Killing Time (21 page)

I let a satisfied grin stretch my lips. “Looks like I passed your little test.”

“Indeed,” Cian muttered, his sharp eyes probing me for the slightest sign of weakness. He paid special attention to my leg, but my standing on it negated any argument he might have made against me. Any excuse he might have given Althea for declaring me unworthy, followed immediately by my death.

Burning hatred for the entire species powered my will and I got my chin a little higher, my shoulders a little more square. If it drained every last shred of energy I possessed to remain on my feet, so be it. I’d rather kill myself through this last act of defiance than give Cian the pleasure of seeing me weakened.

Twisting his mouth as if what he said was so vile and repugnant he was choking on his own tongue, he spat, “You are the victor. I will notify my lady.”

I wanted to strut and crow my triumph, to rub it in his face and make him suck on it. But just keeping my expression masklike was a challenge. I nodded once—down and up—hoping to look grand and dismissive since my ability to breathe evenly, let alone speak, was rapidly waning.

Eyes narrowing, Cian peered again at my hemorrhaging leg. He let a long moment pass, no doubt hoping I’d keel over and give him the excuse he longed for. When I stayed obstinately upright, he glowered and moved his gaze to somewhere past my left ear, his refusal to look me in the face an intended insult. “You will kill the lords and their bloodlines.”

Giving myself time to form the words, I stared at his cold features, the cruel lines perfect reflections of the person within. “The lords only.” The thinness of my voice could be dismissed as anger.

I hoped.

Cian scowled. “I will inform my lady.” Then a crafty expression crossed his face. “The bitterns will remain with you, however. To provide…support in your effort.”

I wanted to argue with him, but frankly didn’t think I’d be able to stand much longer, let alone mount a decent rebuttal. Not daring the effort to speak, I inclined my head, just once, in accord.

This surprised him and I could see him wondering why I’d agreed so readily. He hesitated, trying to work out what I was up to. But when he couldn’t come up with anything, he shrugged. Without another word, he shifted away.

In my mind, I counted down from ten, then let out a relieved breath. The pain, my exhaustion, the fight, it was all too much. My eyes closed and I fell, dimly feeling Koda catch me before I hit the ground.

Finally, blessedly, I got the faint I’d longed for.

Warm air puffed across my neck and something tickled my cheek. I opened my eyes and blinked.

Luminous gold eyes blinked back.

“Umm,” I rasped, astonished equally by the enormous wild cat straddling my chest and my instincts’ failure to react.

Koda’s dry voice carried to me. “She’s been waiting for you to wake up.”

Tentatively, I reached up toward the broad, striped face staring intently down at me. Stroking a fingertip across the beautiful brindle cheek and marveling at its silky feel, I asked, “What is she?”

“Lynx.”

Leaning into my touch, the animal made an appreciative noise and flopped down on top of me, butting her forehead enthusiastically into my hand.

I let out an
oomph
as about fifty pounds of cat compressed my tender ribs. “Any chance she’ll get off me?”

Koda made a series of soft noises unlike any language I’d ever heard, although I detected a smile in his voice. The lynx turned to look over her shoulder at him and chuffed, a sound remarkably like laughter. She rolled to the ground and stretched out, pressing the length of her back against my side. Her golden eyes were so brilliant as she stared at me, they looked lit from within.

When she began to vibrate, I eased back in alarm. “What’s wrong with her?”

Koda chuckled. “She’s purring. It means she’s happy.”

I tried to sit up, but didn’t come even close to making it. Agony exploded from way too many places to count, the world lurched and my vision narrowed to a pinprick.

“Stay put, Sephti,” he muttered. “I finally got your arm set, all your wounds stitched closed and the bleeding stopped. I’d appreciate it if you’d not tear something open. I’m almost out of medical thread and bandages.”

Panting through the pain, I nodded, waiting for the ground to quit trying to throw me. When I could see clearly again and turn my head without the threat of fainting, I asked, “Is the lynx a friend of yours?”

Koda moved into my view. Sitting on my cat-free side, he let his gaze sweep over the lovely animal. “Yours.”

I squinted up at him. “Huh?”

A faint smile curved his lips. “After you passed out, I tied up the bitterns—”

“Good! Keep them that way until I can deal with them.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. In a dry voice, he said, “Thanks for the tip. As I was saying, I ran to my truck for the first-aid kit. When I got back—”

I interrupted again. “You disarmed them, right?”

He blew out a vexed breath. “Yes, Mockingbird, of course I disarmed the bad-tempered assassins. The daggers are locked in the glovebox. Now if I can continue?” I nodded sheepishly. “When I got back, Lynx was sitting next to you and snarling at Onas and Târre. Even though they were unconscious, she couldn’t tolerate their presence.”

“I wonder why? We’re the same.”

Koda’s eyes flared with sudden anger. “You are nothing at all like them!”

Bewildered, I gaped. “We’re clones. Or as good as. Just look at them. Look at me!”

He tapped my shoulder with a gentle knuckle. “There’s a great deal more to a person than hair and eye color.” Looking toward the bound forms, his voice turned cold. “Those two smell different. The feel of them is different.
Alien.
”

My mouth went dry and I squeezed my eyes shut. If he could look at them with such loathing when the bitterns and I were of a kind, didn’t that mean that some part of him felt the same way about me?

A tender hand on my cheek made me look up as Koda bent a little to catch my gaze. “I am learning how you think, Sephti, so stop it right now. You are
nothing
like them.”

“When we met—”

“Even then, when I wasn’t sure what you were, you drew my awareness like a warm ray of sunshine on a cold winter’s day. Those two over there feel unwholesome.
Repellent.
”

“You thought I was fae,” I stammered. In my head, two voices were at war: one was screaming
shut up and stop reminding him,
while the other part was determined that we be honest with each other. That he damn well own up to how he’d originally felt. “You were furious. You wanted to kill me.”

A faint smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “If I had wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have stood around talking about it.”

The warrior in me got my chin up. “You said James asked you not to.”

“Honor would have been enough to stay my hand, yes.” Koda flushed and turned his head a little, as if lost in contemplation of the campfire. “But even if I hadn’t given my word, I would not…could not have killed you.”

I absorbed this, studying his face in profile. I could feel his intense focus on my reaction to his words. It took a few tries to get my thoughts straight. “What happened to ‘looks like a fae, stinks like a fae’?”

He winced and his blush deepened. “I was hoping you’d forgotten about that.”

“My memory works just fine.” Sometimes, I wished it didn’t. There were a lot of memories I longed to forget.

As if to himself, Koda mused, “I am not used to all this emotion. It…clogs my mind.” He scrubbed at his jaw, taking a deep breath. “I purposely locked my feelings away. A long time ago, I dedicated myself to protecting my people. I gave up any hope of having someone in my life. Now my feelings are coming back and I don’t…I don’t know how to deal with them. I don’t even have the tools.”

I felt myself go very still. That we were wrestling with the same thing, trying to function in the midst of this startling, unexpected, miraculous cyclone of thought-scrambling emotion stunned me. Koda was so controlled and so damned
sure
of himself, the uncertainty he expressed was hard to equate in my mind with the person I thought he was.

My brain locked up as I replayed that last part.

I realized with sudden clarity that I’d subconsciously applied my own prejudices against Koda. I’d seen him all along as a supernatural male who possessed unknown powers that were so strong, his presence filled every space he occupied. With rare exception, I’d seen him as sublimely self-confident and in control of himself. As damn near impervious.

In that moment, though, I got a look at a new person…yet one who’d been there all along if only I’d had the eyes to see him. Suddenly, I was looking at Koda as a
man.
A man with uncertainties and fears of his own. Someone who didn’t have all the answers. Who was struggling. Who knew all too well what it was to hurt. To be alone.

Still not looking at me, he tentatively touched a fingertip to the top of my left hand. With my arm splinted, it lay motionless by my side, but the healing break wasn’t really bothering me. What brought the lump to my throat was the sudden vulnerability in Koda’s firelit expression.

“When I saw you that first night, Sephti, I was…afraid. I have lost so much to the fae,” he whispered. “The way my senses warmed to you, the way you drew me without even trying. It seemed like a very cruel set-up. A beautiful trap, laid just for me.”

“But I wasn’t…I wouldn’t ever…”

“I know. Now.” At long last, he met my eyes. It was a brief contact, a there-and-gone connection. “I can no longer smell jasmine on you. Instead, your scent is wild and intoxicating, uniquely yours. Your features may be similar to the others’, but your face is all you. Its character, the faint smile lines, the tiny freckles on your nose, the little scar on your chin.”

I squirmed under his frankly admiring gaze.

“Hear me, Sephti.” His voice took on a rougher tone. “Your keen intellect is in your radiant eyes. Your gentle heart in the pink tint of your cheeks. Your soul in the warmth of your regard.”

He carefully took my hand, cradling it in his gentle grip and smiling when I managed a weak squeeze in response.

Giving himself a shake, he cast a cold look at the unconscious bitterns. “They are devoid of expression, like wax poured straight from a mold. There is no evidence of a soul or the capacity to ever possess one. They are animated weapons. Nothing more.”

I’d sensed the same of Onas and Târre. Deeply saddened, I kept silent.

Koda’s glance flicked to the cat, now sound asleep against me, the heat of her body welcome in the chill woods. “Did you know that humans could live a lifetime in the forest and never once glimpse Lynx or her kin? They are the most elusive of all the animals in this part of the world.” His gaze turned inward as if he was lost in thought. “I had wondered if Coyote would come. Or Fox. Maybe Badger. That it was Lynx was…surprising.”

I found my voice. “What are you talking about?”

“While I was gone, I spoke with an anzhenii lore-keeper about our most ancient history.” Koda’s sable eyes met mine. “She told me that, long before the Unseelie wars killed off all but the most vicious among them, a unique fae bloodline existed. One that was in sync with nature. She said the animals loved them. That even the trees took note of their passage.” He touched my face, a soft smile curving his lips. “I believe you’re a genetic throwback, Sephti. That’s why you were wild from the beginning. Why the brain-washing didn’t take. Why you’re able to think for yourself. And why the animals have begun to seek you out.”

Flustered, I said, “There was that owl, sure, but…”

Koda’s smile grew. “You should see something. Let me help you sit up.”

With his arms supporting me, I was able to get upright this time. Leaning heavily against his chest, I had to close my eyes and pant for the space of a few minutes, waiting for the world to settle. The feel of his strength and solidity was so soothing, I may have reveled in it a bit longer than my vertigo and weakness strictly required.

His mouth by my ear, he murmured, “Look around, Sephti.”

I did as he asked, sucking in a startled breath to see—just outside the firelight—two coyote, a badger and a very large, very white owl staring at me. “Um-m,” I stammered.

“They are shy still and won’t come any closer to you. Not yet. But your being here drew them. Just as you draw me.” He breathed a kiss across my cheek.

My mouth tried to form words twice before I finally got anything out. “When did the other animals show up?”

“They’ve been coming and going for the last few hours. Only Lynx stays.”

“You don’t say,” I whispered before an idea occurred to me. “Maybe the animals are here because of you. Maybe it’s not me at all.”

“My little cousins visit when I’m outside civilization. But these are all here for you.”

I lifted my chin. “What makes you so sure?”

He had the decency to keep his face straight, but his eyes gleamed with laughter. “They told me.”

That threw me for all of a second. “Ha! That blows your theory, then. I can’t talk to them or understand what they say.”

“Not yet, although I suspect you may some day.”

I stared at him, speechless as he gazed blithely back. Shaking off my damaged mental condition, I looked away. My gaze landed on Onas and Târre.

Ah, my favorite dodge—a change of subject. “How are they?”

Anger tightened Koda’s expression. “I saw to their wounds and covered them with blankets. But the animals will go no closer.”

“And you?” I asked softly.

“They tried to kill you, and for that, I would slit their throats where they lie.” He sighed, dipping his head to rub his cheek against mine—a tender gesture that made my heartbeat pick up. “But they are your people, and if you wish them to stay, I will deal with them.”

Pressing my face into his neck, I closed my eyes and breathed him in. “I don’t want them here—”

He went rigid. “You remove your protection of them?” There was a hopeful quality to his voice that made me lift my head and stare at him.

“I didn’t say that.” My voice was sharp. “But I can’t turn them loose on the world and they can’t shift themselves back to the stable.”

Koda grumbled, but withheld comment.

I bit my bottom lip, thinking. “What if…what if I could help them shake off Cian’s influence? They could make lives for themselves on the mortal plane.”

“Those two?” Koda growled.

“I did say ‘what if.’ I know it doesn’t seem likely. They’re still so new, so recently indoctrinated. Maybe their self-awareness is buried so deep, we just can’t sense it.”

He gave me a look, but was kind enough to leave me my delusion. “What was it like for you? When you first escaped?”

I caught Koda’s hand in my good one, smiling a little as he tightened his fingers. “All I’d ever known was the stable, the company of my kind and the fae masters’ collective will as dispensed by Cian.” Casting my thoughts back, I stared into the fire. “Being away from all I knew, out in the mortal world, it was like up was down. Nothing made sense. Nothing was predictable. I couldn’t understand the Round Ears, how to work simple conveniences they took for granted. The first time I saw an eighteen-wheeler, I thought it was a massive predator. Once I finished with it, the thing was only good for scrap metal.”

“When did you learn to drive?”

A blush heated my cheeks. “Promise not to laugh?”

“Not a chance.” He grinned. “I don’t make promises I won’t keep.”

I shot him a look over my shoulder, my lips twitching against my will as I saw his grin broaden. “I found a driving school and rode around in the backseat for a couple of lessons. The humans never knew I was there since I stayed shaded. To practice, I, um, borrowed cars while their owners were asleep in their homes.” That last part made my face flame brighter.

Koda didn’t even try not to laugh. “I believe cops call that grand theft auto.”

With great dignity, I hiked my chin up. “I returned every car and motorcycle I
borrowed.
”

“In the same condition as when you
borrowed
it?”

My wince had nothing to do with my injuries. “Well…”

Cradling me with care, Koda brushed a kiss across my cheek and his amusement faded. “Everything had to have been so strange to you. So alien. You must have been frightened.”

I nodded, swallowing hard against the remembered fear. “Countless times, I decided to return to the stable. I knew my punishment would be brutal, but I figured I could take it.”

“What stopped you?”

“Remembering why I escaped in the first place. My plan.”