Page 11 of Unleashed

Aduun eased his struggles and ground his teeth together, forcing his attention to the female. She looked small, weak, afraid, and unarmed, but appearances meant nothing. She’d been inside hismind. Even through the bestial haze of ravenousness and rage, he’d felt her presence in his mind for an instant and had been helpless but to yield to her command. How could shenotbe a Creator?

Vortok set Aduun on his feet and tentatively withdrew his powerful arms, grunting softly; he’d undoubtedly been poked by several quills by holding Aduun in such a fashion.

Aduun dipped his gaze to the heartstones on the floor. Despite the other powerful odors, the scent of blood was the most distinct to him — not only that of shrieker Vortok had slain, but of this female. He knew it was her blood glistening upon the stones in the soft light.

“She blooded our heartstones,” Aduun said.

“Yes.” Balir’s grip on Aduun’s shoulder tightened slightly. “Can you not feel it inside you?”

Inhaling deeply, Aduun closed his eyes. There, beneath all the fury and pain, deep within his beast, he felt it. Faint, faraway, unmistakable. Even without his heartstone in place, he felther.

Vortok stepped back. Aduun’s tail flicked restlessly from side to side, its movements beyond his control; it was driven purely by his inner turmoil.

Aduun exhaled and opened his eyes. The female remained against the wall on the opposite side of the chamber, her gaze gleaming with unmasked fear. She’d placed the stones on the floor and moved away from them. An offering.

And whatever language she’d spoken, it hadn’t been Kelsharn’s.

His claws clicked on the floor as he stalked forward. Vortok and Balir flanked him on either side, the latter not removing his hand from Aduun’s shoulder. Together, they crouched and collected their heartstones.

Aduun rose and stared down at the stone on his palm. The female’s blood was dark on its surface, deepening the red of the stone’s inner light where it covered the fissures. As he watched, the blood slowly sank into the stone, absorbed by whatever dark magic Kelsharn had wrought over it.

With another glance at the female, Aduun raised his hand and pressed the heartstone to his chest.

Searing pain spread across his torso like a summer wildfire across the grasslands. Every muscle in his body tensed at once, amplifying the pain, but the physical agony was nothing compared to the strain on his mind. Ancient memories that had been only faint impressions a moment before roared to the forefront of his consciousness with such clarity that he felt as if he were reliving them. The faces of his tribesmen, his clanmates, their tents and feast fires, the dirt, cold, and blood of the many hunts he’d led, Kelsharn’s false friendship and his own foolish acceptance of it; it all flitted through his awareness in an unstoppable deluge.

The memories were a reminder of who he’d once been, of the happiness he’d once known and would never know again, of all his failures and what his people had suffered because of them.

The pained grunts and gasps from both sides suggested Vortok and Balir were having similar experiences as their heartstones settled into place, burning through flesh and bone to bury themselves deep within.

Aduun’s shoulders rose and fell rapidly with heaving breaths. The heat that had suffused his body slowly dissipated, fading to a tingling sensation before ceasing fully.

With his memories came the true power of his emotions, sharpened by the restoration of the man who’d been paired with the beast — rage towering like jagged mountain peaks over a deep, dark valley of sorrow, surrounded by a sense of loss and guilt that swept forever onward toward the horizon, as endless as the great, roiling seas of legend.

Though their magnitude and intensity had been diminished by the absence of his heartstone, all those emotions were his. They were the truth of his heart. This was the return of what had been taken from him, of the pieces that once made him whole.

But something new was layered within those familiar emotions, something of surprising strength despite its relative youth.

Aduun returned his attention to the female. Her features were drawn not in fear but in discomfort or distress.Shewas the new part of him; her blood was at his core, and he was even more aware of her now as a man than he’d been as a beast.

The others were correct; this female was no Creator. She was something else entirely, something new and mysterious — just as Kelsharn’s kind had once been new and mysterious. They could not dismiss her as harmless simply because she was different.

Perhaps she’d been frightened and didn’t know Aduun, Vortok, and Balir were valos, didn’t know their heartstones could’ve been used to control them to some extent. Perhaps she didn’t know what valos or heartstones were. Was she undeserving of his rage, his hatred, his vengeance?

She’d offered the heartstones willingly. That meant something, didn’t it?

It meantsomething, but it wasn’t enough. Though she’d blooded the stones, had forged a bond between them, he didn’t have to accept that bond. He didn’t know what she was, and he couldn’t trust her. Not yet.

“Are you well, female?” Vortok asked.

“You speak my father’s language,” she said in the tongue of Aduun’s people. “You are—”

Her words were cut off when a glowing figure appeared in the center of the chamber. It towered over everyone, even Vortok. The well-defined, lean muscles of the figure’s bare torso and abdomen led to narrow hips, where a wide belt held a long, dark waistcloth in place. The fabric hung to the floor and was pulled taut at the plates on each hip, which were shaped to look like the gaping maws of nameless, nightmarish beasts. The figure’s forearms were clad in spiked arm-coverings that extended over the backs of its long-fingered hands. Most unsettling of all was the mask. It was black, bone-like, with massive, curving horns jutting from each side to taper off over the head. There were no visible eyeholes; only the figure’s mouth and chin were uncovered, its lips curved into a sinister, sharp-toothed grin.

The tall, slim visage was familiar to Aduun — it had consumed his life for more years than he could count, despite the crimson haze his beast had settled over their shared mind.

“Kelsharn,” the female breathed in horror.

Aduun had no time to wonder what the female was or how she knew Kelsharn; he was staring at hisCreator, the being who’d shattered everything Aduun had known. He curled his fingers to ready his claws. His quills rose, and he growled deep in his chest, nearly drowning out Balir’s soft clicking.

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