Murderer.
The crowd uttered condemnation around me.
Murderer.
Slowly, I unclenched my fingers from around the shaft of the spear as the shifter rattled his last breath. I ignored the accusing stares of his pride and pinned my gaze on Vehrin. A smile still touched his lips as he kept his eyes locked on mine. He didn’t speak as the shifters continued their hushed words of blame and pleas for their chief to administer justice.
The shifter’s blood stained my hands and painted me as some evil creature. I couldn’t find my voice to deny their accusations. After all, I’d been the one to react too slowly to save them. Perhaps I did have a part in their deaths.
No. No, that isn’t right. This wasn’t my doing. My teeth ground together as I stared daggers at the dark mage. It was his.
There was a commotion in the crowd and suddenly, Kael burst through them. He hurried to my side with a trio of lions on his tail. They stopped when they reached the front of the crowd, though they continued to pace and growl.
Kael pressed his head against my hip in a show of relief. His sides heaved with each breath, and patches of blood stained his golden-brown fur. He hadn’t been limping when he’d joined me, so he didn’t appear to have anything broken. I hoped the wounds weren’t too deep and would heal quickly.
More lions joined the small group which had been pursuing Kael, and I realized a good number of the shifters had changed into their lion forms. Kael moved to stand in front of me. He let out a vicious snarl, the vibrations of it tickling my legs. He was uneasy, and I laid my wounded palm on his blood-stained back in an attempt to calm him.
Something flared in my mind, and a strange sense of warmth and familiarity washed over me. It brought with it the scent of citrus-heavy air and rain-soaked jungle earth. I blinked in surprise, and the disconcerting part was the surprise wasn’t entirely my own. A portion of it was Kael’s. I could feel his surprise, could feel him deep in my bones.
What the hell?
Kael turned to look at me.
Livvie? A voice sounded in my head, and though I knew it was Kael’s, there was something deeper, richer, more meaningful about it.
I’d always thought of him as a man who could turn into an animal, but for the first time, I realized perhaps he was an animal with the ability to turn into a man, and the tone that had caressed the sound of my name was his true voice.
My mouth parted. Kael? Why can I hear you? What happened?
A strong emotion sparked in him so fast I wasn’t able to get a read on it before he swept it away. We can’t worry about it now. Stay focused.
Right. At the moment, we had to deal with an evil mage and a pride of lion shifters bent on making me pay for a crime I didn’t commit. Still, it was hard to shake off the disconcerting fact my partner was in my head. Could he only hear thoughts I projected, or could he read everything flashing in my head? Instead of words, I thought of Renathe wearing a bright pink fairy dress.
Kael let out a strange huffing sound which I could only assume was a laugh. Well, perfect. This isn’t going to be awkward.
Livvie, focus.
I was never going to get over the way his feral-wrapped voice sounded saying my name. I wanted to hear the jaguar Kael speak more often.
I’ll recite poetry to you later. Right now we need to worry about him. Kael had his attention on Vehrin, who was walking up to stand beside the chief.
I’m going to hold you to that.
Kael was right, though. I had to get my mind in the right place.
Vehrin spoke, and his words were loud enough for all in the vicinity to hear.
“Did I not warn you about her? Look what she has done. Not only has she tried to steal the key you have been charged with protecting, but she has killed two of your own to do so. She is a treacherous creature, who uses conniving words to twist the minds of those in her way. Just how do you think she obtained the relics around her neck in the first place? No doubt she has left a pile of bodies in her wake.” Vehrin tipped his head down so only I could see the smirk on his face. “The blood of your brethren is likely still warm on her fingers.”
The pieces had already been clicking into place for me, but his next words cemented what I’d already guessed.
The dark mage turned to the leader of the pride. “Entrust the key to me, and I will keep it safe from your enemies. She will not be the first to try and steal it. I know it has been under the protection of your pride for centuries, but how many more must die in order to keep it from falling into the wrong hands?” Vehrin swept his hands out toward the ring of shifters. “You are missing young ones, yes? Who knows what they befell at her hands?”
I despised Vehrin’s accusations, and I knew denying his poisonous words would only fall on deaf ears, but to imply I had killed children enraged me more than I could have imagined.
“I would never hurt a child, you lying bastard!” Magic wreathed my fingers and my hands trembled with eagerness.
Vehrin merely leaned over to the chief and muttered something.
He said his own child was among the missing. Giving him the relic is his only chance to save his mate and the rest of his people, Kael said.
To my utter horror, the chief started to move toward us. He was going to give the key to the dark mage. Vehrin had twisted the man’s thoughts so much, he would willingly entrust the key to him. I couldn’t let him have it. The chief had told us the third key would override the power of the keys I already possessed. Would Vehrin be able to control the key bound to my soul?
I turned my full attention to the chief as he made his way forward, and the energy crackled at my fingertips. If I attacked him, it would only cement me as the villain. The others wouldn’t believe otherwise. Still, I moved between him and the key.
“You can’t,” I said. “Vehrin is lying to you. He’s poisoned your thoughts. You must know this.”
Kael, shadowing me, crouched, ready to spring into action.
The chief’s lips curled up in a menacing flash of teeth. His eyes were wide and wild, and I knew he was too far gone. Vehrin’s influence had been strong and deep.
Do not hold back, Kael said.
My gaze swept over the crowd, picking out faces of women. There were still children among them. I can’t. They’re innocent.
So are millions of people around the world. Do you think Vehrin will spare them if he wins?
Eagerness pulsed through me, stemming from the magic in my veins. Bring me back, Kael. If I forget who I am, please, bring me back.
Always.
Snarls ripped through the air, followed by angry roars as lions and lionesses charged toward us from every direction. For a split second, I wondered if Bibi’s earring would keep me from harm, but as the first lioness took a swipe at me, I realized it wouldn’t. These were not wild beasts, after all. They were innocent beings who, in their mind, were protecting their children and fighting for their chief. And I was the twisted young mage who had come to steal everything from them.
Magic swirled from me. I knocked out the lioness who had tried to swipe at my leg and another quickly filled her place. The energy left me slowly, the attacks that rendered them unconscious harder to conjure. Kael snarled, his sleek body twisting this way and that as he dodged claws and teeth, and traded attacks of his own.
The chief continued to maneuver toward the key. This wasn’t going to work. The power inside of me purred in agreement.
A pair of young male lions, likely teenagers in their human forms, leaped at me, and I made a slashing motion with my arm. Energy whipped across them, and blood sprayed in the air. My breath caught, but before their bodies hit the ground, another lion charged.
I thrust a hand out, and the concentrated magic sinking into his chest reminded so much of the ivory spear in the shifter guard, I stumbled a step.
I can’t do this.
Kael’s iron voice hardened in my mind. Fight, Livvie. You don’t have a choice. It’s that or die. He lunged from my side to attack the guards shielding the chief.
Half a dozen shifters descended on me. Magic swirled around me like a maelstrom of death. Though I merely wounded some of the lions, I noticed many were dying, their blood soaking into the dry earth.
Tears stung my eyes. I wanted to roar at them to stop. I had to defend myself, but that didn’t mean I wanted to harm them. Didn’t they see what they were doing?
Something cracked inside of me with each innocent life I struck down, made worse by the almost joyful glow of the darker shade of magic inside of me at the sight of the bloodshed at my feet.
I didn’t want this. I didn’t want power and pain and sacrifice.
A sliver of agony sliced through my mind, and I found Kael pinned beneath a lion. I held my palm out as the lion snapped at his neck, but I hesitated.
Could I justify attacking him? It wasn’t self-defense, but what if he killed my partner?
I couldn’t lose Kael.
I pulled in a breath, preparing to attack, when every ounce of air whooshed from my lungs. I’d hit the ground. Hard. A snarling lioness had me pinned. Her claws dug into my back, and hot air warmed my cheek as she growled in my ear.
Pain ripped across my back, and I wondered if I would die from being crushed or having a vital organ punctured first.
“Please,” I said. I could taste dirt on my lips as I gasped the word. “I didn’t kill them.” I tried to shift; the weight hurt so much, I couldn’t stand it. I let out a cry as her claws sank deeper.
Kael was saying something in my mind, but I couldn’t decipher them through the agony. Out of my peripheral, I stared at the lioness’s eyes. Even in her animal form, I could see the pain and loss glistening in the deep, golden orbs. A thought suddenly occurred to me. Had one of her children been one of the ones the two women we’d met made off with?
“Bibi’s. The children…they’re at Bibi’s.”
The weight lifted slightly, and the lioness stopped snarling. I was able to twist slightly, though she kept her claws in my back. A shadow floated toward her and wreathed her neck like a strangling serpent. Whatever doubt I’d placed in her was chased away as she roared with murder in her eyes. Before she could end me, I struck.
The attack was swift and lethal. She tilted off me, and as I sat up, she twitched once in a pool of blood before stilling. For a moment, everything went still. Then, a pained voice yelled out.
“Wife!”
I tore my eyes from the lioness to find the chief standing beside the altar. His gaze was wild, drinking in the sight of his dead mate.
I had just orphaned a child and tore away a man’s lover.
Murderer.
What had I done?
Roars shook the air and rattled in my chest. The tawny bodies of lions ringed around me as I struggled to my feet. Agony lashed down my back, and made it painful to move my arms. There was a commotion on the other side of the lions, and as I raised my hand to attack those closing in, the chief’s voice rang out once more.
“Stop!”
The lions parted, clearing the path so I could see unhindered. The chief held the key in one hand. In the other was the ivory spear, the point of it touching Kael’s neck where he lay on the ground, teeth bared in a growl.
Vehrin walked into view. “You can only choose one, Olivia. The key, or your mate.”