Wyvern's Lair (Desert Cursed Series Book 5) Read online

  He laughed and yanked me to him so hard that I ended up in his lap, straddling him. “This is far more comfortable.”

  “Doubt it, by the way the front of your pants are stretched, Toad,” Lila drawled.

  I shoved myself off Marsum. “Oh my gods. Keep it in your pants, man.”

  “A comedy of errors, perhaps. I shall amuse myself with watching you two dance around the ties that bind you together,” Maggi said, and I could hear the smile in the words.

  “This is not fucking funny!” I snapped.

  Lila snickered. Even Marsum snorted, his lips turning up in a wry grin. Not funny, this was a damn mess.

  A shout broke the brief moment of silence. Loud, sharp, and not anyone from around the fire.

  I froze where I was, half crouched. “That was a human.”

  Marsum pushed to his feet, the chain between us tugging me toward him again. “Where is your lion?”

  I reached for my connection to Ford and found him a couple miles away already. He was moving awfully fast for being on foot. Two feet, to be exact, and supposedly hunting. But what I got from him through our pride bond was that he was asleep. That made no sense.

  “What the . . .” I blinked, not sure what I was feeling was right, because how could Ford be asleep and moving that fast?

  He couldn’t.

  Which meant someone had him under a spell.

  7

  “Lila, someone has Ford.” I ran for the saddle Marsum stood next to, dragging him with me. I grabbed it and the saddle pad and threw them both onto Balder’s back in a single motion.

  “Marsum, be a dear and saddle up Batman.” I stretched out my arm attached to him. With the horses this close together, he could do it. Awkward, but doable.

  “I don’t know horses.”

  “Maks did, so let him do it,” I snapped. I didn’t have time for this. No matter what happened between Ford and me, he was still part of my pride, and mine to protect. For him to be moving away from us that fast, and be asleep, there was no other answer except that he had been snatched by someone. Or something. The list was long and didn’t only include ophidians, giants, mages, gorcs, hyenas, sand wraiths, another Jinn, or Goddess knew what else.

  On a normal day, it took me less than thirty seconds to get Balder ready, kick dirt over the campfire, and be up in the saddle. But not tonight. Every time I tried to do something, my hand attached to Marsum was pulled.

  Lila sat clinging to the base of Balder’s neck, watching, clicking her tongue. “Another time I’d laugh my little ass off, but this is pitiful. Work together.”

  I looked across to see Marsum finishing tacking up Batman. Maggi approached him. “Thank you, I will ride this one.”

  Which meant Marsum and I were riding together on Balder. Damn it. He could take our weight, but it would be better if I were smaller, as in my four-legged form. “Maggi, can I shift while cuffed?”

  “Not yet,” she said.

  Not yet? I didn’t want to waste time asking her just what she meant. “Mount up.” I pointed to Balder and gave Marsum a tug in my direction. He winked at me. “Any time.”

  A tongue-in-cheek response rolled to the front of my mouth but Lila leapt across the small space between us and smacked the top of my head before winging away.

  “No flirting with the prisoner,” she said. “He’s not Maks.”

  I bit back the words and put my foot into the stirrup to mount behind Marsum. “Right. Let’s go.”

  Balder leapt into a ground-covering canter, and Batman did the same as if tied to us by a string. Maggi rode easily, and Batman didn’t seem bothered by her.

  “Why are you being so well behaved exactly?” Lila asked as we rode into the night. “I mean, you are a Jinn master, a bow-to-no-one kind of satyr’s ass. What gives?” She flew around us, doing her trademark barrel rolls. Those rolls, the flashy moves, were her tic. She only did them when she was anxious or stressed.

  Marsum didn’t look at her as he spoke. “I don’t have to answer you.”

  “Answer her,” I snapped. “You answer her as if I asked the question.”

  He grimaced and miracle of miracles, he did answer. And more than a few pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

  “I don’t know.”

  Maggi laughed. “You two are quite something to watch, but let me fill in the blanks.” She cleared her throat. “The handcuffs are spelled, connecting you in more ways than the obvious physical one. The copper cuff that he wears makes it so he can’t use his magic except to protect you, Zamira, and he must follow wherever you go until either he is released by you, or he dies. The black cuff you wear makes you the master.”

  He shot a glare at her and Maggi smiled right back. “And you must obey her as if she were your literal master, Jinn. That is what you get. What you deserve.” I felt like she was jabbing him for something we didn’t understand.

  I about fell out of the saddle if not for the fact that I clung to his back.

  I had a Jinn in my back pocket with enough power that he could make even Merlin wary. “So, he has to tell me the truth about anything I ask of him?”

  The grimace on his face deepened and he shook his head once as if fighting not to answer.

  Maggi laughed softly. “Yes. Ask away.”

  Three little words that changed everything.

  “Hell, yeah!” I pumped a fist into the air. “Come on, Pet, let’s go find our lion!”

  Lila burst out laughing. “Pet, can I call him that too?”

  “No,” he said even as I said, “Sure thing.”

  “Pet. Oh my goddess, I think I might pee myself.” Lila barrel rolled right in front of him and then swept back to land on the front of my saddle.

  “We are going to have a long conversation when we stop,” I said.

  He didn’t answer. I didn’t care.

  For the first time since I’d stepped out of the Stockyards and headed to the Witch’s Reign to save Darcy, I was going to get some answers straight out of a person who could actually answer them. A person who held hundreds of years of answers in his damn head.

  I leaned into his back and eased my heels into Balder’s side, urging him forward. Up ahead was movement in the dark. Several figures I could just make out. Horses and riders, a large black lion in the middle of them. Ford had shifted? That was all well and good, but still didn’t answer how he could be running and fast asleep.

  “Someone spelled him,” Maggi said. “That’s how.”

  “You in my head?”

  “I can see the question on your face. You don’t hold your cards to your chest well; I don’t recommend you ever play poker,” she said.

  Not the first time I’d been told that. I settled back and reached for the shotgun in its sheath under my leg. No need for the flail here. These were the humans we’d been smelling earlier. I was sure of it. But how the hell had they snagged Ford, convinced him to shift into four legs and then go with them? The whole situation was crazy to me. A spell, to be sure. But what human had a spell like that? None that I knew.

  “Hey, shit heads!” I yelled as we drew close. The four horsemen spun, startled if their wide eyes and freaked out horses were any indication. “You got something of mine there. I want him back.”

  Marsum turned Balder so we were sideways, and I could look the humans in the eyes as well as sight down the barrel of the gun.

  “No, the lion belongs to the goddess of the desert,” the man closest to me said. I frowned, recognizing him even in the dark with his shining bald patch and bug eyes.

  “Gerry? What in the actual hell are you doing here?” Gerry had been one of the humans in the Stockyards, one of Ish’s slaves . . . Oh shit. “Oh, no you don’t. She can’t have him.” I lifted the shotgun and pointed it at Gerry’s chest. “Not happening.”

  The click of weapons being cocked filled the air and three other guns were lifted, pointed right back at me. I didn’t move. “Gerry, Ishtar is not having him. Over my dead body are you taking Ford. And
we both know who will come out of this alive, and it ain’t going to be you.”

  “Zamira, please. I don’t have a choice,” he whispered, his hands raised in surrender. “She has my wife and children. I can’t go back without a lion. She swore she’d kill them. Please, you of all of the shifters understand family.”

  The pain in his voice was real, and I knew he had a family. I’d seen them together. Seen him throw his daughter into the air, to catch her squealing with laughter. “You can’t take Ford,” I said, but I couldn’t help the lack of conviction in my own voice.

  “Ford would not want you to kill a family,” Marsum said. “Would he?”

  I whipped around to stare at him. “Why would you care what Ford wants?” Of course, the second I said it, I knew the answer. Ford was in the way. Ford would try to stop Marsum from fucking me at every possible turn.

  Ford held a piece of my heart, and even as small as it was, that was enough to make him competition.

  “I agree, you must let the lion go,” Maggi said as she and Batman caught up to us. “His path diverges from yours now. His fate is not yours.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No, Gerry, we will figure out a way to make this work, so that you and your kids will be safe—”

  Marsum laughed, cutting me off. “We have limited time before you and I die, and now you want to add dealing with Ishtar to the list? You are a fool. She will wait for you, injured as she is.”

  My grip on the shotgun slid and I slowly lowered my weapon. “Gerry, what does she want with him?”

  He looked to the other three men first before answering. All of them I recognized, even if I wasn’t sure of their names.

  “She’s collecting the lions. She’s hurt real bad, I think, like Maks says.” Gerry shook his head and made a motion for the others to lower their weapons too. I looked past him to the humans I knew from the Stockyards. All enslaved to Ishtar. Though for years that was not what I’d been told, and I felt a fool for believing anything that ever came out of that bitch’s mouth.

  “I’m surprised she’s not dead,” Marsum muttered.

  “Close.” Gerry tipped his head at Marsum. “She came home barely alive on the back of Steve.”

  A moment of shocked silence was about all I could hold onto.

  “STEVE?” His name burst out of me. “Steve is helping her?”

  Gerry shrunk away from my violent outburst. “I don’t know exactly for sure. You know she tells us very little. We saw her ride in on his back, flat out as if she were dead. Next day, Darcy came back, then Kiara with some others I didn’t know.”

  Panic clawed at me. Ishtar had my entire pride. She had them all. How had I not known?

  The only answer was she’d blocked me from feeling them. I reached for Kiara through my connection to her. Even at a distance, I should have been able to pinpoint her, to tell if she was injured or not.

  I got nothing.

  “That fucking bitch,” I growled under my breath, anger rising through me like a growing storm.

  “She’ll syphon off their strength until she is at full capacity again,” Marsum said. “It’s what I would do if I were hurt like she is.”

  Like shit all over my clothes, there was no way to get out of this situation without getting covered in more of it. I looked at Lila for some sort of suggestion, and for a moment wished that my crazy uncle Shem were there. But of course, he was with Kiara and the others, being syphoned off by Ishtar.

  “You don’t have time to save them and yourself,” Marsum said. “We have time—maybe—to get a stone, and then if you survive that, you can save your pride later. That is the only way to do this.”

  “Don’t you even dare think you are going to tell me there is only one way to do this!” I snapped, and the humans cringed. I worked to get my emotions under control. Freaking out would do no good for anyone. Certainly not for my family.

  Maggi sighed and moved Batman up, so she was well within my line of vision. “We do not always like the choices in front of us, Zam. That does not mean we can avoid making a decision. These men’s families are depending on them. You must choose now.”

  The string of profanities that escaped me flowed like a river on a downhill slope. The alpha in me wanted to race toward Ishtar and fight her for my pride, to save them.

  “Goddess damn it all! That’s what she’s banking on.” The realization was painful and so sharp that I might as well have been stabbed with a knife in the belly.

  “Lila?” Just her name, but she knew what I wanted; I was sure of it. I knew the answer already, but I had to be sure and she was my second-in-command, sister of my heart, and I trusted her more than anyone else in my life.

  “I hate to say it, but I don’t think either of them are wrong.” Her mouth twisted as if she were about to spit acid from agreeing with Marsum. “You can’t save our pride if you are sick, if you are dying. Whatever is wrong with you, we have to fix that first. And if you go after Ishtar at half speed, she’ll have you for sure.”

  “We have to go,” Gerry said, all but jigging in his saddle. “I really am sorry, Zam. I just can’t risk my family. She has a time limit on us.”

  I held up a hand, stopping him. “I know. Let me say goodbye to him. At least give me that much.” I slid off Balder’s back, tugging Marsum along behind me, and went to Ford. “Marsum. Wake him up.”

  A strangled growl escaped Marsum before a pale blue mist wrapped around Ford, tightening and then sliding into his jet-black fur. Ford growled and shook his head, his eyes clearing quickly. I stepped into his line of vision and his eyes locked on me. “Zam? What’s happening?”

  I cupped his face, waiting for the last of the sleep to fade from his golden eyes. He blinked a few times and then butted his head against mine.

  “Zam, what are you doing here?”

  I forced a hard swallow down my tight throat. “Listen to me, Ford, and listen carefully. I need you to go with these humans.”

  His jaw dropped. “Wait, these shits? They threw a pre-made spell at me!”

  “I know they did.” Goddess, I hated that I was sending him away, because despite knowing he wasn’t the one for me, I cared for him deeply. He was family. He was my enforcer, and I wanted him to be safe. And I felt safer with him around. “Ishtar has our entire pride. She has Steve and Darcy, too, and she is syphoning off their strength to heal herself.”

  I paused and looked at Marsum. “How long do you think it might take?” To get the stone, to get back to the Stockyards, all of it. I didn’t say it, but he knew. Damn him, even with Marsum in charge, he knew me too well.

  “A couple weeks,” he said. “Assuming it all goes as planned. Which with you is—”

  “Shut it,” I snapped.

  I tightened my hold on Ford’s face, forcing him to keep me in his line of sight even with Marsum beside us. “I need you to go with them. I need you to be in the Stockyards and I need you to protect Kiara and the cubs. Ishtar will draw from them and you are strong enough to stand in their place.” Goddess of the desert, I was asking him to lay his life on the line for them.

  “No, my place is with you,” he growled.

  My jaw ticked. “Your place is where I ask you to be for the safety of this pride. You will go with the humans or I will have them spell you again. I will come for you all as soon as I can.” I stood and took a step back, right into Marsum. He slid his hands up to my shoulders.

  “You lose, lion.”

  Crap on a cactus, this was going to bite me in the ass.

  Ford snarled and lunged forward. I shook my head. “Stop, he’s taunting you on purpose!”

  The lion’s shoulders slumped, all the fight going out of him. He’d lost this round. We all knew it. “This is not right. You aren’t safe with him.”

  “I’ll spit acid on him if he acts up,” Lila said, dropping a barrel roll in front of Ford as she spoke. I pushed backward, forcing Marsum to take a step or stumble. I yanked my hand down so at least one of his hands was off my sho
ulder.

  I walked back to Balder, keeping my hands to my sides so I wouldn’t touch Marsum even by accident. “Go with them, Ford. I will be there as soon as I can.”

  “You’re just doing this because he’s here,” Ford snarled. I turned to face him as he spun on his haunches, his body tensed for a lunge. I looked to Gerry and nodded.

  With a flick of his wrist, the human lobbed a round sticky-looking ball at Ford, hitting him square on his shoulders. The black lion blinked once, then bowed his head, turned and trotted away to the west without so much as another growl.

  “We didn’t have any thought you’d be here,” Gerry said. “I have to tell her I saw you.”

  “You do that,” I said. “And tell her I’m coming for my pride.”

  Marsum mounted Balder first, and I followed suit, ignoring the hurt in my heart, ignoring the sting in my eyes as we turned my horse to the south. “Seeing as we’re all so freaking wide awake, let’s go.”

  “Pithy as always,” Marsum muttered.

  Lila landed on Balder’s saddle once more. “I’m sorry. I know you care for him.”

  “Don’t want to talk about it.”

  Because just like that Ford was gone, and I was stuck with Marsum. Marsum who held Maks in thrall.

  Maggi and Batman trotted along behind us, not a single word sliding from her.

  Was this what Merlin had wanted all along when he sent Marsum back toward us in the falcon’s talons? Did he think I’d figure out how to save Maks if I was literally stuck with him? I snorted to myself. Merlin had never liked Maks, and had, in fact, encouraged me to stay away from him, had warned me that the man I thought was a human was more than he looked to be.

  I frowned, thinking about the possibilities. Maybe Merlin thought I could do something to stop Marsum. At the very least, he had the final stone with him. I could make him give it to me.

  Only I didn’t want to. As soon as I took that last stone, the wall that held the line between supernaturals and the human world would come down, and with the falling of that wall, the Emperor would be free. That was what I’d been told, at least.