Sword of Darkness (5 page)

“Kerrigan is incredible, isn’t he?” Morgen asked her as she moved to stand just at her back.

Seren agreed, but couldn’t answer. It felt as if her vocal cords were frozen.

“Look at the way he moves,” Morgen whispered softly in her ear, her voice strangely echoing through her head. “He twirls, he parries, and then he thrusts and thrusts again. Look at the power of him. The strength. The masculine beauty. In all the world there are only a few who can match him in fairness of form. None who could touch him for savagery or mercilessness.” Morgen breathed in her ear. “It makes you lust for him, doesn’t it?”

A strange, foreign heat went through Seren at the words. It was as if her body were pierced by a bittersweet pleasure.

“Mor—” Blaise’s words were cut short as Morgen waved her hand.

Seren glanced to see the mandrake every bit as frozen as she was. Morgen stepped even closer to her until their bodies were touching.

“Watch him, Seren,” she commanded.

Seren had no choice except to obey.

“Look at the way his muscles strain as he fights,” Morgen breathed in her ear, causing chills to run the length of her body. “The way his beautiful black hair flies in the wind with every advance, every studied movement. The beauty of his face as he grimaces in fearsome combat.”

Morgen brushed the hair back from Seren’s shoulder as she leaned even closer to whisper directly into her ear. She snaked her arm around Seren’s waist in what could only be called a lover’s embrace.

“Now imagine all the power of him sliding deep inside you, Seren.” Something wickedly warm and erotic flicked deep at the core of her body to emphasize those words. The pleasure of it actually made her gasp. “Imagine him stretching your virgin’s flesh until he fills you completely. Think of the sensation of his hands caressing your naked skin…your breasts.” It felt as if he were already touching her. “The sensation of his body sliding in and out of yours, pleasing you while you beg him for more…”

Seren couldn’t breathe as her entire body burned with a lustful ache she’d never before experienced. Her breasts were heavy, full. It was almost as if she could feel the very things that Morgen described.

“Imagine his lips on yours. His tongue flicking over your virgin’s flesh while you’re spread out naked and bare for his pleasure. His heavy, muscled body covering you completely…His breath mingling with yours as he whispers tender words for only you…”

Her body was on fire at the things Morgen described. Some alien part of her was crying out for Kerrigan. Hungry and needful, it scared her senseless.

“Beg for me, Seren.” It wasn’t Morgen’s voice
she heard in her ear. It was Kerrigan’s. “Beg for me to take you.”

“Morgen!” The fierce shout echoed through the silent crowd as Kerrigan ran his sword through Tostig’s poor body, causing Seren to blink for the first time since Morgen had approached her.

Without feeling or compassion for the life he’d just taken, Kerrigan jerked his sword free of Tostig’s chest and paid no heed to the man who fell dead at his feet as he turned to face them.

An instant later, he was before her, his sword and hand coated in bright red blood that matched the vibrancy of Morgen’s dress.

Seren stared up at Kerrigan’s merciless face as Morgen’s images still played through her mind. She could already feel his weight against her body. Feel his touch on her breasts. Feel his cold kiss again.

He looked down at her, and something hot flickered in his black eyes.

She felt his desire for her with the same intensity as she felt her own. He didn’t move, didn’t speak as those eyes penetrated her. Pierced her. It was as if they were the only two people in this room.

Morgen laughed cruelly an instant before she literally ripped the pale blue dress from Seren and exposed her nude body to everyone there. Seren cringed at the sudden rush of cold air against her skin. Still, she was held by Morgen’s spell that left her unable to move. Unable to run from the horror of this moment and escape it.

This was something from her nightmares!

Her face twisted with hatred, Morgen shoved her toward Kerrigan, who caught her against his hard chest. His unyielding armor bit into her flesh and chilled her completely. She wanted to scream at them all, but no sound would leave her throat.

“You would take this poor, haggard creature to your bed?” Morgen asked cruelly. “Are you truly so desperate for a woman, Kerrigan?”

Naked and bared to them all as they laughed at her, Seren was horrified and embarrassed to the deepest part of her soul. She wished she could wither and die right on the spot. But Kerrigan didn’t laugh at her humiliation.

Instead he cursed Morgen before he wrapped himself around her. An instant later, they were gone from the hall, into a room she didn’t know.

Suddenly her body was back under her own control as she collapsed against the man who held her carefully.

Seren screamed as the horror of it all consumed her.

“Shh, Seren,” Kerrigan whispered in her ear as he kept her against his cold body. “All is fine. You are safe now.”

“Nay,” she choked as she shivered. “I have died and gone to hell. Surely, there is no other place this can be.”

She shoved him away from her as her thoughts tumbled over one another in her mind. She struggled to make sense of them all, but her emotions were too raw and exposed as she relived her horror.

“You’re covered in blood,” she said as she noted the way it coated his black armor, reminding her of glaze over a blackened roast. “You ruthlessly killed that poor man, knowing he stood no chance against you. Still you fought him. Killed him for no real reason other than for Morgen’s amusement.” She shook her head as the image of Tostig’s violent death replayed in her mind. “You’re the devil.”

His expression empty and blank, Kerrigan stepped back as a black fur cloak appeared over her naked body. Seren would have cast it off, but she didn’t dare. It was all that saved her dignity, such as it was at the moment.

Kerrigan said nothing as he watched her with those emotionless eyes.

“You don’t deny it?” she accused.

“Nay,” he said quietly. “You are in hell and I am the devil who keeps you here. It is the way of it.”

Her mind screamed out in denial. This couldn’t be happening. “I want to go home.”

He shook his head. “You should have gone with Gawain when you had the chance. ’Tis too late for you now. You chose of your own free will to come with me. With me you will stay until I no longer have need of you.”

Seren swallowed the tears that she refused to cry. She’d been weak enough before them. The time for tears was past.

In that moment, she hated him and all the creatures who dwelled here. “I can’t believe that my entire life will be ruined by one thoughtless mistake.”

He gave an evil half laugh. “We are all damned by our deeds, my lady, whether they are thought out or not.” His eyes turned back to their dull blackness. “You may rest peacefully here. No one will disturb you.”

She looked around the cold, ebony room. Nothing here was inviting or welcoming. It reminded her of a witch’s black pot. “Where is this place that I am safe?”

“My bedchamber.”

As soon as those words were spoken, he dissolved into a cloud of smoke and vanished.

Seren looked around the dark, foreboding room. There was nothing warm here. No fire burned in the hearth. His bed was overlarge, and covered with black furs, but even so, it didn’t appear comfortable. There were no chairs, no table. Nothing. It was large and empty.

Like their hearts.

Aye, they were all monsters. All of them.

“I have to escape,” she whispered. But how? The only way she knew was what Magda had told her.

Did she dare trust one of them?

Did she dare not?

Closing her eyes, Seren tried to wish herself back to her loom. She tried to convince herself that it was all a nightmare, but with each pounding beat of her heart, she realized that it wasn’t a dream. This was her life, and those below fully intended to kill her.

“I won’t let you,” she said aloud to the room.
“Do you hear me? I am Seren of York, apprenticed to Master Rufus of London, and I will not be bested by the likes of you. I—”

Am just a peasant.

Those words ran around her head and taunted her. Mocked her.

Aye, she was a peasant, but she was also a survivor, and she wouldn’t let them best her. Ever. This matter was far from over. She would find her way home no matter what it took.

Kerrigan didn’t dare head back to the throne room. In the mood he was in, he might very well kill Morgen.

Or at least try.

At the end of the day, he knew he could no more kill her than she could kill him. They were at an impasse.

Both immortal. Both powerful.

Both hateful.

But Morgen did have one advantage. She knew the source of his immortality while he knew nothing of hers. He had no clue as to what gave her her powers.

She knew his weakness. And, to borrow an expression from centuries ahead, that pissed him off.

Kerrigan gripped his sword as he materialized on the roof of Camelot. He sat at the highest point so that he could look out into the darkness of this land where he ruled. When he’d first come here, he had been ecstatic with his newfound powers
and with the pleasure and riches Morgen had given him. She had taken him to her bed and had played to every desire he’d ever had.

A callow youth, he’d grown to manhood here, under her callous tutelage.

Morgen had shown him marvels the likes of which he’d never dreamed of. Dragons and gargoyles for his command. Willing whores for his every amusement. Planes that flew over skies filled with buildings that made a mockery of mountains. Magic that could turn them into any beast they chose. And sex so raw and blinding that he’d once feared it would incinerate him.

In those days, he’d been an eager pawn for her.

But those days had long since passed. Somehow he’d grown tired of this realm.

Tired of Morgen and her childishness.

“Why do you wish to rule the world?”
Seren’s voice taunted him from the mist of his mind.

The true answer he’d withheld from her. “Because I am bored with this one.”

There was nothing here except a dissatisfaction that grew daily. That was why Seren was such a fascination to him. She was new. Fresh.

In time she would grow as stale to him as this world. It was the way of things.

“Get the table and kill her,” he breathed. There was no need in wasting his time with any other thought. Like everything else in life, Seren was a pawn to be used and then discarded.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And yet even as those words flitted through his
mind, there was some part of him that argued it. Whatever it was that had chosen her as the mother of a Merlin, it also made her far too appealing to him.

Seren heard something scratching at the door. She sat up on the bed, clutching the fur cloak against her.

“Seren…”

She breathed in relief at the sound of Magda’s voice. Scooting off the bed, she ran to the door, where she splayed her hand against the rough black wood. “Magda?”

“Aye, my lady. Are you all right?”

“Aye.”

“Are you alone?”

She glanced over her shoulder to be sure. “I am. Lord Kerrigan left sometime ago.”

“That is bad, my lady. Do you not remember what I told you about seducing him?”

“I remember.”

“Good. Now listen closely…If you want power over the master, while he sleeps, you must take his sword from him and hide it.”

Seren frowned. That seemed to be most dangerous for her to try. “What say you?”

“Take his sword from him, Seren. Take it and—”

“What are you doing here, Magda?”

Seren tensed as she heard Blaise’s deep, silken voice from the other side of the door.

“I am checking on the lady.”

“Begone, vermin!” Blaise snapped.

Seren struck the door with her hand. “Don’t talk to her like that. She is a good soul.”

“And you are a fool if you believe it.”

Seren tried to open the door, but it didn’t budge. “Where is Lord Kerrigan?” she asked him through the wood.

“Wherever it is he wishes to be.”

She grimaced at his bland tone. “I want out of here. You can’t keep me prisoner.”

“There’s nothing to be done about that, my lady. No one enters or leaves the king’s bedchamber unless he takes them in or brings them out. Not even I can venture there without his permission.”

“Are you his steward then?”

“Nay. I am his servant.”

“How so?”

“Seren?”

She jerked around at the deep familiar voice to find Kerrigan standing behind her. There was an eerie dim light that seemed to have no source that cut across the angles of his handsome face. His black armor held a ghostly glow in the darkness that only seemed to heighten his size and aura of power. Against her will, her gaze dropped to his hip, where the black scabbard held the sword Magda had told her to steal.

Her heart pounded. “I despise the way you just appear without warning.”

He glanced past her, to the door. “Your shift is over, Blaise. You may retire for the night.”

“Thank you, my king.”

She heard Blaise’s footsteps fall away from the door.

Kerrigan spread his hand out and a fire roared to life from the dead coals in his hearth.

She blinked against the sudden brightness, and held her hand to shield her eyes.

“It is late, Seren. You should be asleep.”

Her fur cloak turned into a thick, warm woolen kirtle that was lined with fine silk to protect her skin. She stared in amazement of the pale green color. It was beautiful.

“I will not molest you tonight, Seren. Sleep in peace.”

She lowered her hand to find him staring at her with those penetrating, soulless black eyes. His black hair fell loosely around his wide shoulders and face, tousled as if he’d been in the wind. He held his hand out, and a great black throne magically appeared before the fire.

She shivered at the sight of it and the effortless way he’d conjured it into being. He was intense and omnipotent.