Authors: Inez Kelley
Blood drained from her face and her lips felt numb. How little use her knife would be against this beast that towered over her by a head and more, but there was nowhere to run even if she had the strength for it. Someone moaned close behind her and she whipped her head round, but there was only darkness. She turned back to the beast.
It spoke and the guttural words sounded like someone being sick. In the midst of it, there came a word she knew. “Hilde.”
Her heart ran to a stop in her chest and then the thing came for her, its claws outstretched to take her by the throat. Her heart started again, to hammer at her ribs like a frantic bird.
She twisted out of the way to put the tree between them but with a snarl it was on her. A clawed hand grabbed her left arm with what felt like enough force to snap it. The feel of its skin on hers drew a scream from her and she slashed at it. The blade skittered over its skin.
Its smell threatened to bring up the meagre contents of her stomach, but she bit, kicked and hacked at the beast with all her failing strength. It hissed in pain at a lucky stab that managed to just pierce the skin, and its grip relaxed for an instant. Long enough for her to wrench herself free. Her quiver and bow bounced as she tried to put as much distance between them as she could. It ripped at her, close enough that the breeze washed over her skin as she ran for her life.
Something crashed amongst the trees, and she shied away until a voice bellowed curses. “You stupid bugger, what have you done this time? Where in the gods’ names…”
A man, and he spoke the language she knew. She ran towards him. Even vicious nomads would do right now. The beast’s hand dragged at her shoulder and claws dug into her skin to spin her round. A second hand grabbed for her throat to cut off her scream. The claws clenched without mercy, stopped her breath and the blood to her brain.
The angry voice came again, along with a metallic jangling as though an armoured man had tripped. “What are you doing down there? Get up!”
Her struggles were no match for the beast’s strength and it dragged her away. If she did not call now she was lost. She twisted in its grip and managed a strangled cry before the hand clamped down again. The creature lifted her by her throat and ran. Stars spun in front of her eyes. A black spot in her vision grew, almost took her, and then the creature threw her to the ground where she gasped and heaved for breath.
With a roar and a muted flash of steel, a sword buried itself in the beast’s shoulder. Dark rancid blood splattered over her and stung her skin.
A new voice, soft and menacing, spoke some unknown language. A burst of flame on the creature’s face made it scream and claw its eyes. The sword struck again, straight through its chest, and it fell dead. Its body ignited the grass briefly before the flames sank back to a sullen glow.
A shadow loomed over her and resolved into a face above mail armour. She scrambled away from him and bumped into another pair of legs. No armour on these, just the slippery leather of breeches.
The haft of her knife bit into her hand as the soldier bent and gripped her wrist. The man behind her leaned down, as though to get a better look. She could not see his face. A hand shot out and grabbed at the pendant that dangled from her neck.
“Where did you get this?” His soft voice was heavily accented.
“Not now,” the soldier said. “There’s more of them coming, a lot more.”
“We can’t leave her here.” Slender brown fingers wrapped round the pendant. He murmured a few words, a flash blinded Hilde and then darkness swallowed her.
Hilde landed with a crash that jarred her teeth, numbed her legs and made the claw wounds in her shoulder scream. She sat up carefully and looked round. She could make out the vague lumpy shadows of furniture. A room, of sorts. Her head whirled with thoughts that shouted at her from all directions so she could barely understand them. With a deep breath, she took a firm grip on herself.
She had no memory of travelling, but she was in no danger, for now. The beast was not here, at least. A shred of comfort. A faint strip of light caught her attention. After a small internal debate, she walked cautiously towards it and found a door but hesitated to go through. Who knew what was on the other side? Instead, she felt around the walls with her fingers. She tried to make as little sound as possible, but could not help but trip here and there on furniture. There was no other way out.
She pushed the door open a crack. It took a moment before her eyes adjusted to the brighter light, and then she saw a windowless octagonal room with abundant flickering torches and a spiral rune in the centre of the floor. On the rune was a heap of grubby red. She opened the door wider and stared at the ceiling, which flickered with colour and half-seen images.
The heap moaned. It was a man. She put her back to the wall and drew her knife.
He sat up and dislodged the large, stained yet still crimson cloak. With an almighty groan, he patted himself all over as if to check he was all there. Jet black hair fell over his face and shoulders. The man with the strange accent? Maybe. A small seed of suspicion wormed its way to her notice. The flaming face of the beast. No, it could not be. She was not about to start believing in tales.
Apparently satisfied all was in order, he got to his feet with a groan. He was flamboyantly dressed, with a red waistcoat over a voluminous white shirt, stained leather breeches, and a belt slung at a rakish angle across his hips. Various ornaments, tassels and bangles quivered and clinked as he moved. He picked up a battered hat with a round crown, checked the jaunty red feather on it and put it on.
She would not have called him handsome, exactly. He looked nothing like any other man she had seen. Striking in a dishevelled kind of way, with tanned skin and eyes so dark as to be black, now rather unfocussed as he tried to peer around him like a ten-pint drunk. A gash across his forehead dripped blood down one cheek. His face had few lines, and his hair and neatly trimmed little beard held no grey, so she could not tell his age. It could be anywhere between thirty and fifty.
He spotted Hilde, grinned a wolfish sort of grin and held out his hand. “Hello, I seem a bit lost. Do you know where we are?” A soft voice, with a syrupy accent she had not heard before.
She took another step back, but he was the first man she had ever met who did not make the sign of Kyr’s Ward when he saw her eyes, and that decided her.
“No,” she said. He squinted at her and swayed so hard he nearly fell. Anyone that concussed should be no threat. She lowered the knife. “Ten minutes ago I was on the plains of the nomads. So were you, I think.” She slid down a wall, her legs unable to hold her. Wherever she was, this man was no threat, at least at the moment. Besides, he and his friend had saved her from the beast. The beast that knew her name.
“I don’t know where I came from.” He frowned, and more blood dripped into his eye. He wiped it away absently. “I appeared about ten feet up in the air. The fall seems to have made me a little groggy. Have you any idea where here is?”
A good question, one she had been about to ask him. She stood up and held out the pendant at arms length. “You used this, there was a big flash, and then we were here.”
He steadied the moonstone with his left arm, before now hidden under his cloak. The arm was there but the hand was missing. A one-handed wizard. Foul-tempered and given to melting eyeballs.
Ilfayne.
He did not look anything like she had imagined a wizard to be. She had expected him to look older, for a start—he was said to be older than the Kingdom of Ganheim. This befuddled man looked more like a peacock. One of the rich merchant’s sons or idle nobles who occasionally passed through her village and did little other than preen themselves, drink, gamble and try to talk the girls into bed.
Yet he had only one hand, and there had been that flash of fire on the beast’s face. He did not seem too foul-tempered—the soldier had sounded far angrier—but then again he was addled from the blow to his head.
With luck, he had forgotten how to melt eyeballs along with everything else.
Giving in to the lure of passion could lead to disaster.
Lycan Tides
© 2009 Renee Wildes
Guardians of the Light, Book 3
Selkie princess Finora is all too familiar with betrayal. Betrayed by her curiosity, which led her from the sea. By her body, which yielded to a handsome human under the full moon. By the human, who hid her skin and took its location with him to his grave. After seven years of searching, she no longer believes in miracles.
Trystan is a werewolf on a mission to find and return dragons to his homeland. He follows a slim lead westward across an unfamiliar sea. Gravely wounded in a pirate attack, his ship foundered in a storm and sinking fast, he comes face to face with the most unexpected rescuers—Finora and her two half-human children.
Selkie and werewolf. Both creatures ruled by the moon. The attraction is instant, mutual, undeniable…and impossible. Trystan is destined to return to the mountains and Finora can’t leave the sea. Their only gift to each other is one night of searing passion—which could lead to the greatest betrayal of all…
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Lycan Tides:
What had she gotten herself into? Finora crossed her arms to hide her shaking hands and watched Trystan’s broad back lead the way into The Mermaid Pub. The tightness in her womb, the wet heat betwixt her thighs, shocked her. The full moon was last night. The burning need should have been over. She wasn’t supposed to respond to a male out of time. Of course, four years was a long time to go without. ’Twas the selkie way to indulge that part of their natures. ’Twas the easiest way to trap them, as she’d learned to her sorrow.
Why now? Why
him
?
Her lips still tingled from his kiss. She quivered at the thought of sharing her bed tonight, of limbs entwined and hot skin sliding against hot skin. What was it about Trystan that made him impossible to resist? She should have put her foot down and left him in town to find his own way. Was it because he wasn’t human, either, but a fellow creature of the moon?
He
was
safer with her, away from eyes and questions. But was she safer with him? Ioain wasn’t the only one at risk for a broken heart.
He’s not staying long
.
He has a mission to complete, then a family and home of his own to get back to. A family of his own… “I made a promise t’ someone back home, a promise t’ keep,”
he’d stated.
“Trystan, wait.”
He turned at the doorway, a question in those piercing blue eyes.
Stars, those eyes…
“The someone back home whom you promised. Is it a woman? Are you married?”
“A woman? Aye. But a wife?” He shook his head and smiled. “Nay, lass. Were I bound t’ another, I’d no’ be stayin’ with ye an’ the littles. ’Tis no’ me way. Me folk back home have but one mate. There’s no one awaitin’ me return.”
One mate per male? In her world the strongest bulls got the most cows. A bull could have many cows in his household, but each cow answered to but one bull. A pang struck her. Acourse being stuck on land, with Bran gone, she’d had an uncommon spell of freedom. None to answer to, making her own decisions. A small rebellious part of her—the part that had caused her to disregard her sire’s warnings so long ago—reveled in that freedom. Even as she yearned for the sea itself, she dreaded going back to the harem, to being just one of many in her sire’s household, until he shipped her off to some other bull.
Why her heart flipped at Trystan’s unbound status she didn’t know. ’Twas of no consequence to her. “You’ve never taken a wife?”
His eyes twinkled. “I’ve been asked. But I’ve ne’er been tempted t’ say aye.”
Stop talking now. You’re making a fool of your
— “
What
? You mean to tell me your
women
do the choosing? And they
ask
?” Finora knew her jaw was surely hanging down around her knees, but she couldn’t seem to close her mouth.
“The clans are each ruled by a headwoman. The women govern an’ each decides who they wish t’ take as a mate an’ father their bairns. Doth a mon piss her off enough, a lass is free t’ release him an’ choose another.”
“What do the men do?”
He shrugged. “Whate’er we’re good at. We hunt, scout, craft, defend. Those o’ us that be guardians, though,” a shadow crossed his face, “are sworn t’ the clans as a whole. That be above any bond t’ one woman. There’s no’ many women who relish the thought o’ a mon that oft disappears for days, weeks or months at a time on clan business, or can be slain in battle.”
“Is that what this is?” Finora asked. “This quest of yours? Clan business?”
His eyes sobered. “Nay, lass. ’Twas a promise t’ a guardian queen, who wished t’ know if she be the last o’ her kind.”