If Remy went sideways and shifted out of phase, he could move at tremendous speed, but he’d often suspected that weres could track him even more easily that way. Something to do with changes in their vision once they shifted.
The moon was high and nearly full, but it was dark under the canopy of dense pines. His lyr vision helped him see better in dim conditions. He felt his irises open wider, allow in more light. His years on land had made his legs strong, but his endurance was reduced the longer he went without shifting. He needed all his strength this night.
He was afraid for Lilith, but fear gave him an edge, so he encouraged it. Fear made him alert and cautious. Fear helped the lyrinye survive in an ocean filled with predators on a more massive scale than anything a were faced on land.
Despite her powers as a witch, Lilith was human, and in Remy’s lexicon, human was the same thing as weak and fragile. Their bodies broke with terrifying ease. They aged at a tremendous rate in comparison to weres and the lyrinye. Even the small percentage of mortals who were capable of perceiving the greater worlds that surrounded them ducked their heads and pretended they’d seen nothing. Like Tasha McNeil.#p#分页标题#e#
What he didn’t understand was why Lilith had stuck her neck out for the woman. The smart move would have been to bring her back to Gideon Black and let the weres sort things.
He doubted Gideon was the sort of were who suffered a witch to live unless he had a damn good reason.
It was their lycan pack mentality that deeply distrusted the fierce independence of witches. The fact they were owned, body and soul, by the seraphim didn’t seem to factor in the conflict. Probably because the seraphim rarely meddled in were or human affairs.
He tried to feel Lilith’s presence, but he’d lost her when she entered a cave. He’d backtracked to where the trail forked, picked up his pace until he came to where he guessed the cave might come out if she’d used it as some kind of short cut. The howling of the hunting weres had faded on this slope, so if she’d been trying to get away from the pack, she would have come this direction. There’d been no sign of her.
Now, as he worked his way back to where the trail had diverged, the howling grew louder. Soon they’d be close enough to pick up his scent.
Light flashed up ahead, a small beam of light that flickered in and out, bright and focused, but low to the ground.
Remy broke into a run.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lilith woke to tiny feet dancing on her face.
“Wake up!” The voice was tinny, small and distant; the pummeling from itty-bitty fists was not. Lilith moaned.
“Stop.”
“Wake up, wake up, wake up!”
Lilith lifted her head, and a wave of nausea made her roll on her side, open her mouth, but nothing came out. She gagged and coughed and lay there letting her stomach settle.
Crispin must have leaped to the ground when she’d moved. He advanced on her, and it was strange, but they were on eye level. His feet on the ground and her cheek smashed against the mat of fallen pine needles that covered the forest floor.
“Stupid witch,” he said.
Lilith swatted at him, but he danced out of her reach.
“Must get up. Up, up, up,” he shouted. “Now. Didn’t save stupid witch for nothing. Move!”
With effort, Lilith did as the Kyrst asked. It was still dark, but colder now. She looked down and fiddled with the zipper on her leather jacket. “What happened?”
“Master is angry,” Crispin said.
“So what else is new?”
The last thing she remembered was standing in front of the portal inside Gaebryl’s chamber. “What happened?”
“No time,” Crispin said. “This is bad, very bad. You must run. Now.”
The little man tilted his head back, and Lilith noticed that he wasn’t wearing his hat. Crispin never went anywhere without his hat.
He pointed at the sky. The moon was nearly full and the reflected sunlight turned the vault of the sky dark blue and the sweep of the Milky Way was clearly visible. Shadows flitted back and forth. Lilith squinted. They were sometimes long and diaphanous because she could see the stars twinkling through them. Others rolled into round and oblong shapes that became dense and darker than the sky.
“Do you know what those things are?” she asked.
“Fehin,” Crispin said. “Master brought them back with him.”
Lilith scrambled to her feet, propped her hands on her hips and studied the sky. There had to be dozens of the things in flight. They circled like vultures over a kill. She and Tasha had barely survived a confrontation with two of the things.