Claiming the Prince: Book One (30 page)

His hand slid away from her. “You’re defending him.”

“No. I’m saying there are always two sides to a story, usually more. What your father did to you was wrong—”

“He’s not my father—”

“But you’re making the same mistake he did,” she pressed on. “Don’t you see that? The same mistake that Endreas is making—”

His voice was flint-edged. “I didn’t realize Endreas was capable of mistakes.”

Her forefinger flew up. Her wolf blade snapped out, skimming the air in front of his lips. “Don’t do that. That’s not fair. There’s nothing I can do to stop how I feel or to stop you from prying into my heart. But since you can, you know that I left him. And I have no intention of returning.”

“But you want to,” he said darkly.

“But I won’t.”

“So you say.”

She drew her blade back. “I told Ouda I would protect her forest and all the small folk in it. Endreas’s idea of peace is eliminating everyone who has defied his family or broken their laws.”

“He told you that?”

“He didn’t have to.”

His eyes fell between them. “And what if he changes his mind?”

She frowned. “Changes his mind?”

“What if he decides he would rather just be with you and that he doesn’t care about retribution? What if he agrees to do whatever you wanted? If he lets you rule as you see fit?”

“That would never happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because he’s not going to change, not for . . .”

“Not for you?”

She snorted, shaking her head. “You really don’t understand what it means to be a Prince or a Rae. It’s not love, Kaelan. I guess I can see how you could get the two confused. We’re drawn to each other because we’re stronger that way. We have a better chance of survival. And because it’s necessary in order to maintain power over the families. Love has nothing to do with it.”

“And how would you know?” he asked.

“I just—”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“I—” She ground her teeth. “That’s not the point.”

“It’s exactly the point, Magda. Would you be able to tell the difference between love and your instincts as Rae?”

She shook her head and pushed up to her feet. “We should eat. We need to leave.”

He stood up too. “Magda, I’m just worried.”

“About what? That I’m in love with Endreas?”

“Are you?”

“Didn’t I already answer that question?”

“It’s dangerous, Magda,” he said.

“I know he’s dangerous—”

“
Love
is dangerous. That’s what you don’t understand. It
does
change you. And it makes you do things you didn’t think you would do, that you didn’t even know you were capable of. It’s about strength and survival and power, just like you said. It makes you stronger. It makes you feel like you need it to survive. And it makes you feel more powerful than you were when you were by yourself. So I’m not at all certain that you would know the difference. And that’s what’s dangerous about this, Magda.”

The strength of his emotions was dizzying, even from a distance. So much of it was sadness still, pain from what he’d lost, but the rest—the focused heat of it, like the summer sun through a magnifying glass—sent a quiver through her heart, a held-breath tremble, out and over her skin.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s like to feel what you feel for Honey. I’ve never allowed myself to trust anyone that much. I’m not sure I’d know how.” She sighed and started up the slope. “But that’s probably all for the best—”

A rustle of leaf litter across the stream stopped her midway. From the trees, Hero bolted towards them and bounded over the rocks of the stream, racing up her leg and onto the back of her neck, planting his feet on the top of her head.

“
Look!
”

He dropped over to her shoulder as her head cocked back.

“What is it?” Kaelan asked.

She shaded her eyes, searching the clouds that were fading from pink to white as the sun climbed higher. But she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Her heart drummed in her ears, and that’s when she realized the birds had fallen silent. Never a good sign.

She unleashed her knives. “We have to go.”

He nodded and hurried up the hill. She backed up after him, still scanning the trees. Nothing moved. The only sound, water rushing over stone.

Hero remained burrowed under her collar, digging in his claws.

As she turned to follow Kaelan, she was about to question Hero, but the crash of leaves and the snap of branches drew her attention back across the stream.

She spun as a beast dove down at her, breaking through the tops of the trees, burying her in its shadow. All she could see was a human-like face, a female, with a monstrous mouth full of many jagged teeth.

Diving, she rolled down the hill as the creature—leathery wings beating against the air—slammed into the ground where she’d stood, burying its lion-like claws into the earth.

Digging her daggers into the ground, she stopped her descent. Hero took the opportunity to flee.

Before she could pull herself upright, the beast’s scaled tail whipped around.

Magda pitched herself aside as a venomous stinger the size of her forearm pierced the earth, sending up a spray of dirt that could’ve easily been Magda’s flesh and blood.

She scrambled to her feet, daggers out, panting.

The beast turned her human face towards Magda, bearing numerous rows of razor-edged shark teeth.

“Pixie Rae,” the manticore said with a lashing, forked tongue. “His Majesty sends his regards.”

Just then Damion launched from the top of the slope, driving one sword down through the manticore’s shoulders and then hacking off the stinger with the other. He lit from her, swords dripping with blood, landing poised and on guard next to Magda.

The manticore hadn’t been given a chance to defend herself. She collapsed with a ground trembling thud, blood running over her fur and down her crumpled wings.

Honey and Kaelan stood above, gawping. Gur joined them, surveying the scene with impassive brown lion eyes.

Damion lowered his rear sword and frowned. “Just cleaned this.”

“That was amazing,” Honey breathed.

Damion lifted a shoulder. “Actually—”

Magda put her daggers away and charged up the hill. “We have to go—”

More branches cracking.

Magda turned again.

An Elf, a woman with silvery-blond hair and deep green eyes, emerged from the woods riding on the back of another manticore. Two more flanked her.

She flashed a deadly smile. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

M
AGDA CHARGED
at Honey. “Go!”

Honey nodded and raced away, whistling for Anqa.

Magda seized Kaelan’s arm. “There’s an old fortress on the peninsula, high on the cliffs, the tower still stands. Crane-on-the-Rocks. If we don’t meet you there in two days . . . don’t wait any longer.”

Down at the stream, Damion planted his feet.

“Hello,” he said casually to the Elf. “Who might you be?”

“You just murdered a member of an endangered race and one of the King’s Pride. The penalty for both crimes is death,” the Elf told him.

Kaelan gripped Magda’s arm. “I can help you.”

“No arguing—”

Before she could pull away, he drew her back into the Shadow Realms. They reemerged behind the Elf and her attendant manticores.

“He didn’t—” the Elf was saying. She whipped around as Magda and Kaelan reappeared, her eyes narrowing at them. “There!”

Magda shoved Kaelan away. “Go!”

She leapt towards one of the towering hemlocks, using her daggers to skitter up the tree’s trunk.

High overhead, Anqa shrieked. Her shadow blotted out the light between the tree branches.

Damion seized the distraction and attacked. Before he could reach the Elf, one of the flanking manticores headed him off. Swiping at him first with her claw, the manticore’s stinger curled up over her shoulder and lunged at him.

The second manticore took flight, lofting up to follow Magda, who finally reached the lowest branch of the tree, fifteen feet above the ground.

“Take her alive!” the Elf ordered from below.

“Like hell,” Magda muttered, leaping down and slamming onto the manticore’s back, plunging the spear of her dragon blades into the beast’s shoulder.

Flailing and screaming, the manticore fell.

Magda tumbled away as they crashed. Its stinger smashed into the ground inches from her nose as the manticore thrashed to right itself.

Magda whipped her wolf blade up and around, slicing through the manticore’s tail as she rolled over onto her stomach and then pushed up to her feet.

A roar of agony, a half-human, half-lion sound, erupted from the manticore as her tail flew upwards, spurting blood, while the stinger remained lodged in the ground.

Blood flowed down the manticore’s side. Magda’s initial shoulder strike had been off target, wounding but not deadly.

As soon as Magda was on her feet, she sighted the arrow nocked in the Elf’s bow. At that moment, a swirl of shadow swept around the Elf. Her manticore’s tail swiped at it. The Elf released her arrow just before she was swallowed by the black miasma.

Magda dodged the arrow, but threw herself in the wrong direction, towards the injured manticore.

The stinger-less beast thrust back her wing, which sported fang-like barbs, and jabbed Magda just above the shoulder blade.

Magda screamed and stumbled. The pain quickly turned from sharp to searing, staggering her, but she kept her legs.

Gur roared, barreling out of the sky and onto the stinger-less manticore, tearing into its throat.

Damion and the manticore he’d been fighting were nowhere to be seen.

The last had been stripped of her Elf and was circling, searching for her mistress.

Behind Magda, an
oomph
.

Twisting, her teeth clenched against the pain, she saw the Elf reappear from the Shadow Realms with Kaelan, his sword at her throat.

“Call them off,” he said to the Elf. His face was pale and sheeted with sweat.

“It’s too late for that,” the Elf said, “Brother.”

The ground quaked. The leaves and needles on the trees trembled.

Kaelan yanked the Elf’s head back. “I’m not your brother.”

“Then why did our father send me to kill you?” she asked through her teeth.

Gur leapt from the fallen manticore and roared at the riderless one, who was side-prancing anxiously, watching Kaelan and the Elf who claimed to be the King’s daughter.

“My name is Ilene,” the Elf went on, “and I believe, based on the slowing rate of your pulse and the clamminess of your skin, that manticore venom is now working its way through you. And so you shall soon be dead, and I will have completed my mission.”

She grabbed Kaelan’s wrist, flipping him over her shoulder and onto his back.

Magda surged forward, leaping over Kaelan. Tucking one leg, she twisted, kicking out. Her heel cracked against Ilene’s temple.

The Elf’s head smacked against the tree behind her. She crumpled to the ground unconscious.

Magda landed, panting and cursing, blood thudding through her, sheeting her throbbing shoulder.

Kaelan rolled over and tried to push up, but collapsed. A bloody wound showed across his back. He had been stung.

The last remaining manticore screamed, rearing up.

Gur lunged, jaw latching around the manticore’s throat, throwing it to the ground.

“Wait!” Magda hollered. “Don’t kill it!”

Damion barreled into the trees, covered in blood, though it didn’t appear to be his.

Gur held the manticore pinned to the ground. It thrashed, tail whipping wildly.

Magda plowed to her knees next to the manticore’s human face, pointing her dragon spear at the creature’s temple.

“Be still,” she ordered.

The manticore’s jaw snapped, but its body settled.

“Is there a cure?” Magda demanded breathlessly.

The manticore laughed, tongue flicking through the spikes of her teeth.

“Tell me.”

“No cure,” the manticore purred, blood bubbling up through her lips.

Magda’s throat constricted, her heart seized.

She thrust her dragon spear into the manticore’s temple. It jerked and twitched and then went limp.

Anqa fluttered down over the stream. A moment later, Honey appeared next to Damion.

Gur released the manticore’s throat. Magda leaned on his shoulder as she pushed up to her feet and returned to Kaelan.

She eased him over. His skin was chill, his lips violet and trembling, his eyes filming with haze.

His quaking hand groped for hers. “Magda . . .”

She clasped his hand, touching his hair lightly.

Honey dropped down next to them. “What’s happened?” she asked.

“Manticore venom,” Damion pronounced, remaining at a distance, blood drying in smears on his face.

“Is he dying?” Honey’s eyes remained as glassy blank as ever.

The bones of Magda’s chest felt as if they were turning brittle, collapsing. She bowed her head, unable to speak as Kaelan’s pain plied her empathic senses.