Chapter 6
Once she had scrambled down from the headland, Ariane kept to the shadows. She was hiking along the shoreline in the direction of that castle or keep. She had puzzled over its appearance, because everything she'd read about the world called Gaia suggested that it was a more advanced culture than her own. She would have expected them to build with newer materials and in a different style. Yet the structure on the spit of cliff jutting out into the sea looked like a fortress from her world.
She felt safer down beside the water, even though the coastline was rocky and difficult to negotiate. She didn't want to get too far from the sea, in case Rin came back for her.
Stop that. He's injured, maybe dying. He can't come back for you.
She heard something approaching long before she understood what was happening. A distant droning that she could not identify. As she withdrew into the shelter of a large boulder, the sound resolved into a rhythmic whop-whop. Then she saw a dark shape in the sky. The darkling? She cowered behind the wet rock. Would it be able to see or smell her?
But no, it wasn't a darkling. The sound was mechanical. As she stared out to sea, she saw the shape more clearly. It hung suspended in the sky, flying without flapping any wings. It moved along the shoreline, heading in the same direction she was moving, but much more rapidly.
What in Karth's name?
Whatever the thing was, it was not alive. There might be people inside it, though. Sweet Mother, guide me, she prayed silently. Her scant knowledge of Gaia did not run to flying boats. If people could take to the air in machines here, they wouldn't have much use for a Traveler of Zanovar, who swam rapidly from one place to another with a sea dragon or flew through the air with a mammoth eagle.
When the flying thing disappeared in the distance, Ariane ventured out from behind her rock. She was shivering. She needed shelter from the chilly wind. She had to get to that village. Even if she couldn't find anybody willing to help her, she hoped she could at least steal some food, water, and suitable attire.
She knew how to do this.
Somehow or other, she would manage.
.
* * *
Colin was pondering what to do next when he heard the helicopter.
Damn Cam. Bringing out the heavy artillery. Colin had expected him to send his wolves.
He wasn't sure what the fuck was going on with Cam. Lately his older brother had been more difficult than ever. Even at Ross's wedding, when everyone else had been having a fine time, Cam had seemed brusque and preoccupied. Ross had hinted that his twin had had some sort of unhappy love affair, but Colin didn't believe it for a moment. The prick was incapable of falling in love.
He knew his brother had a tough and important job. As head of the Council, it was Cam who was ultimately responsible for patrolling the Barrier. If there were incursions, Cam was usually the one who tracked them down and dealt with them. By whatever method he saw fit.
It wasn't the woman that the helicopter was after, Colin realized as he watched them searching offshore. They were looking for the creature. They might not even know yet that the sea dragon had brought a human through.
Alien or no, this girl was in need of assistance. She must be freezing. Her beautiful long hair was shiny with wetness from the cold sea. That garment she was wearing might help her retain some of her body heat, but not indefinitely.
She would have to be questioned. If Cam could snatch her, he would carry her off to his compound of horrors and do it there. Colin had once seen his brother conduct an interrogation. He had a strong stomach, but it wasn't something he wanted to observe again.
No, now that the posse had arrived, there was only one solution. Colin had to take her back to Mallochbirn. As laird of the region and head of the Malloch clan, Ross could overrule Cam. And Ross had a heart where his ruthless twin had naught but an icy stone.
But first, he needed to find her.
Colin had shifted back to human form and come ashore near the headland where he had seen her standing. She was no longer there. He stood still to concentrate, trying to get a bead on her. His human senses were not as good as his sea dragon's. He considered shifting to his wolf form so he could track her swiftly, but shifting took magical energy that he might need later.
He wished he'd been able to locate her sea dragon. Hopefully none of the ords would find the body. If they did, things could get messy fast. As far as anyone outside the shifter community knew, there was no such species of sea creature alive today, and sea dragons did not figure in Earth's evolutionary record.
It would be like finding a unicorn or a centaur. The last thing they needed at Mallochbirn was a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists or paranormal weirdoes claiming to have discovered a mythical creature.
Colin liked to think of himself as a pragmatic man. You couldn't control everything, so you did what you could. He could do nothing right now about the creature. But he could deal with the woman.
And he had better do it fast, before anyone else found her. She would not be likely to fare well with either Cam or the ords.
When he'd gone back to human form, he'd lost her scent. Damn human noses—they were bloody inferior. He needed his wolf. Using a small amount of energy, he did a minor shift—just a bit of the forebrain where the nasal receptors were. There. Oh aye. Now he had her.
Rich, hot female musk flowed along the shore toward him. She was down near the water now, among the rocks, moving toward the crag that marked the far end of the little cove.
Her spicy scent made his blood pound. He wasn't sure what was so alluring about it, but he was almost glad to be hunting her. He was a predator, after all—both in his sea dragon and his more common wolf form.
She had concealed herself, but she would not be able to hide from him for long. If she ran, he would catch her. If she hid, he would sniff her out. He moved more quickly toward her position, still maintaining his human form except for the accentuated canine senses.
There was a kind of joy about hunting her. Something primitive that he couldn't account for. She was a Traveler of Zanovar. In her world, the Travelers were revered. Demi-godlike, if he could rely on what he had heard during his excursions there.
With the help of books he had smuggled back through the Barrier in a waterproof casing, Colin had learned to speak a language they called the Common Tongue. It was spoken everywhere among educated peoples, as Latin had been during the Middle Ages on Earth. It was also popular among seamen and commoners in port cities, which had been the chief places he had visited in the other world. So he'd had plenty of opportunity to practice.
He ought to be able to communicate with the Traveler. Once he captured her.
He did not know what to expect when he approached her, though. Would she be armed? Was she capable of some sort of magical defense? Travelers were seen by the commoners he'd met in Dunya as immensely gifted and powerful. Magical beings. They could fly over mountains and swim beneath the sea in a world where mass transit and communications had not yet been conceived of.
His nostrils caught the sharp unmistakable female sweat.
Her.
She was moving. But not quickly. If she had been in the water, she must be cold, and that was probably slowing her down.
If Colin had not been accustomed to hunting in his wolf form, he might have been ashamed of the rush of lust that fired him at the thought of her being too weak to evade him. Hunting was deep instinctual behavior, born of the need to survive, eat, mate, and pass down one's genes before being hunted and killed by some other predator. It was natural. Not something to regret or chastise oneself for.
There. Not far from the shoreline was a promontory with a scattering of large boulders at its base, as if a giant had dropped a fistful of stones from above. She had concealed herself among these.
He wasn't sure if she had sensed his pursuit or if she was just being cautious. He reminded himself that he must be cautious, too, since he did not know what surprises she might have in store for him. But from everything he had heard, a Traveler marooned without the large, wild creature she controlled was missing her most fearsome and powerful weapon.
He almost had her.
Damn, his blood was hot. He was going to find her and take her down.