Alterant (Belador #2)(27)
She wished she had a better grasp on her empathic abilities, but they were constanly developing.
Besides, how could anyone tell what an Alterant was thinking or feeling in beast state when no one had observed them in a natural setting?
Wait a minute. She was standing here talking to a shifted Alterant.
She tried again. “I want to help you, Tristan—”
Her dagger flew up out of her hands and landed halfway between them, stuck in the ground.
He crossed beefy arms and angled his head. His mouth pulled tight on one side in what she supposed could be considered a smug look.
This might be her best, her only, chance to plead her case to him. “Hey, I’m only here because you turned loose the other three Alterants and the Tribunal thinks I told you to, which we both know isn’t true. I just want to help—”
His snarl clawed her nerves.
That might have been the wrong tactic.
He growled and stomped his foot. The ground vibrated with his fury. Teeth bared and claws extended, he lunged for her.
Evalle backpedaled ten fast steps and lost her footing.
All her attempts to regain her balance and race away ended with her feet coming out from under her. She fell, but she arched to land as far away from him as she could.
When the beast rushed her, he slammed to a stop two steps away, his body plastered against an invisible wall.
His cage.
He rammed the wall over and over again, pummeling the boundary of his prison. He beat the enclosure so hard with his fists that she felt the concussion like multiple blasts of a bomb.
She covered her ears against his howls that were equal parts mournful and furious.
The desperate sound struck her heart sharp as an ice pick.
She’d put Tristan back in there when all the reasons had weighed in favor of that decision. He’d sided with the Kujoo who had helped him escape. He’d helped the Medb priestess capture Evalle. He’d tried to keep the Ngak Stone to use for his own benefit.
But seeing him now in this pain, her heart argued that anyone stuck here for years would have accepted the Kujoo’s help. That Tristan had intervened, or tried to, when the Medb witch had started torturing Evalle. That he’d only wanted the Ngak Stone’s power to guarantee freedom for himself and other Alterants.
How could she fault him when he’d offered that same freedom to her and she’d turned her back on him to stand with the Beladors?
And she couldn’t leave now.
Even if she managed to find her way out of this jungle alive, she had no one but Tristan to point her toward the escaped Alterants.
With every minute she lost, Brina’s safety hung in the balance and with it the fate of every Belador on earth.
And her only weapon was stuck in the ground on the wrong side of that wall.
NINE
If Macha finds out what I agreed to at the Tribunal meeting, she may finally grant my wish to leave here . . . in a casket.
Brina paced the stone floors of the castle her ancestors had built thousands of years ago as a haven for the Treoir family.
She’d once loved life in this castle.
That had been before she’d lost her entire family and become the sole guardian of the Beladors. Supernatural power of all Beladors existed only as long as a Treoir remained physically inside this castle on this island.
As the only Treoir left alive after Medb warlocks had murdered her da and brothers four years ago, she was, for practical purposes, imprisoned here forever.
Really. She was immortal.
And Macha wouldn’t kill her.
Not until Brina bore an heir to the dynasty.
She didn’t particularly want to end her life at twenty-four, but living meant more than breathing, and that’s all she’d been doing for a long time.
A warrior queen should be out on the front lines with her tribe, especially with Alterants now shifting faster than Macha changed her hair color.
Something had triggered these changes. Who or what?
The Medb topped her list of suspects.
Belador warriors were battling the beasts while Brina sat in this hollow castle.
No more.
She’d avoided discussion of the Treoir heir for four long years here, but she couldn’t put it off any longer. Every time she left the castle, even in holographic form, she put the Belador powers at risk if the Medb figured out how to capture her holographic image.
She shuddered at the mere possibility.
The time had come for an heir.
And it was high time that Macha listened to her if the goddess wanted that heir in the near future.
Brina flopped down on a sofa carved from the trunk of a tree. It had Celtic designs scrolled along the edges and was padded with down-filled cushions. Her favorite place to strategize.
Her da had been a brilliant strategic planner.
Now she needed her own battle plan.
One that provided for a husband who could pass through the castle warding. Not just any man but—
The ward protecting Treoir Castle shivered with the introduction of power. Massive power.
“Must you always sulk?”
Brina sighed at Macha’s husky voice. Had she called up the goddess by thinking about her? Unfortunately, when Brina’s father had warded the castle against any other immortals, he’d made an allowance for the Celtic goddess to pass through unharmed.
He’d believed Macha would watch over his only daughter.