Lord of the Wolfyn and Twin Targets (19 page)

As she surged against him, counterpointing the powerful thrusts that wrung cries from both of them, she was whole within herself, taking what she wanted and trusting her own instincts over life lessons that didn’t work for her, maybe hadn’t ever really worked for her. And as he clamped her hips in his hands and anchored her so he could drive deeper, so deeply that she nearly came from the pressure of him hitting her exactly right inside and out, she knew that what they had found together was separate from Elden’s problems and his need for redemption. Those things might have put them in each other’s orbits, but their deep connection—and now their bond—was their own.

Knowing it, believing in it and him, and this one singular moment they had stolen, she found his mouth and poured herself into a kiss that held nothing back. She was wide open to him, feeling his heartbeat and pleasure and sharing her own in return.

Emotion washed through her, tightening her body around him as a second orgasm gathered, deep and powerful, as they rocked together, not having sex or making love so much as
mating,
sealing the bond that now connected them.

Through it, she knew that he was lost in her, in the moment and the sensations, holding nothing back as he thrust and thrust again, finding a sweet, sweet spot where they fit perfectly, joined intimately. Her body tightened as he stroked harder and faster, then faster still, touching that spot, that wonderful glorious place that wrapped her up, caught her up. And sent her flying.

She threw her head back, rapt in the glory of coming with her body, mind and heart united, and nothing held in reserve. She called his name, praised him, urged him on, drove him wild.

“Yes, Reda. My sweet Reda.” He bowed his head as his rhythm hitched and his big body shuddered against her. He surged into her, pressed home, touched the place that was theirs alone, and then he was coming, too, her name reverberating in his chest as he leaned into her, against her.

The sensations washed between them, amping their responses and locking them together in protracted pleasure before leveling off and then, eventually, easing.

“Gods.” He pressed his cheek to hers, his breathing still hard and fast. “Dear gods. If I had known…”

It was a first for him, too, she realized. His first time drinking from a woman’s throat. His first bonding. And if she had anything to say about it, his first, last and only. She waited for panic, didn’t feel any. And smiled, feeling lighter than she had in…well, forever. “I’m glad you didn’t find out with anyone else.”

“Only you, sweet Reda.” He rolled onto his side, bringing her with him so they lay facing each other. They were no longer intimately joined, but she could feel their bond as a small kernel of warmth that moved through her, moving with her blood. It wasn’t intrusive or invasive. It simply
was.

His eyes searched hers. “I’m fine,” she said, tightening her fingers on his. “Better than fine.”

“No regrets?” His words were soft and slow. Hopeful.

“Not ever, no matter what happens.” Her heart wanted to hurt with the prospect of things to come, but she determinedly kept her thoughts there, in the present, with him. Though from the way his lids were drooping, she didn’t think she would have him with her, present and accounted for, for much longer. “You, sir, are crashing.”

“Too musshh magic.” His words were slurring, his eyes going unfocused. He blinked, trying to stay awake, but it was clearly a losing battle. “All that healing. Need an hour. We…we shhhould have enough time.”

Whether they did or not, he wasn’t going to be any use until he recharged. Fleetingly, she wished for some of Candida’s clever potions, but they were long gone. “Sleep,” she said. “I’ll keep watch.” Unlike him, she was wide awake, clearheaded and ready for action.

“Don…don’t go anywhere. Not sssafe.” His eyes were nearly closed now, his body relaxing toward sleep whether he liked it or not.

“I won’t. I promise.”

He lifted their joined hands to his lips, kissed her knuckles and then pressed them to his heart. He was smiling as he slipped into sleep, and she smiled, watching him. And in that moment, in that perfect stolen piece of the present, she felt at peace.

D
AYN TIGHTENED HIS
grip on Reda’s hand as his older brother repeated the words that would make him the king of Elden.

Nicolai’s voice rolled out across the crowds that thronged the castle courtyard and spilled beyond to the outer reaches and the greensward beyond. The sky was blue and perfect, the castle repaired, scrubbed and hung with banners old and new. Breena stood on Nicolai’s other side next to a solid man with their father’s features—Micah? Gods—and the sight of them warmed
Dayn, made him grateful, as he was every day since the day the sorcerer died, for the spell that had saved them and then brought them back together again, along with several others that Dayn sensed standing near each of his sibs, but couldn’t see clearly.

With the vow finished, Nicolai bowed his head to receive the symbols of his reign. Dayn’s eyes misted at the sight of the vestments their father had worn, but the ache was a good one, free of guilt or recrimination. “He’ll be a good king,” he murmured to Reda.

“He’ll have a good second-in-command looking out for him,” she returned.

“So will I.” His lips turned up as he glanced over at her. “Or am I your second? I’m never sure.”

“We can trade off, at least until our new commanding officer arrives.” She brought their joined hands to the faint swell of her belly and he spread his hand, spanning their growing child as fierce love and possessiveness welled up inside him.

Nicolai moved out onto the castle balcony and the crowd erupted into cheers at their first sighting of the new king of Elden. As the noise swelled, Dayn grinned, leaned down and kissed her softly.

“There’s nothing more important than this,” he said, and kissed her again, silently thanking the gods and the magic that had brought her into his life.

The dream fragmented and misted away, leaving Dayn to swim back up to consciousness. Before he had even opened his eyes, he knew he had needed the rest, and the pleasant dream that he badly wanted to believe was prescience more than wishful thinking. He felt refreshed and recharged, with none of the fuzziness that had accompanied the crash.

He was a little embarrassed, though not about having wiped out so thoroughly, but because he hadn’t planned for it. He’d heard of such things, but hadn’t ever before used as much magic as he had over the past four days. And then to add in a bonding…yeah. Not his best planning ever.

But at the same time, it was the best decision he’d ever made. He felt the warmth of her in his veins, felt their distant connection, felt—

Wait a minute. Distant?
His blood iced at the realization that she felt suddenly very far away.

Something was wrong.

“Reda?” he said as he opened his eyes, even though he already knew she wasn’t there. But he got a second shock when he looked around. It was nearly dark out.

Lunging to his feet, he yanked his clothes to rights and ducked out of the shelter.

The surrounding area was undisturbed, at least as best as he could tell in the gathering darkness. There was no sign of a struggle, no evidence that she had stepped out to relieve herself and been attacked by some beast. And if she’d been taken from right there by human hands, anyone grabbing her would have seen him, and captured him for the bounty. Which meant she had left under her own power.

His pulse thudded in his ears, choppy and upset. She had promised to stay with him, yet she had disappeared and he had slept far, far too long. Gods and the Abyss. This wasn’t a dream; it was a nightmare. She had disappeared and he was up against his deadline.

What had happened? Had she regretted forming the bond, maybe even been repulsed once her blood cooled? Had the intensity of their mating sent her into a panicked retreat?

Most importantly, had she fled to the shrine?

“No,” he grated, refusing to believe it. Perhaps they hadn’t made any promises of forever, but she had fed him, mated with him, taken his seed inside her after the bonding. They belonged to each other now. She had to know that.

Except he hadn’t told her, had he? And when he had started to say something along those lines, she had hushed him and changed the subject. At the time, he had thought she was feeling too raw and unsettled from their other confidences to add talk of the future into the mix. Now, though, he wondered whether she hadn’t believed there would be one.

He had been so dazzled by the warrior woman astride a fractious bay that he’d lost track that she, too, had spent a long time alone, questioning her worth. How had he forgotten that?

Gods. Had he lost her in truth? He quickly sought their bond; the weak flicker had to mean she was still in the kingdom realm. But for how long? Was she even now working to call a vortex to carry her home?

Let her go,
said an inner voice.
She’ll be safer there, alive no matter what happens on the island. Maybe you could even travel to her when all this is over. Right now, you need to get yourself onto that island. Time is running out.

He froze. Was this, then, his test? Was he to prove himself by choosing Elden over her? Because despite that logic, his gut said that if she left the realm, he would never see her again. More, it said he had to go after her now, that he didn’t dare tackle the island or the sorcerer without her at his side.

Wishful thinking,
came the scoff. But it wasn’t really. It was faith. He had faith in his own gut, faith in the magic he and Reda made together.

Please, gods, don’t let me screw this up.
This time the human slang came naturally.

His heart thudded against his ribs and his stomach knotted, but when he moved, it wasn’t toward Blood Lake, the island or the redemption he’d spent twenty years preparing for. Instead, he headed away, following the thin scuff-shadows that only a trained hunter would see. Seeking the bond magic, he thought with all his might,
Hang on, sweet Reda. I’m coming. Wait for me and we’ll figure this out together.

Because the dream might have been a fantasy, but it had one thing right: she was his priority. He wasn’t the heir, hadn’t the best of his siblings when it came to anything except his ability to hunt and ride. But with Reda—and
for
her—he had become a prince. A hero, even.

She made him better, and without her, he wouldn’t be any use to Elden.

R
EDA SWAM SLOWLY UP FROM
a sleep that felt too deep, with quivers in her stomach that said something was badly wrong. She was lying on a hard surface and her head hurt, but those inputs seemed strange and far away, her fragmented dreams so much more real.

Was it all a dream, after all?
she thought, but wasn’t sure where the inner voice had come from or what it meant.

Her thoughts scattered like a herd of identical bald-faced bay horses, snorting and blowing as they swerved and collided. Past and present mixed together:
she was a little girl of six or seven, sitting cross-legged in the woods opposite her
maman,
leaning in, wide-eyed. “Tell me more about the magic. Please?” She was a rookie cop going in low while her ride-along partner went high, and then laughing her ass off when they plugged a pair of homicide cops with red paint-ball splashes. She was ten years old, stumbling into the woods in her nightgown.
“Maman? Maman,
where are you?” Twenty-six, standing over Benz’s grave, knowing that he wasn’t in there, that dead was dead.

The graveyard had smelled of cut grass and apple trees. Now, though, she wrinkled her nose against an ammoniac taint and the smell of animals. More, the noises were wrong. The graveyard’s silence was broken by restless noises that made her think she was in a barn: sniffs, snuffles and low chuffs, the movement of big bodies in straw.

Where was she? What was wrong with her? What was going on?

She struggled to open her eyes. Then the fog started to clear…and she realized they were already open, covered by a fetid rag that was tightly tied around her head. There was another jammed in her mouth, which was dry and foul. Light and air seeped in around the edges, but just barely.

Crying out, the noise muffled and nasty, she yanked up her hands to tear at the blindfold. But chains rattled, cuffs dug into her wrists and her hands stopped short of her face.

She realized now that she had never known true terror before.

“No!” She thrashed upright, slammed against a stone wall, rolled off what proved to be a narrow cot, hit the cold stone floor awkwardly on one hip and shoulder, then got hung up on the chains. Her feet weren’t bound, but her wrist shackles were fastened to the wall, giving her only a few feet of play.

Twisting so hard she felt muscles pull, she got her hands to her face and plucked at the knotted rags with weak, trembling fingers.
Breathe,
she told herself when the numbness spread and her moves slowed, threatened to stop entirely.
Damn it, breathe!

The most recent of memories broke free:
lying curled up against Dayn while he slept; hearing a twig crack in the distance, then the voices of men talking in low undertones as they searched the forest; learning from them that Moragh had used up her magic summoning
the Feiynd and couldn’t track Dayn by his father’s spell anymore, but knew he had to be near where the dragon died, injured.

Her nose was closing up from the smell, cutting off her air, sending panic higher even as she tried to slow her brain down.
One thing at a time. Do the gag first. The knot is in the back.
But. She. Couldn’t. Move. More flashes:
the men moving on; her trying to wake Dayn but failing; the debate—she had promised to stay with him, but they would be circling back soon. Her slipping from concealment, heart pounding with no real plan other than to lead them away. Not into the Dead Forest, but where? The shrine, she had thought, she could lead them to the shrine. Would a vortex scare them and buy her some time to double back?

The stone was cold and hard beneath her, the knot tight and greasy. She concentrated on those inputs, made herself relax and suck on the thin trickle of oxygen leaking through her gag, then try the knot again.

The memories were coming faster now, clearer:
her following the men, her mouth sour and her heart drumming against her ribs; finding them and circling around to where she could lead them to the trident-topped tree, and then…

A blow from behind. A man kneeling on her, pushing her face into the dirt. A coarse, terrifying discussion about what to do with her, then the decision to bring her unspoiled to the witch for questioning. Another blow, then darkness.

Darkness.

She sobbed against the gag, curled around herself, fingers useless on her bonds. The low, ragged noises stirred the creatures around her; from a little distance, echoing as if down a corridor, she heard metal dragging on stone followed by a low, rumbling feline growl that didn’t sound like anything she’d ever heard before. Then, farther down, a bugle that was part elephant, part trombone.

This was no barn. The noises belonged to creatures that would be kept in a zoo.

Or, in this realm, in a bestiary.

“No,” she whispered into her knees. “Please, no.” She didn’t remember if the questioning had happened yet, but the too-deep sleep and numbing fog made her think of the vortex magic. Had the witch bespelled her? Had she blabbed? “Dayn?” she called, torn between equal fear and hope. “Are you there?”

There was no answer from her fellow prisoners; not even a growl. But faint warmth stuttered to life within her, moving slowly through her body, surging with the beat of her blood.

He was alive. She let the thought fill her, chasing away some of the chill and unlocking her muscles. Did he know she was on the island, captured? Or did he think she had taken off on him? She didn’t know how much he could sense through the bond. Her thoughts churned with new unease: Would he turn his back on duty and come after her, or would the kingdom’s needs outweigh the bond? She didn’t know which she would prefer; she only knew that she hated being part of the inner war she imagined him fighting. He was an honorable male, her bound mate. Yet he was also a prince of Elden.

She should have left when she had the chance, she knew. But although that would have been the better, more honorable thing to do, all she could think was,
Hell with that.
She wanted Dayn, wanted a future with him even if she had to fight for it. Because she loved him.

“Love,” she whispered softly as the small kernel of warmth unfurled from a point to a glow, and then to new strength flowing through her with the beat of her heart.
Yes,
she thought.
This.

She loved him. Not because he was a woodsman, a prince or a hero, but because he was a vampire and a wolfyn. It didn’t make any logical sense, went against everything rationality told her she should feel. But her heart didn’t care about any of that. She loved him, pure and simple. She didn’t need to have faith in the feeling, didn’t have to believe in it for it to exist; it simply was.

That revelation spurred her, got her moving again. Her hands stopped shaking; her stomach unknotted and she uncurled herself from fetal uselessness. The chains clanked and dragged as she repositioned herself against the cot, using it to support her weighed-down wrists as she craned and went to work again on the knots, starting with the top one this time.

It gave almost immediately, and the blindfold fell away.
Success!

She blinked against the sudden blaze of light, squinting until it resolved to rather anemic amber firelight coming from torches set in brackets outside her cell.

Because that was most definitely what it was. The space was the size of a large box stall; indeed, there was an iron hayrack in the corner, and places to hang buckets. But the door wasn’t made for a horse or donkey—or none that she had ever seen before. It was made of iron bars that ran floor to ceiling, with no lock, no hinge, no nothing. Magic.

She sank back, heart thudding as bile rose.

“Oh, Dayn. Help me.” Her lips shaped the words, but no sound came out. She hoped—prayed—he could sense her need through their bond, though. Because there was no way she was getting out of this one on her own.

D
AYN
. H
ELP ME
!

At the sound of her voice, his head whipped up from the faint trail he’d been following. “Reda?”

His feet kept moving, but he turned inward as their bond suddenly grew stronger than before, amped by the fear he felt in her, along with an echo of hopelessness that terrified him. She was in trouble!

Adrenaline fired through his veins and his secondaries broke the skin, bringing the added aggression of his blood-drinking ancestors. “Hang on. I’m coming,” he said, both aloud and in his heart. “Hang on. Don’t leave. Don’t—” He broke off, stopping dead at the edge of a churned-up patch of forest, where booted footprints were layered deeply and skid marks showed the impression of a human body just about her size.
“Reda!”

The impressions were hours old, the body that had made them long gone. “No!” Gods, no. Who had taken her? Thieves, outlaws, soldiers? All equally dangerous, equally horrifying.

Pulse thundering in his ears, he sent magic into the bond, acting on instinct because he didn’t know much about the connection or how it worked, especially with someone from the human realm.
Reda, where are you?

There was no answer. Only the fear.

He took two running steps after her. But then he stopped, heart hammering. This wasn’t going to work. He needed to move faster, couldn’t risk losing the trail. Reda needed him, and she needed him now.

Deep within him, magic spun up. Not his blood-drinking powers, but the other.
Be true to yourself. Know your priorities.
It was his father’s voice, but he wasn’t sure if it was a memory or a message.

He stood for a moment in the center of the churned-up clearing, hands fisted at his sides, body shaking with the pull of the forces that were trying to tear him apart. His birthright demanded that he not give in to the lure of the wolfyn form. And his sibs, his honor and the people still living in this blighted land needed him to get his ass to Castle Island before the zero hour, which was approaching fast. Every shred of logic and rational thinking he possessed said that had to outweigh Reda’s need. More, if he changed now, if he gave in to that magic, he put himself that much farther from his true self.

It felt like that was already happening, though, every time he thought about not going after Reda. She was his mate, his love, his other half. Without her, he wouldn’t be living; he would be simply existing, as he had done for the past twenty years in the wolfyn realm. Without her, he wasn’t himself.

He looked up into the night sky. “I’m sorry, Father. I wish I could be the kind of son you wanted, the kind of prince Elden needs. But I can’t. This is who I am.”

And he changed.

Pain flared through him, familiar even though it was only his third time making the transition. He gritted his teeth as flesh stretched and tore, tendons realigned and the ground grew suddenly closer to his eyes as his body reshaped itself into that of a huge wolf. A hunter. And today, if needs be, a killer. Because he would kill his own countrymen if that was what it took to keep his mate safe.

Rage and feral aggression flowed through him, calling to the beast within, and he threw back his head and howled.

Birds fled from nearby trees and several large creatures crashed in the brush, fleeing the predator that was suddenly among them. He didn’t pay any attention to them, though; he was wholly focused on the scents that suddenly flooded his system as he put his nose down and bolted along the trail.

In his father’s time, the smells of oiled leather, honed steel and grain-fed horses of a cavalry detachment would have been a relief. Now, though, the details coiled new fear inside him, chilling his blood and warning that she hadn’t been taken by thieves or outlaws, but by soldiers.

The sorcerer had her.

He hit the road and turned toward the lake, running with his head up now, both because the scent was so strong and because he knew where he was going—which was where he’d been going all along. Not home, but to a reckoning.

He flashed on his father’s memories of the castle’s fall—blood splattering the stones of the courtyard, ettins fighting their way up to the second level, where the families lived, the king and queen despairing. Only it wasn’t his parents he saw now; it was Reda standing alone, trying to fight her way free of the creatures that grasped and clawed at her.

In the waking dream, she looked straight at him. He didn’t hear her voice, though, and the bond had gone frighteningly dim. Hurry. He had to hurry! Ignoring the panicked scatters of the villagers, he blew through a town and then blasted along the edge of the lake, body flat to the ground, claws biting into the ground, legs eating up the distance to the heavily guarded causeway. He heard shouts up ahead, saw a ragged band of men assembling, hastily armed with broken pikes and ancient-looking swords.

He didn’t have time for this, didn’t want to hurt them, so he just put his head down and charged, bulling through their line and sending them flying. An arrow whizzed in from the side, but he snapped it out of the air and broke it in his jaws, the moves automatic, instinctual, as if he’d always lived in this body.

Shouts followed him onto the narrow causeway and a rasping horn blared an alarm. On either side of him blurred the polluted waters of Blood Lake; up ahead, the huge, scorpionlike creatures formed ranks, clashing their claws and whipping their tails as if to say,
Bring it on!

Hatred hazed his vision red. He had seen them through his father’s eyes kill the soldiers who had been his friends, his comrades. The feral fighting instinct of an alpha male said to kill; the priorities of a mated man said to get the hell to the castle.

As he neared them, he gathered himself to leap over the huge creatures, saw their tails whip back and forth in expectation. Four strides. Three. Two. He coiled, faked a spring and ducked under the closest two, slashing at their legs on the way by.