There had been a time when Pax had been gentle with this woman, when he’d laid her upon fur skins and touched her with some tenderness. Tonight he showed her none. He was not gentle. Linara was a demon, not a fragile woman. She did not need or deserve tenderness.

It was not as though it was in his nature to care.

She fed on him, and he gladly gave her what she needed. He fed on her, too, in a way he had never expected.

He fucked her on the rocky ground, with no fur rug, with no pretense. This was the only dance they would ever know, a meeting of bodies in need, a joining in search of physical pleasure and blessed release.

Linara was nothing more to him, no matter what she said, no matter that she insisted she’d been trying to protect him when she’d brought him down. She’d wounded him to save her mother, who was probably a demon as dark and heartless as she.

Tonight as she found release she parted her lips to scream as she had the last time he’d lain with her. That sound had called the Caradon upon them. He clamped his mouth to hers and smothered her scream. He pressed her into the ground as she convulsed around him, and then he found his release.

He did not scream; he did not make a sound, other than a low growl which would alarm no one.

For a moment, Linara looked vulnerable. Her expression softened; her eyes widened. Then she hardened those eyes and placed a steady hand on his cheek. “Come with me to the valley,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“You said you wanted to kill Stasio.”

“I don’t need you to do that.”

He rolled away from her, still feeling her around him, still smelling her on his skin. He needed to bathe, but there was no pond nearby. A good hard rainstorm would do, he supposed, but the skies were clear.

As he looked up, clouds rolled in. Moments later, a hard rain fell, soaking him and Linara. He looked at her accusingly and shouted to be heard above the hard rain.

“Get out of my head!”

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Linara sat a few feet away, naked and soaking wet, vulnerable and powerful.

“I killed a man,” she said, her voice so low a human might’ve missed the meaning. “He was one of the Caradon who attacked us, and he…he had ill intentions.”

She did not describe these ill intentions, but he could imagine. He should not feel anger toward the shifter, but he did. He pushed that reaction down, rejected it. “Then he deserved to die.”

“Perhaps he did, but I still felt a stain on my soul as I fed on him.” She shook her wet head, and at last her voice rose to a normal level. “I can’t embrace the darkness and survive. I…I can’t.”

Pax growled. “You want me to accompany you off this mountain and into the valley because you need me to feed you.” First anger, now disappointment. He needed to get away from this woman as soon as possible.

“Yes. I need you until I reach my mother and she can provide another amulet that will end my demon hunger.”

“An amulet,” he repeated.

“Yes. I had one, but I…I threw it away. I thought it had become a crutch, but it was not. It was a precious gift.”

She could do anything. Heal. Hurt. Bring rain when there should be none. And then end that rain in a heartbeat. Why couldn’t she…

“I tried to make a replacement. For days, I tried. I can’t. I don’t have the right magic.”

“Get out of my head,” he said again.

“I would if I could,” she snapped. She jumped to her feet, all pale skin and wet hair and gentle strength.

She had great breasts…

He turned his thoughts to other things.

“There might be another way, a witch…” She stopped speaking, pursed her lips. “But I don’t even know if that will work, or where this witch is, or…but none of that matters. You are here now. You are the only way.” Her expression changed, as she left behind all doubts, all softness. “You will need clothes,” she snapped. “The trousers and shirt of the Caradon I killed are south of here. They’re a bit dusty, and I don’t think they’ll fit well, but I suppose they’ll do until we can find you something more appropriate.”

“I won’t wear any stinking Caradon…”

“Fine,” she snapped. “Wear this.” She threw her soaking wet white shift to him. It landed in his lap with a cool slap of the thin fabric.

Pax peeled the shift away and tossed it aside.

Maybe the clothes of a stinking Caradon wouldn’t be so bad after all.

* * *

Cyrus sat away from the fire, not because he didn’t want its warmth, but because the closer he got to Val, the harder General Merin glared at him.

The fake General Merin, the one Val had beheaded, had on occasion tossed what Cyrus now knew to be an obligatory fatherly stare his way. If he had ever before been on the receiving end of this, he would have known in an instant that the man they’d met on the trail was an impostor.

The stare of a demon had not made Cyrus cringe the way this one did.

It was natural, he supposed, for a father to be protective of his daughter. How could he assure the general that he had no ill intentions toward Val? He only wanted to help her. That’s all he had ever wanted.

Well, for now.

Cyrus had spent most of his life dreaming of things to come. The leather scabbard he’d fashioned for Kitty was only one of those things. The dreams didn’t come every night. They didn’t even come every year. But they did come.

He’d never spoken of the prophetic dreams to his family. His mother was distrustful of magic of any kind, and he didn’t want to upset her needlessly. His father wasn’t afraid of witches and wizards, but he was a down-to-earth man who worked the land and cared for nothing else but that land and his family.

So Cyrus kept his dreams to himself. He had acted on occasion, in a surreptitious manner. He’d faked an illness once to keep his mother away from the market where she would have fallen and hurt her hip. That fall would’ve left her with a limp, and constant pain, for the rest of her life. He’d tossed out the roasted meat that would have made the entire family sick. His mother had been furious, but he’d taken his punishment and kept the secret she did not want to know.

There had been no momentous dreams. He was not meant to save the world as Val was.

He liked her. She was prettier than a warrior should be, as well as younger. She fussed about her hair now and then, but he liked it. Her hair was dark and wild and curly, and there was a lot of it.

A few years after the war was done, if they both survived, he was going to marry her.

No wonder General Merin glared.

Cyrus slept, but he did not sleep well. He dreamed.

The sun rose. To the north, the mountains seemed closer than ever before. In a few days, they’d be there. Soon, Val’s part in it all would begin.

Val was readying her horse when General Merin approached Cyrus with his scowl in place. “You should go home, boy. No matter what my daughter says, you’re not a soldier.”

Like daughter, like father.

It would be easy to nod and go. Back to the farm, back to his family.

“My apologies, sir, but I can’t do that.”

His hands curled into fists. “Why not?”

“Val needs me.”

“I’m here now.”

“You need me, too. Sir,” he added belatedly.

“I assure you…”

Cyrus pointed toward the mountains. “Before you reach the foothills, you will be attacked by an army of demons. Women your men will hesitate to kill, because to their eyes they will initially appear to be ordinary females, like their wives and daughters. I assure you, they are anything but ordinary.”

The general’s jaw clenched, and then he asked, with rancor, “How can you possibly know this?”

All his life, Cyrus had hidden his ability. He had not even told Val everything. Perhaps it was time he trusted someone. “I dreamed of it last night.”

“A dream…”

“As I dreamed of Kitty’s scabbard. As I dreamed of a danger to my mother I was able to avert.” He fisted his hands in frustration. No, he would not tell General Merin that he had dreamed of a fully grown Valora Merin as his wife. There was more than one way to die in this war. “As I have dreamed of events to come all my life.”

Val’s father narrowed his eyes, more suspicious than angry. “If you are some wizard, why didn’t your dreams tell you that Uryen was impersonating me?”

Cyrus felt a blush heat his cheeks. Wizard? No, it couldn’t be that. It would be too much to grasp. He just had a gift, that’s all. He did not want to be a wizard, did not wish ever to be a seer people sought out for answers to fix their lives. It would be too much responsibility, a burden. Gods, he did not want to show his emotions to the general! He forced himself to take a long, deep breath before explaining. “The dreams come to me. I do not choose. I never have.”

General Merin was a man accustomed to the ways of magic. He would know and accept that there were no rules.

After a too long and somewhat uncomfortable silence, General Merin nodded once and said, “You can remain with us, if you choose.”

Cyrus choked on the words, “Thank you, sir.” He was glad of the acceptance, no matter how unwilling it might be. No matter what Val’s father said, he wasn’t going anywhere.

* * *

Naturally, Naal’s clothes did not fit Pax well. Linara looked him up and down. Naal had not been a thin man, but he’d not been near Pax’s size. The pants had split, here and there, and the shirt fit no better.

“We’ll find you more suitable clothing further down this path,” she said.

Pax snorted. “Are you going to suck the life out of a larger man, or is there a market I know nothing about in a cave around the next corner?”

There was no need for him to be so harsh. His voice was caustic. Angry. He had not forgiven her for cutting him with the sword he carried. A weapon he kept close, now.

“I don’t want to kill again,” she said.

“But that doesn’t mean you won’t.”

Her anger rushed to the surface. “This is war. How many have you killed?”

His face was stony; his eyes went darker than usual. “I have done my best to avoid your war. A mere handful of invaders have tasted my fire.”

If Pax had enjoyed killing, if he had been a man of war, he would have left this mountain long ago and thrown himself into battle.

He had hidden here much as she had hidden in Stasio’s shadow. The time had come for both of them to choose. To fight.

“We’re only a day or two from the foothills,” she said in a calmer voice. “There are isolated farms not far south. We will make do.”

“I have stolen clothing before,” he said. “Sometimes it is necessary.”

She could imagine. The dragon could fly long distances in a short period, and she had not seen the beast with any pack on its back or tied to a leg. She could not even imagine how he might make that work. Of course, he had stolen clothing!

“After I am clothed to your satisfaction, what’s the plan?”

“We’re going to travel to the village where I once lived, and we’ll kill Stasio.” She didn’t mention the witch who might strip away the demonic part of herself. Why? She didn’t know if Lyssa was alive, if she was anywhere near, or if she would do what Linara desired. Could she be just a woman? It was almost too much to hope for. She could not let herself even imagine.

At the mention of Stasio, Pax turned his anger from her. She could almost see his emotions shift. “I’ll end that one myself. Even the toughest of wizards can burn.”

“He will see you coming. He will be prepared.”

Pax stared at her. “So will I.”