Shifter (Wicked Woods #6) Read online

  “I have to.”

  “Well, you aren’t doing it alone,” Fallon insisted. “I’m coming with you. I’d go to the ends of the earth for you. I can definitely go back to Wicked.”

  “Fallon…”

  Fallon kissed her then. He pulled Briony to him sharply and kissed her passionately, holding her against him while he did it. He didn’t seem to care that Archer was there, or that someone might walk in and see them. He didn’t seem to care about anything but her. He pulled back, still staring into her eyes. Once, that might have caught her, entranced her, just through the power that vampires had. Now, there was nothing holding Briony there but how beautiful Fallon was. That was enough though.

  “I know the feeling that you’re getting from the scepter. I know that everyone thinks that it has somehow chosen you to be with Josh, but that doesn’t matter to me. All that matters is what you want. What’s in your heart, Briony?”

  Briony stalled, trying to think. The truth was that she didn’t know what was in her heart. If she did, her life would be a lot simpler than it was. She did know who wasn’t in her heart though.

  “Are you saying that I should just ignore what the people of my kingdom want?”

  “Yes,” Fallon said, simply. “If it isn’t what you want. It isn’t what you want, is it?”

  Briony shook her head. “No. It’s not just Josh. I can’t marry him when it would mean the deaths of all vampires. It would kill Jake, George…”

  “Me.”

  “Yes,” Briony said, and then Fallon kissed her again. This kiss was softer, sweeter.

  “You still care about me then?” Fallon asked.

  “You know I do.”

  “It’s hard to tell, sometimes. But you… you’re the only girl I’ve ever loved, Briony. I’ve never wanted anyone else. And it’s more than that. You’re the reason I manage to stop myself from hurting people. You’re my reason for staying good. Every time it feels like the hunger might be stronger than me, I think about how you’d look if you knew. I think about how much it would hurt you.”

  “It shouldn’t be about me,” Briony said. She wasn’t comfortable with Fallon putting that much on her, because what would it mean if she didn’t end up with him. “You should do the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because of me.”

  Fallon shook his head. “But it isn’t about that for us, Briony. Look at George. He’s stayed good because of how much he loves Sophie. Jake… he loves you and Sophie. Every vampire I’ve heard of who doesn’t feed on humans manages it because they love someone. It’s like that love reminds us what it’s like to be human. It’s that love that makes the difference.”

  “I love you too, Fallon,” Briony said, because that was true. No matter how complicated everything else got, that would always be true.

  Their third kiss was as passionate as any they’d ever had, their hands roaming over one another as they kissed deeply, ignoring Archer’s presence in the background completely. Briony felt the moment when Fallon’s fangs appeared, but that was okay, because hers were there in the same moment. They stood back, looking at one another and then laughing.

  “We need to go,” Briony said.

  Fallon nodded. “Both of us?”

  “Both of us. Archer?”

  Archer stepped out onto the palace balcony, hopping up onto the rail as lightly as an acrobat. He shifted then, and the difference seemed impossible, the way it always did. One moment there was just a good looking boy their age standing there, the next…

  His dragon form didn’t make the balcony creak, but that just suggested that it had been reinforced to withstand it. The giant, golden form of the dragon perched there like some great bird, Archer’s wings spread out so that they caught the light and shone. Briony clambered up onto his back easily, while Fallon climbed up behind her, wrapping his arms around her. Briony liked that. So often, it seemed to be her relying on him.

  Archer leapt into the air, and for a second he hung there, giving Briony a perfect view out over the waterfall beneath, with the rainbows hanging in the falling flow. Then he dropped along it, plunging down through the billowing cloud while Briony clung to him and Fallon clung to her, his wings pulled back tight.

  They spread again, and Archer leveled out, taking them out over a panorama of fields and forest so far below that they seemed somehow unreal, like a patchwork quilt or some kind of child’s drawing.

  “Find a gate for us, Archer,” Briony said. “Get us back to Wicked.”

  Archer roared his assent and wheeled, obviously scanning the ground below. He seemed to find what he was looking for, because he picked out a line of flight and set off along it, a swooping golden arrow through the air. He took them lower now, low enough that they could make out occasional figures in the fields and pick out the details of scattered houses, where Hugtandalfer lived and worked. Briony saw creatures below too, winged griffons flying closer to the ground, a giant tall enough that he dwarfed the trees beside him.

  Then she saw something that gleamed golden in the sunlight, as bright as Archer’s scales were. It seemed like a simple beam of light, or maybe the reflection of something below, down in the middle of a stretch of woodland below.

  “What’s that?” Briony asked, pointing.

  Fallon followed the direction of her pointing finger. “I’m not sure. It looks like something in the woods, reflecting. Here, it could be anything.”

  That was true, and Briony was about to let Archer fly past it when she felt the tingling of the scepter head. It lay against her chest, worn around her neck like a pendant, and the metal of it was suddenly warm against her skin.

  “The scepter is doing something,” Briony said. “I… I think it might have something to do with whatever’s below.”

  Archer circled the spot where the gleam had come from, flapping his leathery wings in slow, graceful movements, almost hanging in the air. While he did that, Briony tried to pay more attention to the head of the scepter, trying to work out why it would respond like that and what there was about whatever was below that was so important. She still didn’t understand everything about how the scepter worked; she just knew that it was a repository for the power of royal Hugtandalfer, and so had the essence of generations of her ancestors within it. Did that mean it also had something of their personalities locked away inside it? The truth was that Briony didn’t know, yet in things like its reaction to Josh and the way it had responded to her, it sometimes felt almost like the scepter had a life of its own.

  Which was why she wasn’t surprised when she suddenly knew, simply knew that she needed to investigate what lay below. That it was important, and it was for her. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew it nonetheless. It was like something she’d half-forgotten and just remembered, except that the memory had never been hers in the first place.

  “We need to go down,” Briony said. “I don’t know what’s down there, but the scepter is responding to it so strongly…”

  Even as she said that, the scepter started to vibrate more, so that it thrummed against her skin.

  “We need to go down now,” Briony repeated. “Whatever that golden glow is, I get the feeling that… that it’s for me.”

  Archer was obviously paying attention, despite the rush of wind past them. His circling turned into a spiral, and with each sweeping pass he went lower, heading for a break in the trees. Whatever was down there, it seemed that the dragon agreed. They needed to find out what it was.

  Chapter 9

  Archer flew down, still circling, heading for the open space where they’d seen the golden glow, and towards which the scepter seemed to be pulling Briony. Looking down, she could see that the area below was rocky, the stone hard enough that the trees couldn’t grow up over it. It was also higher up than most of the land around it, the trees having disguised the contours of the land from the air so that it was only as they landed that Briony realized they were on the highest point of land for several miles.

  Mist s
eemed to curl between the trees as they got lower, and Briony suspected that couldn’t be natural. Though with Palisor, it was impossible to know for certain. Maybe that slope accounted for the roughness of Archer’s landing, because the jolt of it was enough to tumble Fallon out from behind her, while even Briony found herself sliding down the dragon’s scales to land flat footed on the rocks beneath. She managed to stop herself from stumbling, which wasn’t easy in the long dress, but she managed it.

  “Sorry,” Archer said, and when Briony turned he was in his golden haired human form again.

  By that point though, Briony wasn’t listening, because the scepter was pulling her towards the tree line. Literally pulling her, because right then it felt like the thing might either yank off the chain that held it around her neck or physically drag her forward, so that the only way to avoid being choked by it was to go in the direction of the pull.

  There was a path there, a narrow track that looked like it had been formed by the passage of animals through the woods. There were even hoof prints there, though Briony couldn’t work out the kind of animal that they were from. Maybe some kind of horse? She didn’t have the time to stop and check with the others though, because the scepter was still pulling her on, so that she had to walk quickly to keep up.

  The hem of her pale dress was quickly crusted with mud, and at least once it snagged on branches, because the path didn’t seem very clear. It was like no one had walked along it for a while. No one human, at least. Briony saw a tuft of white hair caught on a branch ahead, clearly from some kind of animal. With Fallon and Archer following in her wake, she sped up as she walked along the path.

  The trees around them started to change, their leaves turning silvery as the three of them continued along the path. Soon, it was as though they were walking between two curtains of shimmering precious metal, the scepter still firmly indicating that it was this way Briony had to go.

  Ahead, the silver branches parted, moving aside as Briony stepped towards them, revealing another expanse of bare stone. A kind of natural stone table, little more than a rough block of granite worn by the weather, sat a little way away, while beside it…

  It was a unicorn. There was no other word for it. It was a horse higher at the shoulder than Briony was tall, with a hide so white that it seemed almost to glow from within. Its eyes were the same silver as the leaves on the trees, and there was a horn jutting from the center of its forehead, golden and gleaming. Briony had glimpsed unicorns from the air before, flying over them with Archer, but this one was somehow different.

  “It’s the sacred unicorn,” Archer said, and the dragon sounded like he was in awe. “Look at it.”

  “What’s so special about it?” Fallon asked, and Briony found herself wondering how he couldn’t see that everything about it was special.

  “They say it was the first creature in Palisor,” Archer whispered, just behind Briony. “They say that its horn contains more magic than all the kings of Palisor put together. I never thought I’d see it.”

  It seemed odd to Briony that they would suddenly find a creature this powerful, unless…

  “Is this what Pietre was afraid of?” she asked.

  Archer shook his head. “This isn’t the slayer. The unicorn doesn’t have an army. It doesn’t need one.”

  “Then how did we find it?” Briony continued to look at the creature as she asked that. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. Even with the scepter showing them the way, why had they spotted it now?

  “You found me because I wished to be found.” The words were clear, deep and strong. They sounded even though the lips of the unicorn didn’t move. The voice of the creature was male and gently authoritative; a voice to be obeyed out of love, not fear. “You found me because Palisor and your world do not need the slaying army now. That could be worse than the threat it is set free to counter. You need another way, and I have that, though the price is a great one.”

  Briony turned her head slightly, looking to Archer for guidance. The dragon shrugged.

  “I don’t know what you should do, Briony. Isn’t the scepter telling you anything? You should trust that.”

  “Ah, the scepter,” the unicorn said. “You carry it, and the blood of royalty. Two parts of a prophecy, but also the way to many other things. You are the only one of the direct line left now, aren’t you? You are the Queen?”

  Briony nodded. “Yes. I am.”

  “Then I was right. It’s time. You must do what is needed to make sure that my land stays safe from harm.”

  Its land. Maybe Archer was right about it being the first creature in Palisor.

  “What do I have to do?” Briony asked. She remembered something the creature had said before. “You said something about there being a price. What price?”

  The unicorn tilted its head towards a stone table. On it, now that she could take her eyes off the unicorn long enough to look, Briony could see a knife of purest obsidian, the handle made from the same granite as the table.

  “The price is mine to pay,” the unicorn said, “but it will not be easy for you either. You must slay me, Briony, Queen of Palisor. You must take the knife, take my life, and take my horn. My horn shall be your weapon against the vampires. It will give you the power to be the greatest slayer of their kind who has lived. It will give you a way to do what you must do to protect your people.”

  Briony tried to stall, asking the obvious question. “I thought I had to marry Josh. The scepter chose him. Why would it lead me to you if it chose him?”

  “This ‘Josh’ is a werewolf?” the unicorn asked.

  Briony nodded.

  “Then it would have singled him out according to the temperature of his blood. Vampires are cool in their death. Werewolves run hot. They are opposites. The scepter has enough of the power of the dead kings in it to sense that, and to sense that a powerful werewolf would be enough to stand beside you.”

  “So it’s an accident?” Briony asked. “It could have been any werewolf? But why didn’t I feel that with Kevin? He’s… um… another werewolf.”

  “One you like better than this ‘Josh’.” It wasn’t a question. “Did you stand in Palisor with this other werewolf while you held the scepter?”

  Briony tried to think, and then shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Then that is the difference.”

  “So I have a choice about who I marry?”

  “Of course you do,” the unicorn said. “I’m doing this largely so that you do have a choice. Though you should know that even for the full power of my horn to be revealed, you will need to be married to one powerful enough to be worthy of it, whoever that is.”

  Briony didn’t know what to say to that, or what to feel in that moment. There was relief, definitely, that she didn’t have to marry Josh. There was a kind of gratitude for what the unicorn was trying to give her, and maybe excitement at the possibility of having something that would make it easier to deal with Pietre. Yet to get all that, she would still have to kill this magnificent, intelligent, powerful creature.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Briony said to it.

  The unicorn dipped its head. “I know that, and that is part of what makes you worthy to do it. You are not like the first slayer of vampires. You do not kill easily. You protect those around you. If any must take my horn, then I would have it be you. It will bring peace to Palisor and to the Wicked Woods. That is my purpose now, so take the knife, use it, and make me proud.”

  “I can’t,” Briony started to say, but she found her hand reaching out for the stone of the dagger. She ran her thumb down the blade without even thinking about it, watching a bead of blood well up almost like it didn’t belong to her.

  The scepter. The scepter was doing this, because Briony could feel the power of it pulsing through her in a compulsion she wasn’t sure that she could fight. And she could feel another power with it, a power that seemed in her mind to glow as golden as the unicorn’s horn.

&nb
sp; “I’m sorry,” the unicorn said, “but I can’t let you shy away from this.” Briony felt a force grab hold of her arm, willing her to strike out at the unicorn.

  Her arm swept out, holding the dagger, which she plunged into the unicorn’s heart. It toppled, collapsing onto its side, staring up at her. “I’m so sorry,” Briony cried, tears running down her cheeks, as her body was led by the scepter to complete her task. Briony was sure that she felt the moment when it died, something changing in the pull of the scepter, but that didn’t stop her from doing what she had to do next, no matter how gruesome it was. She set to work with the knife even while tears fell from her eyes, the compulsion that had made her strike holding her there until the golden shaft of the horn sat in her hand, as smeared with blood as the rest of her.

  The unicorn had paid its price. It had given up its life, just like that. Just for her. Briony knelt there, staring at the horn as though seeing it for the first time. She knelt there trying to hold back her tears, trembling violently with the enormity of what she had just done, while Archer and Fallon dragged away the body of the first creature of Palisor. She stared at the horn while they buried it, trying to work out how what she held could possibly be worth what she’d just had to do.

  As a strange but warm sensation flow over her from the unicorn’s goodness and powers, she knew how she had to use it. It was a stake. The stake. One that would give her a chance against Pietre and his vampires without having to call up a threat that would kill all of their kind. She forced herself to stand and looked at Archer. She didn’t know how her face looked right then, but even the dragon seemed nervous.

  “Change back into your dragon form,” Briony commanded. “We have a gate home to find.”

  Chapter 10

  They rose up over the clearing again, clinging tightly to Archer’s back. The dragon’s wings lifted him sharply, leaving the spot where Briony had slain the unicorn behind in a matter of seconds. It couldn’t happen quickly enough for her then, though with the golden horn of the beast pushed into her belt and the creature’s blood still staining her clothing, some parts of the last few minutes weren’t so easy to leave behind.