Drink of Me (2 page)

“Abak tu mefritt,”
he hissed.

Death to my enemy.
Rye spat the battle cry just before plunging deep and with so much rage-filled power that the blade went clean through and was embedded in the wood of the floor. He left it like that and leapt to his feet before the Jakal’s blood could touch him. He spat on his victim in obvious contempt.

Reule felt every moment of both the death and the victory, but it was the last minutes of suffering that he passed on. He broke out in a drenching sweat, every last muscle in his taut, powerful body shuddering as he closed himself off from being dragged into the dark of oblivion along with the dying Jakal. Instead he forced himself to magnify the last pulses, the last breaths, and the last horrified thoughts of the Jakals’ kin as he drilled it all into the entire group of them. The effect was so potent that Reule was aware of even his mentally guarded Packmates staggering back from his onslaught. But he couldn’t gear back the intensity of it. They would be all right, he reassured himself, so long as they weren’t his direct targets.

His direct targets, however, were not so fortunate. Reule strove for total incapacitation, but he got much more. All six Jakals tumbled to the floor, some landing on their knees, others flat on their backs or faces. They all began to seize violently, clawing at their throats as though a wicked blue blade had pinned them to the floor. Some coughed up blood, others gasped out strangled breaths.

Then, with a communal, convulsive sigh, each exhaled one last breath.

Reule felt the group of target minds shut down all at once and there was an instant whiplash effect, impacting him physically so that he fell back as if he’d been playing tug-of-war and the other team had suddenly let go. Darcio caught him, but Reule was no lightweight, his build thick with a warrior’s muscle and his height stretching to over six feet. Darcio was determined, however, to at least keep his Packleader from landing in an undignified heap, easing him to the floor.

The death was gone, purged from Reule’s mind with the break in his concentration, although the metallic ghost of it would cling to him for a long time to come. Darcio knelt on a single knee beside him, steadying him even though he sat, a disturbed furrow creasing his brow.

Darcio had every right to be concerned. The Packmates had seen Reule do some pretty amazing things over time, had even come to expect to be amazed regularly by the sheer potency of their leader’s unique power, but never had Darcio seen any one man strike such a devastating blow to an enemy at six-to-one odds. The Jakals weren’t just comatose, they were
dead
. Dead by the power of Reule’s thoughts. Darcio felt the heavy silence of the Pack, only the captive Chayne making noise as he rasped for breath. Otherwise, the Pack guarded their thoughts from Reule. However, because they were Pack, Reule would be aware of their collective discomfort.

It wasn’t his Pack’s disturbance that struck Reule’s weakened mental defenses, though. His mind was now stripped of the strength to defend itself, and that allowed the desperate sorrow to bombard him again. Reule had also carefully blocked out Chayne’s agony and humiliation so it wouldn’t interfere with his concentration. Now it washed over him in burning waves, clearly differentiating itself from the sadness that swirled around him. No, it wasn’t his suffering Packmate that Reule felt in deep, assailing eddies. There was another, and whoever it was had to be close.

“Reule, don’t do it,” Darcio warned him, now free to exchange thoughts with him as Reule’s mental walls lay crumbled. “It could be a trap. You will end up like them.” Darcio flicked a hand at the pile of dead Jakals.

“No,” Reule rasped as he struggled to regain his balance and physical coordination. “This is something else. Someone is in pain.”

“It’s no concern of ours,” Darcio said softly, his worry coming through despite his attempts to be coldhearted. Reule knew Darcio well. His Packmate had one concern in all the world, and that was Reule’s safety and well-being.

“Darcio, if it were you, would you appreciate others turning their backs on you and abandoning you to your fate? She is close. In this house, I believe.” Reule stopped suddenly, realizing that he was right. What he felt originated from a female. Strange he should know that. Stranger still that he could sense only this tide of one particular feeling, but no others. No thoughts, nothing to identify her, just…sadness.

“You see?” his companion persisted. “Even your own mind tells you that something is wrong about this.”

Reule frowned irritably, disliking the defenselessness of his mind, which allowed Darcio to read his every thought. He struggled to erect even the slightest of barriers against the intrusion, a filter at the very least. To his surprise he got a monumental wall of protection. It was so strong and abrupt that he felt Darcio stiffen with shock as he was booted out of Reule’s mind with perfunctory force. Reule quickly reached up to grasp his friend’s shoulder, giving it an apologetic squeeze.

“Your advice is always valued, Darcio. Remember that. But I will act in accord with my instincts on this.” The gesture of camaraderie seemed to ease the other male’s bruised feelings, and Darcio reached to help haul Reule to his feet. No easy task that, Reule weighing several stones more than the leaner man. Within moments, though, he felt Rye under his other arm helping to steady him.

“Chayne?” he asked.

“We won’t know until we get him back home. The apothecary will tell us the whole of it,” Rye said softly.

“Go, help Delano with Chayne. I’m well enough,” he instructed Rye. To prove the point, he took his weight onto his own two feet and pushed Rye away with a guiding hand. Rye hesitated only a moment before nodding and moving away to do as his Packleader commanded.

Feeling increasingly steady, Reule directed his focus away from the fearful, paralyzed Jakals that yet remained alive, and the noisy thoughts of his Packmates. It wasn’t hard to home in on the sorrow. Adjusting his vision once more to detect heated shapes, he scanned the house more slowly. He was in the center of the structure, one floor above him and one below. Wherever she was, she was close. He might have mistaken her for a Jakal in his first scan, but it was clear from the depth of her emotion that she couldn’t be.

Yet nothing stood upright in the house save his Pack. He looked up once more and realized there was another floor above the third. And there, up in the farthest corner, he spied a small ball of the dimmest heat.

“Darcio, did you encounter anyone upstairs?”

“No, My Prime. I only sought the one stray you noted.”

“Then this is the female I’m sensing. Lord and Lady, but she has strong emotions,” he marveled as he stepped over an incapacitated Jakal.

“One emotion, My Prime. One bound to attract a man of good conscience,” Darcio said suspiciously. “It’s magnified just as you magnified death to the Jakals. What manner of creature can do that besides yourself?”
And even Reule shouldn’t be able to do such a thing
, he thought.
No man should hold death in the power of his
thoughts.
Reule had always been fair and just with his power, but things like this had a way of changing a man. Even a Prime.

“You’re mistaken,” Reule said as he moved with increasing sureness out of the room. “There is no magnification. It’s…pure.” The word kept springing to his mind. He decided it suited and left it at that. Darcio didn’t say anything, but Reule could feel him repressing arguments because he didn’t want to contradict his Prime again. Darcio was a good man, ever his voice of caution and conscience, always advising him to consider carefully. Reule valued him beyond measure, and he made certain the thought made it through to Darcio before they took off up the stairs together.

They made it to the third floor of the ramshackle building, clearly abandoned long ago. The roof had leaked and the ceiling was rotted through, as was the wooden floor they now negotiated. Reule and Darcio took care with every step as they edged toward another stairwell, this one narrow and stinking of must and mildew. Gypsy Jakals were always roaming the lands, scavenging and causing trouble, squatting wherever they could. This band had been around long enough to make this hovel a home. Homey enough to bolt a chair in a central parlor for the purpose of torture. It meant they’d been there for some time. Reule would never have known it if Chayne hadn’t accidentally stumbled into capture during their hunting trip.

Reule tested the narrow little attic stairs and wondered how anyone could be up in the garret. Getting there seemed a dangerous task. Then again, it was its own sort of prison.

He made his way to the head of the small stairs, Darcio his ever-present Shadow as he pushed open a heavy, stubborn door. He was instantly confronted with a chasm of missing flooring. A wide section had rotted out. Reule and Darcio could see straight down to the story they’d just left.

“You’re lucky these stairs even held,” Darcio muttered as Reule entered the room one careful sidestep after another. His Packmate was right. The hole in the floor came to within a mere foot of the door and stairwell.

And of course his target was all the way on the opposite side. Even though it was all one large room, he still couldn’t see her. There was a crowd of crates blocking his view of her, though he could still sense her dim heat.

“I’d really like to know how she got over there,” Reule said in honest curiosity. Darcio nodded his agreement as they tried to plot the best course of action.

“I should go. I’m lighter. Less chance of the floor giving way.”

Good point, but Reule didn’t want to relinquish the task, for some reason. Her pain was so bittersweet, beautiful merely by virtue of its purity and depth. Logic reasoned that anyone who could feel pain so deeply was used to accommodating its antithesis. Reule only hoped that pain wasn’t all she
could
feel after this.

“No,” he responded after a moment. “There’s a strip along the wall that looks sturdy enough even for me. Since this is my folly, I might as well be the one to risk breaking my neck.”

“My Prime,” Darcio protested.

“It’s a joke, Shadow. Take ease.”

“I will once we’re out of this dangerous hellhole,” Darcio countered sullenly.

Reule turned away to hide a smile. Leave it to Darcio to take all the fun out of an adventure. Still, he wasn’t swayed so easily. His blood rushed with adrenaline as he negotiated wet, creaking boards that were maybe days or even minutes from rotting away completely. He tried not to touch the dank, mildewed wall running next to him as he went. Some molds in the damplands were poisonous or ate flesh. An ominous crack sounded through the room, and Reule abruptly realized exactly how unstable the entire building was. The Jakals were insane to risk staying in such a place. If the floor inside was rotted, he could just imagine the state of the roof above them. He glanced back at Darcio and they exchanged a mutual understanding that they needed to get out as soon as possible. If nothing else, they were agreed on that.

Reule exhaled carefully when he reached the other side of the gaping hole, unwilling to relax so long as he stood on water-stained boards. He gingerly made his way over to the boxed crates and peered into the dark corner behind them.

The only thing he could see was the palest little hand. His heart skipped a beat as he realized that this was probably a child. A renewed sense of rage flooded him and he began to think of the Jakals left alive on the lower floors. When he left this property not a one of them would be left breathing, he vowed to himself fiercely. They had feasted on their very last victims.

Very carefully, Reule grabbed one of the crates and slid it aside a little. The frightening creak of the protesting floor halted him instantly.

“To hell,” he muttered, planting both hands on another crate and effortlessly leaping over its four-foot height as if it were nothing. His feet hit the only clear piece of flooring available without landing on the girl. He heard Darcio curse baldly when his weight met protesting floorboards.

Reule ignored him and squatted down to better see her through the darkness. He reached for her hand as he bent forward. Her pain had become like a repetitive tune singing through him, no longer reaching extreme highs or lows. It wasn’t that it weakened, only that he was adapting to the force of it.

Reule had no idea what he would find, but he certainly didn’t expect to feel a second hand spearing into his hair from the darkness to grip him with surprising strength and drag him down until his face was pressed against a baby-soft cheek that should have been warm, but was instead icy cold. A pair of lips, both rough and supple at once, rubbed over his ear as finally something warm, her breath, washed over him. The contrast gave him an involuntary chill, aided by the hoarseness of her voice when she whispered to him.

“Sánge, bautor mo.”

She went so suddenly limp that Reule almost didn’t catch her. Luckily, his supreme reflexes didn’t fail him and he quickly gathered her up against his warmth. Her entire body was like ice. Who knew how long she had lain there, shivering in the moldering cold? She was slightly bigger and heavier than he’d expected, but still as light as could be. She wasn’t a girl child, but perhaps a youngling on the cusp of womanhood. She was small and fragile in his arms, but there was no mistaking the press of soft breasts against his chest and the rounded curve of her hip as he slid his hand over her to catch up her legs. She wore some sort of nightgown or thin shift, but it was soaked with moisture and reeked of mildew.

Even in this total darkness, she had known what he was.

Sánge.

He’d shown no fangs, no claws, and other than his dusky skin, there was little to identify him. The Sánge weren’t the only ones with dark skin in this world, or even this region. There were the Opia, though they tended more toward a beautiful ebony, if they were purebred, that hid them in the night. Or the Gemin, who tanned so richly in the sultry summers. Besides, she couldn’t possibly see his skin in this darkness, he reasoned. How had she known he was Sánge and not any other?

She had known. There was no mistaking it. She had said it clearly.

What she had said afterward was too disturbing for him to contemplate while so precariously positioned with a vulnerable female to protect. He would examine the remark at a later time, for he was almost certain he’d misunderstood her.

Sánge, bautor mo.

Reule stood up, lifting her high against his chest, contemplating how to get her out of the crate enclosure without sending their joint weight crashing to the third floor.

“Hand her to me, My Prime.”

Reule looked out of the darkness and met the steady gray of his Shadow’s eyes. He should have known Darcio wouldn’t leave him for long. He was aptly titled Prime Shadow, and he was as dependable as the rising sun and the rotating moons. He was lighter and leaner than Reule, making him the better choice for carrying the girl. The combination of her weight and Darcio’s would just about equal Reule’s.

Despite Darcio’s verbal protests of earlier, and his equally doubtful thoughts, Reule trusted him to take the very best care of the girl. Darcio was loyal to him in such ways. Reule didn’t think twice about handing her over the crate to him. He saw Darcio wrinkle his nose at the smell of her, then catch a chill from the dreadful cold of her body. If there was one thing Sánge despised almost as much as Jakals, it was the cold.

“You go first; I’ll follow at a distance to keep our weight distributed far enough apart,” Reule instructed him.

Neither man breathed easily until they were safely on the second floor, though no spot under that rotting roof could really be considered safe. Reule quickly unburdened Darcio of the girl.

“Quickly, fetch the others out of here. Make fast work of the remaining Jakals. I want none to live. Had they left us alone, I might have felt differently, but this lot will pay for what they did to Chayne. The Lord and Lady only know what they have done to this girl as well. Go. Now. Before this monstrosity falls down around our ears. We will meet at the horses.”

Darcio didn’t even acknowledge his orders; he merely turned to carry them out. As he exited the abandoned building, Reule decided he would have it burned to the ground once the snows fell and no spark could harm the dry fields of autumn. Although the house was located in the damplands, surrounded by bogs and marshes, a freak wind could carry sparks for miles until they reached the drier plains. But the house must burn. It was a danger to anyone who entered it, and he wouldn’t rest easy until he knew the useless structure was safely laid to waste.

The blue moon was turning, the pale gold already gone for the night. Dawn wasn’t too far off. He wanted to get the Pack home before the next nightfall, safe behind huge walls of cement and a portcullis of steel. Home. Home to Jeth, the Sánge city, and the provincial lands under his protection.

Chayne had been under his protection, too, one of his Pack, and he’d allowed him to be lost for two days. Reule would have to face the dire consequences of that when they returned to Jeth. He fervently prayed it wouldn’t end in Chayne’s death. Chayne was a valuable hunter. As Tracker, he was the best they had. The storehouses and bellies of Jeth Keep much required his skills. His mother and sister depended on him greatly as well, since both were widowed. They were now his to care for, including his sister’s children. Those young ones revered Chayne. He was Packmate. Prime Tracker. A well-earned honor that placed him at the right hand of their Packleader. Every Jeth child should have such a man to look up to as he or she grew.

Though he could see Chayne’s family fed and sheltered should the worst occur, Reule couldn’t provide the other attention they would need. He wasn’t certain he could give anyone that. What Sánge Prime could? With a burgeoning province to rule, lawmaking, settling disputes, and routing out Jakals, who had the time to think about managing a household, never mind actually do it?

Darkly suffocating thoughts surrounding that topic carried him as he bore the chill of the autumn night and carried his charge to safety. At least, relative safety. By the time he reached the horses, she was even colder than when he’d first found her. She didn’t shiver, though, either because she was unconscious or because she was already too weak. He didn’t know. He didn’t like not knowing.

The horses nickered restlessly at his approach, stomping their thick hooves to express their unhappiness at standing so long in the cold. He approached Fit, his large dappled gray gelding, releasing the girl’s legs and supporting her along the length of his body as he reached for his saddlebags. Before he got the chance, though, he felt the hard butt of an equine head dead center in his back. He staggered and recovered his balance by leaning against the animal. He remained after a moment’s thought in order to use Fit’s heat to help warm the girl. Meanwhile, he turned to glare at the big brown eyes blinking at him in a way that was almost haughty.

“Behave yourself,” he commanded the beast. Fit’s response was a snort and a shake of his head that rattled his tack and clearly told Reule what he could go do with himself. Strange as it was in light of the past hour, the humor touched him and he chuckled softly against the girl’s head of tangled hair as he patted the animal’s shoulder hard, just the way he liked it.

Reule ignored another snort of disgust and was able to liberate a blanket from the saddlebags. He wrapped up his bundle in yet another attempt to warm her, keeping her close to his body and gritting his teeth against the chill of her as he buried her face against his neck beneath his hair. She was so light that he was able to swing up into his saddle while holding her; a swift, powerful movement. The gelding didn’t even take so much as a step in protest and Reule patted his shoulder again. He balanced his charge over the saddle in front of him, bracing her in position between his thighs and leaning on one arm. He reined Fit with one hand, turning the horse experimentally, testing the security of her position.

“All right, my friend,” he said to the animal, “now I need you to take us home.”

Reule finished the request with just the smallest influential mental push. Fit nodded before shaking out his reins and harness, his way of acknowledging the command and his willingness to perform…this time.

When the others finally appeared, Chayne was grunting animalistic sounds of repressed torment even though his Packmates carried him as gently as they were able. They’d bandaged him as best they could, but Reule could see that Delano and Rye were already covered in blood. They’d have to travel fast for the sake of both victims, but it would make the trip agonizing for Chayne.

Reule turned hard eyes onto Rye, who jerked up his head when his Prime’s message reached him and him alone. Rye braced himself as Reule turned his attention onto Chayne. He was gentler this time as he invaded Chayne’s weakened defenses and whispered the soft suggestion of sleep into his mind. He reinforced it just as gently, and the wounded man was ninety percent there when Reule brutally slammed his will down over the other Sánge’s and forced obliterating unconsciousness on him. He knew Chayne would despise having his choices taken from him, especially after he had struggled so long and hard to withstand the Jakals’ torture. However, a mere sleep suggestion would never have lasted. Chayne would have been jarred awake at the first rough pass.

Having the others believe he’d succumbed to exhaustion would be more acceptable in Chayne’s eyes than the knowledge that he’d been mentally manipulated by a stronger male, even if that male was his Prime. Reule had chosen Rye as the only other to be aware of what he was about to do because as the second strongest male in the Sánge people, he was the only one guaranteed to be able to keep his thoughts protected from all the others, including Chayne.

They were under way shortly, soft discussions between riders and their horses filling the predawn darkness as the golden moon faded. It was Delano who rode tandem with Chayne. Delano had by far the most powerful horse as well as the physical strength it would demand of him.

Luckily, the house had been at the leading edge of the damplands, so they slogged through mud and mire for only a short time before hitting the harder-packed ground of the plains. They rode quickly for the distant mountains.

All of this land was Reule’s province—the inhospitable damplands, the fertile flatlands, and the dense and dangerous forests that stretched endlessly behind the riders’ backs. It was all a wilderness, hostile and hazardous, but it belonged to him. Him and his Sánge people. Possessive and protective of it as he was, Reule still turned an impartial eye on any who risked traveling the perilous country. So long as they didn’t harm the land or the Sánge, travelers could pass or even hunt in peace. But the Jakals had abused his hospitality. Reule made a note to himself to check with Saber, his Prime Defender, about the patrols in the outer province. Once the snow fell, there would be no need, but until then…he wouldn’t tolerate his people being endangered by two-legged enemies if they could be controlled by vigilance. There were enough natural dangers in these lands without adding invaders.

Dawn drifted past, as did early and mid-morning, and their pace across the flatlands remained quick and steady. Neither patient stirred during the entire passage. It was just before noon when they entered the Jeth Valley and saw the walled Sánge city of Jeth rising up from its snug position against the Hattera Mountains. The mountain range was infamously impassable, though not so much so to those who dwelt in this valley. Nevertheless, the mountains discouraged marauders and those who weren’t easily cowed by the reputation of the Sánge. Only the Jakals regularly thought themselves superior warriors to the Sánge, and only the Jakals had ever tried to threaten Jeth or its outlying farmlands.

The Pack had been passing farms for the past hour, small wood and brick houses settled warm and snug in the midst of the bare fields, prepared for the coming cold of winter. Stubble from the harvested crops stuck up around them. Steel silos and granaries had been bursting from the excellent harvests, and now the last of the fall shipments were headed out for trade in other lands. The city’s coffers would burst afterward. Other breeds might loathe associating with the Sánge, but they’d always gladly trade gold for the precious grain the Jeth Sánge risked their lives to cultivate. So long as their money was good, the Sánge couldn’t care less what outlanders thought of them. The prejudice was the same all over, and there would never be anything they could do about it.

Reule watched the walls of his small city grow in majestic height as they drew nearer, feeling the familiar explosion of pride and satisfaction at what they’d made of this wild land. It was a home. A grand and productive home with contented people he was able to keep safe.
For the most part
, he thought grimly as he glanced at Chayne.

Perverted Jakal bastards. Their need to gorge on emotion made the Sánge ripe targets because of their emotional complexity as telepaths and empaths themselves. Reule’s people were almost universally reviled in the world outside of Sánge-controlled lands, but at least most breeds tolerated or were too afraid to make threats against them. They were also reluctant to go without the crucial grains that fed them. The Sánge had proved themselves to be the only ones hardy enough to survive in the wildernesses where the most valuable crops grew best. The canyons of the Gemin and the rainforests of the Opia had their own resources, of course, but neither was conducive to growing grain.

The Sánge had dangers to contend with as well. Hard winters, the beasts of the dark and fertile woodlands, and those of the damplands that they hunted, which hunted them in return if they weren’t careful. There were poisonous molds, blights that threatened crops, and dozens of other risks.

There were the gypsy Jakals and nomadic Pripans as well. The Pripans stayed in the deserts mostly, but occasionally the tribal leaders staged raids on the nearby flatlands to steal grain or women. Pripan males weren’t as picky as those of other breeds and considered the quelling of a powerful and deadly Sánge woman to be a conquest that advertised their supremacy and sexual prowess. Grain Reule could forgive, but kidnapping wasn’t to be tolerated. Unfortunately, the Pripan tribes were large and numerous, and he had to be careful not to commit an act of aggression that would cause them to combine resources and go to war against him. So, often it was a matter of kidnapping their women back, like boys playing war games of stealth. Luckily, the Pripans had a sense of humor about being outsmarted, as long as Reule stuck firmly to only reclaiming what had been stolen in the first place. His success varied, so he found it best to protect his people from such dangers to begin with.

Their key protection, the monstrous walls rising up from the bedrock of the mountainsides on the north and south slopes, soared above them as they neared. The city sprawled behind the cement, a fair three miles of farms, homes, and merchants before it butted up against Jeth Keep, which in turn butted up against a mountain to the west. There was a northwest wall as well, and a gate, far smaller in width than the one they approached, that led into a treacherous pass with no obvious exits after the first few miles. It was the perfect getaway route in case of seige, and only Reule and his Packmates knew the secret of the escape.