Killing Time (35 page)

The drums and people fell silent even as angry shouts rang out—some in another language, Lakota I guessed, and others in English. Outrage and hatred sound the same, no matter the words, and suddenly, the people were in motion, surging toward me.

Humans in both casual modern clothing and gorgeous native regalia surrounded me, their hostility pounding against my senses, hammering my awareness. I kept yelling for Ahanu, kept begging someone to help Koda, but the crowd was making too much noise.

“We don’t want you here!” a man roared, getting in my face.

A woman spat on the ground at my feet. “Go away! Get out!”

“Fae bitch!”

A fist flew toward my cheek. Hoping to prove my harmlessness, my refusal to fight, I let it hit me. The blow rocked my head on my neck. Reeling, I kept my hands out to my sides, well away from my daggers. That I’d not reacted did the opposite of what I’d hoped—emboldened, more fists descended from all sides and dodging them became impossible.

Spitting blood from a split lip onto the dry dirt, I kept trying to make them listen. I begged them to listen. “Please! Koda is hurt! He’s in the truck and he’s hurt!” I screamed until my throat was raw, but the blows kept falling, staggering me and pushing my determination to not fight to the absolute limit. My senses were shrieking warnings about this mob’s growing threat level, insisting that I shade and escape or battle my way clear.

The terrifying knowledge that Koda was dying kept me solid. And it kept me in place as the crowd moved in ever closer, hurling insults and whatever missiles came to hand.

Without warning, the mob grew still, silent. Swaying on my feet, dizzy from too many blows to the head, weeping with fear for Koda, hope gave volume to my raw voice. I spun in a circle, begging the humans nearest to me to help him. Whirling back around, I appealed to an elderly man the crowd parted to let through.

“Koda,” I rasped, beyond desperate, tears pouring down my face. “In the truck! Please, please, listen to me!”

The old man let his eyes travel across my features, his expression a mask. “I hear you,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “What has happened?”

I almost fell to the ground with relief. “A wendigo attacked us. Koda…it clawed him. His side. There’s some kind of poison in the wounds. He said Ahanu could help.” The words spilled from me, I was so anxious to make the old man understand. When he just stood there, I moved toward him, lifting a hand in a beseeching gesture.

Four men surged forward, thinking I meant to attack their leader. Suddenly, I’d had enough. These people wouldn’t respond to my peaceful imploring, then I’d damn well get their attention in a far more emphatic way.

The humans dogpiled me and I waited until they’d gotten a good hold. Then, flexing muscle and feeding it with rage, I flung all four off in one smooth move. The large men went flying into the crowd, taking others down with them. To make my point, I shaded and leaped throughout the mob, re-solidifying to slap two dozen faces hard enough to leave vivid handprints. I wanted to be damn sure these
humans
—my instincts sneered the word—understood that I had allowed myself to be surrounded. That I’d taken their abuse and insults and not retaliated by destroying the lot of them.

“Enough!” the old man said, his voice carrying over the crowd’s panicked cries.

I re-formed in front of him, chest heaving. I could feel my eyes flaring, could feel my fury and my fear for Koda filling the air around me. When I turned on him, I saw in the elderly human’s gaze his awareness that I held myself tightly in check.

Keeping very still, I bared my sharp teeth. “Only fear for Koda’s welfare stays my blades, old man,” I snarled.

He nodded. “He is not only our friend, his kind are sacred to us. We will help him.”

I squeezed my eyes shut for a half-second before demanding, “Is Ahanu here?”

“He is.”

“Well, why the hell didn’t you say so? Let’s get Koda to him now!”

The chief lifted a hand, staying me. “While you were…distracted, it was done. He is in Ahanu’s care.”

“Thank you.” The breath went out of me and relieved tears coursed down my cheeks. Scrubbing at my face, I tried to get myself back under control. Feeling hollowed out by my consuming fear for Koda, I asked in a tremulous voice, “Where are they?”

The human didn’t immediately answer. After studying me for a long moment, he asked, “You care for him?”

I didn’t like that this person thought he had a right to know, but I figured cooperation would go a lot further than confrontation. Mute, I nodded.

All around us, the crowd watched in utter silence. Being the focus of so many hostile gazes kept my instincts roused, making me edgy.

The old man tipped his head to the braided leather at my throat. “You wear Koda’s binding.”

“It is a necklace,” I corrected him.

“Perhaps it is now, but it began as a binding. I can sense it.”

Stubbornly, I said, “But it is now a necklace. One I choose to wear.”

An emotion crossed the old man’s face, there and gone before I could figure it out. “Why?”

Tired of the inquisition, beyond ready to get away from the aggressive mob, I crossed my arms. “Are you going to tell me where Koda is or do I have to search building to building?”

Not impressed by my anger, the Sioux’s leader met my gaze, letting the silence build. “You wish to remain while Koda is seen to.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “I insist on it.”

The crowd stirred, outraged, but the old man just looked at me. “On one condition only will you be allowed to remain.”

“Name it.”

He cocked his head. “You make no conditions in return?”

“I will not leave until I know that Koda will live.” It almost killed me saying the words since my unhelpful mind supplied a bleak
but what if he doesn’t?

In a challenging tone, like he expected this to be a deal-breaker, the old man said, “You will submit to being bound. You will give your word that you’ll do nothing to escape imprisonment. You will in no way strike out against my people or cause them to be harmed.”

My breath stuck in my throat at even the idea of restraint and his rheumy old eyes saw every bit of my panic. But I asked only, “You would accept my word?”

“I wish to know if you will give it, and once given, if you will honor it.”

I bit off a bitchy response. “And in return?”

“You may remain on the reservation until we know whether Koda will survive his wounds.”

“He will survive!” I hissed, hating the Sioux leader for implying that any other possibility existed.

“I hope you are right.” The old man’s eyes filled with tears, startling me. “Will you give your word?”

Forcing myself to breathe evenly as the same four burly men I’d tossed returned with ropes and chains in their hands, I thought only of Koda and that he was fighting for his life. I knew I could force my presence on the Sioux, could shade back and forth all over the reservation and could find wherever they’d taken him. But the uproar that would cause might detract from the effort to make him well again. If Ahanu was the only other anzhenii at Tallgrass, then I wanted him focused solely on healing his brother. Not fighting me.

I also had something to prove to Ahanu and to the old man staring unwaveringly at me, the challenge plain in his steady gaze.

In a slow up-and-down movement, I nodded. “I give you my word and will be bound by it.”

With an arthritic hand, he gestured the men forward. As they cautiously wrapped the ropes around my upper arms, compressing them against my ribs, my panic began to rise. The air whistled in and out of my lungs and my vision tinged red as my instincts shrieked at me to shade.

The leader said sharply, “You gave your word.”

Grinding my teeth together, I forced the terror down, succeeding only marginally. My heart still thundered in my chest, my muscles remained tensed to fight. My instincts remained locked onto the humans around me, hammering at my will and insisting I either escape or destroy them all. But I did it—I held myself together.

When I made no move against them, the old man nodded, his eyes hard on me as I stood, trembling, within the tightening ropes and chains. When he was satisfied, he led the way to a small box-shaped building made of gray cinderblocks. Bound as I was, with a short piece of rope between my ankles, I couldn’t manage more than a snail’s pace and no one seemed inclined to help me. One of the men opened the heavy metal door, the rusty hinges screeching in protest. Turning on a flashlight, the guy started down a dark set of stairs to a space that smelled of damp earth and mildew.

One of the men shoved me roughly from behind and it took all my determination not to turn on him. When I had the violent urge under control, I moved carefully to the top of the narrow, steep steps, thinking how I wouldn’t be able to catch myself if I slipped and fell now. Or if the asshole pushed me again.

“This is a storm shelter,” the old man said as he followed me down. “It is made of steel and reinforced concrete. Between that and the iron chains around you, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about your good intentions of staying bound.”

Head up, shoulders back, I let the panic for Koda and rage at my captors escape my tight control, just the littlest bit. Meeting the old chief’s eyes, I saw in them the reflection of my silver gaze glinting with supernatural anger. Saw him blanch as my awareness filled the air around us and shimmered across his mortal senses like sharp static electricity.

Wanting these men to be perfectly aware of the very fine line they were straddling, I let my lip curl. “Iron and steel are nothing to my kind, human. Only my word and the promise that Ahanu is helping Koda bind me.”

One thing I’d learned of humans is that fear breeds belligerence in them, especially in muscle-bound males who are unaccustomed to worrying about much of anything. So I should’ve expected it when the same jackass damn near broke my jaw with a roundhouse I barely saw coming. I went sailing over the cot, snapping the wooden supports like matchsticks. The thing slid and fell, taking me to the cold floor with it. Unable to roll, I bonked my head on the wall, making me see stars.

When my vision cleared, I was alone in the dark underground space, with only a camping lantern to see by. Crabbily, I wondered how long the batteries would last. It didn’t do to think about how long I’d be down here. Especially since I had nothing but the usual pants pocket full of jelly beans. Bound as I was, it would take an effort even a contortionist would find challenging to get to them.

Weariness washed over me as the last of the adrenaline fled my system. Only the heart-stopping terror for Koda remained, closing off my throat, freezing the blood in my veins. Turning my face to the cold, damp concrete floor, I closed my eyes as tears streaked down my cheeks.

Koda would be okay. He would.

He just had to be.

Marking the passage of days underground was impossible, but I had plenty of time to memorize every shelf in the shelter. To fix in my mind every one of the supplies and to note that somebody was incredibly anal, having matched canned foods by color—all the red and white labels on the top two shelves, yellow on the next, while the green-labeled cans had four shelves all to themselves. Pity I had no way to open the damn things—I’d noticed my daggers’ absence before I’d begun cataloging my surroundings. The guy who’d slugged me must’ve taken them while my head was still woozy.

At some point, the lantern’s bright light dimmed to a faint glow, then eventually faded completely, leaving me in utter darkness. No sound from outside penetrated the storm shelter. No cracks or crevices showed if it was day or night. There was only the sound of my own breathing and the cool, damp floor beneath my cheek.

I grew furious then, debating at great length whether to shade out from the ropes and chains’ hold. To hell with the old man and the challenge in his eyes. I’d find Koda myself and anyone who dared try to stop me—or to remove me from his side—would bleed. It made perfect sense. The logic of it was unshakable. I was a bittern and nothing mere humans could contrive had the capacity to hold me against my will.

But that was the sticking point in my argument. My will. My damn will. Because the arrogant anger was the Feral Sephti talking. The one who had no compunctions about doing whatever she damn well pleased, screw the consequences.

I wanted to be better than that. I wanted to prove to the old man and to Ahanu…hell, to
myself,
I was better than that.

Forcing my tense muscles to relax, I tried to find a more comfortable position on the hard floor. The growing kink in my neck, the painful stiffness in my back and a building headache raised Round Two of the internal debate. What if I just shaded out from the bindings, but remained in the shelter? I could get off this damn concrete and stretch out on one of the musty cots—not the most luxurious of accommodations, but a whole lot better than my current situation.

I’d still be holding to the intent of the Sioux leader’s conditions. Wouldn’t I? Even though I wasn’t sticking to the specific details. It would still count…right?

Back and forth, I argued both sides, the silent battle in my mind exponentially worsening my headache. In the end, I stayed bound and uncomfortable. I’d given my word. That I was also metaphorically flipping the old man off made my discomfort more palatable, since I’d read his doubt that I wouldn’t abide by his conditions. That he figured I’d prove for him that all those touched by fae were untrustworthy. Dishonorable.

It was only when I’d put to rest the do-I-don’t-I debate that I made the connection between my pounding head and growing hunger. Another wave of antipathy toward the old man challenged my resolve to remain tied, since the jerk—in his oh-so-sure determination I was fae—had left me five feet from enough food to feed fifty people, but with no way to get to it, let alone pry the cans open. Cursing a blue streak, I wiggled inside the ropes and chains, and by almost dislocating my shoulder, managed to spill the jelly beans from my pocket onto the rough floor. Twisting around so I could reach them, I lipped the candy up one at a time, bad-naturedly spitting out the grit and cement dust I had no way to avoid. I made the jelly beans last, but eventually they were gone. Chewing slowly, drawing it out, I finally had to swallow and tried not to think about how long I had until the bittern coma took me.

Cue more profanity.

It was a helluvalot better than the despair threatening to engulf me every time I let thoughts of Koda sneak into my mind. That no one had come for me yet had to mean that he still lived, that he was still fighting for his life. I couldn’t let myself imagine the worst—that he’d died and the old man had left me here to rot.

Even having stretched out the jelly beans, hunger and emotional exhaustion took their toll. I’d kept hoping someone with news of Koda would come. That now that I’d proven the strength of my word, they’d release me. Every time my determination to wait wore thin and I’d once again consider shading, I’d tell myself
Just a little while longer. They’ll come. Just wait a bit more.

Then it was too late. Exhausted and on the verge of starvation, I was no longer capable of misting my form. I wasn’t even able to voice a bitter laugh that my word really had bound me. Fat lot it would do for the old man to finally send someone down here to check on me, only to discover I’d died of hunger. Guess they’d believe then that I wasn’t fae and they’d let me go. Of course, since I’d be dead, it’d put a real kink in the whole freedom thing.

This got me wondering if Koda was right, if I had a soul. Nothing like contemplating death to make you wonder about the hereafter.

Shuddering, I shut down that train of thought. Focusing on the physical, I wondered dazedly if my eyes were open or closed. It was so damn dark in the shelter, I couldn’t tell. Then I wondered if it mattered. Why the hell should I care what my eyelids were doing? Just as quickly, my delirious mind shot back that it was only curious, was all. No reason to get so freaking testy. This ridiculous back-and-forth went on for a while, until I wasn’t sure if I was entertaining myself in a bizarre sort of way or if I’d genuinely lost it.

My blood sugar continued to plummet and my body started to shut down. My heart’s rhythm changed as it fought to keep oxygen and blood going to the most vital systems, leaving my extremities to fend for themselves. My hands and feet felt like icy blocks, chills shook me as the muscles did their useless best to generate body heat. And my senses turned on me, cruelly triggering my survival instincts when I was utterly unable to mount a defense—either mental or physical.

Were the terrifying sounds, so close at hand, delusional? Was I reliving horrific memory? Or were the sounds of bodach claws on concrete, the hiss of ehrlindriel blades being drawn, the explosive
crack
of a striking whip…were they all real? Was I alone in this pitch-black hell or were my enemies standing over me, stretching out the agonizing moment before they struck?

At first, I was able to hold off the panic. Was able to convince myself that I was alone. When my will began to erode, taking logic with it, I held my intellect together a little bit longer by filling my thoughts with Koda. Endlessly, I replayed our glorious time together, the sweet love we’d made, the wild passion we’d shared, the gentle words, the tender touches.

Inevitably, there came a time when even this didn’t work. When the blackness surrounding me leaked into my mind, filling me with hopelessness and despair, identical to what I’d felt every moment in the stable. Present and past blended and it became impossible to determine reality. Was I once again inside the high-walled training courtyard, warily watching three genetic monstrosities—the lords’ latest horrific experiments—circle, seeking an opening in my defense? Was I lying strapped face-down, battered after fighting the guards it had taken to restrain me, while Cian heated a metal brand at a nearby brazier as he explained in velvet tones all the ways he was going to mark me with it? Or was the former Onas, the one who’d defeated me in the battle for rank, standing over me now, teeth bared in dominant sexuality as he accepted the presentation that ritual demanded I offer?

Somewhere in the fog, someone called to me, but the voice was too far away to be recognizable. There came a muffled curse and the world tilted, then there was only impenetrable, suffocating darkness.

I no longer had the strength to care if it was simply all that my blinded eyes could see or had somehow burrowed deep into my dying mind.

For the first time in my existence, I didn’t come fully awake when I roused. My eyes seemed fused shut, my neck felt too weak to lift my head and my body refused my frantic commands to move.

My mind wasn’t working very well, either and my senses were all out of focus—scents and sounds and sensation all blending together like a miasmic sensory soup, thick and confusing and impossible to sort out. Clattering sounds like drawers being hastily pulled open and slammed shut melded with an antiseptic smell. As if there was no distance between them, something cold and wet touched my inner arm, meshing oddly with my face’s grimy itchiness, my back’s spasming stiffness, the pain from lying on an unforgiving surface. One moment, it felt like I was bound, my arms and legs immobilized in what had become agonizing positions. The next, my freed skin ached where the tight ropes and chains had pressed too hard for far too long. Something felt soft and cool beneath me at the same time my aching bones and muscles insisted I was still tied, still lying on unforgiving concrete.

Unintelligible sound washed over me, occasionally morphing into words whose meaning sometimes filtered through. Anger colored the tones and grief saturated the air, the first bludgeoning my over-sensitive awareness and the second making it hard to breathe. Even in my fugue, I was terrified the grief meant that Koda…that he hadn’t…

I blanked out again, regaining marginal awareness when angry words, snarled in a harsh whisper, filtered through the tangle of sensations pummeling me. Someone cursed at someone else to hurry up and get the line in. Another person growled that he was trying and the added pressure wasn’t helping. Something about dehydration shrinking veins.

It was just noise. The words and their meaning swam around in my ears, in my head, but I couldn’t grasp them, couldn’t force my mind to make sense of them. A sharp sting somewhere in my body added itself to the sensory overload, but I had no ability to figure out what hurt, let alone guess at what had caused it. Coolness followed the sting, flowing upward from the mild pain. It was everywhere, filling my perception of…everything. At the same time, it was nowhere, a phantom in my confused mind.

The first voice said something like “more, faster,” and the second snapped “it’s already wide open.”

The surface I was lying on rocked, jostling me, but my eyelids refused to open so I could see what had happened. Added to the sensations hammering me came the sense that someone—
or something,
whispered my gibbering instincts—was close by, leaning over me. As the coolness that had followed the sting flowed through my body…my awareness…my imagination, the sounds formed into sentences. Drifting as I was, their implications were inexplicable and bore no significance to me.

“You should be back in bed,” the second voice said, a world of worry in his tone. “You’re not yet healed.”

“She almost died trying to save me,” the first person answered in a tone so rough, so raw, its pain superseded the sounds and scents scouring me. “I will not leave her.”

There was a long silence and then the sound of something heavy being dragged closer. The second voice spoke again. “Lie down before you fall down. Consider that an order.”

The person-being-thing beside me moved, but I sensed didn’t go far. Something enfolded part of my body. Like a light switch being flipped off, all the craziness crashing around in my mind, flailing painfully against my senses, faded into insignificance. And I dared to wonder, to hope, that it was
Koda
beside me. I yearned to sit up, to open my eyes and freaking
see,
but my body was a lump of unresponsive flesh.

“Remarkable,” the second voice said and I realized it belonged to Ahanu. “Your holding her hand calms her. That’s the first time she’s stopped thrashing and crying out.”

Koda cursed, his voice strangled.

Ahanu spoke from close by. “You have to believe me, brother. I had no idea Sephti was imprisoned. Not until an hour ago, when Waneta told me that he’d gone to tell her you’d regained consciousness. He found her like this. In a coma.”

In the silence, I heard Koda’s tortured breathing. “She went before them unarmed.
Principal Chief
Waneta told you that.” He sneered the title.

“Yes.”

“Begging them to help me.”

“Yes.”

“And still, she was beaten and tied and thrown in that hole.”

Silence reigned, even as the air grew thicker with rage and grief.

“This isn’t who we are as a people,” Koda growled.

Ahanu exploded. “What did you expect, brother? Whatever genetic test tube she was dreamed up in, she looks like a fae!”

“We are better than this!”

“With all their machinations and treachery, this is what the fae made us into!”

“No!” Koda shouted. “It’s what we
let
them make us into!”

Another long silence filled the room, then Ahanu muttered, “I cannot comprehend how it is you care for that creature.”

“Then you are no better than the prejudiced bastards who damn near killed her.”

“Prejudiced? You’re not serious—”

“Have you done everything you can for her?” Koda interrupted in a harsh tone.

“Yes, the IV drip will rehydrate her and the glucose should revive her.”

“Should?”

“Well, it’s not like I have a clue how a supernaturally bioengineered creature’s system works!”

“She’s a person, Ahanu. Not a creature.
A person.
”

“I only meant—”

“I know damn well what you meant! Now get out. I’ll see to her myself.”

There came the sound of a slamming door, then Koda singing from close by. His voice was weak but that it was
his
eased my confusion and soothed my raw senses.

As I drifted off, this time into a peaceful, contented state, I felt a butterfly’s touch and recognized it as his sweet kiss on my forehead.

“Come back to me, Sephti,” he whispered. “Please. Come back.”

There was a long period of darkness and unknowing. A period in which I wasn’t.

Then the
click
of a furnace coming on awakened me. My eyes opened the first time I tried, revealing a small room bathed in warm golden sunlight. A counter with a sink took up one narrow wall and a window occupied another. Waist-high cabinets filled a third, and through their glass doors, I could see syringes and bandages and others things I assumed had a medical purpose.