Dance of the Gods (Circle Trilogy 2)

“How can I? How can you?”

“Because you can’t bring her back, or the ones that are in there.” She jerked a chin toward the wagon. “So we figure out how to use this to capture the ones who did it.”

Burying her own revulsion, she pulled herself up into the wagon. Into a nightmare.

What must have been the girl’s parents were shoved together under a kind of bunk on one side of the wagon. The man had probably died quickly, as had the younger boy whose body lay under the bunk on the opposite side.

But the woman, they’d have taken more time there. No point in tearing off her clothes if you didn’t intend to play with her first. Her hands were still bound, and what was left of her was covered in bites.

Yes, they’d taken time with her.

She could see no weapons, but one of the bunks was stained with blood fresher than what was staining the other bunk, the floor and the walls. That was where the girl had died, she assumed. And had waked again.

“The woman’s only been dead a couple of days,” Cian said from behind her. “The man and boy longer. A day or more longer.”

“Yeah. Jesus.” She had to get out, had to breathe. She climbed out of the back to draw in air she hoped would clear the smear in her throat, in her lungs.

“They’ll come back for her.” She bent over, bracing her hands on her thighs so the nausea, the dizziness would fade. “Bring her something so she can feed. She was new. Probably only woke tonight.”

“We need to bury them,” Larkin said. “The others. They deserve to be buried.”

“It has to wait. Look, be pissed at me if you have to, but—”

“I’m not. I’m sick in my heart, but I’m not angry with you. Or you,” he said to Cian. “I don’t know why it should be this way inside me. I saw what was in the caves back in Ireland. I know how they kill, how they breed. But knowing they made a monster of that girl only so they could use her between them, it makes my heart sick.”

She didn’t have any words, any real ones, to offer. She wrapped her fingers around his arm, squeezed. “Let’s make them pay for it. They’ll be back before sunrise. Well before if they can find what they’re after quickly enough and get it back. They know she’ll have risen tonight, and need to feed. That’s why they—”

“That’s why they left the bodies inside,” Larkin said when she cut herself off. “So she’d have something until they could bring her fresh blood. I’m not slow-witted, Blair. They left her own family for her to feed on.”

Nodding, she looked back toward the wagon. “So we close up the wagon, and we wait. Will they be able to smell us? The human?”

“Hard to say,” Cian told her. “I don’t know how old they are, how experienced. Enough so Lilith thought they could handle this assignment. Which they bungled. But it’s possible they’ll catch the scent of live blood, even through all this. Then there’s the horses.”

“Okay, I’ve got that covered. Most likely they’ll come back to the wagon from the same direction they left it. We’ll take the horses farther into the woods, downwind. Tether them. All but mine. If I’m walking him when they see me, they’ll figure he came up lame. And they’ll be too happy with their luck of coming across a lone female to think beyond that.”

“So, you think you’re going to be bait,” Larkin began, with a look on his face that warned Blair they were in for a fight about it.

“I’ll just take the horses back while you two argue this out.” Cian took the reins, melted into the trees.

Calm, Blair ordered herself. Reasonable. She should remember it was nice to have someone who actually cared enough to worry about her.

“If they see a man, they’re more likely to attack. A woman, they’re going to want me alive—temporarily. Gives them each a playmate. It’s the most logical way.”

That was the end of her calm and reasonable. “And, here’s what. If your ego has a problem with the fact that if I were out here alone I could still handle two of them, you’ll just have to deal with it.”

“My ego has nothing to do with the matter. It’s just as logical for the three of us to lay back and wait, then move on them as one.”

“No, because if they scent either you or me, we lose the element of surprise. Moira wants them—or at least one of them alive. That’s why we’re out here instead of having a nice glass of wine in front of a roaring fire. If we have to go full scale attack we’ll probably have to kill them both. Surprise gives us a better chance of capture.”

“There are other ways.”

“Probably a dozen of them. But while they may not be back for five hours, they could also be back in five minutes. This will work, Larkin, because it’s simple and it’s basic. Because they wouldn’t expect a woman by herself to be any kind of threat. I want to bag these two as much as you do. L

et’s make sure we do.”

Cian slipped back out of the trees. “Have you settled it, then, or will we be debating this much longer?”

“It seems to be settled.” Larkin brushed a hand over Blair’s hair. “I’ve just been wasting my breath.” Then he tipped back her chin. “If you have to speak to them to hold the illusion until we move in, they’ll know you’re not from Geall.”