Chapter 53
LOCK AND KEY
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT OCCURRED TOO quickly for Felíne to track.
Lucien ripped a squat blade from his pocket and thrust it at Kal.
Felíne cried out in alarm. Kal twisted into the blow, straining against his restraints.
Lucien slammed the knife into Kal’s chest, but the point deflected off a rib, carving a sloppy wound.
Kal roared and kicked viciously at Lucien’s left knee.
The joint shattered, tendons and ligaments popping as the leg hyperextended.
Lucien screamed as he fell.
Across the square, Rask exploded into his second form. He swiped a golden hand at Beaumont, who still held him. Stonehaugh dodged, and Rask’s vicious claws raked along the front of the large man’s armor. Rask wrenched free of his captor’s hold, turning toward the dais.
Felíne’s limbs trembled as Rask’s glaring blue gaze landed on her. She knew in that moment that he did not mean for her to leave. This male wanted her dead. Wanted payment for the sister he should have been reunited with.
Kalevar’s chest rumbled in warning behind her.
Rask’s lips curled with the challenge, and dread settled on Felíne’s shoulders like a mantle of doom. They were chained, skullcages locked about their heads. Kal was powerless to stop Rask from taking exactly what he wanted.
Harless prowled forward.
Behind him, Beaumont Stonehaugh shed his armor.
His skin rippled and stretched, silver-streaked chocolate fur spilling out.
His already large body became monstrous, gaining an additional four feet in height and four hundred pounds of weight.
He was bigger than the bear that had chased Felíne through the woods.
Nearly as large as Drexan had been. No wonder he hadn’t been bothered by the ursine mother.
Beaumont raised his broad head, opened his terrible maw, and bellowed.
Then he charged.
Rask barely spun in time to meet him. The two males clashed with claws and teeth, muscle and brawn.
Beaumont was nearly three times Rask’s size, but Rask had the advantage of speed.
He darted beneath a blow that would have caved in his skull.
Rask swiped back, claws slicing into the meat of Beaumont’s thigh.
The bigger male roared and lurched to the side. A bench went flying. People screamed, scrambling to vacate the path of destruction.
The square devolved into chaos. Shurii shifted, shielding loved ones. Mothers fled with their children. Trained warriors formed lines to protect vulnerable civilians.
“Order! I demand order!” Stef shouted. He may as well have been whispering into a hurricane. He turned pleading eyes to Beulah, but she was rushing across the square to her children.
Penn gripped a bow with white knuckles. Someone knocked into his sister, and he shoved them away with more strength than Felíne would have thought he possessed.
It was like Cindamar all over again. The panicked crowd, the shouts and disorder. Except this time, Felíne was the one standing on the stage, the people she cared for beside her.
Movement and harried breathing drew her attention.
Felíne turned in time to see Lucien Cross heave himself up onto his good leg.
He’d maneuvered himself behind Kal, keeping away from another kick.
Lucien latched on to Kal’s shoulder, steadying himself, the heavy iron bar offering a barrier between them.
Adder snarled behind Felíne’s other shoulder. “Get off, you bloody leech.”
Lucien gripped the bars of Kal’s skullcage with surprising strength, wrenching his head back. He fit a metal implement into a socket on the backside of the collar. Kal swore and shook his body like a lion attempting to dislodge a jackal. But Lucien would not be deterred. He cranked the implement.
Metal screeched. Kal’s collar tightened.
Horror, unlike anything Felíne had ever known, descended upon her. She shrieked. “Get off him!”
Lucien cranked it again. Iron barbs dug into the skin at the base of Kal’s throat. Kal thrashed. “You fucking—”
Crank.
Kal’s words cut off. His face contorted in fury.
“I will be rid of you, Kaine. Rid of you at last,” Lucien panted, clinging to Kal’s shoulders. His ruined leg crunched sickeningly beneath him. The man grimaced, expression manic. “I had everything before you.”
Crank. Iron pierced Kal’s neck. Blood trickled from the wounds.
“Stop!” Felíne had never felt such panic. Such utter helplessness.
“I had favor. Friendship. People listened to what I had to say. I had power.”
Craaank.
“Divine curse you!” Adder howled. “Fucking curse you, Cross!”
Felíne threw herself against her bonds. The metal of her own skullcage dug painfully into her neck. Her wrists and shoulders wailed in agony. She didn’t care. Desperation lashed at her with tongues of fire.
“I was important,” Lucien bit out.
“Stop it!” She sobbed, chains rattling, metal screaming. “Stop! You’re killing him!”
One more twist of that barbaric length of iron and the man she loved would be no more. Lucien glared at her over his shoulder, face pale, eyes wild with pain and exhilaration. “Don’t worry,” he assured her with a grimace. “You’ll not be long behind him.”
Lucien gripped the metal implement for the final turn.
Felíne screamed.
A terrible gurgling filled Kal’s throat. Blood flowed, staining the collar of his shirt.
Then Lucien Cross’s grip slackened. His brown eyes went unfocused, lids blinking, brows furrowing in confusion. His mouth gaped and released a terrible, torturous yowl.
He crumpled. Behind him, Santhe yanked her dagger from his flank as he dropped like a stone. Blood, bright and copious, stained the planks of the platform in a curtain. Felíne sagged, another sob hitching in her throat.
“Quickly, Santhe,” Adder barked. “Loosen the wrench.”
Santhe dropped the dagger. It clattered to the floor next to Lucien’s still body. She flung the piece of metal fixed to the rear of Kal’s skullcage in the opposite direction. The collar relaxed, and Kal hauled in a lungful of air.
At least, he tried to.
Kal made a choking sound, and Felíne’s world broke apart. Kal slid to the ground, the wounds in his neck pulsating with each desperate beat of his heart.
No. No!
“What’s wrong?” Adder’s usually spirited voice was drenched with worry. “Santhe! What’s wrong with him?”
“I—I don’t know,” Santhe stammered. “It’s loose. I loosened the cage.” Her hands patted along Kal’s neck, as though searching blindly for the missing piece of a puzzle.
“He’s choking!” Felíne heard herself say. “Santhe, he’s choking! He can’t breathe!”
The color bled out of Santhe’s face. “Oh gods. Oh gods, what do I do?” She looked for Adder, panicked. “What do I do?”
Adder couldn’t help. Felíne couldn’t help. They were both chained to the fucking posts. Kal was bleeding out, asphyxiating in front of her, and she was going to watch him die. She was going to watch the light go out of his eyes.
Kal’s hands curled into fists. He pounded them into the ground once, then clawed at his neck.
No.
What would Mender Alcuin do? What would he—no. Mender Alcuin, for all his brilliance, was not here. She was. What would she do?
“Santhe,” Felíne snapped. “Come here.”
The woman looked at her like she’d sprouted a third eye.
“Now!” she demanded. “Or he’ll die.”
Santhe scrambled over to Felíne.
“Inside the left seam of my vest, along my ribs, there is a hidden pocket,” Felíne said, voice oddly calm. “Inside the pocket is a key. I need you to get it.”
Santhe was already patting along Felíne’s side. She tried to ignore the blood left behind everywhere the woman touched her. Kal’s blood.
Shut up, stupid woman. He needs you.
Felíne took a shuddering breath. “Rip the pocket if you must.”
“Got it,” Santhe said triumphantly. She held up a key.
The key.
“Good,” Felíne said. “Fit it to the lock on Kal’s skullcage. Quickly.”
“But—”
“Just do it, San,” Adder barked, voice urgent.
Santhe snapped out of her perplexity. She dropped behind Kal, pulling at the skullcage in her haste. His body jerked back. He was losing muscle tone.
“Hurry, Santhe,” Felíne hissed.
“It won’t fit,” Santhe cried. “It’s not the right key!”
“It is,” Felíne argued. That key fit every lock. “Turn it counterclockwise.”
Santhe’s eyes became blurred by frantic tears. “But that’s not—”
“Santhe!” Adder thundered.
Santhe wrenched the key. The lock to Kal’s skullcage popped free. Felíne’s heart lurched. Santhe jerked the skullcage off Kal’s head. He lolled to the side, arms angled painfully behind him.
“Now his hands, Santhe! Same key!”
This time, Santhe didn’t hesitate or argue. She plucked the key from the cage and jammed it into the shackles, twisting counterclockwise. They fell away.
Santhe smacked Kal in the face. “Shift, damn you!”
Nothing happened.
Santhe smacked him again.
No. Godsdamn it, no!
“Kalevar Barringer Kaine, don’t you dare die on me!” Felíne jerked at her binds. “Don’t you dare!”
On the left side of the square, Beaumont and Rask were tiring. Beaumont’s side was bloodied, his chocolate hide dampened with sweat. Rask’s fair pelt was dark with his own exertion, and he favored his left leg.
Felíne hollered again. Rask roared.
Kal’s body went still.
And then it ripped apart.
Kal’s second form, black as death, yet determinedly refusing to die, spilled forth.
Santhe scrambled back. Claws longer than Felíne’s fingers raked deep grooves in the platform’s planks.
A merciless growl gurgled in his barrel chest. Felíne watched with equal parts fascination and horror as the wounds in Kal’s neck began to heal.
He crouched, chin tucked into his sternum, body vibrating with adrenaline and fury. Felíne held her breath, waiting desperately to hear the sound of his.
A minute passed. Then another.
Two luminous golden eyes locked on her with unrelenting focus. At last, Kal’s chest swelled with an inhale, and Felíne nearly sagged at the sweetness of the sound. He turned his head to the side and spat blood.
“Santhe,” he said, forcing words through a raw throat. “Free her.”
Santhe, clearly still rattled, worked the key into Felíne’s skullcage, then her shackles, before moving to release Adder.
Kal helped Felíne remove the cage and tossed it unceremoniously aside. When he turned to face her once more, he lowered his massive forehead to hers. He breathed deeply, a soft rumble rolling between them. Felíne’s relief was palpable, thick enough to clog her chest with emotion.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
Felíne released a half-sob, half-cry of incredulity.
“You stupid man. I watched you almost choke to death on your own blood.” She probed her hands gently over the surface of his throat, fingertips slipping through his thick fur to search for injury before moving to inspect the wound Lucien had inflicted on his chest. “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” he replied. Then, “I need to start compensating you for your services. Wasn’t that our agreement?”
The day they’d spent walking through Cindamar’s trade center and the bargain they’d struck surfaced in her mind like a distant mirage.
Felíne hadn’t wanted to be indebted to him, so they’d agreed she would serve as a mender until she could repay him for buying that ridiculously expensive wedding attire from Policarpa’s shop.
Kal had given her so much more since then.
His attention. Protection. Loyalty. Perhaps even love.
Things she could never hope to repay. Ones she didn’t want to.
Instead, Felíne wanted to continue accepting all that Kal had to offer her and give every bit of herself back to him in return.
He would never ask for recompense, but Felíne would willingly pay with her heart and soul. Somehow, she already had.
Another yowl from the square drew their attention.
Beaumont had managed to subdue Rask with the help of Beulah, Vorak, and another civilian, all of whom had also shifted to assist. Rask writhed beneath them, spitting and snarling like a feral cat caught in a trap.
In the end, though, he was overpowered. Stef peered down at him with contempt.
Beulah clapped a pair of shackles on Rask’s thick wrists and instructed a trio of Meressian warriors to take him to The Hollows. He’d spend the foreseeable future in one of the pits until they figured out what to do with him.
“What if he shifts back to first form and slips his manacles?” Felíne wondered aloud.
Kal glared at his once-friend across the square, his expression part disappointment, part regret. “He won’t. They’re engineered to tighten if he shifts.”
Santhe stepped forward with Adder, who absently rubbed his wrists. She offered the key to Felíne.
“A skeleton key, Kitty?” Kal asked. He tilted his head, gilded eyes aglow.
“I suppose I have some surprises left.”
The edge of his lip twitched, and he leaned forward. “I look forward to uncovering all the rest.”
Felíne felt her face flush.
Kal swung his gaze to Lucien’s body and the still-seeping pool of blood beneath it. “Santhe,” he said, tail swishing. “I owe you a life debt.”
Santhe shook her head. Her brown hair had come loose from the tie that held it, wispy bangs falling in her eyes. The aftereffects of her frenzied fear lingered in her narrow features. “It was Kitty’s key.”
Felíne grasped Santhe’s hand, and the woman stared. “And it would have been useless without you to wield it.”
“As I said,” Kal rumbled. “A life debt.”
Santhe’s eyes welled with unshed tears. She nodded once.
Beulah and Vorak approached the platform. Stef joined them a moment later. The three of them surveyed Lucien’s prone form with distaste.
“I cannot believe he would go so far,” Beulah said with a touch of sadness. “Thank the stars no one else was seriously hurt.”
“Stonehaugh?” Kal asked, echoing Felíne’s thoughts.
“He’ll require stitches, but most of his wounds have already begun to heal,” Stef replied.
“I’ve sent Penn to accompany him to the infirmary,” Beulah added.
Vorak jumped onto the dais and squatted near Lucien’s body, lifting one limp arm to inspect the wrist and hand. Blisters, now pale, peppered the skin up to his forearm.
Felíne grabbed for Kal’s clawed hand with sudden remembrance. “Saul! Where is he?”
Beulah startled. “At the conference hall. With the mender.”
Felíne looked to Kal with urgency. “I need my medicinal supplies from your cabin.”
Adder stepped to her side. “I’ll get them and meet you there. Go.”
Felíne rattled off instructions. Adder nodded once and left.
Stef and Vorak volunteered to stay behind and manage the mess that was Meress’s city square.
Bodies needed to be dealt with. The remaining crowd needed to be addressed.
The rest of them—Felíne, Kal, Santhe, and Beulah—hurried to the Conclave’s hall.
Felíne only hoped they weren’t too late.