Goose bumps rose on his arms at the same time that he shivered. And then his gut was shouting at him. Run! Climb onto that rock slab. No! Run to the back of the cave!
Bloody hell. What did it want him to do?
Loose rocks and chunks of ceiling rained down upon them. He grabbed Melisande close, shielding her from the falling debris as he lunged toward the door, determined to push the slab away from the cave’s mouth.
A rock struck his shoulder, another his foot. Behind him, the back wall began to crumble, and he glanced back just in time to watch it crack open like an egg, falling away. Sunshine and frigid air poured in on a cloud thick with dust and debris.
“Onto the rock slab!” He knew, now, which intuition to listen to. But he’d figured it out too late. The floor beneath his feet began to give way. “Leap, Mel!”
But they weren’t close enough. They were going down.
Chapter Sixteen
Fox pushed himself out of the rubble, gasping at the stab of pain in his side. A broken rib? “Mel!”
“Here. I’m fine. I just lost my boot.”
Relief weakened his knees. He could see little through the dust cloud released with the cave’s collapse, but he soon became aware of a rock face rising on all sides. They’d fallen into some kind of hole. A big one, to be sure, but a hole all the same. The best he could judge through the haze, escape was a good twenty feet above them on all sides.
The damned labyrinth had caught them at last.
As the haze cleared, he caught sight of a man clinging to the high edge on the other side of the huge hole. The male struggled, digging his boot into the rock face as he levered himself up and out of the pit. So someone else had been caught by the landslide. Or the trap. Someone who’d been lucky enough to keep from going all the way down.
As the male turned, Fox caught sight of his face. Castin. His dark hair was cut shorter than Fox remembered—military short. And like Fox, he was sporting a several-days’ growth of beard. But Fox would know him anywhere. Hatred burned in his gut as he stared at the man who’d betrayed Melisande. Deep inside, his fox growled. They were of like mind, each ready to rip the bastard’s heart out.
Castin caught sight of him, recognition and surprise flaring in dark eyes. Fox shuttered his own expression, hoping Castin hadn’t recognized Melisande. He glanced back to where she was retrieving her lost boot, her blond head bent, and decided he hadn’t. Without a word of greeting, Castin circled the pit, unfastened a long length of rope he had strapped to his belt, and unfurled it across from where Fox stood. Castin had never been much of a talker.
Fox turned to Melisande, gripping her shoulder, grimacing from the pain that shot through his side as he lifted his arm. “Don’t move.”
She froze, her gaze flicking to his, warrior still.
“We have a way out of here . . . if he doesn’t recognize you.”
He knew the moment she put two and two together. A sound of fury hissed between her teeth. “Castin.”
“I’m going up first. Keep your head down, Mel, I’m begging you. Let’s get out of this pit safely.” And if Castin recognized her, there was no telling what he might do.
“All right.” The words were a low growl between clenched teeth.
Fox crossed the rubble slowly, to where the rope hung. But as he reached for it, he felt the magic rush over him as if he’d called on his animal form. What the feck? He fought the shift, battling it back. A fox wasn’t going to be able to climb the rope out of this pit.
And that was the plan, he realized. That evil within his animal spirit wanted him to stay right where he was, trapped and waiting for the Mage sentinels who were sure to come.
Again, the magic rushed over him and again, he fought it back, frustration lunging. His jaw clamped hard. If he got most of the way up that rope and shifted, he was going to be one aching puppy when he fell. Taking a deep breath, which hurt like hell, he grabbed the rope and began hauling himself up, fast and hard.
Castin would get him out of here if he could. Ironically, he trusted the male to do that. The one whose actions he didn’t trust was Melisande, and how could he? For five thousand years she’d sought vengeance against this male. Keeping her head down and staying silent was going to take every ounce of control the woman possessed.
Finally, he reached the snowy lip of the wide pit, and Castin hauled him out. Fox bit down on the groan of pain.
“What are you doing here, Kieran?” Castin’s words were laced with surprise, his accent ancient British. “I heard you were marked.”
“I was. I’m the new fox shifter. What are you doing here?” He took stock of their surroundings. From what he could tell, the rocky outcropping was something of a spine running down the center of the plain. The back of the outcropping had dropped away, leaving this crater between the rocks and the snowy plain at the back. And the snow was deep, nearly to his knees.
Castin’s brows drew low. “Are you not going to free your woman?”
“In a moment. What the feck are you doing here, Castin?” He struggled not to act on the hatred that seethed inside of him as he stared at the man.
The male watched him with quiet curiosity. “It’s a bit of a tale. I heard a rumor that the Ferals aren’t trusting the newly marked.”
Damn. And how had that gotten out already?
“So you thought you’d offer your services to Inir instead?” Fox’s tone sounded acidic even to his own ears.
Castin’s eyes narrowed only slightly. “I came to kill him.”
Fox blinked, not sure what to do with that. Perhaps the male wasn’t a villain through and through. Fox had known him once and had thought him an honorable male. But men changed. And men lied.
“There’s dark magic involved, Castin. You’re infected with it.”
“I feared as much. It’s the pull of it I’m following. Are you infected as well?”
Fox cleared his throat, struggling to mask his anger. “No.” At least . . . hell. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. “Inir has our Radiant. We were hunting her and fell into the labyrinth.”
Castin snorted. “I’ve been wandering the thing for days.”
“As have we. Keep an eye out for the Mage, will you, while I pull my companion out?”
With a nod, Castin turned away.
“Angel,” Fox called softly.
Melisande grabbed the rope and climbed with a grace and ease he envied. He reached for her as she neared the top, and pulled her out, though she could have done it easily enough without his assist.
Castin turned around, then did a double take. “Melisande?” A bright, disbelieving smile lit the usually taciturn warrior’s face, as if he were genuinely delighted to see her. As if he had no recollection of betraying her.
Fury flayed Fox, jealousy beating at him. They’d been lovers.
But Melisande’s face turned dark with hatred, her hand grasping the hilt of her sword.
Out of the corner of his eye, Fox saw movement in the rocks. Mage. “We have company,” he warned. Mage sentinels were beginning to crawl out from the rocks like a plague of rats, half of them mounted on horses.
Castin frowned at Melisande even as he pulled his sword to fight. Melisande threw Castin a hate-filled promise of a battle to come when this one was over. Fox pulled his knives, grimacing against the pain that told him he still hadn’t healed. And the Mage just kept coming.
Melisande was shaking, choking on her hatred as she turned from Castin to face the attacking Mage. How dare he act as if she were a long-lost girlfriend he was delighted to see. As if nothing had happened. As if killing and/or torturing eight innocent Ilinas was nothing!
“Let’s pull this battle away from the pit,” Fox said, coming up beside her. “Give no quarter. Every one of these feckers stands between us and Kara.” He stayed close to her side as they raced out onto the snowy plain, as if he didn’t entirely trust her not to attack Castin instead of the Mage.
Truth to tell, it was a near thing. Seeing Castin again had brought it all back as if that first, horrible night had happened hours ago and not five millennia—the torches set at intervals around the glade, gleaming on the flowers that had been cast onto the pond. Blankets had been laid out, laden with food and overflowing casks of wine. The summer air had been thick with the scent of flowers, forest, hot bodies, and the perfume of Ilina mating scents.
But there had been a tension in the air that night that she hadn’t understood. When she’d asked Castin about it, he’d admitted only that they were worried about their inability to call their animals. But the celebration would take their minds off it. The beauty of the Ilinas would turn their thoughts to more joyous pursuits. And she’d believed him.
Fool.
She jerked her mind back to the present and counted more than a dozen Mage, half of them on horseback. As she and the two shifters pushed through the powdery snow, the mounted sentinels circled them, cutting them off.
The cave leaped into her mind as she’d first seen it that night, after fighting her way back to consciousness. Flickering torches, the smell of mildew and damp fur. The cheetah chieftain standing over her with eyes awash in an unholy light. Her arms were tied above her head as they would remain for three years. But her legs were free.
She’d tried to kick out at him as he’d knelt as her feet, but he’d grabbed her ankles in one hand, his shifter strength far greater than her own. Lifting her feet into the air, her hips off the ground, he’d driven two stakes into her lower back, one after the other, then dropped her, mounted her, and raped her as she’d screamed. Then he’d left her and returned with half a dozen of his warriors.
Shaking her head, focusing on the present, she watched the Mage leader draw his sword, his sentinels following.
“Back-to-back,” Fox ordered, and the three formed a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder, as they prepared to take on the enemy. As the leader of the Mage battalion gave the order to advance, the three sprang forward as one.
Melisande struck out at the nearest Mage, one on foot, channeling her raging fury. She dove, spun, sliced through his hamstring, then his back as she leaped to her feet behind him. How she wished it was Castin’s flesh beneath her blade. As the Mage fell to one knee, unable to stand, Melisande spun, sword out, and lopped off his head.
As the blood spurted up from his neck, another memory slammed into her, watching the blood spurt from the chest of a young cheetah, a male only a handful of years past his maturity, as she held his warm heart in her hand. He’d begged her for mercy, terror in his youthful eyes, but she’d given him none. Just as he’d ignored her screams as he’d driven into her in that cave.
“Mel!” Fox’s voice pulled her back to the present, and she ducked, barely in time to avoid being stabbed through the skull by one of the mounted sentinels. Instinct and long experience took over, and she leaped onto the horse behind him, stood on the animal’s haunches, and drove her sword straight through the rider’s skull. Yanking her blade free, she swung, lopping off his head, too.
Pushing the headless rider from the horse, she stood on the animal’s back, surveying the dying Mage on the ground around her. In her mind’s eye, they weren’t Mage, but Ilinas. Not dead, not yet, but writhing in pain and madness, crazed from the poison the Mage potion master had infected them with.
So many dead.
Screams echoed in her mind, escaping the box she’d tried to lock them in. Her body turned to ice.
Ninety-six Ilinas dead.
Castin’s fault. It was all Castin’s fault. He had to die. She had to make it right.
Melisande half fell, half leaped off the horse. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fox yelling something, but couldn’t hear what he said. All she could hear were the echoes of those ancient screams.
It was starting to rain. Just fucking great, Grizz thought as he strode across the open field on the slope of the mountain. Finding a lone woman in the fucking Rocky Mountains was worse than searching for a needle in a haystack.
After talking to Brinlin last night, he and Lepard had rented a motel room, then set out at daybreak. They’d found the lockbox easily enough, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of fucking nowhere, just as Brinlin had warned. There were no trails leading away from it. No roads or trails of any kind in any direction. At least none that they’d been able to find. They’d even shifted into their animals and tried to track scents, though neither of them had much experience with it. And they’d been wholly unsuccessful. Then again, if Sabine only came down here once a month, and the last time was nearly four weeks ago, they weren’t likely to find any kind of trail, scent or otherwise.
Finally, they’d decided to split up, afraid if they didn’t, they’d be at this for days. The woman could be anywhere.
Grizz was just cresting the next rise when a loping bear cub caught his attention not ten yards to his right. Cute little guy, and a grizzly, if he wasn’t mistaken. The incredible nature of seeing a real grizzly wasn’t lost on him. Nor was the fact that he was in very real danger. Because where there was a cub, there was almost certainly a mother.
A quick look left confirmed his suspicion. The mother, all right. The very pissed-off mother if the ears lying flat to her head were anything to go by.
Hell. This wasn’t what he needed right now. He hesitated two seconds before tossing his backpack to the ground and yanking off his boots. But as he shucked off his pants, the sow began charging and he didn’t have time to divest himself of his shirt, jacket, or briefs. And there’d be no seeing them again. He wasn’t one of the lucky ones who could hang on to his clothes through a shift.
Pulling on the magic that lived within him now, channeled by the golden grizzly-head armband that curled around one upper arm, he shifted into his animal in a spray of colored lights.