Page 4 of Power of Five
2
Leralynn
“Please forgive my servant’s impudence, my lord,” Zake says quickly, bowing as he steps between me and the fae warrior again. Zake’s voice drips with desire, like a salivating dog. “It is but a misunderstanding. It is I, not this wench, who’s waited for you here at Mystwood’s edge. I will of course fulfil the honorable request you make of my estate.”
Tye gives Zake a dismissive look and raises a bemused eyebrow at me, as if to say,Who the hell is this?
“Excuse us.” Grabbing my arm, Zake pulls me out the back door of the stable, his large fingers leaving bruises above my elbow. The cold pierces me from all sides, cutting brutally through my thin clothes, but my blood is racing too quickly to worry about the chill. Zake’s nostrils flare, a vein ticking along his temple. “What the hell is this?” he hisses into my face, his rank breath shoving itself inside me. “You think to steal my destiny from under my very nose?”
I try and fail to wrench my arm from his grasp. “I’m not stealing anything.” My breath mists, the words coming quickly as I spot his free hand unbuckling his heavy belt. “I’ve not even laid eyes on a fae male before now, Zake. I swear it on the bloody stars.”
“Is this why you tried to stop my hunt?” Zake snarls into my face. “You wanted to intercept the immortal before he reached me?” His meaty hand turns me around, pressing my head against the barn’s side as the belt uncoils behind me. “What did you offer him, wench? Your maidenhead? Tell me the truth now, girl—it will only hurt more if you lie.”
“I’m not lying,” I say, my body already bracing for the coming blows. “Zake—” I clamp my mouth shut as the belt whistles through the air. There is no stopping this now, and little reason to waste breath that I’ll need shortly.
A furious growl rips through the air. Just when my back is supposed to explode in flame, a dark shape hurtles out of nowhere. Before I can blink, Zake is in the dirt, a large wolf prowling over him. The wolf’s lips pull back, revealing wet canines that glitter in the sun, its thick gray pelt and black muzzle bringing me straight back to last night’s dream.
I gasp, stepping away—and knock right into a wall of muscle and maleness. Tye, the smiling red-haired fae male, is no longer amused. The green-eyed stare he gives Zake is filled with the promise of violence. Not that there will be much of Zake left if the wolf has his way.
“What’s going on back here?” says a quiet voice. A new fae male strides out of the stable, this one dressed in warrior black and sporting a glare that says he’s one breath away from razing the whole estate to the ground. If Tye is an overgrown adolescent, the newcomer is a deadly killer, with long blond hair tied up in a bun, a chiseled jaw, and piercing blue eyes that seem to strip me and find me wanting in one glance. The wicked-looking blades strapped to his waist and back complete the effect.
“Just a wee misunderstanding,” says Tye. “I have it handled.”
The warrior snorts. “That’d be a first.”
Tye sighs in a long-suffering way. “Lera, this is Coal. Try to ignore him the best you can.”
Coal crosses his arms, his eyes finishing their examination of the soon-to-be-dead Zake and the salivating wolf before coming to a stop on my face.
As with Tye, a ripple of recognition races through me, though I’m certain I’ve never seen this male before. My instincts scream at me to run, even as the male’s eyes draw me toward him, the corded muscles of his forearms and shoulders making my breath quicken.
“Time to go, lass,” Tye murmurs into the back of my neck. A command. An invitation. A challenge.
Murderous fae. Mystwood. Broken bones.
My heart pounds, even as my body feels the rightness of Tye’s words and aches to accept them. I swallow, feeling as though the male has claimed me already. And not just him.Five,my soul seems to whisper.
Five what?
Five. There should be five. Has to be five.
Still pinned to the ground, Zake whimpers, his hoarse voice forcing itself between the males and me. “Call off your beast. Please. You can have the wench if you want her. A present. A goodwill—”
“Enough games.” Coal pulls out his sword, the steel sighing against the sheath. “I’m putting it down.”
He doesn’t mean the wolf.
I shudder. “Don’t.” My words are a hopeless whisper, but both males and even the wolf snap their heads to me at once, their eyes questioning. As if what I say matters—what I want matters. I take a tentative breath, wondering how far this input of mine will carry. “Zake doesn’t deserve to die.”
“Yes, he does,” says Coal, his words ice. The wolf growls his agreement.
“He does,” Tye says behind me. “But it is your choice to make, lass. We will not touch him if you wish it so.”
My heart pounds against my chest, bruising my ribs. This morning I’d had a say in exactly nothing, and now these immortals, these fae males who could raze or rule the entire mortal world if they wanted to, are placing Zake’s life in my hands. They want to hurt him. But they won’t. For me. “Let him go.” My voice is thin, as if trying to hide itself in case this evening is one big jest. “Please.”
Coal scowls at Zake but sheathes his blade. Tye’s warm breath shudders against my neck. The wolf is the last to obey, snapping his teeth inches from Zake’s eyes before stepping off the prone man, lifting his leg, and urinating.
I clamp my hand over my mouth to bite back a very inappropriate chuckle.
“So you do have a sense of humor,” Tye says approvingly from behind me, wrapping his cloak around my shoulder. I don’t know what the cloak is made of, but it is the warmest thing I’ve ever worn, with thick green woolen cloth and a fur lining that caresses my skin. The smell of pine and citrus fills my nose, matching the scent of the male behind me.
“Get out of here, traitor,” Zake roars at me from the ground. “I always knew you were nothing but a cursed wench, a common wh—”
The wolf leans over him again with a fierce growl and Zake shuts his mouth, but there is no unsaying the words.
I can no longer stay at Zake’s estate, and there is no place for me to go but wherever these immortals take me.
