Mad, Bad & Dangerous

Bael lost his breath.

It’s a trick, he told himself, even as he stared at Kett’s pale, thin face, twisted with pain and hatred. It’s a shapeshifter. It can look like anyone it wants.

But why would it choose to look like the woman I thought was my mate? How did it know?

Cautiously he breathed in, and used Var’s senses to separate out the scents in the room. Somewhere here had to be the shapeshifter’s scent, and when he’d caught that, he could rest assured that it wasn’t-

“Bael,” grated the creature on the floor.

It wasn’t Kett. It couldn’t be. Its voice was dry and scratchy, like fingernails on a blackboard.

The shapeshifter smiled with cracked lips. “Come to beat me up?” it rasped. “Come to kill me?”

The guards cheered but Bael just stared.

The shapeshifter moved, its face contorted with pain, and flopped back onto the hard stone floor. “You could just wait a day,” it scratched out, “I’ll be dead by then. Rituals, Bael. Bleeding a shapeshifter. Silver chain.”

“I didn’t say you could talk,” Bael said, panic thrumming through him. If it wasn’t Kett then how did it know? Had she spilled his secrets?

His heart pounded so loudly he could barely hear her next words.

“A shapeshifter,” she croaked, “and a bleeding Nas-”

“I said shut up!” Bael yelled, and two of the guards rushed forward, kicking viciously at the creature. As a heavily booted foot connected with its ribs, he heard a snap-

Snap, as the links in his head connected. Kett was the shapeshifter.

A shapeshifter and a Nasc bound by a silver chain.

They needed a second creature.

Albhar’s sly smile.

Couldn’t do it without you.

The old man knew.

Kett was curled into a ball, coughing in pain, her body spasming pathetically as the guards stood laughing and jeering. Albhar stood there, smiling as if he wasn’t planning to string Bael up and kill him in some mad power ritual.

He stared down at Kett’s broken body. They’re going to kill us both.

“I’m sorry,” Bael whispered to Kett, horrified, but he didn’t think she heard him. To his men, he babbled, “Leave it. Don’t kill it. Leave some for me, I mean. I’ll come back later. When I’ve rested. Later. Lock it up, it’s talking rubbish. I need to get out of here.” He barged past the guards. “There’s no fucking air. It stinks. Move!”

They let him pass, and then he heard the heavy door scrape shut.

Underneath the sound was the dry wheeze of Kett’s laughter.

***

The hot bath and soft bed held no appeal for Bael now. Pacing his locked chamber, cold with horror, panic and guilt, he clutched at Var, who pressed close to him as an anxious, angry little cat.

Kett was a shapeshifter. She’d kept that from him the whole time! How could she have done that, especially after he’d told her that he was a Mage? The one thing that might unite them, and she’d kept it to herself.

Because she doesn’t want to be united with you, his conscience said. She went off fucking a whore the first chance she got. She clearly doesn’t want you.

Thoughts reeled around Bael’s head. Could Kett have killed his mother? No, she’d been a teenager. Not that Kett as a teenager wouldn’t have been lethal, but still. Albhar said she’d been an older woman. Kett’s mother? Maybe. Maybe Kett had been wearing age as a disguise. He wouldn’t put it past her.

And that wasn’t even the worst thing.

He set down Var and picked up his scryer, distractedly trying to remember what he’d been told about using it. Concentrate on the person you want.

The rock got warm in his hands. It vibrated. And then a voice was saying, “Bael? Are you all right?”

He opened his eyes to see Chance looking up at him from the face of the scryer, and nearly wept with relief.

“Your majesty,” he said, and she laughed prettily.

“You don’t need to go through all those formalities, Bael,” she said. “You’re practically family.”

“Yeah,” Bael said doubtfully. “Listen. This is really important. I think the Nasc are in danger. Can you warn them?”

Chance instantly snapped into business mode. “What is it?”

“There’s a ritual,” he began. “It involves a Nasc and a shapeshifter. And death. I think.”

“Hell,” she said when he’d finished explaining what he’d worked out about Albhar. “Do you think they’re allied with the Federacion?”

Cold sweat bathed Bael anew. “Well, now I do,” he said. “I thought you and-and your father had killed them all?”

“They’re like vermin,” Chance said venomously. “There’re always a few you miss, and that’s enough to start again. We’ll warn as many as we can. Thank you, Baelvar.”

With that she signed off and Bael was left in his remote castle, surrounded by the enemy and feeling like a giant bruise, inside and out. The tear on his back meant that manifesting wings would hurt like hell, and if he was going to carry Kett he’d have to turn into a big creature like a dragon, which required a hell of a lot of energy he just didn’t have.

Var looked up at him, feline eyes narrowed, and Bael laughed suddenly.

“What was that my old dad used to say?” he asked, picking up his twin and pressing his face against Var’s soft fur. “It’s not a problem, it’s a challenge.”

Var started to purr.

“Exactly,” Bael said, and felt invigorated for the first time in days.

Chapter Sixteen

Night fell over the Vyishka mountains. Here in the northern part of the Realm of Asiatica, darkness came swift, cold and impenetrable.

Var rose from the black mountains as a dragon twenty feet long, and glided silently toward Kett’s turret. Bael, dressed in a swirling long cloak, strode up the tower and made loud comments to each guard he saw about alternately beating the shit out of the shapeshifter and raping it to hell. They guffawed and cheered him on, and Bael wanted to kill all of them.

He reached the top, demanded entry and, right on cue, someone outside yelled, “Take cover! A dragon!”

The guard with Bael hesitated, and Bael pushed him at the stairs. “Go,” he said. “Go shoot at it or something.”

He shoved the door open before the man had even gotten around the corner, and stopped, taking a mental breath.

Kett lay huddled on the floor, still naked, her skin gray and caked with blood. Her ribs, clearly visible through her thin flesh, rose and fell shallowly with each breath. The wound on her shoulder was horribly swollen, streaks of red running down her arm, the skin cracked and oozing.

She looked a minute away from death, and murderous rage rose up within Bael.

“Kett,” he said, falling to his knees by her. “Kett, can you hear me?”

“G’way,” she mumbled, her voice barely a rattle. “F’koff.”

“Not gonna do that, sweetheart.” As Var landed on the roof of the turret with a heavy thud, Bael carefully lifted