Jeren hunkered down, petting him, whispering. And with a shock, Shan felt the wolf cub’s mind latch onto his, seeking him out, locating him for Jeren.
She smiled, and walked towards him, Naul running ahead in delight. “I knew you couldn’t be far,” she said. “And I thought, if I could use the owl to find you, maybe Naul could do the same.”
Shan straightened. There was no point in concealing himself, not when she knew where he was anyway. She stopped a couple of feet from him, her fingers knotting together in front of her stomach.
“You can always find me, Jeren. It’s like you call to me all by yourself.” He reached out his arms but she didn’t move, not right away. “We aren’t safe here. I came to warn you, to warn Indarin. Those assassins weren’t after you. They were after me, and I suspect Indarin is their next target.”
She stepped closer at last, like a doll drawn by a line, into the arc of his arms. They closed around her with a will of their own and she fitted against him, perfectly, as if made to be there.
Tilting back her head, she brushed her lips to his, robbing his mind of whatever he had thought to say next.
“I love you.” She breathed the words. They rippled against his skin, sweet and intoxicating. “I always will. I’m... so sorry.”
Like streaks of silver and snow, the Shistra-Phail burst from the darkness surrounding them. So many, his kindred, his friends. In an instant he was seized, weapons snatched away, his arms wrenched away from his mate and twisted behind his back. Someone knocked his legs from under him and he went down hard on his knees.
Leather bands twisted around his wrists, lashing them together. His mind reeled and for an instant he was back in River Holt, back in that dank, miserable cell, waiting for Gilliad to torture him, longing for madness and death. But when he looked up, he saw only Jeren.
His Jeren. Her face silver with tears in the moonlight.
“What is it? What are you doing?”
Naul began to howl and Shan felt like joining in. Jeren had done this, his own people had done this. Indarin...
Indarin stood at her side, his features frozen as if carved from stone. “She knows what happened to you, Shan. Why didn’t you tell us?”
The Fellna rage surged up in his throat like oil. He tried to fight it, to push it down and take back control, but he was losing the battle. His own anger and outrage conspired with it, fuelling it. Darkness blossoming, growing, taking over. It filled him.
Someone gasped, not Jeren or Indarin. She still wept, he still showed nothing. But the other Shistra-Phail could see it now, could see what he had become. They knew. By the goddess, he’d let them see.
Part of him would welcome death. The rest of him raged.
“They came for me, Jeren,” he snarled. “Not you. Sent by your precious Holters. Assassins among your own to get rid of those closest to you so Vertigern could step in and use you like a puppet. One of them was Albrim. He was in Sheninglas, trained with us. With you—” he told the Shistra-Phail, even though he doubted they’d listen. “They’ll try for Indarin next. And drive you all away from her.”
“He’s talking madness,” one of the younger ones said but Indarin held up a hand, silencing them all before discussion could even begin.
Indarin knelt before his brother, staring into his eyes. Whatever he saw there horrified him, but he didn’t look away.
Dear goddess, Shan thought, am I that far gone? Have I changed so much? So what was he now to them? What had he become in their eyes? And would they heed him at all now?
“Listen to me,” he pleaded.
“I am listening.” Indarin frowned even as he said it. “But you must listen as well. You know what has been done to you?”
Ice clamped inside around his heart. “Yes. I know.”
“When did it happen?”
“When I was trying to get back to you. Just before you found me, on the road to Brightling’s Dale.”
“But you said nothing.”
What could he have said? If he’d had a hand free he probably would have punched Indarin right in the face. “I didn’t want it to be true.”
“You fought it since then.” Jeren knelt down beside Indarin, reaching out for him. But she didn’t touch him. Not this time.
“Of course I fought it. She did it to me. How could I not fight?”
She stared for another moment. “But not enough to beat it?”
Another surge of anger caught him by surprise. This was not rage, not of the same sort. More irritation, helplessness, misery. But it was still wrapped in anger. He strained at the bonds, knowing full well they wouldn’t give. His own people, his warrior elite, had tied them. “You wouldn’t let me leave, if you remember, my mate. And being with you—being with you just made it worse.”
And I couldn’t have left you. Not really. Not again. Not when fate brought me back to you.
“She caught you, she changed you, and then she put you back, right in my path,” said Jeren and all the world turned silent and still. Everything listened to her words. Not just the Shistra-Phail and Naul, not just those things he knew could listen to her. The world itself listened. The rocks and the stones, the grass and the river. Her words bounced off them and echoed back to him, to mock him and brand themselves on his mind. “She brought you back to me. Why?”
It was a good question, better than good. One he should have asked himself. One he should have asked the moment it happened. Because she was right. “I don’t know.”
She hung her head. “You could have told me, Shan. It would have been so much better if you had told me.”
“How? How could I have told you? That she was in my mind, waiting for the moment. That I fell into her trap, that she would use me to harm you. They’ll kill me, Jeren. The Seers will kill me. Fethan will take pleasure in it. And he’ll be right to do it. And I thought... I thought I could beat it, Jeren. If I was with you. I thought I’d have the strength. That you’d give me the strength.”
Jeren hung her head, refusing to meet his gaze and he’d never felt so lost. Not when he was Gilliad’s captive waiting for torture and madness beneath River Holt, not when the Enchassa had first taken him, nor even when she’d planted the seed of darkness in him. He’d always had Jeren, her light to bring him home, always, until now.
Naul whimpered, nuzzling into her hand, the little wolf he’d saved trying to comfort her just as he would have, had he been able to. He stretched out his mind to him, wrapped his consciousness around the wolf’s mind.
Stay with her. No matter what. Keep her safe.
“We have to go,” said Indarin.
Hands caught him by his upper arms, dragging him to his feet. “No.” But they weren’t listening, wouldn’t have paused even if they could. “No, Jeren. Please.”
She gave a sob, struggling to stand, her arms winding around her chest. “Indarin?”
His brother’s voice sounded like an executioner’s call. “If he stays he will be killed, if not by the Seers, by the Holters or by necessity when he loses control. And he will lose control, Jeren. It’s only a matter of time.”
Shan forced the shadows inside back down, though they surged up, threatening his mind and his will. He couldn’t leave her. Wouldn’t leave her. She was everything. His love, his life, his mate. She was Jeren.
And at the same time, the mark on her burned in the night, called to him and commanded him to drop to his knees and adore her.
With strength he didn’t know he possessed, he tore himself free, knocking his captors aside, snarling in victory and rushed to worship her. His Jeren.