Storm's Heart (35 page)

Durin hissed in pain and toppled sideways to the ground.

Holy cow. She actually managed to get in two good, solid hits in a row. The sentinels were going to be high-fiving each other at her funeral.

She rolled desperately, throwing all her strength into trying to get some distance between herself and the other two. Hey, miracles happened all the time. You never know, she might make it. She might—

An iron-hard grip clamped on to her ankle. Gasping hard for air, she flipped on her back again and tried to kick at whoever held her, but Durin pushed forward onto her legs, and though she screamed in rage and bucked and kicked as hard as she could, she could not dislodge him.

That was when the monster walked into the clearing. He moved with a speed that was shocking for one of his massive build. He carried a sword in each talon-tipped hand, and his teeth were too long and sharp. His eyes blazed white like twin stars, and oh gods, she loved him so much, and she knew why they had kept her alive for so long, because she was both bait and leverage, literally all they had to use against the onslaught of this nightmare.

Durin sank a fist into her hair and yanked her up until she was on her knees. He jerked her head back, and Naida moved up beside her to put the knife at her throat.

Naida said, “Stop.”

The monster’s blazing eyes fixed on Niniane. He stopped.

“Drop your weapons.” Naida sounded ragged.

No no no.

His hands opened. The swords fell to the ground.

Vaguely she was aware of other people racing into the clearing, and something lethal and winged soaring over the trees. A harpy’s enraged shriek sounded in the air overhead. Somewhere close, Rune swore and ordered people to stay back. None of them mattered. The world had narrowed to just her and Tiago, Durin and Naida, and the knife at her throat.

Durin bent, grabbed the shackles and threw them. They landed at the monster’s feet. “Put those on,” he said. “Run the chain behind your back.”

The monster did not move.

Naida pressed the knife harder against the thin skin of her neck. Another sting, another small wound and warm trickle of blood. Naida said, “She is one slice away from death. Do it.”

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t.”

The monster held her gaze as he bent to pick up the shackles.

Durin and Naida meant to kill Tiago as soon as he put them on. She would throw herself on the knife if she could. Maybe they had not gone too far on mating. Maybe he would have a chance to survive if she did. Maybe—she strained forward, but Durin’s tight fist in her hair was rock-steady.

Tiago snapped one manacle into place on one thick wrist, ran the chain behind his back, and snapped the second manacle on his other wrist.

“My gods,” Aubrey said from across the clearing. He sounded profoundly shaken. “My gods—Naida,
what have you done
?”

“As soon as we heard Urien had been killed, people started whispering,” Naida said. “You were going to be King. Didn’t you hear them? Everyone said there couldn’t be anyone better, and there was no one left with closer ties to the throne. Then
she
appeared, and she had become nothing more than a plastic Americanized whore who had been in bed with the Wyr all these years—”

The monster growled, his face naked with hate.

Aubrey shouted, “She is your rightful Queen!”

“She is not Queen yet!” Naida shouted back. “Why can you not see—when she and her animal are put down, there will be nothing to stop people from supporting you again—”

Naida pressed the knife harder into Niniane’s neck.

The monster bared his teeth and plunged forward.

Naida said to Durin, “Kill him.”

Durin’s grip in her hair loosened. She tried again to throw herself on the knife, but Naida shifted to take Durin’s place, holding her jaw in a bruising grip and forcing her head back. Durin strode forward, and time fell its inevitable fall, both backward and forward, toward that jagged place where everything shattered into pieces forever, and she screamed out her heart as the Dark Fae male impaled Tiago on his sword—
oh god mother
—

And Niniane stared as Tiago thrust himself farther onto that murderous sword, all the way to the hilt, his powerful body the most real and dangerous weapon, as he snaked his head forward, and with one wicked-fast snap of his teeth he tore out Durin’s throat.

Blood sprayed across Tiago’s face. It poured in a river from the sword in his abdomen. Tiago spat out flesh as Durin’s body collapsed to the ground. The twin blazing stars that were Tiago’s eyes fixed on her again. His face was slick and red. He went down on one knee.

“My gods, he’s an abomination.” Naida’s breathing sounded in her ear, as harsh and ragged as her own.

She said between her teeth, “I told you this was not going to go the way you thought it would.”

His head bowed. He sagged forward. Tiago.

Behind them, Cameron said in a hard, cold voice, “Drop the knife, Naida.”

Cameron sounded so confident and her words seemed so misplaced, Naida actually twisted around with Niniane to look. Niniane tried to turn her head to keep her eyes on Tiago, but Naida’s hand was clenched so tight on her jaw she couldn’t move.

Cameron stood ten feet away. One side of her face had already blackened from Durin’s blow. She had both of Niniane’s derringers, the gun in one hand pointed to the ground. She held the other gun aimed at Naida’s head.

“Do you think I would give up my only leverage now, especially for such a stupid and ignorant bluff as this?” Naida said. “Your weapons technology does not work here, human.” She said to Niniane, “Get up. We will have to make for Adriyel, you and I, and then we will see what Urien’s old supporters think of you—”

Naida started upright. Niniane didn’t move. She didn’t know if it was a smart thing to do or not. She simply could not leave Tiago.

Naida screamed in her ear, “Get up right now, or I will gut you in front of everyone!”

“Risk and benefit, huh,” Cameron said with a grim smile. She pulled the trigger.

The gun exploded.

T
here was too much blood, of course.

The beast kept his face turned toward his mate as he fell to the ground. He kept his face turned toward her even though a haze came over his sight and blanked out the farthest reaches of the clearing so that he could no longer see her.

Someone with a tawny head bent over him. He almost lunged upward to tear out this one’s throat too, but the tawny-haired one had a scent that was long familiar, and so the beast held back to watch and wait.

“Goddamn, T-bird, look at what you’ve done to yourself this time,” said the familiar one. He took hold of the sword’s hilt and pulled it out. The beast hissed at the liquid burning slide as the blade left his flesh. The tawny male tore off his shirt and pressed the wadded material against the beast’s wound, and shouted, “
ARYAL
. Why isn’t he starting to heal? Here, put pressure here.”

Another familiar one knelt beside him, her eyes blazing with fear and fury, but it wasn’t his mate. “Got it.”

Then his mate was there, his beautiful, precious mate. His world had burst out of his chest when he had returned to the tent to find she had gone missing. Now she brought it back to him, and it was such a blessed relief to see and smell her—but she had bled from her wrists and neck—he snarled as he caught the fresh scent of her blood and struggled to rise up and slaughter the ones who had done this to her—

“Somebody cut me loose,” his mate said. “Oh gods, Tiago, stay down.”

He subsided and sighed as she bent close to press her cheek to his. “Only one person,” he whispered to her. “Only one thing.”

“I can’t lose you,” she said. Rune cut her hands free, and she wiped the blood off Tiago’s face. She pressed her lips against his. She was trembling. “You have to fight for us. Fight as hard as you can, do you hear me? Hold on.”

Always.

“He’s talking to her but he hasn’t come out of the partial shift, and he’s still bleeding out,” said Aryal between her teeth. “What the hell is wrong? We’re going to lose him unless someone figures out what to do right now.”

“It’s the shackles,” his mate said suddenly. “Urien made them to imprison Wyr—they suppress a Wyr’s Power. These are the ones that held Dragos and we need the key—” She pushed to her feet and raced away, and his world grew dim again. “It isn’t in her pack!”

His mate raced back. She fell to her knees beside his head. She was crying.

Rune surged to his feet. “Help him, Carling!”

That was when he saw the other woman who stood nearby. She regarded the scene with an expression of mild curiosity, her gaze vague and unfocused. “That is not within my purview as Councillor of the Elder tribunal.”

Rune grabbed Carling and shook her. She bowed backward under the pressure of his hands. He roared in her face. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Snap out of it.”

The Vampyre’s gaze clicked into focus. She cocked her head and looked over the scene as if she had never seen it before. Her long almond-shaped eyes blazed with Power. She said to Rune, “If I do this, you will owe me. Not Dragos, not Tiago or Niniane. You. You will come to me in one week after we leave Adriyel, and you will do a favor of my choosing. Do you agree?”

“
Yes
,” Rune hissed. “Just fucking do it.”

Carling walked to Tiago. She bent over him with a Mona Lisa smile. “I’m told this might hurt a little.”

He closed his eyes in resignation. Crazy-assed bitch.

TWENTY

C
arling placed her hands on Tiago and spoke foreign words filled with Power. Niniane sagged in relief as she held his head.

There was a flurry of activity around Cameron and Naida’s prone figures. Both women had fallen when the derringer exploded. Niniane couldn’t think about that right now. She didn’t care if Rune had to bargain for Carling’s cooperation. She was only grateful that Carling was helping now and everything would be all right. It had to be.

Carling frowned, her gaze sharp. “The spell didn’t take.” Niniane’s head came up. Her gaze searched the strong, quiet features framed between her fingers. “Tiago?”

He remained silent.

“He’s gone unconscious.” Panic took her over. She switched to telepathy and screamed at him,
DON’T YOU DIE ON ME!

He did not respond. She hit the jagged rocks and shattered.

The others were all speaking at once.

“What the hell use are you, anyway?” The vicious question came from Aryal and was directed at Carling.

Rune growled, “Cast it again. Make it happen now.”

Carling ignored the two sentinels, her face intense with concentration. She spoke other foreign words that were so filled with Power, their vibration thrummed in Niniane’s body. Then the Vampyre sat back on her heels. She wiped her face with the back of one hand. “I caught him in time. I have put him in stasis for now.”

Niniane gritted, “What’s wrong?”

“His injury requires a healing spell that must act along certain shapeshifting principles. His torn arteries and organs must knit together in order to stop the hemorrhaging. Normally the Wyr are particularly adept at healing injuries. It is part of their inherent ability to shapeshift. I think the Power in the shackles is blocking the spell.” Carling’s gaze met hers. “He stands at the threshold. If we do not find a way to remove those shackles, he will die.”

Niniane didn’t recognize her own voice. “You’re not going to let that happen to him.”

“I will hold him as long as I can.” Carling regarded Tiago’s still face as if he were a cipher she could not read. “But part of that is up to him. If his spirit chooses to let go and slip away, there is nothing I can do.”

Tiago’s face disappeared in a watery shimmer. She wiped her cheek on her shoulder. “He said he’d fight,” she whispered. “He’ll fight.”

Rune and Aryal crouched, looking at each other. “Niniane checked Naida’s pack,” Rune said. “She didn’t check Naida or Durin.”

The two sentinels sprang away. Rune landed by Durin’s body while Aryal launched at Naida’s prone form.

You swore you would not leave me
, Niniane said to Tiago.
You made me believe in you. You made me love you. Promises are all well and good, mister. Now it’s time for you to make good on them. I can’t—I can’t take it if you don’t.

Aryal gave a sharp, triumphant hawk’s cry. The harpy leaped to her feet, sprinted to Tiago and skidded on her knees as she landed beside him. Her long hands blurred as she unlocked the shackles. Then Rune rejoined them, and they all worked to ease the shackles out from underneath Tiago’s body. “Take those away,” Carling ordered.

Aryal’s stormy gaze flashed up to meet Niniane’s for the barest instant. Then Aryal whirled from them, the shackles gripped in one hand, and she was gone.

Carling said, “I have to remove him from stasis and then cast the healing spell. If you believe the gods take an interest in our lives, now would be a good time to pray.”

Oh gods, please. Please. She threw the full force of her panic into the prayer. Then she pressed her lips to Tiago’s forehead and said to him,
Tiago, you must stay with me
.

Carling spoke even more rapidly than before. The lowvoiced Power-filled words made the world shiver, made Niniane’s bones vibrate, made Tiago’s body blaze with golden light. His back arched and he gasped as his face contorted in agony. Niniane wrapped her arms around him, cradling his head. He turned to bury his face against her breast as his talon-tipped hands dug into the ground.

She remembered the agony of her own healing. Her wound had been so much smaller than his. She suffered with him until gradually the tension eased from his body, and at last he rested against her, his face and body smoothing into their normal lines.

I’ve already told you more than once, faerie. I’m not leaving you.
He spoke as if he had heard every word she’d said to him and was continuing the conversation. His mental voice was slurred, and his eyes refused to focus.
Some day you’ll believe it.

She sobbed out a laugh and held him closer.
I think some day just might be today, Tiago. I think it might be today.

H
e slipped again into unconsciousness. Carling sounded confident when she said the danger had past, but Niniane could not relax until she had torn open his blood-soaked shirt and seen for herself the shiny scar from the sword wound. It was about three inches long and looked almost silver against the dark tanned skin of his muscled abdomen. She put her fingers to it. There would be another at his back where the blade had passed through his body.

A sober-looking Hefeydd and three other Dark Fae soldiers came with a stretcher improvised from blankets and two poles. Under her anxious supervision they eased Tiago onto it. She kept one hand on Tiago’s shoulder as they carried him back to camp. Aryal and Rune kept a watchful pace alongside. The stretcher-bearers took Tiago to her tent without being asked. She directed them to lay him on her bed, and they did so gently.

“Please heat some water so I can bathe him,” she said, her attention on Tiago.

“Yes, ma’am.” Hefeydd lingered, and she looked up. The Dark Fae male’s brow was creased. He said, “If it pleases you, your highness, we want to help. May we do anything else for you?”

She tried to think. “He’ll be hungry when he wakes up. He needs a lot of meat.”

“With your permission, a few of us will go hunting.”

She nodded. She frowned. “You were the one Arethusa gave the packet to.”

Hefeydd bowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her gaze narrowed on him. “Why were you so cautious about giving it to Tiago?” What had Hefeydd known but not said?

The soldier’s eyes reddened. “None of us believed the Commander’s death was an accident, and I did not think anyone had the ability to slip up behind her without her knowing. Her killer had to be someone she trusted and, therefore, was most likely someone I knew too.”

She closed her eyes and nodded again, and he backed out of the space.

Rune had entered with them, carrying Tiago’s swords. He set them on the ground beside the bed, then knelt alongside her and helped her cut away Tiago’s bloody clothes. Without looking up from the task, she asked, “How’s Cam?”

There was a pause. Then Rune turned to put his hands on her shoulders. He squeezed her gently as he said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. She didn’t make it.”

It was too much to hear, on top of everything else. She rocked and keened quietly, and Rune hugged her tight. After a few minutes, she said, “Naida?”

“She’s dead too,” Rune told her. “The gun fired and exploded simultaneously.”

“It’s my fault. Those were my guns. I brought them with me.”

“Stop it.” Rune’s voice was calm and firm. He stroked her hair as she leaned against him. “Naida had gone over the edge. Cameron saved your life. She did a brave, good thing and died like a warrior. Don’t try to take that from her.”

She bit her lips. After a moment she was able to nod. She said,
Thank you for getting Carling to act
.

I had to. It was T-bird.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

She lifted her head to look at him.
Rune, be careful. Carling isn’t quite sane.

Yeah, I figure.
He smiled, his gaze serene. “Don’t worry, pip-squeak. You know how the song goes. ‘Every little thing is gonna be all right.’”

Trust Rune to quote Bob Marley. She would not have expected she would be able to smile back, but she did. She glanced back down to Tiago’s stretched-out form, and her smile was replaced with rage. “We are done with diplomacy. I want you to scour the camp. I don’t give a shit if it offends anybody or not. Use force if you have to. Durin and Naida mentioned someone named Ryle. Find him, and find out how much he knows. No one is exempt, not Aubrey, not Kellen. Nobody.”

“Bitchin’,” he said. His smile widened, and his amber lion’s eyes flared with a predator’s gleam. “Sounds like my kind of party.”

“
N
iniane,” Tiago said as he opened his eyes.

He was in her bed, in her tent. Someone had removed his clothing and bathed him. He broke into a sweat as he remembered the star of agony in his abdomen that had grown to fill his body with burning gold. He started to rise. Suddenly Niniane was there, kneeling beside him. She laid a hand to his cheek. “I’m here. No, please don’t get up.”

He looked at her hungrily. She was clean and dressed in a robe. The thin cuts at her neck were not covered, but her wrists were wrapped in bandages. Her face was drawn and pale, her lovely eyes haunted.

In his mind, he saw her bound and kneeling, her neck exposed and bleeding. One slice away from death.

His mouth opened as the breath left his lungs. He snatched at her and dragged her down. She grunted as he clenched his arms around her. He growled, “Every time I let you out of my sight, something bad happens.”

She put her head on his shoulder, her small body flowing to align with his and accommodate his tense hold. He put a hand to the back of her head and turned his face into her fragrant hair. She whispered, “Everything’s all right now.”

She pressed her lips against the bare skin of his shoulder. She was safe and alive, and she was with him. He dragged her underneath the bedcovers and curled his body protectively around her. His mind raced. “The shackles.”

She stirred. “Aryal has both sets of chains, and the key,” she told him, muffled against his skin. “She swears she’ll find a way to destroy them. She’s saying ‘my Precious’ a lot and talking about dropping them into a volcano.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Naida,” he said. “Cam.”

She swallowed hard and shook her head.

He rubbed his cheek in her soft hair as he listened to the sounds of the camp. People were talking and moving around quietly. Enough time had passed, then, for calm to return. “How long have I been out?”

“Almost thirty-six hours. You almost died,” she whispered. “It was really close, really bad.” He stroked her back, soothing her, and they held each other in silence for a while. Then she stirred. “There’s food,” she told him. “Venison stew and pan bread.”

Hunger was a sharp, insistent ache, but his need for answers was sharper. He said, “Tell me everything, starting with when I left.”

She did. Since she had learned things after the fact, she was able to add more to the story than what had just happened to her. Aryal and Rune had split off to keep an eye on Aubrey and Kellen, the most dangerous suspects. In the meantime, Durin received Tiago’s order to get the troops ready to ride out. While Tiago collected food and water for the journey personally, and saddled his and Niniane’s horses, Durin passed his orders on and went directly to find Naida.

“Everything Naida and Durin did from that point on was in escalating reaction,” she told him. “Right up to the end, when Naida realized Aubrey would never agree with what she did or forgive her. Then she had nothing left to lose, and I think she just unraveled. Just imagine, a couple of weeks ago she believed Aubrey would be crowned and she would be Queen.”

He growled, “Do you believe Aubrey?”

She tilted back her head and stroked his face. “Everybody believes Aubrey, Tiago. He has been beside himself. He has offered his resignation as Chancellor and asked to be taken into custody. And you know what? I finally learned where Duncan’s talents lie.”

He lifted his head to frown at her. “What?”

“Duncan, the Vampyre,” she said. “It turns out in 1890 or so, he founded what has become one of San Francisco’s premiere law firms. He’s expert at questioning witnesses and suspects, and especially at cross-examination, although after everything that happened, people were more than happy to cooperate. Between his skill, and Aryal and Rune’s truthsense, they’re confident everybody else in the camp—including Aubrey—is innocent. One of Aubrey and Naida’s attendants, a man named Ryle, was involved only peripherally. Naida had sent him to get Aubrey out of the camp quietly, but she hadn’t told him why. Geril and Durin were her two accomplices. She must have done quite a number on them to play on their greed and ambition. She all but promised to get Durin appointed as Commander, right in front of me.”

“So it’s really over,” he said.

She nodded. Her eyes filled with tears. “The sad thing is, Arethusa and Cameron didn’t have to die. If we had achieved more trust and openness—if we had all just worked together better, they would still be alive—”

“Hush, you can’t think that way,” he said. “All we can do is work with the information we have at any given time.”

The tears spilled over. “I know, but I liked Cam so much and she was so happy to come.”

“I know,” he whispered. He framed her face in his hands and kissed her damp eyelids, the tip of her nose, her mouth. “I wish I could take the pain away.”

“I don’t,” she said. “She deserves to be mourned.”

That may be so, but his faerie had suffered too much and he had had more than enough. If anybody so much as looked at her funny, he was going to come down hard on them with both sizefourteen steel-toed boots. Then he would consider seriously the merits of evisceration.

He kissed her again, gently, and she kissed him back. Then soothing became searching. She wound her arms around his neck, and he growled low in his throat and moved to cover her body. “Wait,” she murmured. “Don’t you want to eat first? You must be starving.”

“It has quite a high priority rating,” he muttered. He rested his weight on one elbow and ran his hand down the side of her body, looking for a way to open her robe. “It’s next on my to-do list, but you’re the first thing.”