Shadowstorm (Sorcery and Science Book 6) (18 page)

Marin stuck her tongue out in mock disgust. “Beautiful imagery there. So I take it your status as a lady killer refers not to your charm, but rather to your uncanny ability to make a woman choke on her own tongue?”

“Cute, Marin. Very cute.” He frowned to let her know he thought otherwise. Just in case she missed the sarcasm dripping from his words.

“Oh, Leo. You were in no danger from me. I wasn’t going to hit you. My aim is better than that.”

She lifted her hand to brush a few wood shards off his coat. As her hand swept down his shoulder, it lingered on his chest, where her fingers began to fidget with the lip of his wool-lined pocket. Her eyes remained focused on the pocket, as though it were the most intriguing thing in the world. Marin got her rush from concocting wild schemes and pouring over schematics. Leonidas had never known her to get excited over a coat pocket. He pressed his finger under her chin, tilting her face up until her eyes met his.

“Marin,” he said slowly.

“Leo.” Her eyes were deep, thoughtful.

“What would have happened to your aim had you been hit with a sudden hand cramp?” he blurted out.

She burst into laughter, a cloud of mist forming before her mouth with every puff of air. Shaking with merriment, she patted him on the shoulder and walked past, only to freeze a step later.

Leonidas turned around. There, past the flimsy wire fence stood Ariella, her hands tucked inside her coat pockets. Beneath the frosting of amusement that graced her lips, her expression was all business—meaning, she hadn’t come there to sample the local Beechwheat cuisine.

But it wasn’t Ariella that Marin was staring at. Beside their Elition friend stood Jason Chanz, the world’s most deadly assassin. Leonidas suppressed a shiver.

“Hello,” Ariella said, freeing one hand from her pocket just long enough to offer a subdued wave.

Leonidas was trying really hard not to look at the assassin’s eyes. They were as black as death. And rumor had it they could kill a man with a single glance.

“You look like hell,” Leonidas told Ariella.

“Thanks. So do you,” she replied. “I just took a trip on an airplane hellbent on trying to crash out of the sky. What’s your excuse?”

“A bounty hunter took a notion to try and shoot me up.”

“So I saw.” She grinned. “Still, that’s hardly an excuse.”

“Obviously, you’ve forgotten the hazards to both health and personal grooming of being a player in one of Marin’s plans.”

Marin glared at him, then turned to Ariella. “You were here?” Her voice squeaked. “And you didn’t step in to help?” She was trying not to look at Jason too.

“You two appeared to have things handled.”

“And so we did,” agreed Marin.

“Besides, Leonidas’s ego wouldn’t have appreciated my stepping in.”

The girls giggled gleefully. Marin seemed to have forgotten about the assassin standing next to them—at least for a moment.

“Oh, I’m so glad you two ladies have been reunited. I did so miss being insulted from every side,” he grumbled. “It’s almost as invigorating as being shot at from every side.”

“If invigoration is what you seek, then I can deliver,” declared Ariella. She glanced at Jason briefly before returning her gaze to them. “We need your help.”

“A new mission?” Marin asked hopefully.

“A new mission,” Ariella confirmed. “Something big.”

“I’m in,” Marin said immediately.

She’d been bored in Beechwheat, which was understandable. Beechwheat was boring. Besides fighting the bounty hunters, they hadn’t had much to do over the past few months.

“I’m in too,” Leonidas said.

There was no way he was letting Marin run into danger without him. Last time, she’d ended up on the run from a band of elite assassins. Who admittedly were less frightening than the assassin standing here…

“What does this big mission involve?” Marin asked.

“Spy work and science,” Ariella said.

Marin grinned at Leonidas.

“My friend Terra is looking into some Xenen artifacts.” Ariella looked at Marin. “She asked for your help.”

“Xenen artifacts?” Marin looked like her birthday had come early. “I can’t pass that up.”

“We’re not the only people after them,” Ariella warned.

“Of course not,” Leonidas said. “Because that would be too easy.”

“Where are we headed?” Marin asked.

“Lear,” Jason spoke for the first time. “Terra is headed for Lear.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

~
Five Hundred Thousand Crowns ~

527AX January 12, Red Woods

“YOU, PRECIOUS, ARE worth five hundred thousand Crowns.”

Terra rolled her eyes at the leader of the bandit trio. Beside her, metal slid against leather as Everett eased his gun out of its holster. At her other shoulder, Cameron pulled out a compacted rod. Right now it was no longer than a rolling pin, but when extended it was as tall as he was.

“Nice and easy now. Step forward with your hands in the air, and no one has to get hurt.”

The only people who’d be getting hurt here were these clowns. Three scruffy bandits? Really? They expected to subdue her with those numbers? She had to get that Triad serum cooked up—and fast. The parade of mercenaries and bounty hunters was starting to get really old.

They should have been well on their way to Lear by now—not still stuck inside the Red Woods. She’d assured Cameron and Everett that this trip would be easy. But her estimate had failed to take into account just how many people were willing to throw reason completely out the window for a long shot at a big pile of money. The bandits had trespassed into the Wilderness. And everyone knew how stupid that was. If King River’s scouts didn’t find the bounty hunters, the rogues would. Terra froze on that thought. She was as rogue as the rest of them now.

“Hurry it up now, Terra Selpe.”

“Terra Cross,” she corrected him.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Terra Cross.”

The straw in his mouth rolled across his lips to the other side. “You’re married to the emperor. Members of the Selpe imperial family always take on the name Selpe.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m Elition. And we Elitions have a few traditions of our own.”

“Look, honey, I don’t care what you’re called, so long as you put your hands up.”

Terra lifted her hands…to reach back and draw her twin Versatile swords. She allowed a grin to slide slowly across her lips. “Make me.”

“You’re not taking us seriously.”

“You’re wearing a cowboy hat,” Everett pointed out. “In a subtropical forest deep inside the Elition Wilderness. And you brought along only two other men. Do you honestly expect us to take you seriously?”

Cowboy brushed his hand across the brim of his hat. “Oh, but it’s not just the three of us, you see.”

The trees rustled with movement. Someone was coming—a whole lot of someones, in fact. Terra listened, counting off another seventeen bandits. Twenty altogether. Apparently, these men weren’t as stupid as they looked.

“They have us surrounded,” she whispered to Everett. “And outnumbered over six-to-one.”

“Plan?” he whispered back.

“Break through and run like hell?”

He snorted. “Do you want to take Cowboy, or should I?”

“Enough!” shouted Cowboy. “Speak up. I won’t stand for you conspiring right under our noses.”

Everett looked at him. “Five hundred thousand Crowns sure is a lot of money.”

Terra gave him an irate glare. What was he doing? Trying to rile them up even more?

“Yes.” Cowboy’s eyes panned up Terra. “You really are a pretty treasure box.”

“Five hundred thousand Crowns sure is a lot of money,” Everett repeated. “But five hundred thousand Crowns split twenty ways…not so much.”

“It’s good enough,” said Cowboy.

“Oh. I see.” Everett nodded. “It won’t be an even split.”

Cowboy’s two companions shifted their weight.

“You haven’t discussed this with your companions yet, have you?” Everett clicked his tongue. “Bad form. Very bad form. Whenever I take a job, I always outline the terms beforehand. Especially when teaming up with the competition.”

“It will be fine,” Cowboy said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“No, he’s right,” said the man with the green bandana around his neck. “We need to discuss our cuts.”

“
Now
? You want to discuss this now?”

“Yes, now,” said the other man. He’d shaved his scalp so closely that it shone. Red and green light bounced off of it like a sheet of ice. “We can’t have you running off with more than your share.”

“This is just what they want,” he told them. “To get us busy fighting one another so they can escape.”

“I’d rather they escaped than you ran off with my money,” Green Bandana said.

“And mine,” added Shiny Scalp.

His face red, Cowboy pivoted around. “This is absurd. We wouldn’t even have found them if I hadn’t set a tail on Hobbins and his gang. You two would still be sitting at the bar of the Scarlet Lady, stinking drunk and punching each other for—”

Cowboy shot forward, falling over the other two men. Terra turned to Cameron, who stood over the three tangled bandits, his rod fully extended. From the looks of it, he’d hit the release button with one end of the rod pressed to Cowboy’s back.

“Brilliant.” Everett grinned at him. “Now let’s get out of here.”

“Follow me,” Terra said, sheathing her swords as she took off running.

She ran through a tree hollowed by fire. Stretching out her senses, she tracked the twenty bandits. The three Cameron had knocked over were on their feet again and running after them. The other seventeen were closing in on them from all sides. Terra cut to the left, dodging a storm of arrows. She looked up. A woman in a dark hood leapt from branch to branch, keeping pace with them as she rained down arrows. Everett aimed his gun at her and fired—and missed. She was fast. And she moved like an acrobatic monkey.

“Wait,” Terra said as he aimed again. “Hand me your other gun. We’ll do it together.”

“Really?” He looked skeptical, but he handed it over anyway. “I thought you couldn’t shoot.”

“Sure I can. I just prefer swords.” Still tracking Monkey Woman, she raised the gun. “You aim right.”

She fired. As expected, the woman leapt to the safety of a nearby branch. Everett fired, hitting her right in the shoulder as her feet set down. She tipped off the branch, catching herself by her tips of her fingers. Anyone else would have just fallen off. But all that mattered was she was done shooting arrows at them.

Terra tossed the gun back to Everett. She led them down a hill glazed with soggy twigs and slippery leaves. They were close. She just had to get them to the next hill—and the waterfall. This nonsense had been going on for long enough. Somehow, every bounty hunter on the continent knew she was here. The only way out she could see was to
not
be here. It was as simple as that.

Ok, maybe ‘simple’ was the wrong word for it. She didn’t want to go there—especially not with Cameron—but it was the only choice left to them.

Everett’s eyes grew wary as they ascended the steep hill of stones. “Are you taking us—”

“Yes.”

Everett expelled a resigned sigh but said nothing further. Wandering weeks through the Red Woods dodging bounty hunters was no option. He knew that as well as she did.

The air was heavy with mist. In front of them, the waterfall loomed, tall and majestic. Behind them, the bounty hunters were scrambling up the stony slope. A rock at Terra’s foot exploded. She looked back over her shoulder.

“Stop, or the next bullet goes through your leg!” Cowboy shouted, his gun aimed at her. Six of his companions stood with him, each and every one of them armed.

Seven guns. If they started shooting, there was no way Terra could dodge that. And even if she could, Cameron or Everett might get hit. She stopped and turned slowly to face them.

“That’s better.” Cowboy nodded, his satisfaction as potent as the sweat dripping off of him. “Bind her hands,” he told the man beside him.

The man stepped forward, his eyes cautious and hard. He held his gun in one hand, a pair of metal handcuffs in the other. Behind him, two more bounty hunters had arrived. Terra could hear another one running up the hill. The only way out was through the waterfall, and there was no way Cowboy and friends would let them get that far.

Except that they only cared about Terra.

“I need you two to make a run for it,” she muttered to Cameron and Everett. “I’ll keep them busy so you can get away. Take the portal.”

“As soon as you do anything to ‘keep them busy’, they’ll start shooting at you,” said Everett.

“I’ll get to their other side, so the bullets don’t hit you.”

She gauged the distance. She could somersault over them. They probably wouldn’t risk shooting her midair. If they hit her in the head, she’d die. And Aaron would be majorly pissed off. Once she landed, though, Cowboy would make good on his promise to shoot her in the leg. That would hurt. If they were packing poison bullets, it would hurt even more. Plus, she had to jump just right so that she didn’t end up skidding face-first down the hill of pebbles.

Cameron grabbed her arm. “We’re not letting you sacrifice yourself for us.”

“Who said anything about sacrifice? They won’t kill me. They want to get paid.”

“They’ll bring you to the Selpes,” Everett said.

Which was even worse than getting shot. Lord Adrian wanted to throw her into one of his laboratories. Aaron would never let him, but what if Aaron never heard about it? Lord Adrian had more than enough money to pay the bounty on her and quietly pack her away. The thought nearly froze her blood solid. But if it meant saving Cameron and Everett, she would do it. She’d do it in a second. Everett was a Rev; the Selpes would kill him on the spot. As for Cameron, they’d drug and torture him until he was theirs.

Never
, she thought, lifting her hand to her brother’s. She gave it a squeeze, then let it go. The man with the handcuffs was nearly to her. If she was going to make her move, she had to do it now. She relaxed her knees, preparing to spring…

An arrow whistled past her shoulder, landing with a muted thump in the man’s chest. His body hit the ground, kicking up a storm of dust and pebbles as he rolled down the hill and stopped at his companions’ feet.