Knowing she had a small window of opportunity, Mandy called upon her power and watched Garnuk’s whip, as well as the hand holding it, burn with a blaze of blue fire.Blue? That’s new.
He screamed, but she didn’t wait around to see what else happened. Mandy fled into the jungle and ran.
It wasn’t long before she heard movement behind her. Garnuk’s backup must have been close by. She knew she’d never beat a barbarian in speed or strength and decided to make her stand in a copse of trees with a large boulder at her back. She focused on the pair of barbarians following her. Both had stringy hair, pale skin, and the sickly flutter of colored tattoos across their chests. Nasuhl warriors, of that she had no doubt.
She typically only had enough fire power to work one major blaze before “flaming out.” Small fires didn’t take as much out of her, but to light an actual person on fire took effort. Humans weren’t that combustible. She could manage two adult sized individuals, but then she’d be weak afterward.
With nothing else to lose, she focused and called on more energy than she’d estimated, immolating the warriors in front of her. They screamed in agony, and though she wanted to, she couldn’t find an ounce of pity for them. Instead of the weakness she’d need to deal with having expending so much energy, she continued to simmer with power. Her anger and fear transmuted to fire, and the glory of it stunned her.
She thought she felt Zehn and Lore trying to pull her back. But she couldn’t stop.
“Well now, that’s impressive.” Mike Francisco spoke from her right.
Energy snapped at her side when he tried to telekinetically shove her down. But her fire scorched, burning away his influence. Before she could makehimscream, someone tackled her and caught fire when she burst into flame.
The cries of her enemies gave her strength. But then someone yanked hard on her pyrokinesis, and she started to grow dizzy. Crap. “Not yet,” she croaked.
And passed out.
***
Zehn had never been so worried. Mandy had been taken. Lore and he had felt her panic and then nothing. Hours later, they still hadn’t found her. Their clan had routed the interlopers, a Nasuhl raiding party filled with their weak and sickly. An oddity that called for further investigation. Except they knew why the raid had failed. It hadn’t meant to succeed, only to distract them.
With Talzec and Xav out with men searching, Lore and Zehn following her energy signature, and Arghet and Katan controlling security of the village with several hundred warriors strong, no one would invade the Vyctore. But they now had a score to settle.
Arghet mentioned Watta had been the last to see Mandy, and after Lore had ripped into her mind, she’d admitted everything. Morlo, that coward, had yet to show his face.
A weakness, that. Jealousy and petty bickering among the women? Those who were better and kinder than the men?
That alone stunned Zehn. But more shocking—Lore had used his power to find Mandy. He’d always kept it hidden from everyone but Zehn. Yet he’d unleashed it without hesitation for their mate.
Now they hunted, needing her with every breath.
I never told her about the babe,Zehn admitted.I meant to, but then the alarm sounded. She finally opened up to us fully. We’re bonded, and she doesn’t know.He felt horrible, guilt-ridden. Wrong.
Lore was the one to knock some sense into him.Find her,thenapologize. Spend the rest of your life making it right. But first, we must find and protect our mate.
They ran, faster, harder, longer. Into the following day, where they found the burned bodies of Nasuhl, but no Mandy. Blood and the sight of a skirmish. But still no mate.
And then they encountered something even worse.
A giant Nasuhl warrior, larger than even Talzec, covered in blood, the scent of Mandy on him. That smell stirred Lore to crazed violence. Zehn barely held him back from attacking the male, having trouble handling his own rage and pain.
Cease. We must find out where she is, Lore.
I’ll find out.Lore once again telepathically dug for information. After a moment, he shook his head.I can’t. He’s blocked, somehow.
The giant, covered in old scars, strange tattoo patterns—one on his face—and blood, had the coldest eyes Zehn had ever seen. He stood over two carcasses of flesh and bone, unrecognizable by clan or gender, though Zehn thought them warriors by the sheer mass of tissue.
“The offworlder is gone,” the giant said in a deep voice.
“I’ll kill you,” Lore roared and almost broke out of Zehn’s hold.
“Escaped that way.” The giant nodded behind him.
Zehn and Lore froze.
Rustling came from the north, growing closer.
