The Staff and the Blade

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “Sari,” he whispered her name over and over again. “Sari…”

  “Yes.” She turned her head to the side and let him put his mouth where he was wont.

  Her neck.

  “Milá, do you like this?”

  Her breasts.

  “Tell me.”

  His whispering mouth at the crease of her elbow. Her wrist.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “Everything.” She sighed out and pressed her hips to his. “I want everything.”

  She was swollen and aching and wet. Her body was like a raw nerve, and she felt every inch as he turned her to her back and settled between her legs.

  “Look at me,” he commanded.

  Her eyes rose and locked with his as he eased inside. Her mouth fell open in a soft gasp of pleasure at the aching fullness. His strength and control. He braced his arms on either side of her and lowered his body, the solid weight pressing her into the bed.

  “Am I dreaming?” he whispered against her mouth. “I think I am.”

  “We both are.” She kissed him and lifted her knees to hold his hips. “Love me.”

  “I do.” He reached back, wrapping her legs around his waist with a determined glint in his eye. “Sari, you feel…” He groaned when she lifted her hips.

  “Good?” she asked with a smile.

  “Mine.” He thrust once, then drew back and thrust harder as she gasped. “You feel like you’re mine.”

  ※

  Morning light teased her eyelids and she could hear someone moving around the room. A blaze of crackling heat when peat was added to the coals. A low murmur of voices at the door.

  “Sari,” he whispered and brushed a finger over her cheek.

  “Hmmm.” She sighed and rolled over, enjoying the decadent slide of her bare skin against sheets that smelled of Damien. “Come back to bed.”

  She hoped he wasn’t shy about gossip. There would be more than one tongue wagging in the village, but Sari didn’t care. She never had, and it would surprise her if Damien did. He certainly hadn’t been shy in the dead of night. A secret smile tugged the corner of her lips.

  “Milá, I can’t.”

  His voice didn’t carry the lazy timbre of a man well satisfied. And Damien had been very well satisfied.

  Sari sat up and rubbed her eyes, pulling the blankets over her shoulders in the chilly room. Damien was already dressed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and put a letter on her lap.

  “What is this?” Sari didn’t touch it. Something about that letter made her skin crawl.

  “Henry slipped it under the door this morning. It arrived yesterday from Aberdeen. I didn’t see it before I went to the human village with Einar.”

  “What is it, Damien?”

  He trailed a rough finger down her neck and over her shoulder. “I am called to Edinburgh.”

  The tight angry thing that had relaxed in her chest when he arrived safe the night before tightened again. “Why?”

  He gave her a patient look. “To hunt, of course.”

  “They have scribes in Edinburgh. More in Aberdeen.”

  Damien walked to the corner and lifted a heavy woolen blanket from the oak chest sitting like a quiet sentinel in the austere room. The chest was solid and scarred. It bore no outward decoration except a worn crest. A blood-red shield with a dragon curled in front of it and words in the Old Language: Ours is the blood.

  Damien opened it and took out a smaller box, this one wrapped in worn leather.

  “Why do they need you?”

  “Because I have skills they do not.”

  “Every scribe is taught to hunt Grigori.”

  He opened the box and withdrew a black-handled blade. It was barely over a foot long and made of a type of metal she had never seen before. Sari felt the magic pulsing off it and she shivered. “What is that?”

  Damien secured the long knife in a black scabbard before he strapped it to his waist. “It is a heaven-forged blade.”

  The cry caught in her throat. There was only one reason that Damien would carry a heaven-forged weapon.

  “You’re hunting an angel.”

  “Yes.”

  No no no no no. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. This is what the warriors do, an ancient voice whispered inside. This was their mission. If one of the Fallen was terrorizing Scotland, only a warrior with a heaven-forged blade could kill it. Whether that warrior would survive the effort was a moot point. It had to be done.

  “How long?”

  “Sari—”

  “How long?”

  He paused. “There are Grigori in the city. More in Stirling. Too many for it to be random attacks. There have been reports from the interior that make the watcher certain one of the Fallen—he is guessing one of the lesser—is in the Highlands. From the report, I would estimate six to eight months.”

  She nodded woodenly. She refused to cry. Grigori in the city. A Fallen in the Highlands. Damien would kill them, or they would kill him. He would be hunting and fighting for six months, and she would be on the islands harvesting barley and making sure the animals stayed fed.

  “Sari, do you—?”

  “Is the boat that brought the letter waiting for you?”

  He paused. “It is waiting in Kirkwall. I was supposed to be there at daybreak, but I just received the letter this morning.”

  She nodded again, her eyes never leaving the letter.

  “I have already delayed too long,” he whispered. “But I could not bear to leave before you woke.”

  One night. One perfect night and then he was gone. Her body already ached for him. Her heart…

  Damien leaned forward and grabbed her by her shoulders. “Look at me.”

  She looked up and his eyes were on fire. He was so beautiful in the morning light—his eagle eyes devouring her as his thick hair spilled over his shoulders—that Sari wanted to weep. She wanted to cry and rage and bite him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and beg him to stay.

  “This is what I do,” he said. “Do you understand? This is always what I will do.”

  She forced her lips to form the words. “You are a warrior.”

  “I was bred for this. I am trained for this. They will not kill me.”

  She couldn’t speak. If she did, she would scream.

  “I am coming back, milá. I am coming back after I have hunted these monsters, and then you will have to decide.”

  “Decide?”

  “Will you have a warrior for a mate? Decide if you are mine, Sari, and be sure.”

  With one more hard kiss, Damien threw on his black cloak and walked out the door.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DAMIEN did not think of Sari laying warm in his bed when he boarded the merchant boat to Aberdeen. He did not think of her when he mounted a fast horse and rode south. He did not think of her until he stepped up to the door of the scribe house in Edinburgh and felt the empty space where she should have been beside him.

  He wanted her with him.

  It was no place for an earth singer, even a fierce one. Sari had probably never handled a sword in her life. She’d never killed a monster and watched its dust rise in the air. Never had to close her eyes to the blood or the gore.

  He still wanted her with him.

  Damien knocked and waited only a minute before he saw the candlelight flicker through the covered window. A pause and a brush of curtains, then the door was wrenched open.

  “Brother,” the grateful scribe said. “We did not expect you so soon.”

  “I rode through the night.” He drew back his cloak. “I am Damien of Bohemia, son of Veceslav Custos and Katelin of Vértes. Does the fire still burn in this house?”

  “It does, and you are welcome to its light.” The man opened the door wider. “We are grateful you were able to come. I am Harold, the watcher of Edinburgh scribe house.”

  Damien frowned. “I need food and rest. My horse is in t
he stable.”

  “Of course. I’ll rouse the boy to tend to it.”

  Harold ushered Damien into a lower room near the kitchen before he went to call a groom. A fire was lit and the room heated quickly. The watcher, whom Damien had never met before, did not bother him with many questions after he sat but cut him a hunk of rough brown bread and poured a mug of ale while Damien stowed his light leather armor and blades in the bedroom he’d been shown.

  As he ate, Damien felt the gnaw of hunger ease and his manners reemerge.

  “Where are Diana and Monroe?”

  “In a village near Stirling. They were the first pair I sent. They took four of the scribes here and are attempting to organize the Irin in the outer villages.”

  Damien glanced at the man. He was young for a watcher and sounded English. A political appointment? The house had changed hands fifteen years before, but Damien had not visited Edinburgh in much longer. The little news he got was via Diana and Monroe, a mated pair of warriors who had been in Scotland nearly as long as Damien had.

  “I expected Monroe to be given the watcher’s post here,” he said. “How did you end up in the position?”

  To his credit, the scribe seemed to take no offense. “It wasn’t a popular decision. But Monroe doesn’t care much for Vienna’s opinion. He’s made that clear.”

  Damien grunted. The watcher spoke only the truth.

  “There was talk of appointing you,” Harold said.

  “I wouldn’t have accepted.”

  Color rose in Harold’s cheeks, as if the man was embarrassed by Damien’s defiance.

  “There was also the matter of Diana.” The young watcher took a drink of his own ale. “But Monroe knew that would be a complication.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she fights alongside him.”

  “And?”

  The young scribe’s mouth reminded Damien of a fish. “It’s not… seemly. Watcher’s mates are healers or seers. They support the mission of the scribe house. They don’t bloody themselves in battle as Diana does.”

  “Since when?” Damien asked. “How old are you?”

  Harold’s lips thinned. “Old enough.”

  “Since when have our elders cared more for manners and fashions than expediency in battle?” Damien grumbled. “God help them if Katelin catches wind of that nonsense.”

  “You call your mother by her first name?”

  “Everyone calls my mother by her first name. Or praetora. If you ever have cause to meet her, remember that.”

  Damien’s mind raced. Just how out of step was he with the council? Had things changed so much since his retreat? Two hundred years ago, Monroe having a warrior for a mate would have made him a stronger candidate politically. It wasn’t common for Irina to fight beside mates, but it wasn’t “unseemly.” Most Irina simply considered warrior’s work a waste of time when they could be doing more productive things.

  His family, of course, excepted.

  “I’ll ride to Stirling in the morning.”

  “Morning is already here, brother. You should rest a day at least.”

  He wasn’t going to rest. Damien knew when he closed his eyes, he would feel the void where Sari’s presence should be. “I’ll rest a few hours and start again. I will need a new horse.”

  Harold watched him with narrow eyes. “I could command you to rest, you know. You’ll be no good in battle if you’re exhausted when you reach it.”

  Damien ignored him and took another bite of bread. “You’re not my watcher, boy.”

  He probably shouldn’t have called the scribe a “boy.” The man’s voice was acid when he spoke again.

  “Technically, I am your watcher.”

  Damien’s eyes rose to meet the young watcher’s.

  “You have never been released by the council,” Harold said. “I am the senior scribe in the area where you live. I asked you here to battle one of the Fallen, not prove your mettle.”

  Damien chewed deliberately and cleared his mouth with another gulp of ale. “I will rest a few hours. Then I will start again. I require a fresh horse. Am I understood?”

  Harold’s eye twitched, but he said nothing else. He rose and left the kitchen while Damien finished his ale and sought his bed. When his body hit the woolen mattress, he slept and he did not dream.

  ※

  The trip to Stirling took only a day. The Irin community there was small and integrated with the human population. Damien followed the groom’s directions to the old farmhouse where Monroe was residing, but when he arrived, he was told that both Monroe and Diana were still on a scouting trip in the Highlands. They were expected to return in the morning.

  Forced to be patient, Damien settled into the small room the Irina matron showed him and took out pen and paper.

  Milá,

  I wish you were here. You would likely be annoyed and restless, for the whole of hunting seems to be a game of rushing to wait. I am waiting now, and I wish you were here. Have you ever held a sword? I will teach you. Your arms are long and strong. When you wrap them around me, I think I feel the broken parts of myself mending. You will have excellent reach. A woman’s center of gravity is lower than a man’s. Given the proper training, Irina can be experts with a blade.

  I want you to lie over me in the dark with the fire burning while your gold hair is loose and falling around us. I think it would feel like being embraced by the sun.

  I am in Stirling waiting for old friends. Monroe and his mate Diana are no untrained initiates. If they have called me here, they have already planned how they wish to use me. This is good. I prefer walking into a battle that has already been planned. If I am very fortunate, this will be over before winter truly sets in. I wish to be back to you by spring. I hope that is possible.

  Yours, Damien

  ※

  “We don’t have a plan,” Diana confessed. “We called you here because we’re having trouble locating him.”

  Damien shook his head. “I am no seer, and I do not know this land nearly as well as you do.”

  Monroe said, “But you understand pattern. There are too many places to hide in the Highlands. We’re missing something—perhaps because we are too familiar. We hoped you’d be able to see it. I mentioned your skills and your blade to Harold and he agreed to summon you.”

  “Who is that one?”

  Monroe snorted. “Not a bad sort, but young. Trained at the scribe academy in Oxford. His father and mother are very well connected.”

  “So much learning,” Diana said. “So little battle sense.”

  “Be kind, love. Not everyone was raised at your father’s table.”

  Damien sat back and crossed his arms, staring into the fire. The mates sat across from him. Diana propped her feet up near the fire and rested a hand on her belly while Monroe watched her. The Irina warrior had been born in France and reminded Damien of the dark-eyed women in the south. Her body was as compact and muscled as Monroe’s was tall and wiry.

  Damien glanced at her hand. “When will the babe come?”

  Diana smiled. “Spring.” She looked at her mate. “I think she will be a giant like her papa. I’m already so big.”

  Monroe smiled and squeezed her hand, but Damien could see the stress around his eyes. The silver around his temples and sprinkling his beard was more pronounced than the last time Damien had seen him.

  The Highlander and the French warrior had been mated for over one hundred years, but this was the first pregnancy that Damien knew of. Irin did not breed as the humans did. Children were rare and valuable. It was unusual for their women to be lost in childbirth as human mothers were, but it did happen. Damien wondered if Monroe had encouraged Diana to stop riding. If he had, she’d ignored him.

  Damien said, “They’re attacking in the towns now. Stirling and the outer villages.”

  Diana nodded. “It took a long time for us to detect them. People can be so easily lost when traveling here. Then we started to hear about human girls going mi
ssing in town. People blamed a wolf first. Then a bandit. The worry became worse when both young men and elders started disappearing too.”

  Monroe sighed. “The old women say it’s a kelpie. The younger ones worry me more.”

  “Are they calling it a witch yet?”

  Monroe nodded.

  Damien glanced at Diana. She was staring into the fire, her lips pursed.

  “I know,” she said in a low voice. “All the Irina are being careful. We’re part of the community here. We take care to appear as common as possible.”

  Damien stated the obvious. “You wear breeches and ride like a man, Diana. You’re wearing a blade while your belly swells. Are you telling me the humans haven’t noticed?”

  She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “I am French. They expect me to be odd.”

  Monroe’s hand squeezed hers. “Please don’t jest, love.”

  She turned and put her hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry. I know you worry. But I cannot be other than I am. You know this as well as I do.”

  “Have I asked you to be?” His voice was tense. “I only ask for caution and you ignore me.”

  Damien wished he could leave them to their fight, but unfortunately they had a fallen angel preying on the Highland population and Damien had no desire to be in Scotland longer than necessary.

  “Friends,” he said softly. “The Fallen?”

  Diana looked abashed. “I should not be so flippant. A dozen young people have gone missing. Another six have been found dead. It appears from falls or exposure, but we believe they are Grigori kills.”

  “And if that many have been found, how many others are undiscovered?” Damien asked. “As you said, the wilderness here is dense.”

  “This might have been going on for months and we were oblivious,” Monroe said. “The abductions in Stirling have only been noted in the past few weeks.”

  “Edinburgh?”

  Diana said, “Most Grigori activity in Edinburgh comes from the south. Grigori usually prefer the cities were they can blend in. The Highlands?” She shook her head. “This hasn’t happened before.”