The Steele Wolf (Iron Butterfly #2)(29)

I looked at him in confusion, but I had no time as he lunged forward with his blade. I grasped for power to defend myself and felt Faraway jerk awake at my onslaught for power, but I was too weak and too slow. Too slow to realize that the whole time he was talking he was moving in a circle to make my back face the forest. I had forgotten about the second person. I was too slow to realize the glance over my shoulder was to signal Bvork to attack from behind.

I saw my power connect and send Rayneld flying backwards into a tree with a loud crack; his huge form fell forward onto the ground with a thud. It was the same time a club hit me in the side of my face and I heard more than felt the cracking of my jaw. Only one thought consumed me before I fainted.

“Again?”





Chapter 14



I was in a wagon being pulled by horses. My jaw hurt and the bouncing of the wagon over the trail jostled it. Gritting my teeth from the pain only made more pain shoot through the whole side of my face. I desperately wished for unconsciousness again so I could escape it. My good eye was blurry and I had problems getting it to focus. But I could see the body of a man lying in the back of the wagon with me, covered with tarp.

Another jostling of the wagon and the tarp slipped slowly from the man and I could see the still, deathly white form of my father. I tried to grunt out a cry, and I alerted whoever was driving that I was awake. The wagon came to an abrupt stop and the sound of feet hitting dirt told me that the driver got out. A moment later the wagon bed dipped with the extra weight as he then stepped into the back with me.

Roughly, I was grabbed and a canteen was pressed against my swollen jaw and teeth, but the pain was too much and I started to sputter and choke as liquid poured down my throat. I tried to turn my head away. I wasn't really surprised that it was Bvork who was holding the canteen. I tried to spit out the liquid.

“Swallow it!” Bvork ordered and pressed a rough hand on my windpipe.

I had no choice; it was either swallow or die. The liquid had a bitter aftertaste and a familiar sense of heaviness overcame me.

“Good thing I still had plenty left over from that night months ago.” He gave me a similar disgusted look that I had seen earlier on his father. “I saw what you did to my father. And I'm not taking any chances.” He glanced over his shoulder at the still form.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized it wasn't my father lying in the back of the wagon, but Rayneld. In my fuzzy, drug-induced state I didn't look at the length of the beard and the eyes were closed.

“And I'm gonna make sure you pay.” He glared at me and gave me a swift kick in the stomach before nimbly jumping down from the wagon bed.

“Ah didna nean to,” I answered as best as my swollen jaw would allow. He must have hit the tree and fallen forward onto his own knife. I closed my eyes in disappointment at what I had accidentally done.

“It will all work out,” he chuckled from the side of the wagon. “Siobhan will stay behind and has agreed to say that you ran away again, only this time in shame and that my father and I have gone after you to convince you to stay. But something awful happened and Rayneld tried to save you but you both died.”

I was left to wonder in silence what that something awful could possibly be. He was right about me not having access to any kind of power as long as he kept me drugged. I tried to reach for it and I couldn't touch anything, it was gone, or I was numb to it. Whatever this drug was it also kept me from speaking to Faraway and wolf. It humanized me. Bvork must have gotten the drug from the Septori. I tried to organize my thoughts over the last few hours but the fuzziness in my mind kept distracting me.

My cousin or uncle must have set Aldo's house on fire to be a distraction for the clan as they once again tried to arrange my death and disappearance. I applauded their tenacity in trying to keep the clan bloodlines pure. After all, it wasn't very long ago that I was just as cold hearted and strict. My father was right; we had cast out anyone with any hint of Denai gifts into the mountains.

The sun was directly overhead and I tried to turn my head and shield my eyes from the glare, but that left me staring at the dead form of my uncle. So I settled for closing my eyes against the brightness on my lids as the drug made me sleep. We stopped two more times as Bvork made me take more sips of the drugged canteen. Soon the sun was starting to set and the wagon started to climb uphill. Racking my brain, I tried to imagine what was up this way and I couldn't form any coherent thought. It wasn't until the sound of rushing water did I realize where he had taken me. It was Kirakura Falls.

Kirakura actually meant silent death in our old language. No one ever came up this way except for trappers. And they would forge the river farther upstream with their wagons. If you crossed at the wrong time of day or season, you could easily be swept downstream in the swiftly running currents and over Kirakura Falls, the steepest waterfall in the Shadow Mountains, with wicked looking rocks on the bottom. I remembered looking over it as a kid and seeing various wagon wheels and small boat pieces littering the embankments of either side of the falls.

My mouth went dry in fear. My mother was drowned in the river and he planned to send me over the falls, where the rushing river or rocks would very possibly crush me to death if I survived the fall. I tried to rock myself back and forward in desperation to free my hands that were tied behind my back but only succeeded in twitching my fingers. My body was still numbingly paralyzed.