Master of the Moon

by Angela Knight

  Diana lay still as Ansgar fondled her nipples, fighting to keep the revulsion from her face. Judging by the lechery growing in his gaze, he was beginning to fall under the influence of her pheromones.

  Not that he needed another reason to rape her.

  Just a little longer, she told herself. Let his guard drop as his lust rose. Carefully, she lifted one leg, stroking it up his thigh. His gaze shot to hers, hot with lethal warning, but she kept the contact light and seductive.

  She had to lull him.

  There were three or four good attacks she could use, depending on where he let her touch him. If she could get a hand on his face, she could stab a thumb through his eye and into his brain. Even if she didn’t manage to punch deeply enough to kill him, the pain would immobilize him long enough for her to get her hands on the headsman’s axe waiting in the execution block.

  There was also a palm strike up under the nose that would drive his septum into his brain. She liked that one; it was faster, not to mention less messy than delving into his skull with her thumbs. A trickier possibility was to drive her fingers into the big blood vessels on either side of his neck. Even without her powers, Diana had enough strength to rip his throat out.

  The key was making him think she really was a bitch in heat. Luckily, Ansgar did not have a high opinion of women. She just had to be patient.

  And lucky.

  When Llyr stepped through the gate, he found half a dozen Morven Sidhe bodyguards on the other side in front of a single massive door. He could not feel what lay beyond it.

  They gaped at him, startled that he’d been able to punch through the palace wards designed to block a gating enemy. He only wished he had time to eliminate the shields completely and bring in an army of Cachamwri, but that would take minutes of concentrated spell-casting he simply didn’t have time for. “Back away and live,” he growled, the god giving his voice a rumble of power. “I have called the Dragon.” He let the God’s Mark surface swirl across his armored torso in a shimmer of scales, far larger now that it was fully active.

  “Cachamwri!” whispered one of the guards. “I saw it when the old king led us against the Dark Ones!”

  Llyr met the awed fear in the man’s eyes. “Then you know what I can do.”

  Calculation replaced fear. “I know if you turn that power on our king, your father’s curse will destroy you.”

  “Then I’ll die.” He lifted his sword. “But you’ll lead me into the afterlife if you don’t step away from that door.”

  The guards glanced at one another, then back at the door. One shrugged. “At least you’d kill us quickly.”

  Llyr nodded grimly and braced himself. He hadn’t really expected any other answer. Ansgar was too good at inspiring fear.

  The first magical attack splashed against his armor. He sent one of his own shooting in return and leaped for the nearest guard. They closed on him in a frenzy born more of terror than loyalty.

  With Cachamwri’s magic pouring through him, he rammed his sword through the chest of the first guard, cutting enchanted plate and Sidhe flesh with equal ease. The man fell dead as Llyr whirled to block another’s attack and fling a magical blast into the face of a third. He was all too aware that Diana waited on the other side of that door. He only prayed he’d finish the guards in time to save her.

  Diana froze as a scream rang from the hallway, rising over a familiar battle cry.

  “Llyr!” Ansgar jerked his head around to stare at the door. His left hand clamped down on her breast as he lifted the knife and turned back toward her. “Sorry, sweet. It seems there’s no time to—”

  Diana drove her palm up into his face with every ounce of her strength. He fell back with a roar of pain. She cursed, knowing that if he was capable of speech, she’d missed the septum. While he lifted the knife to stab, she tightened the thigh she’d slipped over his ass and flipped him off her. His knife scraped over the stone floor as it missed.

  She surged to her feet as Ansgar leaped up, blood pouring from his nose. At least she’d broken it. “You’re going to die for that,” he snarled, lifting the blade. “And when Llyr steps in this room, he’ll be powerless. I’ll cut his throat.”

  Diana bounced on the balls of her feet and sneered. “What about Daddy’s curse?”

  “It’s magic, bitch. It won’t work in here either. Why do you think I really built this room? I was hoping I’d get the chance to kill him here.”

  He came after her in a low, hard rush. Diana tasted the sour tang of fear in her mouth as she twisted aside. Pain shot up her arm as the point of his blade scored it. Ansgar wasn’t playing games now. He meant to murder her, then finish Llyr in the moment of shock when her lover saw her corpse. She had to keep out of his reach. If she could stall, Llyr would come through that door and the two of them could take Ansgar out.

  But every muscle in Diana’s battered body ached with pain, and exhaustion sat on her shoulders like a suit of solid lead. She just hoped to hell Llyr finished the guards before Ansgar finished her.

  Doggedly, she fought, punching, kicking, trying to stay out of the Sidhe’s reach as he sought just as hard to get his hands on her. Sweat ran burning into her eyes, and her breath rasped in desperate pants.

  Until, ducking aside from one of his vicious swipes, she almost tripped right over the executioner’s axe. She pounced on it, wrenched it out of the block, and reeled to face him. “Now,” she panted. “Let’s try that again.”

  She dove at him, swinging the axe in a stroke that almost took his head from his shoulders. Ansgar yelped and ducked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Diana growled. “That’s better.” Adrenaline surging through her in the last of her reserves, she stepped in close and swung like Barry Bonds going for a homer.

  But exhaustion made her slow. He jerked back. The stroke missed. And then he stepped in with the knife.

  It was Diana’s turn to dodge, but this time she wasn’t fast enough. Cold pain ripped a scream from her lips. Looking down, she saw the hilt protruding high in her chest. Suddenly there was no more strength in her legs. She went down, hard.

  Panting, dazed, she watched numbly as Ansgar walked over and picked up the axe.

  Snarling with frustrated rage, Llyr whirled to blast magic at the next group of reinforcements pouring down the corridor at him. He had to get through that cursed door, but they kept coming.

  The Dragon roared and lashed within him, the power so hot it burned. He knew he’d have fallen a dozen times over without it. As it was, most of the blood that splattered the walls and floor belonged to the guards, and the smell of singed flesh rode the air, blending with the stench of loosened bowels and spilled guts. Sweat rolled down his chest, itching and inaccessible within his armor, stinging his eyes, but he barely noticed.

  All his attention was focused on getting through that door. Diana could be dying even now. A Sidhe warrior leaped the pile of bodies around him, sword lifted. With a bellow of sheer fury, Llyr stabbed his blade right through the man’s enchanted armor, then heaved the corpse headfirst into the wall.

  At last the way to the door was clear. He threw himself against it with all the frenzy of his magical strength. The wood gave, bursting inward. As he landed inside, wild-eyed and sweating, he heard Cachamwri roar. It’s a trap!

  Within him, the Dragon’s light winked out.

  Astonished and furious at Cachamwri’s sudden betrayal, he stopped dead. He still held his sword thanks to his own foresight in summoning a non-magical weapon, but his enchanted armor had vanished completely.

  Diana lay naked and bloody on the floor, a knife protruding from her chest. Ansgar stood over her, an executioner’s axe in his hands. “It took you long enough,” his brother said, a taunting smirk on his face.

  Numbly, Llyr heard the surviving guards fill the doorway behind him.

  “Leave us,” Ansgar ordered.

  “Your Majesty!” a guard gasped in protest.

  “Leave!” Ansgar roared. “I have long dreamed of
this moment, and it’s not for your eyes. Close the door and bar it!”

  “Let me send her home,” Llyr said as the door closed, his gaze on Diana, who had wrapped one hand around the hilt of the knife and was visibly steeling herself to pull it free. From its position—high on her chest, just under her collarbone—there was a good chance it wouldn’t kill her, especially if she could transform to wolf form.

  “I don’t think so.” Ansgar’s grin was twisted and savage. “I plan to celebrate with her afterward.”

  “There won’t be an afterward,” Llyr said coldly. “Our father’s curse will see to that.”

  “Not in here.” His brother hefted the axe and started toward him. “Magic will not work in this room. Not yours, not mine, and not our fool of a sire’s.”

  Llyr gaped as sudden, savage joy rose in him. This was it—the chance for revenge he’d long dreamed of. It might cost him his crown, but if it freed the Cachamwri and Morven from Ansgar’s threat, he would count it well lost.

  And if Diana survived, he would claim her for his own without his people or his crown in the way. Fifty years with her would be sweeter than a millennia with any other woman he’d ever known.

  Panting through the searing pain as she worked the knife from her chest, Diana watched as the two Sidhe kings circled. Sweat and blood streaked them both, and she could tell from the way they moved that they were beginning to tire.

  Not that it mattered. Each was determined to kill the other. Blade, bare hands, or teeth, they didn’t give a damn how.

  With a muffled shriek, she jerked the knife from her body and fell back, panting, the other hand clamped over the wound. Blood poured, hot against her chilled skin. She wished bitterly she could transform into a wolf and heal the injury. But that was out, at least until Llyr won.

  Or Ansgar killed them both.

  With a hoarse bellow, the bastard charged, swinging the axe. Llyr stepped aside and counterattacked. Sword met axe, clashing, scraping, ringing. The two men spun apart, their breathing loud in the tense stillness of the room. Growling Sidhe curses, they circled, long hair slicked to sweating bodies.

  “Hero of the Cachamwri,” Ansgar sneered. “The Dragon God chose the wrong brother!”

  “He doesn’t think so.” As shock widened his opponent’s eyes, Llyr grinned tauntingly. “How do you think I got here, brother? The Dragon helped me kill your assassin, along with two-thirds of your palace guard!”

  “Well, he’s not here now, is he?”

  Llyr curled his lip. “I don’t need him.”

  He swung his sword. Ansgar parried with a thrust of the axe, and the two men surged together, nose to nose, hate and fury blazing from them in waves Diana could almost see. With a grunt, Ansgar threw Llyr back. He caught himself and went after his brother again, his expression twisted with hate.

  Diana winced and curled tighter on the cold stone floor, shivering with pain and nausea. She suspected she was sliding into shock.

  It didn’t help that every time Ansgar swung at him with that axe, her stomach knotted with terror. Every time Llyr attacked him, she caught her breath with the hope that her lover would finish it.

  And every time, it was damn close.

  Yet it seemed to Diana that there was a special ferocity to Llyr’s attacks, the relentlessness of a man finally unleashing his frustrated rage. Ansgar was intent on killing him with a passion born of years of hate and jealousy, but it just wasn’t the same. He was the bigger of the two men, more heavily muscled, but watching them, she sensed it was Llyr who would never give up.

  Which was no surprise, really. He was fighting to avenge his murdered children and assassinated wives. He wouldn’t stop until Ansgar was dead. Period. He pounded at his brother relentlessly, meeting every blow of Ansgar’s axe with a parry and a counterattack, his opal eyes blazing with a burning hunger for revenge.

  And if anybody had ever deserved it, Llyr did.

  A cold exultation burned in Llyr, singing in joy every time he launched an attack at his brother’s twisted face. Oddly, he felt no fear, not even when one or the other of their blades bit into his skin when a parry wasn’t quite hard enough. He was bleeding from a dozen cuts and gashes, yet he ignored the sting of those wounds. All that mattered was burying his sword in Ansgar’s skull without getting the axe buried in his own.

  That, and the fear in his brother’s eyes.

  Both of them were moving more slowly now, parries and attacks broader, clumsier with exhaustion. Yet Llyr had no intention of letting his body fail its job of killing Ansgar, and his brother knew it.

  Then suddenly his foot hit a puddle of blood. He slipped, going down on one knee. Ansgar’s black eyes widened, narrowed as he swung his axe. Llyr ducked. As the axe hissed over his head, Llyr thrust blindly.

  The sword jolted as it bit into Ansgar’s flesh, right through the gut. It was a mortal wound. For a moment, triumph sang through him.

  “No!” Ansgar roared, jerking back off the blade. He clamped one hand over the injury. Even so, blood poured from it.

  Llyr’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a savage smile. Slowly, he began to stalk his brother.

  “No!” Ansgar spat, his face going white. “Curse you, you’ll not win!”

  “Oh yes I will,” he growled, hefting the sword. “I just have to let you bleed long enough. The way you let Isolde bleed. The way you bled my children and my wives, you unnatural bastard!”

  Ansgar’s eyes widened with malicious inspiration. His gaze flicked to Diana. “Now, there’s a thought!”

  Horrified, Llyr dove after his brother even as the man reeled around and started to lift the axe over Diana’s helpless head. He glimpsed her white face as he drew back his own sword, knowing he wouldn’t stop the axe’s descent in time.

  “Ansgar,” Diana snarled, “kiss my furry ass!” She surged upward, driving the knife squarely between the Sidhe’s thighs.

  Ansgar bellowed in anguish and dropped the axe.

  “Cachamwri!” Llyr bellowed in joy, and took Ansgar’s head in one stroke of his sword.

  The corpse toppled. The hilt of Diana’s bloody knife protruded from his crotch.

  NINETEEN

  For a long moment, they froze, staring at Ansgar’s twitching body. “Now that,” Diana said finally, “has needed doing for a really long time.”

  Llyr huffed out a breath and bent to help her to her feet. “You have a gift for understatement.”

  “So I’m told.” She sucked in a breath in a hiss of pain. “Let’s get the hell out of this room. My life will be a whole lot more pleasant once I turn into a wolf and get rid of this frigging knife wound.”

  He gathered her against him as carefully as he could, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. “You did that well,” he murmured.

  “You weren’t so bad yourself.”

  Together, they went to the door and wrestled it open.

  To find dozens of Morven Sidhe warriors waiting on the other side.

  Despite the hostile eyes on them, Llyr and Diana stepped from the execution chamber. She felt her magic return in a hot and welcome rush and promptly used it to transform, feeling her body heal as it changed. She’d never been so happy to shift into her Dire Wolf form in her entire life. And none too soon. She had the feeling they’d need all seven feet of werewolf muscle to get out of this one.

  “They’ve killed the king!” one of the Sidhe guards said, craning his neck to look beyond them at Ansgar’s decapitated body. His tone was more awed than outraged.

  “And it was about time,” Diana growled.

  A man in the elaborate court costume of a Morven noble pushed to the front of the shocked crowd. He was as inhumanly beautiful as the rest of them, with hair that burned a deep ruby red against his pale skin. There was a touch of avidity in his golden eyes, the gleam of a man who saw an opportunity and had no intention of letting it pass him by. His voice rang with regal condemnation. “You have committed fratricide, Llyr Galatyn. Under the terms of your father’s
will, you are no longer fit to rule.”

  Diana saw Llyr stiffen as if from a body blow.

  That’s when her temper snapped. “Oh, spare me the hypocrisy!” In this form, her voice rumbled like a pissed-off lion’s. “As if you would have said a single solitary world if Ansgar had killed Llyr, you gutless bastard. No, you only grow a pair when the good brother wins, because you figure he won’t fucking execute you.”

  The man recoiled, his eyes widening in shock and outrage. “How dare you!” His hand fell to the dress sword hanging by his side. “I should run you through for that.”

  “Yeah, I’m shaking.” She curled a lupine lip. “For sixteen hundred years, Ansgar has been violating the terms of Daddy’s will, attempting to assassinate Llyr and killing every one of his wives and kids. I wonder where all this fine, holy outrage was then. Hell, I wonder where it was when Ansgar dragged me in there to rape and kill me.”

  “We didn’t know!” the noble snapped. But his eyes flickered.

  “Bullshit. You knew. You just didn’t have the balls to do anything about it.”

  The man spun toward the surviving guard and extended a finger in her direction. “Arrest them! They have slain our king!”

  “Lay one hand on His Majesty,” Diana hissed, “and I’ll rip the offending body part off and shove it up your ass. Assuming there’s room, considering your head already occupies most of the space.”

  Llyr grinned, showing as much tooth as any werewolf. “Would you like help with that?” His dragon tattoo had come alive again, lashing its tail and coiling around his bare chest. Power rolled off him in waves. He’d healed his injuries while she’d been arguing with the Sidhe, but he hadn’t donned armor. Probably so everybody could get the full effect of the Dragon’s Mark.

  “Yeah, actually. Hey, here’s a thought. Let’s kill ’em all.” She bared her teeth at the guards. “I’ll eat the evidence.”

  As one man, they stepped back a pace.

  The opportunistic noble wisely stepped behind the nearest trooper before sneering, “Threaten all you like, but Dearg’s Law is Dearg’s Law. Llyr has forfeited his right to the crown. I say…”