Unchained tdf-3

by Sharon Ashwood

  Fascinated by everything he saw, Reynard crossed through a noisy area filled with white tables and chairs. There were gossiping mothers and squalling children. A number of the mothers turned to stare as he walked past, running their eyes up and down him as if he were a horse they wanted to purchase. Out of sheer deviltry, he gave them the same look back, tipping up the glasses to get a better look. They didn’t seem to mind in the least.

  The repressive magic was wearing off, and his senses were reeling. The atmosphere of this world was as addictive as the opium poppy. He wanted more and more: to run for the pure satisfaction of weary muscles, to stand under the rushing leaves of an aspen tree. Everywhere he could hear a strange music that seemed to come from the ceilings. Even though part of him knew it was the simplest of tunes, the lilt of it brought sweet melancholy like an unquenchable ache. He wanted to live.

  You don’t deserve it. You went through women the way other men ate a bowl of fruit. Once the soft flesh was consumed, it was time to move on to the next. And that was but one of your failings. The Castle taught you duty, self-denial, and honor. Would you turn your back on that now? Would you go back on your bargain?

  He could. He had the option of simply walking away. His life would be short, maybe only days, but it would be his—until separation from the urn killed him. Was that what he desired? Was he still the same man who would break an oath to feed his addiction to pleasure?

  No, that wild young officer had burned down to dead ash during his first few months in the Castle. After that, horror had become commonplace. He had done terrible things in the name of duty. He’d had to bargain with villains like Miru- kai, trading for the welfare of the weaker inmates the warlords took as slaves. He’d had to wage war against gangs of inmates, and sometimes against his own men. But it was the small things that cut deepest. Constance, Mac’s woman, had adopted a son, and for a time Reynard had been forced to take the youth prisoner. It had been necessary to maintain order in the Castle, but that didn’t make the wrench of separation any easier for mother or son.

  Though the Captain of the guardsmen could not show one scrap of what he felt, that episode had nearly broken what was left of Reynard’s heart, and he’d regretted it ever after.

  So many, many times, it would have been easy to give in to despair. Discipline was the best shield he had against complete moral collapse. Honor. Duty. Dignity. Death. His father would have been pleased at the change a few centuries of servitude had wrought in his troublesome son.

  Reynard walked past a shop filled with televisions and electronics—a land of incomprehensible wonders. Then a tobacco shop that informed him that snuff had fallen out of fashion in the last centuries. Then a bookseller’s—finally, someplace he understood the merchandise—and then he lingered a long time in front of a toy store.

  They had tiny, brightly colored knights on chargers, all ringed around a paper castle. A little green dragon grinned down from the parapets.

  They’ve obviously never seen a real dragon.

  “Are you looking for your own boy?” asked the shop girl.

  “No,” said Reynard, realizing he was just another man to her. Someone with an ordinary story, children of his own, nothing grim, nothing bizarre.

  He surprised himself by smiling. “I’m really looking for myself.”

  She laughed, and it was wonderful. She had a simple, merry, human laugh. A sudden joy overtook him, the sheer seduction of being nonsensical. He laughed with her until he felt his cheeks flushing, suddenly self-conscious.

  Rattled, he thanked the shop girl and left the store. He had no money, or he might have bought something to prolong the charade. It was too easy to let himself pretend, to turn his back on the reason he was there. That kind of distraction could be deadly.

  Reynard’s steps slowed as he neared the doors that looked out onto the street. Great God.

  Most of the creatures he guarded were night dwellers. When they escaped, they fled into the darkness. He chased them in darkness. What he saw outside was something he had not seen in many, many years.

  Sunshine.

  It slanted through a slim break in the late-afternoon clouds, angling across a roadway and some spindly trees bright with the first flush of spring growth. Long shadows followed the people crossing the street. He blinked, aching to feel the sun on his skin.

  He reached the doors, pushed one open, and stepped outside. Still in shadows, he paused under the overhang of the roof. Sunlight splashed the pavement six feet ahead.

  If I go any farther, I will never come back.

  People passed him, coming and going. They might have been ghosts. He was staring at the rushing cars, deafened by the noise. Like London from his day, the place teemed with a thousand ever-changing lives. Excitement was a scent. It tantalized him, begging him to step forward, to feel the balm of sun and heat and toss himself into that whirling current.

  Is my existence so meaningless that I could throw it away so easily?

  Perhaps.

  His whole body ached with loss, each throb counting again all he had sacrificed—family, friends, love, career, every last simple act of being a free human. His hands shook, a sudden fever creeping over him, along with the urge to vomit—but there had been nothing in his stomach for two and a half centuries. Nausea lurched past with nothing to latch onto. He closed his eyes, shutting out the spears of cruel, seductive light.

  I will not run mad.

  The sun had always been unattainable. He remembered the tall bookshelves in his family’s leather-and-port-scented library. He’d been all of ten when he’d found his father’s great black book with a six-pointed sun embossed on its cover. The sun was painted in gold leaf. He’d caressed the cover, tracing the bright design with his finger.

  “Don’t touch that!” snapped his father, swatting his hand away.

  “What does the sun mean?”

  “It means we were born to serve. The book isn’t a plaything for little boys. It belongs to the Order.”

  His father had put the sun away on a high shelf, and Reynard had seen it no more. The next time he’d seen the symbol, it had been above the door of the vault where the urns were stored. By then, he knew what it was that the Order did.

  They snatched the sun away from boys who grew into men.

  At last, Reynard walked back inside, putting his back to the fading spring day. Duty, dignity, and death. There was work to be done. It was past time to get back to Ashe and see if she had any ideas where to begin his quest.

  He turned, knowing where she was the way a compass knew north. Ever since that day when she’d wiped the blood from his face and urged him to live, he’d known where to find her, even from the other side of the Castle wall. To use the modern phrase, they had a connection.

  Reynard crossed the library threshold and his blood ran cold.

  Ashe stood in front of the desk, facing a vampire in a long, hooded coat. Two women, one old, one young, stood nearby like gaping sheep. The other clerk, Gina, clung to the counter as if it were the only thing holding her up.

  Reynard dropped the paper bag he was carrying. It landed with a rattle, the extra socks and his threadbare, faded uniform spilling onto the carpet.

  Heads turned his way, including the vampire’s. In less than a second, the creature realized he was between two enemies.

  Using the distraction, Ashe lunged with a ruler she held like a rapier. The vampire spun, snarling. The ruler caught him in the side, poking the heavy cloth of the coat but little else. Reynard heard splintering wood.

  Reynard leaped forward, vaulting over a table full of books.

  The vamp snarled, grabbing the young woman around the neck and dragging her to his side. She squealed like a trapped rabbit, high and desperate, curling in on herself as much as she could. She wasn’t a fighter. The perfect human shield.

  Reynard was just steps away. How could he get his own body between the human and the vampire? A guardsman could survive a lot.

  He never had a
chance to figure it out.

  Grim-faced, the old lady hoisted a heavy book in both hands. “This is a library, you oaf!” she snapped, and thumped the vampire on the back of the head.

  Ashe yelled, “Mrs. F., no!”

  The vampire flung out a clawed hand, grabbing the thick purple fuzz of the old woman’s coat. Ashe spun on her heel, slamming her other foot into the vamp’s forehead in a sideways kick.

  He let go of his hostages and recoiled, his attention now on Ashe. “Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to force you?”

  The girl sprawled on her stomach, too frightened to move. Reynard hauled her up by the armpits and shoved her toward the door. “Go! Go!”

  He pushed the old woman and Gina after her. “Now!”

  Civilians. He’d forgotten how helpless ordinary humans could be. In the Castle, everyone knew enough to run at the first whiff of danger.

  The vampire sprang. Ashe sidestepped, but the vampire dragged her down, pinning her beneath him.

  The old woman had the right idea. Reynard grabbed a square metal object off the counter and used the heavy block to club the vampire over the head.

  The vamp twisted, grabbed Reynard’s left wrist, and sank in his teeth. Fang scraped bone and tendon, shearing away flesh. Reynard still had the heavy block in his right hand. The pain brought a flood of rage. He smashed the block down again.

  “Reynard!” Ashe gasped from beneath the vamp. “Get this thing off me!”

  The vampire’s scalp was bleeding, but he clung on, teeth sunk in Reynard’s flesh.

  Furious, Reynard smashed again and again, a haze of anger clouding his vision. The fangs loosened. Reynard ripped his arm away, leaving skin behind. He grabbed the vamp by his bloody hair and levered him off Ashe.

  Arms now free, Ashe reared up and drove the broken ruler into his heart, then slammed it home with the palm of her hand.

  The vampire went limp. Reynard shoved the body aside. Suddenly, the object he was holding seemed enormously heavy. He dumped it back onto the counter.

  Ashe was still on the floor, leaning on her elbows. She started to laugh.

  “What?”

  “You checked him out, all right. That’s the demagnetizer.”

  “The what?”

  She shook her head. “Not important. Shit, I thought you were going to bash him to pulp. Did he bite you?”

  Reynard held up his torn arm. He could feel the venom, cold as ice, speeding through his veins. In ordinary humans, it produced an addictive, orgasmic state of bliss. He just felt pain. It hardly seemed fair. “I’m immune to their bite. One of the benefits of my occupation.”

  Ashe raised her eyebrows. “Lucky, I guess.”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “No, I’m fine. He wanted me for a present to his king.”

  Her eyes were a pure green, so bright they reminded him of sun through a cathedral window. Staring into them, he had the same sense of awe.

  He held out his good hand, remembering his manners. She took it, letting him pull her to her feet. Through their clasped palms, he could feel her strength, her elasticity of muscle and joint as she moved. The venom from the bite was turning from ice to heat, spreading a glow like good brandy.

  She was looking at his tight shirt.

  He wanted to kiss her. He felt a little foxed, like he had been drinking too much of that brandy. Oh, well, so he wasn’t completely immune to venom. Or maybe being outside the Castle weakened his resistance. Or maybe he just didn’t want to be oblivious to the venom’s pleasure anymore. He’d had enough of playing the saint.

  “You know,” he said with what he hoped was a charming smile, “while we’ve already agreed that I need your help, you seem to be having a few difficulties here.”

  He pulled off the sunglasses, trying to ignore the stabbing pain of the light.

  Ashe looked suspicious, giving a feline cast to those remarkable eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I think you need my help as much as I need yours. I should be your partner while I’m here. We work very well together.”

  Before she could answer, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into him. A risky move, if she objected. Instead, she went perfectly still. Her body leaned into his, thigh to thigh, hip to hip. Her breath was on his face, coming in short, shallow gusts. She was startled, but not fighting back.

  “There’s a vampire rotting on the floor,” she said with disgust.

  “They always do that when we’re around, don’t they?” He grasped a wisp of her hair and let it slither between his fingers. It fell like straight, smooth silk. It was the color of ripe birch leaves when they fell, as gold as if it were made of distilled autumn light.

  Oh, God, she’s so enticing.

  Then, remarkably, he felt her lips on his, soft but demanding. Ashe kissed with frank hunger, hiding nothing. Because she didn’t hesitate, he couldn’t. The instinct to match her, to best her, strength for strength, was too powerful.

  He teased one lip, then the other, searching out her tongue with his. She tasted of woman, warm and earthy.

  Reynard felt as if he were crumbling from the inside out, as if soon he would turn to dust, just like the vampire. It had been so hard to hold himself together over the centuries, the notion of sensual surrender felt like suicide. Like flying. Like peace.

  No discipline could possibly survive this. This is heaven. No wonder vampire venom is addictive.

  Ashe clasped his face, holding him as if she were afraid to miss a single drop as she drank at his mouth. His hands were on her ribs, working their way down her lean waist to the female flare of her hips. He brushed the bare skin peeking out below her shirt. It was hot, velvety, yielding. He slid his palm onto that satin skin. He caressed her, spanning the small of her back with his hand. She gave a moan that vibrated through him like a cat’s purr.

  A sensation grew low in his belly, a glorious, aching heat that he had long forgotten. Too bad he couldn’t resurrect the vampire just long enough to say thank-you. This is what I felt like before all the misery, the darkness, the damned curse took my life.

  I must possess her.

  She smelled of soap, her warmth the only perfume. He breathed in the scent, vowing never to forget it. Ashe broke away, licking her lips, tasting him. Reynard ached to grab her again. Her lips were wet, bruised from their kiss. He was fascinated by the bow of her mouth.

  More.

  “You are one helluva kisser.” She said it like an accusation.

  “It is a mighty talent, I confess.” He grinned.

  Expressions passed over her face, one after another: suspicion, admiration, outrage, bald curiosity. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  He stared, felt his jaw actually drop.

  Not the reaction he expected. Once, women had wept with joy if he so much as kissed their fingertips. You’re not that man anymore. You sacrificed all that.

  He folded his arms, suddenly on the defensive. “Why not? You seemed to enjoy it.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Because I’d want to go further. You’re not a one- kiss guy.”

  And what the bleeding hell is wrong with that?

  He didn’t get to ask. Mrs. F. was back with the security guards, hurtling forward like a fuzzy purple cannonball. “Where is it? Where is that monster?”

  Ashe waved a hand at the vampire. “There.”

  It was starting to dissolve. The exposed flesh was starting to sink in on itself.

  Mrs. F. fell back with a grunt of horror. The short, round security guard didn’t look happy, either. He glared at Reynard and Ashe. “What happened here?”

  Ashe shrugged, exchanged a glance with Reynard. “He dog-eared the pages.”

  Chapter 8

  The prince watched his subject sleep.

  Long ago, when Miru-kai had walked the earth, the fey had the power to keep their human companions from aging. True, such magic was a risky alteration to the great pattern of destiny, but it was a chance the fey were w
illing to take to enjoy the friendship and love humans gave so freely. But the pattern sometimes had a will of its own. The magical herbs, the stones of power, and all the other spells the fey habitually used had been lost to Miru-kai when he and his band of thieves had fallen into the trap of the Castle. Fortunately for the humans among them, the Castle’s magic stopped the effects of age. It didn’t stop the effects of steel. All of Miru-kai’s human friends had perished in battle. All except Simeon.

  Now, as the Castle’s magic changed and life returned to the stone walls, whatever magic kept humans young was eroding fast. It made sense. Life was change. As the Castle lived, so the cycle of birth and death began spinning again.

  Just because it made sense didn’t make it bearable. Miru-kai watched Simeon and felt each passing second like a drop of his own blood leaking away. I don’t know what to do.

  His own grandfather had been human, but he had passed into the Summerland with the rest of Miru- kai’s kin before the path to that magical realm had been lost. Too long ago to remember.

  So this is what it means to be mortal.

  The prince hadn’t seen this kind of death before, at least not for anyone he loved. How did humans stand growing old?

  Simeon’s hair had not gone white. It would take time to grow out that way. Instead, it had lost all its sheen, gone brittle and dry as straw. His flesh had shrunk against his bones. The energy that had always seemed to roar from Simeon like a north wind had fallen silent, still, and all but dead. All this in a matter of weeks.

  By the time Miru-kai had figured out what ailed his friend, it had almost been too late. Sheer genius alone had ushered the prince into the guardsmen’s vault. Genius, luck, and the machinations of a demon pursuing other ends. He had used the demon’s conniving to his own purpose.

  Reynard and Mac had fallen into the prince’s net like oafs at a county fair. He hadn’t exactly lied to them, and that was the secret. A nudge here, an evasion there . . . Miru-kai hadn’t lost his touch. He could sell warts to goblins.