The warrior attacked him in an elaborate slash. Hugh parried and charged, raining blows on his opponent. The shorter warrior backed up. His blade danced, blocking, but his hand shook every time he countered a blow. Hugh was beating on him with methodical savagery. There was something almost business-like about it. Killing was a job, something that had to be done, and Hugh was an expert in it. He would get it done. The other man wouldn’t last long.
The warrior must’ve realized it. He launched a counterattack, bringing his sword in a wide arc from the left, blindingly fast. Hugh parried before the sword could bite into his side. The warrior reversed the swing and cut at him from the right. Hugh stepped into it, blocking the swing, his sword pointing down. The warrior lunged at him, closing the distance. The two men struggled, locked, face to face, Hugh’s sword on top of the warrior’s, both pushing, blades immobile.
Hugh planted his feet and shoved.
The warrior stumbled back.
Hugh sliced his opponent’s arm from left to right. The warrior jerked back and clamped his left hand over his shoulder. Blood seeped between his fingers. He passed the sword into his left hand and gave it a light swing, his eyes fixed on Hugh.
A furry shape tore out of the bushes. The warrior tried to turn toward it, but it was too late. One hundred and twenty pounds of hound hit him in the chest. Canine teeth flashed and bit down. The warrior toppled over, Cedric on top of him, snarling and biting.
“Damn it,” Hugh swore.
Blood wet the dog’s mouth. He bit the man again, ripping chunks of flesh from the ruined throat.
“Enough,” Hugh ordered.
Cedric ignored him, tearing into the body like he was rabid.
“I said enough!” Hugh grabbed the hound by the collar and hauled him back. Cedric strained, snarling, bloody foam dripping from his jaws. She’d never seen the dog that upset.
Cedric gave up on snarling and howled.
Hugh jerked him upright, stared into his eyes, and said calmly, “Shut up.”
The massive dog struggled a moment longer, then closed his mouth and sat back.
The three corpses lay on the forest floor in their identical armor.
“You were right,” she said. “There is an army out there.”
And they had just killed three of their soldiers. Someone would come looking.
They moved at the same time. Hugh ducked behind the tree where they’d left Alex and picked him up like he weighed nothing and whistled. Bucky pushed through the brush.
Elara grabbed the fallen man’s sword. The man’s neck looked like raw hamburger. Acid shot into her throat. She swallowed it back down and stepped over to the first corpse. Elara brought the sword down in a sharp chop. The blade severed the thin shred of muscle and skin that attached the head to the body. It fell with a thump. She picked it up, helmet and all. If the army came to retrieve the bodies, at least they would have something. You could do a lot with flesh and a little magic.
Hugh threw Alex over the saddle.
A stray thought came to her. Elara froze.
“What?” Hugh asked.
“Us. When he…” Prayed to me. “He said save us.”
Hugh turned, studying the woods. Bushes trembled to the right. He snapped toward it. She put her hand onto his forearm and stepped forward.
“It’s alright,” she said softly. “We’ll protect you. We’ll keep you safe. You don’t want to stay here in the dark all alone.”
The bushes lay still.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It will all be okay.”
Something moved within the bushes.
Elara stepped forward and gently parted the branches. A child. Seven or eight, covered in mud and blood. She reached in and scooped the child up. He or she, it was too hard to say, hung limp in her arms. Wide eyes stared at her, unblinking. Like a baby rabbit shocked into playing dead.
Hugh took the child from her arms. The girl – she guessed it was a girl – clung to him on pure instinct. He was huge and scary and covered with blood, and she needed a protector. Hugh held her for a long moment and slid her into Bucky’s saddle. “Hold on to Alex.”
The child just stared.
“Hold him,” Hugh said, his voice calm and reassuring. “So he doesn’t fall.”
The girl reached out and clenched Alex’s shirt.
They hurried from the clearing, Cedric in the lead.
“Will he live?” she asked under her breath.
“Yes.”
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t die on me, Preceptor.”
“I’m touched you care.”
“I don’t,” she told him. “I’m worried your Dogs will riot if you don’t come home.”
“Then you better take good care of me. We’re going to run now. You got it?”
“Yeah. I got it.”
“Good. You get tired, tell me.”
They broke into a run.
Elara stumbled out of the woods into grass. Baile rose before them, backlit by moonlight, its main tower tall and reassuring. She bent over. Fire drenched her lungs, red-hot spikes of pain shot through her right side, and her stomach was trying to empty itself, convinced she’d been poisoned. A dozen small cuts covered her legs. If she never saw the inside of the woods again, it would be too soon.
A warm hand rested on her back. “Almost there,” Hugh said. “One more push and we’re there. You have it in you.”
She straightened and bit a groan in half.
The child was still holding on to Alex, her knuckles white even under the layer of blood and grime. If she could hold it together, Elara had to do the same.
They ran through the grassy field to the road and up the hill. She never realized before just how far it was from the castle walls to the first tree trunks.
The castle gates opened in front of them and a dozen Iron Dogs poured out, Stoyan and Felix in the lead, followed by, Savannah, Dugas, Beth, and half a dozen of her people. Relief rolled through Elara in a cooling rush. They made it.
Savannah ran up and took the child out of the saddle. “Micah, Rodney, take the boy from the horse. Beth, get Malcom.” The witch turned to her. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Savannah’s eyes blazed. “I’ll deal with you later.” She turned and hurried toward the keep. Micah followed her, carrying Alex over his shoulder.
“What happened?” Stoyan asked under his breath.
Hugh jerked the saddlebag off Bucky’s saddle and marched across the yard. She struggled to keep up. Everyone followed, looking at them, waiting for answers.
“Redhill has fallen,” Hugh said. “We may be next.”
Stoyan nodded, as if Hugh had told him they were having bologna sandwiches for lunch.
“How are our guests?” Elara asked.
“Sleeping in the left wing,” Dugas said. “We put several guards around it. They’re not doing anything without us knowing.”
“Good,” Hugh said.
They reached the kennel. He pushed the door open. A long hallway stretched before them with dog stalls on each side. The hounds looked back at him. He tossed the bag onto the floor. The warrior’s head rolled out.
The dogs bared their teeth in unison. Vicious snarls rose. The hounds lunged at the stalls, biting the air.
“Double the patrols,” Hugh ordered to Stoyan. “Here and in town. Bring the dogs.”
Stoyan took off at a run.
“Felix, take a small force and get the bodies,” Hugh said. “Bring wolfsbane and whatever else you’ve got that would throw off the scent. Stay safe. If you spot a force coming back, draw them back to the castle. We’ll deal with them here. Corpses aren’t worth dying over.”
Felix nodded.
“It’s just north of Squirrel Hollow,” Elara told Dugas. “Go with them, please.”
He nodded, and he and Felix left. Hugh scooped up the head, tossed it into the bag, and offered it to her. She thrust it at Johanna. The blond witch nodded a
nd ran out.
Hugh turned.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Elara asked him. “You’re bleeding.”
“I have things to do.”
“No. There is nothing more you can do right now. You asked me to run, I ran. Now you will come with me and get patched up.”
For once Hugh didn’t argue.
The water ran from Elara’s body, first red, then pale pink, then finally clear. Elara turned off the shower, stepped out, and wrapped herself in a white towel. She’d scrubbed the blood and forest off her skin. Her legs had been cut in a dozen places, nothing more than scratches, the pain more annoying than sharp, and now they burned. Her whole body ached, sore. Every time she closed her eyes in the shower, she saw the three men stalking through the woods to her. In her memories, their eyes glowed with blue light, unblinking.
They would’ve killed her tonight. Elara wasn’t sure how she knew, but she felt it with absolute surety. Thinking about it raised the hair on the back of her neck. She had training both with guns and with bladed weapons. She had brought neither.
Elara reached for the underwear she’d laid out, put it on, and slipped into a dark-blue gown. She ran a brush through her hair on autopilot.
They’d almost killed her.
That’s how fragile it all was. One moment she brimmed with power. The next the tech crashed into her and all her powers were gone. She had grown too complacent. There was a time when she never would’ve left the safety of her people without a gun.
It was the call. It had muddled her thinking.
Elara opened the door and walked into her bedroom.
Hugh sat on a chair, naked to the waist. A four-inch gash ran down his side, curving toward his spine. Another cut, about three inches long, carved its way down his back, over his shoulder blade. Nadia and Beth had already washed his wounds. Now Beth sat next to him. She saw Elara, picked up the needle holder, and plucked the surgical needle from the plastic holder.
Beth’s hands shook. She was a gentle person. She would run at a monster and kill it with her sword, but when it came to humans, Beth could barely defend herself and D’Ambray scared her. Elara never witnessed him being mean to Beth, but there was something about him that deeply unsettled the young woman.
“Thank you, Beth.” Elara stepped out, wiped her hands on a towel, and took the needle holder from her. “Please check on the child and Alex for me.”
Beth retreated into the hallway and took off.
Hugh’s cuts weren’t too bad. She’d had a lot of practice in suturing wounds. This time wasn’t any different.
Nadia slipped through the door, carrying a platter with a glass of greenish liquid on it. She offered the glass to Hugh.
“Drink,” Elara said.
Hugh studied the glass. “What’s in it?”
“All-purpose antidote.”
“There is no such thing.”
“You’ve been stabbed, and we have no idea what was on that sword. This will help fight off several common poisons.”
He squinted at the glass.
“I realize that you can cure all your ills when the magic hits, but we don’t know when that will be, so drink. I have to keep you alive until the magic wave comes.”
He tasted the liquid. “It’s foul.”
Her voice was cold and detached. “Don’t be a baby, Preceptor.”
Hugh drained the glass.
“Any news on Alex?” Elara asked.
“He’s still sleeping. Malcom says he’s stable.”
Nadia took the empty glass and left the room. They were alone.
“Arms,” Elara said. They had already tried to get him to lay down on the table and he refused. The look in his eyes told her there was no intelligent life there.
Hugh raised his arms, locking them on the back of his head. His big biceps flexed. The carved, defined muscle on his chest stood out under tan skin. His dark blue eyes grew warm and inviting. He was thinking about sex and watched her like she was naked. It was distracting as hell and he knew it, which was exactly why he was doing it.
Elara sat on a low footstool, gently lifted the edge of the wound with sterilized forceps, punctured the edge with the needle, and rotated her hand to neatly slide the needle through the skin and muscle.
He didn’t move. No grunting, no indication at all that something painful was happening. She concentrated on making even knots.
“Had a hard time stabbing that guy through the armor?” Hugh asked.
Elara didn’t answer.
“Happens to the best of us.”
She was almost done.
“The next time aim for the back of the neck or the inside of the thighs.”
“I managed.”
“Yes,” he said, a smile waiting on his lips. “Yes, you did.”
“What?”
Hugh just looked at her.
“What’s so funny?”
“You and your murderous spree. Do your people know that you’re bloodthirsty?”
Elara snipped the last bit of thread. “Don’t you think we have more pressing things to discuss? Like who are they? What do they want? Why are they killing people?”
“Those are good questions. In fact, I was going to get answers to those questions, except you killed the people who had them.”
Elara stopped. “I was trying to help you stay alive, you ungrateful ass.”
“Did I look like I needed help?”
She glared at him and moved onto his shoulder.
“What did you think they were going to do to me?”
Dickhead. “Remind me, which one of us is cut up?”
“Okay,” Hugh said, “I’ll give you the guy with the broken nose, his eyes swollen shut, and his right hand hanging by a thread. He still had one hand left. He might have pounded his remaining fist on my chest as I dragged him off. But why the guy with the cracked liver? He was on his knees hacking his blood out.”
The light dawned in her head.
“I set these guys up, so we could question them, and every time I left one breathing, you killed them.”
She did kill them. That was dumb. Wow, that was dumb. Not one of her brightest moments.
Hugh cocked an eyebrow at her. “What happened to my calculating ice bitch? Were you actually so worried about me, you couldn’t think straight?”
He was openly mocking her.
Elara stood up and leaned in close. With him sitting and her standing, she was slightly taller. “Yes. I was worried about you. I killed fourteen creatures. You only had to take care of three men, and I had to finish two of them for you and poor Cedric had to help you with the third. That fight didn’t go well for you, did it?”
“Really? This is what you’re going with?”
“If you died while you and I were alone in the woods, your people would assume I killed you. They don’t know that I don’t need a crude chunk of metal to take your life. If I wanted you dead, I would eat your soul. It would taste bitter and rotten, but sacrifices must be made.”
Hugh bared his teeth in a feral grin. “How about now? Take a little bite of my soul, just for fun.”
She squeezed her eyes shut for a second and looked down, to the source of all life below. “Please give me strength to not kill this man. Please.”
“Why don’t you try?” Hugh offered. An inviting heat lit his eyes. “It might be fun.”
Oh, it would be fun. He looked so good in the light, every line of his torso strong, every muscle defined. She liked it all, his crazy blue eyes, the stubble on his square jaw, his broad shoulders, his chest, his flat stomach… She liked his size, the arrogant way he sprawled in her chair, the power in his body, but even more, the power in his eyes. Everything about him said strength and she needed strength tonight. She craved it, craved him, being wrapped in him.
Elara remembered the way he looked at her in the dream, with an almost feral need.
No. Not this man. Anybody but him. Not only was he too dangerous, but she could barely stand be
ing in the room with him.
And she still felt stupid. That was okay. In a minute they would both feel stupid.
“Fine,” Elara ground out, finishing the last stitch. “I did kill them. But what about you? Did you forget how to talk?”
Quick steps approached, and Felix appeared in the doorway. Cedric slunk in behind him and sat in the doorway.
“In all of that dazzling display of swordsmanship, couldn’t you have found two seconds to manfully growl, ‘We need them alive?’ or ‘Don’t kill him?’ You’re supposed to lead your soldiers. Don’t you issue orders, or do you just telepathically broadcast your battle strategy?”
Hugh glared at her.
“Let’s ask Felix,” she said.
The big man startled.
“Felix, how do you know when Hugh wants you to do something?”
“He tells me,” Felix said.
“Ah!” She clapped her hands together. “He tells you. Imagine that. So you are able to communicate with actual words rather than grunts and snarls. What happened? Why didn’t you tell me you wanted them alive after I killed the first one? It took me like three minutes to slide the sword into that second guy. I had to lay on it.”
Hugh made a low noise in his throat. If humans could growl, it would sound just like that.
She gave him a sweet smile. Any sweeter and you could spread it on toast. “Use your words.”
“I didn’t tell you because it didn’t occur to me that you would be that dense.”
“So you expected me to think clearly after having killed fourteen mysterious monsters and have three men run at me with swords? Did it ever occur to you that I might have been too focused on killing them?”
“And,” Hugh continued, “because I still had the third guy.”
“That wasn’t me. That was your dog. I’m not responsible for the actions of your loyal hound.”
“He isn’t my dog.”
She pointed at Cedric. “Tell him that.”
Hugh turned his head. Cedric took it as a sign that it was okay to run into the room and stick his head into Hugh’s lap. Hugh looked like he wanted to kill something. Or someone. Preferably her.
“See, even Cedric decided you needed help.”
Hugh raised his hand and patted the dog. “Did you want something?” he asked Felix.