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He carefully slid the window open. It was going to be a tight fit, but he would manage. He did not know why he glanced down, and upon doing so he immediately regretted it, feeling the overwhelming desire to kill Warol. He turned away from the window with a snarled curse and pulled himself up to the main roof, where he knew a guard was stationed. A guard he had purposely been working to avoid.
His idiot triad brother was going to be spotted at any moment.
With his peripheral eye, he watched Warol, the silver fur clearly visible in the low light of the evening, climbing up the side of the building some distance from where Rager had made his ascent. Even as he watched his brother, he crept closer to the guard. The guard had his back mostly to him but enough of the man’s face showed that Rager could see the small frown on the man’s face as he glanced down and over… right at Warol. It wasn’t merely a guard, but a huntsman, his identity betrayed by the blue cloak he wore. Before Rager could get close enough, the human raised his crossbow, A dart snicked Warol jerked violently as he clung to the stone.
A ribbon of blood appeared on his brother’s side, but the projectile did not find its mark. Rager watched Warol sway from the shock of the pain but then his brother climbed faster. The huntsman took aim again, but this time he never got the opportunity to take his shot. Rager drew up behind him and lunged for the male, snapping his neck before letting the body fall limply into his lower arms. He lowered the human and descended once more to the lower roof and waited for his brother to join him.
Warol slipped into the shadows of the attic and flashed his teeth in a quiet, apologetic grin.
“Next time, I’m not saving your pelt,” Rager whispered furiously. “You had your instructions. What do you think you are doing?”
“I want to get to our mate as much as you do, and this is the quicker route. Besides, I couldn’t let you have all the fun.” Warol winced as he probed where the dart had grazed him.
“Fun,” Rager repeated flatly. He gestured to the window. “Hurry and enter, before any other huntsmen see you.”
Warol’s tail flagged behind him with an arrogant flair, and he flashed his fangs again just before his pale hide disappeared through the window. Rager followed and immediately found himself in a dusty room stacked with a maze of forgotten human possessions. He made his way through them carefully before coming to a stop in front of a tiny body looming near his head. It moved faintly where it was perched on a dark, wooden piece of furnishing in an unnatural fashion. His heart sped up at the sight of the blank, soulless eyes staring at him from a badly cracked smiling face, until he realized it was a lifeless thing created to resemble a human. It was harmless.
Warol joined him, his lip curling in revulsion at the thing. “That is absolutely hideous. Looks like something that will get up and murder you for the fun of it when you are sleeping. I will never understand humans.”
“It is disturbing,” Rager murmured in agreement.
Warol leaned closer, sniffing at it. His nose wrinkled and he sneezed. “There is a passing scent attached to it as if it was touched a lot, but it is nearly nonexistent, faded as it is. I wonder if humans use it as vessels for the spirits of their dead,” he asked with a sudden interest.
“Now you are being disturbing,” Rager said with a snort. “You and your strange obsessions.”
“There is nothing strange about a healthy interest in the observations of honoring the dead,” Warol said. “Imagine it could be a strange human fetish meant to call the spirit of a departed one inside of it. It could even contain ashes or bones of the dead inside its sewn body!”
Warol leaned forward as if to pluck the small figure draped in long white coverings. Rager knocked his hand aside as he reached for it.
“Leave it be, Warol. We do not have time to satisfy your curiosity.”
A pained expression crossed his brother’s face. “You are right. Let’s find our mate.”
They continued into the recesses of the attic with fluid synchronicity. Until that moment, Rager hadn’t realized how much Arie’s presence had harmonized his triad. Despite their familial bonds, Warol’s eccentric tendencies had often been beyond Rager’s comprehension and frequently vexed him. The shared bond with their mate seemed to have drawn all of them closer in a shared understanding and new appreciation of each other and what they provided their family. He understood Kyx’s strange insecurities and could enjoy Warol’s sharp wit and fascinations.
They had always been a strong triad, but Arie made them a better and more cohesive family.
Without her, their family was broken, grievously injured. He knew with certainty that their triad would never recover from the permanent loss of their mate. He closed his eyes and conjured to his mind the image of her beautiful face as she broke into her familiar melodious laughter. He could not imagine their family without her. They could do no other than recover her and destroy the threat.
Holding that idea firmly in his mind, Rager made his way to the furthest end of the attic where they, at last, found the trap door. Even with his keen sight, he almost missed the pulley for the door tied against the wall. With infinite care he eased the door open, his fur bristling as it moaned in protest.
“This whole den is cursed or possessed,” Warol growled. “At this rate, someone is bound to hear us.”
Rager wasn’t inclined to disagree. The noise was terribly loud, and even he couldn’t ignore that it seemed almost otherworldly in its complaint against their intrusion. He flattened his ears. Although he was confident there was a simple explanation, the more time he spent in the human dwelling, the less comfortable he became. Not because he was as superstitious or spiritually inclined as his brother, who was the most reverent of their triad, but because of the sheer strangeness of it.
Once the door was sufficiently raised, Rager tied it off once more and stalked down the steps, his every sense seeking anyone who might oppose their presence. They descended the long, winding staircase, their steps measured to evenly disperse their weight after the first loud creak of a step under Rager’s foot. His ears leaned forward, alert for any noise. At first, he heard nothing, but as they descended, he eventually caught the sound of impatient shuffling just below them. He paused, every nerve alert.
Leaning over the side of the rail, he glanced down and caught the edge of a flared head covering that many of the huntsmen seemed to favor while in the Citadel. Before he had an opportunity to devise a method of attack, Warol leaped over the side of the banister directly down onto the huntsman. His feet caught the human in the back even as his lower arms caught ahold of his shoulders, wrenching him against the forward propulsion of Warol’s weight. His brother’s upper arms gripped the head and simultaneously yanked it back too. The double crack of spine and neck were audible, followed by the impact of the human’s body weighed down by his Ragoru attacker.
The door below swung open in direct response and two huntsmen barreled through, alerted by the noise. Rager dropped down beside his brother. As one cohesive fighting unit, they surged forward, teeth bared, as they lunged for the huntsmen. The males shouted out in panic, but their alarm was silenced under the assault of fangs and claws. Rager and Warol tore through their enemy, merciful only in the quick manner in which they dispatched their enemy.
Pushing the bodies further against the staircase, they entered the next level of the great den and shut the door behind them. This floor was empty, other than the huntsmen they had slain, but had several doors lining the walls. At the other end were the stairs that led down to the next level. He proceeded directly toward them until he caught the sweet scent of their mate.
Although he knew it was unwise to deviate from the plan. Every second counted for the retrieval and rescue of their mate, but he couldn’t resist its call to his instincts. Perhaps their mate had not yet descended to the lower chambers to begin the ceremony? If they could remove her safely, further away from the conflict, it would be all the better. Swayed by that logic, Rager burst through the door with a snarl, his eyes quickly scanning his surroundings for any sign of his mate and any potential threat.
To his disappointment, the room was empty, but what remained chilled his blood. The window had metal covering it to cage their mate within, but the bed was even worse. A metal chain hung from it, one end terminating in a band that lay open on the bed. Dried blood crusted it, and the scent permeated the room. Anger rippled through him, his entire body vibrating as his savage growl echoed through the room. The ferocity of the sound was so unlike anything he had ever heard that, at first, he did not realize it came from him.
“What is this place?” Warol choked out around his obvious horror as he backed away at the sight of the bed. “The humans that dwell here must be mad to do such a thing…” He turned to look at Rager, the yellow light of his eyes brightening with rage. “I will destroy whoever did this to our mate.”
