Inked

the surrounding rock.
    “I’ll take the challenge for you,” he told me, his jaw tight.
    “Like hell.”
    “Lia! Don’t be a fool. I’ve seen Grayshadow fight! You can’t win!”
    “I guess we’ll find out.” The death grip on my arm didn’t change. “Let me go, Sebastian.”
    “I’ll repudiate you, dismiss you from the tribe! It will render your challenge meaningless.”
    I blinked. He looked utterly serious. “And that would help how? Then they’d kill me for being here.”
    “I will guarantee you safe passage.” He started pulling me away, toward the sidelines.
    “Then Lobizon will kill me tomorrow!” I dug in my heels, which did nothing but carve furrows out of the dirt. “Sebastian! He came here to challenge you! As soon as I leave—”
    He rounded on me, furious. “I can fight my own battles!”
    “Not this time. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
    “I am not going to tell my brother I let his mate die!”
    “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
    “You don’t understand. It would kill him! Our mother—” He stopped, a flash of pain cutting across those striking eyes. “She died in a contest much like this one.”
    “She was the woman you told me about,” I realized. “The one who died defending her mate.”
    “Yes. And I can’t watch that again!”
    “You won’t.”
    “You don’t know Grayshadow like I do. He will kill you.”
    I looked over my shoulder, to where Grayshadow silently waited. Unlike me, he’d taken time to change clothes before approaching the Council. I could have picked him out as Arnou anywhere. It was in the shape of his long, dark cloak, cut from a template hundreds of years old that had been copied from one worn by their first clan leader. More obviously, it was in the peculiar mix of arrogance and elegance that no other clan quite managed, that calm conceit that said we are first because we are best.
    My stomach clenched. “No,” I told Sebastian. “He won’t.”
    “You’re afraid; I can see it on your face. Relinquish your challenge and let me get you out of here.”
    “Fear isn’t a bad thing, if you use it right,” I told him, and wrenched away.
    The Council’s servants had been busy lighting more torches, probably for the benefit of my lousy human eyesight. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful or not. A circle of them now ringed Grayshadow in fire, shedding sepia light over the sand and gilding his face, deepening the crags, highlighting the lines and making him look like what he was—a warrior with a hell of a lot more experience than me. He seemed to think so, too, because he wasn’t looking too worried.
    “Tell me, human,” he called before I’d even reached him. “Do you remember the story of Red Riding Hood?”
    “Let me guess. You aren’t the benevolent woodsman.”
    Grayshadow laughed. “He only exists in the modern version. Today, the foolish little girl is saved by the woodsman who kills the wicked wolf. But in the original French story, she was given false instructions by the wolf when she asked the way to her grandmother’s house. She took his advice and ended up being eaten. And that was it. There was no woodsman and no grandmother, merely a well-fed wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood.”
    “Guess we’re lucky it was only a fairy tale,” I said, stepping inside the ring of torch light.
    “But it reflected reality. The original story is from a harsher time, when my ancestors fought with yours for territory, for food—for survival. The writer understood: you were our enemy, and we were yours.”
    “Once, maybe. But we’re allies now, in case you haven’t—”
    A clawed hand shot out and ripped through my shirt. I had shields up, or I’d have probably been bisected. As it was, talons like blades rattled across my ribs like a stick along a wrought iron fence.
    Grayshadow rolled up his sleeve, exposing blistered flesh, while I fought to remain standing. “Now we’re even.”
    I thought of the wolves he’d butchered, of the ruin he’d made of Cyrus, and my lip curled. “Not even close,” I hissed, and pushed a section of my shields outward in a band that wrapped around his throat. Something hit me in the side, and I could hear the crunch of shattered bone. I bit my lip on a scream and held on, until a burst of raw power exploded against my ragged shields like a firestorm.
    I staggered back and he tore away. My shields had to be almost gone, because this felt like a direct hit, with every cell in my