Embrace of the Damned (38 page)

“She’ll make a fine leader,” Thorgest said, leaning up against the counter in front of the mirror. “The woman has talent seeping from her very pores, just like every other Egilson to come before her.”

Roan nodded. Rubbing his chin, he stared at her, marveling at how much she looked like Abigail.

“Next she’ll have a session with Sam,” Thorgest said almost to himself. “She and Sam would make a good match. A strong shaman mated to a strong witch. Their babies would be powerful, and assets to our line.”

Roan stiffened. “No more matchmaking. You’ve already
interfered in her life enough. You can’t treat your people as if they’re brood mares and studs.” His thoughts drifted to Abigail and his perverse desire years ago that Thorgest’s machinations would work in his case. All they had done was drive Thorgest’s granddaughter away from the enclave, and perhaps eventually led to her death.

“It’ll be for her own good, Roan,” Thorgest mumbled to himself as he watched Jessa through the mirror. “All of this is, and ye know it. Anyway, there’s much she can learn from Sam.”

Roan said nothing.

Thorgest turned toward him, perhaps sensing the derision and disapproval to which Roan wasn’t giving voice. “Do ye have a problem with my plans?”

Roan shifted on his feet and stared past Thorgest, out at Jessa. “I think she craves to find her place, her family. I think she needs to know where she belongs and that people care about her.” He paused. “I think if she ever knew how she was being used and the reason why she’s here, she would run screaming from this place.”

Thorgest snorted. “Years later, I find myself relieved Abigail ran away from ye, Roan. What a sorry, weak shaman ye turned out to be.” Then he strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

Broder eased his motorcycle down another narrow road in the northernmost portion of the Scottish Highlands. Rain fell in a steady beat from the heavy, iron-colored clouds. It didn’t matter; he couldn’t get any more soaked than he already was.

It had been two days of this. Two days of rain. Two days of searching for the magickally hidden seidhr enclave.

He pulled the bike over to the side of the road at the top of a high hill and stared out across the landscape. Rain ran down his face in rivulets, obscuring his vision.

Erik had clearly thought this endeavor hopeless, but Broder couldn’t make himself stop hunting for her. There
had to be a way to locate her. After all, Loki hadn’t thought it was hopeless. If he had, he would have laughed off the possibility that Broder was going after Jessa. Instead he’d threatened him.

That meant he could find her. He wasn’t going to stop until he did.

Wiping a hand across his face, he looked behind him at the sound of a car engine. A small, beat-up white Renault was approaching. It pulled up behind him and the driver rolled down the window.

“Lost then, are ye?” The old man squinted at him. “Yer about a thousand clicks from the nearest town.”

“Not lost. Looking for somewhere.” Some
one
was more accurate, but that would sound too odd.

“Whereabouts?”

Broder slicked the rain from his hair with one hand, trying to figure out how to answer that question. “I got it under control. Thanks.”

“Aye.” The old man’s gaze flicked up and down his rain-drenched leathers. “Looks like ye do.” Broder recognized sarcasm when he heard it.

He started to roll his window up, but Broder decided at the last minute to ask the old guy for help. He lived here. Maybe he could offer a clue. “Know of any garbage dumps near here? Any places with strewn trash? It would be a place not many people would want to go; it would give off a creepy kind of feel. Maybe some people might say it’s haunted.” He knew he sounded like an idiot to human ears, but he didn’t care.

Other than the magickally induced propensity for people to avoid the area where the enclave was located, it was masked as a garbage-strewn place, meant to keep wandering humans away. There were far more strenuous wards in place for Blight, but those didn’t affect the Brotherhood.

The old man thought for a long moment, then he nodded. “Aye.” He pointed off to the west. “Take this road to the A109, then follow the signs to Galhanscrieg. Drive about
fifteen clicks to the north, away from the town. Ye’ll come to a place like ye’re describing.”

“Thank you.”

“Want a ride? It’ll get ye out of the rain.”

“No, I’d rather take my bike.”

The man tipped his imaginary hat at him, grinned toothlessly, and started down the road again.

Broder watched the car ramble away. He hoped like hell this was the break he needed.

The rain pattered softly on the huge windows in the room, windows so big they covered almost the whole of two walls. Jessa felt like a turtle in a terrarium. One of the windows was open, for reasons she couldn’t determine, letting in a fresh rain-scented breeze.

This was one of the many sitting/meeting rooms in the enclave and where Sam had said he wanted to meet her. Small clusters of couches, tables, and chairs scattered the large room, but it was empty save for both of them.

Sam was awesomely good-looking. His sandy-colored hair fell across his forehead and made his blue eyes seem even bluer. Those eyes were heavy lidded most of the time, and his voice was something like warmed whiskey, making him seem like he had sex on his mind. Really
good
sex. He was like candy, but, although she noted the man’s sexiness, she had no interest in him.

No man could hold a candle to Broder and it would be a long time before she would try to find one who could even come close, and Thorgest pushing her at Sam wasn’t going to work. She could see right through her great-grandfather and she didn’t like it.

Staring out the window for a moment, her thoughts drifted, dangerously, back to the keep. What was she doing here? Why hadn’t she soaked up every second she could with Broder? It didn’t make sense that she hadn’t stayed in the keep until the very end, done everything she could in
order to keep him with her. Why had she made the decision to leave again? Why had—

“Jessa?”

She shivered and turned toward Sam. “Sorry.”

“You were a million miles away.”

“Right. Okay, I’m focused now.”

“Good.”

He turned his back and walked to the nearby window, unlatched it, and threw it wide. Rain-scented fresh air burst into the room. “Shamanism is a little different in execution from witchcraft.” He spoke with his back turned toward her. “But the magick is much the same. There is one major difference, however.” He held his hand to the side and she saw a small silver ball glinting there.

He threw the ball to the floor with force. Magick popped and Jessa gasped. Her mind torqued a little—that was the only way to describe the sensation—and Sam transformed. In his place beat the dark wings of a raven. The bird fluttered for a moment in the air, then took off through the open window. His clothes lay in a heap on the floor where he’d stood only a moment earlier.

Jessa leapt from her chair and lunged for the opening, watching him soar off. For a moment, the sky was clear of everything except heavy gray clouds. Then the raven returned, aiming for the window.

She stepped back, allowing the bird through. It landed not far from her and Sam shifted back to human form in a brilliant flash that made her mind bend to the side a little once more. “Holy—”

“Shit,” he finished for her with a slow, lazy grin.

Her gaze flicked down. He was naked, his skin glistening wet from the rain. She raised her eyes to his face, her cheeks reddening. “Do you always lose your clothes when you shift?”

He took a step toward her, his lopsided grin hitching up a little at one corner. “No. It’s a choice.” His eyes glinted mischievously.

Aha.

Sam reached out and touched two fingers to the center of her chest. “Witches have more power than shamans, but shamans can shift. Although select few witches can shift, too. All of them, by the way, have come from
your
bloodline.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Seriously?”

Sam grinned, a dimple popping out on one cheek. “Seriously. Want to see if you’re one of them?”

And fly into the heavens as a bird? Just as Jessa was about to open her mouth with an enthusiastic
yes
, Thorgest burst into the room. “Sam, we’ve a security breach.”

Sam took a step back. “Blight?”

Thorgest snarled inarticulately. “Worse.”

Commotion in the hallway. Raised voices. Scuffling feet. A fistfight. Bodies slamming against the walls of the corridor. Then Broder strode through the doorway, looking as grim and pissed as she’d ever seen him.

“Broder!” she yelled. A surge of joy and relief pushed her feet toward him. She ran, meaning to leap right into his arms and ask for his forgiveness. All of a sudden her head was clear of everything but him. She never should have left him. She hadn’t been thinking straight.

Sam reached out to snag her and hold her back as she passed, but just missed her. Thorgest intercepted her instead, wrapping his arms around her midsection and swinging her away with wiry strength.

Rage rushed through her veins. She wrenched herself from Thorgest’s arms, shooting him a look to kill, and ran the rest of the way to Broder, but the look on his face stopped her dead in her tracks a few paces from him.

His expression held a riot of emotion like she’d never seen on him before. He wore black from head to toe and his wet hair had been slicked back over his skull, throwing the sculpted bones of his face into sharp relief. His gaze took her in like a starving animal confronted with a meal, hot and hungry, but they grew cool when he looked over her head and focused on her great-grandfather.

Behind her she heard a low, menacing growl that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and she looked behind her to find a huge gray wolf standing where Sam had been a moment ago. Sam’s teeth were pulled back away from
his lips, his sleek wolf head lowered so the whites of his eyes showed and his ears were laid back.

“I tried to stop him,” said Roan from the doorway. He was out of breath, his lip bloody, and his shirt was ripped. “Bastard found the enclave and cut right through our wards.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing. Leave him alone … for now,” said Thorgest. His voice held a note of satisfaction that Jessa didn’t understand. “Broder Calderson, so nice to see ye again after all these years, but I can’t say I’m happy you’re here, considering yer history with us.”

Jessa turned and stared hard at her great-grandfather, who had an irritating smirk on his face. Suddenly she was certain she’d been caught in the middle of a tug-of-war and she didn’t know the rules.

Thorgest’s gaze flicked to her, then back to Broder. “Now that ye’re here, ye can tell Jessa what ye did to her people.”

Jessa clenched her hands at her sides against her confusion and the rising animosity in the room. Broder stared at Thorgest as though he wanted to leap across the room and kill him with his bare hands.

“What is going on?” she asked. “Please, someone talk to me.”

“Broder?” Her great-grandfather raised his eyebrows. “She’s asking for an explanation. Dinna ye want to give her one? If ye love her, ye will.”

Broder’s gaze dropped to hers and locked. Pain flashed through his eyes so brilliantly that for a moment it gave her chest pains.

“Tell me,” she whispered.

But still, he didn’t. The emotions that swirled inside her became a storm, making her light-headed. She’d known that Broder had committed some terrible crime in his past. And she’d known the seidhr had no great love for him … but she’d never put the two together. Now she realized she should have.

As Broder, mute, his eyes full of guilt, held her gaze, the swirling emotions solidified … into anger.

“Broder ne’er told ye the crime that brought him to Loki’s untender mercy, did he, Jessa?”

Her gaze still locked with Broder’s, she shook her head. She raised her chin. “I think I deserve to know.”

“Broder?” Thorgest goaded.

He moved his gaze to holds hers. There was coldness in his eyes that she’d never seen before—never had wanted to see. Coldness and violence. Were they memories? “Do you want to know, Jessa?”

She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. Actually, she wasn’t sure if she did. Perhaps ignorance would preserve her memory of the man she loved when Loki had removed him from her life.

Sam gave another low growl.

“I slaughtered them.” Broder’s voice came out hoarse with barely restrained rage. The muscles in his throat stood out and his body seemed to shake from his effort to hold himself back from attacking Roan, Sam, and Thorgest all at once. “I killed every one of them I could get my hands on. Almost a whole enclave, men and women alike.” Brutal, chilling intensity made every word he spoke a dagger point through her chest.

Jessa took a step backward. For the first time since she’d met him, she was afraid of him.