The tremor became a shudder, arms and legs lengthened, grew pale, he turned his face into her skirt and screamed. His shoulder looked better, not healed completely but, as far as Mirian could tell, the bone was whole and the flesh beginning to knit.
“Hurts.” She could feel the word against her skin.
“I know.” His skin glistened with sweat. “I have water.”
“I…have to…to change…again…”
“Drink first.”
“No. Won’t have…the courage if I…wait.”
The second change resulted in an oval scar, shiny and smooth. No fur grew on it or in the swollen flesh around it. Tomas lay with his mouth slightly open, panting rapidly, eyes wide.
Mirian settled them both into a more comfortable position, stroked her thumb over the soft black fur between his eyes and said softly, “Sleep.”
Karis wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter Six
DANIKA HAD HEARD TWO SHOTS not long after they’d turned onto what passed for a road in this part of Pyrahn, but as the bouncing had to be worse on top of the coach than it was inside, she very much doubted Corporal Hare had hit anything, regardless of how good a shot he thought he was. Given that that they were still moving, that the horses hadn’t been hamstrung, that the soldiers hadn’t fallen screaming, that they continued to bounce about, she knew Hare couldn’t have missed a shot at any of the Pack.
And he couldn’t have hit what he shot at.
Couldn’t have.
A sudden lurch threw her sideways and Tagget grunted as he shoved her away. Between the sound of the wheels on the road, the creaking of the coach, and the pounding of hooves both before and behind, she had no idea if his grunt was a complaint or merely an observation.
The Hagen family coach she’d been taken from had been designed to absorb much of the road’s roughness, cushioning the necessity of travel from the unpleasantness. Imperial mail coaches were designed to get across the empire as quickly as possible. Sufficient padding had clearly been considered an unnecessary extra so when she bounced off the seat, her landing was, for all intents and purposes, uncushioned and the only reason the four of them weren’t tossed about like leaves on the wind was that the interior of Imperial mail coaches provided so little room they supported each other whether they wanted to or not.
Private Tagget was as insufficiently padded as the seat, his elbow and shoulder both annoyingly bony.
Danika was aware it might be considered foolish to resent a lack of comfort in her current situation—captured by enemies of Aydori, hands bound, her mage-craft contained, her unborn child threatened—but it helped to keep the hysteria at bay. The farther they moved from the border, the more she wanted to weep and scream and throw herself at the soldiers guarding them, ripping their throats out with her own entirely inferior teeth.
She remembered reading an article about the Imperial army drafting women and thinking it wasn’t a terribly practical idea. If an army of men should be wiped out, the women remaining could manage with only the men who’d been unsuitable for war, but it took strong and healthy women to have strong and healthy babies. Of course, the Imperial army had no intention of being wiped out so, perhaps, extended as the army was, they were, in their own mind, being entirely practical. Here and now, she merely wished she’d had the same opportunity as those unknown women to learn how to fight.
Tagget had jammed himself into the corner of the coach, both hands wrapped loosely around the barrel of the musket he held between his legs. His eyes were closed under the flat brim of his bicorn and he seemed to be as relaxed as possible under the circumstances. Corporal Berger held a position similar to Tagget’s, but his slouch was a lie; every muscle tense, his eyes locked on the blur outside the small window in the top half of the door. He gripped his musket so tightly that the knuckles of his right hand were white, the fingers of his left tapping patterns across them.
Unbound, she could pull the air from their lungs and hold it from them until they collapsed, gasping for breath. She’d never used her mage-craft to hurt anyone, but she thought…no, she knew she could hurt these two men who were taking her away from her home. As though it sensed her desire, the net increased its constant pressure against her head. Or within her head; Danika wasn’t sure which. She breathed shallowly, almost panting, until the pain passed.
What could she do with the limited mage-craft it allowed her?
Berger bounced into Kirstin, swore, and jerked away. He was panting, much as she’d been. Was he in pain?
“Do not make this shithole smaller than it is.”
Oh.
She studied the movement of the air inside the coach. Found the paths it took, guided by breath and movement and body heat. Then she exhaled words toward the corporal’s ear.
Too small.
He twitched.
Another breath.
Too close.
He shuffled his feet and kicked at the fabric of her skirt. His knees knocked up against hers, and he swore as he shoved her aside. Her knees pushed up against Tagget’s and Kirstin’s and when Tagget shoved back, Berger’s feet got tangled in her skirt.
“The flaming fuck!”
Trying to avoid being kicked as the corporal struggled to get free, Danika drew her legs up, toppled sideways, and elbowed Tagget in the stomach. He snarled and shoved her away. She worried for a moment he might start to yell, but something—Berger’s rank perhaps—kept him silent. A fight might have released the rising tension. She didn’t want the tension released.
Danika watched Berger’s chest rise and fall as he finally freed himself. Before the rhythm could slow, she breathed, Trapped.
And then began again.
Too small.
Too close.
Trapped.
Too small.
Too close.
Trapped.
Trapped.
Trapped.
“Trapped!” He surged up out of his seat and had the bolts thrown, his hand on the door latch before she realized what he was about to do. A heartbeat later, he pushed the door open.
“Berger! What the fuck?” Tagget tried to get past her, but there wasn’t room, so he grabbed her shoulder and threw her nearly onto Kirstin’s lap. Danika clutched at Kirstin’s arm, trying to prevent herself from sliding to the floor as the coach rocked.
“Berger!” Tagget stumbled. He stopped his fall, one hand clutching the side of the opening, the other palm against Berger’s shoulder. His fingers were just beginning to close as Danika stretched out her leg, the movement hidden in the folds of her skirt, and pushed.
Berger seemed to hang in the air for a moment, then he disappeared.
The coach lurched.
She heard the wet crunch even though the creaking and pounding were as loud as they’d been. Even though the breezes were moving the wrong way to bring her the sound. Then there was shouting from outside and the horses began to slow and there was more shouting and the coach rocked one last time before it was still and she wished whoever was screaming would stop. The coach was too small for that amount of noise to be anything but painful.
She felt gentle hands against her face, looked up to see Kirstin looking down at her, gaze more focused than it had been since trying to remove the net. If it wasn’t Kirstin screaming, it had to be her. And she had to stop so as not to waste this chance of escape while they remained so close to the border. Tagget still blocked the open door, but there was a door in both sides of the coach and they certainly knew now how fast the bolts could be thrown and…