Hunter's Woman (18 page)

Whirling away, she struggled in the opposite direction, dodging the beasts that fought all around her, swaying, skidding on the ice as they leapt with bared teeth to rend flesh and shatter bone.  A feur crashed to the ice just to her left, rolling with the tolk that was snapping and tearing at it.  The two combatants collided with her, knocking her down.  She gasped as the icy water splashed over her.  Before she could get to her feet, the whirling fighters caught her again. 

As she scrambled to crawl away from them a shadow fell over her.  When she whirled to see the newest threat, she discovered one of the great zurks was standing over her.  Reaching down, he scooped her up with one arm, holding her against his furry chest.  She fought and clawed at the beast, struggling to break free even as he lumbered across the ice with her. 

He dropped her onto a mound of snow as they reached the stream bank and Aslyn whirled to flee, expecting any moment to feel the crushing weight of his jaws, or a blow from one of his great paws.  When neither came, she spared a glance backward and discovered the zurk had turned away.  He stood just below her, as if guarding her from the battle still being waged on the ice below her. 

Aslyn hesitated, wondering if it was safe to stay, but as she glanced out over the carnage of the battle, fear and revulsion spawned renewed panic and she turned away, climbing.  She had no destination in mind when she reached the top of the bank at last.  She only knew she could not stay.  She had to get as far away as she could. 

She had not even gained the edge of the forest that surrounded the stream when something huge slammed into her back.  Blackness clouded her mind and sight as the impact of the blow propelled her forward and her head cracked against something hard and unyielding. 

Chapter Fifteen

Aslyn roused slightly as she felt the warmth of hands, turning her over, wrapping something around her.  With an effort she lifted her eyelids fractionally.  Kale’s worried face swam before her vision.  Satisfied that she was safe, she closed her eyes again, enjoying the warmth that was slowly seeping into her frozen bones. 

Dimly, she heard voices around her—men’s voices, talking, groaning in pain—the soft wicker of kirkins, and the shuffle of hooves against packed snow.  She moaned when she was lifted abruptly, feeling pain shoot through her skull and claw its way through her body.  

When she became aware again, she realized that she was on a kirkin and the warmth against her cheek was Kale’s chest.  The steady beat of his heart comforted her and she was tempted to simply drift off again, but something nagged at her, something that she needed to tell him.  “Can’t go back.  Burned the cottage,” she mumbled with an effort.

His arms tightened around her.  “I know.  I’m taking you home.”

She smiled at the word, realizing there had never been a sweeter one, or one more cherished. 

* * * *

Aslyn woke to find herself in a strange bed.  As groggy and sluggish as her mind was, she was in no doubt of that.  Blinking, she looked around the dim room in confusion, wondering where she was, how she’d come to be there. 

She discovered that Kale was propped in the bed beside her, watching her.

She stared at him a long moment.  “Where am I?”

“Home.”

She frowned, more confused than ever.  “The cabin?  This doesn’t….”

He shook his head.  “Our home.”

Aslyn sat up abruptly, discovering in the process that she was naked.  Grasping the cover, she clutched it over her breasts.  Her head swam at the sudden movement and she lifted one hand to press it against the throbbing pain.  “How?  What happened?”

Gripping her shoulders, he pushed her gently back until she was lying with her head on the pillows behind her.  “My men and I captured the renegades and brought them home to stand trial.”

Aslyn rubbed her head.  “There was a battle….”  Her eyes flew open and she stared at Kale.  “I didn’t imagine it, did I?”

Kale frowned, a look of uncertainty crossing his features.  “No.”

“You’re….”

“One of the mogi.”  He lay back, staring up at the ceiling.  “We are outlanders here … on this world—just as you are—although my people came here long, long ago.

“I cannot undo what was done, Aslyn.  In truth, I confess I feel no regret for my part in it, though I am sorrier than I can say that the turning has been the cause of so much pain and hardship for you.”

Aslyn didn’t know if she was more unsettled by the first part of his statement or the last—more unnerved that he knew she was alien to this world, or at the discovery that he was … and beyond that hailed from beings capable of shapeshifting into beasts that roamed the night in search of prey. 

But then—she had become one herself—much the same as he was.  She was hardly in a position to pass judgment on that score.

She was still more confused than enlightened, however. “I don’t understand.”

Kale rolled onto his side again.  Reaching over her, he lifted her hand and brought it to his lips.  She remembered then.  It was the hand the snow tael .…  Kale had bitten her.  She tried to snatch her hand back, but he held it.  Rubbing the fresh marks with one finger, he then traced the pale, white scars beneath them.

He looked into her eyes.  “I was only a youth myself when I saw you the first time.  In my eyes, I saw a tiny princess and in that moment decided to claim you for my own.  I marked you.  It
was
Algar that made you mogi, or at least tried—who marked you first, but it was my mark that bound you.  At least …. I am not certain but I think that it’s possible—maybe more likely than just possible.”

Aslyn frowned, trying to make sense of what he was saying and drawing a blank.  It dawned upon her finally that the dream she’d dreamt for many years had been no dream at all.  She had always thought the scars were from some long forgotten mishap as a child.  She had never considered that the bite she remembered from her ‘dream’ had been real and the scar had been the result.

She had never connected it to her ‘malady’ because it was many years later—when she’d reached puberty—that she turned for the first time.

“The day I was lost in the woods?  It was you who chased me—attacked me?”

It was his turn to stare at her uncomprehendingly.  Slowly anger replaced his confusion.  “That was not I!   That was Algar’s clumsy attempt to claim you as mate, I don’t doubt!

“I knew you’d been marked—that a male mogi had ‘tagged’ you for his own.  I suppose that played a part in my decision.”  He shook his head.

“In truth, it was a child’s game I played then. I was far too young to claim a mate in truth, but I was still … smitten with you, enthralled.  I imagined you growing up to be a princess and myself as the knight who would come to steal you away.  From Algar as it happens, although I did not know him or know, then, that it was he who’d given you the mark of the mogi—the bite that would make you as we are. 

“My confession was that I, too, marked you—to take you from him, replaced his mark with my own.  But it was not until far later that I realized that you were not of this world, were an outlander as we were, and that there was no way to know if either mark would make you mogi or bind you to either of us.

“What I am trying to tell you is that you may not have been affected—become mogi—with only Algar’s marking.  By marking you a second time, it may be that I was the one who sealed your fate.

“It bound
me
to you—but I had no notion if I had succeeded in binding you to me or not—not even when I finally found you again.

“My father punished me, of course, sent me to Renoir as squire, here in the valley of the clan.  I thought that I had outgrown that childish infatuation.  Perhaps, I had.  But when I saw you on the road to Krackensled, I saw my mark upon your hand and knew your beast had led you to me.”

“
You
made me a mogi?” Aslyn gasped, trying to grasp the thought.  Did that mean she was a tael, not a tolk, not vicious, not one who preyed upon people?  Was that thought less revolting because she found she was not the same as Algar?  Or was it less revolting because of her love for Kale?

But, no.  He was saying he
might
have, that he wasn’t certain.  That she wasn’t like others they’d turned.  She wasn’t of Petrac and therefore the ‘marking’ might have affected her differently.

He was saying Algar infected her, just as she had thought.

Algar had ruined her life—took the life she had away from. 

Kale was offering a new life.

“In truth—I do not know for certain.  That is what I was trying to tell you.  That Algar may not have been the one to turn you—because you are not native to this world and no one knows if you would be affected as they are or not.  I placed my mark above his to challenge him for you.  The second mark—the mark I gave you a few nights ago—was to warn Algar of my claim upon you … lest he think the beast who’d claimed you had released his claim.  The third sealed your fate, binding you to me.”

“Third?”

“The night we made love, we mated for life.”

Aslyn thought about that for several moments, searching in vain for indignation.  “You did not give me a choice.”

“No.  I was … afraid you would choose another.”

Aslyn frowned.  “This is a very strange way to tell me you love me,” she said irritably.

He turned to look at her, studied her a long moment, and finally smiled.  Reaching for her, he pulled her across his chest.  “It is far more than loving.  It is a mating of two souls.”

Aslyn’s brows rose.  “Just the same.”

“You didn’t tell me you loved me,” he pointed out.

Aslyn sniffed.  “Mayhap I do … mayhap not.  I was not wooed as I fully deserved.”

Kale looked deeply into her eyes then growled, rolling until she was beneath him.  “Do not play your games with me, woman!  Say it!”

Aslyn chuckled.  “I might, but only if I hear the words I want to hear.”

“You’re a stubborn wench!”

“That is not the three little words I want to hear!”

“I ...  love … you,” he growled.

Aslyn thought about it.  “That was not very prettily said, growling at me as if I was plucking the hair on your chest!”

Kale cut her off by kissing her.  She looked up at him dreamily when he released her at last.  “You could always show me how much you adore me,” she said a little breathlessly.

His golden eyes gleamed.  “With all my heart,” he said.

The End.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS:

Petrac—the alien world

maidal—alcoholic drink

Leitsey Marr—her betrothed was from this place

kirkins—their riding beasts

grogs—the hunting dogs

Goddess Hirath

Goddess Ot

tribit—rabbit like

Otox—ox

Tolk—wolf

Crakaten—the country the story takes place in

Yat—cat

Feur—wild cat