His eyes glittered, not the same eyes I'd seen staring at me from the animal's face, but the expression. . the hate. . it was a perfect match.
"Yours?" he asked and snorted. "You can't own a child, can't do with it as you please, Zery. Not as long as the sons are here to stop you."
Despite my best intentions, I jerked. He knew my name.
I tightened my jaw, then pulled my lips into a smile. "I don't remember being introduced."
"Don't you? Zery Kostovska." He tilted his head and studied my face. I kept it void of all emotion. "I feel like we've met. I know so much about you. . how even in a house full of Amazons, you keep yourself apart. How you come here to the woods when no one else does. How you pride yourself on being the perfect Amazon queen." He laughed at the last.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Me?" He grinned. His teeth were even and white. "I'm your fairy godfather. The sons assigned me to watch over you and your little camp of Amazons. Do you feel special?" He shook his head, a mocking imitation of motherly letdown. "I was so disappointed when I saw you in Beloit, realized you were part of their plan." He looked at me again, his scrutiny intense. "You really should try not to disappoint me."
He moved then.
I swung my staff.
And the son did the impossible. He caught it with his bare hand.
I'd had my blows parried before, but not by many and not easily. But the man staring at me had caught my staff without moving more than his arm. Even the cocky slant of his brow hadn't altered.
Then he did something no one had dared to do before. He jerked my staff toward his body, jerking me there too. His arm slipped behind my waist and he held me tight against his naked form. My breasts already compressed by my workout bra were crushed more. The only things separating us were my thin tee and shorts and the staff we both still held.
I didn't struggle; my eyes met his. The weak struggled; the strong simply escaped. . when they were ready.
"One question. Why? Why are you doing this? Oh, I forgot. . that's how the Amazons stay strong, isn't it? Preying on the most defenseless?"
Anger flooded my body, but I forced calm into my voice. "The Amazons stay strong because we are strong."
He laughed. "Of course. And only the strong deserve to survive."
"Basic law of nature-the strong survive. You have issues with that?" I asked.
"Yes." He jerked me closer. "If it's at the cost of someone else's survival."
He was talking nonsense. "You threaten me, I'll fight back. You steal from me, I'll steal back. If you expected something else, you don't know the Amazons."
His lips quirked, but without humor. "Oh, I know the Amazons. Way better than I'd like. Take my mother, for example. . I know her, know she cast me aside, not because she couldn't raise me, but because she thought I was beneath her. At least that was all she did. She didn't kill me or maim me. I suppose I should be grateful for that. Other sons weren't so lucky. Some of us curse our mothers, but me?" He shrugged a shoulder. "You can't hate a rattler for being a snake, can you? Just like you can't hate an Amazon for being a bitch."
The venom in his voice was harsh, but our reality was harsh. An example of why the sons didn't belong with us. My mother didn't raise me, but while I couldn't claim to love her, or miss her now that we made no pretense of familial care, I didn't bemoan my fate. Being raised by surrogates, one after the other, had made me strong, taught me early on what emotional commitments did to you, how they weakened you.
But I had no interest in explaining any of this to this son and, based on the rage simmering behind his dark eyes, he had no interest in hearing anything I had to say.
He leaned closer; his breath-it smelled of spearmint-stirred my hair. "What about you, Zery? You ever curse your mother?"
Then he pulled back and his hand moved, from my waist to the back of my neck. . to one of my tattoos. . if he touched the others I'd desert my submissive act.
"You wear Artemis's crescent, but do you follow her, Zery? Really?" His fingers brushed over my skin.
The tattoo was a gift, one I'd received when I'd accepted my role as queen. It tied me to Artemis, awakened some of her strengths inside me. All queens had them, high priestesses too, although theirs was on the inside of one wrist.
His fingers touched both the ink and the magic buried there; a tingle swept through my body.
Another surprise.
I hid my reaction.
His fingers moved again. Somehow, without being able to see the tattoo, he was tracing its border.
A shiver erupted from my core. I gritted my teeth.
He cocked his head. "You really don't let people get close, do you? Have you ever? Maybe that's what's wrong with the Amazons. . what they need to change." He leaned in. This time his lips brushed my ear. I stood still. I could take him down at any moment. Knowing that was enough, gave me the patience to stand there and listen. . to learn. I hoped to get him to talk more, to give me a clue how many of the sons watched us and where they lived. And then, after I stole the baby back, I would kill him. He and his fellow son had stolen one of our own-he couldn't live, not after that.
"Has anyone ever gotten close to you, Zery? Have you ever loved anyone or anything? Or can't you, because no one has loved you? Because your own mother doesn't give a damn about you?"
It wasn't his words that angered me, but his tone, the mockery in them-I'd had enough, waited enough. I lifted my knee to deliver the most basic, but fulfilling of attacks.
Behind me an owl called. The sound seemed to startle him; he froze.
I smiled. . a mistake on his part.
His hold on me disappeared. My weight shifted, but my knee was already moving, guaranteed to hit its mark. . but once again I struck nothing but air, because the man was gone and the animal I'd first encountered was back.
He looked at me, his eyes free of emotion now. Then he did what I'd imagined he would when I'd first seen him; he opened his jaws and chomped into my calf.
Then, just as quickly, he let go and was gone.
Blood streamed down my leg. I took a step forward or tried to, but my knee buckled. I cursed and used my staff to force myself to stay standing.
With each step, I forced my brain not to register pain, let the adrenaline flow unimpeded through me. It kept me going, but the son hadn't taken the path as he escaped. He had dived into the thickest brambles, using his animal form and instincts to get him quickly through areas that, even unwounded, I'd have had a tough time negotiating, at least without a sword to clear my way.
Also, I had lost blood. The pain might have been muted, but my leg was rubbery and my knee wasn't answering the demands of my brain as it should have. I placed my palm against a birch and mumbled my frustration. I would heal, much quicker than a human, but it would take a day or so, not seconds. Amazons were descended from a god; we weren't gods.
"Zery!" Thea yelled from the clearing.
I pushed myself away from the tree and scowled after the son. He was long gone now, and hard as it was to face, in my injured state I had no hope of catching him.
I swallowed that truth, then returned the way I'd come. Though short, it was a hard trip. The adrenaline that had pushed me forward before, now ebbed. And with its waning, my leg began to throb. But I was used to pain, was trained to handle it. I blew air out of rounded lips and limped on.
Thea stood next to the obelisk, her hands empty and a scowl on her face. As my eyes met hers, as my foot hit the flattened grass and dirt, the pain, manageable seconds before, ripped through me. With no explanation or warning, I lived the attack again, in slow motion. The animal's teeth punctured my flesh a millimeter at a time, his jaws crushed against my bone. He pulled; my leg screamed; my mind screamed.
I staggered, and a shudder shook my body.
Then the pain was gone, not completely, but down to a gut-twisting ache.
I stared at the high priestess, wondering if she'd seen what had happened, had some explanation. But if she did, she didn't offer to share.