Chapter Thirty
In panther form and moving faster than any normal cat could run, Priest gave his beast free rein and prayed Alek had somehow managed to wrangle Kateri to safety. The darkness stirred and prickled inside him, agitated to a degree he’d not felt since the night of his brother’s betrayal. An almost magnetic tug that insisted on finding whatever or whoever had awakened it.
One thing was without question. If he made it through the next few minutes, hours, or however long it took him to track whatever stirred his darkness, he’d be kissing ass a good long while where Kateri was concerned. The look on her face as he’d used his powers to temporarily stun her gifts and tethered her to the earth had been nothing short of raw feminine fury. One that promised she’d not only flay him alive the second she caught up with him, but would likely commandeer reinforcements to help.
But taking her with him on this hunt wasn’t an option. If Draven ever captured her, there’d be no limit to what Priest would do to earn her safety. Even sacrifice his life and every living member of his clan.
The vibrant terrain of Bayou La Rose blurred on either side of him. Where the cypress trees thick with moss had seemed welcoming before, now they were nothing more than a swath of rich green. On the bayou, the cypress knees that peeked just above the water’s surface flew by like dotted lines on the highway at high speed. But the scent that held his beast’s focus was the one floating just above the moist, muddy scent that encompassed the land. The same acrid bite that had overtaken all his senses the night he’d taken Draven’s black magic inside him.
Within seconds, the compulsion dragging him forward circled, shifted directions, then came to an abrupt halt.
Priest stopped, lungs heaving from the open sprint he’d put his beast through. A misshapen clearing stretched directly in front of him, no more than twenty-five feet in circumference. To his left, the bayou’s soft trickle barely registered above the sound of his labored breathing, and only the wind whispered through the willows and cypress on his right.
A trap?
Maybe. Though, if it meant dealing with his brother once and for all and ensuring the safety of his mate and clan, he’d happily walk into it.
Overhead a deep squawk rang out, the mere challenge of it making his panther’s hair bristle from shoulder blades to tail. All too easily, his beast locked onto the source. A great horned owl large enough its wingspan would reach well over six feet. Unlike the standard coloring of most, the one staring down at him strayed more toward black than whites and browns. A deep purple aura surrounded it, one as thick with magic as Kateri’s though marred with a black halo. The same black halo that had surrounded his brother.
The owl watched him. Taunted his cat with its calm stillness.
It didn’t make sense. Draven was a cougar and companions didn’t change. Not only that, the scent his beast detected from the owl was all wrong. Definitely not his brother’s, but tainted by the same caustic scent of his brother’s black magic.
Gaze locked on the owl and braced for action, Priest shifted and paced to the edge of the clearing. “You’ve got my attention, so shift and tell me what you want.”
No movement. Not even a blink of its golden eyes.
The darkness strained beneath his skin, a compulsive reach toward the owl that nearly pulled Priest off center. But why? Unless the person they’d been chasing all along was a completely different sorcerer gone rogue.
No, that didn’t make sense either. Their clan had no living sorcerers save Kateri. He’d have known it when they were called to their soul quest. Would have been there when they earned their magic.
The unexpected summons to the Otherworld.
The darkness.
The unfound soul.
Maybe he had been called, but someone else had beaten him to whoever waited. How, he couldn’t fathom. No one but the high priest was ever allowed into another person’s soul quest.
Unless Draven had found a way to intervene, or even force a Volán’s quest. Given Jade’s vision of someone from the sorcerer quest being hunted, it made sense.
He pooled his magic, drawing from the Otherworld’s pure source and mingling it with the unique gifts granted him as high priest. He might not get answers from an owl, but he’d get them from a human—no matter what it took.
Out across the clearing and up the thick cypress trunk the owl had chosen for its perch, Priest carefully cast his magic, its presence hidden by the wind and guided by his command. “Who guided you with your quest?” While he was almost certain he knew the answer, his question was more for distraction than confirmation.
The owl quirked its head. More of a flinch than anything based in comprehension. As if it wanted to answer, but was held within too tight of a mental grip to do otherwise.
Priest’s magic resonated up through the top of the tree, whispering through the leaves and up above the owl.
The bird rustled its feathers and stretched out its wings, either instinctively sensing danger or feeling the subtle prickle of power around it. It leaped upward, ready to flee, just as Priest’s magic coiled around it, the inescapable power wrenching around the owl’s body like an iron talon.
Careful not to injure the bird, Priest levitated the creature closer.
Its frantic squawks rang out against the deepening evening sky. The nearer it drew to Priest the more desperate its struggles to break free.
“Easy,” Priest crooned as he inched closer to the agitated animal. Fighting past the furious swirl of the darkness inside him, he filled his magic with what little calm he had left. Urged the owl to settle and surrender to his power. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help you.”
The second he clutched the bird’s torso in both hands the darkness in him surged and burned beneath his skin.
The owl shrieked at this touch and tried to take a chunk out of his forearm with its beak, but Priest’s grip was too low and his magic too strong. Its only defense was the ear-splitting cries it spilled into the night, each one of them whipping the ugliness inside him to an untamed fury.
Kateri.
The bond he shared with her pulsed in answer and the rage inside him hesitated. She was his light. His foundation. So long as the connection stayed strong—his soul connected to her goodness—the stain of his brother’s magic couldn’t take over.
Mind and heart rooted on the connection to his mate, Priest focused on his magic. On the owl struggling within his hold and the soul nestled inside it. “Don’t fight it. The more you do, the more it will hurt.”
Another squawk. This one filled with pain and desperation, but also laced with that of the tortured man underneath.
Priest tightened his hold and speared his powers deep, digging his silver light into the very heart of the owl. His panther hissed at the burning backlash from the darkness, but Priest pushed through it and put all he had into the connection. “Surrender. Face your priest.”
A deep and murky amethyst light exploded around them, and the owl shifted to man.
Definitely not his brother, but no one he’d ever laid eyes on either. Dressed only in beat-up jeans, the stranger’s torso bore the dangerous and forbidden marks he’d found in his brother’s research too late, each of them drawn in what looked like dried blood. Deep bruises dotted his belly, arms and shoulders, some of them fresh and others the putrid green that came days after injury.
Priest tightened his grip on the man’s throat and filled his voice with every ounce of compulsion he could muster. “Your name.”
The man’s eyes widened, confusion and an almost palpable fear marking his brown gaze. His dark hair was even longer than Priest’s and hung loose on either side of his sweat-coated face. “Jerrik.”
As soon as the answer was out of his mouth, Jerrik’s whole body tensed, his back and neck bowed as though a bolt of lightning had shot from the ground and through his flesh. His tortured shout rang loud and long against the bayou’s stillness. Pure pain and agony. Only when the cry died off, did he straighten his head, his body shaking as though filled with more energy than it could stand. A wildness filled his eyes and the brown that had once colored his irises was pure black.
One second.
One stark, debilitating second and the darkness overwhelmed Priest. Choked and held him frozen in place, every muscle rigid and unforgiving as stone.
Jerrik rolled his head and circled his shoulders, the languid act of a man waking from a long, deep sleep. When he locked his black gaze on Priest and spoke, the voice was no longer the man he’d heard moments before, but one Priest knew all too well. “Hello, brother.”