She was on her knees, her wrists chained behind her back to one of the gazebo’s stout support beams. Her long blonde hair hung in tight ringlets, covering her face and her naked body. Her shoulders shook with each racking sob, but she didn’t raise her head when I took a step forward. She didn’t seem to realize I was there. I reached out a hand to her.
“Marrakesh?” I asked, softly.
Chapter 7
She threw back her head and let out a hoarse scream. I jerked my hand away. If she was the queen, then I shouldn’t touch her. She had power, this one, the power to see into your soul at the merest touch of her hand. And if she wished it, she could destroy you with what she found there. It wasn’t a vampire power, or witchcraft. It was … something else … and it was the reason she was feared and respected by vampires the world over, the reason MacLeod hadn’t been challenged for his throne in centuries. She was his enforcer, and it was said that the last vampire to challenge him had run screaming into the sun when Marrakesh had touched him. She’d felt all the pain he’d caused over the many centuries of his existence and had turned that pain back to him, flooding him with a tide of emotion that had snapped his sanity and driven him from Caisteal Dubhar and into the afternoon sun. I had only been a vampire for thirteen years, but even I had done things that I didn’t want to relive. And so I stood there, wondering what to do next, and watching the Queen of the Western Lands cry as if her heart were being wrenched from her chest.
“You would betray me like this?” she wailed.
I took a step back and shook my head. “My queen. I did not do this to you, I swear it.”
But how had she ended up here, like this? How could someone have done this without touching her? Perhaps whoever was working the magic that I sensed had used a spell to make him or her immune to the queen’s power.
What I wouldn’t give for that spell right now, I thought.
“I loved you,” she whispered, and I frowned and cocked my head to one side. “I became everything you wanted me to be, and more. I tried so hard to please you.”
She wasn’t looking at me. In fact, she didn’t even seem to realize I was there. I moved around so that I was directly in her line of vision, but the look in her eyes was so glassy and faraway that I knew that whatever she was seeing, it wasn’t an Edinburgh rooftop, and it certainly wasn’t me.
“I loved you,” she said again, looking lost and hurt and confused. “You’re my husband, Conall. I’ve given you everything—money and land … every inch of my body and soul. How can you do this?”
Well, that certainly wasn’t MacLeod. Gods, could she be reliving her human life? She had to be well over a thousand years old. What could possibly still hurt this much, after all that time? I shook my head. This was something I shouldn’t know anything about, didn’t want to know anything about. I should leave. I should go and get help. But she looked so heartbroken and vulnerable that I couldn’t bring myself to move. I stood there, still as a statue, while the whole gut-wrenching tale tumbled from her lips.
“And you …” She turned her head slightly to the right, as if someone else were standing there. “I’ve loved you like a sister. You were my first friend when I came here as a bride.” She laughed harshly, and it was not a pretty sound. “You were even kind enough to give me advice about how to please my husband in bed. What a fool I was. I thought you were so wise, but it was easy enough when you knew what he wanted firsthand, wasn’t it? Tell me, Nessa, how long have you been sleeping with my husband?”
I waited while she listened to voices only she could hear. Finally she closed her eyes, bowed her head, and slumped down as far as the chains would allow her. I didn’t need to hear the other side of the conversation to know the answer to that question.
“So it was all a lie, from the very beginning. By Danu, why would you make me believe you loved me, Conall? I married you because my uncle asked it of me, and he is the Uí Níall. I never expected love and would have been content without it.”
I barely heard her when she whispered, “You bastard.” She raised her head, and her eyes were red, her face wet with tears. “So now you plan to stake me out on this beach with this paltry treasure in the hope that they will take me and leave your village alone. And what will you tell my uncle? That I was killed in a raid? And then you will be free to marry the woman you love. How convenient. Mark me well, Conall, you won’t get away with this, either of you.”
She started pulling violently against the chains that bound her wrists as she screamed out her husband’s name. Finally, she sank back down on her heels, crying and shaking as if she would break.
“Marrakesh?” I said, not really expecting a response. Vampires generally changed their names after they’re turned, and if she believed she was in the past, still human, she wouldn’t recognize Marrakesh as her name. Whatever her human name had been I didn’t know it, so I simply petted her hair and said, “Darling, I’m going to get help. I’ll be back soon, I promise, and then this will all be over.”
She jerked her head up, her eyes wide and wild with fear. “Shh!” she said. “Quiet. They’re coming. They’re here.”
I shook my head. “Who’s here? Who are you afraid of?”
Her breath came in shallow gasps. “Vikings.”
I rocked back on my heels. He had told her he loved her, slept with her best friend, and then staked her out on a beach as a sacrifice to the Vikings? Bloody hell, what kind of evil bastard does that?
“What the hell is going on here?” a male voice snapped from behind me.
I spun around, drawing the short sword that was sheathed down my spine as I did. It was MacLeod. It occurred to me briefly that whoever had done this to the queen either possessed strong magic or was someone she trusted, someone who would not balk at the touch of her power. The man she slept with every day, perhaps? Had one husband staked her out to be killed by Vikings, only to have another stake her out to be killed by the morning sun?
I lowered the sword. He was unarmed, and the look of pain on his face as he stared past me at his wife was so stark that it squeezed my heart. I wanted to believe that he couldn’t have done this thing. However, I’m not a stupid girl, so I kept the sword in my hand.
“I found her like this,” I said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She speaks of Vikings.”
“She’s told me, of course, how she came to be in Marrakesh when I found her, but I’ve never seen …”
The chains rattled behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see her struggle to rise to her feet. With a regal toss of her head she slung her hair over her shoulder and stared at MacLeod as if she truly saw him.
“Handsome enough,” she whispered to herself.
My gaze swung between the two of them, each staring at the other in rapt attention. I stepped aside, unsure of what was going on.
“Viking,” she called. “I have a bargain to make with you.”
She stood tall and proud, confident in her beauty, unashamed of her nakedness. She was several inches taller than me and not fat, necessarily, just … solid. Lush. It was a figure that had once been fashionable and undoubtedly would be again. She’d been young when she had been turned, in her early twenties I would guess, and was at least twenty years (and several centuries) younger than MacLeod. Her blonde hair hung in tight curls to her waist, and her eyes were like green velvet as they moved over MacLeod’s face and frame. He walked to her and stood before her. Even though she was chained and naked, I had no doubt who had the advantage here. She was like a cobra hypnotizing its prey.
“You’re hardly in a position to make bargains, lady,” MacLeod responded, as if he were an actor in this little drama.
“Am I not? I am lady of yon castle,” she said and nodded over her shoulder, pressing her back into the post and arching her body as she did so. Very well done. He was putty in her hands. “And I can assure you that there is more treasure there than the pittance that lies on this beach.”
“I need no woman’s help
to take a keep, or the treasure within,” he replied. Obviously MacLeod knew what had happened to her all those centuries ago and was playing the Viking warrior for her. To what end I had no idea, perhaps simply out of his own curiosity. Regardless, I stood transfixed and watched the scene play out.
She laughed. “The treasure is well hidden. You could tear down that keep stone by stone. You could search until Lughnasa and never find it. I will give you what you seek in exchange for two things.”
He laughed softly. “You have courage, lady, and spirit. I like those things in a woman. What boon is it you ask of me in exchange for this treasure?”
She raised her chin. “I am the niece of the Uí Níall king.”
“You wish to be ransomed back to your uncle?”
“I am disgraced,” she replied with a bitter laugh. “I can never go back there and hold my head high. But I am a lady, Viking, and have no wish to become a slave. I would be your lady. Treat me as a princess should be treated and I’ll make you happier than you’ve ever been, in bed and out of it.”
He ran his fingers over her cheek and gripped her chin. “I could have you here and now, lady, and pay no price for it.”
She smiled. “You’re an old man, Viking. Do you really want a woman in your bed that you have to fight every night? Give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want, freely.”
“What makes you think I wish to have you in my bed every night? I could have you once and sell you as a slave to the Moors.”
She cocked her head as if to beckon him closer. When he moved in, she leaned forward as far as the chains would allow, her lips nearly touching his. Her gaze moved to his lips, and she licked her own. “You won’t let me go without having me. And once you’ve had me, you won’t let me go.” She raised her eyes to his. “Give me what I want, and I’ll be the best you’ve ever had.”
He swallowed. “Done,” he said, when he’d found his voice.
She leaned back against the post and dropped her gaze shyly. It was a coquette’s gesture.
“And the second thing you would ask of me?” he prompted.
She was silent for a moment and then raised her eyes to his. Gone was the bold siren or the shy coquette. The hatred that burned like green fire in her eyes made me take a step back.
“Kill them all,” she hissed.
Chapter 8
“MacLeod,” I said, tearing my gaze from Marrakesh’s face and looking over my shoulder. “We have no more time for this. Dawn is here.”
MacLeod shook himself and looked at the sky. “Damn it,” he swore.
He pulled at the chains, but they were tight and held in place by a sturdy lock the size of my fist. I held out my sword.
“Will this help?” I asked.
He looked at the sword, and then back at her wrists, shaking his head. “Even if I could break the lock with it. I can’t get to it.”
I sheathed the sword and moved to the other side of her. “The post. Break the post off and we can pull her free. We’ll worry about getting the chains off once we’re inside.”
He nodded, grabbing the wooden post that was as big around as my leg and snapping it like a twig. The edge of the roof fell in as Marrakesh pitched forward into MacLeod’s arms. And that’s when I noticed her back. Even with the eastern sky turning pink with the dawn, I couldn’t help but stop and stare.
Her entire back from her shoulder blades to the base of her spine was covered in one large tattoo. A huge black raven took up most of the center of her back, its wings spread up and out over her shoulder blades, its shiny black feathers sparkling with a hint of gold. Behind the raven a full moon shimmered like liquid silver. The raven’s beak held a sprig of hazel, and each talon clutched a spray of fir and elder. The green ink was so brilliant that the plants looked alive. Beneath the bird, waves swirled in several shades of blue and green, tapering down into a V at the base of her spine. Pink and gold salmon swam on those waves, their scales glistening. Surrounding the whole tattoo and filling in any empty spaces were Celtic shield knots, spirals, and circles, making the whole thing like something straight out of the Book of Kells. The colors were so vibrant and shiny that I reached out to touch it, to see if the ink was still wet. It wasn’t.
“MacLeod?” I asked.
“She’s had it since she was made a vampire,” he said quickly as he picked Marrakesh up and cradled her against his chest. He looked over his shoulder at the dawn breaking on the horizon. “Hurry.”
We rushed across the rooftop, and I stepped aside to allow him to carry his queen down the stairs ahead of me. I slipped in behind him and closed the hatch, throwing the bolt to lock it from the inside. MacLeod shifted on the stairs, giving me room to move past him and hold the tapestry back. Once we were inside, I closed the door and noticed two more bolt locks carved into the wood panel. Unless her abductor had possessed enough magic to open the locks from the outside, whoever had taken Marrakesh up onto that roof had come in from her bedchamber and not the passage beyond.
Interesting, I thought as I slid the locks in place and let the tapestry fall back to hide the door.
MacLeod had laid her on the bed and stripped off his shirt to cover her nakedness. I spared an appreciative glance at his heavily muscled chest, and then went to inspect the queen’s bound wrists. I passed my hand over the chains, feeling for any lingering touch of magic. When I found none, I closed my eyes and pushed my power into the lock, whispering, “Open.”
The lock snapped open and the chains slid from her wrists.
MacLeod’s head snapped up. “Why didn’t you do that on the roof?”
I shrugged. “Someone is working magic on her. I just assumed that the lock would be warded. I certainly would have warded it, if I had done this to her.”
“And if it had been, then what?”
“I haven’t found a ward I couldn’t break in ten years, but it would have taken time we didn’t have.”
He nodded and slipped Marrakesh’s arms into the sleeves of his shirt, murmuring Gaelic love words to her as he did so. It was such an intimate thing that I felt suddenly like a voyeur.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll just go and tell the others that she’s been found. Try to get her to rest, and I’ll be back to see what I can do for her.”
My hand was on the bedroom door when he called my name. I turned and looked at him, the proud King of the Western Lands, shirtless and cradling his young queen in his arms. The look on his face was filled with pain and helplessness.
“Thank you,” he said, “for believing in her.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what I believe, Highness, but I do know that she didn’t do that to herself.”
He stared at me a moment, as if the force of his will alone could make me believe in her innocence, then nodded and turned his attention back to his lady. I slipped out the door, and ran straight into Michael.
“We found her,” I said, gently pushing him back as he craned his neck to get a look inside the royal bedchamber. “But we have a problem.”
I explained the circumstances surrounding the queen’s return, leaving the juicier parts for later, when we were alone.
He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. “Well, hell. This couldn’t have been easy, could it? Regardless of the circumstances, we have to tell the others that she’s been found, and call off the search.”
“Agreed,” I said. “And I want to gauge the reaction from Khalid and Hashim when they’re told.”
I would have liked to have seen something on the faces of MacLeod’s lieutenants. Some mark of guilt or irritation at the news that the queen was safe would have been nice. Unfortunately, the twins showed no sign of anything but utter relief. Even Bel fluttered and dabbed at a tear with her handkerchief when she learned that Marrakesh was now safely tucked away in her chamber. It was clear to me that Devlin was looking for the same reaction I was, because he fairly groaned in frustration.
“I want everyone in MacLeod’s chamber,” he said. �
�Now. I want this whole story told from the beginning. I do not like not knowing what the bloody hell is going on.”
As we all headed for the stairs, Bel chattered away. “Oh, an inquisition! I’ve never been to one before. Do you think this dress is proper? Perhaps I should go change first.”
“Your dress is lovely, dear,” I said as she swept past Justine and me to follow the men up the stairs.
Justine’s fingers curled into claws as she reached for Bel’s shiny, bouncing curls. I slapped at her hands, stifling a giggle as I did so.
“Do you really think so?” Bel asked as she turned on the stairs, the hopeful look on her face giving way to several astonished blinks as she watched me swatting at Justine.
I elbowed Justine in the ribs. It was her turn to make nice, after all. She grunted and then inclined her head, her teeth looking just a bit feral as she smiled at the dark beauty above us. “Very nice, chérie.”
“Hmm. No, I never did like the taste of it, but perhaps a good Bordeaux would go well with an inquisition. What do you think, Michael?” Bel asked as she smiled and turned, leaving Justine and me standing openmouthed at the foot of the stairs.
Justine and I sat on one of the Roman couches in MacLeod’s bedchamber, watching as the king paced before the fireplace, his gaze occasionally drifting to his wife. The queen was asleep in her gauze-draped bed across the room, oblivious to us all. Bel and Drake occupied the other couch while Khalid and Hashim stood like good sentries on either side of the fireplace. Michael was standing behind me, rubbing slow circles on the back of my neck with his thumb. I drummed my fingers impatiently on the arm of the couch as I listened to Drake gently explain the difference between an inquest and an inquisition to Bel. Finally, I shot a pointed look at Devlin, who leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and said, “Highness, perhaps you would care to start at the beginning?”
Grave Sins Page 5
