97 (Rise of the Battle Bred) Read online

  He folded his massive arms and made a thoughtful pose with his finger on his mouth.

  Flashes of imagination riddled my mind…what would it be like if I put my finger on his mouth? Crap! I felt a blush coming on. I started chanting Toledo, Ohio in my head. It was a nice calm thought that had no reason to make me blush.

  “Yeah, I think I’ll take my turn now,” He said, nodding seriously.

  Of course he would. I shouldn’t have told him my weakness right off the bat. He could use it against me at will!

  “What is your favorite subject in school?” He asked.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and immediately felt my skin cool. Thank goodness. “That’s easy. English,”

  He smiled at me. “There you go. Your turn,”

  I considered re-asking him the question about what his dad did for a living, but did I want to waste a question? Then again, was he going to play hardball with me, if I asked him something really personal? This called for some serious deliberation. I began walking again. He patiently waited. It would have helped me if I knew he struggled with the same embarrassment issues that I did. But he seemed as calm as ever.

  “What kind of exercise do you do?” I finally decided to ask. It was killing me, the sight of his sculpted tan biceps straining against his white shirt sleeves, and the ripple of muscle under the skin in his forearms. How did a person get muscles on their forearms?

  I looked over at him, and didn’t miss the small smile he made disappear with the swipe of his palm. “Hm. It’s kind of hard to explain,” He started.

  I interrupted him. “Hey, you have to answer! Is it like Krav Maga or something?”

  He gestured me to calm down. “Uh, kind of.”

  “Tai Chi?” I blurted out.

  “Just…give me a minute,” He stopped walking and looked around. We were on a sidewalk a couple neighborhoods away from our street. He spied a small playground across a field. “Come on, it’ll be easier to show you.”

  “Parkour?” I asked him.

  He shook his head, exasperated.

  We jogged to the playground.

  He climbed the play structure and balanced with one leg on a wooden post. He began a series of graceful moves. Some looked reminiscent of Asian self-defense movements, while others twisted his body in the act of what looked like violent thrusts with an imaginary weapon. The difficulty of the regimen seemed to escalate. He switched effortlessly from one leg to another. Then he began to leap from one post to another, heedless of the swaying bridge and curvy slide. I gasped with each jump, fearing he would fall and break something, but I needn’t have worried. William’s body was a finely tuned instrument of power and grace.

  Woe to the enemy of this man!

  The expression on William’s face was grim; he seemed in another time and place. Fluidly, he moved, his jeans plastered against the thick muscles of his thighs. He never even glanced at me.

  It was just as well. I had to wipe some drool off my chin and tweak my shirt away from my belly repeatedly to cool off. Maybe I did have a fever.

  He finally jumped down, a twelve-foot drop if it was an inch, landing softly on the balls of his feet.

  I simply stared, jaw dropped in astonishment.

  “I suppose there’s a little parkour involved,” he said with a shrug. He wasn’t panting or sweating.

  I put my arms up, a helpless shrug. “I don’t know what to say,” I was completely amazed. And a little afraid at the raw power he displayed.

  He walked up to me and looked down. “It’s called Misrillet. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”

  I just shook my head. I couldn’t believe I had been admiring the arc of my throwing arm this morning. I was such a dope. I didn’t have time to feel self-conscious about it though because William launched into his next question.

  “How do you know when you’re blushing?” He went right for my jugular.

  I growled at him. “You would,” I headed back across the field toward the sidewalk.

  “What? It’s an honest question!” he exclaimed.

  I smirked. “Just give me a minute. It’s hard to explain,” I told him cheekily. We started up on the sidewalk again. “I can feel my blush start because I feel hot and sweaty. It’s unpleasant because I have no control over it whatsoever. It’s like advertising to the whole world that I’m feeling embarrassed. In the animal kingdom, it would probably precede my imminent death,” I let my breath out with a whoosh, feeling glad to get that answer out of the way. I looked at him, curious what he would think of it.

  He frowned. “That could definitely be a problem,” was all he said.

  I perked up. I had one more question. I chewed on my lower lip trying to think of a really good one. Although, he could hardly top the display at the playground. His performance pretty much made my month. I could see reliving his exercise regimen in my mind over and over again. His muscles positively danced beneath his skin as he moved and flexed with his Misrillet. What language was that? That could be my question. I opened my mouth to ask, when a black blur wavered across my peripheral vision.

  We both looked to the right, by the houses. I told myself it was probably a cat, except I felt a prickle of inexplicable terror wash through me. And cats were a good deal smaller than the blur I spied. It was more like the size of a bear, but that was patently ridiculous.

  Before I could react, he placed himself between me and the houses and yards. “It’s okay,” I said. “Probably just a cat,” An enormously huge black cat? I thought to myself.

  He ignored my statement. Instead, he assumed a ready stance. He gestured for me to be still, and he peered at the dark spaces inside of bushes and behind garbage bins. Another streak of black startled out of a bush, knocked over a trash bin with a clatter, and disappeared again behind someone’s shed. It was way, way, too big to be a cat.

  No. This was my small town in which nothing of note ever happened. It had to be something harmless. Like a big dog, for example.

  Belying my denial, William put his bulk between me and the shed, not even letting me look around his shoulder at the phantom.

  My heart had begun racing as soon as I first saw the dark image, and it only sped up as I noticed William’s demeanor. His somewhat light mood had sobered considerably, and I thought I heard him growl once. Frankly, he was putting me more on edge than I thought was necessary considering it was just a... I licked my lips. A super big dog? Or maybe the Dinkle’s dog that had the annoying habit of breaking away from his chain about every three weeks and digging in people’s trash cans? Uncertainty mixed with bile in my belly. I was offically weirded out.

  We stood like that for a good ten minutes, his body forming a protective wall between some unseen and uncomfirmed danger and myself.

  I couldn’t explain it, but I felt compelled to be silent, though my heart thundered loudly in my chest and my blood ran with torrential force in my ears. I didn’t really think it was a cat, did I? Or the Dinkle’s dog.

  Something about watching William’s exercise regimen had me trusting his instincts. If he told me to stay put, then I was staying put. Gradually my heart slowed, particularly since there was no longer any sign of what we had spied earlier.

  Nothing else happened, and he relaxed. We started walking again. If he was embarrassed for overreacting, he didn’t show it. I decided not to bring it up, either. Dumb dog.

  9

  Zarastrid’s Log Day 95

  Year of Our Loch 107

  I asked Agnes how she was feeling. She sat with her back to me in the spacious cell. I stood, waiting for her to invite me to sit. We were used to our little ceremonies, pretending perhaps, that she was in a castle solar, and I a noble knight come to worship her beauty. She made no such invitation.

  “It wasn’t painful, I trust?” I managed to ask.

  Her shoulders shook almost imperceptibly.

  “Zainel didn’t abuse you…” my voice had an unexpected hard edge to it. I, of all of us, knew what our plans entailed.
Knew what had to occur in order for the Battle spawn to be created. Surely it wasn’t as unpleasant…certainly much less unpleasant than the dark interviews often conducted against a woman’s will in the back of dingy taverns or bales of hay.

  I didn’t know if I should approach her. Her head shook slightly. Appeased, I took a step closer.

  “I couldn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t agree to it,” I said. Nothing but the truth would do for Agnes.

  She turned slowly, looking over her shoulder at me. Her auburn hair shone from the squares of light in the cell’s ceiling. I was struck with her beauty…a sensation I thought I would never feel again after the Coven changed me those centuries ago. Could my heart be growing back?

  “It’s true that it didn’t hurt, nor did Zainel abuse me. It was a vial…” She said in an even tone with a shrug. I felt a ‘but’ coming on.

  “You betrayed me, and I will thank you to leave my cell,” She finally finished. She turned back to stare at the naked stone wall.

  I felt uncomfortable. Angry. I shouldn’t care.

  “You’re the best of them,” Was all I said to her. Then I left. What else could I have done?

  10

  Xex

  Xex sniffed the air around him with distaste. The scent of human detritus filled his nostrils in the small fenced-in collection of trash bins he hid beside. His massive bulk was difficult to hide behind the puny plastic cans he found in every neighborhood, so he had to use his cloaking ability which exhausted him, or find someplace like this. His prey nearly spied him as it was.

  The cagey Warriors he’d trailed since the Midwestern part of the country had settled in a small town. Such surroundings would be more difficult to disguise himself in because of the absence of tall old buildings. With luck and skill, he’d not be here that long.

  Xex unfurled his long tendril-like tongue and licked lips and nose like a dog. He smelled his prey, and the female companion with him, even though they had moved on.

  He showed primordial teeth in a gruesome grin.

  Their last conflict in the middle of the country left him with the taste for blood.

  Masters ordered him with the crack of whips and chains. Hunt for the Ones Who Fought Back, use the death spell and return for a new chant. The buzzing noise of their commands always originated behind his left ear.

  Every command had been followed unquestioningly, until the battle at Toe-Lee-Doh. Xex’ companion had fought viciously, but had fallen. It had been her last life. Something cracked inside Xex.

  Masters always forbade the taste of human flesh, instead feeding them some unrecognizable offal, but only after returning from each hunting trip.

  When Xer fell for the last time, Xex felt the spark of something feral spiral upward inside himself. It was powerful, whatever the feeling was, and he unleashed it without remorse or thought for the Masters’ retribution.

  Humans snapped like twigs beneath his powerful stone-like talons. And they tasted sweet.

  Xex felt a rush of memory flood his mind, and his maw watered, leaving a puddle of desire on the cement slab below him.

  The Masters had sent him to kill the Ones Who Fought Back, but they had not fallen. They’d risen again and fled. Xex sensed that if he returned to the Masters to report Xer’s death and his own failure, he would be the next Lochspawn’s offal.

  He decided to hunt on his own.

  He wanted revenge for Xer. He wanted to consume more human flesh. He wanted to return to the Masters and snap their necks for years of cruelty.

  Hunting without a new death spell would be more dangerous, but he was not afraid. He was a hunter, bred to smell out the Warriors and kill them, with or without a spell.

  He refused to return to the Masters until he’d grown in strength. The incessant buzzing in his ear had been growing worse. He continually flicked at his head with a preternaturally long talon.

  When he returned, it would be to exact an excruciating death on those who demanded fealty by inflicting pain and fear.

  11

  Zarastrid’s Log Day 113

  She grabbed the bars and screamed at me.

  “What have you done? What have you done? What did you let him do to us?” She screamed it over and over again, not bothering to wait until I had opened the gate with my iron key.

  Warily, I entered.

  She bolted to me, punching me in the chest, tearing at her beautiful hair, screaming then sobbing.

  I put her away from me, holding her biceps with my strong hands. The change wrought in me those centuries ago rendered me strong as Atlas.

  Eventually she calmed herself.

  “How do you feel?” I asked her. I had to know myself if Zainel’s reports were true.

  “I’m a lunatic! I’m happy, then sad, sick then well. Up is down and in is out. Who am I? Who are you?” Her voice rose again, flirting with hysteria.

  I pulled her to me, holding her tightly as tremors shuddered throughout her body. I shushed her and allowed my hand to do what it had longed to do…stroke her strong back in long languid caresses.

  She calmed.

  “I believe it is normal,” I said, finally.

  “WHAT?” She shouted at me again. I pulled her head to my chest, jealously holding her head to where my heart once beat lively within. It startled me to learn that I wanted it back now. But it was far far too late.

  “Did not any woman of your acquaintance bear a child? Did not any woman suffer the hysterics associated with carrying a child?” I asked her softly.

  Agnes froze in my arms. I stopped the caressing of her back, unsure of what was to come.

  “You knew all of this,” She said quietly.

  I waited for her to look up at me before nodding slowly.

  “You knew what Zainel was going to do, and you knew why he did it,” She accused me.

  “Of course,” I said simply. Again, honesty was the only way to talk with Agnes. It would always be. “What did you think Zainel was doing?” I grimaced when I asked her.

  “He dabbles in potions. He said he was studying the ways of the woman. He charted our courses during the isolation,” Agnes said, her voice thick with some emotion.

  She upset my balance again. Complex Agnes. Experienced in the ways of men and women, naïve to pregnancy, willing to submit to the Physik, willing to submit to my persistent inquisitions, challenging me to the chesse.

  She pulled away finally.

  She put her hands to her belly. Her face lit up. “I am to have a child?”

  I nodded.

  “Then all will be well,” She said quietly. Suddenly, her face turned green. “The…the pail…” She twisted her mouth, and I frantically searched the cell, finally seeing the wooden pail under the table. I almost got it to her before she let loose her breakfast all over my slippers.

  12

  The strange phenomenon one street over had William on edge, and I was second guessing the whole thing. Had I truly felt that tremor of fear run through my body? Replaying my memory, I couldn’t confirm that what I had seen was indeed an animal: cat, dog or otherwise. It had seemed much larger than a raccoon, perhaps even as large as a bear, but certainly more agile than the bears that occasionally made their way into neighborhoods.

  I guess my problem was that what I had seen did not fit what I knew to be possible in my part of the country. Something as big as a bear should move as slowly as a bear. It would be much louder, as well. Yet I had only spied something for a very brief moment, thus making me doubt I’d seen anything at all. But then what could explain my irrational fear? Dinkle’s dog often stunk like last week’s potato salad, but he wasn’t frightening by any stretch of the imagination. Nor was he quite that big.

  I kept glancing at William, hoping he might remark on it, or give me some kind of clue as to what level of danger we might have been in. But I didn’t really know him that well yet, and he had retreated to some silent space he seemed to occupy, suggesting that maybe he didn’t want to talk about it.


  I chewed on my lip. I could go either way here. If I acknowledged it happened, then I was introducing some freaky element into my ordered life that I didn’t think I wanted. If I pretended it didn’t happen, then I was also pretending to be a dumb, oblivious girl who didn’t notice peril when it was about to bite me in the butt. I decided I could live with that.

  “What about your car?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. Ahh, so we were both going to beat around the bush. I could live with that, too.

  “Well, thanks for the walk home. I’ll see you around,” I said.

  He didn’t walk away though; rather he followed me to my door. Once I turned my key in the knob and it opened, he stepped off the stoop and left. Whether I liked it or not, I was thinking that a freaky element had indeed entered my life, and it had everything to do with Mr. William, whose buns I did not look at once when he walked off.

  I texted Crady to let her know I was home with a “fever” and then found my mom in the home office. “Hey, Mom,” I said.

  She took off her headphones. “Hey pumpkin. Aren’t you home early?”

  “Yeah, the school nurse said I have a fever,” I knew what was coming next.

  “Oh no!” She jumped up and put her hand to my forehead. “Hm. You do feel a little warm. Get to bed. I’ll make some soup and get you some ibuprofen.”

  I had to smile. “Mom, for real. I’m completely fine. It was a fluke. I’ll take you up on the soup, though!” I went to my room and dropped my book bag on the floor. Crady returned my text, so I lay back on my bed and got comfortable. She was in study hall now, and would probably text me a book.

  WTH? Fever?

  I wrote back, I know, right?

  Wait. How did u get home?

  Walked.

  I’m sorry!

  Don’t be. TDH walked me.

  WTHWTH? R u kidding me?

  Lol, no.

  Spill. The. Beans.

  He was cool. He doesn’t smile much tho.

  Ikr?