Anyone who hurt such an innocent had no right to go on living. Mathison’s heart ached for the young kit caught in the middle of the treachery. The wrongdoers would pay dearly for such cruelty—even if it were his sons who gave the order.
But that didn’t change his mind that Abacas would have just as willingly turned on him even if her child had not been in danger. “Ye canna bargain with those who are no more trustworthy than the wildcat shifters. Ye should have known that,” he told her. “Her wound is as much yer fault as theirs.”
“What was I to do?” Abacas hissed. “Consider her dead once they took her?”
“How did they get close enough to take her? A kit so young, especially a direct descendant of the chieftainess, should have been safe in the nursery at the heart of the lair.” Wildcat shifters were known for protecting their young above all else. For the wee one to have been taken, Bansys’s minions had to have been honored guests allowed the run of the feline keep.
Abacas didn’t answer. She just looked away, and Yellis bowed her head.
Mathison didn’t bother addressing the chieftain, knowing the cowardly Thunden to be little more than a figurehead, chosen for his strength and build that would pass on to any young he sired. “Where did they take my wife? And I would advise ye to think long and hard before filling the air with the stench of more lies. All that currently protects ye from my wrath are the young ones ye hide behind. Yer ancestors would be ashamed at such behavior. Now, where is she?”
“They did not say where they would take her.” Thunden stepped forward, surprising Mathison immeasurably. “They did say that the safety of the Realm depended on her capture. They fear her pale alpha more than they fear yerself.”
The truth about Calia’s wolf had spread faster than expected, making Mathison suspect a traitor among the servants of Wraith Tower. Whoever had betrayed them would rue the day they’d first drawn breath. Their entrails would be ripped out and cast to the four winds. But for now, there was the wildcat clan to deal with.
Vengeance crackled through him, tapping into the darkest energies that always stirred within him. It would be so easy to wipe them from existence for their part in endangering Calia. But to do so, with a simple unleashing of bloodlust, would end things for them much too quickly. They needed to suffer…and to always remember how they had chosen the wrong side.
“A curse upon ye,” he said with a low growl. “A curse upon yer children and upon yer children’s children.” His spell gained strength and rumbled like ominous thunder. “Ye willingly made yerselves slaves to Bansys; therefore, ye shall willingly wear her mark, as shall all yer descendants until time ceases to be.” He lifted his right hand, drawing down the energy from every living being within the sound of his voice. “So let it be spoken. So let it be done.” He dropped his hand and uttered, “So mote it be.”
“No!” Yellis screeched, stumbling back a step as she caught hold of her cheek, which now bore a freshly burned brand that matched that of her grandchild’s. Abacas and Thunden did the same as their personal guards dropped their weapons and held their faces, hissing and moaning. The stench of singed hair and burnt flesh filled the air as the slave curse took hold and left its mark on all in the wildcat clan.
“Ye will regret this!” Abacas shouted. “I swear it!”
“Would ye rather the curse of extinction by starvation?” Mathison launched himself up into the saddle and took up the reins. He was done here. The dishonorable wildcat shifters had nothing else to offer than a waste of his time.
“Not another word,” Yellis told her daughter. “There is no reward for what we risked, and now we must pay for being fools.”
“Yer mother is right,” Mathison said. “Ye would do well to listen to her.” He wheeled Horse about and rode away, fully expecting and even hoping for them to attack so he might unleash his barely controlled fury. But they did nothing. It would appear the chieftainess was not quite as foolhardy as she seemed.
“Our mates have to be at Shadowmist Keep,” Dubh said, his words seasoned with angry growls. “’Tis the only place where the witches’ powers would be centered enough to block off all contact with yer Calia and my Litress.”
“Litress?” Mathison urged Horse to head southward, agreeing with Dubh’s logic. “I thought she wished to be called ‘Intuition’?”
“She said that for Calia’s sake. She feels the need to protect her, since neither of them knows how to shift or work together. In Litress’s past life, she had no human pairing. The goddesses thought her strong enough to live as a lone spirit wolf. But she longed for a human side and was hunted because she was different—and because she never backed down from protecting the outcasts. Yer Calia had no idea shifters were real until she met us. Neither of them knows how to release and meld with the other. They dinna ken how to make themselves whole.”
“And now they are trapped with no idea how to fight or come into their own.” Mathison willed Horse to charge faster toward Shadowmist lands. Calia’s magic, her shifting, all that she could do if only she knew how, was lost to her until he saved her and showed her the way.
Horse cut loose with an enraged squeal and reared up, pawing at the air with his razor-sharp front hooves.
Mathison clung to the saddle and twisted to see what wicked thing had caused the animal to react. And then he saw them. The three horrific beings who defied any description of their vileness. Mere words would never do them justice. Carman’s wicked sons: Dub, Dother, and Dian—more often known as Darkness, Evil, and Violence.
They stood as tall as warrior giants, but that was where the similarity to humans stopped. They were without skin. Nothing but sinew and bones. Their horned, elongated skulls had great gaping maws and glowing eyes. Dub, the one to the left, gleamed with a black greasiness that rippled downward, dripping off his limbs to stain the ground. To the right was Dian, gnashing his pointed teeth together while banging the blades of his long, lethal swords across his pale gray thigh bones. In the middle, Dother dripped with blood, the crimson stain streaming down him and puddling at his feet. With a grisly smile, he ran his long-bladed daggers together, up and down, with the chilling clang of steel honing steel.
“Ye shall not pass,” Dother said. “Shadowmist lands dinna welcome ye.”
“But ye can try,” said the greasy black Dub with a gurgling laugh.
“Aye,” agreed Dian as he clacked his swords louder. “Do try. We be bored with standing among the trees.”
Then the three horrors shuffled back a step, all of them staring at something behind him. Mathison didn’t dare turn and look. It could be a trap. But then he sensed a familiar presence that made his hackles rise. “Ye dare come here now when ye could have come to Wraith Tower and kept my Calia from danger?” he growled to the one closing in on him.
“The cards bade me stay away until now,” Mairwen said. She took a stance to the right of him, encased in what appeared to be a crystal orb that enabled her to float several feet above the ground. “I dared not go against the advice of the tarot. Unlike the goddesses, my cards are never wrong.” Her orb cast a brighter glow, humming with energy. “And I brought the Weavers of Light to assist us.” She cast a sideways glance at him, her mouth puckering in distaste. “The Dark Weavers preferred not to interfere. They dinna feel the Highland Veil would approve since ye already melded yer bond, and the work of the Weavers is considered done.” With a disgusted snort, she added, “Cowards. The lot of them. They know what Carman’s spawn did to mine and Morrigan’s sons in Danu’s prison, and yet they still withheld their aid.”
The Weavers of Light—Time, Spell, Tranquility, Dream, and Love—flanked him on both sides. All in crystal orbs similar to Mairwen’s. They looked to him, waiting.
Unsheathing his sword, he pointed at the ghoul on the left, the one slicked with the blackness of a rotting bog, the vile Dub. “Where have they taken my wife?”
The thing gurgled with unholy laughter. “Think ye, I would actually tell ye?” He elbowed the demon soaked in blood, his brother Dother. “Can ye not just hear what Mum would say? Can ye not just see what she would do?”
