Peta (An Elemental Series Novella, 3.5) by Shannon Mayer

is deadly to any who don’t carry fire in their veins.”
    “On your knees,” Fiametta commanded.
    Lark went to her knees, shaking off those who would hold her down.
    The lash rose and fell, the sparkling flames along the edge of it so hot they were white. Over and over again it fell. Someone hung onto me, several someones’. Hands were wrapped around my neck, tail, and back legs and it was only then that I realized my teeth were bared as I stared at Fiametta and fought to get to her.
    I would rip out the bitch’s throat and claw her face to shreds. Larkspur’s pain danced at the edge of our bond but she refused to let me help her. Which only left me one choice.
    Kill the one who hurt her.
    “Enough, you’ll kill her!” A voice cut through the madness and the prick—Cactus—stepped between the queen and Lark. Perhaps he did love her after all.
    “The punishment is done,” Fiametta said while staring hard at Lark. The hands that held me back released me and I ran to my charge.
    I pushed my face close to hers, breathing in time with her. “Lark, draw from me.”
    “No.”
    Ahh, to have such heart! I knew what she did, she did to spare me. And it made me love her even more. “I will carry her,” I said.
    Others lifted her onto my back and I slunk into a stalking crouch that allowed me to move forward with very little jarring motion. All the way to Brand’s home, I slunk as Lark’s wounds seeped into my fur, the blood and fluids leaking her life from her. That she’d survived this far was unbelievable. The only thing I could think was the mother goddess had somehow intervened.
    Settling Lark into her room, I shifted back to my housecat form and curled up beside her face, laying my tail over her neck. Purring softly, I sang her the songs of my childhood, those rumbling tunes my mother had caressed my senses with as the wind howled down the mountainside.
    The sound of footsteps rolled through to me. Footsteps with a lilt to them. Exactly like I’d heard in the tunnels when Lark had been taken from me.
    “Lark, he’s coming,” I managed to spit out before a darkness overtook me. Not of sleep, but an empty space where I heard and saw nothing and had no idea where I was. Or when I would escape it.
    To say I did not like it was an understatement.
    I don’t know how long I was out, only that when I woke things were much different than before.
    Lark was standing and it wasn’t that she was up that surprised me. But her back was healed. Or at least, the wounds were closed. Most of the flesh was still missing, leaving gaping holes. I let out a yowl and leapt to the floor. “Lark, your back, it’s healed. How can that be? What happened?”
    Wobbling as she turned, she shook her head. “The one in the cloak, he did it.”
    “The one who tried to drop the bridge out from under you? That makes no sense.”
    She put a hand to her head, confusion rolling over her face. “No, it doesn’t.”
    She lay down, a sigh slipping out of her. “Peta, get Cactus and Ash. Tell them we leave as soon as I wake.”
    I bolted from the room, but didn’t have to go far. The two men were in the kitchen, heads together.
    “You two,” I snapped and they spun at the same time.
    “Is she awake?” they asked in together.
    “No, but when she wakes up, we’re going,” I said before spinning on my haunches and running back to the room. Being apart from her, even that little bit, pulled on my soul. I still did not believe she was truly my heart mate, but she was my charge.
    No matter how hard it was, I would look out for her. Even if she was a dirt girl.
     
     

CHAPTER 8

 
     
    f course, when Lark did wake, we did not leave. Her back had been healed by the mother goddess, and now the Terraling sported an imprint of the goddess’s touch. A vine of deep green with dark purple thorns wove over her body where the burns had been. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what she’d had to trade for that level of healing.
    Though I had a