The slick, moss-covered edges crumbled.
Brenna’s fingers slipped through the clay, and she dropped out of sight.
The beast roared and lashed him from the inside out. Fear supercharged his powers and shot him through the air so fast the wind burned his face. The powdered sand and black boulders rushed closer, Brenna only two arm spans away.
Three feet from the ground, he swooped beneath her and angled up at a sharp pitch. His heart slammed an angry protest, and his lungs burned for air, but Brenna was flush against him. Shaking violently in his arms with a brutal grip on his shoulders, but safe.
He held them there, high above the ocean, and cradled her closer.
Her breath chuffed against his skin, and something wet trailed down the side of his neck. Tears. A river of them mixed with gentle sobs.
And he could hear them. Each raspy inhalation as clear as a whisper in the dead of night. The ocean and the larken, too. No voices clouding the sounds around him. No memories trampling each other for headspace. They weren’t just dimmed the way they normally were around her, they were gone. Absolute silence. His first reprieve in over a hundred years.
His arms tightened on instinct, as though she might somehow fly away or dissipate into nothingness. Rubbing his cheek against the top of her head, he savored the silk texture against his skin and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “You’re safe.”
She huddled closer, drawing her knees to her chest as her whimpers continued. The ocean tossed bold and loud beneath them. Probably not the most reassuring view from a non-flying human’s point of view.
Fuck, like she’d have any other response. She’d nearly died. He couldn’t exactly expect her to lift her head and beam sunshine and roses.
He drifted to a flat-topped boulder at the cove’s base and settled with the bluff wall behind him. Leaning back, he gave the wall his weight and pulled his knees in to angle Brenna closer.
Damn, but she felt good. So tiny and soft. Her hand opened and closed against his chest, dragging the slick-rough fabric of his drast against his adrenaline-soaked skin in a way he probably shouldn’t enjoy, but abso-fucking-lutely did. Considering Brenna couldn’t get a solid breath in, it was also entirely the wrong thing to think about. There had to be something he could do. Something to help her find her balance.
For once, a decent memory came to mind. The day he’d tried to imitate his father by jumping off their cottage roof in an attempt to fly. He’d been too little to comprehend that flight required an awakening, something that didn’t happen to eight-year-old boys. His mother had healed his wounds and held him in her lap while he cried, rocking slowly side to side.
He’d liked that. A lot. So much so, he’d pretended to cry longer so he could stay.
Gently, he imitated the movement, albeit more clunky than his mother. He stroked a hand from the top of her head to the small of her back, her glossy hair slick against his callused palm. Since the first time he’d seen her, he’d been fascinated by it. The darkest chocolate to match her eyes.
Wind whispered through the cove, wrapping a faint vanilla scent around them. He dipped his head, his nose only inches from her temple, and inhaled deep. It was Brenna, either her hair or her skin, but whatever it was, was perfect. Comforting and soft.
The darkness inside him settled. Stilled in a way he hadn’t felt since before his awakening. Countless battles he’d fought, and bone-chilling memories he’d absorbed in the name of protecting his malran and his race, but no act felt as important as this moment. This was what armies fought to provide. What men died to protect.
Brenna let loose a long, body-shuddering sigh. Uncoiling her arms from around his neck, she smoothed her hands across his shoulders and down to his biceps.
His muscles tightened, every inch of him poised for her touch. Her presence.
Her fingers tightened, a tentative combination of exploration and reflex, before she pushed upright. Her nearly black eyes were glassy with the last of her tears, and her cheeks were a mottled red. It shouldn’t have impacted him the way it did, but damned if he didn’t want to pull her back against him and demand she stay put.
She didn’t meet his gaze, but neither did she avert her face. Definitely a step up from the first day he’d met her.
“Thank you,” she muttered.
Her voice. Praise the Great One, it was beautiful. He’d heard it plenty of times before, always shy with a breathiness born of well-earned caution, but now it was clear. Unhindered by the noise in his head.
He dipped his chin in acknowledgment. There wasn’t much he could say she’d appreciate at this point, and all he really wanted was to hear her say something else. Anything. Histus, she could recite the damned alphabet and he’d be happy.
Instead, her focus drifted to where her hands rested on his biceps. A curious light flickered for a second, maybe two, before she blinked, shook her head, and tried to wiggle off his lap.
Ludan tightened his hold. “I’m not gentle.” The words came out rougher than he’d intended, driven solely by compulsion and a need he couldn’t quite define. “My words aren’t as pretty as Eryx’s, but I can listen.”
For the longest time she stayed locked in place, studying him with a deep scrutiny he felt clear to his soul. As though she gauged the meaning of his entire existence from her gaze alone. A fresh tear slipped down her cheek.
He traced its path, captivated by the contrasts between them. Her smooth, creamy skin, to his dark, roughened fingers. His brutish-sized paw against her pixie face.
“I don’t want to talk about where I’ve been.” Her voice ripped him from his thoughts, the angst behind it prodding the beast out from his brief respite. “I don’t want him to have any more of me than he already got.”
And by him she meant Maxis. That bastard.
Ludan exhaled slowly, but held Brenna’s gaze. In that moment, he’d give a lot to resurrect the son of a bitch and kill him all over again with nothing more than his fists. “Then tell me what made you run.”
“Only my memories.” She looked away, scanning the cove with the pretense of gaining her bearings, but he recognized it for what it was. Diversion. The same tactic he’d used for years to throw people off track.
She smoothed her gown along her thigh, all business but for the sniffles that came between her still uneven breaths. Whatever it was that had chased her from the castle this morning was tucked neatly back in its place. For now. “I need to get back. Ramsay’s awake, but Trinity’s in a bad place. I told them I’d tell Eryx and Galena he was okay, and give them some time alone.”
The casually dropped information punched through Ludan’s languid state as little else could in that moment. Ever since Ramsay and Trinity had come back from Winrun, Ramsay out cold and Trinity a mess of nerves, Eryx’s temper had run sharper than any blade Ludan had fought against. He nodded and set her on her feet, clinging to her hips until she was steady.
The second he lost contact, the voices rose. Nowhere near their normal levels, but the quiet vanished, the chatter of memories he’d consumed the last hundred plus years kicking back into full gear.
So, it wasn’t a fluke. Brenna really was the key. The calming presence he’d sensed from the beginning.
He stood and shook the thoughts off. Eryx needed him. Ramsay needed him. The tiny break was more than he deserved anyway. He’d already learned in the worst possible way what happened when responsibilities went ignored. “I asked Ian to find Lexi before I came after you. Eryx is at the training center, but I’ll contact him and have him meet us at the castle.”
He stepped forward to pick her up, but she staggered back a step and raised her hands to hold him away. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you back to the castle.” Ludan glanced up and over his shoulder at the towering bluff behind them. “Unless you’d rather climb.”
This time she ducked her chin, but it was sweet and paired with a pretty flush on her cheeks. “All right.”
He scooped he
r up, and the voices disappeared. Amazing. A damned miracle in sweet, innocent form. He stepped forward, ready to launch to the skies.
“Ludan.”
He stopped and nearly choked at the depth in her dark eyes. Large and full of emotion, full of knowledge no woman her age should know. “You’re wrong.”
Like before, the pleasant brush of her voice sent him sideways, enough so it took at least a seven-second delay before the meaning of her words registered. He lifted an eyebrow, wanting more of her beautiful voice no matter what she had to say.
Her gaze slid sideways, and her arms tightened around his neck. “You might not use pretty words, but you were gentle with me.”
Chapter 2
Serena was screwed. Well and truly backed into a corner she’d never anticipated. Tugging the tattered gray blanket tighter around her shoulders, she huddled deeper into the corner of Uther’s dank cellar. Only a single candle burned on the small scarred table beside blank parchments and the translation tomb they’d stolen. A blessing, really. Any more light than that and she’d be privy to whatever scampered along the floor and the filth covering her cot. With its bare clay walls and the moldy stench, she felt barely a step up from a rodent burrowed into the earth. The only plus was the thin stretch of zeolite above her. Without the gift-stripping crystal fully surrounding her, it had little impact on her powers, but it might do a decent job of muddling her location. Odds were good it was the only thing keeping her alive.
She reached for the sun’s position with her Myren senses. Its energy sparked in an erratic pattern, definitely above the horizon, but beyond that she couldn’t be sure what time it was. Uther had to be back soon with news. And food. Hopefully even clean clothes. For the umpteenth time since Uther had hustled her into the shelter beneath his home in the Underlands, she rehashed her hasty grasp for the upper hand with Eryx. Rushing home before the guards could find her missing would have been the safe play. Definitely the more comfortable play. But then she wouldn’t have the journal.
Reaching beneath the cot’s crude mattress, Serena slid the chocolate leather book from its hiding spot. The pages were ancient and yellowed with heavily slanted, masculine bold script in the old language. Tucked in the center was the pendant, a black filigree ironwork that fit the palm of her hand on a simple black chain. It was too ugly to be fashionable, but it matched Lexi’s prophetic mark perfectly.
The mark of your family will be the key, the tool that will feed its bearer the powers you give freely this day, or that will keep the wall in place forever more.
She traced her fingertips atop the ivory-twined sword. If this was the key, no man would ever lord over her again. Not her father. Not Eryx, or any mate. She would wield the power and take the throne for her own.
The heavy clunk of Uther’s front door and purposeful footsteps pounded on the wood floors above.
Her heart lurched and she scrambled off the cot, praying it was Uther. If Eryx and his warriors had managed to track her, everything she’d learned about the prophecy would be for nothing. The malran would happily carry through on her sentence, stripping her powers and banishing her to Evad. If he even deigned to let her live.
Looping the chain around her neck, she tucked the pendant under the neckline of her tunic and stashed the journal back beneath the mattress. She settled in the old ladder-back chair behind the rickety table as the door swung open.
Her breath whooshed out in one giant exhale. “Uther.”
Her dead mate’s strategos ducked through the tiny opening. A self-made warrior who’d murdered his way up the rebellion ranks, he seldom showed signs of fatigue, but today his power was muted. Dark smudges arced below his deadened sage eyes, and his usually prideful shoulders hung heavy.
She fisted the blanket wrapped around her shoulders tighter. “What happened?”
Pacing toward her, he scanned the tiny ten-by-ten hovel, then raked her with a passive, almost disdainful assessment. The harsh lines of his square jaw and sharp cheekbones were even more pronounced in the dim candlelight. With his cropped black hair, his appearance was twice as sinister as in daylight. He tossed a semi-folded bundle of drab, brown fabric on the table and then ambled to the cot. “You’re officially a fugitive. I trailed the guards. From what I gathered, your family’s agreed to cooperate with the malran.”
“That’s it? You’ve been gone for hours, and that’s all the news you’ve got?”
He sat on the cot and crossed his ankle atop his knee, exhaustion whispering through his heavy exhale as he reclined against the rough wall. “Eight hours, to be precise. Eight hours masking and risking my life around elite Myren warriors on your behalf.” He motioned toward the bundle of fabric with a lift of his chin. “And getting you fresh clothes. I thought you’d be thankful.”
Those were clothes? She clasped the top item and unfolded it, pinching it between her fingers and holding it high to cover her grimace. Granted the loose tunic was functional and decently made, but it had the style of a burlap sack. “Where did you get them?”
“The market. You know, where the average people go.”
The bastard. He knew damned well she’d never bought a thing from Cush’s market. Still, she needed something clean to wear, and he was the only provider she had. She schooled her face into a serene mask and smiled, folding the garment in her lap. “Thank you.”
He smirked, an insolent quirk to his lips that made all too clear how much he enjoyed her discomfort.
“How exactly does my family plan to cooperate?” she said.
“They’ve already undergone questioning. None of them were able to report your location via link. Your mother put on quite a show, claiming you were dead, but your father screwed you and said the link wasn’t completely mute. Only indistinguishable. They’ve all agreed to share their memories so long as a solicitor is present.”
Of course, her father would put a caveat on his support. Only solicitors were capable of blocking irrelevant memories in a scan, and Reginald Doroz had more than enough dirt on people to want to keep it contained. Knowledge begets leverage. The damned phrase should have been blazoned beneath her family mark. “So, now what do we do?”
“We?” Uther sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. “How is it you think there’s a we in any equation pertaining to your future?”
“Because I need out of this hole, and the only way to do that is to either sever my family links, or take my family out of the equation another way. Maxis never figured out how Eryx broke his link to Reese, so that’s not an option. That leaves dealing with my family.”
“Thanks to your impetuous decision, we’ve got the malran’s translation tables, which means he’ll be doing no more work on the prophecy. I’ve already got my family’s journal. As far as I’m concerned, the best place for you is right here, finishing your work. Getting you free from this predicament isn’t in my best interest.”
And there it was. The unexpected ramification she’d ruminated about since Uther had hustled her into this dreary burrow. “Actually, I had your family’s journal.”
Uther punched upright, his hands fisted at his sides. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, before we left for the castle, I stored it, the work I’d already done, and the other translation table in my father’s office.”
“I thought it was in your solicitor’s safe?”
“I only worked in Thyrus’s office for a change of scenery and his texts. I never kept things there.” Not entirely true. There was a third translation table in Thyrus’s safe, one that had proven far more accurate than the one she’d shown Uther, but Uther didn’t need to know that.
“Fuck!” He paced the tiny space, three angry strides consuming the distance before he spun and headed the other direction. “Where are they?”
“Hidden in my father’s office.”
“Where?”
“Behind some books in my satchel. There’s no way they’ll find them unless they know where to look.”
&nb
sp; Uther halted and hung his head, hands braced on his hips.
As advantages went, the hidden information wasn’t much, but it was all she had. “We need my satchel if we’re going to get you what you want. The last thing we need is Eryx getting his hands on the translations I’ve already completed.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, he stared down at the dirt floor. “There’s no way I’m getting in right now. Not until some of the guards clear off.” He pinned her with a glare. “Who else knows where they are?”
“Aside from you, no one.”
“I want details. Enough I can walk right in and find what I need.”
She scooted to the edge of her chair and folded her hands on the table. “They’re in the bookshelf. The section closest to the door, the shelf at shoulder height.” She noted Uther’s towering stature and corrected, “My shoulder height.”
“And the books they’re behind?”
“The Myren Compendium. There are four of them. Or maybe five.”
The muscle at the back of his jaw twitched. His gaze slid to the stack of papers on the table’s edge. “Write it down.”
“What?”
“Write it down. Exactly as it shows on the book.”
The quiet amplified, and her instincts prickled. The request was a bit overkill for someone as mercenary as Uther. Still, she wasn’t in a position to push him further than she already had. She dragged the papers in front of her and wrote the name clearly at the top.
As soon as she set her pencil down, he snatched it off the pile and studied it. “What color are the books?”
“Blue leather with gold leaf.”
His eyes narrowed intently on the paper as though trying to memorize it.
It was just three words and not altogether difficult ones at that. Why in the world would he make such a big deal about her writing them down?
Eden's Deliverance (The Eden Series Book 4) Page 2