Dangerous As Sin

by Alix Rickloff

So who really was stronger?

  But now this miserly bestowal of his favor proved a difficulty. Three of his closest followers dead. Just one remaining he believed in enough to follow through on his instructions. And the dubious talents of the sewer rat, Rastus.

  “You have your orders, North. Bring the woman back to me here.” He caught a look cross the man’s face. “Untouched.”

  “And you, sir? While I’m snagging the bait, what are you doing?”

  “Laying the trail. Traceable, but not obvious. I want Bligh and Sinclair to find me. I have plans for those two.”

  Neuvarvaan spoke through him in the black speech of the Morkoth. It was the sword that instructed him in what to do. How to proceed. How to rid himself of these two problems and increase his numbers in one dramatic move.

  An army of Undying must begin with a single soldier. Or two. And who better to lay the foundation for all who would follow? A man with the ruthless savagery of a wild creature honed to lethal precision. An Other only one generation away from the true Fey whose battle skills, though roughly cast, were no less deadly.

  He tasted success. All had come together as planned. The abduction of the sword. The deciphering of the Morkoth’s magics. The drawing of enough power together and in one person to start the chain reaction of mage energy that would spark the transformation. Create deathless perfection from the clay of mortality.

  “And after you get what you want? I want the woman for my own,” North whined. “Want to wipe that cool disdain from her face.”

  “The Sinclair woman?” In a generous mood, Doran shrugged. “As you wish.” Then thought better. “If there’s enough of her left, that is.”

  “Cam?” Brodie’s voice—but different—sounded in the hall. The deep baritone threaded with pain. Or anguish. “Cam!” Definitely anguish.

  He ducked his head out the door to the library.

  And went dead-cold.

  Gone was the starched and polished officer of a few hours ago. Brodie leaned heavily against the door, his eyes wild. Dangerous. Trained inward on some horror only he could see.

  Cam’s heart galloped, a hard ball of fear lodged in his throat. “Brodie?”

  Nothing.

  Cam placed his hand on Brodie’s shoulder.

  The reaction was instant and explosive. And if Brodie had been armed, Cam’s head would have been on the floor.

  Even so, the force of Brodie’s blow threw a surprised Cam to his knees. A stinger in his neck that left his arm numb to the fingers. “What the hell—”

  Brodie stood, shoulders squared. Legs spread. Chest heaving. Poised for battle.

  “Euna’s been taken.”

  A leather jerkin over his shirt to turn aside a knife blade. Slow a pistol shot.

  Boots, supple as a second skin, allowing for silence as he selected his position. Waited for his best opportunity at a clean kill.

  At his belt, a cartridge pouch, a pistol holster, and a scabbard for his dagger. Another dirk in his boot.

  After wrapping the untested rifle in fabric to avoid a telltale glint of sun off the weapon, he sighted along the barrel. Noted its weight. The cool wood of the stock against his cheek. Squeezed the trigger, feeling the hammer-spring slam forward. The surge of vicious exhilaration that followed.

  He’d understood long ago that someday he’d be called to account for his crimes. That a reckoning would be owed. But the depth and cruelty of that divine justice he’d not foreseen. The swift retribution of a lightning bolt. That he could have handled. But this…

  Let him taste happiness. Glimpse heaven.

  Then slam the doors. Douse the lights.

  Bring on hell.

  His glance fell on the all-too-familiar whiskey decanter. And the need for the relaxing heat of his family’s malt sank its claws into him. A few drinks might dull the howling storm of blood-hate singeing every vein. The overarching power of revenge.

  He deliberately turned his back on the alcohol, wanting the fire of vengeance in his belly. It was the only way he’d save his sister.

  If he was heading to hell, he’d bring Doran right along with him.

  What he’d told Morgan had been the truth. The churning gut, the weak knees, the choking fear. He’d experienced them all. And buried them deep. It was the only way to survive the war. To survive the savagery.

  The emotions had broken the surface for a time, bringing the chilling memories with them, the faces of the dead threatening to destroy his peace. His mind.

  For Euna, he would bury them again. Rastus had been right. He needed every trait of the Serpent to bring Doran down. Cameron Sinclair could fight the darkness within him. Or Sin could embrace it.

  He chose Sin.

  And once he had chosen, there would be no coming back.

  Morgan leaned against the doorjamb, the mage energy filling her senses overpowering the wobbly-legged light-headedness. She’d doctored her arm as best she could, using the limited medicines she’d found in the house. The bullet-scored tissue burned, hampering her mobility, but she’d no choice. Doran had captured a pawn. Check. But the queen and two knights moved onto the field of play. It was up to them to match his moves with a check and mate of their own.

  “It’s begun,” she announced.

  “Doran?” Cam broke off his conversation with Brodie, the guilty flush stealing over the captain’s face and the way he avoided looking directly at her an indication she’d been the object of their discussion.

  But it was Cam’s expression that sent her heart straight to her toes. The empty blue of his gaze, the square jut of his jaw, the careful way he held himself as if any slight movement would cause him to crack chilled her to the marrow of her bones. This was not the same Cam who’d left her bed this morning, a man she could have pledged herself to. This man radiated pure feral rage. Assumed the mantle of a creature bound to kill. Knowing only how to destroy. Never how to love.

  Cam might return from this mission alive. But she understood now, never whole.

  Brodie’s knowing gaze sought out hers, the sorrow she saw there for both of them. For he stood to lose a friend just as she lost a lover.

  But regrets would have to wait.

  Now was for Euna. Doran. And the reclaiming of Neuvarvaan.

  Firmly locking away the grief and the heartache that would come in time, she turned her mind to what she could control. Once they succeeded in freeing Cam’s sister and sending Doran to the deepest pit in the darkest hell, she’d retreat to the sanctuary of Daggerfell and her family’s arms. To nurse her broken heart for a second time.

  But this time, there’d be no third chances. She would have Cam. Or she would remain alone. There was no middle ground.

  Her hand fell to the basket hilt of her sword, using the comforting presence of the weapon as a way to draw her mind off distractions. “Doran’s letting himself be found. All but forcing us to follow the trail he’s laid.”

  “So we indulge him. And we end it. Today.” Cam’s voice as emotionless as his gaze.

  “Cam and I’ve discussed it. I’m coming with ye.” Brodie pushed up from the table, the giant Highlander needing only a plaid and a claymore to assume the guise of one of the brutal clansmen of his ancestry. She could almost hear the bagpipes. Smell the heather.

  Morgan offered him a curt nod. “If I’m right in my thinking, it’s going to take you and an army of such to best Doran.”

  Brodie smiled, though it never reached his eyes, which were grim, lit with shadows of their own. He spread his empty hands. “I’m only one, lass. But I’m a great strapping brute for all that. Together, the three of us may contrive.” He glanced at Cam, his smile fading. “She mayn’t be blood, Cam. But she’s a sister to me, nonetheless. We’ll see her safe.”

  Cam seemed to flinch, but in no other way did Euna’s abduction register in the ravages of his face.

  Morgan closed her eyes. Whispered the words of the fith-fath. At once her leather breeches and jacket became a simple gown, the raiment of a wom
an hiding the weapons of the Amhas-draoi.

  “Come,” she said, wishing she could hide her grief as easily behind such a mask. Surely Cam knew how she must feel. But if he did, he gave no sign he cared. “Doran’s calling.”

  Despite the swell of humanity crowding the wharves, warehouses, and shipping basins, few trespassed into the morass of dirt and debris around the entrance to the half-constructed Regent’s Canal. Complications in management had temporarily halted the anthill of construction between the docks and the canal’s terminus in the heart of the city, leaving a cemetery of abandoned machinery, tools flung aside as if the workers were expected back at any moment, coils of heavy rope, mountains of dirt and clay and silt embedded with shards of pottery, broken bricks, rocks blasted from unfinished locks.

  Morgan picked her way around one such pile, the size of it dwarfing her. A slide and she’d find herself buried beneath a ton of crushed rock and earth.

  “Doran,” she called, the double coil of his mage energy a living thing moving within her skull like a snake. If she closed her eyes, it was all she could see. The earlier red-purple signature now almost completely black, shot with gray and blue and yellow. The Morkoth’s magic binding with his own into one huge supply of power. “I know you hear my voice. Bring out the girl.”

  Silence, but she knew the bastard heard her.

  “Show me she’s safe,” she shouted. “She’s no part of this.”

  She kept her eyes firmly on the battle-scape around her, never once glancing up to where Cam and Brodie held position. Cam with his sniper’s rifle trained on her. Brodie playing backup in the case of unforeseen trouble.

  To all who saw her, she was alone. Vulnerable. Easy pickings.

  Just how she wanted it.

  “Where’s Sinclair?”

  The voice was Doran’s. She’d know that smug, condescending rasp anywhere. It bounced off the man-made ravines and blasted cliff walls of the half-finished lock. Swirled like a noxious evil wind around her.

  “Near death,” she answered, thanking the gods an empathic ability was not among the rogue Amhas-draoi’s talents. He’d never pick the lie from the truth. Not if she did her job right. “A belly wound. Your assassin was lucky. For a time. Before I killed him.” She let the reality of her words sink in. “If Euna Sinclair’s kidnapping was intended to punish him, it’s too late. He’ll be dead by tomorrow.” She swallowed. “If he’s fortunate.” She scanned the ground for signs of movement. “Let Euna go.”

  “Is that her name? My men and I have simply been calling her bitch as we rode her.”

  Morgan’s stomach clenched in spasms, making her want to heave. By the sweet mercies of the White Lady, she prayed the girl dead or mad if gang rape had really been her fate. Somewhere above, she knew the men heard the taunt as well. She willed them to hold it together. Focus not on Doran’s words, but on the end goal. Killing the little shit.

  Doran stepped into view like a being spat from the Unseelie’s Dark Court. A sour, fetid stench wrapped round him, the odor of death and darkness and the wicked strength of the Morkoth. Even his physical shape seemed affected by the ancient evil. Grown gaunt and gray, his once mighty body bent with invisible burdens, only his gaze remained razor sharp, yet bore a millennia of hate. Neuvarvaan—Andraste’s stolen sword—rested against his leg, but she knew it listened to her words as avidly as Doran.

  “A shame the colonel’s not here. I’d a deal to set before the two of you.” He gave an offhand shrug. “But one’s better than none.”

  She slid her sword from its scabbard. “Enough games, Doran. Spill it.”

  He straightened. “Very well. You in exchange for Miss Sinclair.” Confusion must have flashed across her face because he smiled. “Come with me willingly. Let Neuvarvaan create you as an Undying.”

  Just the thought made her shudder. “And in exchange?”

  “I allow Miss Sinclair to walk out of here unharmed.”

  She flexed her fingers on the worn grip of her sword, adrenaline jumping along every nerve. “And if I tell you to bugger off, you miserable piece of shit?”

  Doran laughed, though the humor never reached his soulless gaze. “Do you eat with that mouth, Bligh?” He settled a long, hard stare on her. “It’s your choice, of course. But know this. If you fight, you’ll lose. And Miss Sinclair will return to her home in very small pieces. I’ve already begun.”

  He signaled to someone out of her range of vision.

  A man appeared from behind a pile of stone to her right, bearing a struggling, weeping woman in front of him, her once fashionable walking dress now a sodden, filthy mess of almost rags.

  “Show us, North.”

  Doran’s henchman shoved Euna roughly ahead of him. She stumbled to her knees, her hands tied behind her, unable to break her fall. She looked up, meeting Morgan’s stare, her eyes hot with fear and shame and red with tears. As Morgan watched, North reached around, ripping Euna’s gown from shoulder to waist for Morgan’s inspection.

  And Morgan wanted to be sick all over again. A brand burned into the white of Euna’s flesh just above her left breast. A mark of ownership. Possession.

  One word.

  Slave.

  Chapter 28

  Cam had never been so close to madness.

  Not during the bloody chaos of Talavera when he’d had to pick pieces of offal from his hair and his clothes after the cannon shot that had destroyed the squad of soldiers beside him. Or afterward when the grass fires raged, sweeping over dead and wounded alike, the stench of burning carcasses filling his nostrils.

  Not even during the storming of Badajoz when he’d climbed the bodies at the breech like a human ladder. Ignored the pleas for mercy from the dying. The screams of those fleeing the battle-crazed British out for blood. Then he’d calmly picked his way past the carnage in his search of his target. The man he’d been sent in to kill.

  In every case, he’d held to his duty. Put aside the sickening twist of his own disgust and ploughed on. Unthinking. Uncaring.

  But this time…this place…this was Euna. A wild battle-frenzy reddened his vision. Tightened his finger against the trigger. And a quick death was no longer good enough for the half mortal, half Fey walking corpse below him.

  He adjusted his sight. His aim now centered neatly on the man’s left thigh. He’d splinter bone. Sever an artery. And when the bastard lay writhing on the ground, the fun would really get started. Cam’s palms itched to make it happen. A few feet more and he could take his shot. And then they’d see who took who apart piece by bloody piece.

  Morgan spoke again, her words lost to him amid the deafening roar of his own pumping heart. But whatever she said, it lured Doran farther into the open of the worksite.

  Instinct took over as he walked himself mentally through his checklist. Took clear aim. Let the clarity of the sharpshooter take him over.

  He’d end this threat once and for all. Destroy Doran Buchanan with one perfectly placed bullet.

  “Come on, ye prick. I’m going to fucking kill ye right now.”

  Had he really screamed that aloud?

  No. He might have thought it, but it was Brodie’s shout of anger. Brodie who’d lost control and revealed himself.

  To Cam’s right, the damned fool was scrambling for a foothold on the piles of shale, a hand out to control his wild plummet to the floor of the dry canal bed.

  And what had been a calculated extermination blew up into calamity bordering on farce.

  Brodie’s pistol came up even as he ran, the report a crack like the lash of a whip.

  North went down, a bullet to the chest, shock at the unexpected attack by the hulking, screeching madman his last expression.

  Euna sank to the ground, head bowed as if fighting to make herself invisible to the horror around her.

  Only Morgan and Doran remained unmoved by the chaos.

  Doran lifted a hand, palm out, fingers spread, and the very air seemed to shudder in a silent clap of thunder.

 
; The rocks around Cam clattered and bounced. He fought to remain upright as the earth under his feet jinked and settled back.

  Morgan fell to her knees, even as her own arms rose over her head. Palms out. Face pale with what seemed great pain or great concentration as if she alone held back the earth around them. Kept the walls from caving, the rocks from spilling into the base of the canal.

  Brodie turned his second pistol on Doran, but the Amhas-draoi merely flicked a finger at him and, like batting a fly, Brodie was swept off his feet, his pistol skittering out of reach, his face going white as flour.

  Cam knew that anguish. The mind-exploding pain of the body being scythed apart with invisible knives. As if your very soul were being chopped to bits.

  Morgan cried out and a wave of gold light pulsed from her hands, wrapped Brodie and Euna in a cocoon of star-shot air. But even that much seemed to drain her. How long could she hold, weakened by that bullet wound? When would she finally collapse under the force of Doran’s power?

  He couldn’t wait for the perfect shot. It was now or maybe never.

  He raised the barrel a second time. Took aim at the center of the Amhas-draoi’s chest. Squeezed off a shot.

  From behind came a bone-snicking crunch. Just before the world exploded around him.

  Went black.

  Morgan felt her wards collapsing just as the crack of a rifle sounded above and behind her, the bullet passing so close she imagined she felt the slice of air as it stung by her ear. Buried itself with a puff of dirt in the ground beside Doran.

  He glanced up, his eyes homed in on her with a diamond hardness.

  And Morgan chose her moment.

  Flinging the binding spell with the force of a sword thrust, she drove in under his guard, sliding her dagger from its sheath. Burying it into his stomach with a howl of fury.

  He stumbled back, screaming, a look of stunned surprise in his pale eyes. But with a roar of pain and triumph, he whipped up a tornado of choking, blinding dust.

  Morgan threw her arms over her head, dropping to the ground, hoping to avoid the hailstorm of dirt, glass, rocks, and splintered wood.