Chapter 33 #2
The thing was, I was not so sure. “Her magic felt different.” I made myself relive the moments that she’d held me, bound up in her power. There had been more darkness to it, more violence than even Thorn’s magic.
“How?”
“Darker. I think Zane was right.”
A sharp clap of hands startled us. I looked over my shoulder to see Nemain striding our way.
She was clothed in gauzy, floating red material.
It moved around her body as if alive, or perhaps made of cobwebs it was so fine.
I did not see a cloak on her shoulders, so had no idea of what rank she held as a witch.
She was a strange beauty, beyond anything I’d ever seen before.
Her hair was split down the middle, red on one side, white on the other.
Eyes of green so bright they glowed, and a willowy body that made me think of something, someone, not quite human.
A little too long in the arm, the neck, the fingers.
“Excellent! Your little friend is awake. Let us start.” She smiled and her mouth was just a little too wide, her hands flicking at us in such a way that her joints moved in ways they shouldn’t.
Not human.
Not witch.
I had to squelch the growl that rolled up in my chest, threatening at the back of my throat. Demon for sure.
Nemain was no witch possessed by a demon, but a full-blown, full-blooded demon.
That’s why her magic felt different—and why it hit me harder.
I let Veyyr help me to my feet, leaning on him. Wanting her to think me exhausted and damaged by her earlier assault.
If I could fake her out somehow, make her think I was weaker, then it would give me a slight edge.
A second clap of her hands and Zane was dragged back into the—courtyard, we were in a type of courtyard not unlike…Shit, it was Zane’s courtyard with the scrying pool and everything.
Her smile widened, her eyes glowing a little brighter. “Ah, I see you recognize the space? Now, what is your name, girl?”
I stared at her feet, even though I wanted to defy her. I needed to draw her into the lie, let her grow confident. “Mallory.”
“Well, Mallory, I hope you are humbled and grateful to die at my hands. I do not give the honor to many.”
Veyyr snarled and stepped forward, as if to block me from her view. A flick of her hands and he dropped to the ground, slammed face first into the stones.
It took everything I had to gasp and move away, as if it terrified me, and hadn’t instead enraged me.
“What do you fear, Mallory?” She stalked around me, circling me like a predator. I moved slowly with her, but did not lift my eyes.
“I’m not telling you.”
“Then I will make you,” She did not even turn to Zane, just pointed a finger in his direction. He arched his back as best he could, pinned between the two posts, a bellow ripped from his lips, arms strained against the ropes.
“Stop! Don’t!” The fear in my voice was not false. “Don’t hurt him!”
“Then tell me, what do you fear, Mallory?”
I had to give her something, but what? Giants, the fuck I would tell her that was what I feared.
Zane’s agony was a visceral thing, and I blurted out a single word, my mind hoping I was right. “Riftwolves.”
Nemain cast a hand toward Zane and he slumped. “See? That was not so hard.”
Play dumb, let her think she has you, don’t let her see the trap you are laying.
“Why do you want to know what I fear?”
“Because, stupid girl, you will die at the hands of your greatest fear, and I will feast on it. The fear, that is. And it will make me stronger, and then I will do the same to young Zane. Perhaps to Veyyr, he is one that I am uncertain of—I wouldn’t mind a pet, at least for a few years.”
I glanced to where Veyyr lay face down, unmoving. “Is he awake?”
“He has already given me the thing he fears most.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down. As if I were the fearful thing in question.
I swallowed hard, making it audible. “And we face you and how…how do we win?”
Her laugh was immediate, if you could call it a laugh. It reminded me of iron being scraped across stone, a shrieking pierce to the ears that was anything but amusing. “Truly, if you kill me, that is how you win. But you will not even come close.”
Time to stoke her pride, prick her ego.
“Of course, you took our weapons to make sure,” I said. “Just in case. That makes sense.”
A hiss escaped her. “I am not afraid of you.”
“Of course not. But better safe than eternally sorry,” I shrugged. “Something my mother used to say.”
I fed her that second lie, see if she bit.
Somewhere in my head was the knowledge that demons could often sense lies, being the master manipulators that they were. But this demon did not seem to be paying attention to anything. Least of all the lies I’d spoken.
Go me.
If she would believe my lies, then I could kill her. If I could strike at her pride, I could save all three of us. Because she would make a mistake.
“Have your weapons, I do not fear you.”
My falcata, daggers, and bow and arrow appeared on the ground in front of me. “Okay.”
“I do not fear you!” She snapped.
I nodded, flinching as if her words had struck me. “I do not think that. Will you...how does this work now?”
Nemain strode to the scrying pool, her hand held stiff over it, fingers flexed so the tips were raised. “Umbreth lupi, riftora ven!”
The water that had shown me my guides began to bubble and dance, steaming as if it were heating from below—no…it was heating from below. The water dropped away suddenly as if…as if a Rift had opened underneath the pool.
I scooped my sword as I stumbled back a few steps.
The water disappeared, hissing and spluttering as the earth opened, a Rift created right in front of me. If there had been any doubt that she was a demon, it was gone now.
Laz had said that the Rift in the ocean would have dropped straight to the demon realms.
A scrabble of claws brought my thoughts into focus. A pack of riftwolves crawled out of the crack in the earth, their bodies just as those I’d met defending Red, Dakota, and his daughter.
Lean bodied, dark green and black scales covering the body, only these ones had flecks of red within their scales. The whip long tail, massive fangs, and huge amber eyes made up the rest of them instead of the strange glittering eyes that first riftwolf had looked at me with.
And there were a lot of them. Not a small pack. Twenty at least.
Maybe if Zane and Veyyr were at full strength, we could take a pack that large, but on my own?
There was no way.
The riftwolves kept on flowing out of the earth, more than twenty now, the pack was like nothing I’d ever seen as they filled the courtyard.
The dark green and black was dotted with other colors. Not just red as I’d thought. Blue. Even flecks of silver and gold within the scales.
“These are my pets…I am the creator of the riftwolves—do you know that their howls freeze their prey with fear? Of course you do…” Nemain laughed as a riftwolf went to her and she stroked its head. “All who come to me claim riftwolves as their greatest fear.”
If that was the case, then she already had me in her clutches. Only I wasn’t full of any sort of fear—at least not yet
Keeping my eyes away from her gaze, I kept still as the riftwolves went to their mistress.
The last to arrive was smaller than the others…a female. The scores along her left side were the same as…the same as before. She was the mate of the riftwolf I’d killed the first day I’d climbed from the Rift.
Her eyes swung my way, locking with my own.
Free us, Wolf Daughter.
“They are lovely, are they not?”
Nemain continued to speak but her words were empty in my ears as the riftwolves whispered a plea only I could hear.
Free us, Wolf Daughter.
Free us, Wolf Daughter.
Free us, Wolf Daughter.
The words came at me from all angles, the riftwolves pleading with me—to do something that I had no idea how to do.
I could not kill them all.
But I had…a wolf of my own. I’d seen her at my side, as silver as the moon at night, and as loyal as any could be. Family, wolves were family.
All wolves.
“…and as such, they answer only to me.”
I lifted my head to Nemain’s statement, the riftwolves stalking toward me. Not toward Veyyr, not toward even Zane. This was a challenge meant to tear me to pieces.
“Do not hurt her, Nemain! I will give you what you wish!” Veyyr bellowed, the bond flaring as he woke, though he was still pinned to the ground. Zane was unconscious as far as I could see—or worse, dead.
Family.
Heart.
Blood and fire, they were mine to protect.
“You’re going to die, bitch.”