Foretelling, page 8
Dylan slid below the snake, lowering its neck. Cassiel flipped above it, opening its jaw. And with total abandon Serafina charged straight up the middle, stabbing the fang into its mouth.
A piercing wail shook through the cavern as the men grabbed the back of her dress and yanked her swiftly to safety. The snake’s jaw snapped shut a moment later, but would open no more.
The fight was suddenly over. The impossible battle was won.
I don’t believe it.
Katerina blinked slowly, unable to reconcile what she’d just seen. Tanya and Kailas were standing beside her, looking the same way. She’d read about such antics in storybooks. Heard talk of them around firesides all throughout the realm. But she’d never seen such feats of suicidal whimsy until that very moment. A fantastical coordinated assault that put all others to shame.
And yet they didn’t look happy.
“What is it?”
She didn’t congratulate Dylan, she didn’t ask if he was all right. Something in his expression told her there was a more pressing concern. One that had precedence over all others.
“It’s nothing,” he said quietly, raking his hair from his eyes. But that boyish smile had long since faded and a strange nervousness marked his every move. “Just out of breath.”
He wasn’t out of breath. He wasn’t even tired.
“Tell me,” she pressed anxiously, reaching out to take his hand. “Whatever it is, I promise it can’t be worse than what you just did.”
The three of them shared a quick look before staring once more around the cells.
“That’s the problem,” he said quietly. “They only opened one door.”
With a sudden chill, she turned around to follow his gaze.
“Seven more to go...”
Chapter 7
The six friends slept fitfully that night, if they managed to sleep at all. Whenever they started to let their guard down they’d jerk back awake, staring with fearful anticipation at the cells. Waiting for another door to burst open and a fresh terror to escape at any moment.
For a few celebratory seconds after the snake, Katerina thought they might actually use it to their advantage. That they could climb up its massive body and get close enough to the surface of the hole to escape. She should have known by now that wouldn’t be the case.
Like so many other creatures she’d encountered over the last few days, the snake didn’t seem to be of this world. The second its heart stopped beating for good the rest of its body began to wither and decay, vanishing beneath them even as they tried running up the slick scales.
It’s for the best anyway, she thought miserably as they huddled together in the middle of the floor. What would we do if we got to the surface—fight the Carpathian horde?
Not like this.
It wasn’t the battle with the snake. It wasn’t even the fresh bottle of terium that had been cast down into the sand. It had been three days since they’d had any food or water.
“Tanya,” Cassiel said suddenly, shaking her roughly. “Tanya—wake up!”
“Let her sleep,” Kailas murmured, rolling back over himself. “She was up half the night guarding the rest of those bloody doors.”
“She’s not asleep.” The fae sat up swiftly, pulling his girlfriend into his arms. “She blacked out.” Dylan was quick to join him, feeling anxiously for a pulse.
“Tanya!”
Both men called out at the same time, shaking her so violently her tiny head rolled back and forth like a doll. After a few seconds she pried open her eyes, blinking at them like she was convinced she must be dreaming. A moment later, she lifted a hand to the back of her neck.
“Ow!”
Dylan released her at once but Cassiel pulled her closer, casting the ranger a worried look over the top of her head.
“I know she doesn’t want to speak with you, I know this is a game of some kind...but we need water.” He was so out of sorts he said it all in the common tongue instead of privately, in the language of the fae. “Do what you must. I’m not going to let Tanya die in this hole.”
Dylan held his gaze for a moment, then nodded quickly. A few seconds later he lay back down at the fringe of the group, staring unblinkingly at the stars.
Katerina had watched the whole thing quietly, the queen’s cold face flashing back through her mind. After a few minutes of silence she got up from her place in the middle of the others and lay down beside him instead, wrapping her slim fingers around his hand.
“Is it true?” she whispered. “What the commander said about you and the queen? That she bit you during... that she almost drank too much?”
His hand stiffened as he glanced down at her, but his face stayed perfectly blank.
“No,” he said quietly, “it’s not true.”
She swore it was one of the first times he’d looked her in the eyes and lied.
“GOOD MORNING!” AN IMPOSSIBLY cheerful voice broke the perpetual silence, filtering down into the cave with the morning light. “I see all six of you survived my little viper! Well done!”
Katerina rolled out from beneath Dylan’s arm and squinted into the sun, trying to focus on the bleary outline of the Carpathian queen. She wanted to throw something, but her arms were too heavy to move. She wanted to at least answer, but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth.
To be fair, she didn’t know what she’d end up saying anyway.
...thanks?
Only by some miracle did Dylan still have the strength to stand.
“We need water,” he said quietly, struggling to his feet. His breathing was ragged and his hair hung limp in his eyes. “You want this game to continue, you’ll need to give us food and drink.”
Her eyes swept over the haggard group, each more defeated than the last. There was only so far you could push the human body, and sometime in the early hours of the morning they’d left that point behind. They were clearly on their last legs. He was clearly telling the truth.
But she just as clearly didn’t care.
“No, I think not.”
Cassiel cursed under his breath while Dylan stumbled forward painfully, glaring up at the queen with unfathomable hate. “So, what...you’re just going to watch us starve?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “It rains here occasionally. And I gave you that snake.”
Katerina’s stomach clenched as her head bowed into the sand. Just like that, any hope of reprieve vanished from her mind. They would die in this pit. It had already begun.
Dylan stared up through red-rimmed eyes, surrendering anything left of his pride.
“Jazper, please—”
“Fond as I am of hearing you beg,” she interrupted, “I’m afraid you’re going to play out this little game. Otherwise, you and your friends will never leave this place alive.”
There was a sudden pounding behind one of the doors.
The room grew unnaturally still.
“Listen to me,” Dylan said urgently, eyes flickering desperately to the scattered bodies of his friends, “this isn’t something I can... you’re really going to stand there and watch me die?”
“You underestimate yourself,” she purred, “and I’m not completely without sentimentality.”
Her eyes danced as they stared into the pit.
“...let’s get you out of those clothes.”
The words triggered something dark in him. One second, he was standing there. The next he was backing away, unable to catch his breath. “...no.”
Even his voice trembled as he stared up at the queen, desperate for a way out.
“You need to shift.” Her voice grew unexpectedly gentle as she sank to the ground, watching her game unfold. “This isn’t something you can fight with your hands.”
There was a rumbling behind the door. He stared at it with dread.
“I can’t...” he admitted breathlessly, backing to the wall. “I can’t shift— I’ve been trying.”
He wasn’t lying. The friends had passed that point as well. Even the fae, gifted with unnatural endurance, were crumbled beside the others in the dirt. Hearing the danger, but unable to move.
Jazper leaned down, staring at the ranger with something that bordered on affection.
“You’ll have to find the strength,” she murmured, tilting her head with a smile. “Look at your friends, they can barely lift their heads. Someone must defend them.”
A tremor shook through him as the door rattled again.
“Please,” he pleaded quietly. “Jazper...please. I can’t do this—”
“Let’s see.”
Then the door burst open and a nightmarish creature leapt out.
At first, Katerina was sure she wasn’t seeing correctly. She tilted her head dizzily, hovering just inches from the ground. Yes. It wasn’t a hallucination. It wasn’t her mind playing a trick.
It was a hell hound. And it had eyes for only one man.
Dylan backed away slowly, until he was pressed all the way up against the wall. The ground beside him was scattered with the remains of people who’d tried and failed in years gone by. As a bone snapped beneath his shoe, a violent shiver rattled up his spine.
There was no stopping it now. Not even the queen could call it back. And there was no getting between a hell hound and its prey.
Do something!
Katerina stared down at her hands, praying for fire, eyes spilling over with tears.
DO SOMETHING!
But it was no use. The beast lowered its head to the floor, moved slowly forward, the ground quaking with every step as it stalked towards the captive king.
As a man, he didn’t stand a chance. As a wolf, he still didn’t stand a chance. But he might be able to put up more of a fight... if only he was able to make the transformation.
“Kat.”
She turned her head at once, hearing his quiet whisper. Their eyes locked for a fleeting moment, blue on blue, then he gave her a heartbreaking smile.
“I really did want to marry you.”
The hell hound sprang as her scream echoed in the air.
“NO!”
The next few seconds happened in slow motion, burning forever into her mind.
Dylan’s eyes widened as the beast leapt towards him, but he made no effort to move. He merely braced himself against the wall, determined at least to stand. Cassiel was shouting something from the other side of the pit, Tanya gripped tightly in his arms. Serafina and Kailas had both blacked out with the morning sun, so even the beast’s rampaging footfalls couldn’t disturb their sleep.
And Katerina watched in terror as the man she loved pulled in his final breath.
Except...he was a man no longer.
A second before the beast could touch him, a second before its claws could tear into his skin, the man disappeared entirely and a blue-eyed wolf appeared in his stead.
“YES!”
She and Cassiel cried out at the same time, watching as the wolf vaulted straight into the air and the hell hound crashed into the wall where it had been standing. The walls of the pit shook violently, throwing them both into the sides as it pulled itself free with an ear-splitting growl.
Then the fighting really began.
It was like nothing she’d seen before. Not even when he fought the magistrate, back in the high chamber of Belaria, had the fighting been so intense. Hell hounds were bred to kill, Dylan was fighting to survive, and there was simply no limit to the ferocity and speed with which they ripped into one another. It shook the very foundations of their prison as they collided again and again.
Katerina’s teeth were rattling with the force. Her fingers were glued in terrified slats over her eyes. Every now and then one would attack the other with such savagery that a shower of blood would rain down upon the floor. Splashing into the corners. Soaking the sun-bleached bones.
Somewhere above her, the sound of high-pitched laughter was ringing through the air. The Carpathian queen was clapping her hands, watching the carnage in delight.
Again and again the beasts crashed into each other. Ripping and tearing. Sinking their teeth and claws into any unguarded piece of flesh.
But one of them was thriving. And one was paying more and more of a price.
Katerina cringed breathlessly against the wall as the hell hound buried its teeth in Dylan’s shoulder—thrashing its head back and forth until the fangs hit bone.
She’d wanted him to shift, wanted him to put up a fight. Now she wasn’t so sure. A pair of tears slipped down her face as a horrible thought floated through her mind.
He would have died easier as a man.
There was another piercing cry as Dylan was thrown backwards, crashing into the wall before landing with a sharp crack on the ground. The hell hound was on top of him before he could even pull in a breath. Sinking its jaws into his side. Shaking him back and forth.
Then, all at once... something was wrong.
The air around them shimmered. For a split second, the outline of the wolf flickered out of view. There was a sudden movement above her. The amusement had faded from Jazper’s eyes. It was replaced with something else. An emotion that was harder to understand.
Without thinking, Cassiel leapt on top of the hell hound—attacking with the strength of a sickly child, using not a single weapon but his bare hands. The beast threw him off like he was no more than a nuisance—smashing him into the wall on the other side of the room.
Its teeth sank in deeper. The wolf let out a scream, a very human scream. Then, all at once, it was a wolf no longer. The beast had vanished and the man had reappeared.
“Dylan!”
Katerina raced forward, but the hell hound was directly in between.
It had dropped him in surprise the moment of transformation. Deadly as they were, the hounds weren’t capable of much higher thought. In all likelihood, this one had never seen a shifter.
But it made little difference. Dylan was a man at the beginning of the fight, he would be a man when the fight was finished. And that end had come at last.
With a final growl, the beast leapt forward... only to be stopped by a slender hand.
“ENOUGH!”
Katerina had never imagined how the Carpathian queen would actually fight. If she’d use a weapon, if cursed daggers would fly from her hands. The forces that surrounded her were so deadly it had never seemed to matter. She just assumed that either the horde would vanquish any potential enemies, or that people would be so frightened of the dark queen they’d never think to try.
As it turned out, Jazper was rather direct.
With cold efficiency, she grabbed both sides of the hell hound’s jaw, then ripped it apart with her bare hands. Splitting its head in half as easily as if she was tearing paper.
Katerina’s mouth fell open with a silent scream. Then she watched the woman kneel down on the bloody ground. With those same lethal hands, she lifted Dylan gently to his feet.
“You’re all right,” she murmured, stroking back his matted hair. “I’ve got you.”
Dylan was in a daze, unaware of where he was or what was happening around him.
One arm wrapped around the queen’s neck as his head fell limply against her shoulder. He didn’t seem to realize that he was naked, or embracing a bitter enemy. He didn’t seem to realize that the love of his life was lying on the ground just a few feet away, watching with tears in her eyes.
He let out a quiet breath, fingers wrapping in her hair as another door burst open and the pit was suddenly filled with Carpathian soldiers. They shouted back and forth, dragging away the body of the hell hound, drawing their swords in a needless attempt to keep the prisoners at bay.
When the commander approached the queen to make sure she was unharmed, she silenced him with a flick of her hand. “Your cloak,” she snapped.
The man surrendered it at once, then watched as she wrapped it tenderly around Dylan’s shoulders. The ranger made no move to acknowledge it. And no move to pull away.
“Once you’ve finished removing the dog, I want you to give the rest of them food and water. That is all you are permitted to do,” she added sternly. “Do I make myself clear?”
The commander stood straight at attention.
“Yes, my queen.”
“Under no circumstances are those orders to be carried out creatively. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my queen.”
Her ice-green eyes lit up the shadows as Dylan rested his head against her. A second later they flickered over his shoulder to the beautiful girl with the red hair, weeping silently.
“Except these two...they’re coming with me.”
Chapter 8
It was like stepping into a parallel universe.
One where the queen was a loving caretaker. One where Dylan stayed willingly in her arms.
She led him slowly across the wasteland—coaxing and encouraging every agonizing step. By the time they reached the courtyard, he’d wrapped a trembling arm around her shoulders. By the time they reached the fort, he was clinging to the side of her neck for support. By the time they reached the front door, Katerina was on the verge of screaming out loud—just to make it all stop.
But then the door opened and her breath caught in her throat.
The second they stepped inside, they left every trace of the desert behind them. If Katerina didn’t know better, she’d swear they were inside a palace once more. The floors were carpeted and the walls hung with thick embroidery. Thin streams of incense scented the air like roses, and plates of honeyed fruit were splayed carelessly across the floor. There was a gilded writing desk in one corner, a clawed tub in the other, and an enormous canopy bed right in the center of the room.
“Take off your boots,” the queen called carelessly to Katerina before turning her attention to Dylan once more. “That’s it. Almost there.”
He had yet to make an ounce of recovery since they’d left the cavern. Truth be told, he looked a great deal worse than the moment they left. Every bit of damage the hell hound incurred appeared a hundred times worse on a human body. The deep gash in the hollow of his shoulder. The giant scratches raking down his chest. No matter how hard he tried his eyes were in constant danger of closing, and a thick trail of blood marked his progress across the room.
