Heir of Danger (25 page)

She drew her knees up to her chest as she reread the passages over his shoulder. “It’s the only place I’ve even seen a curse mentioned, though I’m not sure if it applies.”

“Hard to say,” he said without taking his eyes from the page. “So much of what’s been written has been twisted by
Duinedon
who want to discount Arthur as myth. They’ve pulled threads from the truth and woven them into a story to fit their need. A way to discount the
Other
. Relegate us to fantasy. Or persecute us as witches.”

His voice took on a bitter edge she’d never heard before, his body growing rigid.

“So the passage doesn’t mean anything?”

He glanced over at her, his gaze troubled, a finger tapping his chin as he considered. “I didn’t say that. I’ve never heard of this Merovingian warlord the author speaks of, but the similarities to Arthur are certainly eerie, aren’t they?
Right down to the messy end.” Stretching, he put the book aside with a sigh. Plowed a hand through his hair, unkinked his neck, his gilded muscles rippling beneath his skin, making her itch to caress the warmth of his back.

“It doesn’t matter what I find,” he said, fury threading his words. “I already know how it all turns out. I’ve seen it again and again. A war with the
Duinedon
will leave the
Other
broken and scattered at best, hunted and slaughtered at worst.” His hand found hers, their fingers linking. “We’re not immortal. We bleed and we die. And unless I can stop it, we’ll be dying by the thousands.”

“Surely Máelodor knows this. He may want
Other
dominance, but he must know it can never succeed.”

“He thinks he holds the trump card.” He paused, his jaw jumping, gaze hard as steel. “The
Unseelie
.”

“But the book said they can’t survive in our world without a human . . .” The truth dawned with a sickening churn of her stomach. “He can’t possibly.”

He shot her a harsh grimace. “He’s convinced they’ll accept his leadership in order to escape their captivity, but they won’t remain subservient for long. They may have been cast out of
Ynys Avalenn,
but they’re still
Fey
and no less powerful for being imprisoned.”

Fear cruised her skin in icy waves before sinking into her bones with a panic that chattered her teeth, tumbled her stomach until she wanted to be sick. Her hands fisted under her breasts as if she could calm the ugly jump of her heart.

Máelodor’s defeat by the armies of the
Duinedon
would destroy the race of
Other
. His victory, if it came with
Unseelie
aid, might destroy the world.

She hugged herself, unable to stop the splash of nausea rising into her throat. “How could he even contemplate
such a thing? What kind of man comes up with such madness and evil? What kind of monster would conjure such sickening malice?”

Sorrow stabbed his tawny gaze, a flash of grief quickly shuttered as he inhaled on a quick ragged breath. “A man blind to everything but his own abilities and his own pride. But for all that, Lissa, I swear to you, still just a man.”

“You risk much with this interruption.” Máelodor pushed himself up against his pillows, running a hand over his scalp and the strange scaly patches there.

The woman beside him slept on, the straggling black of her hair and one bruised cheek the only bits of her not hidden by a hump of blankets. He ached from the evening’s exertions, but already his cock throbbed for more. Once he dealt with Oss, he would rouse the woman. She’d learned her lesson. She’d submit this time without a struggle. A shame. It meant he’d have to find a different way to prolong his pleasure.

Oss crossed to the bedside, handing over a letter. As usual the albino’s impassive milky gaze barely registered the discarded garments, the tangle of bedclothes or the sleeping whore. Nor with even a flicker of an eyelid did he react to the slow transformation of his master’s body as the
Unseelie
magics took Máelodor over.

Oss too had learned his lesson well.

Máelodor ripped open the letter, scanning the contents. Exhilaration burned along his twisted limbs, shook his palsied hands. Victory was near. “Prepare my traveling coach. We leave for Cornwall. The stone’s been found.”

The dram shop smelled of sweat, urine, and stale whiskey. Brendan wrinkled his nose against the stench and played at drinking the hell broth, though he’d yet to have the grimy cup touch his lips.

On the face of it, he’d come here as a way to draw Máelodor’s hunters, though to be honest Brendan had simply needed to free himself from the never-ending spin of his thoughts. Impossible to do while cooped within the closing walls of the Duke Street town house. Not much easier here with every new arrival throwing his pulse into a gallop, his hand involuntarily closing around the dagger hidden beneath his jacket.

Experience told him he tempted fate. He should follow his own rule and stay as far away from Elisabeth as possible. Between Rogan, Roseingrave, and himself, they’d laid trails, dropped hints. Nothing obvious, but surely word had leaked in all the right places. Máelodor would know by now Kilronan’s heir had resurfaced in Dublin. An easy target
for his bounty hunters. Which meant time grew short and nothing was certain. For every step he took to secure his freedom, circumstance chose to snatch it from his grip.

He’d come here in company with Rogan, though soon after their arrival the harper had disappeared into the back with a woman of soft curves and hard eyes.

“I’d appreciate it if you keep Lyddy to yourself. Helena’s got high-minded ideas and she doesn’t take to my women,” Rogan had said with a sheepish smile.

Brendan raised his cup to the man’s success, and the couple ducked beneath a curtain stretched over a doorway at the back of the room with much giggling and pinching.

Reaching for his watch, he suddenly remembered its present location at a pawnbroker’s near Arran Quay. Ah, well, he’d take it on faith that at least a half hour had passed. Where the hell was the lover boy?

As he waited, a man entered. Of medium build with shaggy black hair threaded with silver, he took a seat in the corner. His shabby clothes looked as if he’d stolen them from a beggar. An old threadbare jacket, breeches that barely covered his knees, and a pair of shoes with cracked soles bound with twine.

Brendan tensed in sudden anticipation of approaching trouble. He dropped a careful hand to his dagger. The plan might be to draw Máelodor’s assassins to him, but it wasn’t easy to put aside years of discipline. And he refused to go without a fight.

The shop door opened again, this time on a group of laughing, shouting men, their faces bearing signs of more than a passing familiarity with the crippling effects of cheap whiskey. Red-veined noses, jaundiced eyes, skin lying slack on brittle bones.

One of the newcomers pulled aside the curtain, shouting for Lyddy, his friends egging him on. Apparently this had not been the first stop on their tavern-crawl.

Immediately, Rogan was there, his long, thin body seeming to fill the doorway, his normally placid face dark with an emotion Brendan had never seen in his eyes. He’d yet to put on his jacket, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows to reveal the dark curved edge of a tattoo.

“You speak like that again and I’ll have your tongue from your head,” he threatened.

The drunk looked cowed for a moment, but his boldness returned as his friends joined him. “I pay good money. I expect good service,” he brazened.

Rogan’s gaze flicked down to the man’s groin back up to his eyes, contempt twisting his features. “Why don’t you and your friends stick to goats?”

The men surged forward as one, Rogan disappearing beneath the crush of bodies.

Devil take it. Did the man have to play knight errant for a damned doxy?

Brendan shoved up from his chair, sliding his dagger free. Drew to a halt before he’d gone two steps.

One rascal had fallen to his knees, a second came away with a bloody nose. But the last two fell back as if they’d been stunned by a hammer blow between the eyes.

Rogan laughed, throwing his arm around the bully who’d first called for the woman. “Arrah, now, you don’t want to be bothering my girl Lyddy. She’s a good lass. She doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore.”

Mage energy shivered the air, flickering against Brendan’s skin before sinking into his bones, running with his blood.

“No?” the man said, still with a look of dazed amazement. His companion following after with a glassy acquiescence.

“You want to take yourselves off and find another shop,” Rogan offered. “The one in Braithwaite Street, or try Martha above the skinners in Marrowbone Lane.”

“I’ve been there. Martha’s a ripe one,” the man said, nodding stupidly.

“Of course she is,” Rogan purred. “She’ll be just the thing. Go on and take your friends with you. And we’ll forget about our little brangle.”

Rogan’s gaze concentrated upon each man in turn, the persuasive power of the
leveryas
settling over the turbulence of the dram shop. It pulsed along Brendan’s muscles like a drug, the calm easing the tension banding his back. He released the dagger and dropped his arm to his side as the men filtered out, subdued under the influence of Rogan’s subtle yet unbending mental pressure.

“Come, Douglas.” Rogan motioned toward the door. “We’ll follow to be sure they’re headed toward Marrowbone Lane.”

Anything to get the hell out of here.

Brendan tossed a coin on the table, casting a swift glance at the corner table, but the strange man with the black and silver hair was gone. No sign of him in the shop anywhere. He must have slipped out during the commotion.

Brendan joined Rogan outside. They trailed behind the foursome as they made their way down Bridgefoot Street and away from the river.

“You’re lucky they didn’t beat the hell out of you. The
leveryas
is a dicey thing to control.”

Rogan laughed. “If they’d been sober, I’d say you were right to be nervous. But the stench of whiskey rising off them was enough to drop a bull in his traces. No fears they’d have broken free.”

“You must care for the woman to risk mob dismemberment.”

“Lyddy’s a good girl, Douglas. She doesn’t like working there, but she’s not had much choice. She ran away from home when she was a wee thing. The first time she worked the mage energy.”

Brendan sucked in a quick breath. “She’s
Other
?”

“Aye, mind ya, she’s no master-mage, but she carries the blood of the
Fey,
no doubt of it. Her family sought to drive the devil from her.” His voice hardened. “Bolloxy
Duinedon
sons of bitches damn near killed her.”

“They don’t understand.”

“And that gives them a right to go about murdering young girls? Burning out whole families? Driving people from their homes just because they’re
Other
?” Rogan spat in the gutter. “It might not be such a bad thing to have Arthur back. Show those ignorant bastards we’re not a bunch of demon spawn.”

Brendan grabbed his arm, spinning him roughly around. “That’s dangerous talk. It could get you into trouble.”

Rogan pulled free. “And what’s doing nothing got me?” He looked past Brendan to where Lyddy stood in the doorway, a hand shading her eyes. “Or any of us?” He raked a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, defeat in his rounded shoulders. “Here, now, I’m sorry for gabbling on at you like that and I know you’re right, Douglas. It’s just”—he sighed—“sometimes I wonder: Can the world get any worse for us than it is now?”

Brendan gave a harsh bark of laughter. “That’s a question to bring down Armageddon if ever I heard one.”

“Yet you don’t answer me.”

“You want an answer? Then yes, Rogan.” Brendan kneaded the throbbing muscles in his hand. “Take the word of one who knows: Should Máelodor succeed, hell will be the refuge.”

“More pigeon pie? Cold mutton?” Madame Arana asked.

Elisabeth allowed the platter to pass her by. Not that she couldn’t have eaten another helping, but already her stays bit into her sides and the borrowed gown she wore clamped around her middle. One more piece of bread and she’d be relegated to a sheet and a smile.

“Grand-mère!” Helena snapped.

Madame Arana jerked her head up, a guilty smile quirking her lips.

“I’ve allowed that walking flea hotel the freedom of the house. The least you can do is not feed him from the table.”

“He’s hungry,
ma minette,
” she replied, unmoved by Helena’s scolding.

Killer, obviously realizing he was the topic of conversation, moved to Helena with a soulful look and a wagging rear end before dropping to the rug to roll over in a love-me pose of abject patheticness.

“Don’t even try your canine wiles on me. If you’re not careful, I’ll use your bony carcass for a throw rug,” she warned.

The dog knew when it had met its match. It slunk under the table to lie like a hot, furry lump across Elisabeth’s feet. He’d been missing since last night with none to say when or how he’d gotten out. And now here he was, as
if he’d never left. Did he have a girlfriend? Was he hunting rats in the mews? Taking in the city’s sights? Impossible to say with Killer. Sometimes he almost seemed human.