Unchained tdf-3

by Sharon Ashwood

  A man could go mad counting so many losses. Perhaps that was what drove guardsmen like Killion to murderous sprees.

  Her eyes found his, their emerald brightness smothered by the darkness. “One thing I’ve gotta say. After last fall, y’know, when you were so hurt, I kept wondering if you were all right. I’m sorry I didn’t call. Or write. Or whatever.”

  “I didn’t know you remembered,” he said.

  Her brows drew together. “Of course I did! It was just that I—”

  He held up a hand to stop her, regretting his words. “I was trapped in the Castle. You had to bring your daughter home. There is nothing to apologize for.”

  She shrugged. “I just want you to know that I didn’t forget about you.”

  “Thank you,” he said. He felt like he should say more, but he wasn’t sure what she would have welcomed.

  “Okay,” said Ashe, rubbing her eyes. “Tomorrow morning at the gym. Do you need a ride anywhere?”

  “No, thank you.” Reynard folded his arms before he could reach out to her. “Good night.”

  She rummaged inside the back of the vehicle and handed him the string- handled bag with his uniform and spare clothes. As he took it, she hesitated. “We’re going to make some serious headway on this urn thing tomorrow. I promise. We’ll go see Lore, if he’s around. Then I’ve got a ghost to take care of for my sister.”

  “I’m sure I’ll enjoy that.”

  Her mouth worked a moment. “I didn’t say you were coming along.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t.” He met her gaze, standing his ground.

  She huffed and turned away. “Bloody English bastard.”

  Reynard smiled to himself. He had won the skirmish. It was a start.

  Ashe and her girl drove off into the night, taillights glowing like eerie eyes. He stood in the dark for a long time, watching the night. The lights went off in Grandma Carver’s windows. A cat trotted by, intent on patrolling its territory.

  It was pleasant to stand there in the outside world, enjoying the illusion of freedom. Perhaps that was why he wanted to help Ashe and Eden so desperately. It was a choice he made freely and had nothing to do with the duty that was his prison even more than the stone walls.

  He had wrestled with that duty even before he knew it existed.

  A few years after he found the black book with the sun, he’d been playing pirates with his brother. At the moment, he was a runaway slave and hiding underneath the curve of the stairway right outside the drawing room door. His parents were entertaining a few close friends inside the beautifully appointed room—Reynard and his brother were rarely permitted inside it—so Reynard was quiet as the proverbial mouse. That was why, despite the excitement of his game, he had heard them talking.

  “The Order’s lottery has always demanded the heirs.” That was his father’s voice. “Why can’t they take the younger sons? The warlock families are weak enough without scything down the flower of our manhood.”

  Another voice answered. It was a dry, dusty, cruel voice that made Reynard squirm even farther into the protective shadows of the stairs. “Without sacrifice, where is the service to duty?”

  That one sentence, delivered in the voice of a nightmare, had stayed with him, haunting his child’s imagination. At the time, he had wondered what sort of games the adults played. He didn’t know he and his brother were already pieces on the board.

  Pieces about to find their checkmate.

  It was only years later—many, many years—that he understood his father was just as much of a victim. Heirs were taken to keep the families weak, so that none could challenge the Order’s ruling elite. His father had spoken out of a generations-old frustration.

  Eventually, he had managed to forgive the fact his father had hoped Reynard would play the sacrificial lamb—even if his father’s wish had come true.

  The memory darkened his mood too much for him to enjoy the night any longer. Reynard reached out with his mind and pulled the power from the atmosphere around him. Wind and rain surrendered their energy, letting him gather it inside his body. It spun inside him, churning, building until he lifted his hand, spreading his fingers. Then he released it as easily as he would a sigh.

  The charred scent of magic filled the night. A bright dot hung just beyond the tips of his fingers. It whirred madly, spinning outward until it seemed to burn a hole in the air. The dot grew to a ragged orange disk. Reynard stretched it with his mind, pulling and tearing at the fabric between this world and the Castle. As the magic built, it crawled along his skin with prickling claws, filling his nose and mouth, coursing down his limbs like water sprayed in icy needles.

  The portal was a fiery bright mouth, the Castle the darkness of its man-sized gullet. Reynard squinted against the brightness, and stepped through.

  “Nice threads,” said Mac. “You look normal.”

  “I’m in disguise,” Reynard replied. “But never mind that. I’ve come to give a report. A vampire attacked Ashe in the public library today.”

  “Say what?”

  Reynard had just sat down in the quarters Mac shared with Constance, his vampire lady love. The pair had a passionate and yet down-to-earth sort of happiness that radiated throughout their domain. The rooms were bright, modern, spacious, and very undungeonlike. Just like the outside world, the place was filled with color. A basket of knitting sat beside Reynard’s chair. Glossy decorating magazines fanned out across a glass-topped coffee table. Constance was the consummate homemaker.

  Mac picked up the remote and clicked off the flat-screen TV. The fire demon was sprawled in a huge leather recliner, and had been watching the hockey game. Perhaps it was a good thing Reynard interrupted, because he smelled something burning. Mac had an unhappy tendency to scorch his surroundings when his favorite team was losing.

  “It seems the King of the East is a player in our melodrama. The vampire was his emissary. Alessandro Caravelli and the other locals are finding out what they can.”

  “Bugger vampire politics. So much for sneaking fifteen minutes of R and R.” Mac ran his hands through his hair, clearly exhausted despite his demonic strength. “Interesting. I’ll follow up with Caravelli and find out what he learns.”

  Reynard gripped the arms of the chair to stop his hands from shaking with anger. He wanted to beat Frederick Lloyd to a pulp all over again. “Word has spread that at least one Carver woman has borne a vampire’s child. Now some want to sink more than teeth into their flesh.”

  “Nasty.”

  For the second time that night, Reynard recounted everything that had happened so far. When he finished, Mac made a disgusted face. “With Miru-kai and the vampires and a possible demon escape, the only species not kicking up a fuss right now are the werebeasts.”

  “I wouldn’t say that too loudly.” Reynard sighed, paused, and realized he was too weary to go on. “On another subject, how does Stewart fare?”

  “I called his mother. He’ll be in the hospital for a few days, but they expect he’ll recover.”

  “I’m going to wring Miru-kai’s neck when I find him. He’s deep in the middle of this, somewhere.”

  They sat in glum silence for a moment. Reynard could hear Constance singing to herself in another room. Her presence reminded him of the time he’d taken her son prisoner. After spending even a short time with Ashe and her child, he understood a little more Constance’s pain at losing the lad. It was a wonder she’d ever forgiven Reynard for what he’d done, even if it had come out right in the end.

  He shook his head to clear away the memory, and thought instead of everything he’d seen that day.

  “It is hard to walk in the outside world,” he said, half to himself. “It is confusing, because much is unfamiliar, and yet I remember parts of my old life that I’d forgotten.” Things that would have been easier never to recall.

  Mac toyed with the remote. “I wish I was able to come with you, but I’ve got, y’know, fairy problems. I’m thinking pesticide, but that co
uld take a few days.”

  Reynard laughed.

  Mac shrugged. “Do you think you can manage this urn business with Ashe’s help? If you need me, I’ll find a way to put everything on hold and go outside with you.”

  “I will be fine. I rode in an automobile today. And an elevator.”

  Mac grinned. “Look at you go, you daredevil.” “The modern world has much to recommend it.” Reynard stood. “The cars are fascinating.”

  “So am I going to see you zooming around here in a sports coupe?”

  “I would like to ride a good horse again.”

  “I’ve got some unicorns down in the basement, if you’d like to take them out for a spin.”

  “They only like virgins. I’m rather too late to that party.”

  Reynard walked back to his own quarters filled with a mix of weariness and impatience. Tomorrow would bring more challenges. It would bring another chance to linger in the free air of the outside world, to be near Ashe, and to find parts of himself he thought long dead. Yet, what was the point of coming back to life, only to sink once again into the sunless existence of the Castle?

  He was weary of the question. There was no good answer. The Castle was both oppressive and safe. Doomed, damned, doomed, damned. His curse just kept on ticking.

  He opened the door to his Spartan quarters. There was a sitting room and a bedchamber, nothing more. He had little need of possessions. One trunk held weapons, the other clothes. A small shelf of books rounded out the furnishings.

  After the chaotic plenty of Ashe’s world, he saw his rooms with fresh eyes. They looked like a monk’s cell. No bright, sunny colors here. He pulled off his new T-shirt as he walked into his bedroom. His narrow bed looked as welcoming as an anvil. The paper bag with his clothes sat on the plain counterpane. Carefully, he took out his worn uniform and folded it neatly. Not all of it was original. Much of his red coat had been replaced, piece by piece, but the buttons and braid were the same. The buttonholes, arranged in pairs down the front, were carefully mended. No loose threads. Nothing frayed. With so little to call his own, the uniform had become more to him than a suit of clothes. It was everything he should have aspired to, everything he should have achieved in his life when he still walked in the world.

  Beneath the uniform were the rest of the clothes Ashe had bought him. Comfortable, easy, fresh, new. If they represented anything, it was the unknown. Or maybe they were just socks and shirts—clothes blank and empty of meaning, like they were supposed to be. Normal people didn’t overthink socks.

  He poured water into his washbasin and bent over, looking in the spotted, faded mirror that hung above it. Swirling blue tattoos covered his chest, inked there by the magic that identified him as a guardsman. They were different from Mac’s, more primitive. Where Mac’s tattoos marked him with the authority of the Castle, Reynard bore the brand of the Order.

  The oath—curse—had taken his life and written servitude into his flesh. He could feel the hollow ache of the urn’s absence. Once he had entered the Castle, the feeling had resolved into a pain under his ribs. It was growing, reminding him that he was, for all intents and purposes, little better than a dead man. Mac had suggested that he sleep in a hotel outside the Castle, where he would be closer to the urn.

  A sudden stab of pain shot through him, making him flinch and grip the sides of the washstand. He was going to have to accept Mac’s offer of a hotel room after all.

  He was running out of time.

  And yet . . . he had seen the sun today.

  Given hope to a little girl.

  And he’d kissed Ashe Carver.

  For the first time since—well, since he’d traded his life for his brother’s so long ago—Reynard felt hope.

  Chapter 10

  Friday, April 3, 11:30 p.m.

  101.5 FM

  “Good evening, children of the night. You’re listening to CSUP, 101.5 FM at the beautiful University of Fairview campus, and I’m Errata Jones, your hostess for the evening. For our last item tonight, here’s the latest tidbit I’ve found about the guardsmen, thanks to Perry Baker, my favorite werewolf researcher and Internet sleuth.

  “Where, oh, where did the old guardsmen come from? They were put there by the same jolly folks who built the Castle—those nine sorcerers who decided the world needed a prison for the supernatural folks. Well, it only made sense to install live- in security, I guess, especially if you were trying to cleanse the planet of anything that might be more magical than you.

  “The subcommittee in charge of security was selected from the same families as the sorcerers. Nothing like keeping world domination in the family.

  “An interesting sidebar: They were all warlocks.

  “Another interesting sidebar: In later years, those same families made up a supersecret society called the Order.

  “Third sidebar: Warlocks, and the Order, are supposed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

  “However, if I’m reading my history right, they’re actually still running the Castle. I mean, aren’t the old guards all from warlock families? Whatcha make of that, listeners?

  “Well, it’s nearly the witching hour, and I’m Errata Jones, signing off as your hostess for the evening. I’ll be back at nine tomorrow with special guest and entertainment insider Mina Arcana, and she’ll be talking about the latest Howlywood headlines. I can’t wait, and I know you can’t, either. Addicted to the fake-blood scandal? Who isn’t? I mean, a vamp that can’t put the nosh on? What’s up with that?

  “But before I leave you, a tasty treat to wish you sweet dreams. Here’s a tune from Nine and Twenty Blackbirds with the title cut from their hit collection, Darkest Rose. Kiss, kiss, and good night.”

  Saturday, April 4, 9:15 a.m.

  Morgan’s Gym

  Ashe finished a run on the treadmill, grabbed her towel and water bottle, and climbed the stairs to the top floor of the gym. It was a large, barnlike room with an area for fencing. A long rack was hung with masks and jackets. Another rack held practice foils and épées. The equipment was basic. Competition-level fencers went to the university’s salle, where there was an ex-Olympian coach and electronic scoring. Ashe wanted less style and more aggression, and Morgan’s delivered with brutal, bruising efficiency.

  No one else was in the fencing area. The early-morning gym crowd hung out in the cardio room downstairs. Ashe took a blade off the rack and began running through her drills. The épée had a bell-shaped guard and a blunted tip designed to snag on the opponent’s clothes long enough to register a hit. Not deadly, but a blow still hurt.

  Because she was alone, Ashe didn’t bother with a mask or jacket.

  Sun streamed through the tall windows, flashing on the mirrors, on her blade, warming the color of the old fir floor. She let her mind go still, concentrating on her form as she glided through the elaborate, dangerous ballet.

  She’d finally slept last night, thanks to Grandma’s charms. She’d still worried about her job, or lack thereof. About Eden, and the horrible mistake Ashe had made by forgetting just how often kids eavesdropped when you thought they were off doing something else. About Reynard and about the hundred and one monsters out to complicate her life. It was bad when you didn’t know what to worry about first. Too many choices.

  But at least she’d done it after getting a solid seven hours of vampire- free Zs. Of course, those came after another telephone marathon calling those bump- in-the-night types who might be willing or able to give her useful information. Sadly, no one had seen a thief, demon or otherwise, with an urn tucked under his arm. She began mixing moves, making a few up, pretending she was in an actual skirmish. Thrust, step, turn, parry. When you fought for real, you had to know how to improvise. She’d learned that from Roberto.

  Her husband had been the first to teach her to fence—just another aspect of his danger-junkie lifestyle. Maybe that was why they’d hit it off initially; when they met, she’d been in a fatalistic mood. He’d picked her up in a bar in
Switzerland, made her love life again, and married her four months later.

  She reached the back wall of the gym, spun around, and began working in the other direction. Thrust, parry.

  Roberto had made her forget her past, her parents, and her guilt. She would always love him for that gift.

  Lunge, redouble, retreat.

  Should she have pushed her husband to take fewer risks? If she had succeeded, he would still be alive. But would he be Roberto? When was protecting someone chaining them down?

  Still, if Grandma was right and she was a warrior born to protect, her track record sucked. Few seemed to survive the Ashe Carver hazard zone, aka random magic, rampaging bulls, and vampires with sniper rifles.

  Now it was happening again. If Ashe couldn’t find a way to help Reynard, he would die.

  Dread flooded her, weighting her limbs until they dragged to a halt. She didn’t want to lose him. They might only ever share that one kiss, but it had been . . . She didn’t have the right words for it.

  Except first kiss. That was the whole problem. Reynard had made her feel alive. For the first time since Roberto’s death, she wanted to get back into the business of finding a mate. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She was still turning the emotion over and over, hunting for signs that she was betraying her husband’s memory. Sure, she’d had sex since he died, but this was different. She wanted a particular man.

  One logic said she could never have.

  Ashe panted, feeling the sweat trickle down her back. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Reynard had promised to meet her. Where was he?

  The sun pouring through the windows made the room beastly hot—apparently the air-conditioning was toast. She was wearing only a sports bra and jogging shorts, but she was still roasting. She strode to the fire escape and pushed it open to let in some fresh air.