Red and Her Wolf (10 page)

Pulse rushing through his ears, drowning out all other noise, he watched and waited for the first flickering of the spell to dissolve. The breeze caught a streamer of blond hair, wrapping it like a coil around his wrist. He wasn’t sure how much time passed as he waited; a buzzing noise forced him to glance up. The green iridescent body of a large scarab beetle sailed past his periphery.

There was no time to waste, outside, they were exposed, his feet took them where his mind dreaded to go. Sand caught between his toes, rubbing them raw the farther he walked. The lights that’d seemed so close before, mocked him, seeming to move further and further away the more he walked. One hour slipped by, then one more. Soon, he’d lost track of time completely.

In a trance like state of shuffle, step, shuffle.
 
Sweat and sand irritated his skin, made him growl and burn from the constant friction. But he couldn’t stop; they had to get to safety.

The planets cast long shadows, almost obscuring the moon’s glow.
T’was
hard to know precisely how much time had passed, but his muscles ached. This would be so much easier in wolf form. This land was nothing but an endless sea of sand. Why hadn’t the fairy dropped them off within the village?

Eventually, even his thoughts ceased, caught up in just getting there.

Biceps and thighs trembling, he climbed the long hills. Up and down, down and up, one after another, landscape never shifting or offering surcease. A brutal test of his endurance, alone he could climb hill after hill, but holding onto dead weight while doing it in his weaker human form, coated him in a thick sheen of sweat. Hair clung to the back of his neck, wet and uncomfortable.

The abrasive sand rubbed his feet raw, a suspicious wetness gathered on his heels.

“Red,” he whispered, lungs heaving for relief from the humid night, “wake,
my
love. We’re in Kingdom.”

She did not respond, but he would not lose hope, because now her lips no longer resembled a permafrost blue, but the rosy pink of health. The spell had begun to lift.

“Ye are so lovely,
Vi
,” he inhaled, “and I ken ye have nay knowledge of me, but I promise ye this… none will ever hurt ye again.”

Preserving the remnants of his energy, he stopped talking or thinking about anything other than the beckoning flames. Ewan urged his shaking legs to top the crest of yet another hill and this time, the lights were there. Not twenty yards ahead. The village moved with life, people moved in and out of houses shambling around in random patterns.

Smiling grimly, he stopped, taking a moment to rest and study the quaint mud brick village. The night so well lit, he could make out the beige hue of the bricks spiraling up like coral from a seabed. A massive gate and walls surrounded the city; he’d have to figure out a way in without alerting any to their presence. He did not know this land,
nor
whom to trust. He wasn’t even certain he could trust the spy Miriam led them to.

A graveyard was their assignation point. Ewan did not know who the spy was, but it filled him with dread knowing where he was to find the individual. Few dared to dwell within dead man’s land, and those that did, were never friendly.

A gaggle of drunken men stumbled out from an oblong door, small children dressed in cream toned clothes raced between homes kicking a ball. But no matter where he looked, he could not find any sign of the graveyard.

Then a chatter of discordant voices reached his ears, men carrying torches suddenly filled the dirt streets. He narrowed his eyes, instinct telling him to crouch.

Guards were kicking in doors, cries of alarm rang out as women were yanked roughly from their homes and thrown to the ground. Children screamed and cried, running to their mothers even as the guards kicked them, demanding to know where the
Heartsong
was.

Ewan sucked in a sharp breath when a movement from one of the guards exposed a glint of gold around his neck.
Malvena’s
spies.
Here.
Already?
Danika
had worried they’d know, but he’d felt no disturbance in the air, no shifting of the land.

“Bloody hell,” he snarled.

His nostrils flared as he looked about wildly for a cave, a hole, anything to hide them in.

A low growl seeped from his belly, where was the bloody grave? He closed his eyes, trying to remember the map. The image of the village sprang up in his mind and behind it, outside the gates, a small x.

Ewan licked his lips, and glanced over his shoulder. He’d have to go back down the hill, travel horizontally, and hopefully would be able to avoid any eyes that might be on the lookout for his mate. As he was deciding this, a soft whimper made him jerk. Glancing down at his mate’s face, he caressed her blood encrusted hair.

“Be easy, Red.” He hungered to kiss her, taste her, mark her and make her his finally… soon, once they were safe.

It took several more hours; Jinni had always said the nights were blessedly long, and Ewan was thankful the shadows kept their secret. His neck prickled, as if eyes watched, burning a hole through him.

Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed a bright green jewel walking slowly toward him, then another, and another. He cocked his head when he realized they weren’t jewels at all, but beetles. He’d stumbled onto a nest. Not odd in the desert. Shaking his head, he shoved them from his mind.

The scent of jasmine grew redolent; a gentle breeze caressed his sand encrusted body. But he couldn’t allow himself to relax, the clang of steel and cries of the dying was a melancholy song. Goddess help them, he could only hope Miriam’s ally would give them shelter.

But the further he walked; the sweet scent gave way to a musty odor, sickly and putrid. Violet moaned, and ignoring the spasming ache in his arms, he nuzzled her soft cheek. “We’re almost there, Red. Calm
yerself
.”

Curling his nose, Ewan resisted the urge to vomit. The smells were ghastly, rotten and thick, clinging to his nostrils, forcing his eyes to water as he tried desperately to ignore the sneeze filling his throat.

The moment he stepped around the dune he saw the graveyard and the thick gray fog that shaded its perimeter in gloom. The smell was stronger, noxious. Like meat that’d set out in the baking sun for days, festering and boiling over with maggots.

“Bloody fairy,” he spat, knowing now who the ally was. Glancing at Violet’s twisted face, he worked his jaw from side to side. She was covered in blood, a beacon to this monster.

While he studied her, he did not notice the amorphous black fog coiling around his ankles until it yanked him off his feet, the ground tore into his nude flesh, scraping him raw. Grunting, he was able to still cling to Violet’s body.

“
Sssoo
much blood
,” the sibilant voice rang with greed and perverted joy.

Then a hot tongue, tough as a cat’s, licked the soles of his feet. Ewan kicked at the oily claw wrapped around his ankles, but it was useless. He thrashed even as a demonic mask coalesced within the inky vapor.

“
It’s been
sssoo
long.
Sssoo
hungry
.”

Blood pounding, Ewan twisted away from the fanged teeth. Horns sprouted from the face and jaw, a curved bony protuberance latched onto Violet. Scrabbling for purchase, his hold on her precarious, Ewan grasped a crooked gravestone and grit his teeth against the sensation of his legs moments away from being torn off him.

“Miriam sent us,” he shouted not caring if
Malvena’s
guards heard.
Avoiding imminent death at the hands of a blood thirsty ghoul of far greater importance at the moment.

Instantly the hands dissolved.
“
The
Ssshunned
?”

“Aye, ye bloody fool,” Ewan snapped, anger throbbing through his skull as he spat blood and grit from his mouth.

Violet moaned.

Ewan sat up, every muscle in his body ached as he hugged her tight to his side, dizzy and breathless with the reality of how close he’d come to losing her again.

The deformed creature slithered up to them, red eyes glowing like embers as it stared first at him, then her.

“Get away from her,” Ewan growled, he had little strength in him at the moment and he knew the demon ghoul knew it, but he’d die protecting what was his.

The red eyes stared at him briefly before turning to her, ignoring Ewan’s warning, the ghoul sniffed.

The face looked to be chiseled from stone, cracked and splitting from age. The gray pallor of the ghoul’s body nearly indistinguishable from the tombstone’s all around. Kingdom granted immortality, of a sort. One could not die of old age or disease, but death by battle or monster had taken many lives.

“
She smells of
deathhhh
, violence,
chaosss
,” the ghoul intoned in the deep heavy inflections that made Ewan’s skin crawl and ice heat his veins. Then the eyes returned to him and a long black tongue licked cracked and bleeding lips.
“
A
tassste
?”

Growling, Ewan scooted back on his heels, the stench of the creature nauseated him. “She is mine, ghoul. Safe passage, that was the bargain struck with The Shunned, was it no?”

The ghoul snarled, curling his lips. “
Yesss
,” he spat it like an insult.

Calling his wolf, Ewan let the animal spill in his eyes and growled low, “Then leave off.”

With a bird like hiss, the ghoul backed away.

Heaving a sigh of relief, trembling with a rush of adrenaline, Ewan closed his eyes. The villagers surely knew of the ghoul within the grave, the guards must know it too, meaning none would dare investigate here. But that didn’t make it safe.

The beast was hungry. Soulless, and with a desperate taste for flesh, its appetite was bottomless and unceasing. To be here for any amount of time, vow of safe passage or not, was lunacy.

The creature knew one thing.
Hunger.
The graves’ held nothing but bones, which meant he and Red were the only meat around. He needed to find the ghoul feed, and there was only one place to do it. Despising the choice, Ewan closed his eyes and whispered, “Many have died this night within the village…”

The words had barely left his mouth before the ghoul cackled with glee and became mist once more, a haunting laugh fluttered behind him.

Shuddering, Ewan kissed Violet’s cheek. Tonight she was safe, and the ghoul would gorge, hopefully for a few hours at least. His stomach roared, twisting and churning in his gut, demanding food. But the stench of death was everywhere and even if he had food, he’d never get any of it down.

Ewan settled against a headstone, eyes staring blankly at the rows of stones all around them. Finally sleep called, and her lure was impossible to ignore.

***

Fire raced jagged claws through his veins. Pain exploded in his brain, and Ewan’s eyes snapped open.

“
Move,
and I’ll slit you gullet to throat.” The dulcet voice so at odds with the cold press of a blade in his gut.

Chapter 6

She straddled his hips; knife gripped so tight in her hand, her knuckles ached. “Who are you?”

Last thing she remembered was tearing the wolf to bits, slicing through his gut, and then stumbling home, blood leaving a scarlet trail for any predator to follow. In her lust to kill the beast, she’d not known how injured she truly was. Aunt Miriam had dragged her to the bathroom, trying to staunch the constant flow streaming from her belly where the wolf had sliced her repeatedly.