by Alexa Egan
But then, David hadn’t been persuaded. And Callista had never for a moment believed he loved her.
* * *
David opened his eyes, but this time the pain did not come ripping up angrily from the same deep well where the wolf slept, waiting. It snaked along limbs thick and sluggish, as if his blood congealed within his veins and curled hard within his chest.
“Shhh, be still.” A hand touched his brow, cool against his sweat-soaked skin. “Your fever’s broken. The worst is over.”
He should have known she’d be here. She’d been here every time he’d waked. When the agony left him drenched in sweat and raving. When he swam up from the haze of his darkest dreams, shuddering and racked with tears. The Mother knew he’d tried to leave her behind. Yet circumstances worked to keep them together as if the dream fought to become truth.
“Where are we?” he asked with a tongue thick and dry.
“Addershiels. Lucan and Badb brought us.”
“Lucan?” His heart cramped, his lungs caught on a ragged breath.
“He claims you know him.”
David closed his eyes, his theory fantastic but un-shakeable. “Know of him, but . . .” He shook his head. “It can’t be real.”
“Has anything been real since you landed in that Soho alley like a hero out of a nightmare?” Shadows flickered across her drawn and careworn face.
“What of the book, Callista? Where is it?” He sought to sit up and nearly passed out as spots danced before his eyes. He flopped back on his pillows with a frustrated breath. “Shit, I left it behind. It’s still with Oakham. Mac’s going to fucking kill me.”
“Calm down. It’s safe with His Lordship.”
“His Lordship? Who the hell is . . . oh, you mean de Coursy.”
“I’ve seen him only once and very briefly. Since then he’s been closeted with Lucan and Lord and Lady Duncallan.”
“The Duncallans? They’re mixed up in this madness as well?” David ran a hand over the tight seam of the bandage stretching around his torso and up over one shoulder. His wits returned, though too slowly for his liking. “Secret meetings. Fey-bloods crawling all over the castle. A mysterious shapechanger wandering the halls in company with one of the true Fey. Damn it, I feel as tightly wound as an Egyptian mummy and about as useful. How long have I been lying here like a lump?”
“Two days.”
“Shit. No doubt raving like a lunatic.”
Sorrow glimmered in her eyes. “Only a little.”
He didn’t ask what secrets he’d revealed. He could well imagine.
“Lucan said as long as the wound doesn’t sicken, you’ll be back on your feet soon enough. Though he did warn that you’ll have quite the scar to show off.”
“I’ll add it to my collection,” he huffed. Inaction never set well. He needed to be moving, planning, running. It gave him less time to brood.
“David, you were delirious. The burn on your back—”
“For a man who shouldn’t exist, Lucan’s full of conversation,” he interrupted before she could finish. That Callista knew of his shame was bad enough; he didn’t need to add degrading humiliation to the stabbing pain already in his chest or the scars on his body. “Did he tell you where he came from? How he survived? What the hell is going on?
Her expression closed tight as a fist, but she took the hint. She knew as well as he that the hurts of the past were best left in the grave. “What do you mean Lucan ‘shouldn’t exist’?”
David closed his eyes, letting his thoughts coalesce. It didn’t make his conclusions any better, but his head didn’t pound quite so much. “This will sound like madness . . . but I think he’s the Imnada warlord who betrayed King Arthur. Lucan Kingkiller. The Traitor Lord.”
“It can’t be. The Lost Days were over a thousand years ago. Lucan was slaughtered during the battle.”
“I know the stories as well as you do. When you’re around him, do you feel anything”—he placed a hand against his bandaged chest—“here?”
She shook her head. “There’s no feeling of death surrounding him. He’s alive—or at least not dead.”
“Is there a difference?”
Her face hardened. “Very much so.”
“But how? Why does he travel in company with one of the true Fey? What’s in that book that’s so important to Gray he’d send men to their deaths over it?” He glanced at the scars crisscrossing his palm before closing his hand into a frustrated fist. “Questions but no answers and me flat on my back.”
“Better that than six feet under, sewn into a shroud.”
Callista rose in a fluster of skirts to wander the room, a hand trailing across a table, a cabinet, picking up and putting down a china figurine, a row of porcelain boxes, a Wedgwood urn. She glanced at the fire in the hearth but then turned her steps to the window to draw back the heavy drapes. The moon washed the park in silver and outlined her face and hair like a halo.
“Why did you do it, David?” she asked gently, her gaze still upon the lawn and the far horizon where the hills dipped down toward the sea. “Why did you take that bullet?”
Another question with no good answer. Or at least one he dare not speak aloud. Not if he wanted to keep the dark future he dreamed from coming to pass. Instead, he offered her a flippant—and very painful—shrug. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
She glanced back over her shoulder, her hair shimmering in the ghost light, her expression giving nothing away. “You used that as an excuse before.”
“You’ll find it’s my answer to a great many questions.”
She gripped the drapes in both hands, head bowed. “You were right about the Fey-bloods and about Corey. He wants you not because of me but for your blood. He wants to sell it. I don’t know why, but he—”
Shock jerked him up against his pillows, pain wrung a gasp of air from his lungs as if he’d been punched. “There’s only one reason to want to milk me for my blood and that’s the afailth luinan. But how could Corey know? It’s a legend. A faery tale.”
Callista returned to the chair, brows furrowed. “What’s the afailth luinan?”
“Translated, it means roughly ‘blood heal.’ My gram told me the tale of the Imnada chieftain Rinaci Hammerclaw who saved the life of Edern, his Fey-blood bride. It was too full of kisses and romance for me, but if I listened without complaining, she’d tell another story with enough battles and bloodshed to keep me happy for weeks.”
“Imnada blood is a medicine?”
“It’s said to contain properties that heal any hurt, close any wound. I never believed it and most Imnada discount the ancient stories as myth, but my grandmother believed. She said all myths contain a shred of truth.”
“That truth being that your blood holds the power to close the door into death? It’s impossible.”
“Corey believes. Enough that he wants to cellar me like a fine vintage. St. Leger 1817. Good oaky notes and a light, fruity finish.”
A log fell in the fireplace, shooting sparks, throwing light across her face, and he realized that what he’d taken for tears and fear was actually anger, a fury as red and hot as his own.
“How can you joke?”
“What else can I do, Callista?”
“You can fight back. You can make him pay for treating you like dirt. You can show him you’re not going to let him hurt you or humiliate you or . . . or . . .”
“Do we talk of me . . . or of you, Fey-blood?”
“I spent years trying to please my brother,” she said softly, though still her voice shook with rage. “Trying to show him I was worth his attention and his love. It didn’t matter. He sold me to Victor Corey as if I were a dog or a horse or a stick of furniture.” She fairly quivered with unspent fury.
He knew the fire that churned her belly and coursed like lava through her veins. He understood her feelings of futility and powerlessness. Hadn’t he experienced the same for the last two years?
“If I see him again, I’ll kill
him myself,” she whispered. “And should Corey’s threats come to pass, he’d better sleep with eyes wide open lest he find a knife through his heart.”
David ignored the pain and sat up, swinging his feet onto the floor. The room swam in and out of focus, but he refused to swoon. Instead, he clamped his jaw and met her dark gaze.
“You walk the paths of the dead, Fey-blood.” He levered himself up on his feet. “You do not send others down that road.” He took a few shaky steps toward her. “Take it from someone who’s sent many a man to Arawn’s realm,” He skimmed her sides before pulling her close. “Once you start killing, it becomes very hard to stop.”
* * *
She stayed with him even after he slept—peacefully this time. His breathing deep and even, his body no longer racked with chills, his skin no longer burning like an inferno. It was a sleep without the moaning whimpers and short jagged cries that turned her stomach and made her want to place her hands over her ears. Such pain he’d endured, such horrific suffering at the hands of his own people. No wonder he would not speak of it. No wonder he carried such rage within his heart. But she’d heard other things as well. Darker secrets and shadowy dreams. And these were what kept her awake even as the hours ticked by and the earth turned toward dawn.
When the clock struck four and the first birds called in the fields, Callista rose. Pulled her gown across her shoulders, struggled with the buttons as best she could, and grabbed up a shawl.
The corridor was unlit, but she felt her way past rows of closed doors, through a long gallery where centuries of de Coursys held sway, and slipped down the stairs. Perhaps a novel or maybe even a shot of brandy. Anything to dull her mind and slow her pulse.
The castle was immense. Room after room, all threaded by a maze of corridors, passages, and stairways. She found her way back to the entrance hall by sheer luck, the great double doors barred for the night, a lamp left burning upon a table. But the salon where she’d spent a few awkward hours before arguing her way to David’s side proved elusive. Behind one door, a paneled lounge. Behind another, a billiard room, a cue left abandoned upon the table. A third turned out to be the dining room, silent and empty, the sideboard cleared for breakfast. She descended a staircase and passed through a long hall populated by suits of armor and enough weaponry to outfit an army. Just when she’d lost hope of ever finding her way, she rounded a corner and there it was.
The door stood ajar. A light flickered within.
She peeked around the jamb to find a man seated in a chair by the fire, a whisky glass in hand, a crumbling old book open in his lap. From his tall, lean physique and his clothing—a sober coat of brown and a pair of well-worn boots—Callista would have mistaken him for the local vicar or a servant taking advantage of his master’s absence, except for the aura of command that shimmered off him like a halo, even at rest. This was a man who wore control like armor. Even his stark, chiseled face registered nothing but mild surprise at her arrival, though his eyes glittered like blue ice, and when he turned his full gaze upon her, a shiver raced up her spine.
“I’m sorry to intrude, my lord. I didn’t think anyone would be awake this time of night,” she said.
Gray de Coursy rose from his chair. “I don’t sleep well, either. Perhaps we can keep each other company.”
A shadow rippled across the carpet like water, and Callista’s heart fluttered before sinking into her toes as a voice croaked and scraped across the surface of her brain. Death. Death. Death.
Badb stepped from behind the door, holding out a hand to draw her into the room. “Your novel and your brandy can wait, Callista Hawthorne. Your questions cannot.”
* * *
He woke alone. Air tickled over his bare skin, cool and scented with dust and old leather, steel and smoke. His chest hurt, but it was a bearable ache. He mended, slow and frustrating though it might be, and he would live to fight. To kill.
Callista had retired to her own room, hopefully to rest. She’d earned it, looking after him like a damned nursemaid. Another reason, if he still needed one, to forget the crazy ideas flitting through his head. It wouldn’t be long before he’d be a full-time invalid. He’d not trap Callista into the role of drudge. He might be selfish, but he wasn’t cruel. And Callista deserved more than to spend her days watching him disintegrate before her eyes. David had thought there was nothing worse than the hell the Fey-blood’s black spell had wrought. He’d been wrong.
Worse than death was having what you desired as close as a mingled breath and being forced to walk away. It was looking at Callista and seeing what could be, perhaps even should be, while knowing it would never happen. And worst of all, it was knowing that even the brief time remaining was tainted with prophecies of death.
His enemies gathered.
The danger mounted.
The sooner Callista departed Addershiels for the Isle of Skye, the better. She would be safe there, beyond Corey’s reach.
She would be safe there, beyond his reach.
He couldn’t change his fate, but he might . . . just might . . . be able to change hers.
That would have to be enough.
15
From the window of his room within the comfortable hotel, Corey looked down on the busy square and noted every coach and carriage, as well as the throng of busy pedestrians out on a rare sunny day after a week of rain and sullen skies. He scanned the passersby, not because he thought he might spy the towering figure of David St. Leger cutting his way through the crowd or Callista’s trim shape and dowdy attire moving in and out of the shops in nearby Catherine Street, but simply out of habit after a week on the road north in search of the elusive runaways.
Only the phlegmy clearing of a throat broke him from his scrutiny of a suspicious gentleman standing head and shoulders above those around him on a nearby corner. Corey swung around to face the weasely slump-backed cutpurse, his mutilated hand half hidden in the wide pocket of a greasy smock.
He continued to utilize gallows bait like this one when necessary, but his lip curled in repugnance at the stench of gin and defeat.
“I paid you your pennies. Is there a reason you’re still here?”
“You said a shilling,” the thug growled, his yellow teeth showing, in what Corey supposed was meant to be a threatening leer. “This ain’t even half that.”
“Bring me a shilling’s worth of information next time. What you’ve given me is tavern gossip and whores’ whispers,” he answered before turning back to watch the gentleman across the square.
He hadn’t moved, and the swarm of afternoon strollers and street vendors with their baskets and sacks had to joggle round him in consternation, yet, oddly, none confronted the man. Instead, they seemed to avoid him, heads down as they scurried past. As Corey continued to watch, the gentleman looked up at the window, his face shadowed by a broad-brimmed hat, but Corey had the sensation of the man’s stare drilling down into his brain.
A crow settled on the ledge just outside the window, its great black wings spread, its beak wide as it croaked and squawked. A wash of cold splashed over Corey’s shoulders and down his spine. He shooed the bird away, but the feeling of menace remained.
“You’re trying to cheat me, you is,” the thief-taker complained. “It’s him just like in them drawings. I seen him with my own eyes not thirty miles from here.”
Corey rubbed a hand over the knob of his cane, his patience fraying. “Then where’s the woman? He’s traveling with a woman.” He rounded on his informer, cane raised. “Did your pox-ridden slatterns mention her? I want them both, you grimy, flea-ridden sewer rat.”
The man’s back rounded as if he’d been struck, but he held his ground, coughing wetly into a large soiled handkerchief. “Next time, I’ll take my news to the other fella. He’ll pay what’s owed me,” he grumbled.
Corey visibly relaxed his face into a smile, though inside every alarm was ringing. “Other fellow?”
“You’re not the only one out there asking about th
at St. Leger bloke. And he pays twice as much. I only come to you ’cause we had a deal. Not no more. Not when I see how you pay honest chaps for honest work.”
“Honest, my ass,” Corey replied. “You probably stole your mother’s liver as you were being squeezed out between her legs. Give me a name. Who is he? Who is this champion of the rights of honest thieves everywhere?”
The man’s expression grew petulant, arms folded over his chest. “We’re to go to the Swan and Crown and tell ’em we’ve got news for Beskin. That’s all I know.”
It didn’t matter. Let this Beskin son of a bitch play seek-and-find up and down the Great North Road; Corey knew where the two of them were headed. He would be there in a few days more. Then all he had to do was wait for St. Leger and Callista to come to him.
Corey smiled and flipped the cellar rat another penny. “And there’s a half crown more if you tell this jack at the Swan and Crown that St. Leger’s halfway to Cardiff with his doxy in tow.”
As the man stretched to catch the coin, Corey’s hand shot out, grabbing him around the throat, his fingers digging deep into his flesh. He leaned in, his voice low and almost pleasant. “Don’t ever tell me I don’t pay what’s owing.”
The penny hit the floor to roll away under a table.
The man hit the floor and lay unmoving.
* * *
David eased a shirt on over his head, stifling a groan as pain slashed up his chest and into his skull. The room wavered but did not spin. His body ached but did not collapse. And he’d be damned if he’d lay in that bed another minute. Still, he sat and breathed deeply for a moment before he dared attempt to pull on his breeches, glancing only briefly at the door.
“Come in and scold me in person,” he called out. “Much easier than glaring at me through the keyhole.”
The latch turned, and Gray de Coursy stood on the threshold, bearing a whisky bottle and two glasses. At least he assumed it was Gray. This gentleman bore the familiar rangy build and stark aristocratic features, but gone was the champagne shine and the cool, prideful gaze that had England’s elite climbing over themselves to curry favor . . . and gain a husband for their daughters. Instead, he looked battle-toughened and forbidding in a way he never had before, even during the long years campaigning. Perhaps because this war was far more personal, the stakes much closer to home.
