Deviation: Altera Realm Trilogy Book 2 (14 page)

“You also attacked her last year. How did you get away from that?”

“I’m a cat,” he said with a laugh, revealing an empty mouth. He had no teeth that Leaf could see. The man fingered his gums. “They talk to you through the teeth. I pulled them out. I do miss her singing to me, though. Such a beautiful song.”

Leaf cocked his head to the side. The man was obviously insane. It didn’t explain everything, but they had enough to put him to death for today’s attack. He stood and walked back to the door.

“Sir.” Leaf looked at one of the guards and nodded. “I know him, sir. He used to work in the kitchens,” the guard said, gesturing to the man.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I, uh, wandered down into the kitchens one night…with a woman, and he kicked us out. I thought he might turn us in, so I asked around about him. He was a cook. Benjamin of House Lockin.”

Leaf turned back to the man, who was picking his nose. He was a long way from being a cook at the palace. Something else was going on here. He walked out of the room.

“Well?” Syney asked. She had been pacing again.

“It’s the same man.”

“I just knew it!”

“But something isn’t right. Do you know where Gabriel is?”

Syney gave him a look. “Probably in his room. He’s been staying in lately. Why?”

“Can you get him?”

She nodded and headed off.

Leaf ran the night of Syney’s attack over in his mind, including Hunter and Fern’s reports, but nothing special stuck out about the attacker. Syney had entered her room alone and had been beaten and stabbed. The knife, Fern had said in her report, was seven inches long. That description matched that of a standard cook’s knife. But why did he attack her? That was the big question.

A few minutes later, Syney returned with the Vampire in tow along with Noelle.

“You rang?” Gabe said with a grand gesture.

Leaf rolled his eyes. “I need you to check the man in this room. I think he might be under the effects of a spell or curse.”

“Am I the only one who didn’t know Vampires could do that?” Syney asked. “I didn’t. Don’t worry,” Noelle said, shrugging.

“It’s one of the reasons they’re allowed in the Village,” Leaf said, leading Gabe into the small room. He waited while Gabe walked over to the table and looked the man over.

“I could have his clothes taken off,” Leaf offered.

Gabe grimaced. “Please, no. It’s on his forehead. A curse. It’s only a shadow, but that means it’s already permanent.”

Both guards broke attention to share a concerned look. Leaf didn’t blame them. Curses were outlawed for a reason. You could be cursed and wouldn’t know it at all.

“Do you know which curse?” Leaf asked.

“Nope.”

Leaf didn’t believe him, but he let it go. He was too preoccupied with the matter at hand. Not only did a Magic User attack their future queen but also he had been directed to do it by another Magic User, one who knew complicated and banned curses. Leaf’s extra security might not be of any use if the attack was from the inside and by one of their own.

“They have him in the interrogation room by the dungeon.”

Mellisandrianna narrowed her eyes. “This is not good. I thought you said he was taken care of after that night.” She hated incompetence as much as liars. She stared at Grass, her Lycin Protector. This was unlike him. She had chosen him specifically because of his attention to detail, and this was one large detail to miss.

“I did. He must have found his way back into the Village,” Grass said firmly.

At least he wasn’t intimidated
, she thought. “You should have killed him.”

“You said I didn’t need to. You said the curse would make him insane.”

The queen sat back in the throne and heaved a sigh. The attack last year, using this man that was now captured, had been her sloppy second attempt at getting rid of Syney since she had come to the palace. It hadn’t worked, although it did give her the opportunity to put a curse on the girl, which was her third attempt at getting rid of her. The curse was desgined to make the girl depressed, so depressed that she took her own life. None of them seemed to work. She was harder to get rid of than insects. And now that she didn’t want to get rid of her, her past mistakes were coming back to haunt her. It wasn’t fair, which was odd. If anything, Mellisandrianna had luck on her side, and had had it for hundreds of years, until now. She gritted her teeth. “Can you get him alone?”

“Possibly. But Leaf’s getting suspicious. I heard he called the Vampire in.”

She pounded her fist against the arm of her throne. “Damn it! He’s a nuisance!”

“Which one?” Grass snickered.

“Both of them,” she muttered. “I can get rid of the man, our loose end, if I can see him alone.”

Grass nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.” He left quickly.

She shook her head. She was surprised Gabriel hadn’t given her up yet, unless he didn’t know what was going on. She remembered him, of course, and his pretty little wife. They had made things much easier for her, which she had always been grateful for. But with his being here, she knew she had to tread lightly at times.

Grass returned a while later and gave her a short nod.

She got up immediately and followed him out of the room and straight down to the dungeons. There weren’t any guards on duty at the top of the stairs, probably Grass’s doing. He was good at many things; she had to give him some credit. The man was in the first cell, sitting along the brick wall, softly muttering to himself and banging his head against the wall. The curse had done its work well. “Open the bars,” Mellisandrianna commanded.

Grass did as asked.

She quickly walked into the cell and knelt in front of the man.

He looked up at her and smiled, a toothless grin. “Oh, it’s you, beautiful lady,” he said, raising his hand to her face.

She swatted it away and placed her hands on either side of his face. “
Occidere te
,” she said softly. She watched as his dead eyes flashed a vibrant blue before fading back. She retrieved a small pill from her pocket and placed it in his hands.

He smiled at her while he popped it into his mouth.

“Thank you,” she said, before turning and walking away.

Grass closed the bars and motioned to the door that led outside. “It would be better to go this way.”

Mellisandrianna nodded and walked to within inches of him. “If you screw up again, I’ll eliminate you from my equation.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

“Good,” she said, heading for the door. She needed people she could trust to do what they had to, no questions asked. It would be a shame to eliminate Grass at this stage, when he was so close to his promised immortality. But she would, if she had to.

Weston scratched at his skin as he watched Cass conjure water from the ground. He didn’t think it would work, but seconds later a small spout of water shot up. When she smiled at him, he involuntarily smiled back. He wanted to justify it as coming from his happiness at having fresh water on his dying land, but that wasn’t it. She was getting to him. He never before met a Magic User who was so naïve and optimistic. It was frustrating, if he wanted to be fully honest. He had been raised to hate Magic Users, but here was a seated princess who made his heart beat a little faster. His father probably would call him weak, and he would agree. He had to come to terms with the fact that in the end, he might have to kill her.

Cass leaned down and drank some of the water. “It’s good,” she said, wiping her mouth. “Have some.”

Wes moved closer and drank. She was right; it tasted like water should.

“Do you know what this means?”

He shook his head.

“That the resources are still here. You can’t make water—you call if forth. So there might be hope for your lands.”

Wes looked at the small spot from where she had called the water, but it suddenly stopped. “You can’t do that to the whole land. Not by yourself.”

Cass frowned. “Then I’ll get help. Syney will help—I know it. And this might work with her whole ‘Chosen One’ thing.”

Wes looked back at her. “You know the Chosen One?”

She nodded. “Syney. She’s seated queen now.”

He clenched his jaw. They had lost track of the Chosen One once his brother, Marcus, had been killed in the Human Realm, hunting her. Even Scorpina had died. This was the first definite report they had regarding her whereabouts.

“Why do you want to know?” Cass asked, her eyes narrowing.

Wes looked back at her. “Because I’m the one prophesized to kill her.”

Cass’s eyes widened. “You can’t do that! She’s going to put an end to the war!”

“She’s going to win the war for you! The only way to win the war is to have a victor. Don’t be so stupid, Cass.”

“Hey, I’m not stupid! And there are lots of peaceful ways to end wars. A truce, for instance.”

Wes shook his head and gestured to the land around him. “There will be no truce for this. The only way we’ll let the war end is by killing the ruling family of Magic Users. They did this to our land.”

Cass looked away from him. “That’s the first time you said ‘they’ and not ‘me.’”

Wes shook his head. “Whatever. We need to keep moving. Come on!”

He pushed her forward. He should have bound her again, but he didn’t have any more rope, plus he was pretty sure she wasn’t going to run. He had dozed off late the night before and woken up to her staring at him only feet away. She had the perfect opportunity to run but hadn’t. He was also pretty sure she wasn’t afraid of him. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.

“How much farther is it?” Cass asked, wiping sweat off her forehead.

Wes didn’t answer. He just stared at her as she struggled up the rocky terrain of Lion’s Crossing. The underground kingdom was just past the crossing, but the crossing was ten miles of tough walking. He assumed Cass would have to stop several times before they reached the end.

She stopped an hour later and collapsed onto a flat reddish rock. “I guess this would be easier if I wasn’t a girl, huh?”

Wes glanced at her. He didn’t want to talk to her. It was easier if he didn’t. Then she wouldn’t put crazy thoughts and feelings into him. He should have been mute the whole time, he thought, mentally kicking himself. But from now on, she wasn’t going to get anything out of him. That way he wouldn’t keep questioning things he had been taught because of her inane jabbering.

“I mean, if I were an animal, this probably would be easier, right?” she said, shooting him a grin.

He shook his head and looked away, although he agreed. A lot of terrain in Shifter land was made more for animals than the other races, which deterred most races from exploring their lands.

“Did I do something?”

He sighed and glanced back at her. She actually looked concerned about his new behavior.
This girl is nuts
, he decided. She didn’t run away when she could have. She wanted nothing but to talk to him and treat him as if he hadn’t kidnapped her. She had to be crazy.

Cass stood back up, leading the way over the mixed stones that lined the ground. Every once in a while, she’d find her balance on some of the elevated rock faces that turned into cliffs some feet above them. She was trying to catch her breath while looking at the bottom of her feet. Her shoes were flat, not made for this much walking and this rugged terrain. Wes hoped he didn’t have to carry her the rest of the way. She may have looked like a twig, but his own thin frame didn’t lend itself to carrying much weight.

Cass sat down with a huff, and Wes rolled his eyes. Magic Users were so frail. He walked a few steps away and scanned the land in front of him. This was the only part of Shifter territory that hadn’t changed in appearance since the war had decimated the area. But it had become more and more unstable over the years. Most Shifters stay away from the crossing because of the quakes and land shifts. But this route was the shortest distance to the kingdom from where he had abducted Cass. Wes shouldn’t have been surprised when the quake started, but Cass definitely was. He immediately looked at her; her eyes were wide as she clung to the boulder behind her. He was about to tell her to just hold on and that it would pass, when the rocks below him seemed to just disappear; they must have split during the quake. He reached out and grabbed a ledge before falling. Then he looked down. The fall was very, very far. He cursed and looked above him. The ledge he’d grabbed was at least a couple of feet down, and the rocks above it were too smooth to try to climb. If he could just get his feet up to the ledge he was holding on to! He tried a few times, but there was nothing for his feet to get any traction on. He debated changing into his snake form but knew he’d lose the ledge if he did.