The Witching Hour (The Grim Reaper Saga (Urban Fantasy Romance)) (5 page)

Cian entered the castle gates and immediately he sensed all was not well, it was like a rush of ice down his spine. He scanned the dimly lit corridor noting how the inhabitants shuffled here and there, never glancing up, and unnaturally quiet. An expectant hush filled the stone keep.

He narrowed his eyes, studying the retreating figure of a maid. She didn’t acknowledge him, but he knew she felt his gaze like the press of heated tongs. It was in the way she held her spine stiff, how she walked with an awkward gait. Her mahogany braid, reaching well below her knees, barely moved with her steps. But no matter what, she didn’t turn.

The only eyes that stared back at him came from the skeletal heads affixed to the walls as candelabras. Golden flames flickering inside empty mouths cast strange and undulating shadows down the hall.

 The Morrigan, goddess of strife and war, kept tokens of all her conquests. The leering bones meant nothing to death. He knew all these bones by name and who’d they’d been in a former life, farmer or great hero, it didn’t matter. Now, be they humble or famous, they were resigned to an eternity of being little more than decoration.

At the end of the hall sat The Morrigan’s crowning jewel, Cu Chulainn’s skeletal head dipped in purest gold. In her own fashion the Queen had loved the fearless human warrior, her more eccentric method of preserving his head was proof of that.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the delicious aroma of roasting meats and baking breads. Warriors sat at gnarled oak benches, heads bowed over their chipped bowls of stew. They whispered amongst themselves. Hundreds of voices buzzed in his ears. He could only make out snatches of conversation.

“Live...”

“...death.”

“Foolish...”

He ground his jaw, knowing they spoke of him. Rumor traveled fast, and The Morrigan’s rage was a living entity within every crevice of the castle. It was a choking sensation, stealing the breath and lying heavy on the lungs.

The gray, dank stone echoed with the sounds of his footsteps. He turned a corner and then there was nothing. This portion of the castle was unnaturally empty. Cian glanced down the shifting maze of hallways and doorways, keen to pick up the sound or scent of something. But it was like walking through a mausoleum--desolate and foreboding.

He turned left, right, left; losing count of the many twists and turns he’d taken as he headed deeper within the castle proper, and closer toward the Queen’s chambers.

The uneasy quiet settled within the keep made him intensely aware of the pounding of his heart and tension tightening his back.

He glanced up, studying the flight of The Morrigan’s crows. The red and black banners of the royal court affixed to wooden beams on the ceiling fluttered at the birds passing. The Morrigan rarely sent her crows, preferring instead to use other methods of contact--a clap of thunder, a whisper in the wind. She saved her crows only for the direst of circumstances. He knew then. And if he were honest a small part of him had expected this. They’d laid a trap. The unnatural stillness of a bustling, active castle could mean only one thing.

He ground his jaw, tightening his hands into fists by his sides. She’d sent the nobles away--anyone who might have contested whatever tender mercies she had in store for him, would be gone. Somehow the goddess had foreseen his return and had made the necessary arrangements of turning a crowded castle into a veritable haunt.

Cian would not be allowed to approach her as a man, she’d force humiliation upon him, perhaps even a beating by her guards, and likely he’d be dragged to her torture chamber below. All of the kingdom would know of this by now. He clenched his jaw. If she expected him to grovel she could not be more wrong.

Polished doors of silver grew from a mere speck in the distance to large arches the closer he drew to the royals’ private chambers. The ground beneath his feet shifted, a vibration traveled up his soles as if from the pounding of several trampling feet.

How many had she sent?

Then he saw them, twenty of her most experienced guards, marching to block off the entrance to her room. Their steps were unified and absurdly beautiful in its precision. The lead guard, dressed in a tunic of burnished bronze and buffed brown leather, halted the procession by lifting his fist into the air, and as one, the group turned on their heels, all done in absolute silence.

They extended their spears, and like a coordinated ballet, slammed the ends onto the floor with snapping force. The sound of metal slapping stone reverberated through the room like gunfire. Austere faces gazed at him without emotion.

The Morrigan’s pretentious show of force and power nauseated him. It wasn’t enough for her that she command the most lethal, and loyal, battalion in all of faedom, but she couldn’t resist trying to prove her superiority even to death.

He stopped, eyeing the guards. It would be so easy to take them for granted. They appeared fragile, and too lean by half. Each had hair tied back at the nape in a severe queue. Their delicate features made them look weak, effeminate.

But they were lethal and always deadly, thanks to the sword attached to their dun colored scabbards. Resting within the hilt of each sword was a red stone.
Mereth en draugrim
: Feast of the wolves.

One knick from the blade and the victim went instantly mad--beginning to crave such things as bloody meat, marrow from bones. It was a sickness that only overcame the sufferers when the moon grew pregnant with light. The truth of the Weres was that they were the original creation of the fae.

Biting now spread the disease, and so the younger Weres had no knowledge of the truth. The ancients of course knew, but had always kept the secret for reasons of their own.    

Cian had no fear the guards planned to use the swords on him, but the threat was redolent in the air.  

“Grim reaper,” Cahal the lead guard, intoned in a deep, barrel chested voice.

His nostrils flared. She had to know the force was unnecessary. Red-hot heat snapped down his spine, turned his blood to molten lava. A tightness centered in his chest, the dread and hatred he’d harbored in his soul, awoke from its slumber.

“Let me pass, Cahal. I only wish to speak with the Queen,” he said, his words edged in steel.

Cahal lifted a snow-white brow as a glitter of antipathy flared through his ice-blue eyes. “Absolutely not.”

“Morrigan!” Cian yelled, knowing he was only multiplying the beating by refusing to come groveling to her heels, begging her forgiveness. But he no longer cared.

Cahal hooked his arm through Cian’s. Cian turned on his heel and slammed his palm against Cahal’s cheek. More guards jumped on Cian.

Fingers clawed into his flesh. Nails drew blood. He swung his fists, his feet, and yelled. “Craven whore,” he bellowed, praying the goddess would hear him. “Hiding behind your dogs. Meet me!”

Bodies slammed into his back, bringing him to his knees under the weight choking the air from his lungs. But the adrenaline was spiking, adding a ferocity to his attack that bordered on madness.

Cian writhed. This was a fury he’d suppressed for far too long. The indifference and hostility of the righteous fae toward his kind, the indignity of being called “dog” or worse yet, not being called anything at all, had the boiling hatred festering over.

Snapping of bones. Quick grunts of breath being released. The muffled noise of flesh striking flesh. It was a song in his ears, he grinned as he felt the of blood (his own, theirs, he had no idea) slid down his face.

He grabbed two heads and knocked them together. The dull sound was sickening as the bones crumpled against the other. A boot slammed into his face. His nose rammed up through his skull.

Then more feet connected, busting in his teeth, his cheeks. He was on the ground now, face down and being crushed under the pressure of a blanket of bodies. They slammed sword hilts into his face; the explosion of razor sharp pain inside his brain was immediate and excruciating. He hissed, finally blacking out as one connected with his temple.

Blessed oblivion.

***

Badb and Nemain returned, gliding toward The Morrigan. They landed on either end of her throne and cawed.

She caressed the thick rope of leather in her hand. “Is Cian shackled in the chambers below?” 

She’d heard all the words the fool had spat as he’d fought with her guards. He’d pay for the remarks with blood--bright, crimson, and overflowing.

Nemain blinked her ruby red eyes.

“Good.” The Morrigan’s strode toward the hallway. Her fingers twitched with anticipation. Her obsidian gown tightened at the chest with the excited rise of her breathing.

“Be well, Chaos,” Dagda called after her.

She turned and nodded toward her scheming consort. His eyes gleamed differing shades of gold and black. A smile cut his features, the white of his teeth in sharp contrast to the natural tan of his flesh. With a final snarl, The Morrigan turned on her heels and proceeded toward the rack room.

Dagda was keeping secrets. He never involved himself in her affairs. Now twice he’d done so.

Anger sizzled through her veins. She cracked the whip against her thigh in agitation. The burst of pain exquisite, and she grinned.

Hundreds of flickering torches lit the winding stairway of stone. Thin jets of light cut through the shadow at intermittent spaces. The gloomy, dank path had been designed with purpose--to create a sense of panic, of fear, to increase the heart rate into a pounding melody of terror. There wasn’t much that could scare an immortal centuries old. Nothing that is, except the rotten stench of dried blood, torn flesh of their kith, and knowing they’d soon be next. She bit her lip, her fury increasing with each step she took.

Finally, three flights down and in the darkest corridor of the castle, she arrived at the rack room. Two guards with crossed sickles stood before the door.

Her lips twitched at the sight of Cahal. One eye was beginning to swell with an overflow of blood. The white of his eye, now a shocking sea of busted blood vessels. She loved death. They were a lethal predator.

Cahal’s good eye was a startling blue in contrast. He remained aloof, but she could tell by the pounding of a vein in his neck that he was agitated by her cold perusal. A thrum of electrical pleasure hummed through her veins, she vibrated with the beginnings of blood lust and reached out a hand to caress the side of Cahal’s face.

He shivered under her touch, and leaned in just slightly. A perfect teardrop of blood slid from the corner of his eye onto her pinky finger. She held it up to her nose, inhaling the scent of autumn leaves. Excitement quickened her pulse, and with a delicate flick of her tongue she lapped up the drop. The sweet taste filled her mouth.

“Cahal,” she said with a husky tenor, “you are truly a prize to be savored.”

He closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling with breathless wonder. The redolent musk of his pride filled the air with the thick scent of turning leaves and sweet apple cider.

A feral need for more blood ripped through her. “Leave me now," she growled, wanting to save the fire of her madness for Cian.

“My Queen,” they said in unison, and not with a small amount of relief. As one they turned and marched off with exact precision.

She opened the door. Cian was shackled to the wall with his back toward her. A sliver of light fell across the sculpted beauty of his body. He shifted, and the locks of his long hair swished down his thighs in waves. Alternating strands of polished sable and ivory gleamed with unholy light. The long, hard lines of his body flexed with his movement.

“What are you waiting for?” His voice was like fine whiskey. Smooth, hot, and raw.

She narrowed her eyes, excited by the rising fury rolling through his veins, and walked up to him with cat-like precision. Already the taste of Cahal was making her crave more, crave death itself. She trailed the grip of her whip against his back, the itch flowing through her for the sight of his blood. “You know what you’re here for, don’t you?”

His body tensed, and
the rigid cording of his back flexed as he turned his head to glare at her. The midnight blue of his eyes turned black with rage.

That was when she finally got a good look at his face. His face was a bruised mess. His jaw nearly twice it’s normal size. Blood already covered his chin, and long gouges ran the length of both cheeks. She chortled, and grabbing his jaw, squeezed tight.

“Such tough words,” she spat. “I’ll enjoy making you beg for mercy.”

“You’ll have none from me,” he said low and menacing. He narrowed his eyes and his face twisted into a frightful mask of arrogance and fury. The look was enough to quell many, but not her. Not the Goddess of battle and strife. The Morrigan fed off rage; she lived for it. She inhaled the heady scent of his wrath and gave him a hungry smile.

“You’ve disappointed me, Cian.”

His jaw hardened. “That was never my intent. She is meant to live. Do not harm the mortal.”

She slapped him across the cheek. The power of the blow forced his head to crack against the wall. “How dare you make demands to me!”

He studied her like a predator ready for the kill. Silent, and with an undercurrent of lethal power.

For answer he spat by her foot. The sight of the crimson streaked saliva made the barely suppressed blood lust rise to the surface.

“Oh, my death. That was most unwise.”

The Morrigan stepped back and snapped the whip through the air. Its shrill sound like the crack of thunder. Cian never flinched. She threw her head back and laughed. “You were always my best. So heartless, so perfect.”

Then she struck him. The metal tips at the end of the cat o’ nine tails tore into him. When she pulled back, chunks of flesh flew through the air. Thick crimson spilled down his back.

Cian’s fists clenched, his body went stiff. Tremors traveled the length of his legs. The Morrigan licked the blood that settled against her lip. Its sweet, metallic taste only made her want it more.

His blood was the sweetest of all. It wasn’t just scent, it was memory. The memory of every soul he’d taken was within each drop. She relived it all through him and couldn’t contain the rushing need for more. He was death, life, and power, and she wanted it all.