Healer's Choice Read Free Page A

deep in a steep hillside.
    He was no shaman to know the disposition of these only-human souls. Nor did they matter to him. Pack came first, and these dead represented nothing but danger to his kind.
    He and Daivat had both covered their tracks to this burial site. Still, until more was known about the human encampment, Aryck was hesitant to leave the bodies so close to it. If there were gifted humans among those who’d invaded Coyote lands, it was possible they could find these corpses.
    Even in the cities, where rule of law was said to prevail, Weres were protected only while in human form. Evidence of a jaguar attack might well offer an excuse for those in the encampment to come hunting with their guns, killing his kind regardless of whether they wore fur or not.
    Aryck once again lifted the dead man from the shallow grave, slinging the carcass over his shoulder as he would have done to a slain deer. He did the same to the woman, balancing the weight before settling into a smooth, mile-eating run.
    He traveled well-worn game paths until he drew near a pack of spotted hyenas. It was Jaguar land, but like most of the other Were alphas, his father allowed pure animals to move about freely as long as their presence didn’t threaten the pack.
    Aryck grimaced in reaction to scrub marked with oily excrement from hyena anal glands. He stopped on a sheltered rise above the den area and lowered the corpses to the ground.
    The wind favored him, carrying the smell of death toward the direction he’d come from. He carefully stripped the bodies, dropping the torn and bloody clothing into a pile before creeping forward to peer down at the gathered pack.
    Humans thought of hyenas as scavengers, but they were predators to be respected. Aryck had no desire to become their prey. There were almost thirty animals present, including two he didn’t recognize. From their subservient behavior and small size he guessed they were males.
    Several cubs played near a watchful female. They wrestled and tumbled, making Aryck smile in remembrance of a simpler time in his life, and reminding him, too, of the four mischievous and adventurous Jaguar cubs he often found himself hunting and chastising for the danger their curiosity led them to.
    He took a moment to study the slope leading down to the lounging pack. It was steep enough to serve his purpose.
    Given the lack of threat coupled with the promise of food, he doubted the hyenas would give chase. Still, he hurled the corpses as far from his position as possible.
    A rattling growl sounded immediately. It was echoed tenfold then followed by loud whooping, a rallying call announcing a meal as the first animal reached the bodies.
    Aryck paused only long enough to gather the discarded clothing then began running, confident that by the time he reached camp nothing would remain of the murdered humans, not even a bone.
     
    FIREFLIES lit the dusk and swarms of tiny, winged fey raced for their nighttime hives as Rebekka and the others reached the forest edge closest to the street lined with Were brothels. Her breath caught when she spared a glance in the direction of the maze. It was leveled, reduced to rubble and chunks of brick that made the demon’s destruction in the woods seem like nothing.
    He’d been a prisoner there as much as the Weres had been, used by the former priest, Anton, not just to guard the maze but to provide entertainment by hunting humans and beasts in it for the benefit of the gaming clubs. For Abijah to escape it, to wreak such damage . . .
    Fear settled in Rebekka’s chest for Araña, who’d entered the maze in payment of a debt owed to vampires, sent there in order to destroy the urn once housing the demon. And for Tir, who’d left to find Araña after helping to free the Weres.
    Levi whistled softly and, guessing that she worried, said, “If Abijah didn’t kill you, he probably left them alive as well. Let’s hope Araña and Tir were also successful in killing Abijah’s