Upstairs, a woman screamed. A man shouted. There was the sound of breaking furniture.
And not a damn thing he could do about it.
Elisabeth would have been far more successful if she’d been wearing half boots. All she’d managed to do in slippers was bruise her toes against the man’s shin, making him angrier than he already was. His pistol jammed against her temple, he leaned into her face. So close the onion smell of his breath nearly knocked her out. “You do that again and I’ll—”
The barrel of the gun was cold, yet sweat trickled between her shoulder blades and down her back. The lawn of her shift seemed to have plastered itself to her body like a damp, uncomfortable skin. “You’ll what? Kill me? I don’t think so.”
Elisabeth found her gaze fastening on the bit of lunch caught between his teeth. It was that or look up into his eyes and see her terror mirrored back at her in those dark irises. She didn’t need to know how terrified she looked. She was well aware. But she would not let that paralyzing, lung-squeezing, stomach-knotting fear take over.
The man ground his teeth together so hard, his jaw looked in danger of shattering, but his pistol was withdrawn to a jacket pocket, his grip loosened. “You’re damned lucky I’m a gentleman, bitch, or your brains would be all over this room by now.” His notion of gentlemanly behavior definitely left much to be desired if his leering smirk and roving hands were any indication.
She cast a look at Rogan’s inert body, willing him to rouse and come to her aid. But he remained frighteningly lifeless, the blood in his hair altogether too red for her taste. Heavens, what if she’d killed him?
The blast of a pistol shot broke the momentary stalemate. The man’s head came up like a hound upon a scent, his divided attention easing the death grip he had on her arm.
Now or never.
She tore herself free with a shout. Lunged for the dropped poker. She’d barely touched it when he spun back to her, eyes widening for a fraction of a second, mouth curled in a snarl of animal rage. His first hit backhanded her to the ground.
She never felt the second.
The son of a bitch bent to take up Brendan’s knife. Eyed it for a moment, a gleam of a smile on his ruddy features.
“Brendan Douglas as I live.” He placed the knife along Brendan’s throat. Slid it achingly slow along his neck, the incision igniting a stinging fire. “Máelodor’s getting desperate. His price has risen over the last months. We’ll be able to retire as gentlemen on what you’ll bring us.”
Brendan could almost feel the frost layering him over. He stared up into eyes hard as stones, the cold encircling his heart. Slowing it. Every beat sending color bursting across his vision. He would not pass out. He would not give this bastard the satisfaction.
He refused to let his mind wander to Elisabeth’s fate upstairs. Blind fury would only kill him quicker. He needed an icy clarity. And he had the icy part of things well in hand.
The knife moved again, this time slitting open one cheek.
Wonderful. He had to be caught by a man who saw himself as some kind of macabre body artist.
A door slammed open upstairs, a woman’s cry.
To hell with the plan. To hell with Roseingrave and the stone. Elisabeth wasn’t a part of this. He’d vowed to keep her safe. If it meant giving up a chance to save his sorry ass, so be it.
“Brendan?” A voice floated up from downstairs. “I know you said to wait outside, but”—Daz’s head poked above the banister, eyes growing round behind his spectacles—“oh, I say! That’s not playing fair.”
The distraction he needed. The moment he’d prayed for.
The man’s head snapped around, the power of the curse receding.
Brendan forced his body to obey, thrusting his arm up, clamping fingers around the man’s knife hand. A sharp twist, and the bones snapped.
The man screamed, the knife sliding free.
A shadow fell over Brendan, but his vision had narrowed to a scarlet pinprick. He saw only his opponent, knew only the surge of the struggle.
Instinct overruled all else.
He rolled out from under the man’s weight with a snarl of animal rage. Took up his knife, intent only on the space between the villain’s ribs.
“Douglas!” A man’s shout. “We’ve got the girl! Don’t do anything stupid or she’s dead.”
Oh gods. Elisabeth. They had her. Did they know what a weapon they held? He could do nothing. He was trapped.
Brendan fell back sick and shaking, his vision no longer scarlet but black with killings, old and new. Beyond the rush of wind in his ears, he heard only Daz’s surprised voice.
“I have to say, I didn’t see this coming at all.”
twenty-three
Elisabeth woke with a raging headache, one whole side of her face sore, her jaw throbbing. It didn’t help that the room rose and fell, sending her stomach into her throat.
Brendan. That dratted sleeping spell again.
She tried to sit up, nearly braining herself on a beam inches from her face.
No squalid cabin. No dog licking her nose. No sarcastic comment meeting her awakening. Not Brendan at all.
Worse. Much worse.
Memories flooded back, making the pounding of her temples triple in power until she had to put her head between her knees to keep down her dinner. She sat this way for a few minutes, wallowing in misery and muttering a few choice oaths before lifting her eyes to try and decide where she was and what in blazes she might do about it.
She sat beside a stack of lashed barrels. Darkness enveloped the space, but for weak spears of pale light from a grate above. Water slapped beneath her ear, booted feet tramped back and forth over her head. There was the squeak of rope and the snap of sail.
Máelodor’s men won’t accept you don’t have the stone. They don’t accept failure.
Fear splashed up her legs into her stomach, setting her bowels quivering. Pride and practicality coming a distant second to the primal animal terror sending her reeling to her feet.
Climbing the ladder, she pounded against the grate until her fists stung. Until the breath was driven from her lungs and she couldn’t swallow for the ache in her throat.
And no better off than before.
Giving up, she huffed the hair off her face. Wiped her scraped and bleeding palms upon her skirt. What would escape achieve anyway? Unless she planned on swimming for safety, she was caught well and good.
She slumped back to the floor, eyes squeezed shut, afraid to give in to the terror lurking at the edges of her consciousness, though it was tempting to slide into mind-numbing hysteria.
Was Brendan dead? Had he been taken when she was? And if so, where was he? What did they want with her? The obvious answer made her queasy and she quickly thought of something else. Had Rogan survived? Her stomach rolled ominously. So maybe that wasn’t the best thought either. Had she committed murder today? She clenched her jaw, glancing up at the hatch above her. If she got the chance, could she do it again?
As if wishing made it so, the hatch opened, light from a lantern blinding her to her visitor. She scanned the hold for anything to use as a weapon, but it was difficult to see in the inky, oily blackness, and other than the barrels and some rather large unwieldy bits of ship that looked too heavy for her to lift, there was nothing at hand.
Heavy steps and the scents of whiskey and pipe smoke coalesced into a familiar figure. A woolen greatcoat with the collar pulled up. A hat jammed upon salt-and-pepper hair, and as he raised his lantern high, a telltale purple bruise marring the side of his face, sticking plaster covering a cut across his left cheek.
She blinked in case she was hallucinating, but no. It was him. Rescue had come quicker than she’d hoped.
“Rogan!”
“Where is she?” Brendan sat at the table where they’d shoved him, eying his captors coolly, revealing nothing of the rage coiling round his heart. “I want to know she’s well.”
He’d not seen Elisabeth since they’d
bundled them out of the house, her body lifeless in the arms of a brute big enough to snap Brendan in half. She’d been placed into a carriage, the horses set to with a sharp slap of the reins.
It had only just disappeared around the corner when they’d shoved him into a second carriage. He’d sensed the presence of someone in the corner, there’d been an explosion behind his eyes, and he’d known nothing more until he woke to find himself aboard this smuggler’s lugger. The sounds of a ship newly under way dashed any hope he might have held of a swift rescue.
Freedom was up to him alone.
The man called Croker circled behind him, the sour stench of his breath hot on Brendan’s neck, while the other remained, hands on hips, legs planted wide against the roll of the ship. “She’s well enough for the time being. Up to you if she stays that way.”
Brendan placed his hands flat upon the tabletop, letting the rough wood anchor him. A way to focus his scattered mind. “You touch her and I’ll see you in hell.”
A knife caught him under the jaw. “Tough words,” Croker jeered, “but it’s that soft spot for the girl what’s going to keep you in line. Long as Sams and I have her, you won’t do anything, will you?”
Brendan kept silent. The dirty bastard might look stupid, but he had it exactly right. As long as Elisabeth remained hostage, Brendan was powerless.
“Though she’s a savory morsel, ain’t she?” Sams said with a dark chuckle, grabbing his crotch. “Mayhap we ought to give Captain Quick’s sailors sport for the journey. A little morale booster.”
Brendan lunged from his chair, only to be struck on the back of the head. Pain crashed through his skull, a ringing in his ears like the clang of a thousand church bells. He fought free, getting in at least one good punch before a fist slammed into his jaw. Another doubled him over, the air smashed out of him. He bit back a groan as he sank into his seat.
Sams shoved his face into Brendan’s. “Try that again and we’ll let you watch,” he growled.
They left, taking the lantern with them, the room plunged into darkness, nothing to pull Brendan’s mind from the death spiral of his thoughts.
But in their gloating, they’d made a fatal error. They’d left him unbound. Free to move and free to work the mage energy if he could stop the ringing in his ears long enough to concentrate.
He paced the tiny aft cabin. Explored by touch every board until he memorized his prison. The steady creak of rigging and the cradle-like rise and fall of the ship working against the fevered savagery in his mind. The door was locked, but if he . . .
Closing his eyes, he reached with his mind. Pictured the mechanism. Whispered the words like a prayer. “Daresha di-alhwedhesh.” The clink of the sprung lock echoed up his hand into his brain.
Now what?
Find Elisabeth. Free her. Take the captain and turn this hostage situation around. Foolhardy. Absurd. The best he could come up with at short notice. Otherwise, he might as well sit himself back down and await dismembering. And Elisabeth . . . no, he’d not dwell on what would happen to her once she was no longer needed to keep him compliant.
He stepped into a narrow companionway, opening onto a larger gun deck. A row of four cannon to either side. A ladder ascending to the upper deck. A passage narrowing farther forward to a grilled hatch leading down to the hold.
Could she be topside, where they could more easily keep an eye on her? In the hold? He crept forward to the ladder, a hand upon the rung, eyes searching that narrow square of overcast sky. Wind dragging the dank odor of his fear away with it.
With nothing left to lose and no reason to hide what he was, he cast his mind out as if he might sense her on a ribbon of energy. A wild hope. As Duinedon, she would be difficult to trace. It was doubtful he’d be able to sense anything about her other than perhaps whether she breathed or not, but there was always a chance. After all, she held some Fey blood from her grandmother.
He cast his power like a net upon the air. The salt-laden breeze washed cold and clear over his cheeks, a ripple of mage energy bound within its currents, enough to make him sure the smuggler captain was an Other with a developed weather sense. There would be no helpful wind to slow them down or steer them off course.
At the farthest edge of his mind, there came a faint echo. A dusky red shimmer that drew his attention. He locked on the tracing, slight as it was. Headed toward the hatch and the hold below. Had taken only a handful of steps when a man appeared from the shadows of that far companionway at the other side of the gun deck. His beady eyes afire with surprise, the sailor drew up, muttering an oath, a hand going to the knife at his belt.
Unhesitating, Brendan released a writhing coil of battle magic with viper speed. The blast crumpled the sailor like a broken doll, Brendan on him in an instant. Wrenching the man’s knife from his hand, he slit the rogue’s throat. His blood splashing hot and sticky. The iron tang thick and biting in Brendan’s nostrils.
Wiping the knife on his breeches, he continued down the passage to the grille. A heavy iron bar had been drawn aside, the grate pulled back to reveal a cavernous opening, the first few damp, slimy steps down into the ship’s forward hold.
Had the dead sailor just come from there? Were others waiting below?
Brendan adjusted the knife in his hand, a wild keenness firing his body. He would never say he reveled in bloodshed, but the kick to his heart and the sharpening of his senses had its advantages. The kill-or-be-killed survival instinct had saved him more than once.
He placed a booted foot upon the first riser, a familiar buzz of magic zinging through his head.
It couldn’t be. Not him. Not here. Not unless . . . Shit, shit, shit.
Shouts followed by the running stamp of feet and the ship made a sudden heel to starboard. He stumbled, biting the inside of his mouth to keep from voicing the howl of fury burning up through him.
And then chaos broke loose. The ship lurched, his foot slid on the damp stair, and a rake of cannon fire sent splinters and debris flying as he slithered and dove into the dark hold.
“Why?” Elisabeth pressed as far back into the corner as she could. As if through sheer willpower she might disappear through the decking and float away with the froth.
Sitting on an upturned bucket, Rogan clasped his hands between his knees, regret and defiance battling it out.
“It’s not my fault,” he whined. “I never meant for you to be hurt. I only wanted the stone. The Sh’vad Tual for Arthur’s rebirth. I tried to talk Croker and Sams out of it. Tried to convince them to leave you both behind.”
“So, what went wrong? Why kidnap us if you have the stone?”
“They wouldn’t listen to me. The bounty on Douglas is triple what a normal man can make in a lifetime. Máelodor wants him, stone or no stone.”
“And me?”
Rogan shook his head. “They took you as security. If Douglas tries anything, it’ll be you that suffers.”
Elisabeth swallowed. Somehow she’d known that already, but hearing Rogan say it only cemented it like a weight in her chest, pinning her to the floor, feeding the whirl of her thoughts. More than anything, she wanted to burst into copious amounts of weeping and wallowing, but she refused to give Rogan the satisfaction.
Clamping down on the impulse to blubber, she asked, “Do you know where they’re taking us?” hoping the squeak in her voice wasn’t audible.
“Cornwall. We’ll be there by dawn tomorrow.”
A roar of sound exploded the night. Screams and running feet and shouts of command followed just as another whistling explosion pummeled the air, knocking her hard against the hull, sending dust drifting into her eyes.
Rogan threw himself to his feet as someone came half falling, half leaping into the hold, righting himself at the last instant to land crouched, ferocity washing off him in waves.
Brendan. Awash in blood, his eyes seeking her like blazes of wild light. A thin slash began at the top of his left cheekbone, ending by his chin. A second, uglier score marred the
side of his neck.
“Lissa!” he shouted.
A cannon’s bellow, this time coming from above. The captain was firing back at their attackers. Could it be Helena? Could she have found them so quickly?
The ship seemed to shake with exertion, sails cracking like gunshots, the hull creaking threateningly. Brendan used the distraction to throw himself at Rogan, who leveled his gun at Brendan’s chest, startling him to a halt. “Kill me, you lose your best hope for keeping Miss Elisabeth safe.”
“The stone?” Brendan demanded with an icy menace even Elisabeth found chilling, and it wasn’t even directed at her. “Where’s the damned stone, Rogan? Tell me it’s safe. Tell me Helena has it still.”
Rogan flinched but did not weaken, the rightness of his cause trumping his obvious fear. “I have it.”
Elisabeth hadn’t thought Brendan could grow any more frightening. She was wrong. Something bloodthirsty entered his gaze. Something that held nothing of humanity, as if the Fey in him had taken over. Yet this was no shimmery, ethereal splendor but a heartless, implacable brutality. Elisabeth was reminded of the image in the scrying glass—the heir of Kilronan watching as evil was unleashed. This was a man capable of murder. Of malice.
“You son of a bastard—the Sh’vad Tual is all Máelodor needs to open the tomb and complete the summoning.”
Rogan’s eyes darted wildly in the flickering glow of the lantern, both his gun and his voice shaking as he responded. “Exactly. The king will finally return. The Other will have the leader they need to defeat the Duinedon.”
“It won’t happen, Rogan. It’s impossible. I’ve seen it. Arthur doesn’t succeed.”
A boom, and then another. This time the echoing crack of thunder, the slice of lightning. Above the din rose what must be the captain’s voice in a slow, chanting lilt. Winds rose. The ship lifted up and over before dropping into the trough of undulating waves.
Heir of Danger Page 26
