Two years after escaping a fiery car crash by slipping through a portal into the mystical world of Arconia, Katrina suddenly finds herself back on earth-awakening, or so it seems, from a long, deep coma. What happened? Was her magical experience in Arconia-learning to fight, earning the trust of others, and falling in love-really just a dream? Or is her appearance on Earth the result of something more sinister?
Now, Katrina finds herself at the center of a multi-dimensional manhunt, full of subterfuge and guile. From Arconia, Katrina's lover Castin and her father Drestin will embark on a dangerous journey to Earth, where Castin must learn to trust others and draw on long-dormant skills from his elven upbringing. Meanwhile, a powerful bounty hunter named Cypris is assigned the task of tracking down the evil sorceress responsible for Katrina's disappearance-with just a young druid apprentice at his side and a newborn son in tow. And Katrina must discover her mysterious past-and past love-all over again. But none of them are prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.
A fast-paced fantasy tour de force, Book Two of the Mistress of Beasts Saga mixes a pulse-pounding adventure story with magical high-stakes intrigue that will leave you gasping for air.
Chapter 1
The vibrations echoed through his mind. With spindly fingers, they bumped and prodded him to wakefulness. The golden griffin lifted his eagle head and listened. Not to his surroundings, but to the echoes of a spell. A powerful spell. The griffin's beak turned down into a frown. A transportation spell! Someone had created a door to leave Arconia. The griffin rose to his feet as he tried to figure out where the tunnel would lead. Earth!
The griffin, Drestin Revolyn, lunged into the air. His powerful, golden wings lifted him higher as they beat against the night sky. He wasn't far from the spell’s origin. In just a few minutes flight he’d be there. Drestin realized suddenly that the spell originated very near to his daughter's cabin in the Black Forest.
Something must be wrong! Drestin had visited Katrina and her mate, Castin, less than a moon's cycle ago. Both had seemed happy with nothing amiss. Castin kept busy teaching his young apprentice, Rueben, and searching for lost spells. Katrina studied the forest with the help of the local fauna, which she could communicate with telepathically.
Though Castin was one of the most powerful druids he’d ever met, the half-elf still wouldn't be able to open a passage to another world. Druid magic didn't work that way, but wizard magic did. And though Katrina was his daughter, she didn't have that kind of power either. Katrina was a cross between a woman from Earth and Drestin, one of the last remaining golden griffins. Magic had given her the ability to speak with animals, but she remained weak in the area of spell casting.
Over a year ago Katrina had turned her back on her life there and chosen to stay in Arconia. If she ever changed her mind, she knew all she needed to do was ask him, and the griffin would open a portal for her. Until just a year ago, he’d been trapped as a human by a witch’s spell. He’d discovered that griffin magic and wizard magic were very similar. He could do almost any spell that a wizard could. Feeling someone else open a portal near her home disturbed him.
Drestin knew he’d arrived too late even before the small clearing they’d tucked their home in appeared. The vibrations from the spell had begun to fade. The spell was complete, and someone had left Arconia for Earth.
The golden griffin landed gracefully in the tiny clearing. The house stood half tucked into the trees, a small herb garden abutting against the porch. He knew they used the rest of the clearing for training in horsemanship and swordplay. Castin had tucked another smaller cabin off in the trees behind the house for Rueben and built a stable in a thicket to the East. Muttering a few words as he strode toward the cabin, Drestin transformed. A red light glowed around him, and after a grimace and hiss of pain, a vibrant old man strode toward the house instead of a massive griffin. While trapped in human form, he’d traveled across Arconia as a powerful wizard, searching for a way to reverse it. He’d never found it, but had discovered other abilities, including how to transform back into the human once the curse had been lifted.
He entered without knocking. A dark room greeted him, another sign of something amiss. The fire had burned out, leaving the room cold and empty. With a word he sent a ball of flames at the half-charred logs in the fireplace, restarting the fire. Then he pushed open a door and entered the only other room of the building, a bedroom. Pausing in the doorway, he stared through the darkness, taking in the single moonbeam that managed to break through the thick canopy of trees around the cabin to fall through a window and onto the floor.
Someone lay on the bed. Fear gripped Drestin's heart as he approached the figure. Castin lay still. Drestin let out the breath he didn't know he’d been holding when he saw Castin's chest rise and fall in a shallow breath.
He closed the distance quickly and frowned down at the half elf, half human druid. The blue tint to Castin's skin gave his state away. He was under a powerful sleeping spell. Though it would wear off in time, Drestin wasn’t willing to wait. The wizard uttered a counter-spell, awakening the sleeping druid.
Castin took a deep breath and let out a groan. He jerked upright, gripping his head. It swam, sending the room spinning around him. Drestin gripped a shoulder, steadying him. "Easy, now. The headache will pass." Drestin paused, watching the tension ease from Castin's features as the pain slowly ebbed. After a moment the wizard spoke again. "Can you tell me what happened here? Where is my daughter?"
The druid's pale blue eyes flew open. They didn’t focus on anything in the room, but instead he felt with his mind. Finally, Castin's gaze rose to meet Drestin's concerned look; the druid’s eyes conveyed a haunted expression. "I can't feel her," he whispered. "I can't find her anywhere!"
Without a word, Drestin helped Castin rise unsteadily to his feet. He knew the man referenced the telepathic link Castin and his daughter had developed, an offshoot of the mage’s natural ability to feel another’s emotion with only a touch. Pushing the stray thought aside, he led the druid into the cabin's main room. The fire had heated the area, removing the chill and replacing it with soothing warmth. Castin sat heavily in one of the chairs at the small round table. The druid took in the roaring fire and then eyed the old man. "What are you doing here?"
After hanging a kettle over the fire, Drestin turned to Castin. "I woke to the vibrations of a powerful spell. Because someone performed it very near here, I wanted to find out if everything was all right." Drestin shook his head sadly. "I found you under a powerful sleeping spell and Katrina gone…"
Castin straightened. "What kind of spell?" Surprise filled the druid to hear that someone had cast a spell so close without it waking him. Frowning, he knew that a strong sleeping spell would dull the senses that should have woken him. He wondered how someone would be able to place a sleeping spell on him without his knowing or stopping it. Castin's blonde brow rose when Drestin glanced away. Fear jolted through him, and he knew it had something to do with his missing mate. Drestin took his time settling into a chair across from Castin. The druid wanted to tell the old man to be out with it, but knew the wizard couldn’t be rushed.
"A transportation spell." At Castin's questioning look, Drestin elaborated. "Someone left Arconia, and I'm certain the tunnel led to Earth."
Drestin watched a range of emotions flood across the druid's face. Confusion first, followed by understanding as he realized what Drestin told him. Then anger flickered through his blue eyes followed finally by anguish.
Drestin remembered what he’d been told about the problems of distrust and betrayal that Castin had with past women, so he quickly waylaid the mage’s fears. "Katrina didn't cast the spell," Drestin reassured him. "She has neither the training nor the strength. And I can't imagine her going of her own free will without letting us know. We both know she doesn't run from her problems, Castin."
The druid nodded, though the pain showing in his clear blue eyes didn’t completely diminish. He ran a slender hand through his short blonde hair. In the past he’d let his hair grow long enough to hide his pointed ears. Along with his tall, slender frame, his ears were his only heritage from his elf mother. He’d received his blond hair, fair skin, and blue eyes from his human father. Now he kept his hair short, displaying his slender features and ears, his heritage, proudly. He’d learned that you couldn't hide who you were no matter how hard you tried.
"Okay," Castin started. He steepled his fingers and stared across the table at Drestin. "Where do we begin?"
Drestin nodded and held up a hand. "First, some tea." At Castin's surprised look Drestin chuckled. "I’ve grown quite fond of the beverage after living as a human for so long. It helps me think." He rose from the wooden table. From a nearby cupboard he pulled two mugs and filled them with water from the kettle. He sprinkled a powder into each cup and then set one down in front of Castin before settling back down in his chair. After taking a sip of the hot beverage he smiled grimly. "Now then, has anything strange happened in the last couple of days?" At Castin's shake of the head, Drestin asked, "Have you had any visitors?" Drestin knew that on occasion, those in need of healing would find their way to Castin's door.
The druid nodded, understanding his line of thinking. "The only visitor we've had in the last few days was a young woman. That was yesterday. She said she'd had an accident when she was a little girl that left her right leg crippled. The pain became unbearable, so she sought me out. At the time, her decision surprised me as she seemed terrified of me. She cringed away every time I tried to touch her." Castin shook his head. He didn't understand the fear, but he’d certainly dealt with it enough. "I left to gather what I thought I’d need for her leg while Katrina gave her a cup of tea with Slavidny in it to help her calm down. Once she’d settled, I wrapped her leg in a healing poultice and held it in place with a cast. It’ll reconstruct her leg from the inside out, and then dissolve, that way she doesn't have to come back." Castin shrugged. "She was the only one."
"Was she alone with the tea at any time, and did you have any?" Drestin asked.
Castin straightened, suddenly tense. "Yes, she was alone with our mugs when Katrina called me back into the cabin after the woman had calmed down."
"That would give her the opportunity to slip the sleeping potion into your drinks," Drestin speculated. "Are you certain it was you she feared?"
Castin groaned, shaking his head. "I'm not certain of anything anymore, Drestin. I didn't feel any deception from her," he paused thinking back. "But I suppose her being terrified could have overridden anything else." And I certainly wasn't looking for it, he added, silently berating himself.
Drestin watched the array of conflicting emotions Castin tried to hide. He leaned toward the druid, his green eyes, so much like Katrina's, intense. "Know this; Katrina loves you more than life itself. She wouldn't leave you voluntarily."
Castin nodded as he worked to conceal the emotions running rampantly through him. It had been a long time since he hadn't been able to feel his mate’s presence. Loneliness swept over him. He suddenly slammed his fist on the table, startling the wizard across from him. "I have to find her. I need to save her!" The conviction in the druid's statements made the wizard smile. He’d known that would come out eventually. Castin continued his tirade. "I don't care if she did leave of her own accord. I need to hear it from her own mouth." Castin's gaze settled on Drestin. "Will you help me? Will you open a tunnel for me?"
Drestin sighed, and Castin felt sure the wizard would tell him no. Instead the old man folded his weathered hands in front of him and eyed Castin appraisingly. "Earth is a big place, Castin. It's not like Arconia. The dangers there are very different."
The druid's blonde brows drew together into a frown. He waved a hand as if to dismiss the older man's warning. "There is land and water, right? People go about their daily lives, just as we do. If there are dangers, then I will surpass them." Castin leaned forward; his blue eyes seemed to turn a stormy gray with the intensity of his stare. "I will find Katrina."
Drestin nodded. "I have no doubt of the sincerity of your convictions," he stated, "but there is little to no magic in that place."
"What do you mean?"
"It doesn't matter how powerful you are. There are very few magical eddies flowing through that plane. So, magic doesn't work most of the time." Drestin watched Castin digest that bit of information. He knew it wouldn’t make a difference to the druid, but he had to warn him.
Castin shook his head, his next words confirming what Drestin had known. "Nothing you say will deter me, Drestin." Castin met the old wizard's penetrating gaze. "If I don't go, I’ll always wonder. I wouldn't be able to live with myself."
"Ah, yes. I can see that it won't," he murmured. "Where would you like to begin looking?"
About R. L. Geerdes
R. L. Geerdes was raised in the foothills of western New York, where she was introduced early to fantasy fiction by her father. Now living in West Valley City, Utah, she splits her time among her husband, horses, and the children of her imagination.
Two years after escaping a fiery car crash by slipping through a portal into the mystical world of Arconia, Katrina suddenly finds herself back on earth-awakening, or so it seems, from a long, deep coma. What happened? Was her magical experience in Arconia-learning to fight, earning the trust of others, and falling in love-really just a dream? Or is her appearance on Earth the result of something more sinister?
R. L. Geerdes was raised in the foothills of western New York, where she was introduced early to fantasy fiction by her father. Now living in West Valley City, Utah, she splits her time among her husband, horses, and the children of her imagination.