Remedy Maker (16 page)

Screaming is good
, he told himself, eating up the ground between him and Patience. A dead body doesn’t make a sound.

“Rhycious, you need a plan.” Alek galloped alongside and together they crested the hill. “You can’t just go all Rambo and rescue her.”

A small log cabin with a pitched shake roof sat in a clearing a hundred yards away. Sun bleached planks lay decrepit beneath a sagging wood porch. Parked near the front door, a rusted Jeep with missing doors and peeling green paint completed the shabby décor.

Daisy caught up moments later. She skidded to a halt, panting beside them at the edge of the tree line. “I have a plan.”

“Yeah, right,” Alek scoffed.

A shadowy figure inside the cottage stalked past the two front windows, and then quickly joined by a second.

“Hey! If either of
you
walk up to that door, all hell’s going to break loose.” Daisy swiveled her neck and flung her blonde braid over her shoulder, smacking Alek in the face with it.

Alek scrubbed a hand over his cheek. “She has a point, Rhy.”

“I’m not risking Daisy’s life. Knowing Patience might be down there is bad enough.” Rhy shook his head, hard enough to rattle his already scrambled brains. “No way.”

Daisy pinched the bridge of her nose and gave a growl worthy of any seasoned soldier. “While I have the humans busy at the front door, you two find a way in through the back.” She took a step in the cabin’s direction, her gaze bouncing from Alek to Rhy. “I can do this, have a little faith. It’s not my first season, you know.”

Aleksander gave her a hard stare. After a moment of thought, he nodded his approval. “I say she goes for it.”

Tension tightened in Rhy’s stomach like a torque wrench cranked ten revolutions. He didn’t want to be responsible for sending Daisy to her death. Hurling those hunting boys to burn in mythological Tartarus was one thing. Showing the opulent doors of Elysium to Daisy before her time was another.

Rhycious reached out and caught Daisy’s elbow. “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? We can find another way.”

Daisy tilted her head to the side, her mouth turning up at the corners. “I understand now what she sees in you. I’m good with this, really.”

He dropped his hand and she twirled away, fairly skipping down the incline to the cabin.

“Come on.” Alek motioned with his head. “Let’s make a back door draft with our hollow army.”

Between the trees, Rhy kept a close eye on Daisy while he and Alek made their way to the rear of the cabin. Each of her confident strides took her closer to the lion’s den. He admired her courage, which compounded his traumatized nerves.

Once she was out of sight, they left the cover of trees. He matched Alek’s loping stride, and they ran for the rear of the cabin.

Upon reaching the timbered wall, they flattened their bodies against the dried planks. Splintered wood, separating from age and environmental abuse, threatened to stab skin and carve hide when they slid toward an uncovered window.

Rhycious leaned to peek inside the room through a dirty windowpane. A man in ill-fitting military pants, the wrong camo for a green forest, smoked a cigarette just inside the room’s door. Alek dodged Rhy to look into a second window. He gave a slash across his throat and shook his head.

Rhy forced himself to breath slower and dared a second glimpse. The man inside turned to look over his shoulder, grinned sickeningly, and walked out of the room.

Daisy had made her appearance it would seem.

Twelve

On the other side of the cabin, Daisy called out a greeting in her musical voice. A door scraped open and men’s voices spilled out. Not wasting time, Rhycious used the back of his elbow to shatter the single-pane window. All it took was a light tap and the thin glass clinked no louder than two flutes of toasting champagne.

He waited the space of two heartbeats for the pound of stomping boots. None came. Shit, he hoped they had the right room. From the downhill slope outside, he lifted up on his toes and scanned the interior in a single sweep, but didn’t see her. Fear and anger knotted inside him.

“Patience?”

“Help! Is someone there?” The whispered reply came high and shaky.

Pure relief flooded through him. “Sit tight, babe. I’m getting you out of there.”

“Hurry! Before they come back.”

Alek braced his front legs and cupped his hands for Rhy to use as a step-up. Praise to the gods they weren’t both in true Centaur form.

Humans may suspect the existence of mythical creatures, but their legendary way of life must never be proved. From the time of the initial migration into Boronda, the first rule of order in times of war or peace, humans must be kept ignorant—otherwise their mythic species would be hunted to extinction.

Rhycious slipped his foot into Aleksander’s palms, and rose until the windowsill was chest level. Once again, he paused, listening intently to the conversation and giggles going on outside the room. Breaking more glass to make a clearer entry, he pushed off Alek’s hands, and crawled inside. When his feet touched the floor, he crouched with the knife drawn and held forward.

“Rhycious!”

His head snapped to the right and he drank in the sight of Patience, her face tear-stained and dirty, turquoise-blue eyes blinking huge and frightened. Her hair hung in a wild frame around her face, drawing his eyes to the purple bruise swelling one cheek.

He seethed, feeling her every scrape and bruise as if it were his own. Black rage welled and he embraced the anger, held it inside.

Even in her present condition, trussed up like a spool of thread, he breathed a sigh of relief. She appeared, for the most part, all right. Her shorts, his boxers, were torn apart. Sliced open by a knife from the looks of it, the edges clean, not ragged.

The thought of a sharp instrument so close to Patience’s soft, sweet skin—he clamped down on his Centaur need to retaliate for the wrong suffered.

After a quick glance toward the open door, Rhycious hurried to her, passing a wall bank of archaic, sadomasochistic toys. His eyes met and locked with hers, fear and anger shot back from her turbulent depths. He flicked his gaze down to her exposed breasts and widely spread thighs, refusing to think of what may have happened. Distaste at what the hunters had done to an innocent such as her, curled his lip back from his teeth, his temper a scalding fury.

Patience’s wobbly smile shined through the shower of tears coursing down her face. “I’ve never been so hardcore happy to see someone in my whole life,” she whispered.

“They hurt you.” Anger simmered from his most recent episode, increased in heat, building the temperature to a slow rolling boil. He studied her alluring face, each tear track through her grimy cheeks was a whip that flayed his flesh.

He drew the Bowie through the nylon cords, and the strands frayed apart with ease. How he’d love to carve him some human hunter the same way he’d sliced through the rope. Fury nearly choked him; it ripped and tore at his composure. Darkness eddied at the edge of his mind like probing fingers.

“They
hurt
you.” He repeated, wishing he could wipe away the anxiety on her face, but there wasn’t time and he had to hurry.

When Patience’s arms were free, she buttoned up the obscene shirt. Her fingers shook and nasty red welts striped her arms. She wiggled her fingers several times to get the blood flowing while slipping buttons through their holes.

Her blood.

Blackness crept in a little closer, and his vision dimmed. He was so damn tired of fighting the flashbacks. How easy it would be to let it take him, once and for all.

Boot stomps crossing the front room propelled Rhy to work faster. The humans had pulled her long legs back and tied them to the wall. To save time, he reached around and slit the connection, leaving a short length of rope attached to her ankles.

One at a time, he lifted her thighs out from beneath the iron grapples holding them in place. Patience moaned their release, the sound almost choking him. She slid off the bench seat until her feet touched the floor, and her knees gave out. Rhy sheathed his blade and scooped her up, cradling her in his arms. Her lightweight was no match for his pumped up vehemence.

Heedless of the boxers that hung shredded on her hips, he reached the window in three strides. Outside, Alek reached up when Rhy bent to pass Patience through.

“Fuck!” Angry curses bellowed from the doorway behind him. Rhycious tossed Patience out the window as gently as he could, and prayed Alek would catch her. Hard footfalls headed his way.

“Get her out of here.” Rhycious whirled around, pulling his knife free once again.

Three hunters barreled into the room and faced off with him. Two held knives of their own, one a shotgun. Their evil stench gagged him, so he drew in a breath through his mouth.

Rhy crouched low, tossing the fourteen-inch blade back and forth between his hands. The knife’s flat edge caught the light and glittered with ominous presence.

“I’m gonna enjoy this,” he said. And in his mind’s eye, he saw their blood spill, swirling in a pool on the dirty floor. An electrifying chill shuddered through him. He wanted to sink the knife in deep, make them pay for hurting Patience, and take their life in payment.

Just like in his nightmare memories.

Appropriately emblazoned with an Omega Mu shirt, the huskiest of the three sneered at him. “Three against one? I doubt that.”

Rhy lifted his Bowie in casual ease and flipped it end-over-end with one hand. He had no sooner caught the metal tip before he sent it out, sailing through the air. It plunged into the neck of the man who raised his hand to stroke the tail of his dirty blond hair.

Superior fast reflexes. The assholes never saw it coming.

“Make that two against one.”

The mortally injured man’s eyes rolled back, blood and air frothed out his mouth in a satisfying gurgle. He dropped hard to his knees, his hands clutching the knife as he fell over onto his side.

Dead.

Rhycious drew his secondary knife before the body hit the floor. The blade waved toward the hunters. Energy crackled through Rhy as if lightning had struck him, and revenge tasted sweet on his tongue.

“Tom! Oh, my God. He done killed Keith!” Frazzled, blond, and bucktoothed, the one holding the shotgun misfired, blasting a harmless hole into the ceiling. Bits of particleboard rained down. White dust hovered in the air, the grime turning to red slush on the dead man.

Bad aim, their bad luck.

“Think of it as saving the world from another fucking mullet.” Rhycious took a step toward them, threatening with his knife, flashing a hostile smile. The buzzing inside his head increased. White noise preceding the inevitable PTSD sounded like a radio station that lost its signal.

Instead of fighting the hated disorder, he embraced it like a lost friend.

Tom shoved the smaller, gun-toting male hard enough to make him crash forward. Rhy caught the thin blond around the throat with his arm, squeezing when he struck out with the weapon. The silver armband of Queen Savella kissed the guy’s cheek and Rhy had enough presence of mind to witness the fat coward spin and run from the room.

The shotgun clattered harmlessly to the floor.

Numb with rage, Rhycious struggled to keep his demons leashed. Anger flooded his body, and he crunched the hunter’s neck in a satisfying, bone twisting turn.

*    *    *

Cool air kissed Patience’s skin when Rhycious chucked her out the window and into Aleksander’s waiting arms. Her breath whooshed out when the solid wall of the Centaur’s leather armor slammed into her side. Outside, the air smelled clean, compared to the stink of unwashed bodies in the cabin.

Aleksander spun on his hooves and galloped faster than a racehorse for the nearest tree line.

“We can’t dip out and leave Rhy in there.” Patience kicked her legs, struggling in the guard’s firm hold. “Where are you going?”

Her head bounced off his body armor and she thought her neck would surely break straining to peer over his massive shoulder toward Rhycious.

“Quit thrashing around. Do you have so little faith in the man?” Alek adjusted his hold with a brain-rattling jolt. “He survived two hundred and fifty years and one hellacious war without any help from you or me. I think he can handle a few backwoods boys.”

“Don’t be blastin’ me about it; I know he’s a big boy. I just thought it was
diss’n
to leave him like that.”

After placing a safe distance between them and the hunters, Aleksander slowed to a trot and finally stopped. He eased her down on a knoll that overlooked the weather-beaten cabin.

Twenty-four hours without food or water, and gut digger cramps hit hard. She doubled over and clenched her jaw to kill her moan. On top of the gut twist, a pounding beat drummed in her head. Patience rubbed her temples to relieve the ache grinding behind her eyes.

An orange flash pulsed near a towering hemlock tree, followed by an atmospheric pop. Daisy rushed forward, her arms extended. “Patience! Oh gods, are you okay? What the hell happened to your clothes?”

Aleksander shook his head, pointing toward the tree. He swung his perplexed gaze back to Daisy. “Did you just come out of that tree?”

“Yeah, I’m a Wood Nymph. I can do that sort of stuff.”

“But it’s not your tree, is it? I thought—”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “Wood Nymphs can borrow trees for short durations. Do you have anything she can wear?”

Overcome with fatigue, pain, and outright fear, Patience wrapped her arms around her best friend’s warm midriff and closed her eyes in relief. She’d screamed so loud in the cabin, her throat was sore.

Cool and subtle, a breeze fanned her derrière, and a ripple of awareness crept up her spine.

“Daisy? Am I flashing a BA?”

“Yeah, sweetie. You are.” Daisy dropped her comforting arms and gave a half-hearted laugh. She reached for the black cotton shorts Aleksander materialized out of what Patience recognized as Rhy’s travel bag, and handed them to her. “You okay?”