Rebirth

by H. P. Mallory

  REBIRTH

  Book 5 of the

  Lily Harper series

  by

  H.P. Mallory

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  Copyright ©2019 by HP Mallory

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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  Acknowledgements:

  To my son, Finn, for making everyday an adventure! I love you more than anything!

  To my mother for being my best friend.

  To my editor, Teri, at www.editingfairy.com: thank you for an excellent job, as always.

  ALSO BY H.P. MALLORY

  Virtual Reality Series:

  NuLife Trilogy:

  Book One: Valhalla KINDLE

  Epic Fantasy Series:

  The Lily Harper Series:

  Better Off Dead KINDLE

  The Underground City KINDLE

  To Hell And Back KINDLE

  Persephone KINDLE

  Rebirth

  The Lily Harper Boxed Set (Books 1-4) KINDLE

  The Dulcie O'Neil Series:

  To Kill A Warlock KINDLE

  A Tale of Two Goblins KINDLE

  Great Hexpectations KINDLE

  Wuthering Frights KINDLE

  Malice In Wonderland KINDLE

  For Whom The Spell Tolls KINDLE

  A Midsummer Night's Scream KINDLE

  Grave New World KINDLE

  Pride And Poltergeists KINDLE

  Book 10 Coming Soon!

  The Dulcie O’Neil Boxed Set (Books 1-8) KINDLE

  Paranormal Series:

  The Jolie Wilkins Series:

  Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble KINDLE

  Toil and Trouble KINDLE

  Witchful Thinking KINDLE

  The Witch Is Back KINDLE

  Something Witchy This Way Comes KINDLE

  Be Witched (Novella) KINDLE

  The Bryn and Sinjin Series (Spinoff to the Jolie WIlkins Series):

  Sinjin KINDLE

  The Scent KINDLE

  The Gentleman KINDLE

  The Flame KINDLE

  The Bryn and Sinjin Boxed Set (Books 1-4) KINDLE

  The Peyton Clark Series:

  Ghouls Rush In KINDLE

  Once Haunted Twice Shy KINDLE

  Brown Eyed Ghoul KINDLE

  Book 4 Coming Soon!

  The Ice Wolf Series (Co-Authored with JR Rain):

  Ice Wolf KINDLE

  She Wolf Coming Soon!

  About Rebirth

  What’s a girl to do when her body is possessed by the spirit of a crazy queen and her friends are prisoners?

  Playing captive to the Queen of the Underground City is no joy ride for Lily. It only makes matters worse that Lily is a prisoner in her own body and trying to defeat the powerful soul of Persephone is near impossible.

  Throw in the fact that both of her allies, Tallis and Bill, are chained within the dungeon of Alaire’s castle, and things just went from bad to worse. Oh, and Tallis is also now human and as such, basically useless.

  Or is he? While in the land between lands, Tallis visits Lily and buffers her with his Druid magic to aid in the fight for her soul.

  The most unlikely of comrades will be the answer to saving Lily for good but at what cost?

  PROLOGUE

  Tallis

  The rope irritated my neck, wrists, and ankles, the coarse fibers digging into my raw skin while my sweat stung the fresh wounds. The wind blew across my face and the glaring sun left me squinting until I was nearly blind. Nearby a horse neighed and footsteps approached, a solitary shadow moving in front of the sun. My vision cleared and the shadow turned out to be a man.

  “Aulus Plautius,” I spat when I recognized him. “Glad tae see ye have enough honor left in ye tae see the sentence carried oot.”

  The Roman, shining in his articulated armor, smiled. “Did you think I could miss this?” The legate knelt down beside me.

  “Careful, Sir!” One of the Roman General’s consuls jerked forward as he added, “he murdered six Centurions before we managed to restrain him.”

  Aulus laughed, “I have no reason to fear this traitor. What does he have left to fight for? His family is dead, his clan long gone. But that should not concern you, should it, Tallis Black?” He did not wait for me to respond. “You turned your back on your kin, did you not? You chose the fleeting promise of power and riches over the respect of your familial ties and responsibility.”

  Although his words pricked my conscience, I could not denounce them for they were all true. I chose not to respond.

  I felt Donnchadh, the spirit-warrior living inside me, stirring. I strained at the knots that held me down, the rope creaking every time I attempted to pull myself free from the ties that bound me.

  “Ye will regret this, Roman,” I growled. Saliva leaked from the edges of my mouth and my eyes burned from my own sweat.

  “No, Tallis,” Aulus knelt down beside my head. I could smell the southern wine on his rank breath. “I will be remembered. It is my name that will be sung in praises of glory. For I did what Caesar himself could not do to this island; I did what Crassus could not achieve in his war against the Parthians. I, alone, have come to the end of the world and conquered Brittania.”

  His words were for his men, who neatly surrounded us in a square formation. But I knew the truth. Despite all of their strategy, arms, armor and war machines, the Romans would still have a damned hard go at conquering the British Isles. Just because Aulus defeated the Black Clan was no guarantee he could defeat the rest of us.

  “Aulus,” I whispered, making him lean in closer. “The only thing ye’ve won is ah lake an’ ah castle that will never truly belong tae ye.” His grin faded quickly from his face. “Aye,” I continued. “It took all o’ the might o’ yer legions an’ the vilest trickery yer southern minds could create tae defeat jist mah clan. Dae ye think Prasutagus will kowtow tae ye? The Druids?”

  “Spare me your empty threats!” Aulus barked as he stood up. “You are already defeated along with your legacy. Your clan is scattered, if not dead, and your castle will make a fine place for me to house my whores.” He paused for a moment. “Do you know what the most delicious part of all this is?” Again, he did not wait for me to respond. “You did it for me.”

  My hands balled into fists as I thought of Castle Fergus; I remembered how the sun danced across the rippling water, the fresh smell of rain rolling down the mountains. But Castle Fergus was no longer mine. It slipped through my fingers the moment I agreed to assist the Romans.

  I sighed. “Aye, Ah helped ye ‘gainst mah kin boot ah broken promise is still ah broken promise, even among traitors.”

  I could see the battlefield in my head. My clansmen, my kin, family and friends…all hacked apart by Roman swords, their painful defiance harshly etched on their dead faces. And there I stood—in the middle of the field with piles of corpses ringing me like a grotesque henge. Blood dripped from my hands and I did not need the sight of my own reflection to know I was splattered in it from head to toe…

  Aulus whistled and an aide pulled his horse closer to him. The legate mounted and whipped the horse around to face me. “Any last words, Druid?”

  I spat once more. “Ah curse ye. And Ah curse yer consuls. Ah curse yer legions an’ every Roman who ever sets foot oan the Isle o’ Alba to come. May ye sooffer the worst fate o’ traitors yer gods allow for. May ye never know peace agin.�
�� There was silence for some time before the gathered legionnaires began to laugh. After a moment, Aulus raised his hand and the laughter stopped.

  “Fiery oration,” Aulus Plautius mocked, clapping his hands together slowly. “Really, there was true conviction in those words, Tallis Black. But sadly for you, I do not believe in curses anymore than I believe you are inhabited by this Donnchadh spirit of which you continually speak. A man’s fate is only determined by the man himself. Muse on that in your final moments.”

  The legate raised a hand and the horses at the end of my ropes were nudged forward by their riders. Stars danced across my vision as the noose around my neck cut off my circulation. The joints in my arms and legs popped first. I heard the muscles tearing away from my bones before they slowly began to crack and break. The pain was infinite and such as I cannot describe. My neck cracked when the noose snapped it. I could not breathe. My mind panicked and deep down inside me, I could hear Donnchadh howling. Even as I was being torn apart, I managed to keep my eyes firmly fixed on Aulus Plautius.

  The fiery rage of Donnchadh burned so brightly I was convinced it, alone, kept me alive as my legs and arms dropped from the rest of my body. I wish I could truthfully say I did not scream with the intense pain, but that would be a lie.

  My neck was broken and collapsing but I was still alive and my eyes remained riveted on Aulus. I watched him as the horses came to a stop. I watched him when a guard approached me and cried out in terror upon discovering I was not dead. I watched him dismount his horse. I watched him draw his own weapon and place the blade against my left eye. Even as he pushed down and I felt the sphere of my eye being sliced in two, I still watched him. And as the darkness settled over me and the pain and anguish and world faded away, the last thing I remembered was the slightest movement I glimpsed in Aulus Plautius’s face.

  A twitch of the lip, a squinting of the eye.

  I knew that look so well.

  It was fear.

  Chapter One

  Tallis

  The stookie angel was finally silent in his neighboring cell.

  I did not marvel at Bill’s invincibility, his persistent sense of humor, his bottomless appetite or much else about him, for that matter. But I did appreciate one thing about the wee fella: he could sleep anywhere.

  I, on the other hand, was finding sleep no more than a bittersweet memory most of the time. If I managed to snatch a few minutes of fitful rest, my dreams, which chronicled the worst terrors I had ever known, would inevitably wake me. Presently, I was shifting from left to right, trying to give my shoulders and arms a much-needed respite.

  The small amount of light in the cell paled in comparison to the bleak darkness outside the window. Beyond it lay the Underground City, my city. At least, at one time, it was my city. But I turned my back upon this place and allowed Alaire to gain control of everything I had worked so hard to build. Although I never cared much about that fact before, the recent events I had experienced changed my mind on more than a few matters…

  A clanking noise interrupted my thoughts. I did not look up for I knew who was opening the door. Just two people had a key to this cell and only one of them had any real interest in me.

  “It is so dark in here,” she said. “I must remember to ask Saxon to light more torches lest I kill myself in the process of merely coming down the stairs.” The voice, as spiteful as it sounded, was sheer torture to my soul. Torture that was well deserved.

  “Persephone,” I said, the frailty in my voice betraying my body’s state.

  Do not show any weakness.

  I forced my head up and met her gaze. The dim illumination from the two torches on the far side of the prison cast her in a light that surrounded her like a halo but that impression was a total falsity. There was nothing pure about the woman before me, least of all, her spirit. It pained me to even look at her.

  All I could see when I glanced at her face was that poor naif, Lily. Now a foul, immortal bitch had taken possession of Lily’s body and my besom was gone. I was trapped here like a caged dog, without my sword, and without the power of Donnchadh, the warrior spirit what gives me my strength and immortality.

  “I was just doing my daily rounds, making sure you are as miserable as possible,” Persephone said with a grin, her white teeth reflecting the low light of the cell.

  “Aye, ye’ve certainly left meh in as rough ah position as Ah think Ah’ve ever been.”

  She walked towards me, her heels clicking against the cold stone. She was dressed in a sheer black frock that clung to her hips and breasts like a second skin. Her arms were crossed underneath her ample bosoms, pushing them up and out. I scolded myself for gazing overlong at them.

  She is not Lily, so stop thinking with your cock, man!

  Even though I was thinking with my todger, in truth, it mattered very little. I had no strength left. I was clinging to a slim thread of life by my Druid willpower alone, pulling whatever energy still existed in the earth surrounding the castle to sustain myself. All that effort was taxing and it made my member about as useful as nipples on a breastplate.

  Persephone crouched in front of me, her low-cut neckline revealing the absence of any undergarments.

  “Poor, poor Tallis. There’s something so tragic about your current predicament. Something on the scale of Oedipus or Medea. A great and mighty ruler, feared by the lowest dregs of the Underground City to the upper echelons of Management at Afterlife Enterprises, and brought down by his lover and his very own right hand man.” She laughed scornfully. “How very Greek.”

  “Moost ye come here tae gloat?” I spat back at her. “Ye have yer immortality, ye took the woman Ah love; why not joost leave meh be, eh?”

  I lurched forward, trying to push her away. It was a meaningless gesture, since the black iron manacles pinned me against the wall. But if I could intimidate her even a little, it was worth it. Alas, she did not move, never mind show any fear.

  “Yes… I suppose I do have everything I could want.” She refused to look me in the eyes as she said the words and I recognized the lie in their depths almost immediately.

  Alaire hasn’t given her the spirit of Donnchadh yet.

  “Now I just need for you to die, and then your stench must be removed from this castle before I can be truly happy.”

  “Ye will ne’er be happy,” I said as I narrowed my eyes on her. “Yer nae made fer happiness. Ye will live forever, miserable, oonhappy an’ ne’er knowin’ peace.”

  I spat at her feet.

  She regarded the spittle—the last source of moisture from my body, to be certain— with the same look one might give to a dying insect.

  “That may bear some truth, but you know what the real difference between us will be?” She grinned again, all too eager to tell me the answer.

  “Nae. Nor do Ah care.”

  “I will be alive!” She unfolded her arms to reveal a curvy kris tucked between her hands. Its blade shone in the dimness of the tower cell. She placed the cold steel against my neck, tapping it on my Adam’s apple. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since Alaire took Donnchadh from you.”

  “Thinkin’ aboot whit?”

  “How you will die. Will I let you starve? Maybe just asphyxiate from hanging? Perhaps you will battle against endless waves of demons to the death? I quite like that last idea, by the way,” she said, licking her lips. “But in the end, I decided your death had to be by the blade as it was most appropriate weapon and also the most ironic, given your position as Bladesmith.”

  I leaned back against the stone wall behind me, eyeing the dastardly blade. Of all the ways I imagined leaving this mortal coil, being cruelly stabbed to death by a one-time lover while I was still chained to a wall was surely not one of them.

  “Goodbye, Tallis.” She raised the knife above her head. I closed my eyes, preparing as best I could for the icy steel to penetrate my flesh.

  “What is the meaning of this?!” Alaire bellowed from the doorway.

 
I opened my eyes to glimpse my most unlikely savior. Persephone sprang to her feet, whirling around and secreting the knife behind her back.

  “Alaire, my dear, you’re back so soon?”

  Alaire stepped into the cell and eyed me before he returned his angry stare to Persephone once again, studying her with more intense scrutiny. “Give it to me.”

  “Give what to you?” Persephone dramatically batted her eyelashes and twisted up one of her legs as if she were preparing to do a full pirouette.

  Alaire wrapped one arm around her and kissed her angrily. His hand, however, nestled into the small of her back, where he yanked the knife from her grip.

  “Tut-tut, my Queen,” Alaire tossed the knife away, being careful to ensure it was beyond my reach. It clattered as it hit the stone floor beyond the cell. “Is this the proper way to treat any guest?”

  “Don’t condescend to me!” Persephone yelled at him as her face contorted with rage. She walked past him and approached the door. “You promised me!”

  “Enough!” Alaire yelled in response, turning her around and giving her another hateful glare. “We will discuss this later.” He unceremoniously ushered her out the prison door as quickly as he could, reaching back across the threshold to close it.

  “Jist goin’ tae pretend Ah’m nae here, Alaire?” I growled.

  Alaire stopped the door just inches from closing it and stared at me, a false ring of light surrounding his head.

  “Yes.” And with that, he slammed the door shut and latched it from the outside.

  The banging awoke my neighboring cellmate, who came to consciousness with a swine-like squeal.

  “I’m awake! I’m fuggin awake! Jesus!” The sound of rattling chains echoed from Bill’s cell as he yawned. “Fuckin’ A, I am one horngry bastard.” There were a few precious moments of silence before he decided to speak again. “I said I’m… one… horngry bastard! That’s the cue for Room Service to do something ‘bout it, yo!”