”

Seconds later the wind and snow died and I found myself staring at the blonde witch. The earthquake eased off too, and I put a hand to the ground, asking it to slow its wild ride. And to ignore the witch when she called to it again.

“Please, let me go. Please.” The whimper came from the one bound on the ground. The one I’d thought was Peta, like the fool I was.

I went to his side and took a good look at him. There was blood on his arms and legs where she’d bound him tightly. His Romanian was accented oddly. “Where are you from?”

“Russia, my name is Peter.” He rubbed at his arms and legs as I freed him. It was only then that I saw the large bite on his right shoulder. I put a hand to it. “You are from Russia, and why are you here in Romania?”

Peter swallowed hard a few times before answering. “I came to visit my sister, Mala. But I was waylaid before I ever reached her. Attacked by wolves, of all things.”

“Peter!” The cry came from the slope and Mala bolted downward. Peter stood, wobbled and held out a hand to the witch.

“You’re alive!”

She buried her face into his chest, sobbing. I tried not to think that perhaps it was a game to her, that she’d used me to find him. But it didn’t seem to be that way. I put a hand on him. “Take your sister and go. And be warned, Peter. That bite you bear is one of the wolf. You will not be human after this night.”

His face blanched so he was as white as the snow around him. “I am a priest, I cannot be a werewolf.”

“You are what your blood dictates. Do with it what you will, but you are going to be a werewolf.”

He closed his eyes and I wondered at his story, of how one sibling could be a witch, while the other sought out being a priest of God.

I shook my head. “Go, while you can.”

“But what about you?” Mala blinked up at me. I drew close to her, circling my hands around her shoulders. She leaned into me and I swiped my cloak back as she gasped. “I suggest you and your brother hurry so you don’t freeze to death.”

I settled the cloak around my shoulders, doing my best to ignore the smell on it, one of lilacs and crushed ginger. Spicy and sweet.

A thought rolled through my head.
Take her. No one would know. The Yeti is too stupid to say anything.

I shook my head again, anger flaring through me. I strode over to where the blonde witch began to stir. I grabbed the cloak and stripped it off her, letting my anger drive me. I strode back to Mala and handed her the heavy cloak. She and Peter hurried away, though I could feel Mala’s gaze more than once as she looked over her shoulder.

I returned to the blonde spell caster on the ground. “Witch, you go too far.”

She groaned and rolled in the snow. Her bare skin beckoned to that voice that wanted me to break my loyalty to Lark.
Terralings are known for loving more than one.

“No,” I snarled the word and grabbed the witch by the foot, dragging her with me. What did the voice think? That I would willingly betray Lark? I snapped the witch forward with a sharp jerk.

Her body rolled across the snow, stopping only when she hit the far standing stone. I realized then I wanted a fight. I wanted her to wake up so I could throw her to the ground and expel the anger raging through me, the complete frustration that made me unable to see clearly.

With a flutter of her eyelids, she was on the ground, and then as suddenly she was standing, her feet hovering above the ground. “You stupid, stupid man.”

I narrowed my eyes and pulled a sword even as I held out the other hand over the ground. “I am no human, witch. And you would be well advised to beg for mercy now before I destroy you completely.”

Her laugh was clear, free of whatever power she’d pulled on to cause the quake. “Oh, please. Since when has a man had the balls to truly take out a witch? We will be halfway through this fight and your dick will be leading the way, begging you to fuck me.”

I pulled a dagger and threw it, snapping it forward between one heartbeat and the next. The blade buried deep into her upper right arm, straight into the bone. She gasped and stared as the brilliant red blood flowed down her pale skin and dripped onto the snow.

“I don’t think that was a prank,” Norm muttered from somewhere behind me. I was beyond caring. Someone was playing with my head, trying to force me to bed women I had no interest in. Raven or Cassava, I wasn’t sure which, but it didn’t matter. I’d learned in the past that pure rage, an anger hot and bright, helped to hold the control at bay.

I circled around the blonde witch. “Cassandra, if that is even your name, you would destroy this world.”

“I would raise it up to greatness. I will lead, boy, and you will be on your knees, begging to kiss my feet.” She pulled the dagger from her arm and tossed it away. Foolish move to throw out a weapon that could save her life.

Her hands swept up, and with them came a wave of snow. I dropped to my belly as a bloom of fire raced over my head. Norm yelped and I wanted to look and see if he’d been hurt. Just the thought of the Yeti being injured because of this stupid, pride-filled witch was enough to spur me forward.

I called the earth under the witch’s feet and the vines and plants that had been dormant for the season wrapped around her legs, yanking her to the earth. I flicked my hands back and forth, weaving the foliage over her until she couldn’t move. I bent over her head and stuffed her mouth with moss, making sure to jam enough in that gagging it out wasn’t an option. She glared up at me, fury making her brilliant blue eyes glitter.

“You, witch
,
are going to die.”

“Wait.”

I spun and stared into the darkness. I knew that voice.

Raven.

“
ou piece of shit, Raven,” I roared, and Norm roared with me, though he didn’t seem to be injured at all. His eyes, though, told me he thought this was a part of the game.

“I am so surprised you even got this far
,
to be honest.” Raven’s voice flickered to me from around the standing stones. Coming from all directions at once. I slowly turned, trying to identify just where in the seven hells he was. But there was no set place unless I kept him talking. That was my only chance to pin him down.

“What, do you not wish to face me, Raven?”

His laughter bounced and echoed in the icy cold air. “Not really. I wish only to save the girl at your feet. I think she has potential. I like her. I like blondes, as you well know.”

My jaw ached from clenching it so hard. “So you save her from me, and the world pays a price. Even you must see she is mad.”

“Ah, well, that is debatable. Perhaps I could train her. Show her a new way to use her power. I’m a good trainer, actually. I have a knack for it.”

I grinned slowly, understanding. “You want her?” I whipped my blade out and had it pressed to the back of her neck. “Then I think perhaps you’d best give me what I want.”

A sigh slipped from him, and he stepped out from behind the standing stone farthest from me. “Ash, you don’t understand. Nothing is as you see. I still can’t figure out why you are going after my mother.”

I frowned at him. “You told me to. You told me she was the one whose death would free us all.”

“I did no such thing.” He shook his head and his blue eyes widened. “Oh, I see. Someone’s been messing with your head.”

“You have, you little piece of shit,” I roared, feeling the cracks in my mind. Years at Cassava’s mercy had been tempered only by the time I was able to spend away from the Rim.

Lark’s father was not the only one who’d been manipulated and forced into doing things they’d rather not.

I shook where I stood, but I did not remove my blade from the witch’s neck. It did not matter who had tried to manipulate me, they were right. Cassava needed to die. “Tell me where your mother is. Tell me where she is keeping Peta and I will let the witch live. Swear to me on the embrace of the mother goddess you will not interfere with my quest and I will let her live.”

“You think that the witch means that much to me?”