Warrior's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) (5 page)

“She may not hold to any particular cause, but she’s loyal . . . to me.”

Mac and David exchanged looks that spoke paragraphs, but it was David—naturally—who took the bull by the horns. “Care to enlighten two old friends as to the origin of this constancy?”

“No,” Gray replied coolly, hoping they would take the hint. He’d not the stamina to fight off their gadflying much longer.

“Your discretion does you credit. I just hope you’re not placing trust in the wrong woman.”

Gray accepted Mac’s warning, but it was far too
late for half measures and faint hearts. His association with Lady Delia was necessary. He’d not second-guess himself now.

“If you have the disks, why travel to Deepings?” Mac asked, injecting reason back into the conversation.

“The Fey-blood sorcerer D’espe meant to kill us outright for the Charleroi massacre. Instead our Imnada blood twisted his magic into a corrosive twining of disparate powers that became the curse we suffer. Only by bringing those two forces back together can we unravel the separate threads until they fall away, leaving us free. The Keys of Gylferion, wrought to imprison Lucan in the Unseelie between, are the same twist of Fey and Imnada powers. Bring them together, strike a spark, and the curse will explode.”

“And the spark lies in Deepings?” David asked.

“Jai Idrish.” Mac’s eyes widened in sudden understanding.

Gray nodded. “Just so. Jai Idrish is the only thing that even comes close to possessing as much innate power as the true Fey. If I can harness the forces locked within the crystal, I should be able to not only separate but completely sever the knotted threads of Fey and Imnada magic binding us to the curse.”

“Right, so two years hunting down this knowledge, and the moment you discover this gem of a revelation, the new N’thuil shows up on your doorstep in the middle of the night inviting you to Deepings. What a bleeding coincidence!”

“Do I sense sarcasm, St. Leger?”

“I hope you sense a damned trap.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Think? Hell, I fucking know it’s one.”

“And Meeryn? Where does she fall in this setup of yours?” Gray asked. He’d known from the outset that David would be the hardest to convince. He’d always been a suspicious cynic with a scoundrel’s heart and a killer’s instincts.

He gave a disbelieving snort and poured himself another whisky. “I don’t know—Dromon’s patsy or Dromon’s stooge. Does her guilt or innocence matter when you’re facing a stake to the heart? You’ll be dead either way.”

“It matters to me,” Gray replied.

“No,
she
matters to you. You still think of her as the girl you played Knights and Maidens with when you were children, but ten years is a hell of a long time. People change in such a span. Hell, we’re prime examples, aren’t we?”

He couldn’t argue with David’s logic. The same questions had occurred to him in an endless loop of what-ifs, leaving him with no clear answers and a head that pounded like a drum. But one question had overridden them all: What happened if he didn’t go? And the answer was as obvious as Mac’s haggard features and David’s continuing bitterness. The curse—and the dark Fey-blood who’d cast it—would win. They’d be dead. And the clans would fail.

Both were only a matter of time.

He caught himself scratching his bandaged palm once again. Turned it into a slow running of his finger over the seam of the cloth, tracing the latest slide of his knife, the turning of the screw. “I can take care of myself, David. And there are those within the Palings I can call on if need be.”

“You’re going back no matter what we say, aren’t you?”

“I don’t have a choice. This could be our last chance. To break the curse. To unite the clans. To broker a peace that will allow the Imnada not just to exist, but to thrive.”

David threw up his hands. “Fine. Go. But be careful.”

“That’s usually my line.” Gray tried to laugh off his worry, but David remained tight-lipped, his shoulders braced as if preparing for a fight.

“You’re right, and that alone should be enough to give you pause.”

Gray took a breath, let it out slowly, and nodded. “I’ll be with Meeryn.”

Mac’s face hardened, lines grooved deep to either side of his moth, brows low. “So you shall. But in this rare instance I agree with David—be very careful.”

*  *  *

“The boy never sleeps. I’m fortunate if I can get forty-five minutes together before he’s up and squalling. Mac fell asleep putting on his boots last week, and I spooned salt in my tea this morning. We’re both exhausted.”

“What of the nurse you hired?”

“We let her go. I came home from the theater to find Declan screaming in his cot while Nurse Buntless read a Minerva horror with rags stuck in her ears.”

“Oh dear.”

“I love him dearly, but what I wouldn’t give for eight full hours unconscious in my bed.”

“Just what every husband wants to hear.”

“Sad to say, but Mac’s as desperate for sleep as I am. Last week, we both dozed off halfway through . . . I woke up later with his . . . and he . . . let’s just say it wasn’t my finest performance.”

Meeryn watched the two women sitting on a bench beneath a spreading chestnut tree, blond head and dark bent close together as they chatted. Bianca Flannery’s regal beauty was as awe-inspiring as her cool blue stare, while Callista St. Leger’s dark sparkling eyes and kindly features invited sisterly confidences and bright laughter. Or would have, had she been anything but Fey-blood. Instead her magic tingled cold against Meeryn’s skin and prickled at the base of her brain like a static charge. At least Bianca Flannery seemed no more than human, though even that unmagical race possessed the potential for danger through sheer numbers alone. They’d squeeze the Imnada out of existence and never even realize they were doing it.

But it was the baby lying on a blanket on the grass that drew Meeryn’s attention like a lodestone upon a string. He wore a gown of white muslin, a bonnet covering his black curls. Tiny fists pumped the air as he squirmed, his face purpling with frustration.

“How old is he?”

Bianca looked up with a tired smile. “Seven weeks.”

“I thought Gray said you were married in February.”

“Yes, well . . . don’t count too closely.”

“At least you were married in time for your confinement.”

“Only after some heavy persuading, and the threat of a fry pan to the head. Still, it’s all come right in the end, I suppose.” Bianca’s eyes held a strain she sought
to hide behind a sunny expression. “Mac says it’s different among the clans. That relations between men and women are . . . more open.”

“In some ways. Marriage is controlled completely by the Ossine who oversee the bloodline scrolls. The shamans find the most advantageous pairing for each clan member, and unsanctioned unions are forbidden. But beyond marriage, we’re free to take our pleasure where we find it, and Imnada women are adept at avoiding unwanted consequences.”

“A handy trait, that.”

“It can be unless you . . . slip up.”

“Come into the family way?”

“No. Think oneself in love.”

She shook off her memories. Shoved Conal’s face back down in the dark where it had lived for six perfectly comfortable years. Unfortunately, this visit had dislodged all sorts of disconcerting insights. She’d felt so sophisticated taking Conal McIlroy into her bed, seen it as a mark of her blossoming adulthood and a way to finally prove her maturity to those (namely the duke) who would keep her a child forever. Their time together had been brief but glorious. Sweet memories made while painful ones faded. When the young Viyachne clansman had ridden out of Deepings three years later in disgrace, she’d assumed that her life would end and her heart would break.

Surprisingly enough, neither event occurred.

She’d neither seen nor heard from Conal again, and only learned of his death by chance. By then her youthful adoration had faded, but her grief had been real, and his face and his kiss she carried with her to this day. His knife she carried strapped to her thigh.

“May I?” she asked with a nod toward the baby.

“Of course. He’s building to a crescendo, though, so feel free to hand him off if he becomes too much.”

Meeryn scooped up the sturdy little boy. She breathed in the clean powdery scent of his skin and nuzzled the downy softness of his hair. Immediately, she felt her shoulders uncurl from around her ears, her muscles relax, and her heart rate slow.

Cooing a favorite lullaby, Meeryn cradled young Flannery as his fingers curled around her thumb and held tight. Thick black lashes fringed deep blue eyes, and his bow of a mouth pursed in a bubbly grimace.

His eyes shut, and an ear-shattering wail sent birds scattering from the trees and a rabbit dodging for cover under a log. Instinctively, Meeryn reached out with the lightest of mental touches, wrapping the little boy in soothing waves of calming energy. Found herself recoiling with a small cry of shock at the Imnada power dancing across the surface of the child’s mind like flickers from a thousand stars. Unless she’d interpreted the signs incorrectly, this child would grow up with the ability to shift and the talent to path like other Imnada.

But how? Every Ossine teaching asserted that this was impossible; that only by exact and approved pairings would the Imnada race continue. She reached out once more, easing her way along the child’s consciousness, feeling the innate pathways and nascent connections. Every sense bristled with the rightness of what she was feeling. It might be years before his power manifested himself, but even now it shone bright as a flame in the night, a promise for the future.

She should be appalled by this unmarked half-breed and furious with Captain Flannery for marrying
an out-clan. Instead affection oozed its way through her insides for this sweet innocent whose very mixed-race existence was an impossibility. And a hope.

“You have the motherly touch,” Bianca said. “I wish I could hire you.”

Meeryn realized that the boy’s eyes had fluttered closed, his body limp as he drifted into sleep. “He’s beautiful.”

“He is, isn’t he? He’ll be handsome as his father when he’s grown.”

And bear the heart of the panther like his father as well
, Meeryn thought, though she didn’t say it. She needed to look into this further before she spoke her discovery aloud, and she knew exactly with whom she needed to speak. It would be the first thing she did upon returning to Deepings.

“Gray says the two of you grew up together.” Callista St. Leger broke into the whirlwind of Meeryn’s thoughts, her gold-flecked gaze curious. “Was he always so solemn?”

“Not solemn exactly.” Meeryn knelt slowly onto the blanket, trying not to wake Declan, enjoying the sweet weight of his body as he nestled against her. “But thoughtful. Quiet. Gray was a dreamer. He’d go off for days alone in the wilds around Deepings or closet himself in the library poring over books until his eyes crossed. His vagueness drove the duke mad.”

“Poor Gray. It sounds like his grandfather and he never saw eye to eye, not even when he was small.”

“His Grace wanted Gray to be strong, to know how to fight, to be able to defend himself, to be able to defend the clans. Instructors were brought in to train him in all the manly arts. They worked him until he
dropped from exhaustion. He hated every minute of it, but he did all his grandfather asked without complaint. I suppose I wouldn’t call him solemn so much as stoic.”

“It must have done the trick. David says Gray’s the best marksman he’s ever seen and one of the dirtiest fighters with dirk and sword.”

“Second best.” Meeryn smirked.

*  *  *

Gray paused in the bedchamber doorway, taking a moment to watch Meeryn as she packed a few last stray items into her valise. She paused, stretched, pushed her hair from her face, and fanned herself. It
was
bloody hot up here. No breeze stirred the curtains or blew clear the rancid odors of London in late summer, and the air hung stale with heat. Wilted curls escaped Meeryn’s chignon, while her light muslin gown clung damp and revealing against every feminine curve. A bead of sweat trickled down her neck, following the ridge of her spine as it slid into the collar of her gown. Gray found himself staring, nerves jumping, throat dry.

At least she’d changed out of his dressing robe and into proper attire once the footman fetched her bag early this morning. Now, perfectly buttoned, pinned, primped, and coiffed, she could be mistaken for any affluent London gentlewoman. Nothing to distinguish her Imnada blood but the sinuous grace of her movements, the porcelain delicacy of her features . . .

“I can feel your eyes drilling into my back, Gray. Have you come to assure yourself I’m not stuffing de Coursy valuables down my dress before you shove me out the door?”

. . . and her preternaturally acute senses.

She spun on her heel, eyes glittering with bravado. “Care to check?”

A part of him imagined calling her bluff. Pushing her back against the wall to skim his hand deep into the collar of her gown, cupping the firm weight of her breasts, caressing the buds of her nipples until they hardened with arousal and he smelled the musky scent of desire on her skin.

Another part of him imagined her taking a knee to his groin, a fist to his jaw, and a knife to his ribs. A far more likely outcome. She’d never been one to suffer fools gladly, and that would be about the most foolish thing he could do, for more reasons than he could count.

Straightening from his perch against the door, he strolled into the room, eyes carefully shuttered, pose perfectly controlled. “Tempting, but I like my nose just where it is, thank you. And I already bear a scar with your name on it.” He touched a finger to a faded reminder of her wrath at the edge of his mouth.

He needed to get a grip. Despite Lady Delia’s outrageous claims of women falling all over themselves for his favors, he’d been sadly lacking in that regard for longer than he cared to admit. Mistresses took proper care and feeding, and he’d never had the patience such neediness required. On the other hand, indulging in a quick back-alley coupling for the price of a few coins and his self-respect didn’t appeal either.