Free Wolf's-own: Weregild by Carole Cummings Page A

you know I would, but I must have the earth-bound to do it. Your failure tonight has set back Fate—"
    "Bloody hell , you're an arrogant piece of work.” Leu shook her head, eyes gone back to mere hazel again. Asai couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not. “I'll admit I thought perhaps you'd been banished unfairly,” she said evenly. “I'll admit I thought your skills and your hopes for the Jin would please Wolf. But you cannot think to pursue whatever it is you're pursuing now. Kamen has taken both the earth-bound and the Catalyst to himself. He all but challenged you to try to take them from him. You cannot continue on this course, Asai. I have no desire to see another war between maijin and Temshiel , and I won't stand by and watch you start one. As Wolf's, I cannot allow it."
    And there it was again—rubbing his nose in his status, or lack thereof. And this one was no better than a mercenary. Nothing—she was nothing , and she dared .... Didn't she know what he would be when Wolf accepted him? What difference could it possibly make to her how he did it? And what could possibly make her think she had the right? The bloody gall of the woman. Did she think he'd taken her to his bed because he'd wanted her? Was smitten with her?
    Asai took a long, deep breath to quell his rising anger, stood, and paced slowly to stand beside Leu.
    Perhaps it was only Fate that had put Kamen in his path as a too-wrathful barrier. Kamen was the most powerful of the Temshiel , yes, but Asai was... had been the most powerful of the maijin. And he would be again. And once he had Heart's Blood—Heart's Blood of not just Temshiel , but a Null ....
    A fair exchange for leading Wolf's favored tribes out of bondage, was it not? Asai was more than certain that Wolf would see it that way, even if Wolf's-own refused to. Heart's Blood might wobble the Balance a little, but what Asai did with it would set it back where it belonged, set it in stone for ages to come. Wasn't that worth the loss of one Temshiel and a few insignificant mortals? This apparent accord between Kamen and Leu was an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one.
    Asai allowed a rueful smile to curl at his mouth. “You're right, of course,” he told Leu, reaching out to take her hand, pleased when she allowed it; he curled both of his own around it. “The war years were hellish, and their reflection through the mortal realm only hastened the Jin's subjugation."
    It had done more than that—it had made it inevitable. Temshiel and maijin choosing sides, defining mortal boundaries to complement their own, and using their dupes as proxies in their own war. Pitting Jin against Adan, removing all too easily the centuries-old brotherhood between the two peoples. Except no one had foreseen the Jin unleashing their magic, knowing their mortal war for a thinly disguised divine one. Razing their own lands to rid themselves of the troublemaking trespassers of the gods, and sacrificing countless Adan in the process. And all with the justification that it would reinstate their own balance, while the minions of the gods battled over the world's. Charged with using their magic only to serve the Balance, forbidden from ever using it against those who had none, they'd thought the Adan would understand, would approve when all was said and done—they were brothers, in the end, were they not? They'd allowed the Adan to bind with them through their Blood, after all. They'd almost become different tribes of the same people. The end of a war that wasn't their own would surely justify the means.
    Except it was merely a horrible beginning. They'd been warned by their Untouchables, and the Voices of the Ancestors had, for the first time ever, been ignored. Because no one—not even Wolf's own Temshiel —had understood until then that the Ancestors had not merely bound their magic to their people, but had bound themselves to their people through the lands. And when the Jin had turned their magic on