by Alexa Egan
“Think? Hell, I fucking know it’s one.”
“And Meeryn? Where does she fall in this setup of yours?” Gray asked. He’d known from the outset that David would be the hardest to convince. He’d always been a suspicious cynic with a scoundrel’s heart and a killer’s instincts.
He gave a disbelieving snort and poured himself another whisky. “I don’t know—Dromon’s patsy or Dromon’s stooge. Does her guilt or innocence matter when you’re facing a stake to the heart? You’ll be dead either way.”
“It matters to me,” Gray replied.
“No, she matters to you. You still think of her as the girl you played Knights and Maidens with when you were children, but ten years is a hell of a long time. People change in such a span. Hell, we’re prime examples, aren’t we?”
He couldn’t argue with David’s logic. The same questions had occurred to him in an endless loop of what-ifs, leaving him with no clear answers and a head that pounded like a drum. But one question had overridden them all: What happened if he didn’t go? And the answer was as obvious as Mac’s haggard features and David’s continuing bitterness. The curse—and the dark Fey-blood who’d cast it—would win. They’d be dead. And the clans would fail.
Both were only a matter of time.
He caught himself scratching his bandaged palm once again. Turned it into a slow running of his finger over the seam of the cloth, tracing the latest slide of his knife, the turning of the screw. “I can take care of myself, David. And there are those within the Palings I can call on if need be.”
“You’re going back no matter what we say, aren’t you?”
“I don’t have a choice. This could be our last chance. To break the curse. To unite the clans. To broker a peace that will allow the Imnada not just to exist, but to thrive.”
David threw up his hands. “Fine. Go. But be careful.”
“That’s usually my line.” Gray tried to laugh off his worry, but David remained tight-lipped, his shoulders braced as if preparing for a fight.
“You’re right, and that alone should be enough to give you pause.”
Gray took a breath, let it out slowly, and nodded. “I’ll be with Meeryn.”
Mac’s face hardened, lines grooved deep to either side of his moth, brows low. “So you shall. But in this rare instance I agree with David—be very careful.”
* * *
“The boy never sleeps. I’m fortunate if I can get forty-five minutes together before he’s up and squalling. Mac fell asleep putting on his boots last week, and I spooned salt in my tea this morning. We’re both exhausted.”
“What of the nurse you hired?”
“We let her go. I came home from the theater to find Declan screaming in his cot while Nurse Buntless read a Minerva horror with rags stuck in her ears.”
“Oh dear.”
“I love him dearly, but what I wouldn’t give for eight full hours unconscious in my bed.”
“Just what every husband wants to hear.”
“Sad to say, but Mac’s as desperate for sleep as I am. Last week, we both dozed off halfway through . . . I woke up later with his . . . and he . . . let’s just say it wasn’t my finest performance.”
Meeryn watched the two women sitting on a bench beneath a spreading chestnut tree, blond head and dark bent close together as they chatted. Bianca Flannery’s regal beauty was as awe-inspiring as her cool blue stare, while Callista St. Leger’s dark sparkling eyes and kindly features invited sisterly confidences and bright laughter. Or would have, had she been anything but Fey-blood. Instead her magic tingled cold against Meeryn’s skin and prickled at the base of her brain like a static charge. At least Bianca Flannery seemed no more than human, though even that unmagical race possessed the potential for danger through sheer numbers alone. They’d squeeze the Imnada out of existence and never even realize they were doing it.
But it was the baby lying on a blanket on the grass that drew Meeryn’s attention like a lodestone upon a string. He wore a gown of white muslin, a bonnet covering his black curls. Tiny fists pumped the air as he squirmed, his face purpling with frustration.
“How old is he?”
Bianca looked up with a tired smile. “Seven weeks.”
“I thought Gray said you were married in February.”
“Yes, well . . . don’t count too closely.”
“At least you were married in time for your confinement.”
“Only after some heavy persuading, and the threat of a fry pan to the head. Still, it’s all come right in the end, I suppose.” Bianca’s eyes held a strain she sought to hide behind a sunny expression. “Mac says it’s different among the clans. That relations between men and women are . . . more open.”
“In some ways. Marriage is controlled completely by the Ossine who oversee the bloodline scrolls. The shamans find the most advantageous pairing for each clan member, and unsanctioned unions are forbidden. But beyond marriage, we’re free to take our pleasure where we find it, and Imnada women are adept at avoiding unwanted consequences.”
“A handy trait, that.”
“It can be unless you . . . slip up.”
“Come into the family way?”
“No. Think oneself in love.”
She shook off her memories. Shoved Conal’s face back down in the dark where it had lived for six perfectly comfortable years. Unfortunately, this visit had dislodged all sorts of disconcerting insights. She’d felt so sophisticated taking Conal McIlroy into her bed, seen it as a mark of her blossoming adulthood and a way to finally prove her maturity to those (namely the duke) who would keep her a child forever. Their time together had been brief but glorious. Sweet memories made while painful ones faded. When the young Viyachne clansman had ridden out of Deepings three years later in disgrace, she’d assumed that her life would end and her heart would break.
Surprisingly enough, neither event occurred.
She’d neither seen nor heard from Conal again, and only learned of his death by chance. By then her youthful adoration had faded, but her grief had been real, and his face and his kiss she carried with her to this day. His knife she carried strapped to her thigh.
“May I?” she asked with a nod toward the baby.
“Of course. He’s building to a crescendo, though, so feel free to hand him off if he becomes too much.”
Meeryn scooped up the sturdy little boy. She breathed in the clean powdery scent of his skin and nuzzled the downy softness of his hair. Immediately, she felt her shoulders uncurl from around her ears, her muscles relax, and her heart rate slow.
Cooing a favorite lullaby, Meeryn cradled young Flannery as his fingers curled around her thumb and held tight. Thick black lashes fringed deep blue eyes, and his bow of a mouth pursed in a bubbly grimace.
His eyes shut, and an ear-shattering wail sent birds scattering from the trees and a rabbit dodging for cover under a log. Instinctively, Meeryn reached out with the lightest of mental touches, wrapping the little boy in soothing waves of calming energy. Found herself recoiling with a small cry of shock at the Imnada power dancing across the surface of the child’s mind like flickers from a thousand stars. Unless she’d interpreted the signs incorrectly, this child would grow up with the ability to shift and the talent to path like other Imnada.
But how? Every Ossine teaching asserted that this was impossible; that only by exact and approved pairings would the Imnada race continue. She reached out once more, easing her way along the child’s consciousness, feeling the innate pathways and nascent connections. Every sense bristled with the rightness of what she was feeling. It might be years before his power manifested himself, but even now it shone bright as a flame in the night, a promise for the future.
She should be appalled by this unmarked half-breed and furious with Captain Flannery for marrying an out-clan. Instead affection oozed its way through her insides for this sweet innocent whose very mixed-race existence was an impossibility. And a hope.
“You have the motherly touch,” B
ianca said. “I wish I could hire you.”
Meeryn realized that the boy’s eyes had fluttered closed, his body limp as he drifted into sleep. “He’s beautiful.”
“He is, isn’t he? He’ll be handsome as his father when he’s grown.”
And bear the heart of the panther like his father as well, Meeryn thought, though she didn’t say it. She needed to look into this further before she spoke her discovery aloud, and she knew exactly with whom she needed to speak. It would be the first thing she did upon returning to Deepings.
“Gray says the two of you grew up together.” Callista St. Leger broke into the whirlwind of Meeryn’s thoughts, her gold-flecked gaze curious. “Was he always so solemn?”
“Not solemn exactly.” Meeryn knelt slowly onto the blanket, trying not to wake Declan, enjoying the sweet weight of his body as he nestled against her. “But thoughtful. Quiet. Gray was a dreamer. He’d go off for days alone in the wilds around Deepings or closet himself in the library poring over books until his eyes crossed. His vagueness drove the duke mad.”
“Poor Gray. It sounds like his grandfather and he never saw eye to eye, not even when he was small.”
“His Grace wanted Gray to be strong, to know how to fight, to be able to defend himself, to be able to defend the clans. Instructors were brought in to train him in all the manly arts. They worked him until he dropped from exhaustion. He hated every minute of it, but he did all his grandfather asked without complaint. I suppose I wouldn’t call him solemn so much as stoic.”
“It must have done the trick. David says Gray’s the best marksman he’s ever seen and one of the dirtiest fighters with dirk and sword.”
“Second best.” Meeryn smirked.
* * *
Gray paused in the bedchamber doorway, taking a moment to watch Meeryn as she packed a few last stray items into her valise. She paused, stretched, pushed her hair from her face, and fanned herself. It was bloody hot up here. No breeze stirred the curtains or blew clear the rancid odors of London in late summer, and the air hung stale with heat. Wilted curls escaped Meeryn’s chignon, while her light muslin gown clung damp and revealing against every feminine curve. A bead of sweat trickled down her neck, following the ridge of her spine as it slid into the collar of her gown. Gray found himself staring, nerves jumping, throat dry.
At least she’d changed out of his dressing robe and into proper attire once the footman fetched her bag early this morning. Now, perfectly buttoned, pinned, primped, and coiffed, she could be mistaken for any affluent London gentlewoman. Nothing to distinguish her Imnada blood but the sinuous grace of her movements, the porcelain delicacy of her features . . .
“I can feel your eyes drilling into my back, Gray. Have you come to assure yourself I’m not stuffing de Coursy valuables down my dress before you shove me out the door?”
. . . and her preternaturally acute senses.
She spun on her heel, eyes glittering with bravado. “Care to check?”
A part of him imagined calling her bluff. Pushing her back against the wall to skim his hand deep into the collar of her gown, cupping the firm weight of her breasts, caressing the buds of her nipples until they hardened with arousal and he smelled the musky scent of desire on her skin.
Another part of him imagined her taking a knee to his groin, a fist to his jaw, and a knife to his ribs. A far more likely outcome. She’d never been one to suffer fools gladly, and that would be about the most foolish thing he could do, for more reasons than he could count.
Straightening from his perch against the door, he strolled into the room, eyes carefully shuttered, pose perfectly controlled. “Tempting, but I like my nose just where it is, thank you. And I already bear a scar with your name on it.” He touched a finger to a faded reminder of her wrath at the edge of his mouth.
He needed to get a grip. Despite Lady Delia’s outrageous claims of women falling all over themselves for his favors, he’d been sadly lacking in that regard for longer than he cared to admit. Mistresses took proper care and feeding, and he’d never had the patience such neediness required. On the other hand, indulging in a quick back-alley coupling for the price of a few coins and his self-respect didn’t appeal either.
“Besides,” he added, “you’re just being dramatic. It’s not like I’m packing you off to Outer Mongolia. You’ll be comfortable with David and Callista.”
“I was comfortable here.”
“This is a bachelor household. You can’t stay and you know it.”
“You sound just like your grandfather. He spent so much time among the humans, he began to think like them. The Imnada might live within the human world, but we will never be part of it.” Her expression dared him to argue.
He chose a middle course. “We may not be a part of it, but a large element of hiding is blending into your surroundings. In our case, it means single females do not stay with single males.”
“I spent last night in this den of male iniquity and lightning didn’t strike me down.”
“Last night was an exception. I couldn’t very well throw you out in naught but a robe and tell you to fend for yourself.”
“No? You sound as if you contemplated it.”
Actually, he’d spent half the night lying awake and staring at the ceiling until frustration and disgust had dragged him from his bed, drenched with sweat and hard as a rock, to spend himself with the help of his right hand and a convenient chamber pot. The debilitating pain of the draught’s withdrawal had almost been a relief. At least it gave him something else to focus on besides his out-of-control libido. He had left Deepings . . . and Meeryn . . . behind for sound reasons. Reasons that remained despite the years that had passed. Now, if he could just convince his undisciplined body of his mind’s estimable logic, he might be able to pass five minutes without the wild need to drag her against the wall and pleasure her senseless.
She lifted her chin in typical Meeryn challenge. A chin he desperately wanted to kiss right now. “If you must know, it’s been a long time since I was a simpering maiden who needed her virginity protected.”
By now he’d reclaimed a mantle of gentlemanly detachment and was able to react with barely the flicker of an eyelid, though his gut cramped and he had to work to keep his hands from fisting at his side. “I can’t imagine you ever simpered. But the rest doesn’t surprise me. You’re what . . . twenty-six . . . twenty-seven . . . a bit old to remain untouched, though I find it hard to believe the Ossine have let you continue so long unwed. The ward of the Morieux and close kin to The Skaarsgard would be a coup for any man.”
She gave a flippant roll of her eyes. “Just what every woman aspires to, I’m sure.”
“Did you expect more?”
“I expected . . .” She caught back her words behind pressed lips and an unsteady breath. “I didn’t wish to marry at first, and later, when the duke grew ill, any decision on matrimony was indefinitely postponed.”
“Not married, but there was someone . . .” he fished, though maintaining a façade of disinterest was nearly killing him.
She offered him a dark stare. “Does it matter? He died a very long time ago.” She returned to her packing, such as it was for someone who’d only unpacked this morning. “Now, can we discuss my departure, or better yet, yours? Sir Dromon’s not known for his patience. Any delay might change his mind and this chance for peace would be lost.”
“Do you want peace for my sake . . . or his?”
“Peace is peace. We all win.” Her ferocity dimmed. “I know you think this is some kind of scheme to lure you back to the holding, but it’s not. His Grace has a few weeks left at most. Once he’s gone, whatever happens among the clans will happen. I understand that. But this might be your last chance to make up with your grandfather. Can you really let the opportunity slip through your fingers without even trying?”
Was he a fool to trust her with his life? Was David right that desperation caused him to ignore the danger? Questions continued to dog him, but in the end
he focused on the most important; did it matter? Meeryn was his only hope of getting close to Jai Idrish. Vigilance and caution would be his watchwords, but he’d no other choice except to risk it all on this one throw of the dice. And pray he could keep his cock in his pants while he was around her.
“I’ll go—”
“You can send me away, shove me off onto your friends, but I’m not leaving London without you and that’s final.”
“You win.”
“I’m just as muleheaded as . . . what did you say?”
“I said I’ll go with you to Deepings. I’ll sit down with Sir Dromon. I’ll make my peace with Grandfather.”
Barely had the words left his lips than she flung herself at him. “Gray!” she cried, her arms circling his neck in something akin to a choke hold. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
Her hug caught him off guard. Her kiss knocked him sideways.
His breathing stopped for that one amazing moment her lips moved soft over his mouth, her arms pulled him close, and her body fit against his like a missing puzzle piece. Then it was over, she was dancing away as if it had never happened, and he was left adrift, alone, and very, very aroused.
What he would give for a fist to the jaw.
3
Rain drummed on the coach, seeping in through every crack and crevice, one very irritating drip in the roof forming a puddle at her feet. Mud sucked at the wheels, slowing their pace to a crawl, turning a few days’ travel into an ordeal resembling a Greek odyssey. Had it been two days since they’d left London? Three? A month? Meeryn had lost track. She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, sighed, opened them again to look out on the soggy gray landscape and wish for the hundredth time that horses had wings. At this rate, they might never reach Deepings. Or if they did, they’d be moss-covered and pruny as raisins.
“Why don’t you try reading? It might help.”
She shot a withering look at Gray, who balanced a writing desk on his lap, somehow managing to scratch a letter without either dribbling the ink or smearing it in impossibly unintelligible lines. “I saw your library,” she griped. “Not a book there was less than five hundred years old, didn’t smell like curdled milk, or was the least bit interesting.”