“The Sources are prized beyond all reckoning,” she continued. “They must be kept hidden from those who would exploit them. And there are many who do just that.”
“The men who abducted me,” he deduced.
Again, she looked approvingly at him, though it was only a slight thaw in the gray ice of her eyes. “They are called the Heirs of Albion, an organization of British men who plunder Sources in order to make Britain master of the globe. If the Heirs had their desire, Britain’s empire would see no limits.”
“They didn’t come all the way from England just for me,” he objected. “I’m just one man.” He stumbled over that word, knowing he was something more than a man. He felt it now when she spoke, how her voice lured the beast within him. He pushed it down when it coiled to spring. “Not enough to make a difference where building an empire is concerned.”
“They probably did not come for you. I’ve heard legends of magic in these mountains. Monsters living in the lakes. A giant serpent.” She said these fantastical things as though they were as familiar as house pets. Maybe to her, and those Heirs, they were. “The Heirs must have come for one of those, and to scout for other Sources. That’s why they brought a falcon with them. Birds are extremely sensitive to magic, so when their falcon came near you, it sensed the magic within you and reacted. That was enough for them to decide they needed to capture you.”
She held his gaze. “It’s a fortunate thing you escaped their clutches. They would have made your life a hell, had they taken you back to England. Dissect you with magic, see how you work, perhaps to reproduce your changing ability in one of their own.”
The flatness of her tone, more than her words, chilled him. “Were you one of these Heirs?”
A tiny, mirthless smile notched in the corner of her mouth. “Heirs have no women in their ranks. They believe we are too weak and fragile for such dangerous work.”
“They’ve never met you, then.” He meant it as a compliment. The courage of this woman made most men look like green saplings. The animal inside of him rumbled its approval, knowing she could meet his strength with her own.
Her smile, small as it was, disappeared. “They’ve met me. Watch out.” They had reached the bottom of the hill, and now the horses had to pick their way through a quickly moving stream.
He was careful to lead his horse exactly where hers had walked. Soon they reached the opposite bank of the stream, coming up on shingled gravel flats.
“Sources,” she continued, “are not entirely undefended from organizations like the Heirs. They have their own shielding magic, and the wisdom of the ancients, but there are people who make it their life’s work to protect Sources.”
“People like you.”
She spoke stiffly, refusing to look in his direction. “Not anymore.”
“Why did you leave them, these…whoever they are?”
“They’re called the Blades of the Rose, but that doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. “What matters now is to keep running.”
“I can’t run from the Heirs forever. I won’t.” The idea of fleeing like a wounded deer infuriated him and his inner beast. He never turned from a fight, no matter what form it took.
“We cannot fight the Heirs,” she protested. “We don’t even know what’s happening inside of you.”
The animal was a betrayal and a blessing. All these years, never knowing what he truly was, what he could be capable of doing. It was terrifying and liberating. The impossible now possible. Men turning into animals and back again. Magic throughout the globe, and secret societies battling for it. What had become of the world?
He’d make a place for himself. That meant knowing more, battling toward a goal.
“I don’t run,” he said.
She flushed, because that was exactly what she was proposing.
“And if I can’t fight the Heirs alone,” he said, “I’ll find people like me—the other Earth Spirits—and we can face the Heirs together.”
“You’ll never find them,” she pointed out. “Local tribes say the Earth Spirits are secretive and elusive, living far from others, somewhere deep in the wilderness. Only a few bands in this area know of them or where they might be.”
“Then I find one of those bands,” Nathan said, decisive. “Even if they don’t stand with me against the Heirs, I’ll learn more about who, and what, I am. Why the change happened now, after all this time. Make them tell me what they know.”
“You cannot ‘make’ the Native bands do anything.” She pursed her mouth wryly. “Out here, one doesn’t storm onward, heedless of everything but one’s own objectives.”
He quirked a brow. “You think I have no finesse.”
“As much finesse as a wildfire.”
His sudden crack of laughter startled her, almost as much as it did himself. “Back in Victoria, they called me a ‘hard-headed son of a bitch.’”
He watched, fascinated, as she fought down a smile. He wanted to see the progress of her smile, how it might change her, lighten her. But her will was strong, and she wouldn’t allow such lightness.
Instead, she glanced up at the sky and the deepening shadows cast by the trees.
“Finding a band of Natives will have to wait until tomorrow,” she said. “Right now, my concern is putting enough distance between us and the Heirs so we can make camp.”
He noticed she included herself in his plans. Not unwanted—she intrigued the hell out of him and the animal within. But, even though he knew she was as capable, if not more so, than any man he’d ever met, the idea of needing her help, of needing anyone, riled him. He’d spent too long alone, fighting for himself.
“I’ve drawn you back into something you want to avoid,” he growled.
She didn’t try to deny this.
“Point me in the right direction,” he said. “I can do this on my own.” He didn’t want to part with her, not when too many of her mysteries tantalized him as a man, not when that primal inner beast wanted to claim her for its own. But this was bitter medicine, dragging her into the dangerous—and baffling—morass his own life had become.
She brushed away his proposal as a horse might twitch away a fly. “You cannot do this alone,” she said. “Whether either of us like it, you need an ally. God help us both, but that ally is me.”
Thoughts of Heirs, Blades, Earth Spirits, and his own complex, changeable nature spiked in and out of his mind in the preparation of camp. His fascination with Astrid Bramfield grew each moment he spent with her.
The journey from Victoria to the trading post had taken Nathan through some of the wildest and roughest terrain he’d ever encountered. He knew a fair amount about life out of doors—no matter how much the school administrators had tried to coax or beat the Native out of him, he’d been determined to learn something of his tribal self. And the voyageur who’d served as his guide between his home and the trading post seemed to have tree sap running in his veins, his knowledge was so deep, and had taught Nathan a few things about surviving in the wild.
Though the voyageur had many years on Astrid Bramfield, he didn’t possess her instinct or expertise. She chose the site of their camp with a keen eye, close to a river, but not so close that the site might flood should the waters rise. Ample feed for the now-hobbled horses and mule. His heightened sense of smell told him she’d steered clear of game trails. No unwanted guests during the night.
“The Heirs might come,” he said as they spread dried bracken on the ground for bedding.
She shook her head. “They will, but not today. Even their guides