Demon's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood)

by Egan, Alexa

  “You must care very much for the man to do this for him.”

  “That’s a discreet way of explaining it.”

  “Well, I don’t care how he brangles when he finds out: I know Flannery will be happy when that draught is complete. To be declared emnil is a living death for an Imnada of the clans. They walk and they breathe but they’re never quite the same afterward. It’s as if a part of them has been cut away. Even after almost twenty years, Jory has days when he shuts himself away to brood on things best left in the past.”

  “I understand that sort of pain. To be cut off from the best parts of yourself. To be completely alone in the world and unable to rely on anyone and trust no one.”

  “But now with you and the captain having an understanding, that’s all changed. He’ll build a life outside of the clans as Jory has.”

  But would he? Or would his desire to return home trump his desire for her? And even if he chose to remain in London, what sort of future would there be if the Fey-bloods declared a new war on the Imnada—a Fey-blood like Sebastian?

  Was she mad to risk the earl’s help? Was he the killer St. Leger assumed he was? And would Mac believe she’d betrayed him by turning to Seb for help?

  Was she causing more problems than she was solving?

  Bianca fought off these pointless thoughts before they ran away with her. She’d have hours on the road to dwell on the potential for catastrophe. No sense in giving up before she even made the attempt.

  A carter’s wagon waited in the farmyard, a gruff-looking chap handling the ribbons. With a leering stare and a smile showing more gaps than teeth, he offered his hand, hauling Bianca up beside him on the bench.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Marianne offered her hand a reassuring squeeze. “I hope so, child. I surely hope so.”

  * * *

  Mac woke late, stretching to relieve a lingering ache in his shoulder, new stiffness in his back and legs. His temples still pounded from the destruction of his krythos, his brain was muzzy, and he felt a painful throbbing against his skull.

  For the first time, he’d sensed his real enemy. Not the Frenchman but the woman who controlled him. She’d been elusive, a subtle but potent twining of instinctual magic and honed skill. Obviously a powerful Fey-blood, for none but one gifted in the mage arts would have been able to tap into the krythos’s energy long enough to make a connection. Had she known what such a mental link offered him? For although she had invaded his mind, he been given a glimpse of her as well.

  He’d smelled her heavy musky-sweet perfume, seen her gold-flecked brown eyes and black hair, and sensed the hatred that lay like a blight upon her soul.

  Ignoring the tipping and heaving of his bedchamber floor, he rose to splash cold water on his face, rake a hand through his disheveled hair, and drag on his clothes. A glance out his dormer revealed a sun hanging well above the barn roofs. He’d not just slept in: he’d slept half the day away.

  Downstairs, the kitchen smelled of yeast and lemons and nutmeg and fig. Marianne’s hands were white as she sifted and measured flour and shoveled great loaves into the oven. At the table, copper-haired Aldith rolled dough while the small, auburn-haired Hetty shaped scraps into tiny animals.

  Mac’s eyes traveled over them, looking for some sign of their latent abilities. Too young yet for complete manifestation, but still, a casual touch of his mind on theirs revealed the girls’ future power. It danced and sparkled on the surface of their thoughts like stars scattered over an endless sky.

  “You’ve missed breakfast and lunch, but there’s jam and biscuits if you’re hungry,” Marianne offered, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

  Mac grabbed a biscuit from a tray, smearing a glob of strawberry jam on one flaky half. Heaven. “Is Bianca in the stillroom?”

  Something passed over Marianne’s face, and she jerked her head toward the door. “Best speak with Jory.”

  He nodded, a queer, uncomfortable feeling invading his stomach as he choked down the rest of the biscuit. “I’ll do that.”

  In the yard, all hands had been gathered. Sammy and Henry rushed back and forth between sheds and byre while Jory worked with Jamie, man and boy bearing the same wide stance and capable, quick movements. Both scowling black as thunderheads.

  As Mac crossed the farmyard, he studied the eldest of the Wallace younglings. His questions grew with his frustration. How could the Ossine not realize that the goddess’s powers passed with their blood? And if they did know, why had they kept it secret? Did the Gather elders possess this knowledge? Was the Duke of Morieux a party to the deception? Had Gray de Coursy’s grandfather lied to them all? Had age-old prejudices won out over a possible new future for the failing clans?

  Jory looked up, eyes narrowing as Mac approached. He leaned his rake against the fence and jerked his head toward his son with enough meaning the boy nodded before grabbing up his tools. As Jamie passed Mac, the youth’s gaze slid over him with a mixture of admiration and antagonism.

  Mac’s discomfort grew.

  “Where’s Bianca?” he asked.

  Jory raked a hand through his hair, the shaggy red mane already dark with sweat, his forehead glistening. “Gone.”

  Mac’s stomach fell into his boots. “Tell me everything.”

  Jory peered meaningfully over Mac’s shoulder, the interested gazes of the children drilling into his back.

  “Inside. Now,” Mac snarled.

  Within the cold gloom of the stillroom, his gaze took in the neat stacks of paper, the box filled and labeled with samples from the bunches and drawers, the journal closed and bookmarked with that same ragged piece of ancient coat lining. Then his vision narrowed to the single piece of stationary held down by a chunk of quartz.

  He picked up the stone and scanned the first few lines on the sheet of paper, barely noting the fact that she’d left all in readiness for him.

  “She departed just after sun up,” Jory explained. “A carter was hauling a load into the village. From there she was going to catch the mail for London.” He pulled a watch from his vest. “Be there in an hour or two if the roads are fast.”

  “And you let her leave? You never once tried to stop her?”

  “She’s a woman grown, Flannery. And a woman who knows her own mind.” Jory regarded him with a steady eye and a grim set to his jaw.

  “A woman who’ll get herself killed if she’s not careful.”

  “She said she had friends she could stay with while she hunted down that last plant. Said she’d be safe there.”

  Friends.

  He closed his eyes on a string of hair-curling profanity.

  The goddess help them all. She’d run to Lord Deane.

  * * *

  “Take me with you.”

  Mac didn’t even bother looking up from shoving the last of his belongings into his haversack. Not difficult. He’d nothing beyond a change of clothes, Adam’s journal, Bianca’s letter. “No.”

  “That’s unfair. Just because you’re angry at my da is no reason to take it out on me.”

  Mac straightened to face the young man who stood within the doorway, alive with excitement and determination, his mouth a white-lipped line in his tanned face.

  “I’m not taking my anger out on you,” Mac answered reasonably. “The last thing I’ll do to repay your father’s hospitality is to steal away his son.”

  “You’re not stealing if I go willingly,” Jamie argued. “I want to leave. I have to get away from this farm. It’s the only way I’ll find out the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “The truth about who I am. Where I come from.”

  “You’re James Wallace of Line Farm, Surrey.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it better than anyone. I’ve heard you and Da talking. You want to return to the clans as much as I want to see them for myself. You can take me with you when you go back. They’ll listen to you.”

  Mac gave a scornful bark of l
aughter. “If you’ve been eavesdropping, then you also heard I’m emnil, an outcast like your father. They’d kill us both on sight. Stay here and you grow to a ripe old age. Attempt to breach the Palings and contact the clans, and you’ll be dead in a week.”

  His jaw squared, Jamie shot a hot, dangerous glare at Mac. “I’m eighteen. I don’t need you or my father to give permission. I can do it on my own.”

  “You don’t need our permission, but you sure as hell need our help. The holdings are well hidden behind the shielding mists of the Palings. If you lose yourself there with no guide, you’ll be wandering for months. And even if by some miracle you found your way through the clan’s defenses, they’d have your guts for garters before you took one step onto holding lands.”

  Jamie slouched in the window embrasure, arms folded belligerently over his chest. “If you won’t take me, there are others I can contact. They’ll listen.”

  They. Those rebel Imnada Jory had mentioned. A faction being hunted by Ossine enforcers. A group who would welcome Jamie Wallace and then use him for their own ends. Mac might not agree with Jory’s decision to deny Jamie any hope of a reconciliation with the clans, but he understood the love that drove Jory’s choice.

  “That may sound like the answer, but it can only lead to trouble,” Mac answered. “Do you want the enforcers to return for your father? Or your brothers and sisters? They won’t spare them if they believe a threat to the clans exist.”

  “And that threat is me?”

  “If you force the issue, yes.” Mac took a steadying breath. He had no time to argue with the boy, but he also couldn’t leave the situation as it was. “Be patient. If the rebels are strengthening, as your father thinks, you may get your wish. But if you push, it could all explode in your face.”

  Jamie stood spear-straight, gaze crackling. Lips pulled back to reveal pearl-white fangs. “I knew you’d be like Da. ‘Be patient.’ ‘Be cautious.’ I’m tired of waiting. I’m Imnada whether the clans acknowledge me or not.”

  Storming out of the room, he slammed the door behind him, his tread loud on the stairs before another door slammed, followed by Marianne’s plaintive call to her son—a sorrowful end to their conversation.

  Mac knew he’d handled their talk all wrong. He should have listened, tried to explain Jory’s concerns. Would Jamie have understood? It was hard to say. The boy was a hothead, impatient and angry at the world. Unwilling to heed the advice of those older and wiser. Those who understood the dangers and hoped to keep him from falling prey to them.

  And he was the spitting image of Mac at eighteen. Hell, maybe even now at twenty-eight.

  Hoisting his haversack onto his shoulder, he followed Jamie’s headlong flight at a more sedate pace. Marianne stood at the kitchen window, a hand holding back the curtain, her back rigid as a bayonet, hands shaking.

  “Give him a few hours alone and he’ll calm down,” Mac suggested.

  She turned, regarding him with resignation, eyes bright with unshed tears. “I knew it would come to this in the end. If he seeks them out, they’ll kill him.”

  Again Mac was struck by the similarities between Jamie and himself. The oppressive feelings of being trapped. The certainty that anywhere must be better than home. And the burning desire to stand on one’s own out in the wider world. “Should I go talk to him? Maybe I can—”

  “You’ve done enough.” Jory had come in through the front and was slapping his gloves against his thigh. “The boy will be all right as soon as you’ve gone and things get back to normal.”

  “Jory, perhaps it would do some good,” Marianne said hopefully, a hand on his shoulder.

  He shook her off with a frown. “I said you’re free to go, Flannery. If you don’t get a move on, it’ll be dark soon.”

  With nothing left to say, Mac nodded his assent.

  “I’ve a horse already saddled,” Jory said as they walked together out into the yard, where a dark bay stood at the rail. He took the horse’s reins, emotions chasing each other across his haggard face, too rapid for Mac to catch any hint of his thoughts. Then he straightened, his golden-brown gaze defiant. “If you can’t find Bianca and need a refuge, come back here. We’ll see you safe.”

  Stunned, Mac shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re one of the clans,” Jory answered, his words slow and deliberate, as if he’d given them much thought. “As am I, whether we’re acknowledged or not. You’re welcome here. If the time comes when we must fight, we’ll fight together.”

  Mac swung up into the saddle, gathering the reins. “If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow night, send word to St. Leger.”

  Jory’s eyes flashed with understanding. “Perhaps you’ve thrown the Fey-blood from the scent. Perhaps the threat is past.”

  “I’ve a feeling this particular adversary won’t give up until I’m dead and buried.”

  Jory stepped back as Mac turned the horse around. He took one last look at the cheerful house and cluttered farmyard, then he was through the gate and cantering down the lane. Only at the wood did he catch sight of Jamie stepping from the trees, gaze fastened on Mac, hand raised as if he might call him back.

  Turning his mind from the trouble he had left to the trouble awaiting him, Mac spurred his horse on, and Line Farm was lost to view.

  18

  Despite the killing pace he’d set, Mac arrived in London too late to do anything but stable the horse and find safe haven in his apartments, the rooms somehow dingier, chillier, and lonelier than he remembered. He spent the hours of darkness pacing the floor, fearful that Bianca was at Lord Deane’s. Terrified that she wasn’t. Thus, it was an unfashionably early hour that saw him approaching the palatial monstrosity that was the Earl of Deane’s town residence.

  The London palace’s majestic façade of arches and pillars rose up over St. James’s Place like a declaration of supremacy. The iron gates, the rows upon rows of windows, and the stretch of manicured gardens leading to the tall front doors had been constructed to intimidate and overawe in an ostentatious display of power. The earls of Deane had served on king’s inner councils, commanded great armies, and ruled over parliamentary ministries stretching back into the distant past. They’d had the intelligence and strength to gain influence and the cleverness and ruthlessness to keep it. They’d also managed to do it without a hint of scandal marring their sterling reputations or a damaging blot upon their characters.

  Until the current Lord Deane—Sebastian Commin—had risked authority, connections, and patronage to marry a Billingsgate fishmonger’s daughter who’d risen to fame on the London stage.

  It had been the talk of the summer and fall, Society in an uproar over the impetuous and indecent wedding between two such disparate personalities. The men had chuckled and nudged each other over Lord Deane’s lust-fed folly, while the women had been furious such an eligible prize had been plucked from under their noses by a woman hardly better than a whore.

  The result of this outrage and ostracism ended in an advantage to Mac. No line of carriages blocked the gate. No stream of calling-card-toting visitors or patronage-seeking toadies trolled the terrace steps or wandered among the boxwoods. And Mac was alone in the three-acre anteroom as he awaited the return of the liveried footman.

  He paced the room’s perimeter one more time. Twenty-eight . . . twenty-nine . . . thirty steps to the west wall. Turn. One . . . two . . . three . . .

  “His Lordship will see you now.” The footman’s insolent gaze raked Mac with passive contempt.

  “I didn’t ask to see the earl,” he replied, matching the servant’s frigid tones. “I need to speak with Mrs. Parrino.”

  The man’s expression hardened. “This way, Captain.”

  Arguing would only get him thrown out on the street. Best to face Deane once and for all and determine the damage for himself. Tucking his hat under his arm, Mac followed the footman through a series of awe-inspiring public rooms into a smaller yet no less impressive suite of sitti
ng rooms, and then to a corridor ending at a pair of double doors. A quiet rap and a murmured voice from within, and Mac was shown inside.

  “Captain Flannery, my lord,” the servant announced to a man bent over the desk, his dark hair only slightly silvered with gray, his granite face set in concentration.

  “Thank you, William,” the earl answered without looking up from his writing. “That will be all.”

  No sound but the scratching of pen on paper, the tick of a clock in the corner, and the snap of a fire within the enormous marbled hearth, but Mac’s head buzzed, his skin crawling with a prickling electrical charge that set his teeth on edge. David was right: the Earl of Deane was Fey-blood, his power tangible.

  “I’ve come to see Bianca Parrino,” Mac announced.

  Deane held up a hand as he continued writing.

  Mac ground his jaw, fists clenched. “Is she here or not?”

  “One moment and all will be answered, I assure you,” Deane responded.

  Empty of patience, Mac shoved forward, slamming his hands on the desk, startling the earl from his correspondence. “My moments are precious and I’ve few to spend awaiting your pleasure, so either tell me she’s here or send me on my way to look elsewhere.”

  Rather than answering Mac’s temper with his own, Lord Deane sat back in his chair, his fiery golden gaze nearly blinding. “So you’re Captain Flannery. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Mac curled his fingers around the edges of the desk, the temptation to heave it up and over the arrogant earl almost overwhelming. “Where is she?” he demanded.

  “Bianca’s safe, Captain. You have my word.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “No, but—”

  Mac leaned forward to within inches of the earl’s face, exhaustion, dread, and frustration pushing him as close to the brink as he’d ever been. “Get her. Now.”

  Rather than showing fear, Lord Deane quirked his mouth into a smile as he rang the bell behind him. “You’ve just lost me a hundred guineas, you know. My wife’s a hopeless romantic. She wagered there was a man behind Mrs. Parrino’s arrival.” A different footman arrived. “Edward, find Mrs. Parrino and bring her here. She has a visitor.” The man bowed and departed, and Deane turned his attention to Mac once more. “While we wait, you and I have important matters to discuss.” He motioned toward a chair. “Don’t you think?”