“Damn it,” she snarled but took the stone from me and rested it on her neck.
I whistled for Batman and he trotted to me. I positioned the two horses nose to rump, able to protect each other if the hyenas came at them.
The sound of heavy breathing and big padded feet on the sand snapped me around.
Two werehyenas crested the rise above our camp, tongues lolling out of their long snouts, their bodies with dark speckles and darker coats blending into the night so they looked like shadows come to life. There was a pause where they looked us over, looked at each other and snickered, and then they came at us.
There were no words between us as I moved beside Maks. I trusted him more than I trusted the hyenas, and that was about all I had at that point. “Lila, call out to me if more show.”
“On it,” she yelled back and then there was no more time for speaking. I yanked the flail out, the handle humming under my palm.
Here we go again was all I thought.
The werehyena on the right went for Maks and the one on the left came at me. I swung the flail, spinning the light weapon hard and fast. The werehyena dodged, zipped around me and went straight for the bags of gear.
“Oh, no you don’t, you fucker!” I was after him in a flash, shifting into my house cat form before I really registered that what I was doing was stupid.
I raced across the distance between us and leapt up onto his back, digging my claws in for purchase. The werehyena spun, snarling and snapping at me as I dug in hard. I hissed and spit right back at him as he whipped around in a circle, fighting to get to me.
“Get off me!” he roared as he fought to reach me. But I was just beyond the end of his teeth. I curled my claws deep into his flesh until I felt bone under one of them. Oh yeah, I had him now.
“Look out!” Lila screamed, and I turned my head to see a dark body slam into us, bowling us over and over. I hit the ground hard and the bigger animals landed on top, crushing me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear anything beyond the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
I tried to shift back to two legs, but my body wouldn’t budge. Under all this weight, my skin and bones refused to do anything for me. Panic laced my mind and heart as I fought to breathe, fought to do anything but lay there under the big body.
It went cold suddenly, gone from the heat of the body to a block of ice, and as quickly as it was cold, the body shattered around me.
I scrambled out, favoring a front leg as I gulped in a breath of air that had never tasted so sweet.
“Get on your horse,” Maks said. My eyes found him, a spray of blood across his face and his hands glowing with a pale yellow light. He clenched his fingers and the light went out. “I said, get on your horse.”
“She almost died, toad. Give her a chance to catch her breath,” Lila snapped.
Maks snorted. “More of those werehyenas are coming. You want to be here for them?”
I did not.
I forced my body to shift even though it hurt like hell when I was injured. There was a chance the shift itself would help the pain. I pulled myself through to my two-legged form with a cry of anguish, my right arm throbbing as though someone had taken a hammer to it.
Maks took a step toward me and then stopped, went and grabbed the horses and saddled them up quickly. I saw his hand flick over the cinch I’d cut and it was whole once more. So much for thinking that would slow him down.
I mounted up and Lila slid down Balder’s neck to rest between me and the pommel. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I leaned forward, urging Balder into a gallop. There was no sound of hyenas behind us, which meant we’d killed their two scouts. But with them dead, they would be able to find us easier with the scent of their pack mates on us.
We rode through the night; it wasn’t until after the sun rose that we finally stopped. At this rate, it wouldn’t take us three weeks to reach the Jinn’s Dominion. Then again, that was assuming we didn’t get eaten before we got there.
“We’ll stay here for a few hours,” Maks announced. As if he were in charge.
I arched a brow but kept my mouth shut. For the moment. He had Batman untacked and a fire going so fast I was sure he’d used magic.
“Think you can blur our trail?” I asked him. “Seeing as you’re going to be using your Jinn powers out in the open.”
“Not one of my talents,” he said, and then he turned his back to me. Just like that, done with talking.
“You really are a dick when you’re a Jinn,” I growled.
Maks never moved from where he sat with his back to me, to us really. I stood there for the longest time staring at him. Because what the fuck was I supposed to do with this twist in my story? It was as if some sadistic author was laughing at me while she turned my life inside out. Knowing my luck, that was probably the reason for this stupidity.
I forced my hands to relax, to soften the death grip I had on my palms. Lila paced on Balder’s saddle that sat next to my foot. Her eyes said it all.
There could not have been a worse turn to our journey. We’d lost an ally and gained an enemy in one fell swoop. An enemy we couldn’t even kill because we both loved him and knew that Maks was still in there. Somewhere.
This was the first time since the night before that I’d let myself think on the change in our fortune.
My stomach rolled so hard, I had to clench my teeth against the rising tide of acid and bile. I fought that sensation and the prickling that announced an onslaught of tears.
No, I could not break down, not now. There were more things at play here than just losing Maks.
Kiara, Darcy, and the camel’s pizzle still waited for someone to save them.
The Emperor had taken an interest in me.
As had Marsum.
I had to finish what I started with Marsum. That was the only solution I could come to. And maybe . . . that would free Maks? I had no idea. The Jinn were a mystery to the rest of the supernatural world in many ways. We knew they were some of the strongest mages alive, that they were mean as one-eyed snakes and liked to hold power, but other than that, what we knew was based on observation in many cases, and not actual facts.
Basically, I had no way of knowing what would help him, or if there was anything I could do at all.
There was a chance Maks was gone forever, and that soured my belly in a twist that made my gorge rise.
“Lila, we need to eat.” I forced the words from my mouth. “And we need to rest a little before we move on.”
She bobbed her head. “You want me to stay here?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want you alone with him.”
He didn’t so much as flinch as I spoke. Before I thought better of it, I shifted to my cat form. I could hunt the smaller desert animals this way.
Despite her wing injury, Lila launched into the sky. I wanted to yell at her, but I was in no place to make orders. She knew her body best. If she thought she could fly, I wasn’t going to stop her. She shadowed me as I ran into the hills, the wind rippling my fur and whipping the tears from my eyes. Damn it, this was what I got for putting my heart out there.
Smash and trash.
I wrinkled my nose as I caught wind of small prey. A covey of birds launched in front of me, wings fluttering as they tried to gain altitude. I leapt and caught one around the middle, my mouth on its neck in a flash. I snapped the bone with a quick crunch, and before we hit the ground, the bird was dead.
Lila swept by with her own catch and we headed back to the campsite. I shifted back to two legs partway there, stumbled and went to a knee to catch myself. Lila swooped by and dropped her bird to me.
A flicker of white caught my eyes from between two hills and I found myself walking toward it. Like a white flag of surrender waving at us. Lila flew ahead of me.
“Whoa, Zam, you aren’t going to believe this.” She swung back and held herself in midair with only a slight hitch in the beat of her wings. “Seriously, come see.”
I picked up my speed and then jerked to a stop as I rounded the edge of the dune. Spread out across the ground were white feathers the length of my body fluttering along. I only knew one bird with feathers that white and that big.
The Ice Witch’s Raven. “She must be close. This does not bode well.”
“Yeah, no shit. Then again, she did bring you the flail back,” Lila said. I nodded and backed away.