Magic Rises (Kate Daniels 6)

"Conscience?" I guessed.

"Yes. That. They'd been by and told him they would be taking me. Gerardo said the only way we could win this would be to fight my father." Desandra looked at me. "You have no idea how bad my father is. I've seen . . ." She bit her lip. "I've seen people die in ways you can't even imagine."

Her nostrils flared. She hunched over slightly, hugging herself. Green rolled over her irises, emerald against the black of dilated pupils. She seemed to unconsciously shrink away from me, putting more space around herself. I'd seen this emotion enough to recognize it. Desandra was scared. She was remembering something and the memory petrified her.

"I used to like this cute computer guy. He had glasses. He worked for our pack. He did something-I don't even know what-and my father stuck his head on a pike. I could see it from my bedroom window. I had to move my bed so the dead head of the cute guy I'd kissed wouldn't be staring at me in my sleep."

If I had a chance to kill Jarek Kral, I would take it. I didn't even need proof to know she was telling the truth. One could fake fear, but not the body's involuntary responses to it.

"I told Gerardo it was suicide. He wasn't good enough to take on my father with me or without me. He said I was weak and if I wasn't willing to fight with him, I should just go back. And then he picked up my clothes and threw them in the hallway."

Everyone this woman knew treated her like garbage. She made no effort to fight or to take off. She simply accepted it and tortured herself and others in revenge.

Desandra shrugged. "I couldn't believe it. We'd just had sex that morning. I thought he loved me, but instead he threw me out. I had to get out of there. We were staying in this huge hotel, so I hid on a balcony. I just wanted to cry. Radomil found me. I felt really alone and he was nice to me. He held me and he told me that it would all work out. I wanted to stick it to Gerardo, too, so we did it right there on that balcony. There you have it. The whole ugly story."

Raphael walked through the door.

Desandra sat up straighter and put one leg over another. "Hey there, handsome."

Every time I managed to scrape up a shred of sympathy for her, she did something to set it on fire.

Raphael glanced at her. "Not interested."

"It's the stomach, isn't it?"

"No," Andrea said. "It's me. What's up, honey?"

"We're going on a hunt."

"What?" I asked.

"A hunt," he said. "On horses."

What the hell . . . ? "Are we going to joust next? Maybe arrange our tables in a circle?"

Raphael shrugged. "If we do, I'm not wearing armor. We're all invited to the hunt and I'm pretty sure it's mandatory."

"Great!" Desandra jumped off the bed. "Anything to get out of here."

I pointed my finger at her. "Hush. The entire castle is going?"

Raphael nodded. "Everybody is going."

If we stayed behind, we could be ambushed, and with the castle empty, nobody would know or care. Hugh was up to something. "They do know that she's eight months pregnant?"

"It seems so. Apparently there is a prize if you win."

Going hunting in the middle of the mountains or staying in an abandoned castle with a hysterical Desandra and no assistance in case of an imminent attack? Choices, choices. "Hunt it is."

* * *

The road curved in front of me, following a shore of a sea-foam-green lake to our left. It lay placid, licking gently at the bottom of the mountain protruding into it. Tall Mediterranean cypresses lined the road, each perfectly straight, like a conical candle, and between them laurel trees spread their branches. On the right, grapevines lined the slope of the mountain in long, gently curving rows.

My horse was a bay, sturdy and wide-bodied, with short shoulders and a clean head. She stepped with calm surety, picking her way up the old paved road, untroubled by smells of shapeshifters on all sides. I had a feeling I could ride her straight into the lake and she wouldn't twitch an ear.

Shapeshifters walked and rode all around me. Desandra had her own horse. At first she wanted to walk, so I argued against her walking, and then I argued against the horse, but she dug her heels in at any suggestion of a cart. She would not be riding in a cart, and she was the daughter of an alpha, and if she didn't get her way, she would rip out some throats. I ended up going through all of the horses available to us and picking the oldest, most docile creature I could find. Now I had a heavily pregnant woman on a horse that kept flaring her nostrils. Clearly the mare had a serious suspicion that the human riding her was really a wolf and was considering bolting for her life. Werewolf wombs had to be made of steel, because not only did Desandra not show any signs of distress, but she looked fresh as a daisy.

Andrea had chosen to ride a horse as well. Being in a saddle gave us a good field of vision, and in a pinch we could use the horses to block an incoming threat. Derek had decided to walk and some others did as well, including Curran, who was convinced that all horses secretly plotted against him. Since Andrea and I kept Desandra between us, he ended up walking on my left and slightly in front, and Lorelei chose to walk next to him.

I still couldn't figure out how she was involved in this entire affair. As far as I could tell, she didn't appear to have any ties to the three packs involved.

Lorelei wore a light blue blouse and jeans that hugged her butt. Her hair was down, blowing in the wind. If we were back home, someone would be nudging me by this point, because by Pack standards they were walking too close and I would be required to snarl, but we weren't at home, and Barabas, riding on a white horse directly behind me, was quiet.

Lorelei chatted on, something about squishing grapes and making candy out of wine. Curran nodded. I caught a glimpse of his face. He was smiling. He seemed to be enjoying himself. They were walking together and I was stuck here. On my horse.

It should've taken more than a pretty twenty-one-year-old to unsettle me. This was a new and unwelcome development. It had to be this place. Everyone was waiting to stab us in the back, so I was probably making too much out of this. Lorelei was a kid. Legally she might have been twenty-one, but when he'd met her, he was twenty-two and she was twelve. That alone should've guaranteed that nothing was happening.

She was the daughter of a man Curran knew, stuck out here likely against her will, and he was being nice to her, because few people were. He and I had been through so much shit together. He loved me, I loved him, and I needed to stop measuring the distance between them and pay attention to my environment. I had a job to do.