Kings and Sirens (The Blood Falls Book 2)

Atsila

“We could each take a location and scout the area separately,” Kuruk said, “that will divide us but it will mean narrowing down the possibilities faster as well.”

Klah agreed. “We can take care of ourselves. I don’t see a problem with splitting up.”

But it didn’t sit well with me. “If anything goes wrong—anything—then we give up our advantage. It’s too dangerous.” Of course I wasn’t thinking of myself. Not even my brothers. My focus was on Leena.

Besides, I really didn’t think Daisy would go for it, so it was a moot point.

Kuruk didn’t give up though. “Or what if we divide into two scouting parties? You, Klah, and Leena take the western area while Daisy and I take the eastern?”

It was better but still incredibly risky. “And what if the salishan detect us before we find them? Yes, it will take another day, maybe two, to scout these areas, but we’ll do it safely and methodically. It’s the best way to handle this without the risk of loss of life.”

My brothers kept arguing and I kept knocking their ideas down. All while the timer in the back of my mind kept ticking away. Leena had been gone nearly two hours. She should be back soon. Or at least that’s what I wanted. I didn’t like her being away now that I had her back. I tried to go with her but she refused. Said I was being ridiculous. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself and besides, she was going to another scouting party full of Heida.

I understood her logic. It just went against every instinct I possessed.

Besides, she was exhausted and needed as much rest as she could get tonight. I wouldn’t even keep her awake for sex. The rejuvenating properties of orgasm were less important than actual rest at the moment.

“Another round?” Kuruk stood with our mugs in one hand, his fingers wrapped around the handles.

“Sure, why not?” The brew we brought with us was weaker than normal so we wouldn’t accidentally over imbibe. It was filling and satisfying with only the slightest buzz forming between my ears.

With more beer warming their bellies my brothers stopped trying to convince me to split up and turned their attention to a game of cards.

I stumbled into bed after midnight, frustrated that Leena was still gone.

I woke up alone and freaked the fuck out. Ten minutes later we were all together in my tent in various states of awake and dressed.

“No one has seen her?” My voice was too loud. Too worried.

“No,” Daisy said slowly, “maybe she decided to sleep there. It was late when she left.”

No. She wouldn’t have stayed unless she fell asleep on her feet. “I’m going.”

Klah clapped my shoulder. “I’ll go too. Just in case there is a problem.”

I could tell by the nervous looks that I wasn’t the only one who suspected something was very wrong. And that only multiplied my unease.

I never should have let her go alone and I definitely shouldn’t have gone to bed without confirmation she was well. “Ready?”

Klah nodded and we shifted through the Plane to the field camp. The silence was the first thing I noticed. An eerie, heavy silence. The kind left behind after tragedy. I knew it from the other times the salishan attacked. Klah drew his sword and I palmed my dagger. I would be more dangerous in my other form, but it was easier to investigate as a samhain. We split up, working together silently after so many years of hunting and feasting together.

I poked inside the first tent and found everything knocked around. A couch on its back, chairs flung about, broken glass that had once been full of beer. The bedroom was untouched. When I stepped outside Klah was there, shaking his head.

“Looks like they were grabbed.”

But by whom? “Can you track them?”

Klah didn’t respond, instead simply getting to work on the problem while I probed the rest of the camp. There was still the possibility of ambush. Anyone could be lying in wait until we called for reinforcements, taking us all out at once.

But I found no signs of the salishan or anyone else. Not alive. Not dead. There was no blood. Just signs of a quick struggle.

Klah was back at my side, his voice low. “It was the salishan. It looks like they shifted in, took everyone, and shifted out. No trail leads away. No scent either. But…”

That was good news. If they took them prisoner then they were alive. Now all we had to do was find out what they wanted. “But?”

“Come see for yourself.” Klah nodded toward the tent he’d inspected and led me around back to a strange set of prints in the snow.

“What the hell is that?” They were large. As large as the salishan prints, but these had an entirely different shape. Like a figure eight and with claws on the ends.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not bear or reindeer or elk or anything we hunt.”

The salishan weren’t alone and that was very, very bad news. “Get Daisy. Send Kuruk to the other camp and make sure they’re okay.”

My brother disappeared. I was searching for more of the mysterious prints when Daisy appeared, shaken and worried. “There’s no sign of them? Any of them?”

I shook my head as I scented the air, hoping to find something Klah had missed.

Nothing.

“I think they took them alive. Prisoners. There’s no blood and no bodies.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Maybe they want to negotiate. Talk. So far all we’ve done is slaughter each other.” Unless this other creature had other intentions. Was it someone else transformed by a rift event? Maybe even a human explorer that had come this far north and not realized they were wandering into dangerous territory?

“Do you really believe that? What are you looking for?”

“Signs of where they went. Footprints. Scent. Anything.”

She nodded with each word and then began to focus her nervous energy on something more useful than quizzing me. “Yes,” I finally answered. “If they are us but changed, then they are intelligent.”

“But so far we’ve only seen them killing and running.”

But what are they running from? Or to? It was a good question so I said it. “What are they running from? Are they killing out of anger or instinct or need? We don’t actually know anything about them, and yet we’re making large leaps of logic anyway.”

“So you think they’re organized and kidnapped everyone in this camp so we can have a talk? Atsila, they’re half animal. Half bear. They’re acting out of instinct.”

“Then why isn’t everyone dead?”

She stopped and looked around, shrugging.

Maybe I just wanted to believe Leena was a prisoner because it meant she was still alive. But the logic made sense to me. This was a coordinated attack. No one was killed. There was something more going on.

Kuruk and Klah appeared twenty feet away. I called them over. Kuruk delivered the good news.

“Everyone else is fine. They’re packing up and heading here to help search the area.”

“Did you tell them about the print?”

Daisy shot me a look. Kuruk nodded.

“Yes. They had no ideas either.”

“What print?” Daisy folded her arms and scowled at me like I’d intentionally kept her out of the loop. I hadn’t. I just had too many thoughts to keep straight.

“This one.” I moved carefully around the mystery prints.

“Well fuck,” Daisy muttered. “What the hell is that?”

We discovered even more bad news when Klah returned to the archives, hoping to enlist Rhiannon’s help, only to discover that she was also missing.

“According to Rhysa, they were getting ready for sleep when Rhiannon suddenly gasped, said she had to go, and disappeared.”

“And where is Rhysa now?” Things were quickly slipping out of our control. Lyla and Hex stood in the background listening in on everything.

“She is raising the alarm back at House of Wren and Gatlin. She’ll bring reinforcements to us.”

Lyla winced. It was hard enough to allow Leena into our lives. She allowed the Gatlin to help because we needed them. Now more were coming to help us with our failures.

Something she would take personally.

I spoke to her directly. “There is nothing to track. We have no way of knowing where they went without help. Otherwise it will be more guessing and poking around the ice and snow until they either contact us or we find a lot of corpses.”

And I’d be damned if I let Leena’s life end that way. The need to find her clawed up from my belly and scratched at my soul. If I let it, the panic would consume me, so I kept focused on planning.

“We will find them. All of them. Once we have a direction to point, the world’s greatest warriors will bring them home. Make no mistake, there is no one more skilled or deadly than a Heida male.”

Especially one in love and whose mate is in danger.

They arrived in small groups of three or four. Twenty in all joined us. Some studied the footprint while others tapped the Plane for clues using their gifts to see time and sense things I knew little of. One of Leena’s sisters kept speaking angrily, or maybe it was just with great emotion, to the one known as Ryddyck. Rhysa returned and began organizing information into something useful, creating a priority list. Orders were given out.

But not to me.

I stood still as a statue waiting for confirmation. I would not be out on some fool’s errand when her location was discovered. I wore a fur and leather pants that could each be easily discarded if I changed forms. My sword too. But I had it in case it was a more useful tool than size and strength. Sometimes one needed a hammer, and other times a scalpel.