“No!” I cried, putting my hands up to stop the blow. The man looked to Tiger who frowned but shook his head. The gypsy lowered his hand and I turned to find Wolfe glaring at me. Ignoring him I addressed Tiger, “What do you want?”
Tiger sighed. “Tomorrow morning I send a message to Novia for Markiza Raven. In it, she will be told I hold ye both ransom, yer lives for land. Then we’ll have to wait whilst she informs the Rada and the Princezna. When we get the land we’ll keep our promise not to kill ye. He,” he stabbed a finger at Wolfe, “Will be kept a prisoner until such time as I see fit to release him.”
“And Lady Rogan?” Wolfe growled.
Tiger smiled, his eyes running the length of me in a way that caused my stomach to flip. I almost gripped Wolfe’s arm I was so discomfited by that look. “Lady Rogan is something ye’re not, Captain.” He strode towards me, his eyes seeming mesmerised. I flinched as he reached up and gripped my chin lightly. “She is one of the Azyl… and I find that I am in need of an Azyl.”
“You’re a collector.” I glowered at him disdainfully.
He didn’t seem to care. “Yes. But ye’re different. I’ve heard good things about ye. When Selena is impressed, I’m impressed.” Abruptly he let me go and turned to gesture behind him. “Bird!” he called. Almost instantly the tall, skinny boy who had served us our food earlier, the one who had stared at me so detachedly, appeared before us. Tiger put his arm around the boy affectionately and grinned at me. “This is my adopted son, Bird. Say hello, son.”
Bird smirked at me. “Hello son.”
I almost rolled my eyes at his rehearsed insolence.
“Bird,” Tiger continued, “Is one of the Glava.”
My jaw dropped. “Another mage?”
“Ye said it yerself, I’m a collector. I found Bird when he was five years old.”
I almost launched myself at him and was surprised to find Wolfe’s hand on my wrist, squeezing it in restraint. “You mean you took him!”
“Semantics.” Tiger waved me off. “Bird, show them what ye can do.”
His eyes laughing at me, Bird turned and looked at the Cael gypsy girl. She gave out a frightened yelp as we watched as her hair floated up into the air, strand by strand. She began to whimper and the two women beside her laughed and scooted away from her as first one arm popped up into the air and then the other. Finally her entire body rose from the log as if propped up by unseen arms. Panic suffused her and she began thrashing and screaming as she rose steadily higher, terrified tears streaking her cheeks. “Stop!” She shrieked. “Make it stop!”
None of the gypsies around me seemed too distressed by the sight, although I noticed a few on the other side of the campfire glare at Bird in disgust. I too was disgusted. I felt sick at the sight and was just about to reprimand them when Wolfe snarled, “You’ve had your fun. Let her go.”
Bird arched an eyebrow at Wolfe’s demand and then looked to his father. Tiger was smiling at Wolfe. “The boy thinks he’s a hero.”
“Please,” I added, pleading with my eyes. Tiger frowned and then nodded at his son who dropped the girl. She fell with a hard thump onto the log and let go a howl of pain. “You bastard!” I yelled, forgetting myself.
“Now, now,” Tiger admonished and seemed to share a look with Vrik. “Ye’re right, son, perhaps she would do better for ye. I’m not sure Bird can handle her spirit.”
“Then give her to me.” Vrik reached a hand out and wrenched me to him. I was completely taken aback by the claim as so far he’d been relatively unemotional, even when he was threatening me with disgusting acts.
“No!” Wolfe lunged for me, but was dragged back by the two gypsies. They held him fast and tight as he violently resisted their hold.
Bird shrugged. “She’s not much to look at papa. I don’t care if ye give her to Vrik.”
Vrik ran a hand down my cheek so softly I trembled, fighting the urge to be sick as these men decided casually which one would rape me. “I didn’t see the appeal at first either, but the more she snaps and snarls at ye, the prettier she seems to get.” He chuckled and then ran a hand down my waist and around my hip and down to squeeze my bottom painfully. “Plus she’s luscious enough to bear healthy children.” I winced at his manhandling, afraid to look at Wolfe who was struggling and cursing at them all.
“I’ve changed my mind.” Bird turned to his father like a petulant little boy who had just discovered the toy he had given away did something interesting he hadn’t known about. “I want her.”
“Very well,” Tiger agreed. “We’ll do the handfasting on the morrow.”
Marriage! I began to struggle in Vrik’s arms who growled, “Papa, she clearly doesn’t want him, give her to me.”
“I don’t want any of you!” I screamed, fighting against him, but he wouldn’t yield. “You can’t do this to me!”
Tiger strode forward and pulled his hand back. I braced myself. His palm cracked across my face with a slap hard enough to roll my eyes back in my head. Harsh heat shot up the left side of my face and my eyes watered at the sharp needles of pain. “You’ll be given to Bird; the Glava marries the Azyl.”
So that was Selena’s game, I slumped, telling me I would marry one of the Glava. Old, manipulative witch.
Suddenly a shriek echoed around the campfire and I opened my eyes to see the fire in the centre of camp roar high, high into the night as if it had been jerked awake from a deep sleep. The gypsies stumbled away from it, fleeing the site as the flames licked out at them like arms trying to snatch them back into the death of its embrace. Wide-eyed I looked to Wolfe and found his eyes narrowed in concentration. Bird screamed and Vrik let go of me as a wall of fire encircled his father and adopted brother. Slack-jawed, ignoring the blazing heat stroking my skin, I stared at Wolfe, feeling the crackling of his magic. His magic? His magic!
Wolfe was one of the Glava?!
He reached out, not even looking at me and pulled me to him, his arms encircling my waist as I was pulled back into him, his chest to my back. Another fire shot up around Vrik and his men, another around tents. Wolfe, still holding me, strode forward and grabbed the girl from the Caels who sat immobilised in shock on her log. He ripped her out of her seat and holding our hands he began running, a wall of fire blocking the men so we could escape. Wolfe headed towards the house where two horses grazed. The girl seemed to come out of her daze at the sight.
She ran towards the mare and jumped up into the saddle like an acrobat. She grabbed the reins expertly, turning the horse to the west. Her terrified eyes caught Wolfe’s and they swam with gratitude. “Thank you!” She yelled and then kicked her heels against the mare’s flanks and bolted out of there.
“Where is she going?” I yelled against the noise of the chaos behind us, still shocked numb and cold despite the heat of the fire at my back.
“Back to her clan,” Wolfe grunted. “Come on, Rogan, move.” He vaulted up on the stallion and then reached a hand down for me. I just stared at, still not believing what he had done, how powerful he was.
“Rogan!” He yelled and pulled at my arm. Shaking myself of my stupor I reached for him and let him pull me onto the horse. His arms came around me, squeezing me tight as he took hold of the reins and pushed the horse into a gallop, heading north east.
Chapter Fourteen
We rode in complete silence, pushing the horse to his limits to get as far away from the Iavii as we could. Wolfe had been right, we were very close to the border and soon, just as the stallion’s coat was beginning to sweat, we came to a stop on a hill and gazed down a valley into the distance where the glass factories of Vasterya shaded the border. It had grown much bigger since I was a child; lots of dark, crooked buildings surrounding the factories, like a small city. This was the rookery.
“We need to be extra careful here,” Wolfe said quietly behind me, his voice pinched tight with tension. He dropped the reins, and I turned awkwardly to see what he was doing. He was shrugging out of his emerald military jacket. He threw it on the ground behind us.
“Won’t you be cold?” I asked, shivering a little myself.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. From now on I don’t want anyone to know who we are until we’re returned to the Guard.”
Seeing wisdom in that, I nodded and let him move the stallion forward. I still hadn’t asked about the magic. For the first time I felt real and true anger toward Wolfe, not angry at him because of whom his father was, but hurt and angry at his own deception. No one knew that like Syracen, Wolfe was one of the Glava. An immensely powerful one if I was to go by the destruction he had caused to get us out of the gypsies’ grasp. I stiffened as I realised why I was angry.
“You alright?” Wolfe asked softly behind me and I nodded, trying to ignore the heat of him at my back and the way my body wanted to relax into his.
I was angry because somewhere along the way I had stupidly begun to trust this man. Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could I? Were the nightmares, the memories, that huge gaping hole in my heart, not enough to remind me not to trust a Stovia?!
I stewed in silence, feeding off Wolfe’s tension as well. He was probably waiting on tenterhooks for me to ask why he had hidden the fact he was a mage. Dear haven, what awful vengeance he must have been planning! And yet, that was so in contradiction to the man I had come to know.
Stop it! I yelled at myself. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know him at all, and it was that silly kind of… girlish thinking that was going to get me killed.
***
One minute we had been in the country and the next we were inside the walls of the town, of the rookery. The change in atmosphere was intense, slithering over me and clinging to my skin in sickly chills. There was a malevolence here, echoing in the way people hurried past us, not even glancing at us, their heads down as they determinedly rushed to get home or inside out of the dark, dank streets. The streets weren’t kept clean. Urine and waste mixed with the smoke and smells from the glassworks. Houses and shops were shabbily constructed, soulless and frightened looking buildings jammed together in crooked rows. There was little light here, street lamps sparsely spaced between streets.
I could feel Wolfe’s shock at the state of the place, his shock as great as my own. This was unbelievable.
“How could Markiz Solom Rada let this happen?” I whispered solemnly and turned to see Wolfe warily eyeing a boy who was staring at us too avidly.
“I don’t know,” he bit back, “We should have been told. We would have stopped this.”
“What will we do?”
“I have a few coins I kept hidden, the Iavii didn’t get them. We’ll find somewhere with lodging so we can eat, rest and send a message to the Guard in Ryl.”
“Will they still be there?”
“Yes. They’ll send some men out to search but they won’t move perchance we return to them. I’ll tell Lieutenant Chaeron to bring the men and meet us in Caera at Vojvodkyna Winter Rada’s home, as planned.”
I gave a brittle nod, thinking his plan sound, and wondering whether he’d go through with it or decide to take his vengeance whilst the Guard was gone. He could kill me, and thus Haydyn would die, and then he could blame it on the Iavii. I winced at the thought. Even to me it sounded a little melodramatic. I sighed, deciding to trust him. For now. “We need to get a move on. We’ve already lost too much time.”
“I know.”
Wolfe eventually had to stop and ask someone where the nearest inn was. We were pointed in the direction of a drinking tavern we were told had rooms above to rent. There were stables behind the tavern and we secured the horse, handing over coin to the stable boy who kept guard over the clientele’s horses.
Shivering now, the night growing later and later, we headed into the tavern. Eyes immediately swung to us, conversation growing hushed. I was surprised when Wolfe’s hand slid into mine, jolting at the fissures of pleasure that shot up my arm at the feel of his rough, warm fingers entwining with mine.
He gave a slight shake of his head, his blue eyes startling in the light of the barroom and warning me not to make a scene; to just go along with him. I responded with a subtle nod and he relaxed a little, leading me past the chairs and tables, ignoring the other patrons completely. Noise level rose again as we approached the bar, and the huge burly barkeeper came over to us, a wide grin appearing in amongst his massive ginger beard.
“Well good evening. What can I get you?” He was all friendly smiles. I relaxed a little at this warm welcome, such a jarring contrast to the streets outside.
Wolfe nodded congenially back at him. “Good evening. We would like a room if you have one available.”
The barkeeper’s eyes lit up, I gathered at the thought of earning the extra money from renting a room. He looked me over before turning back to Wolfe with a wink. “Aye, I’d be wanting a room too, if I were you.”
I flushed red, despite being used to overhearing such talk amongst the Guard and servants back at the palace.
Wolfe squeezed my hand and shrugged at the barkeep. “My wife and I are tired, we’ve been travelling a while,” he lied and I knew it was for my sake and my sense of propriety, a sense of propriety that seemed a little misplaced considering everything we’d gone through. “I’d like a room and some food sent up. Also, we had a little mishap on the road. You wouldn’t have some clean clothes we could buy from you?”
The barkeep’s grin grew wider. “Not a problem, lad.” He reached under the bar and brought up a key. “Room 2 is available.” He pointed to stairs hidden in the shadows of the back of the room. “Just up there. I’ll have my wife bring you a dinner plate and some clothes.”