Master of Valor (Merlin's Legacy 2)

by Angela Knight

  Master of Valor (Merlin’s Legacy 2)

  Angela Knight

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2018 Angela Knight

  BIN: 008617-02784

  Formats Available:

  Adobe PDF, Epub

  Mobi/PRC

  Publisher:

  Changeling Press LLC

  315 N. Centre St.

  Martinsburg, WV 25404

  www.ChangelingPress.com

  Editor: Margaret Riley

  Cover Artist: Angela Knight

  Adult Sexual Content

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  Table of Contents

  Master of Valor (Merlin’s Legacy 2)

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Dedication

  Angela Knight

  Master of Valor (Merlin’s Legacy 2)

  Angela Knight

  Handsome Afghan war veteran Duncan Carpenter barely survived a horrifying IED attack that cost him his legs. He gets a second chance at life when he agrees to become an agent of the Magekind -- a vampire sworn to protect humanity. The spell that transforms him also heals his broken body and gives him incredible new abilities. Now he must pay for that gift, because the Magekind is preparing for war with powerful magical enemies. But first he must complete his training with a Magekind witch, Masara Okeye. Problem. He’s falling for his mentor, even as he struggles to deal with life as a vampire.

  Masara finds her apprentice deliciously seductive -- a little bit too much so for her peace of mind, because he brings up memories better left buried. But when Duncan and Masara are asked to help a werewolf cop investigate the murder of a jogger, they’re targeted by the same vicious killers. The fight for survival drives the couple together, despite Masara’s determination to keep her distance. Then the case turns even more horrific and mysterious. What turned a couple of loving werewolf grandparents into vicious killers?

  And what’s with the flying rabid zombie rats?

  Preface

  Jack Rand took one last look around his shop. The week’s last client had picked up her laptop and paid her bill an hour ago, and he’d finished cleaning up. He pulled his cell off his belt and texted his wife. On my way. We’ll pack in the morning.

  Eleanor’s reply came back a minute later: a puppy emoji with little red hearts popping around its head. Yayy! Disney, here we come!

  Jack grinned. A whole week with the grandkids -- riding the Tower of Terror and taking pictures of Liam and Gemma posing with everyone from Mickey to Darth Vader. The kids were ten and eight, old enough that they wouldn’t have to be carried everywhere, but young enough to be thoroughly entranced by the Magic Kingdom. It would be one of those golden childhood memories they’d remember long after he and Ellie were gone.

  Jack armed CyberWizard’s alarm system and headed for the door. Stepping out onto the sidewalk that ran the redbrick length of the Hollydale strip mall, he grinned up at the sky. It was a beautiful night, the full moon riding fat and white over the low, narrow skyline. Tyger River wasn’t exactly the biggest city in South Carolina; the tallest building in sight was all of ten stories. He drew in a deep breath… And frowned. There was an odd, rank scent in the air, an odor of greasy fur and illness.

  Something hissed, and he spun.

  The biggest damned rat he’d ever seen crouched on the sidewalk five feet away, beady eyes glowing red, naked tail whipping back and forth as it glared up at him. He’d seen smaller cats.

  “Beat it, Ricky.” Jack’s voice emerged in a resonant growl that sounded nothing like the middle-aged man he was most of the time. He made a mental note to call the exterminator when he got back from vacation. He started to turn away…

  Something black blurred toward him. Pain knifed into his knee, and he leaped back, cursing. The rat clung to his leg, chisel teeth piercing his slacks to sink into his kneecap. “Shit!” Jack kicked out, trying to dislodge the nasty little bastard. The rat only clamped down harder. Blood rolled down his leg as the pain intensified, and he lost his temper. “You want a bite? I’ll give you a bite!”

  He grabbed for his magic and let it blast through him in a burning, foaming wave. Pain ripped over his body as muscle and bone contorted and swelled. A heartbeat later, he stared at the world from seven hulking feet of brawn, claws, and thick, graying fur.

  He pounced with a slashing stroke of three-inch claws.

  Squeeee! The rodent went flying to hit the building’s brick wall. Its body thumped to the sidewalk in a bloody, disemboweled heap.

  He curled his lip at it. Should’ve known better, asshole. Ten pounds of rat versus three hundred pounds of werewolf did not end well for the rat.

  Claws scraped and clicked on pavement. Hiiisssss, squeeeeeak!

  Fuck, what now? Jack whirled. A writhing black shadow rolled toward him, pocked with red, glowing eyes. A river of rats. “What the hell?” Fear made the fur rise on the back of his neck. Which pissed him right off. Jack Rand wasn’t afraid of anything, especially animated cat food. “Fuck off!” he growled, his voice a saw-toothed, enraged-grizzly snarl. Any rodent with an ounce of self-preservation should have turned tail and bolted for the nearest rat hole.

  They leaped for him.

  * * *

  Eleanor Rand paced her pretty living room, anxiety a cold buzz under her skin. She’d spent most of Saturday puttering in the garden that surrounded the farmhouse-style home she’d shared with Jack for twenty years, daydreaming about a whole week of grandchild spoiling. Now her instincts screamed something had gone horribly wrong.

  As she pivoted to pace the other way, her gaze fell on the couch. She’d never noticed how much the cheerful poppy pattern looked like blood spatter. Okay, Ellie, you’ve officially lost it.

  Where the heck was Jack? He’d texted her he was on his way home an hour ago, and it was only a fifteen-minute drive. Had something happened to him?

  Don’t be ridiculous. The man’s a werewolf. He could get hit by a truck, and he’d just heal. But not even werewolves were immortal. They could die. It just took a lot to kill them.

  Maybe I should check. Normally she and Jack were careful to respect each other’s privacy, but she also knew her husband was obsessed with protecting her. If he’d run into something nasty, Jack was fully capable of keeping her in the dark to avoid scaring her. A glance wouldn’t hurt. She opened the Spirit Lin
k they’d established as newlyweds three decades ago.

  A wave of churning emotion slapped her mind: pain, confusion, and a desperate need for her. Jack! Oh, God, what’s happening?

  Unfortunately, though their psychic link could communicate images and emotions, it didn’t transmit thought. Ellie wouldn’t find out what was going on until she could ask her husband in person. But whatever it was, it wasn’t good. What the heck should I do?

  Just as Ellie was working herself up into a genuine panic, her keen werewolf hearing detected a familiar rumble in the distance. Jack’s Toyota Highlander had turned into the development two blocks away. Blowing out a relieved sigh, she hustled into the kitchen and down the short flight of stairs to the garage.

  She raised the garage door just in time to see the SUV almost take out the mailbox turning into the drive. Damn, Jack’s lucky he didn’t get pulled over driving home. Or worse. What was wrong with him? She knew it wasn’t alcohol. Dire Wolves couldn’t get drunk.

  “Jack!” Ellie called, hurrying to meet him as the SUV lurched to a stop in the garage’s empty bay. “Are you all right?” The Highlander’s door creaked open, and he reeled out under her worried stare.

  Jack was a big man, with thick, curling gray hair, his hawkish features still distinguished after all these years. Tri-weekly sessions at the Tyger River Y had maintained the muscular strength he’d had when they married. One pocket of his navy blue knit shirt was embroidered with the CyberWizard’s logo in metallic thread: a laptop surrounded by magical sparkles. Blue slacks made his long legs look even longer.

  But the handsome husband she’d said goodbye to this morning now looked like hell, gray-faced and dazed. As his knees sagged, Ellie jumped to hook an arm around his waist. An ordinary woman would have gone down under his weight. “Jack! What happened?”

  “Rats,” he muttered. “Never saw so many rats…”

  He leaned so heavily into her, Ellie gave serious thought to just picking him up and carrying him up the stairs. Though he outweighed her, she was still a werewolf. But he’d hate that, so she resisted the impulse.

  Somehow she got him up the steps to the kitchen with his dignity intact. Easing him down into a chair, Ellie straightened to lay a palm against the side of his face. Direkind body temperature was normally a couple of degrees warmer than human, but Jack felt clammy and cold. Worse, the pupils of his hazel eyes were dilated as he stared at her in bleary confusion.

  What the hell happened in the hour since he’d sent that text?

  She hurried to the bedroom to retrieve the blue velour bathrobe her husband rarely wore. By the time she draped it around his hunched shoulders, he’d begun to shiver. If Jack had been human, she would have been driving him to the ER by now. Unfortunately, Direkind biology was just far enough off normal that no werewolf dared risk lab tests.

  Not that weres needed medical care very often. Direkind magic made them immune to human diseases, even the most virulent. Poisons and drugs likewise had little effect on them, and they could heal just about any injury short of outright decapitation. So what the heck was this?

  Ellie sat down in the chair opposite his and leaned her elbows on her knees to study his dazed eyes. “Jack, what happened?”

  He blinked at her. “When?”

  “Damn, you are out of it. With the rats, Jack. What happened?”

  Jack stared at her a long moment before he said, “Parking lot. Big ol’ rat just jumped up and bit me. Had to shift.”

  It took her the next half hour to get the whole story out of him. In a halting voice, Jack described being attacked by a nightmarish swarm of rats. The battle had left the strip mall’s parking lot covered in pools of blood, rat corpses, and clawed footprints. “Couldn’t leave it like that,” he muttered.

  Well, no. All they needed was for some cop to come by and find a wolf paw-print the size of a dinner plate. The kibbles would hit the fan. So Jack had dragged out the hose and sprayed down the parking lot before disposing of the bodies. “Why didn’t you call me? I’d have helped. And you really shouldn’t have tried to drive home.”

  Jack stared at her blankly for a long moment. “Didn’t think of it.”

  He must have already been sick. “Let’s get you to bed,” Ellie told him at last, unable to think of anything else to do. If not for her werewolf strength, it would have been impossible to get him on his feet and down the hall to their bedroom. With a miserable groan, Jack collapsed on the bed, curled into a ball, and began to shiver.

  Ellie undressed, flipped the floral spread over him, and climbed in, snuggling against his broad back to share her body heat. He sighed in relief and fell into a restless sleep. Maybe Jack’s Dire Wolf immune system would burn through whatever this was by morning. If not… Ellie grimaced. She hated the idea of backing out on the Disney trip, but no way was she exposing the grandbabies to whatever this was. Which would screw up her daughter’s long-planned second honeymoon to New York, but it couldn’t be helped. Amy and Tom would have to either cancel the trip or take the kids with them. At last, exhausted by worry, Ellie drifted to sleep.

  * * *

  The growl that woke Ellie sounded so deep and menacing, it vibrated the mattress. She pried her eyes open -- and gasped, jolting up in instinctive terror. Her husband loomed over the bed in Dire Wolf form, more than seven feet tall, a hulking lupine shadow in the dark. His eyes glowed, but instead of his usual Dire Wolf gold, they shone with a crimson, rat-like gleam. “Jack?” Her voice cracked.

  His lips curled off the sharp white gleam of his fangs as he snarled again.

  Eleanor fought to keep her voice calm as she edged cautiously back across the mattress, ready to roll off and run. When she reached for his mind through the Spirit Link, she was horrified to feel a malevolent alien presence. “Who the hell are you? And what did you do to my…”

  He pounced.

  Chapter One

  A globe of fire the size of a basketball flew at his face. Duncan Carpenter ducked behind his shield as flame splashed its tough, transparent surface. The magical attack triggered the shield’s enchantment, and a ward sprang out to encircle him as the flame licked the barrier.

  The fire cleared, and for a moment Duncan saw his opponent -- a towering teal blue humanoid whose three-fingered hands held a massive sword. The Fomorian’s features were basically human, except for red irises rayed in veins of purple and gold -- oddly beautiful. His snarl revealed a mouthful of long, jagged teeth designed to tear flesh. The Fomorian charged, running silently on three-toed feet, insanely fast in enchanted leather armor engraved with protective spells.

  Just as the sorcerer reached him, Duncan bounded five feet straight up and chopped down with his sword, aiming between the twin bony crests running over the top of the Fomorian’s head.

  The sorcerer shied back, avoiding the blow by a hair. As Duncan hit the floor, the Fomorian’s hand shot into the air, a nimbus of light dancing from thumb to the two long, thick fingers. Duncan jerked his shield up…

  Too late. The force blast hit him right in the face and knocked him across the room. He hit the wall so hard he saw a whole constellation of stars. When they faded, he lay on his back surrounded by smoke. Dazed, he turned his head -- to see the bloody remains of a leg clad in shredded camo pants. He knew it was his own…

  Fucking flashback. Get up and fight, Marine! Legs ain’t free!

  Duncan blinked, and the illusionary leg vanished, becoming his sword again. He snatched the weapon off the ground as the Fomorian roared. Duncan threw himself into a roll. The sorcerer’s blade cut so close, the breeze of its passage lifted his hair.

  Springing upright, Duncan lunged at the Fomorian, shield still strapped to his left arm. Swinging his sword in furious arcs, he rained strokes at the sorcerer -- his head, his arms, thighs, abdomen. The seven-foot monster retreated, parrying, unable to launch his own attacks as he fought to block the thundering blows. Fear flashed over the sorcerer’s face…

  And Duncan really felt his own miracu
lous power, the speed and strength he couldn’t have imagined six months before. Most of all, he felt every inch of his legs. The ones he’d lost a year ago on the worst day of his life. The ones that should be clumsy mechanical replacements instead of superhuman flesh and blood. He was the luckiest bastard on the planet. And he had to be worthy of his miracle. His lips peeled off his teeth in a bloodthirsty cross between a snarl and a grin.

  Somewhere in the house, a clock struck midnight. The Fomorian threw up one hand and panted, “Lunch break.”

  Ha! He’d tired her out. Duncan straightened, breathing hard. As he watched, the Fomorian’s body seemed to melt like wax, vivid blue-green skin darkening to something more human. A blink later, Masara Okeye stood there, no longer surrounded by the Fomorian illusion she’d worn for combat practice.

  Masara was a head shorter than Duncan, but her lean body was as lithe and strong as a leopard’s. Her long dreads swung as she walked across the room to retrieve a couple of towels from a shelf. She tossed him one and blotted her face with the other.

  He caught the towel without really looking at it. She fascinated him, with those sculpted cheekbones, the full, deliciously sensual mouth, the exotic swoop of her nose, and her big, dark eyes. Not to mention all that skin, rich and brown and gleaming with sweat, barely concealed by a black jogging bra and leggings. Just looking at her made his upper jaw ache. Some air current brought the hot smell of exertion and woman to his sensitive nose, tinged with the seductive tang he’d learned to associate with witches. Lust flooded his blood and hardened his cock. And it wasn’t the only thing growing, either. Judging by the ache in his upper jaw, his incisors had lengthened.

  Great, Duncan thought, irritated at the all-too-visible reaction his instructor was bound to notice. I’m getting a fang-on. The spell that had healed Duncan had given him his legs back, but it had also made him a vampire.