Chapter 20 Ditch #2
“I think you enjoy toying with others, and I look down on beings like that.”
His words made the inside of her chest itch. Unpleasant. “I’ll soldier on without your tender regard. Telling you to go fuck yourself will help.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “You want me off this mountain to uncover my weaknesses. But if I’m defeated, my brother Straegan is next in line.”
“And he’d fall under my charm too. Look at me.” She smoothed her locks; her tail posed shamelessly. “It’s a given.”
“I would no’ count on it.” Thane’s jaw ticked. “He’s already fallen.”
An intrigue. “Tell me.” When he hesitated, she sighed theatrically. “All take, no give. You dictate my outfit, refuse off-mount talks, won’t heel like a good puppy, and now you stonewall our peace negotiations.”
Scowling, Thane said, “Straegan is in our dungeon, lost to his beast. Yet it’s one of the most cunning and aggressive ones we’ve ever known. Having shed humanlike sentiments, Straegan wants us all to live with our most primal selves risen. It tempts many in my clan.”
“Does it tempt you?”
“My beast is also aggressive,” he admitted. “But I’ll no’ give up my life to it. Ultimately, you should be praying to Hecate for my continued health. The alternative—a pack surrendered to savagery—would make even the Helter look preferable.”
An annoying complication. Fully risen Lykae shed spells like rain. Good thing she hadn’t killed Thane so far! “Bring your brother here,” she suggested. “The Mount tempers the beast.”
“It prevents it from rising. Straegan is now secondary to his wolf, so the Mount would actually keep him from regaining control. No’ that he even wants to.”
“How long will you keep him imprisoned?”
Thane’s slow, grave nod said, Forever. But he clearly took no pleasure in it, not like she might have.
He suddenly stiffened. “Do you hear that?”
She shook her head. Despite Ditch’s demon half, her physical senses might as well have been in a cocoon compared to a Lykae’s.
“Something’s coming. Fast.” He reached for his absent sword and bit out a Gaelic curse.
A shadow dropped across the clearing. Wind hammered. Somewhere, a cow lowed in panic.
Thane leapt in front of her as a griffin hit the ground on the far side, pinning a big dun cow beneath talons the size of her forearm.
“Hecate’s breath,” Ditch whispered, peering around the king’s shoulder.
The creature was a living cryptid: lion’s body thick with muscle, eagle’s head broad as a spell circle, wings flaring to twenty feet and throwing snow-cold air over them.
“He’s incredible,” she breathed.
“Aye.” But Thane remained on guard.
And you, wolf? Why shield your enemy? Chivalry—or something more? A suspicion sprouted in the fertile medium of her imagination, outrageous and thrilling.
No, no, that wasn’t possible. Fate couldn’t despise him that much. “What a spellbinding creature,” she mused. “I rarely have tail envy, but I admire his.”
Thane glanced back with raised brows.
“What? Akelarre has no griffins.” The sight softened her voice. “I think this Skein might be a little wondrous.” Magic here felt like braidwork—give and take—rather than the brittle scaffolding of her birth world. So what was making it ebb?
“Wondrous,” Thane murmured. “Aye. Until we run out of food. Then wonder would turn to horror in a blink. No lifeboats from this place. No rescue.”
He kept circling back to food. Is it truly that grim? She would check their stores and projections. “The king has many worries to accompany his crown.” And she would prove his greatest. Once she whipped her witchly army into shape—
The griffin pressed the cow down and used a massive talon to rip open the animal. Blood steamed; entrails slithered. Yet the griffin didn’t feed.
Ditch looked on dispassionately. “Is this its nest?”
“I’ve no’ scented it before. I see no signs of other kills.”
“Perhaps your cattle rustler was never a witch.” She put a hand to her heart. “And here you blamed us poor, humble Wiccae.”
“Heh.”
The eagle head swiveled; golden eyes fixed on them with predatory intent.
“Could you take it without a sword?” she murmured.
“Aye,” he said. “Doona want to though.”
“The wolf is merciful.”
“To the deserving,” he returned. “Are you?”
“Am I what? Merciful? Or deserving?”
A huff that was almost a laugh.
Surprising male. If so much wasn’t on the line, she’d consider a little light fucking before they warred. The way he went through females meant he was less likely to get obsessed with her. Her bedmates often did, even when she tried to dull herself down to fifty percent effect.
The griffin cocked its head, wings mantling wider, tail coiling.
“I think our friend grows frisky.”
“It will no’ tolerate us much longer,” Thane said. “Go. I’ll stay between you and it.”
“So protective.” She stepped out from behind him, amused. “Why offer yourself to defend me?”
“I canna draw a trajectory from two points,” he said, “but I fear the witch leaders are going downhill. You’re worse than Lazara. The next could be even worse than you.”
“Stop, you silver-tongued charmer! I can only get so aroused!”
Sharp look back at her with a grudging grin.
“Still,” she said, manner turning brisk, “I accept. If one of us must be mauled, I prefer it to be you.” She shrugged from his coat, kept it in hand, and sashayed down the mountain trail.
The leather swung against her bare thighs and flicking tail; behind her came the low, helpless sound of a hungry wolf.
She smiled into the night.