Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) (14 page)

Her head swimming, Ashlyn fumbled
clumsily with the bola around her legs, trying to untangle the leather cord
that had her restrained. Kou was swinging the second bola above his head now,
preparing to use it as a close combat weapon. He and Vargo circled each other like
two wild animals waiting to pounce. In the corner, Ashlyn saw Tag fumbling with
his armlet. He glanced at her, and his eyes suddenly began to glow green.

She realized that Tag was going
to transform
right now,
and she
twisted, looking around for her weapons. Her sword was all the way on the other
side of the room, but the shuriken was pretty close- maybe close enough for her
to crawl to.

Tag began to scream as he shifted,
the same primal howl that she had heard that first time, in this same basement.
Trying to ignore the throbbing ache in her head and sudden nausea, Ashlyn
rolled over on her stomach and inched towards the shuriken.

Kou swung the bola at Vargo, and
the Spartan ducked forward, striking cleanly at the base of the Toryn man’s
skull with the baton. Kou dropped into a somersault, putting some distance
between himself and the red-haired man. Vargo advanced, trying to maintain his
aggressive advantage, but Kou managed to swing the bola again and wrap the cord
around Vargo’s baton. Kou jerked hard, yanking the baton out of Vargo’s hands
and smashing it against the wall behind him.

Ashlyn reached the shuriken and
snatched it up, rolling onto her back again and trying to use the blades to saw
through the bola cord. The cord was wrapped so tightly around her legs that it
was hard to find an angle where she could cut the cord and not herself, but she
managed to get through one strand, although the bola still didn’t budge.

A shadow fell over her, and
Ashlyn looked up to see Tag looming above her, saliva dripping from his muzzle.
Her legs were still trapped. She had no way to escape.

Tag snarled and raised up on his
hind legs briefly, intending to come down and crush her with his front paws.
Ashlyn quickly rolled out of the way, moving until she hit the opposite wall,
and then scrambled into a sitting position.
Please,
please, please!
She sawed at the bola cord, willing something to give so
she could free her legs.

The Tag-beast lumbered towards
her, and Ashlyn knew there was no way she was going to cut the cord in time.
She readied herself to throw the shuriken, racking her brain for all the
different possible angles for a death blow.

Vargo suddenly leaped in front of
her and launched himself at Tag- completely unarmed and barely half the size of
the
shift
monster, Ashlyn realized in
horror. Vargo and Tag tumbled backwards, with Vargo ending up on top and
raining punches down on the surprised creature.

She flexed the muscles in her
legs on sheer adrenaline and desperation, forcing her calves apart just enough
to slide one of the shuriken’s blades beneath the cord. Glancing up, she saw
Kou coming for her.
Crap!
The cord
gave at the last moment, and she rolled aside as the bola in Kou’s hands
smashed into the wall where her head had been.

She spun and leaped up, using her
momentum to spin into a butterfly kick, one hand on the floor as she drove at
Kou with her legs. He leaped backwards, but Ashlyn followed the move with a
twist kick, spinning forward twice in a complete five hundred and forty degree
rotation, her legs lashing out with the motion. The second kick connected, and
Kou fell to the floor, dropping the knife. Ashlyn turned, ready to throw the
shuriken at Tag, but Kou’s bola wrapped around her weapon, yanking it out of
her hands.

She turned again, but Kou was
already moving up the stairs, and just then Vargo screamed behind her. Ashlyn
froze, unsure of what to do. Vargo screamed again.

She spun and ran towards Tag,
scooping up her knife from the floor as she did. The beast was on top of Vargo,
ripping and tearing, and the cries coming from Vargo were turning into
terrifyingly weak gurgles. Ashlyn drove her knife into the bear’s fur, as close
to his head as she could get. Tag shuddered and rose up on his hind legs,
knocking her backwards. Ashlyn managed to catch herself with one hand and
rushed forward again, stabbing blindly into the mass of fur. Tag batted her
aside with one paw, sending her crashing into the wall.

If he’d decided to attack again,
she might not have been able to fend him off, but for whatever reason, Tag
decided to run, dashing up the stairs after Kou.

The room was spinning around her,
but Ashlyn fell forward, clambering across the floor on her hands and knees to
Vargo. The sight was horrifying. He was gasping for air and sobbing openly,
blood bubbling from his mouth as he coughed. His arms and stomach were shredded
so badly that Ashlyn couldn’t tell what was clothing and what was flesh.

Why had she switched out the
heal
stane from her armlet? Why had she
let Kou take her shuriken? Ashlyn silently cursed her stupidity.

“Ashlyn,” Vargo gasped, and his
hand clutched blindly for hers. She took it, trying to think of what to do.

“I’ve got to get help,” she told
him. “You’ve gotta wait here, okay?”

“No!” His hand clamped down even
harder on her fingers. “Don’t leave me. Don’t…
hell.”
He coughed wetly, hacking up blood. “Don’t you…don’t you
dare leave me here alone.”

Ashlyn’s eyes fell on his armlet,
revealed now that his sleeves had been torn off. The armlet was smeared with
blood, but she could still see flecks of green from the
heal
stane beneath.

“Hang on,” she said, scrabbling
with her free hand for the stane. “Just stay still.” The gem popped out of the
armlet, and Ashlyn closed her eyes, praying as hard as she could for Drago’s
guidance as the stane began to glow in her hand.

Chapter 7

If Not For You

“Ashlyn.”

She bolted upright, teetering in
her chair, face numb from being smushed up against a book. “What?” Her
sleep-blurred gaze fell on Drake standing in the doorway.

He stepped into the room, moving
further into the lamplight, and she noticed that his hair was wet. Hers was
still slightly damp from her bath the night before, and Ashlyn ran a hand over
her hair self-consciously, remembering that it was still jagged and unkempt
from Skye’s hurried chop job back in the forest. Before that, it had hung
nearly to her waist, but now the longest strands of her ponytail barely reached
her shoulders.

“How is he?” she asked Drake. The
vampire had been working through the night, trying to heal Vargo’s injuries.

Despite her lack of skill with
heal
and her trepidation over using it
on injuries so extensive
,
Ashlyn had
done her best to fix the worst of his wounds, starting with his midsection,
which was torn open and gushing blood. She’d managed to knit his stomach
together, staunching the worst of the blood flow as Vargo drifted in and out of
consciousness.

The battle outside had ended
quickly, with the Toryn army emerging triumphant and only a few of the
shift
monsters escaping- Kou and Tag
included. Drake had found Ashlyn shortly after, and begun ministrations of his
own on Vargo, but as he had tersely explained to Ashlyn, the other man’s
injuries were so severe, and his insides such a mess, that Drake’s main goal
was simply to keep him alive. Healing Vargo completely was out of the question.

“He’ll make it,” Drake answered,
and sank into the chair opposite her.

Ashlyn felt a rush of relief and
gratitude- for Drake and for Vargo, who had undeniably saved her life. “Is he
awake?”

Drake shook his head. “He’ll be
asleep for at least another hour. He lost a great deal of blood. He did…request
your presence several times last night. I think perhaps you should see him when
he wakes.” He shifted in his chair, leaning forward and looking curiously at
the book that lay open in front of Ashlyn.

“Oh.” She shrugged, lifting the
book so he could see its title. “I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep…guess I
was wrong about that…so I came here to do some research on Toryn customs. I’m
still looking to see what the rules are for the Elder Heir selecting a
successor.”

The vampire’s eyebrows knitted.
“Still running from your destiny?”

No,
just trying to take my mind off Vargo.
“Not really,” she said. “I think I’m pretty much
resigned to it now. But I don’t want a situation like this- this war- to start
all over again if something should happen to me down the line. I’ll need to
choose someone I trust to take over if I happen to die in, I don’t know, a
freak accident or something. I was thinking Skye, but I’m…well, I’m having a
hard time finding anything about non-Toryns assuming leadership.” She wiped at
her cheek with one hand, smiling humorlessly. “It’d probably help some if I
didn’t fall asleep while reading. It’s like grade school all over again.”

Drake smiled back at her, and
something in his expression was almost tender. “You’re entitled to some rest,
Ashlyn.”

“You’re one to talk. When was the
last time you slept?” She knew the answer to that already. He’d lain beside her
in the cave, holding her as she slept. The memory brought a blush to her
cheeks.

“You were talking in your sleep,”
Drake said, ignoring her question completely.

“Was I? I was dreaming.” She
yawned, stretching her hands above her head. “I keep thinking about this
painting I saw in the Eastern City mansion. It’s been years since I even looked
at it, but for some reason I can’t get it out of my head.”

“What painting?”

“The one in the hallway to the
left of the big staircase. On the second floor. It’s hanging…I think it’s right
before the third doorway on the left. It’s really pretty, very abstract, just a
bunch of different shades of red, all swirly and overlapping. Every time I look
at it, I see something new that I didn’t notice before.” She rubbed a hand
across her eyes, and smiled at Drake. “So how are you feeling? You must be
tired.”

“I…” Drake began, then trailed
off, looking uncharacteristically unsure of himself. He cleared his throat. “I
came here to speak with you.”

“About what?” Ashlyn closed the
book in front of her and propped her chin on the heel of her hand.

“About Trace,” he clarified, and
Ashlyn’s good mood dissipated. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the story
behind Drake’s relationship with the tiny blond Spartan.

“Sure, go on,” she said.

Drake fixed her with a look.
“It’s certainly not something I ever thought I’d have to explain, but let me
begin by saying that Trace and I are friends. Nothing more.”

Ashlyn opened her mouth, then
closed it, debating about whether she should speak her mind or not. “You don’t
really have friends, though,” she said after a moment. “Other than me, of
course.”

He looked bemused. “What makes
you say that?”

“Because you
don’t.
You’re antisocial and...what is that word Trace always calls
Ellis? Laconic. That’s it. You’re laconic. You don’t talk to anyone and you
keep to yourself.”

“I talk to you,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,
now.”

“It’s different with you, Ashlyn.
You’ve always been my opposite in every way. Imagine living
my
life for decades and then being
confronted with
you.
If you light a
lamp in a dark room, it takes some time for your eyes to adjust.”

“But you warmed up to Trace
pretty darn fast,” Ashlyn said, knowing she sounded hopelessly bitter and
unable to stop herself.

“What grounds have I ever given
you to assume that I am anything but friends with Trace?” he asked, clearly
exasperated.

“I
saw
the two of you- a year ago. At North Camp Inn!”

“I meet with the Spartans once a
year,” Drake said. “It’s a condition of my agreement with Jackson. Vampires are
dangerous, and he and I are both aware of the risks associated with
my…condition. I meet with the Spartans- usually just one of them- to reassure
them that I still have
resist
and
that I’m not a danger to the Free Lands. They report back to Jackson. I met
with Trace in North Camp last year because she couldn’t make it to Storim.”

“But when I saw you with her, you
were
smiling!”

“Am I not permitted to smile?”

“Not at Trace,” Ashlyn mumbled,
for once fully aware of how immature she sounded.

They both were sitting back in
their chairs now, arms folded across their chests, glaring at each other.

“Why is it that I tried for so
long to get you to come out of your shell, to talk to me, to smile at me, to
act like you were alive again, and it didn’t happen until I was completely out
of the picture?” she demanded. “It makes me feel so lousy. Do you know how hard
I was crushing on you the entire time we were tracking Lord Angelo?”

“Yes.”

“And you completely ignored me!”

Drake looked affronted. “You were
fifteen.”

“You’re
freaking ancient!
Who the hell cares?”