Promises to Keep - By Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page 0,27

was magic inside her that did not like the fire one bit.

Jay stepped forward into her mental hell.

What do you want? the forest snarled at him. The trees nearby twisted, writhing in irritation. How can we help her if you keep intruding?

The forest ransacked his mind. It found his fear of Midnight, his fear that the vampire’s empire might threaten his kin, and his anger that it had once nearly destroyed them. It found his plan to share Midnight’s location with other hunters. It found his conviction that Midnight must be cut down again, and forever.

It knew that he could speak to the trees and had merged with them in order to slip away from the circle of magic that had tried to trap him in Midnight’s forest.

It knew how much he despised being trapped.

The more this power learned about him, the more welcoming it became.

We can’t reach her, it lamented. They locked her away from us.

The images that came with the words were brutal.

The shapeshifter was a slave. One of the trainers had claimed her hundreds of years ago and had worked tirelessly to break her mind and turn her into the perfect … Pet. That was the name the trainer had given her.

Until him, she had been nameless, a priestess dedicated to her people, her land, and her power. She had been holy; he had made her profane. She had been …

She had been beaten, and broken, and with each stroke she had built stronger walls inside her mind as she had tried to protect something so precious that it alone could never be sacrificed to the trainer.

Me, the power whispered. My child let herself be savaged so she could protect me. She sealed herself off from me, and now I cannot even tell her that it is safe to return.

Is it worth saving her, if Midnight then comes to claim her? Jay wondered.

The other power responded as if Jay had spoken aloud. If you can reach her, and help me reach her, then she will be all I need to destroy those who hurt her.

“You mean Midnight? The trainers?” Jay asked. “She could fight them?”

You will not need to fear them anymore.

“I’ll try to reach her,” Jay said. “I’m not sure if I can, but I’ll try.”

There are many traps in her mind. I will do my best to protect you.

First, he needed to be something fast and powerful, to get through the brambles. A stag would have been nice, but Jay had never had the opportunity to study one well enough to know its thought patterns. A lynx would be too small. Wolf?

Here.

The thought came along with the overwhelming sense of … not a house cat. Not a lynx or a bobcat. Bigger. Mountain lion.

That would work.

Jay stretched his new body and felt the forest respond with wary interest. This form was known to it. Was the shapeshifter a cougar?

He fought his way through the forest, his lithe body wriggling out of the way when branches tried to form a cage, and his thick fur shrugging off even the worst of the brambles.

As he reached Midnight’s black iron fence, crows and ravens began to dive-bomb, shrieking. He batted them out of the sky, his jaws sending feathers and avian blood splattering as he made his way inexorably closer.

He changed shape only momentarily, and a much smaller cat slipped easily between the black iron bars, before the mountain lion was running across the open front yard.

He struck the front door with claws extended. The building itself began to bleed and writhe.

Where are you? he called.

She was in there, somewhere.

Acting on instinct, he shredded the door, and the walls next to it. They looked like hardwood and stone, but they tore like flesh. Once he had cut a hole, he padded through it into a quiet, shadowed grove of white birch trees.

In the middle lay a woman, her body bleeding from a thousand cuts, her black flesh burned and slashed, her hair matted, and her moss-green eyes wide with fear.

“No!” she shouted. “You can’t be here! No one can be here!”

“I’m here to help you,” Jay said.

Started to say. Or roar. He wasn’t sure how far he made it before the ground shook, knocking him off his paws. The trees wept. Whatever power had spoken to him earlier had followed him here.

“Is she—”

Before he could finish speaking, he was thrown brutally backward, into his own flesh in the shapeshifter’s room.

He was alone. Her bed was empty, and the