Nightfire Part Thirteen

Thank you so much to you angels who reviewed last time round – I loved hearing what you thought! Thanks you to: Dead Flower (Flick is just a one time character for this story, but she will appear in others), Me (I hear and humbly obey!), Myst (I'm a cliffhanger addict. Sad but true. Okay, I'll take a look at that chapter and see how I can revise it.) and Persephone (Thanks :-) That was a pretty busy chapter! You'll see about Toya!)

I would love to hear what you think – all your thoughts, criticisms, opinions would be welcomed with open arms, heart and mind. Please tell me!

Hugs n' honey,

Ki

Nightfire Part Thirteen

Ria Lutinne slipped across the careless roads of Ryars Valley. She walked a lot lately. She walked on the roads and through the woods and around the bewitching blue-grey deep of the lake. Often she thought how easy it would be to walk into those sweetly icy deeps and wait for the water to take her.

Today, the ghost roads were calling her.

They weren't even real roads, just half-trodden ways of wolves, arrowing into the reckless wild. She loved it, and she feared it. Loved it for its untameable splendour, feared it for the dark secrets lying in the depths.

"These are dangerous parts," a rough voice said mildly. "Ain't a good idea to be walkin' 'em, not with the hunter's moon this near."

She turned, swift and startled as a fawn, her tumble of golden-red hair swinging in her eyes. She pushed it back, blinking. Oh. It was just Iry. Ria relaxed, feeling the fear ebb away gently. "I don't mind."

The werewolf snorted. "Well, I get the feelin' Redfern'll mind if I let ye go an' get ripped to pieces."

Ria shrugged. But his words evoked a startlingly vivid memory...standing in the first frosts of last winter, with Cougar's arms around her, both of them just sitting and watching while the Circle was in the middle of a furious snowfight. Lisa had just tripped Jepar up and telekinetically dropped a small avalanche on him, and Cern had been laughing breathlessly while Thom rugby-tackled a surprised Ruby...and in the middle of it all, her dark soulmate, silent and smiling at her. With his head against hers, and his eyes aglow and the softness of their breath mingling.

For the first time then, Ria had welcomed winter.

"It's not your business," she said, in the hopeless heat of summer. Go away, leave me alone. Let me hurt in peace...let me have that at least. "And he'd get over it."

Iry rolled his eyes. "Ya-huh. You keep thinkin' that, darlin', an' maybe you'll believe it one day, probably the day the devil rents out some skis and offers to host the Winter Olympics."

"Did I ask for your advice?" It should have come out harsh. But she sounded merely fragile, merely fading. How did I lose him? she thought, her turquoise eyes wistful. I am dying like the flowers, and soon there will be nothing of me but withered scraps.

"No. You never ask, you an' them friends of yours who all think you're so smart." He kept pace with her easily, that long rangy body seeming so natural against the ruthless wild. He lifted his head, and sniffed the air, his lips briefly skinning back as if to taste it. "Trouble's comin'."

"Let it." Ria moved deeper into the shadows, feel the graze of nettles on her palm and not minding the pain. "It always gets you sooner or later."

"Not like this." Something in his voice stopped her. Iry Lupine had the face of a thirty-year old, rugged and fierce, and he was notoriously tetchy and unpredictable. But never serious. Yet those eyes with their flecks of grey like hurled ash stared at her solemnly. "I felt it before. An' it's here again, only stronger."

"What?" she said, intrigued despite herself.

His next question was sharp and unexpected. "What do you know about the hunter's moon?"

"It's...the first moon after harvest," Ria replied, startled. What kind of a question was that? Though he had mentioned it earlier... "Apart from that, not much."

The werewolf looked disgusted, sitting himself down on a sturdy tree root. "An' you a witch. Shame on you." He looked up, to where the sun just crept through the thick lattice of trees. Ria waited patiently. "Hunter's moon is special for wolves an' vampires. Strong. It amplifies our powers...telepathy goes further. Talked to a wolf down under last year. Magic works better under it too. They say it's when all the dragons turn in their sleep an' give us a little taste of their power."

"And that's going to bring trouble?" she asked, unable to keep the bemusement from her voice. It didn't sound like much...but still, something deep inside her stirred and whispered like dry leaves rustling.

He bared his teeth, briefly a beast and not a man. "Not alone. But there's other things. Used to be something sleepin' under this valley, some creature. Felt it in my dreams sometimes. Now, happens you might remember that there was a big disturbance 'while back, when your Tali fought another dragon."

She nodded. The battle had been silent in this world, phenomenal through her psychic senses, and she possessed only a little. She could feel the unease gathering in her stomach. Please...let it be nothing.

"All that power...it had to go somewhere, or kill both them dragons. An' it woke somethin' else." He saw the query half-framed on her lips and shook his head decisively. "I don't know what. But that's not all. There's some boy strollin' around. Blue-haired."

Blue. Yes. Jal had mentioned him, and Ria had the vague feeling Cougar loathed him...but he had never shown her why. No, she reflected sadly, he guarded his secrets carefully. "I know him."

"He's got power, that one," Iry said grimly. "An' he's rotten somehow. Blackhearted to the core. An' the worst thing is, I don't even think he's crazy. Seemed sane enough last time he came here. Sane as you or I, an' smarter than us put together...not to mention minus a conscience an' a soul. Don't seem to care much. An'...you really ain't goin' to like this."

He had been here before? Maybe that had something to do with why Cougar hated him so... "What?"

"I smelled blood on the air. Not just any blood either. It's that witch friend of yours, Chatoya." Ria felt her breath catch. Toya had never been anything but kindness to her, who on earth would hurt her? "Lot of blood too. 'S why I caught you up, figured you could help better than me, bein' witchblooded an' all."

"Where?" she said tersely, her own pain banished. How horribly ironic, that only when others were hurt did she become whole again for a while. "Why didn't you say sooner?"

"Told you now, didn't I?" he demanded brusquely, and she realised it probably just hadn't occurred to him. The wild wolves didn't think much like people; their heads were filled with wolf-thoughts of hunting and stalking through their beautiful land, of their family and their children and their instincts, not with common sense. "Follow me."

She ran after him, through the ghost roads, praying there would be no more spirits to add to their number.

* * * *

Chatoya Irkil had a strange dream.

There were voices in it, disjointed floating voices that pierced the veil of darkness around her and dragged her up towards waking, up through starry drifts that spun serenely, away from the sweet peace circling her.

"...aren't you following Jallakri? Are all my employees doomed to be braindead, in a very literal sense?"

The darkness in that voice struck a chord in her. She knew it. It sent a feeling through her sluggish, drained body like a bee walking over her palm. Fear, awe, anticipation. Did you send me here? she thought dumbly.

"She fell into the Pack's snare," a desperate voice said. Chatoya didn't know it. It might have been Ria, with all the fright in it, but the accent was wrong. "They're the local wolves...they don't like trespassers."

"I take it they don't forgive their trespassers, then," the silky, night-filled voice said and then sighed. "Puns just go straight over your oversized head, don't they? So...the wolves have her. Hmmm...they're rather likely to kill her. Ms Ares especially...I need to find a good vantage point."

There was a choked gasp. Chatoya thought she might have felt disgust, but she felt simply devoid. As if this was what she would have expected all along. "You want to *watch*?"

"Do I need to explain myself to *you*?" A faint note of menace slunk and twined around each word, but somehow, Chatoya knew why he wanted to see. To make sure Cern's soulmate was dead. Are you insane? Chatoya thought. Ruby, can't you see what you're getting yourself into?

"No. I'm sorry." Distant sounds, like footsteps.

"No you're not," the drawling voice said. "You're afraid. But let's not get caught up in minor details."

The sounds were becoming slowly clearer. Yes, Chatoya thought, she needed to know what was going on...Cern's soulmate? In the Pack-snare? And Ruby in league with Blue? Surely this wasn't reality...but if it was... She tried to force herself into reality, that place she that seemed to far away.

"What do I do?" Ruby pleaded. "I didn't mean to mess up..." Her voice oddly thin and forlorn. "Please..."

"I can hear your thoughts, you know," Blue remarked casually. Chatoya felt the final haze recede and knew that she lay dying. Dying. How odd. She was dying, and the strangest thing was, it didn't even matter. Not compared to this. "I don't need you any longer, Ms Luthman. Jallakri ap Ganra has just made my work much easier."

A little gasp from Ruby, like a dying man's last breath.

"You want your reward, of course," the boy mused slowly. Chatoya lay in darkness, unable even to open her eyes, and felt the cunning radiating from him like light. Somehow, she understood, in this half-living state, she could see things she wouldn't normally. Blue's voice was softly disdainful as the raven's laugh. "Jepar Jubatus...gods only know why, though they do say those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In which case, your end may be singularly nasty. Catch."

A thud. "What is it? It looks like..." Doubt, but more terror. "A ring."

"Bravo. Tap it three times, say the name of the one you want, and they'll be yours." Such boredom in his voice, but Chatoya, knew that he was very interested to see what the consequences would be. Because for him, it would be...entertaining. Love. Desire. What were they but ways to manipulate people?

"I think I'll forgo the 'be careful what you wish for speech' and skip straight to 'you have only one wish'. I can however, assure you that your prince will not turn into a frog." A low, amused laugh. "Do have fun."

"That's it?" Disbelief...and a kind of sceptical joy. It's a charm, Chatoya decided. For...making someone fall in love with you, or at least, think they are. But who? Who would Ruby wan—oh no. She wouldn't be so stupid. Surely she wouldn't. She...would. Goddess, I've seen how much she wants Jepar. She'd run to the ends of the earth...she'd sell her soul...she'd watch someone else's soulmate *die*. "I can go?"

"Yes." ~ For now, ~ Chatoya heard him say in a soft mental whisper.

~ Run! ~ she screamed silently at Ruby. ~ Throw away whatever he's given you, it's tainted, it's corrupted, it's *filthy*, can't you *see* that? ~ But Ruby was moving away with light, joyful steps.

Then something happened that shocked her.

~ Are you all right there, Chatoya Irkil? ~ That sinful voice curled around her. ~ You're amazingly stubborn...and so quiet there, I almost didn't notice you. Go on...warn her. She won't hear you. She only hears what she wants to. ~

~ Why? ~ she flung at him. ~ Why are you giving her what she wants? ~

~ You know, ~ he murmured. She blinked, and she was seeing the world through his eyes. Staring at her own body, hidden in foliage, laying where she had fallen, black hair tangled, blood dark around her. Ruby wouldn't have noticed...but Blue had.

Yes. She knew. He liked to play.

~ You know rather too much now, ~ he said mildly. ~ The problem is...I still can't kill you. If you die, I lose my extremely tenuous link to all those handy dragon powers. It's your witchpowers that keep them in me, you know. Haven't you wondered why you've never been quite so powerful as before? Not to mention it might well kill me as well. ~

Control, she had assumed. That was why she had never been able to cast spells quite so easily as before. She wouldn't let herself unleash her powers. But...he was telling the truth.

~ So what do I do with you? ~ He was stalking round in a slow circle. She saw through his eyes, heard through his ears. ~ Your friends are coming to help you. And if they heal you...well, in true heroic style, you'll try to thwart my evil intents and so on and so forth. But...you're quite helpless now, aren't you? ~

She didn't understand what she meant until she felt his presence inside her mind, like a cool dark wind. For a moment, a shocking moment, she felt everything he felt—

~ Ah. ~ He was...suddenly enlightenment dawned. He wanted her witch powers. To lay a...sleeping spell. And a forgetting spell...no, she wouldn't let him! Chatoya fought him, but it was useless as trying to trap smoke.

But what if she played him at his own game?

Swift as lightning, she reached deep into his mind, pushing past his thoughts, his knowledge heedlessly to the dragonfire, dark and terrible. And before he was even aware, she put one simple trigger in her mind, one trigger that would bring back everything. It was easy; the trigger was important in his thoughts—

~ You little minx! ~ his laughing mocking voice said, and power slammed her with a hammerstrike impact. But as she was dragged into icy oblivion, but before her mind winked out into nothingness, Chatoya thought silently, smugly...

When I see the hunter's moon, I will remember.

* * * *

It was a snarling face above her, a face with empty eyes and glistening teeth. Jal gasped and shrank back, then cried out as pain lanced through her side. She looked down, and saw blood. So much blood, glowing that deep living red...

She stared at it, felt herself falling into the gleams on it, into the deep pulse and she was drowning in rivers, in lakes, in oceans of other's lives, the only light the ethereal glow of the hunter's moon above her...

Someone hit her.

Jal was thrown from the vision, all her knowledge slipping away like slippery fish. What was it? she thought desperately. I needed to know, it was *important* somehow...

She was thrown to the floor. They had dragged her from the pit, with her side aching and bloody. Her chin cracked on the ground, and there was dirt on her face and dank in her mouth.

"Trespasser!" snarled a high voice. "You are not Pack!"

It was as if she could hear Cougar Redfern in her head again, with his sardonic eyes glowing and the start of that tilted, wicked smile, saying, well *duh*.

"Leave me alone," Jal said, trying to get up. She almost screamed as a foot slammed down onto the small of her back and she hit the ground helplessly. What would they do to her?

There were sounds all around, nasty snuffling sounds. "You are on our land."

"I didn't mean to be," she said, keeping her voice steady. They are the same as me, she thought stubbornly. I don't have to be afraid. They're kin. Surely they won't hurt me...and then she thought of the missing finger on her hand, and the icy-cold stare of the wolf who had bitten her, and knew that she was nothing to them.

"We punish trespassers," another voice said, and growled. "You look tasty."

"Leave me alone!" Jal said, and rolled sideways, out from the weight of whoever had a foot on her back. She leapt to her feet before they could throw her down again. "It was an *accident*."

Claws sliced through the air and agony streaked across her face. She did scream then, but with anger, with sheer fury that they *dared* to do this to her...she struck out blindly and felt her fist connect.

"Bitch!" yelped a voice, and she stood still long enough to see a circle of slinky, strong bodies ringing her, to see glitteringly green eyes that leapt with unholy light and the stretched, inhuman faces.

"Leave me alone," she said firmly, though her heart trembled. "Or I'll hurt you."

"Like you could," someone laughed. It was a boy, with a sullen mouth and a shaved head. She could see shiny scars on his arms, running over tattoos. "We're gonna *gut* you, lone wolf."

"I'm not alone!" she said angrily. She had friends. She had something that was maybe more than friendship, she was *no longer* alone. She would *never* be alone again. Never falling into the abyss. "And if you don't let me go, you're going to regret it."

A girl to his left laughed, beginning to circle like all of them were. "Yeah? Think you can beat a whole Pack?" Her hand, heavy with thick silver rings, stretched out and slowly clenched. "We're going to crush you. You're on Pack land...and we rule here. No one dares come here. Your friends don't want you – where are they now?"

"No one *wants* to come here," Jal snapped, her anger slowly building. But what if...the girl was right, and they didn't want her? "You're here because no one wants *you* anywhere else."

The girl's metalled hand lashed out to slap her—

Jal caught it and *threw* the girl over her shoulder. She weighed nothing, *nothing* and it was so, so easy...

But as the rest of the Pack attacked, she knew they had been right. No one wanted her...

But if she hurt them, her pain went away. It disappeared...and Jal got angry.

* * * *

When the three of them; Cern, Cougar and Jepar, skidded into the Pack clearing with Donna Ares and the Pack minion close on their heels, none of them were expecting the sight that met their eyes.

Jal was causing chaos.

There was a half-healed wound in her side, where she must have landed on one of the stakes the Pack planted in their pit, and mud across her side from the dank earth inside, but her eyes blazed with pure crystalline fury, and her hands and feet moved in golden blurs as she viciously hit and kicked anything nearby.

"What idiot let her out?" roared Donna, nipping past the trio of Circle Strange in wolf shape to throw herself at Jal. Felicity followed, melting into a snarling wolf with a copper-tinged coat.

Her mouth snarling, her eyes wild, Jal turned to see the Pack leader streaking towards her...her pupils dropped away like bottomless wells...Donna leapt.

Jal's foot moved up and lashed into the wolf's head with blinding speed. Donna landed hard and shifted back, blood trickling from her jaw.

Then Jal saw Felicity.

"You bit me!" she shouted furiously, waving her hand with the finger missing. "You bit me, you mangy..." Her language trailed off into words which could only have come from the mind of Cougar Redfern.

"Would you mind not corrupting my soulmate?" hissed Cern, wondering where the safest place to hide would be. "I know she didn't learn that from *me*."

"Uh-oh..." Jepar muttered, his emerald eyes fixed on the silver wolf facing Jal.

"Uh-oh? As in she has odd socks on, or as in damn, that was the nuclear missile launcher?"

Jepar glanced at Cern. He could read the look in the shapeshifter's eyes, the one that said is now *really* the time for humour? "Uh-oh as in that wolf's going to poun—"

Felicity Serafine sprang.

Uh-oh.

Cern had the sense to hit the floor as the wolf flew – *flew* – back over his head with a yowling shriek and, unfortunately for her, hit Cougar Redfern.

Cougar was not known for his love of wolves. He was not known for his understanding and compassion. He was not known for liking being hit in the face by heavy objects moving at high speed.

He was, however, known for having a very short fuse.

Twenty very hectic seconds later, Cern got up off the ground and looked at a faintly moaning Felicity. The rest of the Pack was scattered around, most of them bruised from Jal's rage, some of them nursing new wounds from Cougar's brief and projectile tantrum. Throwing logs did tend to cause damage.

Jepar landed lightly, jumping down from the tree he had been perching in. "Talk about seeing Redfern," he drawled mildly.

Cern turned and looked at his soulmate with new eyes. Suddenly, she didn't seem as sweet and shy as he had thought. "Are you okay?"

He didn't know what he was expecting her to say. With that fierce hunting light in her, with her golden hair mussed around her face and her snarling mouth, he was expecting a joke, or a wry comment, or a bright smile.

He wasn't expecting her to look at him with a fresh pain in her eyes, as though something inside her had snapped suddenly. "I'm alone," she whispered, her face pale with blood scarlet against her skin. Her legs seemed to give suddenly and she fell hard. Cern had moved before he even knew, kneeling down by her fallen form.

She looked up at him again, and he thought he had never seen anyone so lost.

"I'm alone."

It was then that the scream severed the air.

* * * *

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