Scrutiny, page 2
Throwing her body into the beast’s path.
Now what?
There was no way to fight it, she had lost her only blade. There was no way to divert it—the creature had already selected its prey. She could try to catch it by surprise, but it was already stalking slowly forward, snickering under its breath. At the same time, she was hyperaware of the children crouching beneath the wagon, staring in silent terror through the spokes of the wheels.
I should have gotten that mace after all.
“When it jumps at me, you’re going to run,” she instructed softly, without ever taking her eyes from the beast. “You’re going to run into the forest, alright? Just as fast as you possibly can.”
There was a whimper of assent, as a few scanned the open field behind them. Most of the others had silently resolved to never leave the wagon. The danger was apparent, but their bodies could not be coaxed into such a vulnerable expanse. Better to hide...even at the risk of those fangs.
Those terrible fangs were something weighing heavy on Kiera’s mind as well. She stared at them without thinking, easing slowly forward, keeping herself directly between the cat and the cart.
Come on, you brute. Keep your eyes on me.
She lifted her arms ever so slightly. For what? She would never know. There was no skill she could level against such a creature that would make a bit of difference. At this point, they were most likely just to shield her face. It was a terrible reminder, she had never felt quite so acutely.
It’s why I should have worked harder with my lessons.
She swallowed.
Already speaking the past tense. Not a great sign.
“On my count, do you hear me?” she called out softly, knowing the second it was anything more sudden, the creature would lunge. “One...two...three!”
There was a blur of movement, as several things happened at once.
The beast sprang into the air, and most of the children did run after all—scrambling out from beneath the wagon and heading toward the forest in a chorus of screams. Kiera threw up her arms, vowing to get in at least a few good punches, only to watch in what felt like slow motion as that gaping jaw opened and those yellow eyes fixed in dilated concentration on her neck.
There would be no time for punches. The creature was much faster than she. In the end, she could only brace for the impact, one leg angled back into the grass behind her.
Only a second before it could touch her...a giant wolf leapt in between.
Jesse!
Her heart caught in her chest, as she watched the two collide with terrifying force, spiraling in dizzied angles across the grass. Even amidst so many others, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that it was him. Not because he jumped in front of her, but because of the look in his eyes when he did it.
Seven hells!
He was no match for the beast in size, but it didn’t seem to matter. There was a fire inside him and a brighter kind of magic that paired equal with all the rest. Perhaps it even rose a bit higher, because no sooner had the beast found its balance, than he pivoted in a hairpin turn and knocked it right back off its feet. At that point, things became almost difficult to watch.
For aesthetic reasons, if nothing else.
The creature had never presented as fully ‘intact,’ not since the moment it had stepped into the clearing. There were odd gaps in the matted spines that covered it, areas that looked as if they had been so repeatedly scarred that the skin beneath may no longer have been technically living.
Jesse did not improve upon that image.
With a blistering roar, he threw himself right one top of it—artfully dodging the claws that were leveled back at him, and digging as though he was building castles at the beach. Each swipe tore away wide strips of that mottled carcass, sending them flying into the air behind him as he shifted his weight forward and began ripping away whatever might be left.
The creature did not go down willingly—that much was certain. It had taken a full pack to subdue most of its brethren, and even then, they had lost friends in the process. Jesse was a single man. A single wolf. But Kiera didn’t think the notion had ever crossed his mind.
There was another horrifying impact as the creature dislodged him and staggered back to its feet. The two regarded each other for a moment—one leaking greyish blood, as the other literally pawed the ground in anticipation—before they crashed into each other once again.
Kiera scrambled out of range as they somersaulted past, backing ironically toward the very same wagon under which the children had been hiding. But no sooner did her hands touch upon the rough wood, than the fight was over. The wolf had most decidedly won.
With a final cry, he ducked between those deadly claws and sank his teeth into the creature’s throat, ending its gurgling snarls with a single, decisive movement. The beast went suddenly quiet. He stared down a few seconds to be sure, then backed away—looking around for a beautiful girl.
He found her near the wagon, looking like she was going to be sick. “...is it over?”
In a shimmer of air, he actually shifted back—forgetting the danger around them, needing the human reassurance of holding her in his arms.
“What the hell were you thinking?!” he demanded, clasping her against him. “Were you just going to stand there?! I distinctly remember telling you to run!”
She trembled in silence, pressed against his bare skin.
His heart was pounding, but it wasn’t anywhere near as fast as hers. Despite the fact that the immediate danger had passed, she found herself still caught in the middle—like she’d reached some new height of terror and was unable to come down. After a few quaking seconds, she took a breath.
“I lost it,” she finally stammered.
He glanced at the top of her head, wondering if she’d been damaged after all. “What?”
“My blade.” Her eyes flashed around the grass, as if she might find it. “I wasn’t just going to stand there. But there were these children, Jesse. And I couldn’t...I couldn’t find my blade.”
It was a good thing he was holding her. From such an angle, she wasn’t able to see the exact look that swept across his face. That being said, he made his opinion rather clear.
With a venomous glare to match anything he’d flung at the monster, he stormed toward the nearest body and ripped a blade from its hand. A cursory wipe, and he thrust it into hers.
“Do. Not. Lose. This.”
She nodded silently and wrapped her fingers round the handle. “I won’t.”
From that point on, the two of them stayed close together—facing every new danger as a unit, and attacking every new monster as a team. He made her feel braver, she hadn’t counted on that. And not just in the confidence that he would always protect her. This went further than that, drawing out something deep inside her, making her brave in her capacity for action, not just fear.
When a flock of those skeletal birds attacked a group of teenage warlocks, she threw herself right in the middle—hacking them to pieces with her blade. When a demonic jackal leapt upon the back of a witch, she flung herself upon it—stabbing and slashing and screaming with all her might.
Perhaps she had some of that savagery after all. Perhaps it was simply a primal need to protect. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t the only one stirred with the feeling. The entire festival had come together at the same time, uniting against a common enemy, determined to drive it back.
Not that there’s much to be fighting.
A sudden noise caught her attention.
At least, not over here...
When she’d first looked around the clearing, she’d believed that most of the creatures had been vanquished; few were still moving, various pieces of their bodies had been littered across the trampled grass. But she saw now that while some of them had been killed, most had merely been diverted. And at that point, she really shouldn’t have been surprised where they’d been diverted to.
The man loves playing the odds.
Eden was standing like a pillar in the middle of the field—a lone point of attention for every roving monster and unearthly demon still prowling about the grass. His arms were lifted and those bright eyes never stopped moving, as he fired a hailstorm of arrows into the air. In a dark twist of irony, he’d actually perched atop one of the archery targets—presenting the world’s most obvious bullseye to each of the nightmares that approached. A rather chilling image for anyone watching.
Knowing the fae, it was probably intentional.
By the stars...
There was something utterly surreal about watching him. Something that made the bloodied and battered festival-goers stare in perfect silence, instead of indulging the instinct to flee. It was as though they’d been fighting a battle in the real world, and he was showing them how it might look in a song or on paper. Every breath was painted in emotion, every silver arrow flew fast and true.
Jesse made a compulsive movement toward him, then eased back to Kiera’s side. There was no point in trying to help him. The fae had no need for assistance, and those monsters had made an impenetrable crescent in between. Nevertheless, he was making short work of them. No matter how fast they ran toward him, no matter how loud their growls echoed in the sky, they fell to the ground like spent leaves at his feet, rolling forward in momentum, before sliding to a final stop.
A few of the birds tried swooping from above. But when he made a game of trying to hit more than two with a single arrow, they shifted direction without provocation, and took off into the sky. The rest of them would probably have wished to retreat as well, but such instincts didn’t come naturally to a monster and they continued pouring forward instead—dropping to the ground, one after another, until after a few deafening minutes, just a single creature was left.
This one was bigger than all the others. It was the reason it had survived for so long. It took a single look at its fallen comrades, then it lifted its eyes to the fae standing across the grass.
A peculiar expression drifted across its face. A kind of abstract caution it had never once felt in the hundreds of years it had been alive. Then without any warning, it turned on its heel and ran.
“Come on!” he shouted behind it, picking up a fallen tent pole and twirling it like a javelin in his hands. “Come on and finish it!”
Oddly enough, when people spoke of the festival later, that was one of the things they remembered the most. Not the initial fear, or the chaos that followed. Not the frantic screams, or the flashes of metal, or the way the air was scented with hazelnut brandy and blood. They remembered the moment when the deranged fae lifted his bow and laid waste to the creatures of darkness. They remembered when he picked up a spear and shouted a challenge to the gods.
And so a new legend is born...
Most people imagined him to be some kind of a god himself. Others believed him to be mentally unstable. But it was worse than any of them could have possibly known.
Because when the dust settled and the others began the slow process of taking stock, finding their loved ones, staunching the bleeding, and burying the dead, Eden lifted his eyes to the creature retreating into the trees. They lingered a split second before lightening with a spark of adventure.
When he spotted his friends, that spark grew into a blinding smile.
“Come on!” he called with excitement. “It’s getting away!”
Chapter 2
“Eden—wait!”
The fae strode purposely toward the forest, while his friends hurried after him. One was struggling to clothe himself in the process, the other was stumbling along in a daze.
The fighting might have stopped, but Kiera’s ears were still ringing with those ghostly howls and those wailing screams. She couldn’t take a single step, without crushing the pieces of something that was left behind. A splintered talon stamped into the grass. The tattered remains of a shoe.
What will happen to it all? Will it simply be worn by the wind and the rain, until there is nothing left?
Jesse’s attention was a bit more directed.
“Eden!” he called again, circling in front of the fae and forcing a stop. “Can you stop being yourself for a single moment and look around you?” He threw open his arms, gesturing to the chaos enveloping the field. “We cannot leave, we need to deal with this. We need to stay.”
Eden allowed him to finish speaking, but he never turned from the woods.
“Are either of you hurt?” he asked instead, looking from one to the other. “Do either of you want to let that creature massacre some other group of unsuspecting people? Or perhaps you’d like to wait until it gathers its senses and comes back for the ones right here?”
He waited for a response, but there was nothing but silence.
“Good. Then we are in agreement.”
The others had time for a single moment of shared exasperation before racing to catch up with him once again. No, they were not in agreement. And given some of the visuals still rattling around in Kiera’s head, she would like nothing more than to run screaming the other way. It was pure madness to go after one of the creatures on their own. Let alone that particular beast.
But in his entire life, Eden had never been accused of being sane.
“I’m hoping you have at least some kind of plan?” Jesse asked begrudgingly.
The fae warmed with a secret smile before glancing back in mock alarm. “What are you still doing with hands?” he exclaimed disapprovingly, cuffing the wolf for good measure. “Shift back immediately! It is your only asset, Jesse!” He twirled the broken tent pole, lifting it to his shoulder like a spear. “And yes, I have a plan.”
Seven. Hells.
The shifter glared, but did as he asked—casting Kiera a look of helpless frustration before transforming from man to wolf. She needed no help being angry, but she also wasn’t the faintest bit surprised. As long as there was breath in his body, the fae would feel called upon to do such things.
And if ‘such things’ happened to involved slaying monsters?
All the better.
“What about me?” she asked with a scowl, falling into pace at his side. “Must I take part in your little suicide as well? Or may I simply hire mourners and pretend to grieve?”
The wolf snickered beside them, as Eden cast her an indulgent grin.
“You, my dear, are indispensable. We shall be requiring your assets as well.”
She maintained that fixed scowl, but the closer they got to that shadowy forest, the more she was having trouble remembering what any of those assets might happen to be.
“Oh yes?” she asked stiffly. “And what are those?”
The fae regarded her for only an instant before clapping her kindly on the back. “You have a lovely smile.”
She froze mid-step, glaring openly at the back of his head. The wolf hesitated a moment, torn between them, then shrugged his shoulders and gestured her forward with a weary sigh.
If that monster doesn’t manage to kill you, I’m going to do it myself.
CONSIDERING THEY HAD taken off right after the beast, it still managed to travel a remarkable length of ground—each of its long strides constituting almost thirty of what it would take a normal man. That being said, it was in no way difficult to track. One had merely to follow the wreckage that trailed in its wake. Spindly birch and towering redwoods, the creature smashed them all alike, leaving behind a wide stretch of trampled forest the friends were able to walk upon as easily as any road.
“If only we could direct it north,” Eden whispered conspiratorially. His smile faded at the pair of looks he received in return. “Just trying to lighten the tension...”
They quickened their pace and made it all the way back to the slice of the forest where they’d made camp the night before. In a land of peaks and ravines, it was relatively flat, with nothing but towering evergreens and clusters of moss-covered boulders to break up the repetition.
Scores of lesser predators were openly retreating from the woods ahead of them without any compunction of being followed or seen. A pair of foxes darted through the underbrush, fleeing in the opposite direction, and a frightened coyote actually knocked between their legs in its hurry to escape.
The friends paused a moment, staring after it with a look of belated surprise.
That bodes well.
Kiera’s eyes lingered on that whip of a tail, quick to vanish into the ferns. She felt herself moved with the sudden urge to follow, but if anything, the sight only spurred the fae on faster. He no longer paused to make sure they were keeping pace with him, but quickened that impossible speed. The light caught upon the pole still resting on his shoulder and his cloak trailed in the wind behind him, those light-footed steps leaving not a single print upon the forest floor.
The others were having a slightly harder time.
While the wolf padded noiselessly across the terrain with almost as much ease as the fae, the teenage barmaid was not equipped for such things. Twice, her clothes got snagged in brambles and Jesse had to double back to extract her. Twice, her ankle rolled and she let out a gasp of pain.
Do NOT be the thing that slows them down. Do NOT be the thing that stops this from happening.
She picked herself up yet again, looking down at the scrapes across her palms, until a velvet-soft nose appeared before her, sniffing near her temple, before bobbing up her chin.
Her eyes lifted with the most unlikely of smiles.
“He will run us to death,” she said cheerfully. “The beast will never get its chance.”
It was hard to decipher the expressions of a wolf, but she could have sworn that Jesse was smiling. At any rate, he lifted her back onto her feet, hesitating for a long moment, before sinking halfway down in the strangest of gestures. Kiera stared without understanding, a hand still resting absentmindedly on his fur. His front knees were bent, while his back legs stayed standing. There was a slight arch to his shoulders in a way that created a little hollow. A place for a person to sit.
Her eyes widened in surprise.
“Are you sure?” she whispered, well aware the fae was getting away from them. “I’ve asked for that every day since we left Farion. You never let me. You almost bit off my hand.”
