I lifted my head at that.“Magic breaker?”
She rolled her eyes.“Yes, what do you think you’ve been doing all this time? You can see the magic, and break it if you wish.”
I opened my mouth in question, but the magic grabbed me in its jaws. This time I did as she suggested and resisted. It was like trying to hold back an avalanche, my attempts puny and ineffectual.
Somehow, I managed to retain enough of a sense of self to allow Inara to point me toward the highway and the promise of safety.
Creatures bayed. They were frighteningly close.
Still, I ran, my feet thudding against the ground, tree branches whipping past me. I paid the toll for my passage with blood as their sharp edges left small cuts along my arms and face.
I knew I was leaving a trail a mile wide, but I didn’t have time to go softly or quietly. They were too close now.
Whatever advantage the change in my diet had given me was long gone. Exhaustion dragged at me, whispering of a respite from all this.
I pressed on, neither the magic nor my own will permitting me to falter.
I became aware of something shadowing me, catching glimpses of someone running parallel to me. They moved impossibly fast, following when I tried to veer away.
Liam.I’d know him anywhere.
I was acutely aware of the hunter even when the trees shielded him from view, his presence growing until it felt like a thousand shadows weighing me down.
He was playing with me, toying with me as I tried to escape his trap.
The road was in sight and I felt hope leap inside my chest.
Liam flew out of the trees, tackling me to the ground. I hit hard, the breath knocked out of me.
He crouched over me, the hunter in truth, no trace of the lover from last night. His face was just blank. If he hadn’t had Liam’s face and Liam’s scent, I would have said he was a stranger.
My eyes widened, fear catching me in its grip as Liam raised his hand, an old blade in his hand.
Death had come, wearing Liam’s form. He was the reaper and angel of death rolled into one. Old magic was in the air, the kind that tasted of the past, of old gods and things best forgotten.
The blade began to descend and I braced for pain, even as I reached for the magic wrapping him in Niamh’s will.
Inara had called me a magic breaker. In that split second when death loomed, I embraced it, pulling with everything in me.
The magic came away easily, its weaving looser and more uneven than the stag’s. It hadn’t had the time to burrow as deep. Darkness crowded into the edges of my vision as small tendrils from the deepest parts of me, the ones that were my essence spiraled up, sucking down the spell around Liam.
The dagger hesitated for just an instant, Liam’s face horrified.
He started to mouth my name but never finished it, his eyes wild. The stag barreled into him, his coat glowing like a mini-sun as he trumpeted a challenge.
Then I saw nothing as I lost the battle against myself, sinking gratefully into unconsciousness.
*
Tight arms around me and tears soaking my shirt accompanied me into wakefulness. A chest shook under me.
I opened my eyes, staring up at a ravaged face. Liam looked like he’d just lost his whole world, a wild grief making him slightly crazed.
“It looks like you were only slightly successful in putting the vampire in your thrall,” Arlan remarked as he glided out of the trees.
The magic of the hunt still snapped and crackled in the air, though considerably lessened. It clung to him, speaking of wild, untamed things. He didn’t just look at home here, with the trees around him and the first of the sun’s rays kissing the horizon. He looked like he was born of this place, as integral to it as the trees or land might be.
This wasn’t something peaceful or calming. He was wild and fierce, the darker side of nature, the one that relied on death for the circle of life.
