Dragon's Ground (The Desert Cursed Series Book 2) Read online

  Flora cleared her throat. “If she hasn’t found her strength now, after all she’s been through, she’s not going to, Merlin. She’s faced the death of her family, the loss of her marriage, injury, betrayal, and hardships that most will not face in their whole life, never mind within the short span she has seen it all.”

  While he didn’t want to agree with Flora, her words struck a sharp slice of fear through his heart and the hope that had been building there.

  The fear that the things she said were exactly what would happen.

  That Zamira was too hardened by what she’d faced already, and instead of strengthening her, had cut her off from her own power.

  “Then we must help her, Flora. We have to help her break through those barriers and find the reasons to fight for this world. To fight for us all.”

  Chapter 5

  Riding through the desert plains alongside my ex’s pregnant—what was she? fiancée, mate, girlfriend? I wasn’t sure what to call her—I tightened my jaw to keep my mouth from running away with me, and kept my eyes forward, sweeping the path in front of us. This was not how I’d planned to leave the Stockyards. And because she was pregnant, I was taking it slower than I would have on my own even though I said I wouldn’t. That and her horse, Lacey, was slower and out of shape compared to Balder.

  That first bolt of speed had knocked the piss out of the black and white mare. We’d turned north about three miles back at the stone marker and were now making the long, slow route around the Stockyards. Out of sight, out of mind, was what I was hoping.

  To our left was an expanse of hard-packed desert plain dotted with a few buildings here and there left over from the human civilization. The humans had stayed as long as they could but eventually most of them died or migrated to the east, away from the hotbed of action this western wall had going for it.

  To our right were the foothills covered in broken rocks and boulders leading up to the mountains. The issue was all those boulders and dips gave lots of places for an ambush to be set up.

  Kiara shivered, and I knew why without asking. About twenty miles north of our position was where the gorc territory officially started and where we’d found her stuck in the mud so many years before. She was from a lion pride that had left the southern desert and had wandered out on their own months before the Jinn attacked us. What we didn’t know—those of us who’d survived the attack on the Oasis—was that the Jinn had made a coordinated attack on Bright Lions everywhere. They’d killed not only our pride, but every pride of Bright Lions they could find from the south end of the wall all the way through the north.

  The Jinn had split up and roamed the lands looking for every lion they could in a blow that would have wiped us all out completely if not for the few survivors that had dodged the death squads. Kiara had been young, a brand-new cub, and her mother had run with her when the attack had come. They’d survived for a few years on their own before the gorcs caught them.

  There had been too many for her mother—lame and weak from years of living hand to mouth—to fight off. And Kiara would have died too if we’d not heard her screaming on a routine sweep of the area.

  I’d found Kiara in a mud bog, just like she’d said. To be fair, Steve, Darcy, Richard, and Leo were with me too, but I’d been the first to Kiara, scooping her out of the sticky mud and running my blade down the gullet of the gorc who’d had her in his sights. I’d been a teenager full of rage at the unfairness of the world, and certain I could conquer anything.

  I glanced at her again, watching her react to the cool gusts of wind. “You aren’t a cub anymore, and now you have your own to protect. Don’t show the gorcs weakness. Don’t give them that power over you.”

  Her back stiffened. “I do not need you telling me how to feel.”

  “You look like you’re about to fall out of the saddle from fear, so yeah, I think I do need to say something,” I said.

  She flashed a snarl at me and I laughed at her. “That ain’t going to work, not on me. You are no alpha, Kiara. So don’t try to put me in my place with a curl of your lips.”

  “That’s right, you respect no one,” she snapped, her words thick with the fear that had to be humming through her veins.

  I shrugged, but she was wrong. Maks had bested me in a fight, the first time since I’d been a child wrestling with my brother that a man had actually taken me down. I might not be the strongest supe out there, not by a long shot, but I had a mean streak about a mile wide down the middle of my spine, and I depended on it for my survival. That and I was fast, faster than the bigger lions that I often trained with.

  Such was the nature of being the smallest in a group. You learned to bite hard and fast before anyone took a shot at you.

  “I respect those who deserve it. Not a child who’s not yet figured out how to be brave.” I didn’t look at her, but kept my eyes roving the rolling hills around us. My skin prickled here and there, as if eyes had come to rest on us, and I didn’t like it. Gorcs were. . . difficult to kill in large numbers. One or two, even three, I could handle without too much effort. Many more than that, and we’d have to outrun them. I patted Balder on the neck and he tossed his head, his mane flipping this way and that, tangling with the breeze that cut through the rolling hills, whistling between the boulders. I tried to scent the wind, but there was nothing out of place, no smell of gorc that I could pick up.

  Balder blew out a long snort and slowed his walk, surprising me. A whisper of wood smoke reached my nose along with the sudden stench of gorc. Fuck that shit.

  I gave Balder the lightest tap with my heels. “Come on, get moving.”

  He planted his feet. What the hell was this ridiculousness now? I frowned and slid out of the saddle.

  “What are you doing?” Kiara’s words were a half-strangled whisper. She’d picked up on the smell too.

  I frowned and shook my head. What was going on with Balder?

  “I’m checking his legs and feet.” I quickly ran my hands down Balder’s legs, picking up each hoof and checking them. Shoes were all on tight, no sign of bruising or heat in his joints or tendons. There was no reason for him to stop.

  A rattle of rocks down the hill closest to us snapped me around. I leapt straight up onto Balder’s back, spinning him so I faced the noise. Kiara let out a whimper that was most unbecoming of a lion.

  The noise came again and then. . . the distinct and horrifying sound of a goat being throttled.

  Kiara gasped. “What is that?”

  “Not what, but who.” I grimaced, shook my head once and then urged Balder forward as I spoke over my shoulder at Kiara. “Stay here.”

  “By myself?” The words were strangled syllables.

  I shrugged. “Gorcs are on the other side of the hill probably torturing a satyr.”

  Her face paled, and I looked away from her. What she chose to do was up to her. I was not forcing her hand one way or another. But I wouldn’t let someone I knew be killed by a band of gorcs. Typically speaking, they didn’t rove in numbers bigger than four, so I was banking on speed and surprise.

  Balder climbed the hill, leaning into it, and I leaned forward in part to keep my head down, in part to help him by at least not throwing my weight around. As we crested the hill, I found myself behind a pair of fifteen-foot-high boulders. I sat straight up and moved Balder with my heels, quietly getting us around the curve of the boulders so we could look down into the small depression between hills. I found myself looking at a curious scene. One that didn’t seem to fit with what my brain had been telling me I’d find.

  There was a fire pit at least five feet across with four gorcs in various stages of reclining around it, and with them was a satyr—Marcel to be exact. He seemed to be telling them a story by the way his hands were going, but I did note rope hanging from his left wrist that went to a metal bar hammered into a large boulder.

  More than that was the body of something over the pit. Long legs, a torso, and human features that had been burned to a char.
Nubs on the head. Shit, they were eating a satyr. The gorc closest to me leaned out with a knife and cut a chunk of flesh off the torso, bringing it to his mouth.

  I narrowed my eyes, seeing the sweat run down Marcel’s face, seeing the fear in his eyes. Four gorcs were no small thing, but if I caught them off guard, I might be able to pull this off.

  I slid from Balder’s back and ground tied him just as Kiara rode up beside me. I put a finger to my lips and motioned for her to get off.

  She slid from the saddle, and I saw the way her knees shook. We couldn’t speak, not this close to the gorcs. As a beast, they were large, over seven feet tall, and a cross between ogres, goblins, and something else. They were a creature created by the Jinn to harass the legitimate supes that lived on this side of the wall. Ugly, tooth-filled, claw-tipped hands, and powerful, they were not something I liked crossing. The worst was that they were not stupid. Or at least not as dumb as I would have liked.

  The more gorcs we killed, the better. As far as I knew, there were no females, only males; which meant that the more we killed, the more the Jinn had to make, and that should sap the Jinn of their energy.

  At least that was the running theory at the Stockyards. We didn’t really know much about them other than the fact they worked exclusively for the Jinn. I wished Maks was with me. He would’ve had at least some info on the gorcs.

  I put a hand on Kiara and mimed for her to take her clothes off. That would allow her to shift without ruining a perfectly good set of threads. I, on the other hand, could shift and take my clothes and weapons with me in the form of a collar around my neck. A very small perk for the rather large fact that my form was about as un-lion-like as one could get.

  I turned my back on her, letting the shift take me. For me, it was like walking through a door, stepping between two legs and four. The change was swift, and painless, and in only a few seconds I was on four legs, standing between Balder’s front hooves. He dropped his nose and breathed softly across my thick black fur, ruffling it. I reached up and batted his nose gently, pushing him away.

  I glanced behind me and saw with some surprise that Kiara was naked and making her way to shift. Honestly, I’d have expected her to tell me to fuck off. I also couldn’t help noticing the tiny bulge of her stomach, the telltale sign of a child on its way. The first Bright Lion born in more years than I wanted to think about. Much as it was hers and Steve’s, it was still a good omen. Even I could admit that.

  She shifted and gave a shiver, her golden coat shimmering in the dull winter light. I motioned for her to draw closer with a flick of my left ear. Kiara crept forward on her belly, her golden eyes wide with anxiety and fear as her tongue hung out, panting.

  I put my mouth into the rounded cup of her ear closest to me. “Let me go in first. I will call for you if I need help. This will be good for you, to face them, and put them on the end of your claws.”

  Her ear flicked once and I took a step back and turned to face the slope down. Dropping to my belly, I crept forward, one step at a time with my eyes locked on the scene that was playing out. Marcel was telling the gorcs a story that was a little too familiar.

  “I’m serious, this woman gallops along the canyon of the giants, the entire rush of them right on her very pert, very lovely ass, and she comes to a dead end. But that doesn’t stop her, no. Her horse is injured, and like any lovely, thoughtful creature, she sends him up the treacherous slope first.” He drew a breath and his eyes scanned the area, landing on me for the briefest of seconds before darting away. Of course, he didn’t know that I had a second form. Or that I would be of any help. All he saw was a simple black house cat.

  But I wasn’t so sure that him telling my story of fooling the giants would keep the gorcs entertained. Not when they were most of the way through the first body. Even in the time it had taken me to shift and tell Kiara the plan, most of the flesh had been stripped off the first satyr.

  Marcel cleared his throat. “Anyway, she climbs up, the queen is behind her, and this tiny, beautiful woman starts cussing out her ex-husband.”

  “Why she do that?” the gorc closest to him asked. “No good in sack?”

  “Well,” Marcel gave a nervous grin, “according to her, he was a no-good, cheating, tiny-dick man who couldn’t satisfy her.”

  The gorcs laughed together and I used their laughter to cover me as I shot forward, tiny pebbles rolling down around with me. I slid to a stop, some scrub brush working for a bit of cover. Not really a cover, but then I was a six-pound house cat. Not exactly hard to hide if no one was looking for me.

  I let out a slow breath as Marcel went on with the story. His words washed over me as I focused on the closest gorc. If I could launch myself onto his upper back, I was pretty sure I could slash his throat. While I might not be able to break bones with my bite, my claws and teeth gained strength from the weapons I carried, as strange as that might seem. And currently the flail of Marsum was a part of that strength.

  Booyah for me.

  The best part was, in my house cat form, the power drain that happened if I used the weapon on two feet didn’t happen on four feet. I didn’t know why, and I wasn’t going to question it.

  I pushed my way through the scrub grass, the spines brushing through my thick fur.

  “You tell another story before we eat you.” The gorc closest to me thumped his big flat foot into the hard-packed earth and the concussion of it crept up through the pads of my paws. “I like your stories. You keep talking, we no eat today.”

  Marcel gave that braying goat cry that set my skin to crawling as if it would run right off my body. That was nervous satyr laughter if I ever heard it.

  I drew my breaths carefully, keeping the sound of my breathing as quiet as I could while I waited for the right moment to pounce. I was only going to get one shot at this.

  A gorc who sat across the fire leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as they landed on me. “What is that? A pussy cat?”

  Well, fuck. So much for surprise.

  I launched up and onto the back of the gorc in front of me, landing on his shoulders and neck. I dug my claws into his thick hide and they cut through his skin like a razor blade through silk and with about the same tearing sound.

  He shot to his feet, his hands reaching back for me while his companions laughed and slapped their hands on their legs. Because let’s be honest, it probably was funny as a camel in a three-legged race with a rhino. The gorc howled, and I kept slashing at his neck, light pink blood splattering all over the place. If I didn’t have to bite him, I was going to avoid it at all costs.

  Gorcs tasted like rotting flesh.

  I swiped my claw across the veins in his neck, finally getting deep enough to hit them. The resounding spurt shot across the fire, hitting one of his buddies in the face. The gorc went from trying to grab me, to grabbing at his neck.

  “Get the cat!” he screeched, but I was already off him and racing across to the next gorc. That wound would kill him soon enough. The next gorc was still laughing, not grasping what had just happened to his buddy. There was no time. I wouldn’t be able to reach the second one’s neck. But there were veins in the inner thigh that would work just as well, much as I didn’t want my face that close to his dirty, unwashed junk.

  The gorcs wore a light brown uniform that helped them hide in the desert and the surrounding hills, but it wasn’t made to protect them, and it wasn’t much of a barrier to me. I cut through it in a single slash, the strength of both the flail and the two kukri blades I carried giving my claws and teeth the edge I needed.

  This time, though, it would be my teeth doing the damage. No matter that I didn’t want to use them on the foul-tasting shithead. I grimaced as I shot upward in a single bound and landed on the gorc’s thigh, sinking my front and back claws in to hold myself steady. I looked up at him and batted my eyelashes as he stared down at me in utter shock.

  “You’re going to die, big boy,” I said.

  He swiped at me with a big m
eaty hand and I dodged it, then bit him hard, sending him onto his ass as I chewed my way through layers of meat and muscle, gagging on the taste of his blood. The pulsing vein was there. I knew it was, and I went for it with every ounce of energy I had.

  “Watch out!” Marcel’s warning was all I needed.

  I let go and bounded off the gorc as one of his buddies brought a spiked club down on his leg, right where I’d been. The snap of bone and the explosion of blood and roars of pain set the scene on fire. Two down and out of commission, two to go. This was Kiara’s chance to face her demons.

  “Kiara, now!” I screamed for my backup.

  I shot forward, heading for the fourth gorc who was closest to Marcel. As I drew close, I walked through the doorway in my mind and went from four to two feet in the space of a single breath, faster than I’d ever shifted before, and it stole the wind from me.

  The gorc’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “Zamira.”

  “Ah, good, you know me. Can’t say I know your name.” I yanked my kukri blades out, still moving forward, and slashed toward him with a yell, the scream of one seriously pissed off woman.

  He met me with a blade of his own, big and bulky, slow. But if I let him hit me, it would only take one blow to snap me in half.

  The dance of blades between us clattered through the air, but more than that, I listened for the sound of a lion roaring into battle. A sound that never came.

  Well, fuck.

  Chapter 6

  The gorcs behind me around their campfire were starting to gather themselves, and that was not good since I was apparently on my own in this. I could take them, or at least I thought I could.

  Marcel had pinned himself as far away from the action as he could, and it was then I saw the chain around his one fetlock tying him to a large ring near the fire. As if the rope on his wrist weren’t enough.

  “Marcel, nice to see you,” I said as I parried the gorc’s blade, flinging it back at him with a grunt.