Sword of Justice: Queen of Skye and Shadow, #3

By Thea Atkinson

War is coming. Its destruction darkens the skies of a broken Earth.

The unholy forces of Skye's mortal enemy and one-time mentor, Hunter Wolf, gather to destroy New Denver and all that Skye has built with the help of the sometimes sorcerer Marlin and King Arthur's mythical sword Excalibur. She's no hero, she knows this. She's only a former mercenary and loner, a survivor.

The smart move is to run once again, to save her own skin.

But Skye has fought for a home among the desperate refugees flooding into the city. They chose her as their leader, ignoring her bloody past, trusting her. She has promised them a future free of Wolfe's evil and given them the one thing in short supply—hope. And, she has finally found hope of love with Lance.

 

How can she let down those who trust her, the man who loves her?

No, Skye is done with running, with surviving. This time she fights.

Even if it costs her everything...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thea Atkinson
• Release date: Jul 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393087526

Thea Atkinson

Thea Atkinson writes character driven fiction to the left of mainstream; call it what you will: she prefers to describe her work as psychological dramas with a distinct literary flavour. Her characters often find themselves in the darker edges of their own spirits but manage to find the light they seek. She has been an editor, a freelancer, and a teacher, but fiction is her passion. She now blogs and writes and twitters. Not necessarily in that order. Please visit her blog for ramblings, guest posts, giveaways, and more http://theaatkinson.wordpress.com or follow her on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/theaatkinson or like her facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Theas-Writing-Page/122231651163413 a special thanks to Tiffany Atkinson for taking my author photo.

Book preview

-1-

A GOPHER, A FERAL PIG, and a bear all walk up to a woman's doorstep and die there.

It could have been the start of a bad old world joke except those things hadn't just walked up to my doorstep and died at all; they'd been killed and dragged there. And I found nothing funny about discovering dead things on my doorstep three times in one day.

But that had been almost a week ago, and while I hadn't exactly forgotten that it had happened, I had been occupied by other, more pressing matters: fighting a nasty fire set by Hunter's band past the hogbacks, fighting his Rubies to save the town, blowing up the old mine shafts so they couldn't ambush us.

Pretty damn busy. Pretty damn preoccupied.

And exactly what had I come back here for anyway? An old chair, a tea table. An old China cup? Those things were part of a world long gone. What did I need them for except that I held onto the nostalgia of it?

It was simple: I'd returned for them because I didn't want to leave behind the only things left of my grandmother just because I'd agreed to lead the town and live within the limits instead of out here a twenty minute walk from the nearest house.

I'd agreed to move within town limits because the residents wanted me close. Or so Lance had said. He and Marlin had urged me to do so and I'd given in and taken the Musk estate like they wanted because I thought it was the right thing to do.

But coming back here to retrieve things that had no intrinsic value except a few memories didn't seem like that big a deal at the time. I'd wanted those things and I'd not given much thought to those dead animals on my doorstep. It had been days ago. It had been an anomaly.

I'd no doubt killed any man already that thought he was terrifying me with them.

But the fact that it had not been a man leaving them was painfully obvious now.

Because now I remembered the shrieks that rent the air while we fought that fire. I remembered Sadie saying she and her ponies had been stalked during their rides.

And the coup de grace was the sleek, almost cat-like beast that stood on my doorstep now.

Yup. Sometimes it takes me a while to put two and two together. Especially if I was tired. But it shouldn't have been that tough to do the math. The signs were all there.

Especially since it had already begun to advance on me from the other side of the door.

It had tired of leaving me threats finally and had come out in the open, standing right on my step, a thing as high as my shoulder.

Eyes that made me think it had nothing but burning coals in its eye sockets pinned to mine. Blood dripped from its jowls and sizzled when it hit the floor.

It lifted one front paw, and sniffing the air, it crossed the threshold toward me and stalked into the room.

I knew I shouldn't hold its gaze. It was a predator. It would trigger the instinct to strike.

It took every bit of courage I had to drop my gaze. Slowly at first, for each step the beast took toward me in methodical, predatory movements, my feet shuffled backward.

I couldn't pivot and run.

I wanted to. Desperately.

Every bit of DNA and each molecule and atom, every spark in every bit of tissue that regenerated cells wanted to run like a tornado scraping rocks from the ground and hurling them out of its vortex.

I knew if I did run, I would be dead before I took another breath.

I didn't dare take my eyes off the thing, but I tried so hard not to look it in the eye. Show confidence, but not too much. Show respect, but not fear.

The practiced, methodical part of my mind worked and reworked that knowledge in the space of a heartbeat, reminding me of the consequences for each inch I progressed backwards.

The warrior mind tried to assess the threat, take it in, find a weakness, attack.

But there was no attack in me. The very idea of it left my knees weak and my stomach knotted. Whatever that thing was that moved on me so silently it might be smoke, I knew there was nothing in my grandmother's house capable of bringing it down.

And if there were, I'd still have to reach it, and find the strength within to throw myself headlong into the task, knowing I might not live through it.

Attack had to be a last resort only.

I barely breathed. I vaguely felt the confines of the house closing in around me. If it got all the way in, there'd be nowhere for me to go. If it didn't get in, I couldn't rush for the door and slam it shut, trapping the beast within.

Two, equally terrifying possibilities. Two equally impossible choices.

I ran my gaze over its hide, trying to figure out what the hell it was. Not a dire wolf. It didn't have the right heftiness even if it did have the jowls. Its fur was so short it looked like nothing more than the fuzz on a peach. The mane of black fur on its scruff was one shade darker than its pelt.

I'd never seen anything like it. I had nothing to reference it to.

Try as I might, there was no weakness to seize upon.

It was power and fear all rolled into one.

I had to swallow down a sudden rise of bile when it raised its head and lifted its lips back to curl over its snout. Black gums. Rotted and coated teeth. Breath that smelled of decay, hot and fetid, washed over my face.

I barely dared inhale.

Its long, catlike tail whipped up behind its haunches. I watched its skin shiver backward over its body the way a snake's skin undulates as it moves over the ground. This was the moment. This was the instant of no return.

It was loading up the springs in its haunches to leap at me.

It filled the whole damn door frame and I had nowhere to go to get out of range of those massive legs.

Were those nails five inches long?

Its eyes gleamed and landed on me. Caught my gaze and held me, pinned, not necessarily mesmerized by them, but caught in a sort of paralysis that had everything to do with pure terror.

They were demanding eyes. An ocular weapon that made me think that anything they regarded didn't live out three minutes past looking into them.

There was intelligence in those eyes. A question posed without words.

Good doggie? I whispered.

Not the right words, obviously. I knew it the moment my ears heard them.

In response, the beast squatted backwards for all of the three seconds it took to finally load those massive muscles. My own feet finally unglued from the floor and I staggered backwards, my arms rising in front of me in instinctive defense.

It leapt.

I screamed.

The beast dissolved to smoke, and the stink of sulfur wafted over me before I could even get my hands in front of my face.

I was aware that my breath was coming in gasps. The seat of my pants felt wet and warm.

I didn't give a flying fuck. I was alive.

For the moment.

The black, brackish wind curled around me, wrapping me like a satin gown. It lifted ceiling-ward, pulling my hair up with it. My chin tilted toward it, unbidden, as though a lover's fingers urged me in a kiss.

Those eyes were above me. They glowed down at me for several seconds while I struggled to breathe and coughed and wheezed as the smoke moved as though a gentle breeze played with it.

It released me with a playful tug of my hair and re-assembled in the middle of my kitchen. The coal fire burn of its gaze never left my face.

I side-stepped, slowly, methodically, toward the door.

The door slammed shut behind me, trapping me inside with the thing.

Magic. Black as hell magic and just as frightening.

No offense, I said with as little inflection or tone as I could manage, but I don't feel like playing fetch.

It cocked its head at me the way a dog might.

You can have the house, I said. I'm done with it. I held up my hands as though to surrender.

It bared its teeth at me. Long, razor sharp teeth that I immediately envisioned tearing into the feral pig I'd dragged and buried in a cairn a few hundred yards from my property.

I nearly fainted as the image came alive in seething, bloody color.

Could I yank open the door without pissing it off? Could I manage to bolt out and slam it before it leapt at me again, this time, embedding those claws and teeth in my back?

I wasn't sure, but I was pretty certain that if I stayed where I was, I increased the odds of it happening anyway.

I blew air from pursed lips, bracing myself. I had one chance and I had to make it good.

Never losing sight of the beast, I reached behind my back and felt around until my fingers met the knob. My fist clenched around the handle.

I twisted. The mechanism inside the lock clicked.

I almost sobbed in relief but I bit it off by clamping my lips shut tight.

I eased the door open, slowly, no sudden movements, praying it would find no resistance, that the magic the beast had sent into the door would release it.

It swung open. Thank God, it swung into the house and it wasn't at full swing before I lunged for the porch with every ounce of energy I had left.

When I pulled the door shut behind me, it was with a yank so hard the windows shook.

Once outside, I took one second to orient myself. I was safe. Nothing broken. No searing