The Shadows of Night (2 page)

At least it should be revolting.
 
But somehow, she thought, stealing another glance at his perfect face, she wasn’t revolted.
 
Not at all.
 

He stopped next to her and looked down.
 
She was surprised to see how tall he was.
 
She had always thought of the Antler Kindred as small, slender, and fragile, but he was the tallest man she’d ever seen, and one of the best muscled.
 
He looked as powerful as any man she knew, and every bit as imposing.

“So,” he said, effortlessly capturing her gaze again.
 
He had the darkest eyes she’d ever seen.
 
“You believe you would have preferred to die alone in the forest.”

She swallowed.
 
The truth was
,
she wasn’t ready to die.
 
She had only seen twenty-two summers, and if she were to be honest with herself, the idea of dying so young, dying before she’d had the opportunity to wed and bear cubs, terrified her.
 
But she refused to let him see the truth he’d hit on.

“It is the way of my people,” she responded.

“Has it ever occurred to you that the ways of your people are foolish?”

She felt her lips curl up in a snarl and didn’t attempt to suppress the reaction.
 
“As if the Antler Kindred, with your warped sense of morals, might know what is best.”

His mouth twitched with condescending amusement.
 
The supercilious bastard.
 
The humor on his face infuriated her, and she felt the savage urge to leap from the table, change in midair, and rend him with her claws, but again she discovered that she was trapped.
 
She couldn’t change, either.
 
What had they done to her?
 
She fought down the rising feeling of panic and struggled to remain calm.

He looked away from her, toward the old woman.
 
“How is she, Otwa?”

“Her injuries were extensive,” the old woman answered in her cracked voice.
 
“She was obviously set upon by a pack of the Fang Kindred, and suffered numerous bites.
 
But they are healing rapidly.”

Healing rapidly?
 
How could so many bites be healing quickly?
 
She would expect to suffer for weeks as she recovered from such an attack, if the wounds did not fester and kill her.
 
Katara attempted to move her arm so that she could see the grievous injury that had been inflicted to her front right paw, but nothing happened.
 
She gritted her teeth with annoyance.

Lord Hart lifted an eyebrow as he looked back down on her, a trifle more respect in his gaze.
 
“You were set upon by the Fang?”

“At least ten of them,” she answered.
 
“They ambushed me.”

“You’re lucky to be alive, then.”
 
A dark sorrow, the ancient grief of the prey, filled his eyes.
 
“Over the course of the years, some of our people have not been so fortunate when attacked by predators.”

“Hardly surprising, considering how weak your people are.”

The door opened—it slid open, sliding right into the wall noiselessly, she noticed with surprise—and another man came in.
 
He wasn’t as tall and well-muscled as the lord, and his tawny hair was streaked liberally with gray, but the resemblance was unmistakable, as was the heavy crown of golden intertwined antlers on his head.
 
This was clearly the monarch of the Antler Kindred.
  

“Weak, are we?” he responded, his voice rumbling with menace.
 
“Simply because my son was foolish enough to bring you here doesn’t mean we might not yet choose to kill you.”

Despite her helpless position on the table, she refused to show fear.
 
“You haven’t the nerve to kill me.”

The older man smiled, not at all pleasantly.
 
“You think not?”

“We are not killers, Father,” Lord Hart interposed sharply.
 

The cruel smile slid from the monarch’s face, and he sighed.
 
“Indeed, that is true, Hart.
 
If we begin killing our enemies when they are helpless, we shall be no better than the Claw and Fang Kindred.
 
We shall become barbarians, just as they are.”

“She is not truly our enemy,” Lord Hart said.
 
“We have never been at war with her kind.”

“They menace us in the forest when we go too far abroad.”

“Rarely.
There was a time when they attacked us regularly, and there are still some vicious renegades among them, but on the whole, they leave us alone, and we leave them alone. As long as they do not join together to kill us, they are not truly our enemies.”

“But they are not our allies, either.”
 
The monarch looked down at Katara, his eyes narrowed.
 
“Think you that she would hesitate to kill us if she were free?”

“No,” Hart admitted.
 
“She hates us.
 
But
I must confess, I don’t understand why
.
 
We saved her life, after all.”

“She hates us because we are civilized, and she is a barbarian.”

“Because you are weak!”
Katara growled.
 
“Because you are spineless,
jittering
creatures that run at the slightest sound.
 
Because you live in boxes and have utterly lost your connection to nature!”

Hart sighed.
 
“We could discuss what we think is wrong with
each others’
Kindred for days, and never change our opinion.
 
Such a discussion will do nothing to bring our peoples closer together.”

“You are quite correct, my son.”
 
The monarch nodded.
 
“Nothing can bring our peoples together.
 
We are too different.”
 
He turned to the old woman.
 
“How long until she is well?”

“A day, more or less,” the old woman said in her timid voice.

Hart looked down at Katara.
 
“Be still, Claw.
 
In a day you will be well again, and free to rejoin your own people.”

“No.”
 
The monarch set his jaw.
 
“I’m afraid not.”

Hart’s head jerked up, and he glared at his father.
 
Katara had the distinct impression she was as surprised as he was.
 
“What?”

“She is our prisoner,” the monarch said.
 
“And she will remain our prisoner.
 
I have absolutely no intention of letting her go.”

Hart blinked at his father, seeing the determination in the old man’s eyes.
 
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Father.
 
She is not truly our enemy.”

“Perhaps not.
 
But we may be able to use her against the Claw Kindred if necessary.
 
We are already being attacked by the Fang.
 
On a random basis, to be sure, but their guerilla attacks may presage a full-scale assault.
 
The Claw
have
been known to attack us, too. If they move against us as well, we will need leverage.
 
A hostage.”

“The Claw
have
never truly been our enemy,” Hart objected.

“Nor have the Fang, until now. It would be best to ensure our people’s safety by keeping her here.”

“I do not matter greatly to my people,” the woman said.
 
Hart liked her voice, low and rumbling, like a purr.
 
It was as attractive, as
sexual
, as the rest of her.
 
“They care not for my fate.”

“I can hardly take your word on that,” Hart’s father answered.
 
“I know little about the Claw and their political structure. For aught I know, you may be a person of great import among the Claws.
 
You would hardly volunteer the information
were
it so.”

“Father,” Hart said.
 
“With all due respect, this is the wrong decision.
 
We cannot hold this woman hostage.
 
Rather than help our position, you may set off a war if her people discover we have imprisoned her. The Claw
are
very touchy about such matters.”

“The Claw
are
touchy about everything.”

“True enough,” the young woman responded.
 
“We are indeed.
 
But on the positive side of things, if you insist on keeping me here, at least I will eat well.”
 
She bared her teeth at Otwa, who backed away.

Hart sighed.
 
“Perhaps you have attributed your inability to shift to your injuries, Claw, but there is a field in this room that inhibits shifting as it heals you.
 
You will not be able to shift whilst you remain in this chamber.”

Her eyes went wide, and he realized she’d never heard of such a thing.
 
Hardly surprising, given the level of technology her people possessed.
 
If one could call it technology at all.
 
The tales he’d heard indicated they lived in crude shacks, wore animal skins, and cooked over fires.
 
A regen field was several hundred years beyond their abilities.

“You cannot mean to keep me from shifting for the rest of my life!” she snapped, bristling with anger.

The monarch’s lip curled.
 
“Surely you don’t think I would let you run free in your animal form?
 
My people depend on me to keep them safe, after all.
 
In your animal form, you are exceedingly dangerous.”

“You’ll find I’m dangerous in my human form as well.”

“I can easily believe that,” Hart said.
 
“Father, please listen to me.
 
This is a very bad idea.”

His father lifted his head and glared.
 
“I have spoken.”

There was nothing more to be said.
 
Hart bowed his head in acquiescence.

“And you will be her keeper,” the monarch added.

Hart’s head jerked up, and he stared at his father incredulously.
 
“Her
keeper
?
 
Father, have I displeased you somehow?
 
Do you have some wish to see me gutted, or to see my throat torn out?”

“No.
 
But you are the one who brought her here.”

“I brought her here with the intention of saving her and letting her go!”

“Granted.
 
Even so, you were the one to provide us with this opportunity.
 
Therefore, she is your responsibility.”

Hart looked down at the woman.
 
Her slanted, green-gold eyes stared back with a dangerous glint.
 
He couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.
 
The thought of this wild, untamed woman kept inside for the rest of her days, never being permitted to roam the forest free again, caught at his heart.
 
 

He knew how
much
his jaunts into the forest in his animal form meant to him.
 
How much more must they mean to this woman, whose people lived closer to the wild, who had never been fully civilized?
 
To keep her inside, trapped in her human form, forever unable to shift again, was sheerest cruelty.

But his monarch had spoken, and he was bound to obey.

“As you wish, your majesty,” he replied.

*****

“I hear our father has gifted you with a beautiful woman.”

Hart lifted his head from the
ta’rsa
board and regarded his younger brother with suspicion.
 
Prong rarely introduced a subject just for the sake of idle conversation.
 
But there was nothing on his brother’s face to give away his thoughts, nothing but smooth indifference.

The brothers had always been close, and they played board games or cards almost every day.
 
Today they sat together in the enormous living chamber.
 
One of the silvery round drones floated by noiselessly, its mechanical arms dusting the surfaces despite the fact that they already shone.
 
But for the drone, they were alone.
 
No courtiers were about, and the room was so quiet that it echoed.
 

Since most of their work was performed by drones, the Antler did little work.
 
Board games and playing the harp were Hart’s two favorite ways of passing the time in his human form.
 
And of course he spent much of each day in his stag form, wandering the forest, just as most of the Antler did.