Hels's Gauntlet [Forbidden Legacy 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (22 page)

Dust lay on the tables, and the corner bed housed a mother raccoon and her kits. The creature roused to hiss a warning to him. Everywhere in the room were shadows, cold and dark. A window overlooking the garden allowed a breeze to pass through its shattered panes.

Stumbling on trembling legs, he whirled and strode outside. He found no traces of magic or signs of battle. The sight of a stone poking up through the grass thrust into his soul. His unsteady legs carried him to the tiny pillar, and he forced the grass aside with the heat of the sun burning in his palms.

Two piles marked two graves.

“My lord?” The voice punctured his grief, and he whirled to find an old man, straw hat in hand bowing to him despite the arthritic gnarl of his joints.

“What happened to them?” He couldn’t quite mask the grief in his voice.

“Fever, my lord. Swift and painless. The boy fought to hang on, but when his mother passed, he soon followed. We did all we could for them, my lord. My Katherine and her Tristram. But drought came to the valley and medicines were thin. He did not suffer, my lord, I promise you.”

Helcyon wanted to fall to his knees and wail. One year. One year since his son passed, slain not by an enemy but an illness. An illness any Brownie could have treated. Had he claimed him as he so desired, had he not given into his fear to protect him from his enemies, his son might yet live.

Tears filmed his vision, but he forced them back. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a small pouch of coins. “Thank you. Will you see that they are carved proper stones and the house repaired. Gift it to a family that needs it.”

“This is your land, my lord. We—all of us, we knew—but we kept the secret to protect them. None will want to take what is yours.”

But Helcyon turned on his heel and strode toward his horse. “I care not what happens to the house or to the land, better it go to those in need, and you should have enough to bring in whatever supplies you lack. Burn the house if none will live in it, turn the land to the animals—” His voice broke. “Just take care of it.”

The old man bowed deeply, his forehead nearly pressed against the grass. Even the horse shied away from the power shimmering the air around him, the raw heat of his fury.

Three strides away, he pushed Underhill and raced for his own Court lest his grief turn to madness.

A stable hand rushed to take his horse as he stormed away. The door to the castle shuddered open under the force of his magic. He stalked through the ornate rooms, blind to the beauty, and didn’t pause until he reached his private study, the one room shielded against all intruders and into which none entered.

Not even his brother.

It wasn’t until he was there that Helcyon allowed the grief inside him to explode, and he dropped to his knees and screamed.

He screamed at the world for the fickle vagaries of politics and his place in it. He wanted his son back.

But Tristram was beyond the pale and never knew just how much his father loved him.

* * * *

The scream tapered off as Jacob came back to himself. Grief squeezed his heart, and tears splashed onto his cheeks. He choked on the raw loss eating his soul. He stared into Helcyon’s green eyes, seven hundred years having failed to diminish the mourning in the Elf’s soul.

“I’m sorry.” Jacob gasped and didn’t let himself think about it. He just reached out and hugged him. The Elf allowed the comfort, clearing his throat as they broke away. “I had no idea.”

He couldn’t explain the raw wound in his soul. He’d buried his first child and wouldn’t wish that pain on any creature, be they Fae or Wizard. The devastating loss changed Helcyon. The Lord of Sun and Sword never fully recovered from making a choice to protect his child that also lead to losing that same child.

For most of his life, Jacob believed the Fae never gave a damn about their own children. They fathered Wizards to fight in their wars. He’d never seen the inherent liability in a landscape littered by wars, political infighting, negotiations, and assassinations. Children could not protect themselves from the vagaries of the hate. It was a parent’s duty to shield them from that world. Helcyon protected his son by not acknowledging him.

But that lack of acknowledgement was not an easy burden, and it didn’t stem the Elf’s affection for the baby he’d never even held.

“We have little time for our sorrows, Jacob.” But the thickness in Hels’s voice betrayed the grief still swimming within. “We have new wars to fight, new battles to win, and a new child to protect. A child I will never leave.”

“Nor I, brother.” The title flowed easily without the bitter aftertaste of pride and anger to coat his tongue. He inhaled a deep breath and glanced down at his chest. A three-pointed sun swirled against his left pectoral, engraved in black ink. The whirls in the sun’s points matched the pattern on Helcyon’s shoulder and back.

He inhaled a long breath and pushed it out with great ease. His ribs were back where they belonged. The sticky flavor of copper on his lips all that remained of the blood he’d been fighting to breathe through.

“My life for yours, Jacob. That signifies our binding, your allegiance to the Lord of Sword and Sun. It will heal you when you are wounded gravely, and you have but to activate it with a thought and it will bring you to my side or summon me to yours.”

In two hundred years, he’d never been able to teleport, never quite mastered the finesse of opening gates and portaling through Underhill. A spastic, giddy little laugh broke through the tension, and he snorted.

“Well, I guess this is a new definition to friends with benefits.” He ignored Helcyon’s quizzical look. They didn’t have time to explain the ridiculous nature of pop culture and its titles for different relationships. “We need to get that iron off you.”

Jacob felt a hell of a lot better, the worst of his injuries healed. But the same couldn’t be said for the Elf who bled from both thighs, his chest, his back, and even his ears.

“Agreed.”

They worked silently and efficiently. Hels didn’t make a sound as Jacob peeled off the cilices and tossed the vicious things to the side. With careful application of pressure, Helcyon removed the manacles using his sword.

Outside the cell, the drone stared into nothingness. Helcyon ignored the creature, so Jacob left it alone until they were iron free. Every muscle in his body protested movement, and they were armed with a sword, some length of chain, and dressed only in boxer shorts.

The black cotton brief boxers seemed the hell out of place in the nightmare they were living through, but Jacob was more interested in where the hell their armor was than what they were wearing.

“We will not need armor in a moment.” Helcyon knelt on the floor, his head bowed. The black tattoo slithered over the raw patches of skin on his back, knitting them together.

“Not that I don’t think taking on an entire palace guard, and whatever the hell those green things were, in my skivvies, I wouldn’t mind protecting the family jewels.” Energy surged through him. He flexed his fingers and power popped from one hand to the other, leaping like static electricity. The fog in his mind cleared, and he didn’t have to look to where Helcyon was, he just knew. An undercurrent of awareness bounced back and forth, but his mind wasn’t open nor were thoughts overwhelming him.

He just was.

Oddly, the sensation comforted him.

“Remember Cassandra’s gate-building escapade?” Helcyon adjusted his position, rising from his right knee and then falling to his left. The black ink crawled over his skin, leaving it dripping in sweat that beaded and rolled down to drip against the stony floor.

In her closet, Cassandra built a gate from nothing and stepped through to her office intent on reclaiming, of all things, shoes. But the gate closed and she was trapped on the other side. They’d raced after her, traveling Underhill, and out into her old office’s conference room. Along the journey, Helcyon summoned bronze and golden armor to shield their skin.

“Oh, fucking sweet.” Jacob got it, and he pressed his hand to the tattoo and focused. Armor shimmered and grew, encasing his body. A feral grin twisted his lips.

“We have a queen to kill.”

“Yes.” Helcyon rose to his feet. Bronze armor encased his form, a sword piercing the emblem of the sun on his breast. “We do.”

Helcyon rolled his head around, loosening the too-tight muscles bunching under the armor. Freshly healed skin ached with the pain of knitting together. Connected to Jacob, however, energy ebbed and flowed, pulsing with the beats of two hearts. Beyond Jacob, the Wizards bound to him by oaths created additional trickles of energy, all flowing down into him and back out. In hours, his strength and vitality would be at pre-ambush levels.

In a day, he would be able to blast off the mountaintops. But they didn’t have a day, or even hours. For now, they would have to make do with determination and fury.

The sword’s balance was absolutely perfect. Unlike some sword masters, he never named his blade. But it was an extension of his soul, forged by his magic, controlled by his will, and hungry for the blood of their enemies. If he had to, he could feed it on the power of the slain, replenishing his own weary reserves.

Through the slats in the door, he stared into the dispassionate gaze of the drone. He’d never cared for this facet of their Queen, not in her dulcet youth much less in her maddening age. Like her father before her, she grew blind to the needs of her people and focused only on her own wants and desires.

What the Danae craved more than anything else was power. It motivated her every choice and every play she made. The drones were a manifestation of that power, life given to the mortally injured. Half-life really. They possessed none of the thoughts or personality from before their conversion, living only as long as they were tied to the Danae’s power and her will.

A parody of the bond that tied liege lord to his knights, the drones were a reflection of everything twisted and evil inside the Danae. A malignant poison flowed through the Queen, consuming the light of promise she’d demonstrated at her birth. She was the cancer destroying the Fae from within, crippling them as effectively as the Wizards who banished them to the Underhill.

“Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?” Jacob demanded, impatience riding the Wizard. He wanted out of the dungeon, the Queen dead, and Cassandra safely back in their arms.

In his mind, these goals were mutually exclusive and required no contemplation. Helcyon spared the Wizard a half-smile, but focused on the drone and its sightless gaze.

“Patience, brother. Drones, as you discovered earlier, do not feel injury or pain. They can only be slowed by true death or the severing of limbs. But be not surprised if you were to cut off an arm that they did not pick up the arm and club you with it until they bled to death.”

Jacob needed weapons, and the drone was armed with a club.

“Nice. What I wouldn’t give for a .30-30 and some hollow points.”

“Cripple, incapacitate, or cut off the head. They will go down. The more that die, the weaker the Queen grows.”

“Sweet.” Jacob’s grim smile was anything but. “So are you working out how to ask this one for a date?”

“No. I am waiting to see if her majesty is observing us through him. But she appears to be distracted.” The knowledge offered cold comfort. She could be distracted by Cassandra. The ache to spread out his mental fingers and follow the length of their bond burned in his bones. But if Cassandra were safe with the Brownies, and he had to believe Leitha’s village would have cheerfully taken their cudgels to the Danae’s lapdogs, then revealing her location could have worse consequences.

His gut clenched. He’d hidden his son and the mother of his child away from his enemies in the misguided belief that if he wasn’t there or didn’t acknowledge them, they wouldn’t know how to hurt them. He’d declared himself where Cassandra was concerned, and he would for their child. All would know just the rancor and destruction he would rain down on his enemies.

The drone never blinked. Its dim aura never flickered. What life it possessed focused only on the order to guard their door. It didn’t even acknowledge that they were no longer shackled. The Danae’s control obliterated its problem-solving and logical abilities. It wasn’t an Elf. It was just a shell.

Satisfied, Helcyon closed his magical sight and focused his physical gaze on the door. The sun’s warmth boiled through him, rolling up and out in a wave that melted the hinges and locks. The door fell outward with a slam, barely missing the drone.

Time to crack the shell. He leapt forward, slipping seamlessly between one moment and the next. His sword swung and connected with the creature’s throat with a great, meaty thunk. The blade heated, easing the blade’s passage through cartilage, muscle, and bone. Blood sprayed the ceiling, but Jacob and Helcyon walked away before the body even landed on its knees and the head dropped to the dust.

He knew the palace well. The dungeons were located beneath the Danae’s summer gardens. She took a perverse pleasure knowing that she and her Court frolicked above the desperate and desolate. Two drones rushed down the hall at them. Jacob swung his club at one, smashing its knee caps and caving in its skull when the man dropped to his knees. Helcyon decapitated the second.