"Fabulous," she said murderously. "I will strip each and every one of them apart. Physical release, just what I need."
"We had better hurry to," Kehel said, glancing to the massive hourglass in the corner of the Mess that was still visible. "We have only five minutes until First Bell, and we need to be out before then in order to train, so five minutes is all we have."
"Which is four more than I'll need," Ty said quietly, sprinting to the place where the gang had hit with her pack behind her.
It as then, as she ran, that a scream throttled through the pack-spell she had cast on them all. She stopped, grinding the halt at once. Kehel and Mel both slammed into her, but she held her ground.
"The pack-spell," she breathed. As Tehea, only she would hear the scream of the pack-spell. "One of my cubs is in trouble!"
She let her awareness fly, then bolted for the Left Page Wing, Mel and Kehel on her heels. Where were Leej and Terry? Who was it that sent the pounding through her blood-spell?
As she turned into the Wing, she felt the stink of fear in the air. Fear, pain, sweat—lust, was that it too? Why would anyone feel lust in the page's wing?
"No," she gasped, then dove into the wing as color dropped from hers and her pack's faces as they saw the blood on the floor, and all were leading her to one door…
"No!" she screamed, diving into her room. There was blood on her floor, and an unusual stink in the room. "Kehel, Mel, find the others. Get them here, NOW!"
As they scampered, Ty's awareness flooded the palace. She felt Mel there, and Kehel, and somewhere in the distance…was that Otian? Yes, Otian was safe—
She crept toward a corner of her room. There, two drops of blood lay on the floor, but the blood looked different from the other kind. When the other had been dilute, imbedded with sweat, this one—
Her awareness told her Terry was okay, but she couldn't yet sigh with relief. Something was very, very wrong here—
Then it hit her. Hit her with all the potency that was ever possible. On the floor, near the drops of saturated blood—
A small piece of tissue with the oddest of smells—
"No," she croaked, taking a finger and prodding the drops of blood. Normal blood dries, but there is a special kind of blood that dries differently. It covers itself first in a layer of dryness, then begins evaporating the water within it. The words of the village healer. Words she would never forget--
"No," she rasped, louder, looking at the tissue on the floor next to the drops of blood and feeling her stomach fight to get free of her grip. The strip of muscle, that little piece of tissue, it couldn't be—
But it was, and the gods showed her no mercy in telling her this. As she fought to keep her control, she realized why there had been that stink in the room, that stink that only she could recognize—
A hymen. The drops of untainted blood—
Virginity blood.
"NO!" she screamed, the sound tearing her lungs apart.
The smell, the lust that tainted her room, the virginity blood, the hymen, broken on her floor—
The pack smashed through the door, then froze at the sight and powerful smell of the room. From the corner of it, Ty drew a single lock of shiny black hair…
As she turned and placed the lock of hair in her always-empty locket, she looked at them with eyes filled with utter hatred, with the stink of death, without mercy and without pity but only complete rage. Frakhel. The most heinous of crimes…
…The rape of a child.
As they shivered at the sight of her, her magic rose her a few inches from the ground, her body pulsing with naught but poison and the hatred that drove men to the killing edge of insanity faster than any bird could fly, her body shining with silver, raw power of evil—
"Sabi has been raped and kidnapped," she told them, no emotion in her voice. They all went white as death, but Ty was whiter, deadlier than ever before, pulsing with the raw power it took to make the dead rock in their graves.
"NOW IT'S PERSONAL."