Drink of Me. Jacquelyn Frank

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СКАЧАТЬ reached over to the sheath attached to his biceps on the right and withdrew the blade slowly. The blue metal gleam of the rubkar’s blade caught the overhead lighting and made it look even more menacing as Rye lowered himself into a crouch next to the helpless male.

      There. That moment. That fear and terror in one of their own, that was what Reule caught hold of, magnified, and netted the sensitive enemy with. His fingers curled into fists, his chin dipped down as he focused ferociously on manipulating all of them at once. He couldn’t allow a single one the chance to further harm his kinsman.

      The effect was more than he would have expected or even hoped for. The Jakals standing in the center of the room suddenly recoiled in horror and began to scream. They clapped bony fingers over their skulls as males and females alike wailed to a pitch high enough to shatter glass. Reule ignored it, pushing and pushing, refusing to let go lest they try to push back and incapacitate him with their sheer force of numbers. As he drilled into them their compatriot’s horror of impending death and his helplessness to do anything about it, he felt as though he were stronger than he had ever been before. He was an awesome force to contend with under any circumstances, and there was no mistaking the surge of vitalizing strength sliding into him now.

      Reule kept the conduit open, from victim Jakal, to amplification within himself, and back to the small crowd of compatriot Jakals in the center of the room, pouring it out as Rye’s knife lowered to a mark. His Packmate closed both his hands around the haft of the blade in a ritualistic manner. Reule prepared for the death strike, knowing that he could put these bastards in a comatose state for the rest of their lives, even though there was a good deal of jeopardy to him as well if he channeled the imminent death throes. But he felt supremely confident that he would remain only the messenger, untouched by what was about to happen.

      Rye looked straight into the eyes of the Jakal whose throat lay under the tip of his razor-sharp, dual-edged blade. With the scent of battle and impending bloodletting on him, Rye’s eyes were nearly glowing with green-yellow anticipation and his fangs pushed out both his upper and lower lips so they could be seen even without his purposeful sneer.

      “Abak tu mefritt,” he hissed.

      Death to my enemy. Rye spat the battle cry just before plunging deep and with so much rage-filled power that the blade went clean through and was embedded in the wood of the floor. He left it like that and leapt to his feet before the Jakal’s blood could touch him. He spat on his victim in obvious contempt.

      Reule felt every moment of both the death and the victory, but it was the last minutes of suffering that he passed on. He broke out in a drenching sweat, every last muscle in his taut, powerful body shuddering as he closed himself off from being dragged into the dark of oblivion along with the dying Jakal. Instead he forced himself to magnify the last pulses, the last breaths, and the last horrified thoughts of the Jakals’ kin as he drilled it all into the entire group of them. The effect was so potent that Reule was aware of even his mentally guarded Packmates staggering back from his onslaught. But he couldn’t gear back the intensity of it. They would be all right, he reassured himself, so long as they weren’t his direct targets.

      His direct targets, however, were not so fortunate. Reule strove for total incapacitation, but he got much more. All six Jakals tumbled to the floor, some landing on their knees, others flat on their backs or faces. They all began to seize violently, clawing at their throats as though a wicked blue blade had pinned them to the floor. Some coughed up blood, others gasped out strangled breaths.

      Then, with a communal, convulsive sigh, each exhaled one last breath.

      Reule felt the group of target minds shut down all at once and there was an instant whiplash effect, impacting him physically so that he fell back as if he’d been playing tug-of-war and the other team had suddenly let go. Darcio caught him, but Reule was no lightweight, his build thick with a warrior’s muscle and his height stretching to over six feet. Darcio was determined, however, to at least keep his Packleader from landing in an undignified heap, easing him to the floor.

      The death was gone, purged from Reule’s mind with the break in his concentration, although the metallic ghost of it would cling to him for a long time to come. Darcio knelt on a single knee beside him, steadying him even though he sat, a disturbed furrow creasing his brow.

      Darcio had every right to be concerned. The Packmates had seen Reule do some pretty amazing things over time, had even come to expect to be amazed regularly by the sheer potency of their leader’s unique power, but never had Darcio seen any one man strike such a devastating blow to an enemy at six-to-one odds. The Jakals weren’t just comatose, they were dead. Dead by the power of Reule’s thoughts. Darcio felt the heavy silence of the Pack, only the captive Chayne making noise as he rasped for breath. Otherwise, the Pack guarded their thoughts from Reule. However, because they were Pack, Reule would be aware of their collective discomfort.

      It wasn’t his Pack’s disturbance that struck Reule’s weakened mental defenses, though. His mind was now stripped of the strength to defend itself, and that allowed the desperate sorrow to bombard him again. Reule had also carefully blocked out Chayne’s agony and humiliation so it wouldn’t interfere with his concentration. Now it washed over him in burning waves, clearly differentiating itself from the sadness that swirled around him. No, it wasn’t his suffering Packmate that Reule felt in deep, assailing eddies. There was another, and whoever it was had to be close.

      “Reule, don’t do it,” Darcio warned him, now free to exchange thoughts with him as Reule’s mental walls lay crumbled. “It could be a trap. You will end up like them.” Darcio flicked a hand at the pile of dead Jakals.

      “No,” Reule rasped as he struggled to regain his balance and physical coordination. “This is something else. Someone is in pain.”

      “It’s no concern of ours,” Darcio said softly, his worry coming through despite his attempts to be coldhearted. Reule knew Darcio well. His Packmate had one concern in all the world, and that was Reule’s safety and well-being.

      “Darcio, if it were you, would you appreciate others turning their backs on you and abandoning you to your fate? She is close. In this house, I believe.” Reule stopped suddenly, realizing that he was right. What he felt originated from a female. Strange he should know that. Stranger still that he could sense only this tide of one particular feeling, but no others. No thoughts, nothing to identify her, just…sadness.

      “You see?” his companion persisted. “Even your own mind tells you that something is wrong about this.”

      Reule frowned irritably, disliking the defenselessness of his mind, which allowed Darcio to read his every thought. He struggled to erect even the slightest of barriers against the intrusion, a filter at the very least. To his surprise he got a monumental wall of protection. It was so strong and abrupt that he felt Darcio stiffen with shock as he was booted out of Reule’s mind with perfunctory force. Reule quickly reached up to grasp his friend’s shoulder, giving it an apologetic squeeze.

      “Your advice is always valued, Darcio. Remember that. But I will act in accord with my instincts on this.” The gesture of camaraderie seemed to ease the other male’s bruised feelings, and Darcio reached to help haul Reule to his feet. No easy task that, Reule weighing several stones more than the leaner man. Within moments, though, he felt Rye under his other arm helping to steady him.

      “Chayne?” he asked.

      “We won’t know until we get him back home. The apothecary will tell us the whole of it,” Rye said softly.

      “Go, help Delano with Chayne. I’m well enough,” he instructed Rye. To prove the point, he took his weight onto his own two feet and pushed Rye away with a guiding hand. Rye hesitated СКАЧАТЬ