Lord of the Wolfyn - By Jessica Andersen Page 0,82

fight for it. Because she loved him.

“Love,” she whispered softly as the small kernel of warmth unfurled from a point to a glow, and then to new strength flowing through her with the beat of her heart. Yes, she thought. This.

She loved him. Not because he was a woodsman, a prince or a hero, but because he was a vampire and a wolfyn. It didn’t make any logical sense, went against everything rationality told her she should feel. But her heart didn’t care about any of that. She loved him, pure and simple. She didn’t need to have faith in the feeling, didn’t have to believe in it for it to exist; it simply was.

That revelation spurred her, got her moving again. Her hands stopped shaking; her stomach unknotted and she uncurled herself from fetal uselessness. The chains clanked and dragged as she repositioned herself against the cot, using it to support her weighed-down wrists as she craned and went to work again on the knots, starting with the top one this time.

It gave almost immediately, and the blindfold fell away. Success!

She blinked against the sudden blaze of light, squinting until it resolved to rather anemic amber firelight coming from torches set in brackets outside her cell.

Because that was most definitely what it was. The space was the size of a large box stall; indeed, there was an iron hayrack in the corner, and places to hang buckets. But the door wasn’t made for a horse or donkey—or none that she had ever seen before. It was made of iron bars that ran floor to ceiling, with no lock, no hinge, no nothing. Magic.

She sank back, heart thudding as bile rose.

“Oh, Dayn. Help me.” Her lips shaped the words, but no sound came out. She hoped—prayed—he could sense her need through their bond, though. Because there was no way she was getting out of this one on her own.

Dayn. Help me!

At the sound of her voice, his head whipped up from the faint trail he’d been following. “Reda?”

His feet kept moving, but he turned inward as their bond suddenly grew stronger than before, amped by the fear he felt in her, along with an echo of hopelessness that terrified him. She was in trouble!

Adrenaline fired through his veins and his secondaries broke the skin, bringing the added aggression of his blood-drinking ancestors. “Hang on. I’m coming,” he said, both aloud and in his heart. “Hang on. Don’t leave. Don’t—” He broke off, stopping dead at the edge of a churned-up patch of forest, where booted footprints were layered deeply and skid marks showed the impression of a human body just about her size. “Reda!”

The impressions were hours old, the body that had made them long gone. “No!” Gods, no. Who had taken her? Thieves, outlaws, soldiers? All equally dangerous, equally horrifying.

Pulse thundering in his ears, he sent magic into the bond, acting on instinct because he didn’t know much about the connection or how it worked, especially with someone from the human realm. Reda, where are you?

There was no answer. Only the fear.

He took two running steps after her. But then he stopped, heart hammering. This wasn’t going to work. He needed to move faster, couldn’t risk losing the trail. Reda needed him, and she needed him now.

Deep within him, magic spun up. Not his blood-drinking powers, but the other. Be true to yourself. Know your priorities. It was his father’s voice, but he wasn’t sure if it was a memory or a message.

He stood for a moment in the center of the churned-up clearing, hands fisted at his sides, body shaking with the pull of the forces that were trying to tear him apart. His birthright demanded that he not give in to the lure of the wolfyn form. And his sibs, his honor and the people still living in this blighted land needed him to get his ass to Castle Island before the zero hour, which was approaching fast. Every shred of logic and rational thinking he possessed said that had to outweigh Reda’s need. More, if he changed now, if he gave in to that magic, he put himself that much farther from his true self.

It felt like that was already happening, though, every time he thought about not going after Reda. She was his mate, his love, his other half. Without her, he wouldn’t be living; he would be simply existing, as he had done for the past twenty years in the wolfyn realm. Without her,