“Not sure.” He stared at his hands. “But I think he sucked me powers out.” Scowling, he looked up at Thorn. “Can he do that?”
“I have no idea. Honestly. I would say no, but he’s the Malachai. Older than shit and with the memories of a creature a lot older than any I know. Even Savitar or Acheron.” He looked up as Savitar joined them. “What do you know about him?”
Savitar didn’t speak.
A bad feeling went through Cameron at the way he stood there, staring at them with eyes that said he carried a deep, dark secret.
“What is it?” Cameron asked.
“As Thorn said, the Malachai isn’t like any other. Adarian is crazier, and more powerful, than all who’ve come before him.” He sighed heavily. “To answer your question, kid, yes, he can take your powers if you get close enough to him. I didn’t know he’d mastered that little skill set. But…”
“What?”
Acheron moved to stand beside Savitar. “While we weren’t paying attention, Adarian’s demons snuck around us.”
Devyl froze. “Where’s Mara?”
“He took her and Valynda.”
Cameron gasped. “Why?”
Thorn cursed as he met Devyl’s gaze. “Because she’s a Deruvian and she’s pregnant. And Valynda because of me.”
Cameron didn’t understand. “You?”
He nodded. “I shouldn’t have gotten any of you into this.”
Thorn started away.
“Hey!” Savitar shouted. “Where are you going?”
He appeared aghast by that question. “To deal with this.”
“You can’t fight him alone, Leucious. Are you insane?”
Thorn glanced around at them. “I can’t endanger you. I’ve already asked too much.”
Devyl gaped. “That’s my wife and child. You don’t think for one minute that I’m going to stand by and let you fight without me?”
Kalder stood and took Cameron’s hand. “We’re family. All together. United.”
“Dysfunctional,” Zumari added. “But never boring.”
Sancha kissed his cheek and draped her arm around his shoulders. “Aye to that. Deadmen forever.”
Devyl nodded. “Launch our colors, Mr. Death. We have another adventure before us. And we won’t be stopped.”
* * *
Mara blasted at the doors with her powers.
Valynda ducked as the lightning-like blast ricocheted off and narrowly missed her straw head. Her luck, the blast would have caught her on fire. “Beg pardon, mum? Could we hold our tempers a bit?”
“I’d rather hold my sister’s head in a forge.”
At the moment, so would she. But irrational tempers wouldn’t get them far. “I’m sure the captain and the others will be coming for us.”
Mara nodded. “That’s what worries me.”
Valynda paused as she noted the way Mara’s hand lingered over her stomach. It was a unique way women touched themselves whenever they …
She cursed silently. “By chance, are you expecting?”
The high blush on her face answered even before she nodded bashfully.
Well, that explained why their enemies had been so eager to lay hands to the captain’s wife. Valynda could only imagine how much power was flowing through the body of a pregnant Deruvian. Given Mara’s powers when she didn’t have the additional life inside her, it stood to reason that she’d be even more potent now.
But for them to take her …
You know why.
Her stomach cramped in fear and she prayed she was wrong. But a few moments later when Gadreyal appeared, the expression on the Irin’s face said that Valynda had been right in her initial assumption.
“The Malachai wants a word with you.”
Valynda cocked her head. “Are you sure about that?”
“Aye, and if I were you, I’d do what he says and summon the Ghede Nibo for him.”
She laughed at the pompousness of that statement. “One doesn’t evoke the Ghede, and especially not Nibo. You ask nicely, and if he wishes, he comes.”
“I defy you to say that to the Malachai.”
Valynda cut a glance to Mara. “Do you see the fear in our keeper’s eyes, mum?”
“Indeed.”
“Then perhaps I should invite the Nibo to our party and educate you all on what happens when you play with things best left alone.”
EPILOGUE
Kalder sat on the docks, staring out at the dark sea while the crew took on supplies for their voyage. They had yet to find the location of where Vine and Gadreyal had vanished off to with Mara and Valynda, but they weren’t daunted.
They would find them and there would be the Devyl’s hell to pay for it.
“Are you missing your swim, Mr. Dupree?”
He smiled at the sweet dulcet tone that left him harder than granite. “Aye, Miss Jack. But not as much as I be missing something else.”
“And that be?”
He reached up to take her hand and pull her down to sit next to him. “Me most precious angel.”
She smiled at him as she melted into his arms so that he could hold her. “The captain said he wanted us to stay behind and return to Williamsburg. Since you’re no longer bound by the Deadman’s mark and you’ve lost your powers from the Malachai, he doesn’t want to risk any harm to you or to me.”
“Is that what you want?”
She met his gaze in the darkness and smiled. “Me home is wherever you are, Kal. I’ll follow wherever you lead.”
“Even if it isn’t back to your tavern?”
She bit her lip as her gaze turned dark. That expression worried him.
“Cameron? What is it?”
“Just thinking … a tavern’s no place what to be raising a babe alone without its da. Especially when the babe might be mistaking its mum for its da.”
It took him a second to realize what it was she meant. When it finally dawned on him, he felt as if his stones had been hammered. “You’re pregnant?”
She nodded. “The Lady Belle confirmed what I suspected.”
“Flowers? Flowers for the lady?”
Kalder froze as an old woman shoved a wilted bouquet between them. Normally, he’d have sent her on her way, but …
“Aye. Thank you.” He pulled out his coin to pay her.
Smiling, the toothless crone handed over the bouquet. “Gardenias and violets for your boy to come. A beautiful future has he. Pull the string and see.”
“Pardon?” Kalder scowled as shock and fury tangled inside him. Was she a demon or some other creature sent to wreak havoc with them?
The old woman placed a kind hand against his cheek. “No parent should be forced to live without their babe. There is no greater pain. For a child is the heart that grows and beats outside the body. Time and distance makes no never mind to a such an organ, as it has no ability to judge either. Rather it just feels and it knows.” She squeezed his cheek. “It always knows.”
And with that, she vanished.
Kalder cursed as his skin began to burn.
Gasping, Cameron leaned back. “Your fins…”
His jaw went slack as he glanced down to see that his marks had returned.
Cameron crossed herself. “Kalder … methinks that was your mother, love. Your real, true mother. Melusine.”
Unable to believe it, he pulled the string that was wrapped around the delicate lace that held the bouquet. The moment he did, he realized not one, but three rings were tied and knotted to it.
A man’s ring that was a silver signet ring with a skull and crossbones. A tiny woman’s ring of delicate scrollwork and a large sea green stone. And another ring that held the crest of the great sea goddess herself.
Cameron was right.
“It was me mother.” He breathed the words, still unable to believe that he’d actually met her.
Wishing he’d known it while she’d stood before them, he stared out at the water with an inexplicable ache that he’d come so close to seeing h
“What’s that?”
He glanced down to see that Cameron was fingering something else from the flowers. A leather envelope had been tucked inside the wrapping.
Kalder pulled it out and opened it.
Even more stunned, he handed it over to Cameron to see. “It’s the deed to your Black Swan.” For the briefest moment he’d wondered how his mother had known about it, but then she was a goddess.
Cameron gasped as tears filled her eyes. “Thank you, me dearest sweet Melusine!” she shouted out at the sea. “Thank you! I promise you I’ll take good care of your boys. Always.”
Kalder kissed her. “And I’ll take care of you.”
Pulling back, she fingered the markings on his forearm and wrinkled her nose. “But not before we finish this mission?”
His eyes twinkled in the darkness. “First we attend to the evil so that the evil doesn’t attend to us.”
“Then let hell know we’re coming. And we’re going to get our ladies back even if we have to track them down to death’s door and beyond.”
Books by Sherrilyn Kenyon
THE DARK-HUNTERS
Night Embrace
Dance with the Devil
Kiss of the Night
Night Play
Seize the Night
Sins of the Night
Unleash the Night
Dark Side of the Moon
The Dream-Hunter
Devil May Cry
Upon the Midnight Clear
Dream Chaser
Acheron
One Silent Night
Dream Warrior
Bad Moon Rising
No Mercy
Retribution
The Guardian
The Dark-Hunter Companion
Time Untime
Styxx
Dark Bites
Son of No One
Dragonbane
Dragonmark
Dragonsworn
DEADMAN’S CROSS
Deadmen Walking
Death Doesn’t Bargain
THE LEAGUE
Born of the Night
Born of Fire
Born of Ice
Born of Shadows
Born of Silence
Born of Fury
Cloak & Silence
Born of Defiance
Born of Betrayal
Born of Legend
Born of Vengeance
CHRONICLES OF NICK
Infinity
Invincible
Infamous
Inferno
Illusion
Instinct
Invision
Intensity
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon is a regular in the #1 spot. This extraordinary bestseller continues to top every genre in which she writes, including manga and graphic novels. More than seventy million copies of her books are in print in more than one hundred countries. Her current series include The Dark-Hunters®, The League®, Deadman’s CrossTM, Chronicles of Nick®, HellchasersTM, Mikro ChasersTM, and The Lords of Avalon®. Her Chronicles of Nick® and Dark-Hunters® series are soon to be major motion pictures. Information about her series can found at: www.sherrilynkenyon.com, www.dark-hunter.com, and www.officialsanctuary.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Map
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Books by Sherrilyn Kenyon
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DEATH DOESN’T BARGAIN
Copyright © 2018 by Sherrilyn Kenyon
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Stephen Youll
Cover design by Russell Trakhtenberg
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-8571-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-29717-4 (signed edition)
ISBN 978-0-7653-8572-7 (ebook)
eISBN 9780765385727
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First Edition: May 2018
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