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She glanced at hi
"I sensed your panic when the vines had you And you’re not a woh, she looked away, out at the water "It was a long tiet"
"No That’s true I was captured by Therians" She said the words so matter-of-factly, but he heard the pain behind them And he finally understood her hatred of shifters He waited for her to continue, but when she remained silent, he asked, "Are any of the to kill thelanced at him, an odd look in her eyes Surprise, perhaps And steel And soeance, Feral Without mercy Every one who hurt me, I killed The only one I never found was the one who betrayed li innocents into the Crystal Realm to die because she saw it as the only way to save her race A hard woman But not all there was to her, not even close And that hard veneer had come at a terrible cost, he was sure of it, now
"Is it possible he still lives?"
She looked away "I know he still lives And he’s going to die" Slowly, she turned tosapphire diamonds "It’s Castin"
Ah, "Feck" His stonized his picture when Hawke flashed it on the screen in the war room yesterday"
"You can’t take him on alone"
"He’s mine," she snapped
"He’s also a Feral Warrior, if one who has not yet been brought into his animal And you’re an Ilina who cannot mist"
She scowled at hi from Melisande’s words Everyone who hurt me, I killed
Goddess Had they raped her? Was that the reason she’d turned to stone as he’d kissed her, the ht sla Had Castin raped her? If so, theto die, either by Melisande’s hand or his own But he would die
How had she been captured when she could turn to mist in a heartbeat and escape?
They were difficult questions, and he wasn’t at all certain she was ready to share the ansith hi around theed As cleanly and suddenly as they’d walked into the ain
And into chaos
Chapter Eleven
They’d walked into a bloody hurricane
Battering wind sla hiainst hi hi ocean sent pounding surf to scour the shore Water rushed over his boots, then receded just as quickly
They’d stepped into yet another world, this one far from the medieval seaport A tropical island, froht in the ainst the blowing sand, Fox searched for assailants along the beach or hiding a the trees, certain they were around sory ocean, dark, swirling clouds blocking out midday sunshine, and a tropical island under full-scale attack by Mother Nature
The sand blowing in his face annoyed him The impossible nature of this er building inside of hi like he wanted to crawl out of his skin If only Jag were here to give hiht
He pressed his ale, "We’ve got to find shelter Soaze with a tense rip on her hand with an instinctive need to protect She couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, and he feared that the ould lift her up and send her flying Together, they ran from the beach toward the tree line above
A shiver took hold of hinize as the kind that preceded soh, as before, he suddenly knehere to go
"This way!" He tugged on Melisande’s hand Within the forest, debris flew, branches snapped, trees bending as if pushed low by a giant hand
His gut led him toward a particularly thick clump of trees in which they could find some shelter He pulled back a wide palh She stepped forward, then froze and began to backpedal
"What’s the matter?"
"Look Carefully!"
He leaned forward to see what the problem was A pit Bloody hell By the looks of the tra the bottom some twenty feet down, the pit had been hidden Before the storm? No By the track round on top, whoever, or whatever, had fallen in had been hauled out again And recently
Why in the fecking hell had his gut brought hi wind, pointing
He followed her gaze to where someone lay sprawled and motionless a short distance away, partially hidden by a downed pal the trap, they made their way to hi its head And it wasn’t alone There were three in all, the heads scattered nearby like so ed one of the heads with the toe of his boot, turning it until he could see its sightless eyes The brown irises were ringed in shiny copper Mage eyes Approaching the second, he lifted one closed eyelid Mage eyes again
Melisande checked the third "Mage"
"Three dead Mage No wonder there’s a hurricane" Mother Nature got angry when her Mage were killed Millennia ago, the Mage had been the closest to true nature spirits that existed on Earth Now they were,to free the Daemons to destroy the Earth they’d once protected
"Who killed theood question" And he had an idea "Hold on to a tree I don’t want you blowing away" When she’d done as he commanded, he pulled on his own inner power and shifted into his fox, startled by the feel of hurricane-force winds through his fur Opening his senses, he began to sniff around the bodies Sure enough, he caught the scent they’d been following before they entered the labyrinth
Castin, he told Melisande He followed the scent straight back to the pit He’s the one they caught, I’d wager The question is, did he get away or were there e than these three?