Demon's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) (40 page)

Done.

Bought with pain, heartbreak, loss—and now blood.

Closing his fist around the stinging wound, Mac eyed the mixture with eagerness and repugnance. He lifted the cup to his lips, held his nose, and swallowed all of it without coming up for air.

Placing the cup back upon the table, he walked to the door, where the western sun faded over the churchyard to be lost amid the distant hills.

Closed his eyes.

Waited. For life or death, he knew not.

*   *   *

Shading her face from the lowering sun, Bianca stepped down from the gig. Accepted her bag from the blushing, pimply young man who’d offered her a seat in his conveyance at the coaching inn and spent the next hour talking nonstop to her about his prize herd of Hampshire sheep. Needless to say, it had been a long hour of travel.

But with his departure, the silence took over. An unnatural quiet that held an almost stifling expectancy, as if the very breeze had been chained. Bianca almost wished for the never-ending chatter of her gallant to break the strange calm.

No golden-leaved wood or autumn birdsong this time. Winter gripped the rattling branches of the oaks
standing sentinel around the house and the snow-dusted fields to the west. A small group of cows moved in the straw-covered byre, their warm eyes trained on Bianca as they chewed their chaff. Smoke curled from a chimney into the twilight sky.

“Jory? Marianne?” Hoisting the strap of her leather satchel upon her shoulder, she headed for the house. “It’s Bianca. I’ve come back.”

A tickle between her shoulder blades raised gooseflesh up and down her arms. She paused, a hand upon the kitchen door, her other crushing the satchel’s strap in a clammy fist.

“They’ve all gone to Dorking for the day.”

That voice. That deep, rolling, honey-smooth Irish baritone that shot yearning all the way to her toes.

She turned, swallowing the anxious flutters of fear and excitement bursting up through her chest. Half hoping. Half dreading. Had she been right to come at Marianne’s urging, or would this be the final relen-quishing of dreams she’d nursed through the endless months of searching for Mac without success?

He stood within the shadow of the stillroom doorway. Despite the cold, against which she was bundled in cloak and muffler, he wore naught but a pair of leather breeches, his shirt clasped in his hand. The golden afternoon light picked out every fading scar. Too many to count. His Imnada blood had been the cause of his maiming, but it had also been the only thing that kept him alive after suffering from wounds too terrible for any normal human to survive.

She lifted her eyes to the stark angles of his face, the grim set to his jaw, the prideful light glowing in his green feline eyes. “ ‘If the mountain will not come to
Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain,’ ” she quoted.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I didn’t until Marianne wrote to tell me you’d turned up here a few weeks ago. But for the last three months, I’ve hunted everywhere, Mac. I asked at the Horse Guards. I spoke to David St. Leger. I traveled to Yorkshire to Gray de Coursy’s estate. None knew where you’d gone. Lord Deane and I turned London upside down and found nothing. It’s as if you fell off the face of the earth.”

“I sold my commission. It was for the best. They were happy to be rid of me.”

“And David? Gray? Even Jory? They’d not heard anything from you, either.”

“The work made it impossible.”

“I’m aware of your work, Mac. I’m also aware of the reasons you felt compelled to hide yourself away, but three months without a word? I began to think . . .” She paused to steady her breathing. “Mr. Harris asked me back to take the role of Desdemona in
Othello
. Adam’s murder has finally been eclipsed by a scandal involving a man from East Grinstead with three wives. My notoriety has faded to a few sideways looks and more invitations to dine than I can accept.”

“Congratulations,” he said. “It’s what you wanted.”

“Once, but no longer.” She hated the quaver in her voice, but Mac’s impenetrable gaze pinned her down like a bug under glass. “Or at least, it’s not all I want anymore.”

“You shouldn’t have come, Bianca.”

His words hit her like a punch to the stomach, driving the wind from her body, the hope from her heart.
She gripped her bag like a lifeline, the leather smooth where years of hands had worried it. “Is this why you didn’t write? Because you’ve changed your mind?”

He drew a shuddering breath, the orange disk of the sun picking out hollows beneath his cheekbones, making deep wells of his eyes. His fingers curled to fists, his body taut as a wire. “I feel the same as I ever did,” he said through a clenched jaw, his breathing shallow and quick. “Nothing has changed.”

“Then what?” She glanced at the light seeping between the trees upon the far-off hills, the skies above growing feathery and purple, and the truth dawned on her: “You did it. You finished the draught.”

His chest heaved, a sheen of sweat glistening on his skin, dampening his brow. “I’ve done what I can. It’s up to the goddess now whether my plea is answered.”

She looked from the sun back to him. “But you said the death-bringer . . . you said it was poisonous. You said you didn’t know why it didn’t kill Adam.”

He offered her a wan half smile and a shrug. “I still don’t know, but it’s too late to worry now.”

The bag fell from her shoulder into the dust, her heart banging like a bird against the cage of her ribs, her steps becoming almost a run as she crossed the space between them. “That’s why you didn’t want me to come, why you kept silent for so long: in case it fails. In case you . . . in case you die. Are you mad?”

He braced himself against her advance, though his gaze flickered and he was the first to turn away. “There was nothing for us if I didn’t make the attempt.”

She took him by the arms, wanting to shake him until his teeth rattled. “There is nothing for me if you die trying, you great lummox.”

The sun dipped below the farthest hill, backlighting the heavens, streaming upward into the blue and silver clouds. A flock of crows took flight in a chorus of rushing wings to rise like a black cloud into the sky. A cow’s bell rang low and sad from the nearby byre.

Bianca stared deep into his eyes. Refusing to look away. Refusing to cry. He cupped her face in his hands, lowered his mouth to hers. The heat and the power of his kiss bursting like fireworks against her jagged, paralyzing fear.

She was faintly conscious of the sun diminishing to a fingernail glimmer of gold before it oozed at last beneath the horizon.

The wind picked up, pressing her skirts to her legs, tugging at her bonnet. Branches scraped and a shutter banged. An owl called from the churchyard. But still she stood within Mac’s embrace, his arms like steel around her, his heart beating steadily beneath her palm. The minutes drifted past like the streamers of cloud above. Minutes when no spiraling cataclysm of fire engulfed him. No clawing agonies warped his body against his will.

He remained as he chose. His form unaltered.

Lifting his head, he smiled down at her, his skin golden, his eyes like molten silver. “I still breathe and I still stand. The curse is broken,
mi am’ryath
. It’s finally over.”

She combed her fingers through the crisp hair at his neck, loving the way her body molded into his, the strength in his stance and the desire in his gaze carrying her away on a shimmer of desire. “Something new has just begun.”

*   *   *

They lay in each other’s arms, their cooling bodies still damp, the cresting pleasure of their joining still buzzing within him like the growl of the ocean or the sough of the wind through the high mountain passes.

Moonlight spun the world in silver, great pools of it streaming into the bedchamber. Bianca’s head lay in the crook of Mac’s arm, her white-gold hair spread over the pillow and ribboning his chest, her body as shimmering and pale as the goddess above.

He dropped a kiss upon her temple. “She watches us.”

Bianca propped herself up on an elbow, her skin washed in the luminous silver light, reigniting heat barely banked. “The same goddess lights the holding at Concullum, Mac. It shines upon your family and your clan.” In her deep-blue eyes, a lingering question. “It lights your path home.”

“
Un fieuyn commdedig. Calmmys aeshav,
” he whispered. “So beautiful and so passionate.” He leaned up to kiss her deeply and irrevocably, his scent tangled in her hair, alive on her skin. “I love you, Bianca. For now and forever. And I am already home.”

Glossary of the Imnada

Berenth.
The night of the last quarter moon. This begins the period when the Imnada’s powers to shift at will begin to ebb and it becomes both more difficult and more dangerous.

Bloodline scrolls.
The written history and genealogies created and maintained by the Ossine. These records are used to select mates for the Imnada from the five clans.

Clan mark.
The crescent symbol tattooed on the upper backs of the male members of the Imnada, signifying their full acceptance into the clan upon their majority. Both males and females are also marked mentally with a signum identifying their clan affiliation and holding.

Emnil.
An exile who has been formally sentenced by the Gather and had his clan mark and signum removed and his name erased from the Ossine’s blood-line
scrolls. An
emnil
is considered dead to the clan and his life forfeit if he attempts any contact with a clan member or a return to clan lands.

Enforcer.
The warrior arm of the Ossine whose job it is to track down and eliminate any potential threat to the Imnada.

Fealla Mhòr.
The Great Betrayal: the betrayal and murder of the last king of Other, Arthur, by the Imnada warlord Lucan. This event triggered a vengeful purge of the Imnada by the Fey-bloods, who had always mistrusted and feared the shapechangers.

Fey-bloods.
(slang) Also known as the Other. Men and women who possess the blood and magical powers of the Fey.

Gateway.
The door between earth and the galaxy where the Imnada first originated.

Gather.
The ruling council of the Imnada, consisting of seven members: the chieftains from each of the five clans, the head of the Ossine, and the Duke of Morieux, who is hereditary leader over the five clans.

Idrin the Traveller.
Among the first Imnada to come through the Gateway and settle on Earth. He is considered the father of their race and from his seed the five clans sprang.

Imnada.
A race of shapechangers and telepaths divided into five clans overseen by the ruling Gather.
They wield no magical powers though they are sensitive to its presence and can identify those who possess magic. At first they existed peacefully with the magical race of Other but when the Imnada betrayed King Arthur to his death, they were hunted down in the wars and uprisings that followed. In the ensuing centuries, those who survived grew reclusive and fiercely suspicious of all outsiders to the point that most believe the Imnada no longer exist.

Krythos.
Also known as a far-seeing disk. A notched glass disk about 2.5 inches in diameter. It is used to augment and amplify the Imnada’s natural telepathic abilities over long distances.

Lucan.
Leader of the clans during King Arthur’s reign. He conspired with Morgana, the king’s half sister, to place her son Mordred upon the throne. His betrayal led to Arthur’s murder. He was captured by the Fey for his treachery and imprisoned within the Bear’s Stone for all eternity.

Morderoth.
The night of the new moon when the shift is impossible for the Imnada.

Mother Goddess.
The moon from which the Imnada derive their magical powers.

Ossine.
Shamans and spiritual advisers to the clans, they tend to be the strongest and most powerful of the Imnada. They maintain the bloodline scrolls used for selecting each Imnada mating pair. They protect the Imnada from out-clan interference with their armed
militia of enforcers, and from their ranks is chosen the keeper of Jai Idrish, the Imnada’s most sacred relic and the key to the Gateway.

Other.
See
Fey-blood
.

Out-clan.
Slang for someone who is not a member of the five clans.

Palings.
Magical mists conjured and maintained by the Ossine of each clan. They are used as a natural force field, disguising and shunting people away from the hidden holdings. In recent years, these warded fields have weakened as the clans’ powers have weakened.

Pathing.
Speaking mind to mind. Imnada can use this telepathy to speak to one another over short distances or when they are in their animal aspect. For longer distances, they use the amplifying power of the
krythos
to connect with each other mentally.

Priestesses of High Danu.
An order of Other women devoted to a contemplative life in service and devotion to the gods.