Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

“It won’t be long now,” Lora said softly. Her gleaming eyes were locked on Zane, her lips parted in worship, or maybe hunger.

He didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he turned back to Cara. “It was the mark.” He tapped his forearm, where he wore the familiar glyph of the coyote bloodline. “Up until then, I thought it meant we were to be mates, that I was supposed to forgive the blood and take you as my queen. I dreamed of the mated mark, you see. But when the gods didn’t give it to us, I finally understood. It’s not about forgiving at all.” His eyes glittered suddenly. “It’s revenge.”

“What blood?” Cara whispered through lips gone numb. She was trapped, helpless. Terrified. Keep him talking. As long as he was there, she wasn’t drowning. “What revenge? What did I do to you?”

“Not you. Your father.”

Carlos. The name twisted something inside her. “What? Why?” Thunder rumbled outside, vibrating the altar beneath her and letting her know that the storm was still overhead. If it was the same storm as before, she hadn’t lost much time, hadn’t traveled far. Yet she might as well have been on a different plane. Her voice broke. “He said he didn’t know your family.”

“Zane,” Lora said, shooting a look into the darkness. “We should go. The doorway is almost all the way underwater.”

“I lied about who my parents were,” he said without taking his eyes off Cara. “Carlos knew them, all right. They would’ve made it out safe if it wasn’t for him. That’s why this is revenge.”

The massacre, she thought. He was talking about the days right before the massacre, when the king cracked down on the rebels, declaring that any mage or winikin caught trying to leave would be considered guilty of treason, which was an executable offense. He hadn’t actually executed anyone, but he had sent teams of loyalists to keep the rebels in check.

Some had gotten away. Most hadn’t.

“My father wasn’t on one of the teams.” She’d asked him directly.

Zane spit into the water, which had covered the small sandy island and was edging up his boots. “He did it personally, talking them back into doing their duty and saving the world for their son.” He thumped his chest. “For me. I tried to get them to leave like we had planned, but he’d brainwashed them—the whole fucking system had brainwashed them—and they locked me in my room, telling me that everything was going to be okay.” He bared his teeth. “I got away, though. They nearly caught me, nearly killed me, but I got away… and the gods led me here, so I would know what to do when the time came.”

He shifted, and for a second she thought he was going for his dagger, that it was all over. Instead, he turned up the camping lantern full blast, so it reached the farthest reaches of the cave. And even through her terror, she gaped.

Water surrounded them on all sides, brown and rippling, and churning to dirty foam at a narrow spot where an arch of deep darkness and a flicker of lightning said there was a way out.

Cara yearned toward it. Please, gods.

The huge cavern roof was decorated with cave paintings of people and animals, hunting scenes that leaped into sharp focus and left her reeling. Directly overhead, there was a throng of painted creatures—birds, mammals, reptiles, they were all there. The brown, rust, and ocher colors were vivid and breathtaking even in her panic. But it wasn’t the paintings that had Zane’s full attention; it was the lower ring of images that ran the circumference of the cave.

Coyotes. Everywhere, coyotes.

Zane’s eyes were lit with terrifying fanaticism. “I was injured, sunstroked, desperate, and the gods brought me here. I lay in the shade, drank the water, and waited for my parents to come for me… but they never did. And when I went back to the compound, it had disappeared.” His expression flattened. “Your father helped the Nightkeepers lead my parents to their deaths… and then the magic took the only home I’d ever known. So… I left. I survived. And for years, I thought it was all over, that the massacre had severed the magic forever. But then you came for me—a coyote came for me, and I knew the gods still favored our bloodline. I just didn’t know how until a few days ago.” He was breathing heavily now, still staring at the painted coyotes. “I dreamed of this, of you.” The island was gone now, the water up past his knees, though he didn’t seem to notice or care.

Tears stung Cara’s eyes but didn’t fall. “Please,” she said softly. “Let me go. You can have whatever you want.”

His eyes went back to the paintings. “I want to become what the gods intend. And you’re going to help me.” He glanced at Lora, jerked his chin toward the exit. “Let’s go. This is between her and the cave.”

“But I thought…” Lora touched her knife with fingers that trembled slightly.

Zane shook his head and started slogging away. Over his shoulder, he said, “No. She drowns. That’s the way the magic works.”

Cara’s heart seized in her chest even as anger lashed through the fear. “There is no magic, damn it!” Her voice cracked with the force of her shout. “You’re a winikin!”

“I’m a coyote winikin,” he called back over the sound of the water. “That makes all the difference in the world.”

“It doesn’t—” She broke off—there was no point arguing with a madman—and switched her attention to Lora, who stood there with a strange look in her eyes and her hand on the hilt of her blade. “Don’t you see he’s lost it?” Cara said softly. “Let me go and we’ll fix this. We’ll fix everything; I promise.” She was pleading now, begging. Whatever it took. “Please. Don’t do this.”

“Lora.” Zane snapped his fingers. “Come on.”

“Don’t—” Cara began, but then broke off because it was no use. Lora heeled up like an obedience-trained retriever, warning that there had been more going on in the winikin’s wing than Cara had even begun to guess. Was she that blind? Had she been so wrapped up in her own problems that she’d failed to see that something was so wrong?

A sob rose up and locked her throat as Zane and Lora—her teammates… hell, her team leaders—slogged through the narrowing gap and out into the night. Then they were gone, leaving her alone with a single lantern and the water more than halfway up the face of the altar.

Cara screamed, “Help! For gods’ sake, somebody help me!” Her only answer was a flicker of lightning that made the cave paintings dance as if they were alive. She twisted against the cargo straps, unable to get any real leverage. The bonds bit into her chest and hips, drew blood from her wrists and ankles, and didn’t budge at all. Panic bit into her, raced through her, and she filled her lungs as far as she could, straining to scream, “Help me!”

The rain rattled like bullets on the scant windshield of the ATV Sven had boosted from the firing range, and slashed into his exposed skin, cutting into him so hard he was surprised he wasn’t covered in blood. It was just water, though. And even if it’d been acid burning holes in his body, he would’ve kept going, following Mac’s trail through the rainy, shitty darkness.

This really wasn’t good.

They were outside the compound, vulnerable, and nobody knew where they were or what was going on, but he couldn’t stop now. He was focused on the lightning-lit glimpses of his familiar up ahead and, like now, when Mac bolted ahead and out of sight behind a rocky outcropping, the mental link that drew him onward with: Followfollowfollowfoll—

The sudden break in the litany snapped Sven’s head up and put a nasty clutch in his gut. But then he heard a flurry of excited barks and a new glyph burst in on him: Found! Found! Foundfoundfound!