The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (37 page)

She glanced over her shoulder
just as he was raising a giant paw, prepared to not-so-gently separate her head
from her body. She screamed the spell hoarsely, and the bear snarled and
skidded to a stop, smoke pouring from his suddenly blackened paws. Ashlyn ran outside,
leaves crunching beneath her bare feet, and ducked into a crevice in the cliff
wall as the bear went skidding past. He caught his mistake immediately and
turned, much quicker than she would have expected for such a large creature. As
he charged towards her, Ashlyn hurriedly used the
ice
stane to create a solid wall across the crevice’s narrow
opening, putting a barrier between her and the bear, and he smashed into it
with a force that shook the cliff wall against her back.

His second charge splintered the
ice, hairline cracks spiderwebbing out from the point of impact. Ashlyn quickly
froze over it, thickening her makeshift barrier, but Kou kept coming. The third
time he collided with the ice, he left bloody stains against it. Ashlyn
shivered, then nearly cried out from the pain in her chest. If she could keep
the wall up long enough, Kou would probably injure himself to the point where a
few hits from the
fire
stane might
incapacitate him. But there was no way she could take on the whole army like
this.

The bear hesitated during the
fourth charge, and turned away, as though he’d been distracted by something.
Ashlyn squinted, trying to see through the translucent barrier, and managed to
make out a blur in black, flashing silver in the sunlight as the horse he was
riding danced beneath him.

Drake!

In the next heartbeat, a wall of
flame erupted on the other side of the ice, and her makeshift barrier melted
instantly, splattering on the ground and smacking her with a wave of muddy
water and dead leaves. Ashlyn was immediately drenched, and sputtered, at once
pissed off and grateful for FLD’s sudden appearance.

Skye stepped in front of the
crevice, hand outstretched. “I…uh,” he said eloquently, diverting his eyes when
he realized her state of undress. He ducked smoothly under the swing of a
katana, his own sword making short work of the other man.

Her teeth were chattering so hard
she could barely speak. “Sh- sh- your
shirt
,”
she managed to get out, shivering violently and wincing every time the tremors
racked her broken ribs.

The blond swordsman gave her an
exasperated look as he fought off another soldier. The army was obviously much
more willing to fight non-Toryns (or at least people who weren’t claiming to be
the Elder Heir), but it was poor timing for bravery when anyone challenged Skye
Damien.

A soldier fell right in front of
her, and Ashlyn tamped down her disgust and crouched to pull off his torn,
blood-stained tunic, wrapping it around herself and tying it loosely with the green
leather belt. She tried to pull his boots off, but the pain in her chest had
her gasping before she could even get a good grip.

“Drake!” Skye called, cutting
down two soldiers with one cleave, then stepping back to block another one who
tried to duck into the crevice with Ashlyn. He flung the soldier backward,
simultaneously using a
lightning
stane
to electrocute the ninja before the man even hit the ground.

The pounding of hooves signaled
Drake’s arrival, and Ashlyn looked up mutely, seeing the vampire riding one
horse and leading another.

Skye turned to her, yanked her
out of the crevice and picked her up to hand her off to Drake. Ashlyn bit back
a cry of pain as she he scrambled into Drake’s lap on top of the horse. She
held on tightly to her shuriken and knapsack, wrapping her other arm around the
vampire to keep herself from falling off.

“I’ll lead them off,” Skye said,
vaulting up onto his own horse. He yanked the reins, and the horse turned away
just as the cliff behind the army began to shake from the power of Skye’s
earth
stane. “Get her out of here!” the
blond yelled over his shoulder.

Ashlyn was too busy sobbing into
Drake’s shoulder to protest, and the agony began anew when Drake spurred his
horse forward and they galloped away, weaving among the tents as they headed
for the forest.

It occurred to her later that
under any other circumstances, straddling Drake’s lap on horseback with her
chest pressed against his and her legs wrapped around his waist,
especially
considering her lack of
decent clothing, would have been both mortifying and titillating- like a
horribly wonderful nightmare come true. But at that moment, outside of the
extreme pain and as the world began to spin, all she was thinking was,
Please don’t let me throw up all over Drake Lockhart.
I promise, Drago, if you help me out right now I will never ask for anything
again.

Chapter 3

Free Will

When Ashlyn finally opened her
eyes, she expected to be exhausted. After a moment, though, she blinked. She
wasn’t tired at all. Her ribs weren’t hurting, either.

She inhaled tentatively, testing
her limits. No pain.

Drake’s face entered her line of
vision as he crouched beside her. “How do you feel?” he asked gently, his
fingers resting briefly against her forehead.

“I feel…fine,” Ashlyn said,
perplexed. “Can I get up?”

He offered his hand, and she took
it, using her other hand to brace herself as she sat upright. Ashlyn looked
down, and put a hand to her chest. There were no bandages beneath her tunic.

“You fixed my ribs with
heal?
” Ashlyn said, looking up at Drake
in disbelief. He nodded, and Ashlyn’s jaw dropped.

“Are you serious? Do you know how
hard it is to fix broken bones with magic? It’s almost impossible. The magic
doesn’t pick and choose. It makes a whole big calcified mess. People are
killed. They
die horrible agonizing
deaths
from it.” She paused, and took another blessedly painless breath,
hardly able to believe it.

Drake glanced down at their
joined hands, looking strangely unsure of himself. “I wouldn’t have risked it
if it weren’t absolutely necessary,” he said.

“But you
did it!
” she exclaimed, too much in awe to consider thanking him.
“How did you do it? I wasn’t even going to risk it, I mean, if a broken bone
had been anywhere near my heart, I can’t even imagine-“

“You may not agree with my
methods,” he admitted. “It wasn’t only the
heal
magic.”

“Well, whatever it was-” she
started to say, and stopped, realizing suddenly that he was still holding her
hand.

There was a pause as they both
stared at their clasped fingers, Drake’s bandaged hand rough against her palm.

After a moment, she gingerly
extracted her hand from his, and rubbed her chest, fingers tingling as she
tried very hard not to focus on the fact that Drake had been holding her hand
of his own accord.

She never thought she’d be so
grateful to
not
be in pain. Breaking
her ribs had been the single most agonizing experience of her life, and now-
thanks to Drake- she didn’t have to suffer through the excruciating healing
process. “What else did you use?”

Drake crouched by her for a
moment longer, then stood and walked to a pair of horses tethered to a tree,
both of which were already in full tack, waiting placidly.

Ashlyn slowly climbed to her
feet, expecting the usual pain that came with bumps and bruises, and was
surprised when she could feel none. It occurred to her then that she was still
wearing the dead soldier’s gi. “Where are we?” she asked, looking around. They
were still surrounded by trees, so they hadn’t left the forest, but otherwise
there was no way for her to tell their location. “Did Skye…?”

“He led them off,” Drake
answered. “Most of them.”

She knew what he wasn’t saying.
Ashlyn walked to the horse, leaves crunching beneath her bare feet. So they’d
been attacked, and she had been unconscious through the whole thing.

Some leader.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t any help,”
she muttered, reaching up to grasp the reins.

He reached up, hand covering
hers, and Ashlyn’s heart leaped into her throat, her pulse accelerating as she
fought to tamp down her own stupidity. Hormones, that’s all it was. Just
hormones.

She lifted her chin, eyes meeting
Drake’s determinedly. He’d broken her heart once already this week. She would
not give him that power over her a second time.

His gaze was fierce and liquid,
scarlet depths shifting as he searched her face. Whatever he saw, he gave no
indication of his response, and instead nodded to the pack that was neatly tied
behind the horse’s saddle. “Clothing,” he said.

Ashlyn pulled her hand from under
his and quickly turned to the pack. It was a bundle of clothes and flat-soled
boots that were exactly like the ones she’d destroyed while shifting- these had
presumably been taken from another ninja. Well, that made sense. Drake couldn’t
have anticipated her nakedness when he’d set out from Toryn. She was glad he’d
managed to get another horse, too. Riding double with him had definitely been
much too close for comfort.

She deftly untied the knots that
held the clothes in place, noting with some delight that her shuriken and sword
were secured underneath. She pulled the clothes down, clutching them to her
chest. “Turn around,” she said to Drake, and he obediently walked around to the
other side of the horse, facing the opposite direction as she untied the belt
of her bloody tunic.

Ashlyn paused as she unfolded the
pants, eyebrows knitting. Her right arm felt…strong. She held it straight out,
examining it for any changes. It was the arm that had been shredded by wolves
seven months ago in Landi, and she’d spent countless hours since the attack training
herself to use her left arm instead. But now her right arm felt as strong as it
had before the attack.

“What did you use besides
heal?”
she asked Drake, hopping on one
foot to pull on her pants.

“What do you mean?”

“You said it wasn’t only the
heal
magic that fixed me. What else did
you use? Something stronger?” As she tied on her new tunic, wrapping it tightly
around her slim torso and securing it with a green leather belt, it occurred to
her that Drake might have some stories of his own to tell, new magic that he’d
discovered in the three years since she’d last seen him. Restlyn had mentioned
that he owned a weapons shop, but hadn’t disclosed much else about the
enigmatic vampire.

Ashlyn paused, realizing he still
hadn’t answered, and walked around the horse, boots dangling from one hand.
“Drake?” she said, cocking her head. “You didn’t just fix my ribs. You fixed my
arm, too. How?”

He was staring at the ground, jaw
clenched, perfectly still and silent. After a long moment, he looked up, and
his eyes were still molten. His gaze dropped to her mouth, his lips parting,
and then he looked away, and Ashlyn frowned in spite of herself.

She almost hesitated, having seen
some of his moodier moments back when Lord Angelo was still alive. But she’d
never before caved to his darkness, and she wasn’t about to now. Instead, she
flopped down gracelessly on the ground in front of him, pulling one boot over
her foot. “What’s the matter, Lockhart? Did you give me the vampire kiss of
life or something? You don’t have to feel embarrassed about it. Vargo and I
have already had some hot and heavy make-out sessions that were
epic
, I am telling you,
epic
. It takes more than a single smooch
from a vampire to freak me out. Just consider me all grown up now.”
And totally over you and your meaningful
angsty silences,
she thought but did not say. She pulled on her second boot
and stood, brushing leaves off her pants.

He didn’t meet her eyes this
time, but held out one hand, the hand without his glove. Ashlyn looked down at
it, not comprehending. His hand was heavily bandaged, old blood seeped through
to stain the gauze covering his palm.

“Vampires heal fast, right?” she
said.

“Vampire blood has healing
properties,” he answered quietly.

“Vampire…blood,” she repeated.

Oh.

“Oh,” she said, and frowned. “You
gave me your blood? Like a transfusion?”

“Like a…drink,” he corrected her.

His obvious reluctance was aggravating.
“Oh, Drake, is that what you’re beating yourself up over?” she said
incredulously. “You used vampire blood to help heal my bones? I thought it was
something serious, like a new magic or whatever. Geez. Freak me out, why don’t
you.”

“Vampire blood can be used to
overcome its drinker’s free will,” he said, and his words were clipped, like
she’d somehow managed to offend him.

“Do I look like I’m in any danger
of losing my free will?” Ashlyn replied, perhaps a little too snidely,
spreading her arms out and turning for inspection. “Seriously, Drake. Thank you
for your concern, but believe me, losing my free will is the last thing I’m
worried about right now. I’d probably be more concerned about becoming a
vampire, but that takes a lot more than just one drink, right?”