Dark and Stormy Knight

by Nina Mason

Shit. His only way out was to shift—but into what? Before he came up with a suitable creature, the guards grabbed him, snapped a knight’s torque around his neck and locked his wrists behind him in manacles.

  Both collar and cuffs were made of iron, of course, the bane of all faeries. As long as iron touched his flesh, he’d be as defenseless as a mortal man.

  As the guards dragged Leith toward the door, the queen said to the fat man, “Do what you must, but do not let him die. Dead men tell no tales, after all.”

  “Very good, your majesty,” the undead Duke of Cumberland returned. “You can count on me.”

  The order chilled Leith to the marrow. In life, the Duke of Cumberland had been the harshest of brutes. There was little chance he’d softened in the ensuing centuries. From what he’d observed, sadists tended to get crueler with time, not more benevolent.

  The queen’s harsh laughter echoed through the chamber as the guards dragged him roughly toward the exit. They proceeded to haul him, feet scraping the stones, through the palace’s labyrinth of passages. They passed some of Morgan’s attendants, a handful of naked drones with bobbing erections, and several couples engaged in various erotic acts—commonplace spectacles at Castle Le Fay.

  The guards halted before a planked door with iron strap-hinges. The one on Leith’s right removed a ring of keys from his belt. The keys jangled, the lock clicked, and the hinges groaned as the door opened. On the other side was a downward staircase chiseled from the bedrock.

  Gripping his arms hard enough to hurt, the redcoats dragged their prisoner roughly down the steps. At the bottom stretched a long, narrow corridor lined with what appeared to be impenetrable iron doors. As they towed Leith along, muffled sobs, wails, and moans filled his ears.

  They stopped outside one of the doors. The guard on his left held him while the other again took the keys from his belt. Shaking one free, he inserted the end in the lock and jiggled. The door swung open with a blood-chilling screech.

  The guard still with Leith grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and flung him across the threshold with impossible strength. He landed hard on his hands and knees on a thin bed of soiled straw.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” the one with the keys offered with a laugh. “We’ll be back for you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  The door slammed with a thunderous clang, leaving Leith in darkness. He waited for his vision to adjust to the dimness before rising to his knees. The cell was cramped. No more than seven square feet. Patches of rust seeped through the black iron lining the walls. Shackles hung on chains from the back one. Letting out a groan, he rolled onto his side in the straw, shut his eyes, and tried not to imagine the tortures Butcher Cumberland might subject him to.

  He must have dozed off because the next thing he knew, pain exploded across his ribcage. Someone had kicked him hard enough to crack bone. Clenching against the pain, he opened his eyes and looked up. There, staring down at him, were the same two guards who’d brought him in.

  “Get up, arsehole,” one of them jeered. “It’s time.”

  Hindered by the pain in his ribs, Leith clambered to his feet. The instant he was standing, the guards grabbed him under the arms and hauled him out of the cell. They dragged him back down the long hall of cells and into a dimly-lit room.

  A quick glance in the poor light revealed smooth stone walls leeched through with crusty veins of lime. The guards set him on his feet in the middle of the floor and ordered him to strip. He knew better than to argue.

  As he pulled off his clothes, he looked about, shuddering as he took in his surroundings. Some of the instruments he recognized: the rack, the bed of nails, the breaking wheel, and the iron maiden. A heraldic banner depicting a shield under a crown supported by two rampant griffins graced the far wall. Emblazoned on the shield was the letter A, for Avalon. Under it, on a ribbon, was the island’s motto.

  Esto perpetua.

  May it last forever.

  Every cell in his body pulsed with dread as he continued to strip. When he was done, the guards stood beside him, but, to his growing vexation, did and said nothing.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity, an enormous owl flew through the window. The white feathers and heart-shaped face told him the bird was a barn owl—the largest he’d seen by far.

  After circling the room a few times, the bird landed on a perch atop a stone dais. Drawing in its great speckled wings, the owl tilted its head and regarded Leith with its huge yellow eyes.

  Just as he started to say something, the owl hopped down from his perch onto the dais and began to shimmer. Gradually, the shimmer became semi-transparent, as if made of vapor rather than flesh, blood, and feathers. Little by little, the Duke of Cumberland took shape before him.

  Leith’s stomach did a somersault as his gaze traveled over the vampire’s bloated body. His skin was sallow and blotchy, his breasts as big as a woman’s, and his junk all but hidden under the sag of his sizeable belly.

  “On your knees,” Cumberland barked.

  “Why?”

  He had a good idea why Butcher Cumberland wanted him to kneel down. The duke’s homosexual leanings were widely known in the Highlands, despite the extremes he’d employed to hush them up. Allegedly, so-called “Sweet William” once cut the throat of a servant who’d discovered him in bed with his valet. Editors who dared publish the rumors were imprisoned, tortured, and murdered in the Tower of London.

  And probably buggered, too, for their trouble.

  “You’re in no position to ask questions.”

  Leith stuck out his chin in defiance. “Perhaps not, but I’d sooner die than suck your cock, you fat fuck.”

  The guards grabbed him by the arms. Cumberland stepped forward. Leith drew up his knees and shot out his legs. His feet struck the duke square in the chest. Cumberland staggered backward, arms spinning like whirligigs. As he dropped on his arse with a grunt, the guard with the keys turned and brought his knee up hard between Leith’s legs.

  Fuck!

  As a lightning bolt of agony tore through Leith’s lower body, he doubled over, gasping for breath. He was sure he was going to be sick. His bollocks felt as if they’d been ruptured. The duke, now standing over him, barked at the guards to hold him. As they jerked Leith upright, his gonads screamed in protest. Fear coiled in his belly when Cumberland stepped closer and took hold of his nipple ring.

  No, fuck, please.

  Shock, more than pain, ripped through his body as the ring tore from his flesh.

  Cumberland got in Leith’s face, grabbed his hair with both hands, and yanked hard enough to separate a clump from his scalp.

  Despite the pain coursing through his body, Leith fought like a bear.

  He wouldn’t put it past the fat whoreson to commit horrors beyond imagining. He probably stood by with a smile on his lips while his soldiers cut open Clara’s womb and dashed the bairn to the floor.

  Leith braced himself for the worst while trying very hard not to think about what that might be. Trying, but failing. He’d seen the English in action, knew the barbarity they were capable of. At Culloden, they’d bashed in teeth and skulls with the butts of their rifles, disemboweled and castrated with their bayonets, butchered the wounded as if they were pigs and not men, and shot desperate souls while on their knees begging to be spared.

  When Cumberland said no quarter, he meant it. From what Leith had heard, the duke’s only regret was that some Highlanders survived, though not from lack of effort on his part.

  The duke came face to face with him, his breath stinking of rotting flesh. “Tell me what I wish to know, or I shall tear you limb from limb.”

  “I don’t know where he is,” Leith said. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you squat.”

  The duke withdrew, took down his banyan from a nearby peg, and slipped it on. As he tied the belt across his prodigious girth, he turned back to his prisoner, his lips curled into a cruel sneer. “Let us see
how stubborn you remain when your bones are being pulled apart.”

  Taking an arm and a leg each, the guards jerked Leith up, dragged him across the room, and tossed him on his back onto the rack. With the skill and speed borne of experience, the guards bound his hands and feet to the rollers, top and bottom.

  The duke, wearing a malicious grin, took hold of the long wooden lever that worked the contraption.

  “Please,” Leith begged “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know where he is.”

  “You said yourself you wouldn’t tell me what you knew, and now you expect me to believe your denials?” The duke smirked down at him. “What do you take me for, one of your idiot countrymen?”

  “It’s the truth. I don’t know where he is. I didn’t even know he existed until a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Is that so? And who, pray tell, informed you of the lad’s existence?”

  Shit. He should have kept his bloody gob shut, just as he should have run the other way when he heard that fucking bus explode.

  The duke, still gripping the lever, sneered down at him. “I gather you’re familiar with this little interrogation device? I know there are newer methods—a bit of barbed wire up the jacksie is highly effective, from what I’ve read, as is a power drill—but call me old fashioned.”

  Leith knew exactly how the torture device worked. The lever in the duke’s chubby grasp activated a ratchet attached to the chains binding his wrists. When pulled, it increased the tension on the chains. By a rudimentary system of pulleys and levers, the ratchet also rotated the rollers bit by bit until the strain on his joints became such that his wrists, elbows, hips, and knees would dislocate. Accompanying the whole grisly process and his agonized screams would be the popping of his separating cartilage, ligaments, and bones.

  Cumberland depressed the lever. “Where is the bastard you begat with the faery called Belphoebe?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The duke depressed the lever a few more notches.

  Leith groaned as pain gnawed on every joint.

  “Now, where have the rebels hidden him? Who told you of his existence? Tell me everything you know or I will stretch your worthless Highland hide like a tanner.”

  Leith, grateful he didn’t have the information the duke was after, endured a grueling hour of torture before Cumberland called it quits.

  “Remove the collar and wait until his body repairs itself before you clap him in the wall irons,” the duke told the guards.

  Leith groaned through his delirium as they lifted him off the rack and delivered him back to his cell. They laid him in the straw on his back and removed the torque, but he was too damaged and disoriented to think about shifting.

  Alone in the dark, naked and shaking, he waited for his disengaged joints, ligaments, and muscles to reconnect themselves. The pain surging through his body was nearly unbearable. So was the emotion. Anger, fear, and dread churned at his center.

  As his joints began to relock into place, his mind showed him Gwyneth. The thought he might never see her again wrenched his heart. Clinging to her image, he rolled on his side, pulled his knees to his chest, and surrendered to his despair, which rolled through him like dark thunderheads. When a key rattled in the latch, the icy hand of fear swept the storm away.

  He held his breath as the door creaked open, letting in a stream of dim-yet-blinding light. Shutting his eyes against the glare, he listened as booted feet scuffled in the straw, cringed as rough hands clasp his underarms, and winced in pain as they lifted him into the air. A grunt escaped him as his back slammed hard against the cold iron wall. A meaty hand closed around his throat. He heard the jangling of the chains, the clank and snap of metal as cold, heavy cuffs snapped around his ankles and wrists. Instantly, the iron began to sear his skin.

  As the guards withdrew, Leith dropped his head in desolation. Nothing short of a miracle would save him now.

  Chapter 22

  Gwyn and Bran set off on horseback across the churning surf, which, to her astonishment, supported them. Yes, the druid had explained the horses could walk across the waves, but her mind refused to let go of the last filaments of reality. As the clopping of hooves echoed in her ears, she let them fall away.

  Infinite possibilities rushed in to fill the void. All of a sudden, the books and movies that had fueled her fantasies all these years were anchors weighing her down. Reality was perception and perception was limited only by presumption.

  If she believed anything was possible, it would be. She let everything go, set her spirit free, stepped out of her limited frame. For the first time in maybe ever, she forgot her wounds and reveled in the bracing sea wind on her face and in her hair. With the help of the sea god, she would get that cup from Morgan Le Fay and free her knight from his curse.

  A backlash of worry clipped her wings, sending her crashing back to earth. What if the sea god didn’t come? What if he came, but wouldn’t help her? What if she was caught sneaking into Castle Le Fay? What if, what if, what if?

  Argh! Stop it!

  Tears pricked Gwyn’s eyes. Swallowing hard to hold them back, she lifted her face, letting the sea wind cool her skin even as the sun warmed it. The day was beautiful, the sky blue and cloudless. As she turned to ask Bran if the weather was always this perfect in the Thitherworld, something moved in the corner of her eye. Looking to see what was there, she sawing a watery chariot coming toward them across the sea. The horses pulling it weren’t just as white as the froth on the waves, they were actually made of sea foam. The man at the helm boasted a powerful build, a greenish complexion, and long hair the color and texture of kelp. He was shirtless, but wore a cloak which whipped out behind him on the wind. At his throat was a torque. Golden bands encircled his bulging biceps. A dolphin leaped out of the sea in the wake of the chariot.

  “Here he comes,” Bran said.

  She smiled to herself, saying nothing. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t rob the moment of its majesty. When the druid stopped his horse, she followed suit, still a little amazed they didn’t sink into the sea.

  The Wave Sweeper pulled alongside and stopped, giving her a better look at the Lord of the Seas. His hair didn’t just resemble seaweed, it was seaweed. His eyes were liquid, as if made of water, and as blue as the Caribbean Sea in a cruise-ship commercial.

  Dispensing with formalities, Manannan turned his seawater gaze on Bran. “Is this the lass who seeks to recover my cup?”

  Bran dipped his head. “She is, my lord.”

  Euphoria washed through her as the god slid his gaze to her. He took a moment to study her before holding out his hand. “Come and be quick about it. The magic that impedes your lover’s curse is already beginning to wane.”

  Hesitantly, she took his outstretched hand, which was greenish-gray with freakishly long webbed fingers. The moment they touched, light exploded inside her mind.

  The next thing she knew, she was off her horse and standing beside the god on the transparent floor of his chariot. Afraid what might happen if she looked into the eyes of a deity, she cast her gaze downward. Awe swelled in her chest as she observed the teeming life beneath her feet. Massive columns of kelp swayed on the current as a school of small silver fish darted around them.

  “Wow.” The insipid word escaped her lips before she realized she’d spoken.

  Manannan mac Lir let out a big, booming laugh. “I’m so pleased you’re impressed.”

  A blush scorched Gwyn’s cheeks. She bit her lip, keeping her focus on the sea. Words seemed inadequate to describe the primordial splendor of the seas. She cleared her throat, knowing what she was about to offer would sound hopelessly lame.

  “Impressed doesn’t begin to cover it.”

  He released another chuckle. His jolliness made her feel slightly less intimidated, but only slightly. Keeping her attention on the ocean, she dredged her memory for the chamber filled with her father’s stories. As snippets about the deity beside her
floated to the surface, she could hear the echo of her father’s clear tenor voice.

  He was known to be a great trickster and magician…he could assume any form or identity…his wife was the beautiful Faery Queen Fand…the Isle of Man is named after him…he owned a cloak of mists that made any who wore it invisible.

  If only he could shake that cloak to make her forget her stepmother. As unpleasant memories began to seep in, Gwyn blinked to clear her thoughts.

  The cloak was as fluid as his pupils and, in similar fashion, changed color from moment to moment like the sea. Deep blue, then blue-green, then gray-green, then deep blue again. Her hand twitched with the urge to touch as she wondered if the garment felt as nebulous as it appeared. As she watched the cloak swirl and shift hues, an idea dawned. How much easier it would be to slip in and out of Avalon and Castle Le Fay if no one could see her!

  The prospect unleashed a flood of relief, which worry dammed a moment later. How did one go about asking a god for the loan of one of his magic objects? Biting her lip, she returned her gaze to the underwater view just as a school of small silver fish darted through the billowing kelp in perfect unison. Dare she hope he would offer the cloak’s use the way he’d offered his enchanted cup to King Cormac and his branch of magic apples to Bran?

  The druid had her horse’s reins in hand and was turning to take his leave. While she was lost in thought, Bran and Manannan had been chatting away like old chums.

  “Godspeed,” Bran said through one of his dazzling smiles. At that, he kicked his mount and set off across the sea in the direction from which they’d come.

  Regret and relief tangled in Gwyn’s gut. As much as she valued Bran’s assistance, her sexual attraction had been disconcerting. More time with him might have pushed her over the edge, and the last thing she wanted was to cheat on Sir Leith, especially when they were so close to breaking the curse. Well, she hoped they were, anyway.

  A sharp crack near her ear jerked her out of her musings. The Wave Sweeper lurched forward, nearly knocking her off her feet. She gripped the front edge of the chariot with both hands to steady herself.