"If you know who I am," Estrella said with a hint of a growl, " you should know if you do not mind your tongue, I will kill you. A death from which you will not return."

  The raseri snorted. "As if you would dare to kill an emissary from King Sladd."

  "The only reason you are not already dead is because I wish to hear King Sladd's words. Once you've delivered them, if you do not abase yourself and apologize, you will no longer be alive to carry my response."

  The raseri glared at her a moment, but held back any retort.

  "Fine. King Sladd bids the one who holds this hellige, which is his claimed and rightful property, to join with him and his forces in accordance with the bond he holds over all in this land. Failure to do so will result in your death—perhaps your true death, should King Sladd come to deal with this himself."

  "Fine, I have heard his words; now abase yourself, Raseri, or you will not be carrying my response to him."

  "You would strike down a messenger of the king?" it said, looking both shocked and surprised.

  "Why do you think they sent a lowly raseri?" Estrella snorted, standing up. "King Sladd knows I'm here and didn't wish to waste any of your betters."

  The raseri immediately fell to the floor and abased itself.

  "I offer my apologies, Den Brune Dame! I ask that you please allow this servant of our king to live so I may return your message!"

  Estrella stood there a moment, pretending to ponder it, before sitting back down.

  "Tell King Sladd there have been no agreements or bonds between him and me, an oversight he may perhaps have forgotten? As for this hellige, the ownership of it is something contested purely between me and Prince Ansigt. He has so many of the lille helliges, I felt surely he would not miss this one."

  "The upstart prince is no more! Did you not know this?"

  Estrella cocked her head to the side. "Truly? Ansigt did not reform after the attack on him?"

  "No, he did not."

  Estrella sighed dramatically. "Sad. I guess the insult he presented me will go unrepaid. You are dismissed."

  "But what of the king's command?"

  "As I said before, King Sladd has ignored me for so many years; I see no reason to change that.

  "Første, please show the king's emissary back to the gate."

  Estrella smiled as the protesting raseri was led from the room.

  "Shouldn't you have just killed it?" Sean asked as he came out of his hiding place.

  "I thought about it," she said with a shrug, "but it would have been a clear 'no' if I did, and I suspect King Sladd probably doesn't know I'm here. By sending it back like this, either he'll be insulted and attack immediately, or he'll send a bigger emissary to offer me the position he thinks I'm pushing for.

  "In either case, I'm hoping to buy us more time than the simple act of killing the raseri would have gotten us."

  "Do you really think he'd offer you a position?"

  Estrella shrugged. "I have no idea. I've lived just outside what he's claimed as his, and always on the border of Ansigt's lands. Ansigt was one of his, but I've always refused Ansigt's entreaties, and Ansigt was too afraid of me to force the issue."

  "When do you think we'll know?"

  Estrella sighed. "Any time after tomorrow. He'll spend tomorrow debating it, then if he's going to treat with me, he'll send somebody because he won't want to attack just before a gate is going to open."

  "And if he doesn't send someone?"

  "He'll attack as soon as the next gate closes."

  "Well, that's encouraging. Two bad choices," Sean said, shaking his head.

  "Yes, but it means we've got one more chance for a gate to open before we need to hightail it out of here and head for the hills."

  "Brune En! Brune En!"

  Sean came instantly awake and sat up as Estrella jumped up and opened the door.

  "What is it, Anden?"

  "King Sladd's forces are coming! They'll be here any moment!"

  "What the hell?" Sean growled as he started putting on his armor. "I thought you said we'd have until tomorrow?"

  "Where is Første?"

  "He is preparing our defenses, Brune En."

  "Wake everyone, have them ready to either fight or flee. If it's the king's full army, we won't stand a chance," she told him and closed the door.

  "Help me get my armor on," she told Sean, who'd already donned all of his.

  "I'm surprised they didn't wait until after the next gate," Sean grumbled as he helped her quickly don her gear. Estrella's armor depended on straps, unlike his, so it was slower going.

  "I know. Unless he's afraid the next gate might open here?"

  "Why would that matter? He could just come and take it right after it opened."

  Estrella thought about that, then had a very bad idea.

  "Maybe he's worried about me going through it."

  "You think he's figured out you're a lioness?"

  "It's either that, or he's somehow managed to find out you're here. From the timing of this, he must have begun preparing the moment his emissary got back."

  "Guess you should have killed him." Sean sighed as he stepped back and grabbed his cloak, and she picked up her helmet.

  "Guess so."

  Sean took one last look around as they left the room; he suspected they wouldn't be returning. Grabbing Estrella's small pack, he left the bedrolls behind and followed her outside.

  "Første! What's the situation?"

  "They're starting to encircle us, Brune Dame!"

  "That's not good," Sean growled. "We need to go now!"

  "You won't get an argument from me!" she agreed. Raising her voice, she called out, "Everyone! We're retreating! We can't stand against the king, and he means to slaughter us all!"

  Turning to the side opposite where the army was attacking their palisade, Estrella ran as fast as she could, with Sean hot on her heels. The gnashers and the diamondbacks followed in their wake.

  Sean felt it then, as they were running—a gate was opening!

  Turning to look at the hellige point, he swore. It wasn't opening here.

  "There goes our last chance at an easy escape," he growled. "A gate just opened."

  "I'm more worried about the soldiers in front of us!" Estrella growled back, drawing her sword.

  Sean looked ahead and, swearing a second time, drew his own sword. The leading edge of the attackers had already encircled them, but it was only gnashers and bonde at this point. There weren't any larger than that.

  "Brune En!" A loud voice called from far behind. "I know you have the lion! Give him up to us!"

  "Well, shite," Estrella said. "How in the hells did he discover that?"

  "I didn't tell him!" Sean growled and, raising his hand, he threw a fireball at the front line of the attackers before them as they ran out the now open gate, knocking down and killing dozens of the gnashers and bonde before him as it exploded. He followed up with a second one, killing many more, then started to hack his way through those that remained standing in the line, with Estrella at his side.

  A spell hit just to the left of him, so he immediately threw up a shield to cover the two of them as they broke their way through the line and started to run again.

  A second spell hit the shield he'd put up, the power of it knocking it down immediately. His shield had gone down before it could transfer enough power to be useful, and a quick peek at his mana levels as they ran made it clear he couldn't do this too many more times.

  "That way!" He pointed as he put up another shield.

  "Why?"

  "I need power; the ley line runs that way!"

  Estrella nodded, and they pivoted to run along the ley line as another spell hit his shield, knocking it down again. Whoever was casting back there was pretty damn powerful! Putting up a third shield, Sean sighed as they hit the ley line and started to run along it. While it wasn't as powerful as being at the crossing point, at least he was able to draw some energy off of it, now that a gateway was open.

  "We're not losing them!" Estrella said, panting.

  "We need to shift," Sean told her as he ripped off the cloak so it wouldn't trip him when he did.

  "If I shift, I'll lose my armor!"

  "Fine, I'll shift, you jump on my back and hold on," he yelled and tossed her the backpack.

  "Wait, you can't do that!"

  Growling, Sean shifted and cut towards her as another spell came flying at them, missing them only because of his turn as he knocked into her.

  Estrella jumped on his back. It was either do that or go down in a tangle of limbs, and there were a lot of demons running after them. Shifting the straps of the pack to her mouth, she dug her hands into Sean's mane and spread her legs to either side as she laid across his back.

  The moment he felt her grab his mane, Sean turned a hard right and ran flat out for the copse of trees at the edge of the forest. Estrella wasn't light, especially not with her armor on, but he was pretty damn strong, and if he didn't give it his all, he'd die, and his mate would be killed. Turning it over to his lion, Sean didn't have to think that thought a second time; his lion redoubled his efforts, and with Sean now taking a back seat, they literally flew over the ground. All that running with Roxy was finally paying off it, would seem.

  Estrella hung on as Sean ran, and listened to the pursuers behind them. Ducking into the trees helped, as they quickly lost sight of her and Sean. Demons, she'd learned a long time ago, were not particularly apt at tracking by scent, only sound or sight.

  She could hear Sean panting heavily beneath her. He was strong, there was no doubting that, but she wasn't light in her hybrid form, especially not with her armor. She really needed to shift and run with him, but she had no way to keep or carry her armor or her sword; it wouldn't fit in the small backpack, and after the many hundreds of years it had taken her to make or gather it, she was loath to part with it.

  But her mate was running himself to exhaustion, possibly even his death, beneath her. Did she really have much of a choice?

  "Stop so I can lose the armor," she whispered in his ear.

  Sean stopped so suddenly, she slid right over his head as he collapsed to the ground, panting heavily.

  Estrella quickly pulled off the helm, and undid the chest and back plate armor first, letting it fall to the ground. Then it was a simple matter of shifting and shaking off all the arm and leg pieces that no longer fit.

  "Come on, let's get going," she told him and picked up her backpack with her mouth.

  Nodding, Sean got up, and they started running through the trees again. She let Sean lead so he could set the pace. Without her on his back, he resumed the fast run he'd been using before, but he was no longer struggling to maintain it.

  When the morning finally started to dawn, Estrella realized they'd been running for over six hours.

  "Wait!" she called, then took the time to catch her own breath as he slowed to a walk.

  "Stop and listen," she said, and with a nod of his thickly-maned head Sean sat down, mouth wide as he tried to pant as quietly as possible.

  "I don't hear anything," she said after several minutes. "Do you?"

  Sean shook his head. "No." He looked around a minute. "So, now what?"

  "I was going to ask you the same thing," she admitted.

  Sean shrugged his leonine shoulders. "I was just following the ley line. I was hoping, if we could find where a large number of them crossed, I could see about using the power to fix your necklace and figure out a few things to make it possible for us to raid one of the open gateways."

  " I know of a place where there are a lot of ley lines, and rumor has it they all meet up at one point."

  "Is there some kind of major hellige or such up there?"

  Now it was Estrella's turn to shrug. "No idea, but living here as long as I have, you pick up things— rumors, small talk. That sort of thing."

  "What do the rumors say?"

  "Well, none of the demons will go up there anymore; even the powerful ones seem to avoid it. I've heard it claimed someone lives up there, on the mountain, at the point where the lines all converge, someone who isn't a demon."

  "And the demons haven't gone after them?"

  "Not from what I've heard. The rumors say any who go up there don't come back. They call it the 'Ley Lands' and avoid it like the plague."

  Sean snorted. "How original."

  Estrella shrugged and smiled. "Demons are not known for their originality."

  Sean nodded and looked around. "So how far away are these mountains?"

  "Two days?"

  "Well, I can definitely use the power of a convergence, especially when the next gateway opens. They say someone lives up there?"

  She nodded.

  "What do you say we go meet this person or being?"

  "If nothing else, hopefully it'll throw off any demons who might still be on our trail. I just wonder how they discovered you were there?"

  "Maybe one of your gnashers got captured and described me to them?"

  She shook her head. "I hadn't lost any of them. I'd wonder if the raseri smelled you, but they're not really known for that."

  "Think they'll figure out you're a lioness?" Sean wondered.

  She snorted. "Along with their lack of originality, demons are not known for their brilliance, either. Well, the kings are rumored to be smart, but I'm still not sure they'd figure it out. More likely than not, they probably figured I've managed to gain some sort of hold over you, and I'm planning to use you to kill off my enemies and enhance my own power. It's more in line with how they think."

  Sean nodded and got back to his feet. "You know where we're going, so lead the way."

  "You just want to look at my ass," she teased.

  "Well, yeah. Of course I do!" he teased back and grinned.

  Friday

  "Well, that was refreshing," Chad said as sat down at the conference table.

  "I'm surprised no one came through," Claudia said

  "It's not like there weren't people on the other side. One of my quick response teams was able to get there within fifteen minutes of it opening, luckily, and they learned two things."

  "Which were?"

  "Our rifles don't work there—or rather, our bullets don't—and there was a small contingent guarding the gate. A thousand gnashers, some bonde, and one ridder. That was all they saw before they jumped back out at least."

  "Any idea why the rifles wouldn't work?" Adam asked.

  "The powder wouldn't burn. The primers fired off, we saw that when we took the cartridges apart. But the powder didn't catch."

  "I'm just surprised no one came through," Max said. "I think this is a first."

  "About that," Adam said, looking around the table. "They found out, somehow, that Sean's over there. So the king took a very large force and went after him when they realized he was at some sort of anchor point. According to my sister, they were hoping a gate would open there, so they could slip out before anyone else got there to use it."

  "How'd they find out?"

  Adam shook his head. "They don't know. Tisha thinks someone at the meeting on Monday ratted him out."

  "That would mean someone at the meeting is a traitor," Roxy growled.

  Adam nodded head towards Roxy, who was seated next to him "What she said. So Steve and Tisha decided to launch an extensive investigation of everyone who was there that day."

  "What happened to Sean and your sister?" Claudia asked.

  "They got away. Beyond that, I'm not telling anybody," Adam turned and looked at Roxy, "regardless of the threats and violence they're willing to use."

  "Sounds painful." Chad laughed.

  "It was." Adam sighed and twitched as several of the people around the table smirked.

  Chad was positive Roxy kicked him at that point, just on principle.

  "But that brings up something else my sister told us."

  "What?"

  "They're preparing for an invasion when the next large gate opens. They've got a large army staked out in the area where they expect it to open, and if it doesn't open there, they'll probably travel to wherever it does open."

  "So we need to start gearing up for a major battle," Chad said, shaking his head. "At least we have two more days until the next window opens to get ready."

  "How goes your plan to vet soldiers?" Roxy asked, looking over at Jack.

  "They're done. In fact, we're going to start today."

  "How many people are you going to need?"

  "About twenty; I've already got them all lined up."

  "Expecting any problems?" Bill asked.

  Jack sighed. "Oh yeah. This has become a bit of a political issue. There are people all over the map on this. The president passed down an order reaffirming that people have a right to chose to do this under the act Congress passed a while back to make sure lycans were no longer considered slaves. But I still expect problems."

  "What about you?" Roxy asked. "You're going to have to out yourself, aren't you?"

  Jack nodded. "I'm hoping that works in our favor; after all, I've been in the Army for years, and it hasn't hurt me any. Still, being the first one 'out' could ruin my career." Jack shrugged. "If it happens, it happens. I think I need to live through this before I start worrying about it."

  "Where are you starting first?"

  "The Army Guard. They're all local, and because of the governor, we're on good terms with the commanders. After that, we'll start with the Regular Army infantry units that were sent out here to support us."

  "If they're about to launch a major attack, we're going to need a lot more ammunition than dwarves are currently supplying," Chad said, looking at Jack. "Do you think you can lean on any of your sources to get us more?"

  "I can try."

  "Good, I'll call Steve and see what magic he can work at his end."

  "Anything else?" Adam asked, looking around.

  Everyone shook their heads.

  "Well, we have a lot to get ready for, so we might as well get to it."

  Roxy was heading back to her office when Cali caught up with her.

 

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