Warrior's Curse

by Alexa Egan

  “I ought to be.” Hoping to put distance and layers between them, she grabbed up the bag she’d left on the shingle with her clothes neatly folded inside. Shook out a chemise and pulled it on, tying the ribbons at her throat with virginal precision. “I ought to bash you over the head with one of those rocks over there for pulling such a trick.”

  “It was a chance I had to take.” His expression hardened, and he turned back to peer out over the sea. “It won’t happen again.”

  She was reminded of the duke’s warning as she drew on a skirt, its hem sodden where her bag had lain half in a puddle. “No, of course it won’t. You’ve seen how little it will avail you. I’m not the bargaining chip you were hoping for.”

  “You’re N’thuil. Your body should be sacrosanct. Your authority as great as Morieux’s.”

  The blouse she donned was soft, comfortable, and two years out of fashion. Since the duke’s illness, she’d not had her annual trip to London to shop for new clothes. “ ‘Should’ is the crucial word in that sentence. You know as well as I do how little real power the position of N’thuil wields anymore. Look at Tidwell, he was barely more than Dromon’s puppet. I’m less than that. Chosen by accident, I’m seen as a fraud and a laughingstock. I thought if I could broker a reconciliation between Pryor and yourself, if I could offer the clans some hope that a new and more deadly Fealla Mhòr isn’t on the horizon, if I could be a N’thuil like Anaveala or . . . or . . .” She shook her head. “Castles in the air, all of them. I can’t even keep you from being almost murdered a mile outside Deepings’ gates.”

  She’d not worn shoes, so her toes peeked from beneath her skirt and her hair still hung loose in salty tails. In fact, she looked no better than a peddler’s urchin, but at least she no longer felt exposed to Gray’s soul-peeling stare and the dance of anticipation puckering her skin. Then the air grew charged with electricity and the hair at the back of her neck rose. He locked his gaze on hers as lightning struck cold and white around them and thunder split the night with a vicious crack. She stood rooted to the ground as heat washed over her like a cresting wave, singed her skin, wobbled her knees. She felt herself swaying toward him and took a protective step back in response.

  Somewhere in this conversation, she’d lost her fingertip grip on that protective anger. If she weren’t careful, she could tumble, and it was a very long way down.

  Gray seemed to sense her misgivings. His lip twitched in something coming close to amusement, and he bent to take up a handful of stones, casting each one into the waves. One . . . two . . . three . . . The fourth he held in his hand, rolling it over and over between thumb and forefinger. “If Jai Idrish chose you, it had a purpose.”

  “That’s what I thought too, at first. Now I just think it has a really nasty sense of humor.”

  “Perhaps it waits for the right time to reveal itself.”

  “What possible better right time could there be? Factions split and split again, the Gather elders argue and dally and do nothing, the duke slides closer to death, and you . . .”

  His eyes seemed to glow with an unearthly light in his dark face, achingly blue and sharp as drawn steel. “I chose the world beyond the Palings as my proper place and paid for it with all but my very life.”

  “If you’d only stayed . . . if you’d only understood my . . .” Her stomach flip-flopped uncomfortably, and she tightened her arms around her bag as if, left to their own devices, they might unconsciously reach out to him. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  How many hours had she spent staring out over the ocean after he’d left for the army? Far too many. How many angry letters had she begun, only to tear them up? All but one. But that one had been enough—the damage was done. Words were written that could not be taken back.

  He’d responded with one short note of apology, then nothing.

  The years slid by, and she had wrapped herself in the business of the holding, and gave no more than a cursory thought to the sweet boy of her youth. Only sometimes, when summer storms battered the castle and she heard the tolling of the rescue bell farther down the rocky coast, did her mind turn to Gray with regret for what she’d written. Only sometimes, when she entered the dim musty Deepings library, did her eyes turn instinctively toward the empty chair in the corner as if she might see him sitting there with a book open in his lap. Only in the darkest watches of the night did she sometimes wonder if Gray’s mind ever turned to her with the same unanswered questions.

  Wind kicked up ahead of the storm. Rain pattered the rocks and speckled the water. She started up the beach, Gray trailing behind. “You won’t tell anyone you found me here, will you?” she asked.

  “They don’t know?”

  “His Grace doesn’t like me to leave the house at night. He’s grown cautious and overprotective. My relationship with Conal only made it worse. The duke spent too many years living in London. He sees me as the human world sees me; a weak, vulnerable female who needs to be protected. He’s forgotten things are different among our kind.”

  The path was a narrow switchback, rocky and lined with great patches of broom that bent in the increasing wind. Gray put a hand out to help her. She clutched her bag tighter and continued on. Once inside Deepings, he would turn left for the path to the dreary guest quarters. She would cross the rose garden, slip through the music room, and return to her bedchamber. Surely she could make it that far without losing control, without touching the narrow slice of skin at the base of his throat or breathing the masculine sandalwood scents in the folds of his shirt. Surely she could hold tight to her righteous indignation for just a little longer.

  “Yet he allowed you to travel to London on your own and back in the unchaperoned company of a gentleman.”

  “His Grace didn’t allow it. That was Sir Dromon’s idea. He knew you’d be suspicious of any emissary from the clans. He thought I might succeed in persuading you where another might . . .”

  “End with a knife in their gut?”

  “Something like that.”

  “A wise assumption on his part.”

  As if to punctuate his words, the storm broke above them in a gusting wind and torrents of cold needling rain. It slashed at them, pelting their faces, driven hard off the salty wind-whipped ocean.

  “Quick! Before we’re soaked through.” Meeryn dodged the rocks as she scrambled up the cliff path toward the house.

  This time when Gray reached for her, she took his hand, and together they raced for cover. She shoved against the door in the westernmost cliff tower, the hinges scraping against the force of her shoulder, the wind scurrying old leaves into the corners of the room.

  Gray slapped his wet hair from his face and shook the water from his coat to puddle on the floor, but he did not let go of her hand. Instead his fingers twined with hers, his skin hot, his eyes hotter. “I’d forgotten about this way into the castle. I suppose I thought it must be full of enforcer troops preparing for war upon the Fey-bloods or at least locked tight against stray intruders.”

  “We wouldn’t have the troops to fill these old barracks if every clanswoman had ten younglings in rapid succession. And as for the lock, what’s the point of being chatelaine if you can’t have a few spare keys made for emergencies?” she babbled, very aware of the way his hand fit against hers, the scorching heat of his soldier’s body, and the bone-melting look in his steel-blue eyes. This was where she said her farewells and went her very separate way. This was the moment . . . no, this was the moment . . . no, most definitely this was the moment . . .

  He ran his fingers along the wainscoting, pausing over a chipped piece of trim. “Our initials are still here,” he said with pleasant surprise.

  Meeryn peered closer to see the barely visible gouged lines that made up MM and GD, souvenirs of happier days. Ran her own hand over the faint traces of friendship remaining.

  “Do you remember the night we carved these? It was right before you left for the Orkneys to visit your cousins. I have vague recollections of purloi
ned gin, a corncob pipe, and”—he frowned as if searching his memory—“a smutty song about the parson’s daughter.”

  She swallowed and nodded. “I remember.”

  What had been impossible to forget was the embarrassment when her drunken boldness had resulted in . . . nothing. Not a kiss. Not a cuddle. Gray had retreated into sober silence and the merriment had petered out to an awkward, uncomfortable silence.

  Much like this one.

  He dropped his gaze to their joined hands. “I know you blame me for leaving, Meeryn, but I couldn’t stay. The memories rode too close to the surface here. I had to get out before they crushed me completely.”

  “Your family’s death was not your fault, Gray. It was a tragic accident. There was nothing you could do.” So much for light chitchat, though she should have known this conversation would come soon or late. Gray couldn’t come back without those old painful ghosts rising to meet him.

  “My head knows that. My heart—and the duke—are harder to convince.”

  “He’s frail. He doesn’t know what he says.”

  “What was his excuse when I was fourteen?” he murmured, his stare lengthened as if lost in the past. “Or when I was twenty-nine?”

  “He had no choice. He had to follow the laws.”

  “He stood aside and did nothing, Meeryn. He watched . . . he let them take me apart from the inside out . . .”

  What had Sir Dromon implied? That Gray returned to Deepings, not to forge a peace, but to destroy His Grace. She wouldn’t believe it. He’d lived to please the old man, had loved him fiercely even when all it got him was a cold rebuff and a closed door. Meeryn had watched it all, hating each cruel cut of the duke’s tongue and stinging lash of his hard blue eyes. Hating the way Gray changed with each confrontation. Little by little, hardly perceptible to anyone who didn’t know him as she did, but she noticed. It reminded her of the cliffs below the holdings after each passing storm as more of the soft earth was worn away to reveal the unforgiving granite beneath.

  Was this what the Duke of Morieux had ultimately wrought? A ruthless weapon to be turned upon the clans?

  The moments ticked by, her heart thudded faster and faster, but her desire to flee was being fast overwhelmed by a greater desire and escape was the last thing she wanted.

  “The worst part . . . the part that keeps me awake . . . his eyes never left my face . . . not once the whole time. It was as if . . . as if he wanted to witness my ultimate humiliation.”

  “Gray,” she whispered at the heartrending pain in his voice.

  She sensed his intent in the moment before he kissed her and knew she should stop him with a firm hand to his chest and a dismissive turn of her head. Instead she clasped his wet shirt in her fist and pulled him closer. Tilted her chin to meet his lips, parting to let his tongue slide within, plundering her mouth, stealing her breath.

  The moment she was waiting for slipped by, and she never even noticed.

  The air was cold, but the heat from his body burned away the chill, seared her skin. She wanted to drown in his kiss, melt into his touch. He pushed her gently against the wall, the stones rough against her back, his arms braced to either side of her head as he took his fill of her, his mouth brandy sweet and smoky smooth.

  He lifted his head, eyes pale as glass and hard as ice. He dragged her hair over her shoulder, his lips curving teasingly over the sensitive edge of her ear before tracing a shivery path down her neck. One hand palmed a breast through her clinging wet blouse, her nipple pebbling against the teasing pass of his thumb, her sex instinctively tingling and tightening. His other hand reached for her skirt, lifting and rucking it around her waist. She felt his short sharp breaths against her cheek and saw the hunger in his flint-hard gaze.

  “Meeryn, I need . . .” he groaned.

  What? What did he need? To escape his grief? To reclaim her love? To murder the duke? Her questions flamed to ash as his touch, his kiss, his scent, and his taste blasted their way through her consciousness and she’d no thought but closer, harder, sweeter, slower. She dragged his sopping-wet shirt over his head to reveal a chiseled rippled abdomen, corded muscular arms, and enough golden skin to cause her body to flush and her insides to twist. The ugly marks of the dog’s attack remained, though faded now as his enhanced Imnada healing took over. Pale slashes, pink flesh. She traced each mark upon his body as if confirming he was real . . . this was real . . .

  “We shouldn’t,” she murmured, her mind quickly turning to mush.

  “You’re still angry,” he replied between kisses that stole her breath.

  “And you’re not thinking straight . . .”

  “Definitely not.”

  Thunder shook the tower—or was that her pulse roaring in her ears? Lightning flickered silver-white against the darkness, bathing Gray in its brilliance, etching shadows along every inflexible angle, hollowing his deep-set eyes, flickering like fire in his dangerous gaze.

  “And the roof leaks.” She gasped and jumped as he nibbled a spot just behind her ear, her stomach clenching into a knot, her sex throbbing with raw desire.

  “We’re already wet,” he whispered, his lips against her face, his breath soft on her cheek.

  “And . . . I . . . and . . . that is we . . .”

  “Shut up, Meeryn.”

  “All right,” she conceded, happy to let her body have its wanton way.

  He dropped to his knees before her, kissing his way from the backs of her thighs to her hips and then her waist, taking his agonizing time as he devoured in delicious inches. She clung to him, bones melting, heart racing as a swirling, coiling pleasure built within her center and tremors burst up through her until she gasped. Her reaction goaded him to offer more, and Meeryn arched into his fingers as he brushed the hair between her legs. Groaned as he probed the moist heat of her mound, stroking the nub half-hidden there. He bent to take her in his mouth, tickling and sucking her sensitive flesh. She jerked against him, shuddering with each teasing pass, tension building as she writhed against him, seeking the hard thrust that never came, the violent furious collision that hovered just out of reach.

  Closer she drew toward the spiraling center, her body plucked tight, the storm outside mirroring the tumbling crescendo. She cried out, knees buckling, head spinning. The world became a dizzying collage of emotion and sensation, jumbled and spun till she had no way of knowing which way was up, where he ended and she began. He caught her as she fell into his arms and they knelt forehead to forehead upon the stone floor, each fighting to catch their breath.

  The wind howled and rain drummed upon the narrow windows, a wall thickening between them with every passing minute neither spoke nor moved. Water plopped on the floor beside them in a steady beat that matched her slowing heart. She’d no desire to move or speak, no desire to break the dream she wrapped round herself as he held her.

  Gray recovered first. He cupped the soft weight of one breast, his thumb sliding provocatively over her nipple, his lips barely tasting the sweat-salty skin before he pulled her blouse up to cover her, then straightened her sleeves, pushed her hair back over her shoulders. Small moves to tidy her, to erase the past minutes as if they’d never been. She allowed it, but each distancing move brought a new lump to her throat.

  “That shouldn’t have occurred,” he said.

  “Why not? Because we’re unwed? Because I’m N’thuil? Because you’re . . .”

  “I’m nothing, Meeryn. Society calls me the Ghost Earl. A horrid nickname, but that’s what I am. Dead to you. Dead to the clans. As much a wraith as . . .” He dropped his gaze to the stones they knelt upon.

  “As your parents and Ollie. I understand.” She collected herself bit by bit, until she knew she could ask the question that needed to be asked and not fall apart at the answer. “What do you need, Gray?” she finally asked, her voice soft but strong. “What really brought you back to Deepings?”

  He sucked in a sharp gasp that might have been pain or shock or both, even as the bur
ning heat of his body seemed to cool and solidify to unyielding marble. The light winked out of a face wiped clean of expression, the inches separating them suddenly yawning wide as a chasm.

  “To live . . . or to die . . . it depends on you.”

  * * *

  Half-two. It was time. Satisfied, Gray snapped his pocket watch closed. The house would be sleeping by now. Servants long since abed. Shadows thick and concealing. Gray slipped out a side door in the guest hall. Should anyone challenge him, he would produce the cheroot from his pocket and explain his prowl as sleeplessness mixed with nostalgia. No one did.

  Emerging onto the long, sloping lawn, his eagle’s gaze swept west to east, before settling upon the Crystal Tower, the sanctum of Jai Idrish. Four stories high and built all of milky-white stone, the tall, graceful tower stood out like a blaze of light amid the bleak fortresslike gray of the rest of Deepings’ curtain wall and the cloud-riven night sky above.

  He checked for any signs of movement, any patrolling guard or skulking servant. He’d spent years in similar situations, noting French forces, surveying unfamiliar battle terrain, moving ahead of an army that relied on his information for victory. But he’d done it from the air; a distant clinical observer. Tonight, he wore the skin of the human and his war had shrunk to a one-on-one fight for personal survival.

  Crouched and moving swiftly through the dark, he approached the door to the tower. The hairs at the back of his neck lifted as magic crawled over his skin and prickled against his brain like needles. A large crow settled on the grass a few paces away, watching him with eyes shiny as jet beads.

  “I wondered when you might turn up again.” The bird hopped beside Gray as he made his way toward the arched doorway letting into the tower. “Any word on who might have spilled our secrets to the Other?”

  A shimmer of rainbow color exploded up from the bird in a column of dancing light. From the midst, Badb emerged in a swirl of feathers, her eyes snapping with anger. “No, though it is clear someone is speaking out of turn. The Other are uncertain and still reel from their own internal strife. It would not be difficult to unite them against a common enemy. You must hope whoever sparks these latest rumors is not bent on causing more than mischief.”