Royal House of Shadows Box Set: Lord of the Vampires\Lord of Rage\Lord of the Wolfyn\Lord of the Abyss (40 page)

“Vor-what?”

He rose and started to pace. “Sometimes when travelers come through the vortices from one realm to another, they become confused or even forget pieces of their past.”

A low burn fisted beneath her heart. “I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t say you were,” he said, which she guessed was true as far as it went. But then he continued, “Memory loss and insanity aren’t the same thing. I believe you call it ‘apples and limes,’ yes?”

“Oranges. Apples and oranges.” His speech pattern was an odd mix of formality and slang, which just added to the weirdness. “Who
are
you?”

He stopped pacing and looked slightly shamefaced. “Sorry. I’m Dayn. Well, Prince Dayn, Forestal of Elden. But if anyone here knew that, they’d rip me to shreds.” He said it so matter-of-factly that it took a moment to register. As her jaw dropped, he held out a hand. “So let’s just go with ‘Dayn,’ okay?”

“I’m Reda.” Head spinning, she took his hand on autopilot, registering the warm strength of his wide
palm and long, elegant fingers. But instead of shaking, he lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. It was an unselfconscious move, as if he’d done it a thousand times before and it meant nothing more than a fist bump on the T platform or a cuff on the arm between buddies at Downtown Pizza. But her gasp brought his eyes to hers and made it far more than casual, as did the sizzle that tightened her skin and reminded her that this was a dream. More, it was her fantasy.
He
was her fantasy, had been since she was a little girl and dreamed of someone coming to her rescue.

He dropped her hand and took a big step back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Why not? It’s my fantasy.
But he wasn’t playing his part. He should have been whispering sweetly to her, kissing her, stroking—

The cabin door blew open with a bang, making her jolt as a cold gust of wind puffed ashes into the hearth and swirled smoke into the air. But that wasn’t what had opened the door. Because as Dayn spun toward the commotion, a huge figure darkened the doorway. Reda shot to her feet. Then she froze and a three-headed giant stepped through.

So tall that it had to duck through the door, the monstrous creature had the body of a man, huge and muscular, but its skin was cement-gray and its broad shoulders supported three ogre-faced heads with protruding lower jaws, curved upthrusting teeth and fierce black eyes framing moist, snubbed noses. The thing was dressed
in a leathery loincloth, boots the size of mailboxes and studded wristbands and neck collars, and it carried a huge, blunt-headed club that was ringed with spikes and banded with iron. When it caught sight of her and Dayn, all three faces grinned horribly.

Dayn lunged for a rack of weapons her mind had initially dismissed as decor, grabbed a crossbow and yelled, “Run!”

The middle head locked on him while the other two stayed leering at her. Which made it tough to figure out who was the target as the creature bellowed a roar, drew back and swung its enormous club of death.

“Down!” Dayn plowed into her. They slammed against the back of the sofa, which overbalanced and fell, taking them with it.

The club screamed over their heads and crashed into the chimney above the hearth, sending chunks of brick spattering around the room. Nearly flattened beneath Dayn—he might be rangy, but he was
solid
—Reda struggled to breathe through the white-hot grip of panic.
This isn’t happening, can’t be happening. It’s just a dream, not real, none of this is real.

Heavy footsteps thudded as the creature came toward them, growling low in its three-way throat.

Not real. A dream. I’m waking up now. On the count of three, I’m going to open my eyes and everything will be back to normal.

“Stay down,” Dayn whispered in her ear, shifting as the monster stumped nearer, shoving furniture and knocking things crashing to the floor.

One.

Three heads came into view, six eyes locked on and the creature roared, reared back and swung. Dayn shouted something, lunged to his feet and fired his crossbow from the hip. The bolt buried itself at the top of the giant’s middle throat.

Shaking, Reda flattened herself. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but count.

Two.

The monster screeched, tossed the club, grabbed for its blood-spurting throat and reeled back. The club smashed into a window and hung up on the frame as Dayn fired a second bolt into the same head, turning the creature’s roar into a high-pitched mewl that grated on her soul.

Please, God. Three.

R
eda didn’t wake up.

Instead, she watched in frozen horror as the three-headed giant staggered and went to its knees, and Dayn methodically fired bolts into the other two heads. As if that had finally hit the kill switch, the creature plummeted to the cabin floor, where it lay for a moment, twitching in its death throes, and then finally going still.

The sudden silence rang in her ears as she stared at the monstrous corpse, which smelled like chicken breasts gone very bad.

She yanked her eyes to Dayn, who stood looking down at the creature with an expression of pity, but also excitement, as if the attack had been partly a good thing.

Who was he? What in God’s name was going on? She wanted to ask him but couldn’t get out the words. She was locked in place. Frozen. Once and always a coward under fire. Was this, then, what her subconscious wanted her to see?

Maybe. But she’d seen it and the dream wasn’t ending.

“You can get up now.” He said it without looking at her, but she thought she saw the twitch of a smile. “There’s a bag in the pantry. How about you load up some provisions while I take care of the other stuff?”

As he turned away, she slowly levered herself to her feet, suddenly wishing that a herd of pink elephants would walk past the broken window, so she could point at them and say,
Ha, I told you so. It’s a dream.
Hallucination. Whatever. What mattered was that this wasn’t really happening. It was all in her mind.

Except there weren’t any pink elephants. Which left her with a stinky dead giant with two too many heads, and a really hot guy who thought they were going somewhere.

MacEvoy, when I get through with you, you’d wish you just mailed me the damn book for free,
she thought. And then, because she couldn’t think of a good reason not to, she went to pack some food.

The bag proved to be a single-strap rucksack, and the provisions at hand were heavy on the hard rolls, dried protein—she didn’t ask, didn’t want to know—and trail mix. She loaded up whatever she sort of recognized, trying to focus on the similarities rather than
cataloging the differences. Her brain, though, kept a running tally that twisted the knots in her stomach increasingly tight.

And all the while, she was entirely aware of Dayn as he pulled on a sweater followed by his heavy leather coat, loaded a rucksack with his crossbow and bolts and strapped on a narrow leather belt that held an unusually short sword on one side, pouches on the other. As she finished up her packing, he slung a sloshing crescent-shaped leather pouch over his shoulder, glanced over at her and nodded.

He didn’t seem to expect a reply, though, because his attention moved on to the overturned couch and smashed end table, the broken window and the scattered other things that defined a life: a journal bound in what looked like nylon but wasn’t, a bunch of interesting rocks in a jar, a huge antler with a picture of a beautiful stallion carved into it, only half-finished. And while he looked at the room, she was looking at him. Decked out in a strange mix of modern clothing and archaic equipment, he should have looked as if he was late for Halloween. Instead, he appeared utterly comfortable in his own skin and—as evidenced by the giant’s corpse—deadly capable. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.

He turned abruptly toward the door. “Let’s go.”

She held her ground. “Go where?” They were the first two words she had managed to utter since the attack. Her mind might be racing but her body was still
mostly vapor locked. That was the way it worked when she went into curl-up-and-die mode.

He tipped his head toward the dead creature. “That was an ettin, which isn’t native to this realm. It had to have come from the kingdoms, which means the vortex has probably opened back up. And that means we need to go. Now.”

Vortex? Realms? How could he stand there wearing a crossbow and sword and talk about things that belonged in science fiction? It didn’t make any sense.

Of course not,
her rational self said.
It’s a dream, or a hallucination or something. But since counting to three didn’t work, maybe this vortex will.

So she nodded and followed him out of the cabin, her boots crunching on broken glass and then echoing on the short steps leading down.

“This way,” he said, urging her along a wide path. His breath fogged the air. “If we can get back through the stones—Shit.” His face fell. “It’s not glowing.”

“Which means?”

“The vortex is already gone.” He glanced at her. “You know how to call one, right?”

“I…” She thought of the whirling wind in her kitchen, the spell her mother taught her. “Yeah.”

“Then let’s go. If we hurry we can be gone before the pack gets there.” But he hadn’t gone more than a few paces before a wolf’s high, eerie howl rose into the clear night air, coming from very nearby. First one, then another and another joined in, swelling the note to a
harmony, then to a chorus, as if they were intentionally singing together.

The hair on the back of her neck shivered at the sound, which was wild, feral and hauntingly beautiful. But at the same time, nerves twined through her, turning her skin to gooseflesh.

Dayn stopped in the middle of the pathway. “Damn it, we’re already too late to get ahead of them, and we
really
don’t want to interrupt the blood-moon ritual.” He paused, considering. “Given that I don’t want to cross paths with them tonight, especially not with you, we’re going to need to hole up somewhere out of sight.” He glanced back at the cabin.

“Not there,” she said quickly.

He nodded, then pointed off to one side, where the trees ran up a steep, rocky hill. “There’s a cave I use sometimes. We’ll be okay there for an hour or two.”

“A cave,” she repeated, apparently only able to string together two words at a time, preferably one syllable each. Suddenly very aware of the cold that bit through her shirt and lightweight leather, she hugged herself tightly. This couldn’t be happening; it was all too unreal. Yet, strangely, Dayn seemed more real to her than anyone had in a very long time. He was bright and vivid; he drew her eyes and made her want to stare, made her want to touch. She’d felt inner sparklers when he kissed her hand. What would happen if he kissed her lips? What if he did more?

Focus. Stop transferring. You need to get out of here, not fantasize.

“Here.” He dug into his rucksack and pulled out a second sweater. “Figured you’d want another layer, unless your coat is one of those fancy jobs with the really thin insulation.”

“It’s not.” She slipped out of her leather and took the sweater from him. It was dark in color, thick and lightweight, almost airy, and the material had a faint rasp that suggested some dream-version of wool. Needing to say something that involved more than two syllables and might defuse the strangeness of wearing his clothes, she said, “Okay, so you carry a sword but you know about Thinsulate. What’s the deal here?”

He hesitated, then said, “There’s some travel between your realm and this one, so a certain amount of your technology has leaked over and been adapted to work here. I’m from the kingdom realm, which is pure magic. Thus, the sword.”

“Is there the same sort of sharing between your realm and this one?” She was stalling, asking about things she didn’t begin to believe in because she had been having sex dreams about him while he’d apparently been waiting for her to show up and lead him somewhere. And she didn’t want to wear his sweater. Except she did, because it was freezing out, and the sweater smelled like him—a mix of pine, moss and mint.

I really am losing my mind, aren’t I?
The thought brought a jab of new fear.

He glanced in the direction of the howls. “Things are far more complicated between my realm and this one.
And we should get moving before a pack scout catches sight of us.”

“Sorry.” Holding her breath, she pulled on his sweater and smoothed it down her body, where it clung unexpectedly to her rather blatant curves. But she didn’t care about that because she was already warmer, on the way to growing toasty. Letting out a soft sigh, she said, “Ahh, yes. That’s good.” Not letting herself snuggle or even take a deep breath, she nodded. “Okay. Lead on.”

He made a quiet noise at the back of his throat, adjusted his burdens and headed across the track and into the moon-dappled forest. There must have been some sort of path; she couldn’t see any markings, but he led her up the steep, rocky slope with a neat economy of effort, his near-silent footsteps making her feel loud and awkward in comparison. After ten, maybe fifteen minutes, he motioned for her to join him on a wide, flat ledge near a triangular cave mouth.

“Wait here. I’ve got some lights and other supplies inside.” He slipped into the darkness. Moments later a muted glow sprang to life and he called. “Come on in.”

She ducked to follow him in, found him crouched at roughly the midpoint of a low tunnel that was formed where two huge slabs of smooth, porous stone leaned against each other. In his palm he held a small rectangular unit that emitted blue-white light and a low background hum.

“The wolfyn won’t come up here,” he said. “After they’re done with the ritual, they’ll run the lowlands for the rest of the night. Moon time, you know.”

She only heard part of it, though, because the moment he said “wolfyn,” her stomach hollowed out and she flashed back to the woodcutting and the sly, evil creature that had seduced innocent Red. She sank down opposite him, and then leaned against the wall when her head spun. “Those were
wolfyn
back there?”

He nodded. “You’d call them werewolves. They’re shape-shifters. Human. Wolf. Back again.” He paused, fiddling with the little light. “I don’t know what the legends are like where you come from, but you don’t need to be afraid of them here. They treat guests well in their own realm. It’s part of the tradition they live by.”

Her heart was beating so hard her chest hurt, and her legs and arms tingled with an oncoming panic attack. A big one.
Breathe,
she told herself.
You can deal with this.
The wolfyn were just part of the hallucination. They couldn’t hurt her, couldn’t roofie her into sexual submission and then eat her when their other needs were satisfied. So far, all they were was just noise on the horizon. Besides, her mother’s stories about them taking young girls had been allegories about not giving it up too early or to the wrong guy. Right?

Breathe. Don’t lose it.
He wasn’t her fantasy prince and she wasn’t really in another realm. She wasn’t even really wearing his sweater, even though she was far warmer now, both because of the extra layer and the intimacy of the little cave, which forced them to bump knees and kept her system on a low rev of awareness.
Her racing mind was scared, confused and frustrated, but her body was entirely aware of his.

When he shifted back, so he was leaning on the opposite wall, his movements were controlled; after he settled in, he went very still, almost looking as though he wasn’t even breathing. He moved like a martial artist, she thought…or a predator. A hunter. The realization stirred her blood far more than it should, and she caught herself collecting small details, like how his aristocratic nose had a faint ridge where it had been broken and just slightly offset, and the way his hands were long-fingered and elegant, yet tough and callused with hard labor.

Benz had used to tease her that she would need genetic engineering to create her perfect guy, because she wanted the whole package: brains, compassion, honor and romance in a laborer’s strong, muscular body. And he wasn’t far off, because that would have been a real-life approximation of her woodcutter hero… Like the one sitting opposite her now, staring out into the night.

Except that he’s not really here, is he?
said her logical, rational self. And the heat buzzing through her body racheted down because it was right. Her brain was tricking her, just like it had when she was a little girl and thought she heard her maman’s voice whispering to her, sending her into the woods looking for answers. She didn’t need the department shrink to tell her that.

You have to get to the vortex,
logic reminded her.
He said that was the way home.
And if her mind had
bought in so deeply to the illusion, then the rules of the illusion should work. Maybe. Hopefully.

But the place where the vortex formed was crawling with wolfyn, and…wait. “If the wolfyn are harmless, why are we hiding up here?”

He looked back at her for a moment, seeming to be measuring her mental state. Or maybe deciding how much to tell her. “There’s some personal stuff between me and the pack leader. Tempers can run high this time of year, so I think it’s better if he and I stay out of each other’s way.”

“And?” she prompted when her cop’s instincts told her there was more.

He shifted, stretching his legs out beside hers, almost but not quite touching. The alignment of her battered jeans against his turned the differences in fabric and stitching from subtle to a shout as he said, “You know how I said things were complicated between my realm and the wolfyn? Well, there was a war. I don’t even know what really started it—nobody here seems to, and it was a long time ago. But it was ruthless and bloody, and didn’t end until a group of kingdom magic-users, the Ilth, got together and changed the nature of the vortices so that when wolfyn come through to the kingdoms they wind up stuck in the wolf form, unable to change back or cast the spell to return home. Eventually, they even lose their human thoughts, becoming purely feral.” He paused. “The wolfyn came up with a counterspell, but by that time they had discovered the human realm and become fascinated with your science.
For the past few generations—and my people have very long generations—contact has been limited to the few wolfyn who get sucked up into the vortices without the counterspell, and the occasional guest who shows up here, like me. In fact, the people of the kingdoms don’t even believe in realm travel anymore—it’s faded to legend status, just like the wolfyns’ abilities to shape-shift and enthrall beautiful women.”