Was that a sigh?I glanced back at Onyx. Still sleeping, his paws twitched against the leaves. Vines started to move of their own accord and reached up with deadly quiet, sneaking around his limbs.
An agonizing pain radiated from my hand, and I shrieked. Yanking my attention to the fruit beneath me, I paled. The thorns had come crashing down, snapping around my hand and embedding themselves in the soft muscles of my arm. Vines lashed out in a frenzy and crawled up toward my shoulder.
Onyx roared, but the moment I’d screamed, the tree had come to life. Snarling vines covered in glistening barbs wrapped around him, keeping him ensnared. I tried to run to him, but the trap held strong. Barbed thorns bit into his fur and locked him in place.
“Onyx!” I jerked and sent a wave of power to my symbol, contemplating which beast to summon. A flash of rosewood light erupted from my hand, and the trap released with a high-pitched whine. From the center of the tree, a creature emerged. Endless streams of vines shot outward from its center mass. The beast was no bigger than a toddler, and two spheres made up its body. The larger sphere was hollow with branch-like bars displaying an empty cage. The smaller, bulbous sphere was its head. Another shrill whine escaped from a jagged rip masquerading as a mouth beneath glowing yellow eyes.
Behind me, Onyx howled. Still trapped in a net of vines, he couldn’t fend off the continued barrage of attacks.
“Let go of him!” I sprinted toward the beast, tossing sure footing aside and charging instead toward its center mass. Vines reacted in an instant, creating a wall of needles that ripped into my clothes and flesh and stopped me in my tracks.
I needed fire, but summoning Lola would be a mistake. Her weight would cause her to go crashing to the ground. My mind worked on overtime. If I couldn’t save Onyx by force, I’d have to send him back to the beast realm and pray he’d agree to fly me down when I was through. Channeling power through to my hand, I opened the realm door.
“Go!” I begged him to take the invitation. The thorns had done more damage than I’d realized, growing slowly to form spikes the size of my arm and digging through his flesh. He needed to heal. But he only looked at me with worried eyes as he ignored the promise of safety.
“It’s okay. Please, just go home.”
He refused to move, each moment costing his silky hide more and more gashes. A vine lashed out and scraped the side of my face. I’d never encountered or heard of a beast like this, but unexpected creatures were bound to appear from time to time. It was what made filling the pages of our bestiaries so exhilarating.
A sudden flux of power raised the hairs on my arms as one of my beasts approached the open door and barreled their way through. Lustrous white fur and plated scales caught in the high sun, and Dominus roared to life beside me. Onyx took one look at him and seemed to decide that I was safe. Finally, he disappeared into the realm, leaving an empty cage of vines behind.
I closed the door on him before he could dart back out. Then, I turned my attention to Dominus. Once again, he’d come without prompting. He hadn’t even been on my mind. I’d glossed right over him as I ran through a list of my available beasts. I tangled my fingers in my bestiary as I pushed away my shock and instead focused on the beast before us.
“Stop those vines,” I said.
With a menacing yowl, Dominus charged. The wings about his ankles flared outward, and he leapt over the vine wall before us. The beast’s endless limbs re-formed and lashed out, but Dominus’s agility made him a moving target with unpredictable patterns. In a matter of moments, he’d scaled the wall. Through the trembling vines, I was just able to catch a glimpse of him crashing into the beast with deadly accuracy. Everything went still.
Dominus snarled and waited, teeth poised above the beast’s head. The creature shivered, and my heart ached. We’d disrupted his home. All he was doing was guarding his precious bounty, and I’d tried to steal one. And even though Dominus was just protecting me, as any of my beasts would’ve done, it wasn’t right for this creature to suffer. Onyx would heal, thanks to the realm, but if Dominus struck? This beast would be left to recover on its own. And I couldn’t live with that.
Mind set, I raced around the barrier. “Hold on, Dominus.”
His answer was a simmering growl, but he didn’t sink his teeth into the beast. A garbled whimper rushed outward from the pinned creature, and his circular yellow eyes held nothing but terror.
Crouching beside his head, I placed one hand on Dominus’s snout and the other just above the beast’s eyes. “Dominus won’t hurt you unless I tell him to. Now, may I please have a ruska fruit? We’ll leave you alone after that.” He’d likely spent his entire existence in this tree, watching over his prizes. I’d only take what was needed and leave the rest.
A series of clicks and a soft scraping, like kindling coming together to start a fire, slipped through its mouth. A lone vine dove into the pool of leaves and emerged with a fresh fruit. Taking my hand off Dominus, I gently cupped the fruit and smiled.
“Thank you.”
Channeling my power to my symbol, I opened the beast realm door and glanced at Dominus. “And thank you. Will you check on Onyx for me?”
His gaze darted from me to the beast as if deciding whether or not it was safe for him to leave. I nodded my encouragement, and he lifted his paw, allowing the beast to squirm a short distance away. Finally, Dominus huffed and disappeared.
Adrenaline fled in a cool rush, and I slumped to a thick branch. “Now I just have to get down.”
Slowly, the beast crawled toward me. More clicks and scraping. The thorns along its limbs pressed flat to its body. A tentative vine, now devoid of dangerous barbs, slid forward and touched my mark. Rosewood light bloomed in the space between us, and a connection solidified into place. Charmed. I hadn’t even been trying.
Why?I stared at my hands and the fruit captured between them. The rosewood hue hung about my fingers, defying everything I knew about charming. Taming shouldn’t have been this…easy. Sure, there was a handful of lower-level beasts that didn’t require more than basic charm, but this? Blinking, I stared at the beast. Its jagged gash of a mouth pulled up in a smile.
A slow-moving tingle crept over my skin.What did this mean?Maybe it was a benefit of being named a Council member. Maybe we were blessed by the goddess in a way that made taming easier… Maybe…
My brow furrowed. No, I would’ve known about that. This felt different. I’d have to ask about it later, but for now…I extended my hand outward and felt a rush of warmth as the creature’s vines wrapped around my fingers in a gentle squeeze.
“Can you get me down from here?”
The second, cagelike sphere splintered open as if on a hinge, and a handful of vines urged me toward it.
I raised a brow. “I’m not going to fit in that.”
