Love Me to Death (Underveil, #1)(87)

An animal shrieked from somewhere in front of them, and they both stopped short from their full-out sprint.

“The barn’s right ahead. The sound came from there,” Claude whispered between gasps for breath.

“Owwww!” It sounded more human than animal this time.

Elena recognized Aleksi’s voice immediately. “Shut up, or I’ll give you something to really scream about.”

She nodded to Claude, and they crept forward, and then she gently pushed the barn door open enough to peek in.

Aleksi was kneeling in the hay next to a bony woman whose head twitched side-to-side in swift, jerky movements. The only other creatures in the barn were two boys who looked no older than thirteen or fourteen, sitting on a bench in the corner. Well, sitting wasn’t really the right word. They were both balanced barely on the edge of the seat as if they would leap to their feet at any moment. Both appeared too well-fed and healthy to have been prisoners in the dungeon.

“This is a terrible idea,” the woman said in a shrill, nasal tone, rising to her feet. “Fydor will surely look in here.”

“Then shut the f*ck up so we can find the plug and get out of here.” Aleksi yanked her back down by the shirt, which tore with a loud ripping sound. The woman hit the ground with a thud.

Both boys jumped to their feet at the same time. “Someone’s here, Lady Aleksandra!” one said in a breathy tone, pointing at Claude and Elena lurking just outside the door.

“Yeah. You told us to warn you if we saw or smelled somethin’,” the other added.

She met Elena’s eyes, nodded, then turned her attention back to the whiny lady next to her. “Lie on your stomach. Based on your racket, it’s in the back of your right thigh.”

“We did good, huh? Me and Iosif did right, didn’t we, huh?” one boy said while the other ran in a circle. “We told ya like you asked.” Their goofy grins were contagious, and Elena almost found herself smiling at their exuberance.

“Iosif and Simion. Sit!” Aleksi commanded.

Both boys dropped to their butts on the floor instantly, still grinning.

“Dog shifters,” Claude said, opening the door wide enough for her to pass through. “Still pups, but they make good stable boys.”

“You don’t have X-ray vision or any such cool superpower, do you, E?”

Elena liked Aleksi’s pet name for her. E beat the hell out of parasite. “Sadly, no.”

Aleksi ran her palms over the back of the woman’s thigh, and she let out a glass-shattering screech, arms flapping in the hay.

“Hey, what kind of bird are you, a chicken?” Aleksi rolled her eyes. “We don’t have time for this kind of thing. You’re absolutely right. This is not the safest place. Now lie still unless you want to be a roasted hen day after tomorrow at midnight.”

Elena moved farther into the barn, and Claude closed the door behind them. “What are you doing?”

“I’m removing a piece of elf ore implanted by one of Fydor’s witches that prevents Underveilers from using magic. In this case, it keeps her from shifting into her alternative form.”

“Where is the elf?”

“Ack!” the bird lady squawked.

“Bingo! Now hold still because it’s gonna hurt like a—”

“Eeek!” The woman covered her mouth as Aleksi pressed her palm to her leg.

“Yeah. Ripping that piece of metal back out is probably worse than putting it in there. Hold still.” Aleksi kept her hand over the woman’s leg but looked up at Elena. “I sent Fee back to her people to get them on our side. An army of enraged fey will scare the crap out of Fydor. You just don’t screw with those guys.” A grin spread across her face. “I take that back. You do screw with those guys. Elves are wicked in bed.”

Elena was glad she didn’t have Ricardo’s mind-reading abilities at that moment. She was pretty sure she’d know way more about elves than she wanted to know.

“Owwwwww. Ow.” Blood splotched the back of the bird woman’s pants below Aleksi’s palm. She pulled her hand away from the woman’s body, sat back, and relaxed. “All done. Fly away.”

The woman jumped to her feet in a startling, inhuman burst and shook her leg. A slender, bloody metal dowel the length of Elena’s thumb and the diameter of a pencil slid out of her pant leg into the hay. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Aleksi waved her off. “Go bring back some bird badasses, okay?”

Even knowing she was a bird shifter, and being prepared for the transformation, Elena gasped as the woman crumpled and morphed into a hawk of some kind, human skin sloughing off in sheets like the cat pelts had in Aunt Uza’s yard. This sort of thing was just too freaky to take in stride. She’d never get used to it, no matter how long she lived. If she lived. She rubbed her hand over her belly. “We need to get Nik out of there.”

“It may be best to leave him for now,” Claude said. “Going in and getting caught would be bad. Lord Nikolai would be the first to die if trouble started.”

“He’s right. We need to buy time to let the factions organize,” Aleksi said. “Besides, Fydor expects you to go back in after him. It would be suicide.”

This helplessness sucked. “I can’t just leave him there.”