LITMIR.BIZ

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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 only a moment before nodding and moving away to do as his Packleader commanded.

      Feeling increasingly steady, Reule directed his focus away from the fearful, paralyzed Jakals that yet remained alive, and the noisy thoughts of his Packmates. It wasn’t hard to home in on the sorrow. Adjusting his vision once more to detect heated shapes, he scanned the house more slowly. He was in the center of the structure, one floor above him and one below. Wherever she was, she was close. He might have mistaken her for a Jakal in his first scan, but it was clear from the depth of her emotion that she couldn’t be.

      Yet nothing stood upright in the house save his Pack. He looked up once more and realized there was another floor above the third. And there, up in the farthest corner, he spied a small ball of the dimmest heat.

      “Darcio, did you encounter anyone upstairs?”

      “No, My Prime. I only sought the one stray you noted.”

      “Then this is the female I’m sensing. Lord and Lady, but she has strong emotions,” he marveled as he stepped over an incapacitated Jakal.

      “One emotion, My Prime. One bound to attract a man of good conscience,” Darcio said suspiciously. “It’s magnified just as you magnified death to the Jakals. What manner of creature can do that besides yourself?” And even Reule shouldn’t be able to do such a thing, he thought. No man should hold death in the power of his thoughts. Reule had always been fair and just with his power, but things like this had a way of changing a man. Even a Prime.

      “You’re mistaken,” Reule said as he moved with increasing sureness out of the room. “There is no magnification. It’s…pure.” The word kept springing to his mind. He decided it suited and left it at that. Darcio didn’t say anything, but Reule could feel him repressing arguments because he didn’t want to contradict his Prime again. Darcio was a good man, ever his voice of caution and conscience, always advising him to

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