Page 17

Damon

I was a second away from lunging for the female who’d grabbed onto Kit. I stopped only because Kit’s face softened as she reached up to grip the other female’s wrists, her voice gentle as she spoke in some language I couldn’t understand.

The female answered in kind, uttering only a few syllables before breaking down. Her head fell forward to hit Kit’s shoulder and Kit’s arms came around her.

Unerringly, Kit’s eyes found me as I slunk out of the woods on all four feet.

A tall, blond male noticed me first and he went to lift his spear but Lemeraties stepped in front of him.

“No,” she said coldly.

I flashed my fangs at him and shifted, willing it to happen fast and ignoring the increased pain that came from rushing it.

Sweat slicked my brow as I straightened and met the male’s eyes over Kit’s lowered head.

A rush of whispered voices came to my ears and I saw more than a few reach for their weapons.

“I didn’t come here planning to hurt anybody,” I said in a flat voice. It wasn’t exactly a lie—the ones I’d planned to hurt were either already dead or we didn’t expect to find them here. “But if so much as a single person draws down on me, I can change my plans pretty quick.”

“Who are you?” the male demanded in near-perfect English, moving to stand between his soldiers and me, taking on the stance I’d seen Kit use so often, body bladed and weapon raised. He was almost as tall as Doyle, more leanly muscled but every inch of him was hard and toned and he moved with a lithe quickness I’d only ever seen a couple of times—Chang had it. Rana had it. And so did Kit, although she was still coming into her own. If they’d actually trained her…

“I’m with her,” I said shortly, angling my chin toward Kit and keeping the emotion out of my voice.

He spoke to her then, using a language I didn’t understand. I’d heard it before—sometimes, when Kit had nightmares, she’d use that tongue, and once, when she’d first suspected the Lemera was after her, she’d spoken it while she was awake. She hadn’t even known she was doing it.

Kit responded back, saying only a few words before switching to English. “And anything you say to me, you can say to him, so don’t talk about him in a language he doesn’t speak—it’s rude.”

The male’s mouth twisted in a frown, but he inclined his head and looked back at me, lowering the spear and rising from his crouch.

“I am Demetrio,” he said, his English betraying only a slight accent. “I was one of Kitasa’s yearmates.”

There was something in his voice—I didn’t like it.

“How nice.”

His lids flickered.

Looking at the woman who still stood so close to Kit, I asked, “What’s going on?”

“She wants to know about our boat,” Kit said quietly. Her mouth twisted and I knew she didn’t want to explain what had happened.

The female nodded and I wanted to swear. She understood us. Judging by the way we were being watched, it was likely most of them spoke English well enough to pick up on what we were saying and the sudden alertness told me that our boat was important.

“Why do you need to know about the boat?”

This was bad.

A soft pitying sound escaped Kit’s throat as we stood in the doorway of what was effectively a hospital.

There was no modern medical equipment.

There were no soothing herbs or potions I equated to a witch’s healing hall, either.

There were beds and each one held a sick person—most of the bodies were small . Kids, some hardly more than babies.

Demetrio had brought us here.

Several had tried to argue, including one female named Sybin. She’d shoved her way into our path repeatedly and finally, I’d gotten tired of it, so I’d flashed my fangs at her and snarled.

Now she, and the rest of her little clique, hung several yards away, watching with distrust. Lemeraties hung between us and them. Maybe I could warm to her. As long as she was there, none of them tried to go around her. I had no idea if they’d figured out who—or what—she was but none of them wanted to be near her.

Kit grimaced and went to breathing through her teeth. I didn’t blame her but I didn’t allow myself the luxury. I wanted to make sure I hadn’t mistaken the foul stench I’d picked up a few yards away.

A female in pale green came out of a side door and I caught her eyes. She looked startled at the sight of me, but came our way, stopping with five feet separating us.

Like the others I’d seen, she resembled Kit—she was taller, a little more heavyset and there was a haggard set to her features, like it had been a long time since she’d caught more than a couple hours of sleep.

Wariness flitted across her features as she studied me, but then she looked at Kit.

Her eyes widened.

“You,” she whispered in a voice so faint, it barely registered.

There was no doubt she recognized Kit.

Kit barely acknowledged her, her mouth pinched in a grim line as she looked at the beds, so many occupied by a small body.

“We don’t get sick like this,” she said absently.

Some part of me wanted to be relieved she knew that.

But I was too disturbed by what I saw.

The other woman stirred and seemed to come back to herself.

"This is not a natural illness,” she said, voice taking a brisk, capable air that still managed to be compassionate.

She sounded like pretty much every healer I’d ever come across.

I wondered if she’d ignored Kit every time she’d been beaten.

Something of what I felt must have shown on my face because she stopped meeting my gaze and focused on Kit.

“What do you mean it’s not natural?” Kit asked.

“Simply that,” the healer replied, her hands folded at her waist. “I’m not familiar with this disease, but I understand sickness. I learned how to treat viruses and infections when I spent a few years with my mother’s people. I’ve never seen a disease… cling like this. And more than that, it fights me. It’s not natural.”

Kit stirred, a crease forming between her brows.

“Your father is of the people,” she said slowly. “Your mother was…a witch?”

“Yes. She was from Red Branch, a house in Romania. I have cousins, aunts and uncles there—I met them when my father took me there for training.” Her lips pressed flat. “They asked me to stay with them, but there was no healer here and one was needed. My…father did stay. Demetrio brought back word that he had passed some years ago.”

“Demetrio went out to find to…” Kit frowned.

“He was of an age to find a partner and father a child. These days, few are willing to return to the island when they leave, but Demetrio returned. Five years in a row he left, staying gone during the summer months and returning when the days shorten. But not these last two years.”

“Because of the outbreak?” Kit asked.

“Because I can’t,” Demetrio said, walking through a side door. He’d donned a set of greens, similar to what the female wore and he went straight to a basin affixed to the side wall where he started washing his hands. “The protections we have built around the island are faltering. They weren’t stable last fall, but they held. I decided against leaving. Too much was unsettled. This year…” He lapsed in silence as he turned off the water.

It wasn’t modern plumbing as we’d recognize it, but it definitely wasn’t a primitive setup, either. The water drained away as he shut off the taps before turning to face us. Drying his hands on a soft white towel, he blew out a breath and continued on. “Three males my age left in the fall of last year. That was when we had the first outbreak. They wanted to find medicine, perhaps see if a witch from Red Branch who knew healing could come back with us. They’d barely been gone a week when a winter storm came through that nearly killed all of us.”

“The barrier,” the Lemera said softly. “That’s what feels different. It’s thinned to nothing.”

“Yes.” He nodded to Kathra. “One of my cousins—Kathra’s niece—she’s of the Red Branch line and started developing abilities akin to a witch’s when she was four or five. She’s thirteen now—we’re keeping her away from the hospital although she wants to be here. We can’t risk her. She sees the magic. We can only feel it. From what Inisa says, there is a wall and it has threads linked to all of us. The threads were stronger once—I believe she means that when there were more of us, there was more power for the barrier to draw on. But now with so few…the power drain is waning, and so is the barrier. It draws its power from those within its boundaries and too many have left.”

“When the Queen—” the healer stopped abruptly, clamping her mouth shut.

“When Fanis abandoned us,” Demetrio said. “Kathra, the lot of you need to stop pretending she’ll be back, that the truth is anything but what we know it to be— she abandoned us. She took the Royal Guard, her personal legio and the twins and abandoned us.”

“She went after Commander Rana.”

Kit tensed and turned, looking for the new speaker. Several had crowded closer to the building, although they still kept distance between themselves and the Lemera.

The female who’d spoken—I’d heard her voice before.

She’d been the one I’d heard as I prowled through the trees. I didn’t know what she’d said to Kit, but I’d heard the Kit’s tone—I didn’t have to understand her voice to hear remembered pain and fury scoring each syllable.

Taking a step closer to Kit, I put a hand on her shoulder.

She didn’t react.

She also didn’t pull away.

The other female, nearly as tall as Demetrio, lifted her chin and stared Kit down.

“We all know you did something to Rana,” she said, malice in her voice. “The commander was sent after you because the queen finally discovered where you had gone to ground and Rana went after you to bring you back. Did the animals you’ve hooked up with help you kill her?”

“Just how do you all know I did shit to Rana, Sybin?” Kit asked, sounding bored.

“Because you have the shield she took with her!” She flung a hand at Kit and I glanced over, saw the shield Rana had brought to Kit.

“The shield is mine .” Kit narrowed her eyes as she stared the other female down. “He was my mother’s and he came to me .”

“It was in the queen’s quarters and Rana took it with her.”

“Yes—to bring him to me .” Kit lifted her chin. “To see if I could call him and I did .”

“That is true.”

The softly spoken words came from Kathra and one by one, all turned to look at her.

Including me.

Her gaze slid from Kit, then returned, a weary expression on her face. “Rana told me why she was leaving…in case she didn’t make it back.” Her eyes, a faded gray-green darted to me before settling back on Kit. “Is she dead?”

Kit’s heart sped up.

“We saw her a few months ago,” I said when Kit didn’t speak. She was getting some of her memories back, but apparently not all of them. “She was fine when she left us.”

At that, the healer finally met my gaze. “And I should believe you?”

“I’m not the one who was leading a double life,” I pointed out. But even as I said the words, they felt false. I was, wasn’t I? In a weird sort of way—I didn’t remember that other life, but it was there, lingering behind some dark fog in my head.

Kathra drew her shoulders back but before she could respond, Demetrio was there. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Aunt,” he murmured before falling back on their native tongue.

Some of the tension drained out of her and she nodded, turning her back on us.

“So, the Commander went looking for you,” Demetrio said, his brows furrowed over his eyes as he squared off before us. “How long has she known you were alive?”

Kit slanted a look at me and I saw the hesitation in her eyes.

“I’m not certain she ever thought me dead,” Kit finally answered.

Anger and betrayal flashed across the guy’s face. Kit saw it as easily as I did but I wondered if she had figured out the reason behind it. He’d had a thing for her. And it must have been serious if this news hit him like that after more than a dozen years.

“She never let on,” Demetrio finally said. “Although it’s obvious she told my aunt. They were… are close.”

Kit looked at Kathra who held Kit’s stare with an unblinking one of her own. Kathra’s chin went up and Kit huffed out a laugh.

“Half the people here would just as soon spit on me because my father was human, Kathra,” she said. “And I can feel how many of them are watching us, looking for a chance to come at Damon. But you’re looking at me to see if I’ll judge you because you and Rana have a thing going? I don’t care if she swings both ways, all ways and every way. Who anybody sleeps with is nobody’s business but their own. It’s not like a kid is getting abused and people are turning their backs, right?”

The healer had the grace to flush and look away, but not quick enough.

The claws scraped against the inside of my skin, wanting freedom.

Kathra’s eyes darted to mine and she paled, ducking her head quickly.

“I am…sorry we didn’t do better by you, Kitasa,” the older woman said in a stilted voice.

Behind us, people shuffled their feet.

The one Kit had called Sybin made a choked sound low in her throat and moved forward.

That was it. I was done.

Nobody was quick enough to stop me and I had her neck in my hand before she managed to spit out whatever vile thought was in her head.

“You don’t want to say whatever it is you’re thinking,” I told her calmly. I sensed Kit moving and felt her moving into place at my back.

Two tall blonds, one male and one female, moved toward me and I slanted a look at them.

“Stop,” I warned and the word came out a growl. A cool wind announced Lemeraties’s sudden appearance and then she was between us. I stared past her shoulder to the two who’d been coming toward me. “They know what…or who you are yet?”

The specter in front of me canted her head to the side and angled a look back at me. With a graceful shrug, she responded, “I do not know. We were not so…slow when I was alive. But the people of the blood have become…terribly dim. Too much… inbreeding . It has affected their wits and their compassion. In my day, we did not beat children for the supposed sin of being half-human.”

A choked sound escaped Kit’s throat, a smothered laugh.

“Inbreeding.” Several faces around us flushed and I smiled up at the woman I still held several feet in the air. “That could do it. Small minds, limited intelligence. I’m going to let you go but if you say one more thing towards Kit, I’m going to take it personally.”

“If she says one more thing about Kit, they will not find her body.”

The words sounded far off and distant.

Dropping Sybin, I looked over and saw that Lemeraties was gone.

It was the Lemera standing before us and she turned her back on the two she’d been facing and slowly walked to Sybin. Sybin scuttled back on her hands and feet, crab-walking in an effort to get away from the monster who knelt before her.

The wind played with the thin, brittle strands of the Lemera’s pale, colorless hair. Her sepulchral voice echoed hollowly as she said, “I know you. You ran the ravines with your cousin in the race that comes with the melting snow. He held himself back to help you. When you were injured in a fall as you crossed a flooded creek, he tended to your ankle and hunted game instead of leaving you and going on. For two days, he stayed with you, helped you.”

Sybin’s face had gone white.

“I howled in the nights, driven to madness by the binding laid on me,” the Lemera continued. “I am not mad now and nobody pulls my strings. Too many memories have become clear in the months since I broke free from her. One is about you and your cousin. Because of him, you made it through the ravine. You were nearly to the finish. He came in with fresh game the final night. And you smashed his head in with a rock when he lay sleeping.”

A startled cry rang from somewhere behind us.

Sybin jerked as if she’d been stabbed.

The Lemera reached out and dragged a finger down the midline of Sybin’s body. “You cut him from here all the way down so scavengers would feed. You thought it would draw me in. It did not. I was already glutted on all the blood and souls I needed to sustain me for a time. But I saw you. I watched you limp away, smiling. I killed the blood because I was forced to. Why did you?”

Sybin shoved to her feet, panting for air. “You…what are you? These are…”

She spun away and all but smacked into another woman.

This one was smaller than most of the island’s inhabitants. Not quite as petite as Kit, but close. Her hair was dark, almost brown and her skin was a deeper shade of gold, almost the same as mine.

She grabbed the front of Sybin’s leathers and hauled her down until they were face to face. “Did you kill Josain?”

“No, Aneva…how can you ask me that? This is crazy!”

“You are lying !” The other woman shook her head, tears streaming down her cheek. “I always knew something weird had happened out there. I knew it.”

Sybin tore away from the smaller woman but when she looked around, too many others were side-eying her.

She was lying. Going by what I knew of Kit, I knew she could pick up on lies pretty easy, although it was more a matter of reading body language than anything else.

Judging by the way Sybin’s scent had soured, she was lying through her teeth. She was so scared, she reeked. Nobody around her seemed to be able to hold her eyes and she started quivering, one hand moving to the long dagger she wore strapped to her side.

Her eyes darted to Kit.

Instinct raged.

Kit’s eyes flew to me and I saw the subtle warning.

Something inside rejoiced. The other part was pissed.

She was telling me to stand down.

But if she knew I wanted to intervene, that meant she was remembering more. Right?

And then there was no time for thinking about it because Sybin flew at Kit.

She snarled something in that lyrical, lovely language as she drew the blade at her hip.

She drew it—she didn’t call it.

A shocked gasp rippled through the crowd as Kit reacted to the strike by blocking it. And she didn’t do it with the sword she wore at her side.

In the blink of an eye, she had a long-bladed knife in her hand.

She’d called it.

And everybody there saw it.