by JL Madore
Tears burned behind my eyes, my heart racing in impotent rage. Samuel was in trouble. I was in trouble. And Samuel’s father was the source of it all. I lived my entire life threatened by a vicious father and yet again, even as the Queen’s heir, I remained helpless to aid either of us.
Castian’s pendant grew warm against my chest and my hands tingled. Right. As Gemma said, I was the freakin’ heir to the throne. “Unhand me, Master Murray. No matter what you believe, I am not your enemy.”
“Colum, stop,” a voice said, ringing with authority. “The Order doesna hold wi’ beatin’ on a lass, even a Highborne. If we want the truth, we’d best get it from Samuel himself.”
Rage flashed in the elder Murray’s eyes and he shoved me.
Hurled off my feet, my cheek caught the edge of the wooden table and pain exploded behind my right eye. I twisted in my fall, my hip and elbow connecting hard with the mosaic floor before I could get my hands beneath me.
The double doors shattered open. A black swirling mass erupted through airborne splinters. Kobi’s demon form materialized before me, black wings arched, eyes glowing scarlet. His long, spiked tail smacked against the stone floor as a demented growl ripped from his chest. “Back the fuck off, assholes.”
The men of the Order scrambled, tripping over one another in their retreat.
Dazed, I rolled to hands and knees and fought to right myself. When I managed to stand, I made certain that I met the gaze of each of those males.
“You cowardly bastards,” Kobi said, standing in his Talon leathers. “Samuel brought her here so you denizens of the high order could protect her. Are your fucking heads so far up your tight asses you’d seal your own fates by attacking her? Just because she’s got a point to her ears?”
A weasel-faced male stepped forward from the back of the group. “And you know so much about what we do, you stand judge, demon?”
I smoothed a shaky hand down the front of my gown and took a tentative step closer to Kobi. Hot agony sluiced down my hip and into my leg, but I forced the next step without wincing. “Shall I search this castle chamber by chamber or is someone taking me to my garda síochána?”
The muffle of male voices grew more heated. Samuel’s father stepped forward and Kobi drew his dagger.
His caterpillar brows creased. “Garda síochána? And what idiot would make Samuel yer guardian?”
I laid my hand against the crescent pendant heating my flesh. I wished Castian was there with me. Instantly, the air swirled again, this time filling the room with the scent of bergamot and mint.
“That idiot would be me.” Castian’s voice was a boom vibrating from every direction as he materialized at my side. Dressed in brown leather riding gear and an ice-blue cape, he brushed a gloved thumb over my bloodied cheek.
The air in the room crackled. In a move so fast it blurred, his hand lashed out. All five males flew backward, crashing into a wall or tapestry or cabinet.
The thuds echoed as each of them hung suspended like flies in an invisible web.
Castian spoke in a voice so calm it made the hair on my arms rise. “What idiot struck my niece? Who dishonors my family and makes an innocent woman bleed?”
The amused glint in Kobi’s scarlet gaze struck fear in my heart. I swallowed. “I am fine, my Lord. It was an accident.”
Castian cast me an emerald gaze and shook his head. “Even if I couldn’t read thoughts, your glass face gives you away, young one. You’re a terrible liar.”
He laid his arm across my shoulder and gave me a gentle squeeze. “Go on with Kobi and find your guardian. These gentlemen and I need a private word about honor and what it means to obey their Queen. It’s been lifetimes since the Order was put into active duty. They’ve grown fat and complacent.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“And silver hair is the trait following the heir bloodline?” Deaglan asked, escorting Kobi and me down to the dungeons. He stood with the same height and frame as Samuel and walked with much the same proud stride.
Despite my aching hip, our feet beat out a rhythmic echo on the stone flooring as we maneuvered the opulent halls. “From what I’m told, yes. My hair color is said to be a parting gift from Castian to his newborn niece as he sent my race into exile. Only he and the Aina Ohtar knew of Rheagan’s child sired by her Highborne guard and longtime lover.”
“Nay, not all the Aina Ohtar or Da and the others wouldna be in this mess now.” He blew out a breath. “So, ye are the heir to the throne?”
“Bravo, asshole. Now you’re getting it.” Kobi rolled his eyes, taking my elbow as we followed Samuel’s brother down a set of winding steps. The deeper we descended, the stronger the chill grew, until we stepped into a darkened corridor.
Stone pillars and arches supported the low ceiling. The rank bitterness of agony and fury burned my nostrils, and my blood heated. “What kind of defenders lock their own warriors in a dungeon to be brutalized?”
A painful pinch twisted Deaglan’s face. “It seems harsh, aye, but ours is not a kind world and Samuel abandoned his calling long ago. You must understand, he knew the penance to be paid if he were ever to return.”
Kobi cast me a solemn glance and shrugged. “I knew nothing about this, I swear.”
“That never crossed my mind.”
He frowned, his piercings glinting in the low, lantern light of the dungeon.
Deaglan instructed a guard to unlock the door to one of the iron cell doors and I pushed past. Stripped to the waist and shackled to the stone wall, wrist and ankle, Samuel’s head lifted and lolled. The only color in his ashen, battered face was the flush of his sweat dampened cheeks and the bluish hue of swollen eyelids.
“Sweet Shalana,” I said, rushing forward. “Look at you.”
“Pass.” Samuel croaked, his mouth lifting at the corners. “Yer a far better view. Nice dress.”
His gaze narrowed on the gash pulsing on my cheek. “What happened to yer face, Luv?”
“What? You look like a pulped plum and are concerned about one mark on my cheek?”
He stiffened as the guard worked to unlock his shackles. “Aye, I am. What happened?”
“I stumbled into the edge of the dining table.”
A garbled curse filled the dingy cell. “Ye stumbled, eh? Ye carry yerself with the grace and balance of a wee hummingbird and ye think me so daft as to believe that?”
As Samuel’s wrists and ankles were freed, Deaglan scrambled to catch his brother’s weight.
I traced the swelling on his chafed and welted wrists. The restraints had dug in, leaving angry raw gashes. “Believe what you wish, I answered truthfully.”
He nodded. “All right, Luv, who helped ye stumble?”
Kobi chuckled and swept in to support Samuel’s other side. “I wouldn’t worry about the nick on her cheek, Merlin. Castian is upstairs taking it as a personal affront to his house. The five families of the sacred order will be lucky to survive.”
I brushed my thumb over the blood-crusted gash on Samuel’s side. “It seems the morning has been challenging all around. Come. Back to our room to clean these wounds.”
“Our room?” Deaglan said, his expression forbidding.
Pressing the back of my hand against the hot sheen of Samuel’s forehead, I sighed. I was far too furious to explain my personal arrangements to people who could do this to one of their own. I lifted my chin and locked gazes with the male. “Yes. Our room.”
“Stupid male,” I said, as Deaglan and Kobi lowered Samuel into the bath. I shut off the flow of water and poured in the milky remedy his youngest brother, Chad, brought from the healer to fight infection. I slipped two pain tablets into his mouth. “If you knew they would string you up and beat you, why in the two realms would you bring us here?”
“What were my choices?” He winced as the water licked the wound in his side, glaring out the slit of his swollen eyes. The tub, too short for his long legs, forced him to bend his knees to settle his feet against the bottom. “H
aven is the safest alternative and even there Abaddon grabbed ye and evil souls tried to take ye over. Until the mess with Abaddon is settled and ye take yer place on the throne, ye need to stay safe.”
“Safe? Your sire practically knocked me . . .” I bit my tongue and whirled toward the door.
“What’s that ye say?”
Deaglan and Kobi made a hasty retreat. Cowards.
When it was just we two, I closed us in, pausing with my forehead on the wooden panel of the door. Even with my back to Samuel, I felt the heat of his stare before I turned.
He lifted a finger and pointed to my cheekbone. “My Da did that? He raised a hand to yer beautiful face?”
Occupying myself behind the linen cabinet door, I gathered clean face cloths and towels. “No. I did stumble and catch my cheek on the table.”
“But ye had help, aye?”
I dropped the larger towels down beside the leg of the bathing basin and brushed a smaller cloth along the bruising scrape on his shoulder. Fathers were tricky. They held the power to build their children up to conquer the world or tear them down moment by hurtful moment until they doubted everything about their worth.
Galan protected me from ours the best he could. It grew plainer by the moment Samuel lost that protective barrier when his mother died.
The sleeve of my dress skimmed the water’s surface and I pulled it back. “The past is behind us. Fash not. Focus on what comes next.”
Unfastening my gown, I strode to the dressing stand and slipped it off my shoulders.
A low chuckle rumbled behind me. “And what have ye got in mind? I’m afraid I’m not in much of a shape to get naked with ye at the moment but I appreciate the sights.”
I eased the padded hanger under the shoulders of the gown and hung it where I found it earlier. Then I wrapped a towel around myself and knelt beside the tub. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Never. Ye take my breath away.”
I smiled. “As the only clean outfit I possess, I think it best not to douse my dress while I bathe you.”
His lips twitched up at the sides. “Elven logic at its best.”
Ignoring the flutter in my stomach, I reclaimed the cloth and blotted the bloody trickle running down his chin. The sheer orderliness of each punishing mark made me sick. A split lip, blackened eyes, reddened ribs, bruised arms, and ankles and wrists welted and bloody.
“Why did you do it?” I asked. I dipped the pink-stained cloth into the milky water, squeezed it and continued to probe and tend to the injury. “Daft as you are for offering yourself up to be beaten, I realize you did it for me. But why?”
He gave me a one-sided grin. “I’m not so bad off. Sore, but not really damaged. I’ll be all right in a day or two.”
One by one, I cleaned and cared for each cut, gouge, scrape and bruise. I washed his side as carefully as I could. Still, as the cloth scraped the scabbing of dried blood, droplets of fresh scarlet welled around the edges of the wound.
I apologized if it hurt him, but he never made a move nor a sound if it did.
“How much did yer brother tell ye about the Order?”
I thought back to the dark times of the past summer and wished, yet again, we had stayed in bed this morning. “Galan said the Aina Ohtar were Rheagan’s Holy Warriors, a secret society formed to protect her before the exile but they grew into what we now consider the Scourge.”
Samuel let his eyes ease closed. “Partly right. They are the Holy Warriors formed before the exile, but they were formed to protect the throne of the realm, not Rheagan herself. When Castian realized what his sister was up to, he tried to correct what had been set in motion.”
“But the Oracles in Toronto said—”
“I ken what they said. I was there that afternoon.” He laid quiet for so long, I wondered if he had drifted off to sleep. When he spoke again, the edge to his voice had calmed. “The Oracles dinnae get the facts just right. When Rheagan was exiled, a group of men broke off from the sect with plans to release her from her sentence. They used the name of the Aina Ohtar in their cause, but had no right to it.”
“How is it you know more than the Oracles?”
He laughed. The movement caused little ripples of water to expand out from his chest. “The Murray’s are one of the five founding families of the original organization. It has been our duty to safeguard the crown of the realm for millennia.”
“Is that what you meant when you spoke of your father's and brothers’ station?”
“Aye, that’s what I meant.”
“And you chose a different path.”
He looked at me with a sad smile. “Aye, to my Da’s disappointment, I have much more of me Mam in me than he’d like. When she died, I lost the taste for this life of waiting and watching. I struck out on my own. Castian guided me to Reign and the Talon and you know the rest.”
Leaving the gash to clot, I stroked the cloth across the tight plains of his chest. Samuel had sworn to protect me even before he knew me. Had he known I was the heir when he saved me from Abaddon? Had it been his duty all along to be my guardian and protector?
I circled the cloth around the gathered tip of his nipple.
“No damage there, duck, but I applaud yer thoroughness.” He brushed a knuckle over his smile and chuckled. It was a deep, infectious sound until he winced. I waited for him to settle and realized he lay there studying me. He touched a fingertip to the flush warming my ears.
When I made to straighten, he caught my wrist. “Don’t stop, please. I was teasing. Yer touch is the only pleasure I’ve had since the start of this chaotic mess almost a year ago.”
“For me too.” I found an unharmed spot on his cheek and gave him a gentle kiss. Almost a year ago—when he lost Jade and his heart was broken.
“Then why do ye look so sad?”
Wringing out the cloth over his chest, I watched the water trickle down the ridges of his abdominals. “It is nothing.”
Samuel cocked a brow. “Lovers tell each other what weighs on them. Trust me with yer thoughts, mo chridhe.”
Breathing in his rising anxiety I exhaled, not sure how to phrase things without raising his ire.
His jaw clenched as his opal gaze locked on me. “Is it Kobi? Have ye something to tell me about the demon? About him kissing ye the other night? He’s held ye in his arms and the boils my blood, but if he’s puttin the moves on ye—”
“Kobi is a friend.” I squeezed out the cloth. “I hold no designs on him and told him so, quite plainly, that night. He saved my life and I healed him in return. Nothing more.” I leaned over the tub and kissed his scraped cheek. “Only one male makes moth wings flutter in my chest.”
His eyes danced with mischief. “Nice to hear.”
I kissed him again, this time a gentle touch on his lips, letting more of my affection cross between us.
His smirk grew more crooked than usual behind his swollen lip. “Yer tryin to distract me, Luv. What had ye looking so downtrodden a moment ago?”
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I relented. “I was thinking of Jade . . . moreover, your love for her. Jade is dynamic and an independent warrior. She is both magical and a teacher like you. You two had so much in common. So many bonds to share.”
“Aye, we got on well on a lot of levels. Why is it a bother to ye now?”
“I am none of those things. While I know you moved past the intensity of your desire for her, I worry I can never fill that place in your heart. It is nonsensical because I have no right to stake a claim given my situation but wish I could. Or I wish I thought I could. If I could. Does that make any sense?”
Breathless, I dried my hands against the towel I wore and waited for his pique to rise.
“Aye, I see.” He shifted in the water, raising his hand to scratch through the hair on his chest. “When we fought the other day and ye kicked me from yer room for misjudging ye, it felt like ye’d stolen my breath. It surprised me how much it hurt, to have caused yer pain and confus
ion. Then ye tried to end yer life.”
He gestured to his injuries, his eyes growing glassy. “These bloody wounds are nothing to the agony of what that did to me, Lia. Not even close.”
The rasp of his words tightened my throat. “Our quarrel left me bereft. It stirred up my disappointment with Galan too, and then Zophia showed me what happened. I realized you were in those caverns and witnessed what was done to me—”
“I swear I got ye out as soon as possible.”
I shook my head. “I have no doubt about that. The things you endured and sacrificed to be accepted into Abaddon’s circle . . . I owe you everything.”
He placed a wet hand over his heart. “It ripped my guts out that ye felt so alone that ending things seemed a better option than coming to me. Ye see, that’s where ye stole my heart, even before I knew ye’d done it. Do ye see?”
I shook my head.
“Jade never needed me, duck. Aye, we share a lot in common, but I’m a man who needs his woman to need him. I want to protect ye. I want to cuddle ye into my lap if tears threaten to take ye. I want to slay yer dragons and keep ye safe so I know I’ve done my job as yer man. I never had that with Jade. That’s how ye healed my heart to whole again, mo chridhe, by being exactly who ye are.”
“A rabbit?” Tears of frustration brimmed my eyes and warmed my cheeks.
“Excuse me?”
“When I was young, Galan and I explored the canopy of the rainforest. He taught me of the world, numerations, myths, and the laws of the creatures of Shalana. One of the things we often discussed was that in the presence of wolves one is either a fox or a rabbit.”
“And which do ye fancy him?”
“Oh, Galan is a fox. Almost effortlessly, he maneuvered within the insults and cruelties of my father, avoiding confrontation most of the time. He has a quick wit, a sly inner strength, and knows when to turn tail and when to bare teeth. I, however, have always been a rabbit.”
“I don’t agree.”
“But I am. You see, it is the natural order for predators to devour the weak and timid. A rabbit retreats into her burrow to avoid the jaws of the wolf but sooner or later she is caught and preyed upon. It is the law of the natural world. It happened with Abaddon and my entire life before.”