Chapter 12
Morning came with the rap of small knuckles against the door. Snuggled against Kellen, his arm draped over her waist and his hand cupping her breast possessively, Analia didn’t want to leave the mat.
Something had felt different last night with Kellen. More intense. More serious. More committed.
Her heart fluttered with hope. Then fluttered again with both fear and excitement at what the day might bring.
The rapping came for a second time, followed by Gwendolen saying, “The sun is up. Gellawin and the other elders want to get started.”
“Okay,” Analia called.
She twined her fingers with Kellen’s over her breast. “We’d better get up and dressed. And get some breakfast.”
He hugged her against him and she felt his cock stir where it pressed to her buttocks. “I wish I could convince you stay here, where the danger is minimal.”
“But you know you can’t.”
He nibbled her shoulder. “Yeah, I know I can’t.”
Gwendolen rapped on the door again. “I’m supposed to lead you to where the food is being served.”
“We’ll be right out,” Analia called.
She forced herself to leave the comfort and temptation of being snuggled against Kellen. Had to fight to end the skin to skin contact.
She craved it like an addict craved drugs. Felt the physical need to be touching as much of him as possible, as if her life depended on being able to soak in enough of his fey magic.
The thought brought a frown, a stirring of uneasiness.
She shook it off. There was no time to worry about it now.
They washed, using the water cascading along the tree root that traveled from ceiling to floor. Dried themselves with cloth woven from something similar to cotton.
Analia grimaced at having to pull on the previous day’s clothes, though she stuffed her panties into a pocket and went commando.
Kellen’s eyes hooded and his nostrils flared. “The journey just got more difficult.”
She couldn’t help but thrill at the obvious direction of his thoughts, and at finding herself the focus of his fantasies. She almost felt as if she should pinch herself, to make sure this was real.
Then again, if it was a fantasy, she wasn’t ready to wake up. She smiled and Kellen prowled forward, sending her heart careening around her chest.
He enfolded her in his arms, his mouth swooping down, covering hers and remaining there until another impatient knock sounded against the door.
They left the chamber, hid their smiles and ignored the tiny girl’s exasperated, “Finally!”
It was easier to ignore Crew’s smirk when they joined him in a huge underground chamber with a thick root running down the center of the room to serve as a table.
They sat cross-legged near the door, Crew on one side of the root, them on the other. Smooth wooden plates and cups were stacked in neat rows along the length of the table.
Gwendolen stood on tiptoe to reach several of the plates. She set them in front of Analia, Crew and Kellen, then distributed cups, before grabbing a plate and cup for herself and plopping down next to Analia.
The six elders were present, along with perhaps two dozen other grigs of varying ages. Gwendolen was the only young child in the chamber.
An older teen, carrying a platter of sliced bread, entered from another doorway. He was followed by a boy of about the same age carrying a platter of sliced fruit. They went to the elders clustered mid-table, allowing them to fill their plates first.
The girl who’d told Analia that dragons loved to look for their mates in the human world came in with a wooden pitcher. She was followed by another teen boy, this one carrying a bowl.
They approached the elders as the other two servers reached Analia. She loaded her plate with fruit and bread, suddenly ravenous.
The girl carrying the pitcher arrived a minute later and poured something white and creamy into the cup. Analia lifted it, sniffed and was surprised. “It’s coconut milk.”
The girl wrinkled her nose. “Coconuts are animals?”
Analia shook her head. “They’re nuts. Really hard nuts. But inside them is a juice we call milk, because it’s white. There’s also a lining inside the shell that’s called meat.”
“It sounds kind of like the mirango fruit, where this juice comes from, except the fruit grows on vines not in trees.”
The boy carrying the bowl reached them and Analia saw it was full of small, speckled eggs. She lifted one, and discovered it was firm and warm, as if it’d been hard-boiled.
Gwendolen popped a small egg into her mouth, crunched and popped a second, more heavily speckled egg into her mouth. The servers moved away, heading back to where the elders sat.
“What are we up against?” Kellen asked Crew.
Crew carefully rid a tiny egg of its shell. “Nothing good.”
Kellen snorted. “And that’s nothing new.”
Crew leaned forward, darted a glance at Analia. “Did you tell her about the encounter with Deidra?”
She tensed at the mention of the female fey hound who’d commanded masculine attention at Stones.
Kellen said, “It didn’t come up.”
Crew’s smirk reappeared. “No doubt, what came up was far south of conversation.”
“Something like that.”
Aware of Gwendolen at her side, Analia blushed and said, “Guys.”
Crew laughed, though it was short lived. “Just before we were brought here, Deidra attacked.”
“Deidra and a grig, though the smell of blood and charred flesh overwhelmed the underlying scent of apples.”
“Tobik,” Gwendolen said, hugging herself.
Analia put her arm around the girl, then placed a hand on Kellen’s back, fingertips tracing the scar tissue. “That’s where this came from?”
“Yes.”
Crew said, “Baoban Sith.”
Gwendolen shivered and whimpered, hugging herself tighter.
Kellen muttered a curse.
“What are they?” Analia asked, her own heart racing.
“Supernatural nightmare,” Kellen said.
He shuddered as he remembered the loss of free will. “They can enslave with their blood and weave their hair into a controlling collar. Deidra has a braided strand of baoban hair.”
“She tried to use it on you,” Analia’s said, fingertips tracing one of the blade scars, fear and fury in her voice.
“Did use it on him,” Crew corrected. “Stole his will. And for the record, if not for me…”
Analia’s soft laugh lessened the horror though Kellen couldn’t suppress a second shudder.
“He did mention that he was okay thanks to you,” she said.
The dragon grinned. “There you have it, I am the best at what I do—saving the day.”
“How many baoban?” Kellen asked. “And how many beings have they enslaved?”
“The elders think there are three baoban. There are other grig clans in this realm. The elders aren’t sure how many of the grig have come under the baoban’s control, or if they’ve also enslaved other fey.”
“Hopefully we won’t find out,” Kellen said, cupping his mate’s thigh and wondering if there was any way he could convince her to remain in the grig’s burrow until he returned.
A glance at the determined look on her face was answer enough.
They finished eating. Gwendolen said, “Those assigned to the meal room will pick up our plates and cups. Our supplies are waiting for us outside the burrow.”
Already the elders were walking past and the young men and women who would most likely serve as guards were hustling to finish their food and follow.
A man stopped next to Gwendolen. He placed his hand on the child’s head. “Come along. Your mother will need a hug and a kiss before we leave.”
The girl followed him out. Kellen took his mate’s hand and squeezed.
His mate.
Once those two words would have been incongruous, impossible for him to imagine. “We’ll let the tunnel clear, then go.”
They left a few minutes later, after the last of those in the eating room had gone.
Outside the air was warming, the crisp of dawn yielding as the sun lightened the sky. The gathered grigs wore a variety of sacks tied to belts and many of the younger clan members carried bows and quivers.
Kellen hefted one of the sacks that remained next to the tree. “Water, or something to drink. I’m guessing there will be plenty of berries, fruits and nuts to eat along the way.”
He tied the sack to a belt loop. Analia did the same, then claimed the bow she’d practiced with the night before, along with the quiver.
Crew took a water sack, as well as a spear created from a long, smooth stick with a sharpened point.
Kellen claimed the last item, a net made from woven vine. Like the water pouch, he secured it to a belt loop.
Seeing that the three of them were ready to leave, one of the female elders placed a flute against her lips. She blew into it, the tune piercing and sweet, resonating with goodbye and hopeful return.
Solemnly those grigs not making the trek to the sacred lake formed two lines, facing each other. Dugald, as an elder and the oldest living descendent of Nizzo and the human sorceress Edea, held the green crystal and led the procession through the gathered clan.
They left the clearing, entering the orchard in a copse of old trees. The trunks were darkened, and as they moved further away from the clan burrow, the trail narrowed.
After they’d traveled a mile or so, Dugald put the crystal in a pouch worn on his belt and the flute song ceased. Bird song became the music they traveled by, as well as the drip of dew dropping from leaf to leaf to leaf before striking the ground.
Gwendolen squeaked when moisture splattered on her head, then lifted her face and opened her mouth, catching drops of water.
Another mile passed and a dozen guards peeled away, taking offshoots on either side of the path so they could travel along trails parallel to the one the elders remained on.
Against the soles of his feet, Kellen felt the thrum of magic and murmured to his mate, unable to stifle the smile thinking of her in those terms brought, “We’re on a ley line.”
She glanced downward. “What does it smell like?”
“Apples and sunshine.”
“Is it usable magic?”
“We use it,” Gwendolen piped up. “It helps us form portals and the spellcasters use it to help keep our enemies away.”
Crew shot a glance at Kellen and lifted an eyebrow, silently asking if they could rely on the spells for protection. Kellen shook his head. A fey hound could easily navigate the traps they’d passed and they had no idea what other beings the baoban sith might have enslaved.
He better understood why so many of the able-bodied had remained behind to protect the young and vulnerable. The green crystal was a prize, but if the grigs could be compelled to create portals, then holding children hostage or making slaves of other clan members would serve equally well.
The trail they were on began a winding incline. The old growth orchards gave way to younger trees, and they no longer traveled on the ley line.
“Are there protections this far out?” Kellen asked Gellawin, who’d slowed as the climb uphill had progressed and was now in front of them.
“No. The magic discharges too quickly.”
Kellen’s keen hearing told him the guards who’d diverted onto parallel paths had gradually gotten further away as the miles had passed, but were now slowly converging.
He glanced skyward, but the foliage was too dense to determine how high up they would need to climb to reach their destination. Gwendolen took Analia’s hand, skipping next to her. “There’s a clearing up ahead. We can pick some blackberries.”
“That sounds good.”
Crew said, “I’ll move to the front.”
He surged ahead, long strides taking him past the elders who’d moved backward in the procession, leaving the more fit men and women to lead the way down the path.
Analia had carried the bow looped over her shoulder. She slipped it off, and Kellen felt a surge of pride.
They traveled another ten minutes, then at the head of the column, Crew lifted a hand to indicate they should stop.
The dragon and several young grigs forged ahead, fanning out. “Keep an eye on Gwendolen,” Kellen said. “I’m going up to the clearing.”
Analia pulled an arrow from the quiver but didn’t nock it. He inhaled deeply, not scenting anything that caused alarm.
At the clearing edge, Kellen took another deep breath, hoping to catch Deidra’s scent, or that of the grig who’d wielded the cold iron blade. There was no hint of either and no breeze offering additional information.
He scanned the trees but saw no movement other than the flit of birds and insects, and what looked, for a brief flash, like a miniature dragon.
“Anything?” Crew asked.
Kellen shook his head. “Nothing smells off.”
They proceeded into the clearing. Gellawin stopped abreast of them and said, “Let’s spend a moment here to eat and drink.”
Already several of the elders were heading toward what remained of a downed tree, its smooth surface making a perfect place to sit and rest. Gwendolen tugged at Analia, trying to hurry her toward a bush with plump blackberries hanging from thin branches.
The guards who’d been traveling on parallel paths entered the clearing, many of them pulling water pouches from their waists though Kellen was pleased to see them scanning the area, remaining alert to possible danger.
They scattered, also targeting blackberry bushes, while one by one the elders sat on the downed tree, with Dugald in the middle, still carrying the pouch containing the crystal.
Kellen joined Analia at a blackberry bush, warmth flooding him when she lifted a juicy berry and touched it to his mouth. His lips parted and his cock hardened with the sweet taste of berry juice and mate.
His mate.
The thought brought a smile that made him glad Crew had elected to remain close to the elders.
He sucked the berry into his mouth along with the tips of Analia’s fingers. He licked over them, heating at imagining they were her stiffened clit.
She blushed and extricated them from his mouth, her thoughts traveling to the same place as his, and he grinned.
Movement to the right drew his attention upward. High above the trees a golden eagle soared, its wingspan easily eight feet.
A moment later, it was joined by a second bird. Mates, he guessed, given the dark plumage on their chests rather than the white of juvenile birds.
They circled, perhaps contemplating the grigs as a possible meal. Kellen thought his traveling companions were safe, given that none of them had separated far enough to seem an easy target, but he said, “Make sure you stay close to Gwendolen.”
Analia, also watching the birds of prey, said, “I will.”
One of the eagles altered course so it passed above the other, its wing overlapping the other bird’s wing. It did this several times before the two birds disappeared from view.
A moment later, a single bird returned. It glided downward, dipping below the treetops at the edge of the clearing, then swept over them, before strong flaps of its wings carried it upward and out of sight.
Kellen took another berry from his mate’s fingertips, but when both eagles reappeared, he headed toward the elders, instinct telling him they were in danger.
Crew was also watching the great birds of prey, spear loosely held, his head lifted because his fire—even while in human form—was still the more formidable weapon.
One of the birds dived toward the elders.
The other dropped like a stone above the old men and women.
Shouts went up and guards let loose arrows.
Whether they were meant only to scare the eagles away, or because of nerves, the arrows sailed past the birds by wide margins.
The eagles descended rapidly.
Another volley of arrows missed—or failed to deter the attack.
Crew inhaled deeply. He was a second away from sending his fire when Kellen’s distance from the elders allowed him to see the tiny dryad figures on the birds’ backs.
“Riders!” he shouted and Crew altered the gout of flame he sent toward the diving bird.
It veered away with a cry, the edges of its flight feathers singed.
The second eagle continued its downward plunge, legs outstretched, toes spread, its sharp talons ready to snatch the pouch away from Dugald.
Kellen jerked the net free from his belt loop. A flick of his wrist and it spread out. A twirl and he cast the net, the rocks woven into its edges giving it heft and balance.
Several feet above Dugald, the net struck the eagle, quickly entangling the bird.
Its cry was joined by the shout of the rider on its back and the scream of the second eagle.
That bird immediately dove toward them, as if between bird and rider, they could drive those gathered in the clearing away and free their trapped companions.
A glint of sunlight struck the dryad rider at just the right angle, allowing Kellen to see the strand of silver hair around the second rider’s neck.
“Ensnared,” he said, and Crew adjusted the angle of his flame, sending a stream of fire that allowed the eagle to veer and escape rather than become engulfed and die.
The entrapped eagle fought the net, only entangling itself further. Kellen reached bird and rider, aware that Analia had joined the elders and was watching him as he carefully manipulated the net to get at the rider while keeping sharp beak and talons from tearing into his hands.
It took the barest of pinches to rid the dryad of the silvery strand of baoban hair around his throat.
The eagle immediately calmed. And though the rider’s voice was only faintly heard, and his language unfamiliar, the pleading desperation in the words and gestures as he pointed toward the other bird clearly said mate, and begged for their safety.
“We need to draw the other eagle down,” Crew said. “Its rider might be under a compulsion to get the crystal, or die trying, but the bird isn’t.”
Kellen contemplated the bird whose instinct seemed to be warring with the bond it had with its rider, making it reluctant to dive again and risk being incinerated. “We’ve got to take a chance and free the eagle. Hopefully its rider will use it to our advantage.”
“Put the strand of hair on the ground,” Crew said, crouching.
Kellen knelt. He found a smooth piece of flat rock and moved it to a spot between him and Crew, then put the hair on the rock.
Crew exhaled a thin stream of fire. It struck rock and hair, an overkill of flame given how tiny the strand of hair, but a potent demonstration of their intention to free the remaining rider of enslavement.
Kellen untangled the eagle from the net. It spread its wings and surged upward into the air, riderless.
“Now to add some temptation,” Crew said, rising from his crouch.
Dugald understood what he meant. The elder moved away from the clustered grigs, making himself an easier target.
At the same time, Crew moved in the opposite direction, reducing the threat of dragon fire.
Kellen picked up the net, shook it out, readying himself for the next throw.
With its companion in the air, probably its own mate, the other eagle seemed to stop fighting its rider’s command.
“Now?” Dugald asked.
“Now,” Kellen said.
Dugald opened the pouch at his waist and removed the heart-shaped crystal. It caught the sunlight and sent shafts of green outward in a way that only something containing magic could do.
The eagle dropped toward it, legs outstretched and talons ready to snatch the artifact.
Kellen waited, waited, waited—then threw the net.
It struck bird and rider, carrying them to the ground and away from Dugald.
As he’d done with the first rider, he quickly extracted the second, and with a pinch, rid the supernatural being of the baoban’s enslavement.
Crew joined them, and with a stream of fire, forever ended the threat the strand of silvery hair represented.
Kellen gently untangled the eagle. Tiny, leaflike wings unfurled along the riders’ backs, and they flew upward to straddle the bird of prey’s neck.
“Are they native to this realm?” Analia asked Gellawin, awe in her voice as the eagle launched upward.
“No. If they’re native to any place, it’s a closely held secret. Most beings can go a lifetime without ever seeing a rider. Though once, when I was a young man, a-traveling, I thought I glimpsed an eagle rider in one of the Sidhe realms. My companion thought I’d imbibed too deeply of the honey-like nectar we were harvesting along the trail. He was sure I’d only imagined seeing the rider, and I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a trick of the imagination.”
“Will they be able to find their way home?” Analia asked.
Gellawin rubbed his beard for a moment, gaze becoming unfocused, as if he mentally traveled to other realms. Finally, he said, “Yes, I think so.”
Kellen grimly surveyed the gathered grigs. “Your enemies know where we’re going and our intentions when we arrive. This won’t be the only attack.”
Young men and women gripped their bows. Their faces became set lines of determination.
He exchanged a glance with Crew, though neither of them spoke the truth: Next time they might be forced to kill an enslaved being in order to ensure success and survival.
They continued on, with Gwendolen quickly shaking off the threat of danger that clung to the adults. She sidled up to Crew.
“Are you a dragon?” she asked, obviously awed by the possibility he might be.
He laughed and said, “What gave me away?”
“Your fire, silly.”
“Ah, that’s good to know, in case I need to be stealthier in the future.”
She giggled and began telling him about the dragonettes in their realm. Then asked, “Have you found your mate yet?”
Kellen laughed outright while Crew visibly shuddered. “I’m not looking for a mate.”
That earned him a frown from Gwendolen. “Everybody knows that dragons go to the human realm because they want a mate.”
Her father intervened, coming alongside and scooping her into his arms, making her squeal. “Don’t prod our traveling companion into sharing his secrets. It’s very likely he fears having his treasure snatched away if he acknowledges an interest in a certain human female.”
“Too true,” Kellen said, realizing with a glance at his own mate, that if he wasn’t careful he’d start sounding like Taine when it came to expounding on the virtues of mate-taking.
They walked companionably, talking about the riders. The miles passed as they continued their winding, upward journey.
Kellen was sure there were more direct routes, but given the steepness of some of the terrain, and the age of the elders, understood why they’d taken this route.
Gwendolen’s father set her down and moved ahead to rejoin the lead. The girl returned to Analia’s side, though a short while later it became obvious she was tiring, and Analia offered to carry her on a hip.
His mate would be an excellent mother, Kellen thought, his heart swelling with love and pride—and a touch of guilt.
He should have given her a choice, should have at least told her afterward that they were bound.
Trees gave way to a burned area.
Kellen studied the path of destruction. It had originated far below them in what looked like a clearing alongside a trail.
As the fire had climbed upward, it had spread out, engulfing everything in its path and burning hot enough to fell trees and leave behind only dense, mostly burned logs.
It had swept over the trail they were on, then the steep terrain above them, leaving it scorched and dotted with the thick remains of tree trunks.
Studying the pattern of destruction, he didn’t think the fire had been the result of lightning strike.
“What happened here?” he asked the nearest elder, a gray-haired woman with a waist-length braid.
She glanced over her shoulder, then motioned for him to move to her side. Speaking in a whisper, so the child wouldn’t hear, she said, “Our enemies came upon several young people who were gathering some of the vines and nuts that don’t grow near the burrow. They slaughtered our kin as they gathered around the fire circle, and in their haste to return to their own den, our enemy didn’t fully douse the fire.”
“Do you know where your enemy lives?”
She shook her head but looked downward, to where the blackened, charred landscape gave way to dense thickets and trees.
“We suspect they live somewhere along the base of the mountain.”
Several steps later an updraft brought the scent of boars. Though the smell of the tusked beasts was faint, it summoned a flood of memories and lifted the hair along Kellen’s neck.
Few things could kill fey hounds in the realm where they were the dominant species, but the massive boars were one of them. And though the beasts could sustain themselves on roots and nuts, they were also carnivorous and many of them developed a taste for flesh.
They’d gore their prey, aiming for vital organs, a strike to the heart or a disemboweling slash to the abdomen. In a near-starving state, in the days when he was on his own, he’d been the target of a sow teaching her young to hunt. And though he’d had no love for his brother, Cason, he wouldn’t have wished his end to come from the fatal thrust of a boar’s gleaming tusks.
Kellen inhaled more deeply, and asked the elder, “Can your enemies control the boars in this realm?”
The old woman shuddered. “We would all be dead or enslaved if they did, but there are stories of a time when our enemy was able to use the beasts to their advantage.”
A stronger breeze carried the deepened stink of boar to Kellen. He turned toward Analia and said, “I need to talk to Crew, be alert.”
She nodded and slid the bow off her shoulder, holding it though she continued to carry the grig child on her hip. He headed toward the front of the procession, fighting hound nature with every step away from his mate.
“I smell the danger,” Crew said when Kellen was abreast of him, both of them looking downward, beyond the scarred and blackened surface, to the dense undergrowth at the bottom of the canyon. “Gellawin says that up ahead we’ll be forced onto a narrow trail with vines and nettles on either side of the path.”
“Not much maneuvering room if the baoban have gained control of a few boars.”
“What’s the likelihood?”
Kellen shrugged. “All I can say is that it’s a possibility.”
“Perhaps one of us should go ahead.”
“Me,” Kellen said, despite the howl of protest swelling his chest at putting more distance between him and Analia. But there was no choice, in hound form he could more quickly assess the danger.
Crew gave a soft whistle. “And leave the little mate? I’m impressed by your sacrifice. She is the little mate now, correct? And does she know it?”
Whatever Kellen might have answered was lost in a shout of alarm and by the thunder of charred logs rolling downward toward the trail. He caught a glimpse of a boar high up on the charred hill, moving to another grouping of logs, and of Deidra, in human form, rising from behind a massive log and adding her strength to that of the treacherous grig who’d wielded the cold iron knife.
The logs descending on them gained speed as they tumbled downward, some of them breaking apart, some of them loosening soil and rocks, creating small slides.
Crew charged toward the enemy, cursing at not being able to become dragon. And at not being able to risk his fire and turn the tumbling wood into ash, for fear of incinerating the warrior grigs who were racing upward.
The boar, traitor and fey hound continued to send more logs downward, in a trap that’d been cleverly disguised and must have been laid in place weeks or months previously, in anticipation of the grigs journeying to the lake should they regain possession of their crystal.
Kellen dropped the net and pouches to the ground, and with a glance toward Analia shifted to hound form. His heart screamed when he looked toward her again and saw her dodge a slide, then disappear over the lip of the trail with the child still on her hip.
No! howled through him. But there was no following her, no way of ensuring his mate’s safety other than to kill the enemy.
He raced upward, easily passing Crew who scrambled on feet, and sometimes clawed with hands to gain traction in the loose, scorched earth.
A grig to Kellen’s left gave an agonized cry as he was struck by a log. Images of Analia being crushed or broken tormented Kellen, ripping at his heart but also feeding his determination to reach the enemy and kill, kill, kill.
He leapt sideways to avoid a rush of rock and dirt dislodged by a log sent tumbling forward when one higher up crashed into it. Behind him Crew grunted, hit by something but Kellen kept climbing, his paws and lower center of gravity giving him the advantage.
More broken and burned tree trunks came down the hill. More dirt and rocks.
Moans of agony followed cries as those below couldn’t avoid being struck. But others continued upward. He heard them scrabbling and scrambling up the torched terrain.
He couldn’t take the time to look back to determine who might be dead or dying or could be saved with the rendering of aid. He couldn’t allow himself to think about Analia, or go to his mate, though his heart howled, and he cursed himself for not telling her he loved her, for not telling her they were mated.
Arrows flew from grigs still on their feet, missing Deidra who ran upward, toward the canyon edge rather than continue sending logs hurtling toward the trail. She escaped while those same archers trapped the traitorous grig behind a tree whose branches anchored it in place because they hadn’t burned hot enough to lose all strength.
Fury scorched though Kellen as he felt the phantom burn of the cold iron blade across his scarred back. He reached the log, surged around it and found the traitorous grig, Tobik, facing him.
Kellen crouched, bared his teeth, his keen hearing bringing the sound of others rapidly approaching. He waited until his enemy was aware of that sound, wavered, perhaps because he counted on the mercy of his former clan members.
Tobik glanced behind him and it was all the opening Kellen needed. He charged forward, leapt, his mass slamming into the grig.
The blade sliced across Kellen’s shoulder, burning, cauterizing, marking the moment when canine teeth slid through skin and muscle, ripped and tore.
His mouth filled with a hot flood of blood. It sprayed onto his muzzle and face and shoulder in the seconds before the grig’s feeble struggles ended in death.
Kellen spat the blood out, nostrils filled with the tainted stench of apple and decay, the same scent that had filled Analia’s car during the ambush. To his left came the high-pitched squeal of a boar.
He spared a glance and saw Crew, close enough to send a second stream of flame toward the already burning animal. Kellen felt a second of regret for a beast trapped by compulsion—only to have that regret become a surge of satisfaction when fire-engulfed boar became black-haired baoban.
She screamed, the sound a blend of boar’s high-pitched squeal and woman’s cry. She shrieked and spun, and burned and died.
But her death didn’t end the threat. There was at least one more of them—the one whose silver braid Deidra had tried to enslave him with. Kellen continued upward, intent on ending Deidra’s life as well as eliminating the remaining threat.
He reached the end of the burn, plowed through scrub to the trail Deidra was now on. A backward glance was all he could spare, but the angle didn’t allow him a view of Analia.
Howling inside, he charged forward.