Shadow's Curse

by Alexa Egan

A failed suitor? This was Callista’s idea of salvation? David wished she’d made mention of the situation before he’d introduced themselves as lovers fleeing north for a hasty illicit marriage. Not that she’d liked the idea very much, but it was the first story that had popped into his head.

  “You knew Branston would never agree,” she explained.

  Oakham snorted his disdain. “That simpering brother of yours never scared me. And had you favored my suit, I’d have shown that little pea-wit what for and married you anyway.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you, Sam. I never meant to.”

  He continued to scowl down on them like a pirate eyeing up his next plank walker. This plan had disaster written all over it, but with Corey’s minions watching the main roads, there were few better alternatives. Alone, David would have melted into the countryside like a phantom, leaving them chasing their own tails. And why he hadn’t done just that, he still didn’t know. He’d registered the danger, and his first instinct had been to wake Callista and get the hell out. Upon seeing her in a scanty nightgown, tousled and heavy-lidded with sleep, his second instinct had been to climb in bed beside her and take his chances.

  Then he recalled her violent way with a valise and his first instinct won.

  “You think he’s going to marry you?” Oakham interrupted David’s train of thought with a jerk of his bearded chin and another spit. “More like bed you and bruise you and fill your belly with his brat before he takes his leave. I know his sort. That’s what his kind do.”

  It was David’s turn to stiffen. “Watch your step. My kind doesn’t tolerate insult. And my sort is like to prove it by thrashing you to within an inch of your life.”

  Callista backed up, her foot coming down hard on his instep in painful warning. “It’s good of you to worry over me, Sam, but there’s no need. David loves . . .” He felt her stumble over the lie, her shoulders tense. “David loves me.”

  Oakham’s ham fists flexed as he took a menacing step forward. “You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you, pretty boy? But I know you for what you truly are, a weak-kneed lickspittle that will take Cally’s maidenhead for sport and laugh about it later with your mates round your poncy drawing rooms.”

  “Sam! Stop it! It’s not true!” Callista scolded, her face scarlet.

  “If you know what I am,” David snarled, “you’ll know I could rip your head off and shove it up your ass with one hand tied behind my back. My mates would find that hilarious.”

  “You are not helping, David,” Callista snapped.

  No? It was helping him tremendously. For the first time in days, he felt a lessening of the tension eating away at his nerves. As if now that his rage had found a target, it no longer sought to consume him. “Oakham started it,” he said.

  “Are you five years old?” she groused. “What kind of excuse is that?”

  “One hand, pretty boy?” Oakham jeered. “Let’s see you test that mettle.” His gaze shot sparks, his body quivering with fury.

  “Any time, any place, old man.”

  Callista grabbed his arm. “We need his help, David.”

  He shook her off. “I’m tired of running like a rabbit. Oakham will learn the wolf doesn’t turn his back on a fight.”

  “The wolf is trying to get me to Scotland, not kill himself,” she hissed.

  “He has to hit me to kill m—”

  Oakham’s first blow nearly took off David’s head. Only a split second’s warning kept his teeth in his mouth. Even so, the blow clipped his chin, sending him lurching backward. He recovered his balance, gathered his strength, and plunged forward, landing a vicious crack to Oakham’s jaw, another brutal punch to his stomach. Oakham laughed, blood streaming from his nose down over his beard to drip on his vest. Then he launched himself at David, and the vicious scrum began in earnest.

  Back and forth they struggled, matching blow for blow until David’s right eye had swelled shut and Oakham was smiling through a broken front tooth, blood spattering his clothes. Callista’s shouts were drowned out by the drumming of David’s heart. His attention was all for his adversary. On keeping his feet in the mud. On judging where the next blow would come from and on pushing forward when the advantage was his.

  By now a small crowd had gathered to watch and shout encouragement. David doubled his efforts, his feet always moving, his body darting and sliding in and out of Oakham’s reach. The giant lunged, his arm reaching out with an enormous swipe that would have knocked a smaller man—or a slower one—into the dust. David used Oakham’s momentum to slide under his guard and land him a sickening fist to his kidneys, knocking the bastard to his knees. He followed it up immediately with a second hit that sent Oakham reeling onto his back.

  “What’s going on?” A woman’s voice broke through the ringing in David’s ears. “Samuel Oakham, have you taken leave of your senses?”

  David blinked, trying to wipe the sweat and blood from his eyes, his gaze drawn to the furious woman striding toward them. A moment’s lapse, but long enough for someone to toss Oakham a dagger.

  The man caught the blade and, with a flip of his wrist, immediately hurled it at David, who intuitively lunged to the left as it passed. Ha! Missed him.

  He’d barely regained his breath and his balance when Oakham bulled into his midsection and knocked David flat into the dirt, the wind driven from his lungs, his ribs grating up into his spine. He fought to breathe, but Oakham gave him no time, his attack coming fast and furious.

  A normal human would have begged for mercy or been broken under the unceasing violence.

  The wolf did not beg.

  Nor did it surrender.

  Rage boiled up from the corners of his soul; rage and brutality and a desire to rend his enemy limb from limb until victory was assured. Muscles tightened, and his blood ran hot and fast through his veins. As his aspect fought to break free, his vision narrowed, time stretching, pain receding, his mind aflame. Oakham became Beskin. And this time David would finish what he started. He would kill the man who’d taken his life from him with fire and sword and left him with nothing but a slow, excruciating death, exiled from his own kind.

  With a savage cry ripping up through his throat and a twist and a shift of his weight, David slammed Oakham facedown in the dirt, bending his arm so far behind him that he could feel Oakham’s tendons grinding and bones creaking. “Mother of All, I’m going to enjoy killing you, Beskin, you son of a bastard.”

  “There won’t be any killing this morning.” A cold blade touched David just beneath his chin. The prick of it shocked him back into himself, and the wolf fled as if it had never been, leaving him shaky and sick.

  “Nan? I’ll not have you interfere,” Oakham gasped.

  Oakham, David remembered . . . not Beskin. This was not the enforcer struggling against a quick snap of the neck. David had come close to committing murder, blind to all but his own vengeance. Was this what he’d come to? Is this how far he’d fallen in the years since his sentencing? The wolf was his aspect; he wore its shape and possessed its soul. But it did not control him.

  He was not the monster the Other labeled him—yet.

  “I’m saving your life, you stupid git,” the woman scoffed.

  Oakham spat, but the woman’s blade held firm and David rose slowly to his feet, pulled back from the brink by the veriest hairsbreadth.

  Callista tried to lead him away from the crowd, but he stood with his hands on his knees as he sucked in air, hoping to calm his raw nerves. The woman knelt by Oakham, her long black hair caught up in a scarf, her stomach distended in late pregnancy.

  “You should thank me, Nan,” Oakham whined as she helped him to his feet. “One less girl will have her heart broken by the likes of pretty boy here.”

  “That’s for Cally to decide. It’s her heart.” She focused her ire on David. “And you—I know my brother has the thick skull of a dumb bear, but you? What’s your excuse?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Cally, you can put your things i
n the wagon there. We’ll share what we have in return for your help, and we can always use another strong back for the heavy lifting.”

  David felt blood seeping down his collar where the girl’s blade had broken the skin.

  “Thank you, Nan. I can’t tell you how grateful we are,” Callista answered.

  Nan’s hand curved unconsciously around her swollen belly, her contemptuous gaze leveled on David. “I told Sam it was your business, but you take care, Cally.” She lifted her knife. “If this fellow hurts you, I just might finish what I started.”

  * * *

  “Hold still.”

  David flinched as Callista dabbed at the cut above his eye. “It hurts, damn it.”

  “That’s because you’re not holding still,” she answered impatiently.

  Callista had dragged him away from the wagons, following a narrow track down a hill and into the wooded copse. They walked until the only sounds that met the ear were birdsong and the chuckle of a lazy creek. David had allowed himself to be led, but she knew he remained on edge. She felt the coiled tension in his body as he knelt, the hard set of his jaw beneath her fingers as she angled his head and pushed the hair back from his forehead to better attend to the long, ugly gash.

  If Nancy Oakham hadn’t interfered, how far would the fight between the men have gone? David had come away with a few cuts and bruises, but Sam, whose mastery of knife and pistol was dwarfed only by his prowess with fists, had stumbled like a drunkard to his wagon, shaking his shaggy head as if unsure how he’d ended in the dirt at a pretty London boy’s mercy.

  Callista could have told him.

  She had seen the moment when David had become more than a man and less than completely human. She’d stood transfixed as the mask was peeled away to reveal the dangerous Imnada soul beneath the human exterior. Animal bloodlust burned hot and cruel in his steel gaze, his movements too quick for Sam to follow, his strength too great for Sam to withstand.

  Yet when it was done and David stood, out of breath and blood dripping, there was nothing left of the feral viciousness but a grim press of white lips and fists clenched and bruised. Then he looked up, their eyes met, and his torment shone clear in his hunter’s stare. It lasted but the space of a breath before vanishing, but it was more than long enough for Callista to recognize his suave care-for-nothing attitude as a ruse. She was a necromancer. She understood ghosts.

  He sucked in another breath, trying to pull away, but her fingers tightened on his chin. “If you stopped moving about, this wouldn’t hurt so much.”

  He offered her an indignant stare. “If you wouldn’t keep jamming that cloth into my scalp, it wouldn’t hurt at all.”

  “Are you always this whiny?”

  “Are you always this tyrannical?”

  “You’ll have to ask my brother.”

  “I’d rather not. Our last conversation was bad for my health.”

  Refusing the smile hovering at the edges of her mouth, Callista dipped the cloth back in the stream, wrung it out, and continued cleaning dirt from the bloody gash.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Miss Hawthorne,” David said, “but the longer I’m with you, the longer grows the list of people who want to kill me. Where does it end? In my grave?”

  “Stay away from Sam, and we’ll be fine.”

  “And if he insults you again?”

  “I lived for seven years at the mercy of a brother who hated me from birth. Insults mean nothing to me, but your dying will.”

  “You really do care.” A smile lit his eyes.

  She sighed and sat back on her haunches. “There. I think you’ll live.”

  He pulled himself up on the stream bank. Stalked a few paces away before he clutched the tail of his shirt in dismay. “Brilliant. I have one shirt left and it’s covered in filth. This trip just gets better and better.”

  “The mess we’re in, and you’re concerned about a soiled shirt?” He looked like such a pouty little boy, she couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

  “Glad you find it so amusing,” he said, sulking.

  “I find you amusing. Thank you.”

  He watched her with those piercing gray eyes that seemed to cut right through to her very thoughts. “Has it been so long, then?”

  “Long?”

  “Since you laughed.”

  She tried shrugging off his question, though he’d cut closer to the mark than she appreciated. “I haven’t had much reason for laughter.”

  “Then I’ll have to give you one, because your whole face lights up and your eyes sparkle. You’re very beautiful, Callista Hawthorne”—he grinned—“for a Fey-blood.”

  Backhanded or not, butterflies swooped around her stomach at the unexpected compliment. Before she could think of a witty reply, David knocked her for a second loop by shedding his boots, tossing his shirt onto the grass, and wading into the stream up to his waist. The water lapped low against his hips and the rippled muscles of his abdomen. Even sporting an ugly collage of purple and black bruises, he managed to exude enough raw sensuality to turn her insides to warm mush.

  “If you drown, I won’t come fish you out,” she called, praying he didn’t notice the scorching heat burning its way into her cheeks.

  He gave her another toothy smile and dropped beneath the surface like a stone. She counted off the seconds until he emerged with a splash and a wet flick of his hair off his face. Water sluiced over his broad shoulders, trickled against his neck, skimmed down his muscled torso. Drops clung to his golden skin and slid like tears over his stubbled cheeks.

  Like an addlepated twit, she couldn’t tear her eyes off him. The air grew hot and thick. Her body was one galloping heartbeat from complete collapse.

  “Wake up!” David slapped at the water, splashing her hair and gown.

  Startled, she jumped back before answering his attack with one of her own. He laughed and smacked the water again, catching her in the face. Wiping her eyes, she let out a cry, scrambling up from the river-bank as he waded toward her with a menacing smile.

  “Don’t you dare, David St. Leger,” she shouted.

  “Or what?” He took another step toward her, the sculpted curve of his hips emerging from the river as he approached the shore.

  “Or . . . or I’ll scream.”

  He grinned. “Hoping Sam Oakham will come to your rescue? I’ve thrashed him once. I’ll do it again.”

  By now the water lapped around his knees and her heart drummed against her chest, her mouth dry. She swallowed, but her feet wouldn’t move. She could only watch as he came closer, striding onto the bank. As he took her hand in his own, fingers threaded, the palm rough. He was inches away, and when she lifted her eyes, she saw how fast his own pulse beat in the hollow of his throat.

  “You’re not screaming,” he murmured.

  “No,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  He reached out to touch her temple, a curl of hair behind her ear, a finger tracing the line of her cheekbone. His eyes pulled her in, pushed her under, drowned her. She tried to breathe, but he seemed to suck the very air from her lungs.

  He didn’t pull her close. He never moved beyond that tentative study of her face with one finger, but every part of her burned, and she knew he felt the same blood-sizzling need. It was there in his eyes and the way he stood and the very aroused bits of him she was doing her best not to see. This not touching slid like wildfire against her nerves and made her gasp with every shivering trace of his finger. He skimmed the bones of her cheeks, the fullness of her lips, along the line of her jaw, down the taut length of her throat and the edge of her collarbone to the valley between her breasts. One wayward finger, but it was more than enough to send coiling spirals of raw lust straight to her center. She was damp with wanting him, her knees barely holding her upright against the wickedly erotic assault.

  “But you aren’t smiling, either,” he said, his voice silken and deep—and solemn.

  She gave the smallest shake of her head, all she
could manage while caught in this web of volcanic desire.

  His expression hardened and his hand dropped back to his side. “What’s happening to me, Fey-blood? Why do I feel this way when I’m with you?”

  “What way is that?”

  “Confused. Out of my depth. As if I need to run as far and as fast as I can away from you lest you destroy me.”

  She chewed her lip, her body aching in ways she’d never felt, a shivering need floating across her damp skin like a chill. “How could I destroy you? My powers aren’t dangerous. They’re barely useful, except as a way to comfort bereft widows or grieving parents. I’m a trickster. A showman.”

  His face held a weariness and a sorrow, the same look she’d last seen the night at the Flannerys’ when the sickness gripped him. “And yet I see my death when I look into your eyes.”

  She gave a small sound in the back of her throat, barely more than a breath or a sigh, tears taking the place of river water on her cheeks, and her lashes fluttered down as she looked away. “I can pass through into death. I cannot foretell it. It must be Arawn’s shadow you see—the mark borne by all his descendants. That’s all.”

  His lips curved into a smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “Perhaps. A relief if you’re right. It was not a peaceful death.”

  Footsteps and the crunch of bracken and twigs snapped David’s head up. He stepped back while Callista broke away, embarrassed.

  Nancy Oakham emerged from the trees, a bitter smile curving the corners of her mouth as she took in David’s near nudity. “I’ve convinced my brother it’s in our best interest to have you join us. So, if you still need a lift, best hurry up or be left behind.”

  David dragged his shirt over his head and sat down to pull on his boots. “How can we refuse such a gracious invitation?”

  Nancy’s gaze flicked over Callista before raking David with a long, appraising look. “Remember what I said, St. Leger. We’re letting you stay on for Cally’s sake. But watch your step or watch your back.” With a dark scowl, she departed, the shuffle of her boots through the fallen leaves seeming loud in the silence that opened like a chasm between them.