Forbidden Forest (The Legends of Regia) (2 page)

“Stop!” he yelled.

All the muscles in her arm clamped down, and her finger, already half-squeezing the trigger, began to shake as she fought against his command. She’d been so close.

Leith reached out and grabbed the gun from her hand, only to swear loudly in pain and throw it from him. He looked down at his hand that was now red and smoking.

“That’s my favorite gun. I had it plated with silver. You know how I love silver.”

“Well,” he sneered at her. “I suppose I have to congratulate you on a clever little move.”

His raw hand whipped out, backhanding her across the face, splitting both her lips. She staggered momentarily, but held her ground. Hatred was boiling over inside her. His eyes went wild at the sight of blood on her lips, and he took a step toward her again.

This was where Forest drew the line. She spit the blood in her mouth across his face, savoring his shocked expression for a split second, before disappearing again and taking off back down the alley to the club. He wouldn’t follow.

****

Horrified, Leith wiped his hand across his face. He couldn’t believe Forest had been capable of showing him such disrespect. He had forbidden her, years ago, of ever showing him disrespect. He didn’t consider her attempts to kill him anything other than amusing foreplay. But this? His control over her was weaker than it had ever been. She was learning to fight it. The fact the she could exercise any measure of free will around him caused him disquiet. If she could fight back even half of the persuasion he once held over her, his life really would be in danger.

Leith thought of the scar that ran down the length of his back, from shoulder to waist. That had been excruciating.

He tucked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans and leaned against the wall. He didn’t want to lose his favorite toy. Why had she never been able to see that he loved her?
Lowlife Halfling
, he thought bitterly. If he couldn’t keep her, he’d have to kill her.

Licking the blood remaining around his mouth, he stomped off down the street.

****

Forest waited until she was certain that Leith was gone before venturing back into the alley to retrieve her gun. It had landed next to the smelly dumpster. She looked at the overflowing trash receptacle, so very metaphoric to her mood. Every memory and emotion connected to Leith was like that putrid garbage.

She kicked the dumpster as hard as she could, sending the rats living behind it scampering. She shouldn’t have to put up with this, dammit. She was a warrior, a formidable one at that.

With her .45 tucked back in the waistband of her pants, Forest retreated back to the shadows of the club. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the concrete wall, concentrating on her breathing. She was seething and torn about reporting Leith.
Focus. Focus. Focus
. Reporting him would bring attention to her failure to control the traffic through her post. Nuts to that.

She had two hours and thirty-seven minutes left to work. It was no good—she couldn’t do her job when she wanted to kill everyone in sight. She pulled out her phone and sent a text to her boss, Kendel, telling him she was cutting out early. Forest went out the front door and headed straight for her car. Traffic was light, and she zipped through the streets of downtown, jumped onto the Mopac expressway, and arrived back at her luxury, north-Austin condo in no time.

Her mind was in a terrible snarl. She dropped her bag and her keys on the floor and stomped into the dining room. Bracing both her hands on the table, she closed her eyes and tried breathing deeply. But calm would not come. Emotions swelled like a tsunami and came gushing out violently. She grabbed the glass fruit bowl on the table that was full of peaches and threw it against the wall as hard as she could. Shattered glass, splattered peaches, and tears fell. Would her life ever be her own?

Destroying her fruit bowl felt good, but it wasn’t enough violence to assuage the storm within. Not nearly enough. Her body felt flattened where Leith had touched her. She wiped at the tears on her face, vomit rising in the back of her throat. Growling, Forest grabbed a shard of broken glass from the floor and went into the bathroom. The lights stung her already burning eyes. She let loose a scream of rage at her reflection. Crying! Crying was weakness.

Forest pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor. She turned to the side and looked at the pattern of her scars Leith had marked her with so many years ago. Biting down on her bottom lip, she took the shard and stabbed it a quarter inch deep into her shoulder. Wincing, she dragged it in a jagged line down to her elbow, then dropped the bloody glass into the sink and splashed water on the self-inflicted wound. She watched it for a few minutes. A searing rushed through her flesh, causing her to yell obscenities at random and kick the vanity.

She splashed water on her arm again and looked at it closely. It was no good. She healed too quickly to build scars on top of scars. The pattern remained unaltered. Sighing, she left the bathroom.

In her living room, she surveyed the mess. She would clean it up tomorrow.

Dawn began to color the sky as Forest dropped on her bed and fell asleep.

Chapter Two

PILES OF files were stacked to eyelevel atop Kindel’s desk. Every miniscule tidbit of information on all Fortress operatives was heaped before him like a haystack. He must find the elusive needle. The clock ticked loudly, incessantly drawing his attention. He had a weeks’ worth of work and only a handful of hours to complete it. They weren’t paying him enough for this crap.

He closed his bloodshot eyes and took a few deep breaths. He couldn’t pull this off. The weight of his thoughts pulled down on his shoulders like an over-stuffed backpack. What would they do to him if he failed? Fortress couldn’t fire him—he was privy to too many government secrets. However, they
could
demote him. Kindel shuddered.

He focused on the piles in front him. He had been through every single page. He knew every operative personally; he managed three quarters of them. And not one stood out as the obvious choice for the black ops mission.

Kindel pushed his chair out and began pacing the floor of his office, too agitated to care that pacing was very un-elfish. The King had clearly lost his head, and the high council stood behind him, cheering on this folderol. They had formed a plan and dropped it right in his lap. He would do all the work, and the council would take all the credit. Like always.

Kindel ground his teeth. He needed an operative who specialized in combat and stealth. He had plenty of those. Not a spy. Kindel hated spies. He needed someone he could trust, someone loyal to
him
. But more than anything, he needed someone versatile and also, unfortunately, expendable. He needed…He needed…

His phone vibrated in his pocket. A text from Forest. He read it, half-smirking, half-scowling. Why did she always call him The Suit?

Suit, leaving work two hours early. Dock my pay if you want. Oh wait, forgot I’m salaried.

–blows raspberry— Forest

 
Forest
! It hit him like a sucker punch from an ogre. He needed Forest. Forest was the solution to his problem. An imperfect, knotty solution, but selecting her made sense.

He ought to reprimand her for her insolence and work habits, but Earth was low on his list of priorities. Personally, he didn’t really care if the whole human race was annihilated, but it was part of his job to oversee the portals from Regia.

Kendel dug into the mound of paper and fished out Forest’s file. He scanned through it, wishing he could edit out a few little unsavory things. His logic for selecting Forest for this mission was undeniable, as were the strong objections he knew the council would raise. He sat back down, dipped his quill in ink, and began to write the proposal.

Forest’s eyes loomed in Kendel’s mind. He couldn’t conjure her face, as he had no idea what it really looked like. He wished she had been born a pure blood elf, like him, and not some cast off, illegitimate Halfling. As it was, she was considered the lowest of beings in all the world of Regia. His respect for her was second to none because no one else gave her any. She was undeniably shady, and bad tempered, and had a love affair with weapons that Kendel didn’t understand. Through the years he had watched her battle harder than anyone else, only to achieve less. She was the only Halfling Fortress Operative in all of Regia’s history.

Kendel rolled his thin shoulders and cracked his neck. He knew Forest didn’t fantasize about him the way he did about her, and that was best, he told himself. Nevertheless, he longed to see her true face, if only for a moment. But she couldn’t have shown Kendel her real face even if she wanted to. When she finally met her destined life mate, she would never be able to hide her true form from him.

Kendel agonized over the mission proposal for the next few hours. He wanted to be realistic and fair to Forest if she succeeded, but not so much that the council would notice his favoritism. Using her was going to be a hard sell. The council met in the morning, and should they approve the mission, Kendel would meet with Forest in the evening before her shift. Kindel smirked. She might be an even harder sell than the council.

****

FORTRESS CASTLE, REGIA

HIGH COUNCIL MEETING

The high council chamber in the heart of the castle was empty except for Kendel. He didn’t like being in this room alone. It made him feel like a child, sneaking somewhere he wasn’t allowed. A copy of his proposal rested on every seat. Personally addressing the high council was something Kendel had only been called to do a few times before. It was a high honor—one that turned his stomach. He was sure his career would suffer if the council rejected his proposal, but in all of Fortress’ operatives, no one made more sense for this mission than Forest. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one who knew about her prejudice against vampires. Her file documented it. Aside from that, the members of the council might act too high and mighty to care about a Halfling, but they indulged in gossip just like everyone else. They all knew about her.

The chamber doors opened. Security ogres came through first and positioned themselves strategically around the circular room. The six council members lazily filled in. First came Devonte, the Wizard. He was ancient and hunched and could give Oscar the Grouch cranky lessons. Kendel avoided him whenever he could. Wizards considered themselves above the law, and Devonte more than most. The fact that they were a dying race gave them an imaginary license for lawlessness. If Devonte desired more power, he could have declared himself the emperor of Regia, and no one would have stood against him. One wizard could destroy an entire army.

Next into the chamber was Nahcaan, the Ogre. Eight-foot-two, five hundred pounds of exaggerated muscle and a perpetually cheerful mood. One of the most educated and talented ogres in all of Regia, he spoke slowly and evenly. Kendel didn’t have the slightest idea which way he would vote on the mission. Nahcaan was excessively logical, but the ogres were faithful allies to the vampires. Always had been, always would be. Could logic trump fidelity?

Zefyre, the Elf priestess, followed Nahcaan. She smiled thinly at Kendel, who felt his stomach flip. She was five hundred years older than him, not that she looked a day over twenty, and had been Kendel’s first boyhood crush. It was hard for him not to blush around her as the memory came back into his head of how, when he was fourteen, he had proclaimed passionate love for her. He figured that she would be behind his proposal for the mission out of family loyalty; she was Forest’s aunt. But Zefyre would never claim Forest publicly since her brother hadn’t owned that Forest was his.

Next came Frost, the Werewolf. Kendel always felt unsteady around him. He was broad as most werewolves were, and always looked as though he hadn’t shaved in a week. However, for a werewolf, he was positively posh. A superior politician, slick as they came. What you saw was not what you got with Frost. Frost would probably vote against Forest taking the mission, because that would be the politically correct move.

Fifth in line was Gagnee, the Shape shifter. She was Kendel’s idea of the dragon lady. She changed her appearance more often than any other shifter in the whole of Regia. Kendel suspected she did so to eavesdrop on her underlings. Her vote would be the easy yes. Shifters were considered to be second-class citizens; they stuck together fiercely. Gagnee might not approve of Halflings, but the fact Forest’s mother was a shifter would sway her.

Lastly, there was Lush, the Vampire, whom Kendel despised, mostly because of his rumored liaisons with Zefyre. He was typical vampire nobility scum, condescending with every syllable. Everything from his clothes to his tone of voice was calculated precisely. Arrogant and ambitious. He was nothing more than a successful social climber.

They sat in a semi-circle around Kendel, methodically smoothing their robes under their butts and looking down at the papers in front of them. Silence fell as they read. He watched their expressions change as they thought about his proposal. Lush shook his head in disapproval when he finished reading and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, waiting for his fellows to join him.

One by one, they put the papers down. It was Kendel’s job to begin the tug of war. “Shall we vote, or is deliberation needed?” he asked.

“Needed,” Lush said immediately, in unison with Devonte.

Kendel gave a little bow to the council and prepared to hold his mouth shut while the arguing began. It was, as he expected, going to be a long day.

Chapter Three

THE LATE afternoon sun baked Forest’s red curtains. The light filtering through washed the walls in pink. She slept as though drugged in the heat of her condo. The ceiling fan over her bed was off balance, the chain pulls clinking cheerfully, as it buffeted her with hot air.