by Nora Roberts
“Thank you.” Then she let out a laugh as Larkin swept her off her feet and in three dizzying circles.
“Look at you. Majesty.”
“You mock my dignity.”
“Always. But never you, a stór.”
When Larkin set her back on her feet, she turned to Cian. “Thank you for coming. It meant a great deal to me.”
He neither embraced nor touched her, but only inclined his head. “It was a moment not to be missed.”
“A moment more important to me that you would come. All of you,” she continued and started to turn when her young cousin tugged on her skirts. “Aideen.” She lifted the child, accepted the damp kiss. “And don’t you look pretty today.”
“Pretty,” Aideen repeated, reaching up to touch Moira’s jeweled crown. Then she turned her head with a smile both shy and sly for Cian. “Pretty,” she said again.
“An astute female,” Cian observed. He saw the little girl’s gaze drop to the pendant he wore, and in an absent gesture lifted it so that she could touch.
Even as Aideen reached out, her mother all but flew across the room. “Aideen, don’t!”
Sinann pulled the girl from Moira, gripped her tight against her belly, burgeoning with her third child.
In the shocked silence, Moira could do no more than breathe her cousin’s name.
“I never had a taste for children,” Cian said coolly. “You’ll excuse me.”
“Cian.” With one damning look toward Sinann, Moira hurried after him. “Please, a moment.”
“I’ve had enough moments for the morning. I want my bed.”
“I would apologize.” She took his arm, holding firm until he stopped and turned. His eyes were hard; blue stone. “My cousin Sinann, she’s a simple woman. I’ll speak with her.”
“Don’t trouble on my account.”
“Sir.” Pale as wax, Sinann walked toward them. “I beg your pardon, most sincerely. I have insulted you, and my queen, her honored guests. I ask your forgiveness for a mother’s foolishness.”
She regretted the insult, Cian thought, but not the act. The child was on the far side of the room now, in her father’s arms. “Accepted.” He dismissed her with barely a glance. “Now if you’ll release my arm. Majesty.”
“A favor,” Moira began.
“You’re racking them up.”
“And I’m in your debt,” she said evenly. “I need to go out, onto the terrace. The people need to see their queen, and, I feel, those who are her circle. If you’d give me a few minutes more of your time I’d be grateful.”
“In the buggering sun.”
She managed a smile, and relaxed as she recognized the frustration in his tone meant he’d do as she asked. “A few moments. Then you can go find some solitude with the satisfaction of knowing I’ll be envying you for it.”
“Then make it quick. I’d enjoy some solitude and satisfaction.”
Moira arranged it deliberately, with Larkin on one side of her—a figure Geall loved and respected—and Cian on the other. The stranger some of them feared. Having them flank her would, she hoped, show her people she considered them equals, and that both had her trust.
The crowd cheered and called her name, with the cheers rising to a roar when she lifted the sword. It was also a deliberate gesture for her to pass that sword to Blair to hold for her while she spoke. The people should see that the woman Larkin was betrothed to was worthy to hold it.
“People of Geall!” She shouted it, but the cheering continued. It came in waves that didn’t ebb until she stepped closer to the stone rail and raised her hands.
“People of Geall, I come to you as queen, as citizen, as protector. I stand before you as did my mother, as did her sire, and as did all those back to the first days. And I stand as part of a circle chosen by the gods. Not just a circle of Geallian rulers, but a circle of warriors.”
Now she spread her arms to encompass the five who stood with her. “With these who stand with me, that circle is formed. These are my most trusted and beloved. As a citizen, I ask you give them your loyalty, your trust, your respect as you do me. As your queen, I command it.”
She had to pause every few moments until the shouts and cheers abated again. “Today, the sun shines on Geall. But it will not always be so. What is coming seeks the dark, and we will meet it. We will defeat it. Today, we celebrate, we feast, we give thanks. Come the morrow, we continue our preparations for war. Every Geallian who can bear arms will do so. And we will march to Ciunas. We will march to the Valley of Silence. We will flood that ground with our strength and our will, and we will drown those who would destroy us in the light.”
She held her hand out for the sword, then held it high again. “This sword will not, as it has since the first days, hang cool and quiet during my reign. It will flame and sing in my hand as I fight for you, for Geall, and for all humankind.”
The roars of approval rose like a torrent.
Then there were screams as an arrow streaked the air.
Before she could react, Cian shoved her down. Under the shouting and chaos, she heard his low, steady cursing. And felt his blood warm on her hand.
“Oh God, my God, you’re shot.”
“Missed the heart.” He spoke through gritted teeth. She saw the pain on his face as he pushed away from her to sit.
When he reached up to grip the arrow out of his side, Glenna dropped to a crouch, pushed his hand aside. “Let me see.”
“Missed the heart,” he repeated, and once again gripped the arrow. He yanked it out. “Bugger it. Bloody fucking hell.”
“Inside,” Glenna began briskly. “Get him inside.”
“Wait.” Though her hand trembled a little, Moira gripped Cian’s shoulder. “Can you stand?”
“Of course I can bloody stand. What do you take me for?”
“Please, let them see you.” Her free hand fluttered over his cheek for just an instant, like a brush of wings. “Let them see us. Please.”
When she linked her fingers with his she thought she saw something stir in his eyes, and felt its twin shift inside her heart.
Then it was gone, and his voice was rough with impatience. “Give me some damn room then.”
She got to her feet again. Below was chaos. The man she assumed was the assassin was being kicked and pummeled by every hand or foot that could reach him.
“Hold!” She shouted it with all her strength. “I command you, hold! Guards, bring that man to the great hall. People of Geall! You see that even on this day, even when the sun shines on us, this darkness seeks to destroy us. And it fails.” She gripped Cian’s hand, lifted it high with her own. “It fails because there are champions in this world who would risk their lives for another.”
She laid a hand on Cian’s side, felt his wince. Then held up her bloody hand. “He bleeds for us. And by this blood he shed for me, for all of you, I raise him to be Sir Cian, Lord of Oiche.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Cian muttered.
“Be quiet.” Moira said it softly, with steel, and her eyes on the crowd.
Chapter 3
“Half-vamp,” Blair announced as she strode back into the parlor. “Multiple bite scars. Crowd did a number on him,” she added. “A regular human would be toast after the beating he took. And he’s not feeling so well himself.”
“He can be treated after I’ve spoken to him. Cian requires care first.”
Blair looked over Moira’s shoulder to where Glenna was bandaging Cian’s side. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s angry and uncooperative, so I would say he’s doing well enough.”
“We can all be grateful for his reflexes. You handled it,” Blair added, looking back at Moira. “Kept your cool, kept control. Tough first day on the job, nearly getting assassinated and all that, but you did good.”
“Not good enough to have anticipated a daylight attack. To remember that not all Lilith’s dogs require an invitation to come within these walls.” She thought of how Cian’s bl
ood had run against her hand—warm and red. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“None of us will. What we need is to get information out of this asshole Lilith sent. But there’s a problem. He either can’t or won’t speak English. Or Gaelic.”
“He’s mute?”
“No, no. He talks, it’s just none of us can understand him. Sounds Eastern European. Maybe Czech.”
“I see.” Moira glanced back at Cian. He was stripped to the waist, with only the bandage against his skin. Annoyance more than pain darkened his face as he sipped from a goblet she assumed held blood. Though he didn’t look to be in the best of moods, she knew she was about to ask another favor.
“Give me a moment,” she murmured to Blair. She approached Cian, ordering herself not to shrink under his hot blue stare. “Is there something more that can be done for you, to make you more comfortable?”
“Peace, quiet, privacy.”
Though each of his words had the lash of a whip, she kept her own calm and pleasant. “I’m sorry, but those items are in short supply right at the moment. I’ll order them up for you as soon as I can.”
“Smart-ass,” he mumbled.
“Indeed. The man whose arrow you intercepted speaks in a foreign tongue. Your brother told me once that you knew many languages.”
He took a long, deep drink, with his eyes deliberately on hers. “It’s not enough that I intercepted the arrow? Now you want me to interrogate your assassin?”
“I would be grateful if you would try, or at least interpret. If indeed, his tongue is one you know. There are likely a few things in the world you don’t know, so you may be of no use to me at all.”
Amusement flickered briefly in his eyes. “Now you’re being nasty.”
“Tit for tat.”
“All right, all right. Glenna, my beauty, stop hovering.”
“You lost considerable blood,” she began, but he only lifted the goblet.
“Replacing, even as we speak.” With a slight grimace, he got to his feet. “I need a goddamn shirt.”
“Blair,” Moira said in even tones, “would you fetch Cian a goddamn shirt?”
“On that.”
“You’ve made a habit of saving my life,” Moira said to Cian.
“Apparently. I’m thinking of giving that up.”
“I could hardly blame you.”
“Here you go, champ.” Blair offered Cian a fresh white shirt. “I think the guy’s Czech, or possibly Bulgarian. Can you handle either of those?”
“As it happens.”
They went into the great hall where the assassin sat, bruised, bleeding and chained, under heavy guard. That guard included both Larkin and Hoyt. When Cian entered, Hoyt stepped away from his post.
“Well enough?” he asked Cian.
“I’ll do. And it cheers me considerably that he looks a hell of a lot worse than I do. Pull your guards back,” he said to Moira. “He won’t be going anywhere.”
“Stand down. Sir Cian will be in charge here.”
“Sir Cian, my ass.” But he only muttered it as he approached the prisoner.
Cian circled him, gauging ground. The man was slight of build and dressed in what would be the rough clothes of a farmer or shepherd. One eye was swollen shut, the other going black and blue. He’d lost a couple of teeth.
Cian snapped out a command in Czech. The man jolted, his single working eye rolling up in surprise.
But he didn’t speak.
“You understood that,” Cian continued in the same language. “I asked if there are others with you. I won’t ask again.”
When he was met with silence, Cian struck out with enough force to have the prisoner slamming back against the wall, along with the chair he was chained to.
“For every thirty seconds of silence, I’ll give you pain.”
“I’m not afraid of pain.”
“Oh, you will be.” Cian jerked the chair and the man upright, kept his face close. “Do you know what I am?”
“I know what you are.” The man used his bloodied mouth to sneer. “Traitor.”
“That’s one viewpoint. But the important thing to remember is that I can give you pain beyond what even such as you can stand. I can keep you alive for days, weeks, come to that. And in constant agony.” He lowered his voice to a hiss. “I’d enjoy it. So let’s begin again.”
He didn’t bother to ask the question, as he’d warned he wouldn’t repeat it.
“Could use a spoon,” he said conversationally. “That left eye looks painful. If I had a spoon handy, I could scoop it right out of its socket for you. Of course, I could use my fingers,” he continued when that eye wheeled wildly. “But then I’d have a mess on my hands, wouldn’t I?”
“Do your worst,” the man spat out—but he’d begun to tremble a little. “I’ll never betray my queen.”
“Bollocks.” The shudders and sweat told him this one would be easily and quickly broken. “You’ll not only betray her before I’m done with you, you’ll do it dancing the hornpipe if I tell you to. But let’s just be quick and direct as we’ve all better things to do.”
The man’s head jerked back as Cian moved. But instead of going for the face as his quarry anticipated, Cian reached down, gripped the man’s cock. And squeezed until there was nothing but screams.
“There’s no one else! I’m alone, I’m alone!”
“Be sure.” Cian only increased the pressure. “If you lie, I’ll find out. And then I’ll begin to cut this piece of you off, one inch at a time.”
“She sent only me.” He was weeping now, tears and snot running down his face. “Only me.”
Cian eased the pressure a few fractions. “Why?”
The only answer was raw, rough gasps, and Cian tightened the vise of his fingers again. “Why?”
“One could slip through easily, unnoticed. Un…unremarked.”
“The logic of that has spared you, at least for the moment, from becoming a eunuch.” Cian strolled over, got himself a chair. After placing it in front of the prisoner, he straddled it. And spoke in conversational tones even as the man whimpered. “Now, this is better, isn’t it? Civilized. When we’re done here, we’ll see to those injuries.”
“I want water.”
“I’m sure you do. We’ll get you some—after. So for now, let’s talk a bit about Lilith.”
It took thirty minutes—and two more sessions of pain—before he was satisfied he knew all the man could tell him. Cian got to his feet again.
The would-be assassin was weeping uncontrollably now. Perhaps from the pain, Cian thought. Perhaps from the belief it was ended.
“What were you before she took you?”
“A teacher.”
“Did you have a wife, a family?”
“They were no use but food. I was poor and weak, but the queen saw more in me. She gave me strength and purpose. And when she slaughters you, and these…ants who crawl with you, I’ll be rewarded. I’ll have a fine house, and women of my choosing, wealth and power.”
“Promised you all that, did she?”
“That and more. You said I could have water.”
“Yes, I did. Let me explain something to you about Lilith.” He moved behind the man, whose name he’d never asked, and spoke quietly in his ear. “She lies. And so do I.”
He clamped his hands on the man’s head and in one fast move, broke his neck.
“What have you done?” Shocked to the pit of her belly, Moira rushed forward. “What have you done?”
“What needed doing. She sent only one—this time. If it upsets your sensibilities, you might want to have your guards take that out of here before I brief you.”
“You had no right. No right.” Her belly wanted to revolt as it had constantly since he’d begun the torturous interrogation. “You murdered him. What makes you any different from him that you would kill him without trial, without sentence?”
“The difference?” Coolly, Cian lifted his brows. “He was still mostly human.�
��
“Is it so little to you? Life? Is it so little?”
“On the contrary.”
“Moira. He’s right.” Blair moved between them. “He did what had to be done.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I’d have done the same. He was Lilith’s dog, and if he’d escaped, he’d have tried again. If he couldn’t get to you, he’d kill whoever he could.”
“A prisoner of war—” Moira began.
“There are no prisoners in this,” Blair interrupted. “On either side. If you’d locked him up, you’d take men out of training, off patrol, to guard him. He was an assassin, a spy sent behind lines during wartime. And mostly human is generous,” she added with a glance at Cian. “He’d never be human again. If it had been a vampire in that chair, you’d have staked him without thought or hesitation. This isn’t any different.”
A vampire didn’t leave its body broken on the floor, Moira thought, still chained to a chair.
Moira turned to one of the guards. “Tynan, remove the prisoner’s body. See that it’s buried.”
“Majesty.”
She saw Tynan’s quick glance at Cian—and recognized the steely approval in the look.
“We’ll go back to the parlor,” she continued. “No one has eaten. You can…brief us while we do.”
“Lone gunman,” Cian said, and wished almost wistfully for coffee.
“Makes sense.” Blair helped herself to eggs and a thick slice of fried ham.
“Why?” Moira addressed the question to Blair.
“Okay, they’ve got some half-vamps trained for combat.” She nodded at Larkin. “Like the ones Larkin and I dealt with that day at the caves, but it takes time and effort. And it takes a lot of work and will to keep one in thrall.”
“And if the thrall is broken?”
“Insanity,” Blair said briefly. “Total breakdown. I’ve heard stories of half-vamps gnawing off their own hand to get free and back to their maker.”
“He was doomed before he came here,” Moira murmured.
“From the minute Lilith got her hands on him, yeah. My take on this was it was supposed to be a quick hit, suicide mission. Why waste more than one? Things go right, you only need one.”
