Home > Witch's Reign (Desert Cursed #1)(7)

Witch's Reign (Desert Cursed #1)(7)
Author: Shannon Mayer

Or at least, how poorly Steve and I got along. No, that wasn’t fair. There was also Maks, the lone human in the group. Nobody liked him, but that was because he was human. He served Ish faithfully, I supposed, so that was enough for me to leave him alone.

I’d give the human one thing, he was nice to look at. If he’d been a supe, he’d have had all the women fighting over who would have been in his bed with his electric blue eyes and messy sand-colored hair, big arms, and bigger . . . well, you get the picture.

Steve picked on him, but Steve picked on anyone he thought was lesser than him. Including me. Including Bryce. Including Batman. My jaw ticked with the anger that grew and burned out other thoughts.

The main door that led into the hall was open a crack and Steve’s voice flowed out to me even though I was thirty feet away.

“Ish, I’m so, so sorry. I couldn’t save her. I tried. I fought through the giant’s legs, and I reached out to her but she wouldn’t take my hand. Her hatred of me for something I didn’t do . . . it killed her in the end. As I always said it would.”

I pushed the door open slowly, knowing it wouldn’t creak and give me away—I’d oiled the hinges myself. Steve knelt in front of Ish, his blond head bowed in submission. Ish stared down at him, her face twisted with what could only be called anger.

She was an older woman, but still beautiful, tall, slim and with thick dark hair streaked with silver strands. But in that moment, I saw only a woman who didn’t know how to react to the lies—goddess of the desert help me, she had to know Steve was lying again. This was not the first time he’d tried to lose me on a run, or the first time he’d tried to let an accident take my life. But the thing was, Ish always gave him the benefit of the doubt, something I just didn’t understand. How could she not see what a fucking tool he was? Out for his own best interests.

Which made me wary of Ish, no matter that I wanted to trust her. That she held him above me made me doubt her ability to understand fully who and what he was.

“Maks,” she called out, and her human servant stepped from the shadows. Even though I didn’t like Maks, it wasn’t the same way I didn’t like Steve. There was nothing really wrong with the servant except he was weak in a place where weakness equaled death. I should know. I was about as weak a supe as there was out there, much as it galled me. But that was why I worked so hard to fight on two legs, to improve my chances.

That was why I did all I could to be strong enough to come home every time, not in a body bag.

Ish put her hand out to him, as if to set it on Maks’s broad shoulder, but he moved so her hand missed him. He didn’t like being touched much more than I did. She didn’t break her words, as though there was no slight toward her in his movement.

“Take a horse and ride out. Follow Steve’s path backward and bring her home. Alive or dead, she does not deserve to be left behind. She has been a faithful ward of mine, and I promised her I would never leave her in the cold. Ever.” That last word came out as sharp as the crack of a whip and Steve flinched as a ripple of power swelled out around her. As well he should.

Ish was a strong mage, and with each jewel we brought her, her strength grew, and her ability to help others and keep us safe increased. A swell of love grew in me. Ish was looking out for me when she could have turned her back. She was going to send Maks to find me. I felt bad for doubting her in that moment, wanting nothing more than to give her the belief that she deserved.

“I swear to you, there was no saving her. Perhaps her horse escaped, but there is no way that Zamira made it out alive. I saw her go under the giant queen’s hand. I saw the fingers close around her.”

Ish leaned over him. “Did you see her body, though?”

He drew a slow breath. “I . . . could not watch her die. For all that she hates me, I still have feelings for her, Ish. I could not bear to see her beauty crushed, snuffed out like a candle in the wind.”

Another time not so long ago, I would have melted with his words, but now . . . not so much.

It was about time to make my entrance into this theatrical play he had going on. Oh, I wished I could see his face when he realized I was very much alive, and about to kick him right in those cheating, shriveled balls of his.

Chapter Four

Steve stayed where he was, on his knees, but his head was raised now as he looked Ish in the face. “I do not mean to distress you, my lady, but there will be nothing left of her. Do not waste Maks on a trip that will end with bits and pieces of her body, nothing to even call a body really. You can trust me, I swear to you she did not survive. The giant queen crushed her body.”

What a fucking dumb-ass. Then again, he was trying to make sure I didn’t survive. So, if I was injured out there, but still alive, the last thing he would want was me being brought home to convalesce. With me out of the picture, he would have no challenge for leadership of the rest of the supes here. As it was, I was the only person with enough attitude to face him down. He might be stronger than me, but leading a group of supes was about more than just strength. They had to believe you were there to look after them, that you would fight for them. Everyone—except Ish—had seen how fickle Steve was, which made him at best, a dangerous choice to lead our group.

I might not trust anyone else, but I made damn sure the people around here could depend on me.

I shook my head. Where I stood in the shadows of the room kept me from being seen unless someone was looking. Someone who knew me better than Steve did.

Behind and to the right of Ish, my brother sat at his work table, his hands unmoving on the flare gun he’d been tinkering with before we’d left three weeks ago. His eyes found me in the shadows of the doorway. Those golden orbs narrowed, flashing with anger.

“You sure that’s the story you want to stick with, Steve? I mean, now is the time to change it if you’re going to, if perhaps you were confused about what really happened,” my brother said, his voice carrying through the room like the alpha he should have been.

“It’s not a story, Bryce. Cripple.” Steve’s head snapped up, and he followed his words with a low snarl that my brother met with a snarl of his own—two alpha males was not a good idea in a small space when neither was truly stable. Bryce gripped the edge of the table but stayed where he was, chest heaving with the snarls and the desire, yet inability, to shift.

Foolish, foolish brother. He might not want the shame I brought to our family, but he’d still try to stand with me against everyone else. Figuratively speaking anyway. But there was no way he could stand against Steve in a challenge, not with the way his body was broken.

I took a step, bringing me into the light and drawing Ish’s eyes to me. They lit up and she put a hand to her chest as her shoulders sagged a little. Relief, she was relieved I was okay. “Zamira, you are home.”

She swept around Steve and came to me, put her hands on my face, and then gave me a hug. I leaned into the embrace, closing my eyes and breathing in the only smell of home I truly knew anymore. She was the closest thing I had to a mother and her relief that I was alive was a balm to my battered soul. Too many people had walked away from me in my life, too many people had broken my trust. I wasn’t sure what I would do if Ish joined their ranks. If suddenly she wished I were not here. Like Bryce and Steve.

“I am,” I said. “Did he give you the jewel?”

She smiled and touched a pouch tied to her waist over her long gray dress. “He did. It is beauty and full of power that I can use to help us all.”

My eyes shot to hers and she shook her head at my unspoken question. She was stronger, but not strong enough to help Bryce.

“Zam, you . . . how did you escape?” Steve was on his feet and headed our way, his disbelief plain, but under that, his anger bubbling upward. He was pissed that I was still alive and struggled not to show it. Ish stepped back. She rarely put herself between those she took care of, leaving us to figure out our own battles.

“Do not kill one another,” was all she said.

I flicked the flail once, spinning the dual spiked balls and slowing Steve’s approach, that same strange tingle moving its way up from my hand to my shoulder. His eyes followed the weapon’s trajectory and he moved so he stood outside its range. “I fought for my life, Steve. That’s how I escaped. You aren’t going to get rid of me that easily, you know. You’ll have to cut my throat yourself if you want to take over here.” There was no point in trying to explain that I’d saved him, drawn the giants away and then watched as he’d fucked off and left me to die. No, that was not how things were done here. We all had to pretend that we really cared for one another when the truth was, that wasn’t the case at all.

   
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