Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

‘I don’t know anything about primal spirits, Gen,’ he said worriedly. ‘But you have to sever part of your soul to make an ùmaidh . It’s not something you can do without the right knowledge. What’s this cat look like?’

‘Same size as the shifters’ cats. but not as chunky, and it’s gold with black stripes, not dark grey. It brought you here.’

Finn shook his head. ‘I don’t remember any gold-coloured cat, Gen. Just the gnome and the big cats that ambushed us.’

‘You were unconscious when it brought you in,’ I said, trying to stay calm, but hearing my anxiety in my voice.

‘Yeah.’ His eyes flickered down at my arms, at the fading needle-marks there. ‘Gen, we talked about this last night, how you couldn’t remember much about what happened after the ritual went wrong. But you were sure you were okay. Maybe I was a bit hasty believing you. I think—’

‘You think what? That Gold Cat isn’t real? That I was hallucinating it or something? Finn, think about it. Hugh was waiting for us to turn up at Old Scotland Yard. We’d been kidnapped. Why would we stay the night here and talk and everything?’

He frowned. ‘I said that to you, but you reminded me this is Between . Said we could spend a week here and make it just an hour in the humans’ world if we wanted. That we shouldn’t waste the opportunity. You wanted us to get rid of the fertility magic, and to sort things out between us, before we went back. You never mentioned any gold cat, Gen. And we talked about . . .’

I stopped listening as Gold Cat padded silently through the cave entrance. I grabbed Finn’s arm. ‘There! Look!’ As he turned, the cat huffed in exasperation, crouched and leaped. As it flew towards us I shoved Finn out of the way and braced for impact. It didn’t come. Instead, the big cat seemed to merge into me in a brush of soft fur, sharp claws and alien magic. As it did, my skin felt stretched tight enough to split, the colours in the cave muted to grey and the taste of fresh meat filled my mouth. I looked at Finn’s shocked expression and a cascade of memories poured over me; our voices mingling in laughter and tears, our limbs tangling in passionate pleasure, and the deep satisfaction of knowing he was mine.

My mate.

And I/it was his.

Mated.

No! I tried to shout, to push it out, but it raked claws through me, slicing me into smaller and smaller bloody pieces and casting them down into the darkness.

As I fell it reached out to Finn and as my lips met his, I felt it find the memories of it returning as the Gold Cat to the cave, of his and my waking minutes, of my telling him about it, and steal them from him.

The memories rained down on me, burning like acid tears.

I woke with a raging thirst, a hammering in my head that rivalled a dwarves’ workshop, and a nauseous roiling in my belly. I groaned, rolled groggily away from the sunlight sending knives into my eyes, and got a face full of fur. I groaned again, belatedly realising my Hot.D/Reviver double-postponed hangover had sucker-punched me. As had Gold Cat.

Fucking animus had mated me and Finn. Or it and him. Or all of us. Or— Fuck if I knew. But whatever Gold Cat had done, it was going to undo it as soon as I got my hands around its funky furry neck.

I scrambled up, dizzy with the hangover, to find Finn and Gold Cat were gone.

But Viviane was back, sitting with her game of Patience.

Shit. I should’ve known better than to trust her small agreement. I should’ve negotiated a cast-iron bargain with her and damned the consequences.

‘You and Gold Cat planned that, didn’t you?’ I accused, grabbing my clothes and yanking them on.

She calmly moved a card. ‘Not so much planned as, once I knew what the animus wanted, I agreed not to interfere.’

‘Why?’

‘Why isn’t important right now, bean sidhe. Not if you want me to help you save the satyr, as we agreed.’

I snorted then wished I hadn’t as the dwarves in my head hammered another couple of nails in. ‘No thanks, Viv. After your last bit of help , in which you, oh so helpfully fucked Finn and me up, you can stick it. And the agreement’s off; you’ve broken our no-harm-to-me-or-mine deal.’

Her cards jerked up on end, quivering with umbrage. ‘I agreed to help release you from that circle. In order to do that without your dying, the ritual had to be completed. As stated on page thirty-nine of the notes taken from the witch archives.’

My hands stilled on my shirt buttons as the ramifications hit me. If I hadn’t had sex with Finn, I’d be dead . . . except I’m sidhe, and hard to kill. And I trusted Viviane about as far as I could throw her, which seeing as she was incorporeal was not at all. But I didn’t need to trust her, I could check for myself. I lurched over to Carlson’s ripped backpack, only to find the cloth-wrapped bundle containing the details of the ritual was missing.

I rounded on Viviane. ‘Where is it?’

She shrugged. ‘I do not know. But I can tell you that what happened between you and Finn was for the best. If it had not happened, then when the Emperor’s lupus centurions appeared, they would have killed the satyr and one of them would have completed the ritual instead. I do not think you would enjoy being mated to one of the Emperor’s werewolves.’

I stared at her, horrified at the worse-than-having-sex-with-Finn-and-whatever-Gold-Cat-had-done fate Finn and I had averted. ‘The Emperor’s werewolves were here?’

She tossed her black hair back in irritation and her cards flew up into a line in front of my face. Like a slide show they showed seven huge wolves at the cave entrance. Then three black-haired, olive-skinned males, dressed only in short centurion-style leather kilts with thick hair furring their muscled chests, alike enough to be brothers, if not triplets, and all of them resembling the Latin Lover werewolf guy from Trafalgar Square. Next card showed Finn, his head bleeding, eyes closed, half-bundled into a net. The last card showed the swish of Gold Cat’s tail as it chased after them.

A vice squeezed my heart. The Emperor’s werewolves had taken Finn. I had to get him back. Rage and fear ignited in my veins. I would get him back, no matter what it took. The Emperor wanted something from me—

‘I was here,’ I said, my voice flat. ‘Why didn’t they take me?’

‘No doubt they had a reason.’ Viviane flicked her fingers and the cards returned to a tidy stack in front of her. ‘But if you want my help to save the satyr along with all the other victims of the Forum Mirabilis we should get moving.’

‘Told you,’ I snapped. ‘Your help is no longer required.’

She gave me an arch smile. ‘Then I wish you luck finding your way back to the humans’ world.’

Crap. Like I’d ever find it. Between didn’t go in for handy signposts and I’d been unconscious on the way here. Even if I struck lucky and found an entrance, right one or not, opening it would take another miracle. Being magically challenged sucks. Big time.

‘Fine,’ I snapped. ‘Let’s move.’

The way back felt like I was climbing-through Dante’s nine circles of hell. My Hot.D postponed hangover, which even the painkillers in my backpack couldn’t nix, didn’t help. Neither did the cave being so far off any regular paths, so not only did I have fucking garden fairies screaming in my ears and sulphurous-smelling swampies to dodge but all the other magical beasties and half-formed spirits that plague Between decided to come out and party too. Most of them decided retreat was the best option as soon as they got a look at Ascalon, but enough wanted a piece of me that by the time we reached the double oak tree with its bramble- and weed-tangled and impossible-for-me-to-pass exit back to London’s Primrose Hill, I already looked like I’d been pulled through a hundred hedges backwards.