Warrior's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) (6 page)

“Besides,” he added, “you’re just being dramatic. It’s not like I’m packing you off to Outer Mongolia. You’ll be comfortable with David and Callista.”

“I was comfortable here.”

“This is a bachelor household. You can’t stay and you know it.”

“You sound just like your grandfather. He spent so much time among the humans, he began to think like them. The Imnada might live within the human world, but we will never be part of it.” Her expression dared him to argue.

He chose a middle course. “We may not be a part of it, but a large element of hiding is blending into your surroundings. In our case, it means single females do not stay with single males.”

“I spent last night in this den of male iniquity and lightning didn’t strike me down.”

“Last night was an exception. I couldn’t very well throw you out in naught but a robe and tell you to fend for yourself.”

“No? You sound as if you contemplated it.”

Actually, he’d spent half the night lying awake and staring at the ceiling until frustration and disgust had dragged him from his bed, drenched with sweat and hard as a rock, to spend himself with the help of his right hand and a convenient chamber pot. The debilitating pain of the draught’s withdrawal had almost been a relief. At least it gave him something else to focus on besides his out-of-control libido. He had left Deepings . . . and Meeryn . . . behind for sound reasons. Reasons that remained despite the years that had passed. Now, if he could just convince his undisciplined body of his mind’s estimable logic, he might be able to pass five minutes without the wild need to drag her against the wall and pleasure her senseless.

She lifted her chin in typical Meeryn challenge. A chin he desperately wanted to kiss right now. “If you must know, it’s been a long time since I was a simpering maiden who needed her virginity protected.”

By now he’d reclaimed a mantle of gentlemanly detachment and was able to react with barely the flicker of an eyelid, though his gut cramped and he had to work to keep his hands from fisting at his side. “I can’t imagine you ever simpered. But the rest doesn’t surprise me. You’re what . . . twenty-six . . . twenty-seven . . . a bit old to remain untouched, though I find it hard to believe the Ossine have let you continue so long unwed. The ward of the Morieux and close kin to The Skaarsgard would be a coup for any man.”

She gave a flippant roll of her eyes. “Just what every woman aspires to, I’m sure.”

“Did you expect more?”

“I expected . . .” She caught back her words behind pressed lips and an unsteady breath. “I didn’t wish to marry at first, and later, when the duke grew ill, any decision on matrimony was indefinitely postponed.”

“Not married, but there was someone . . .” he fished, though maintaining a façade of disinterest was nearly killing him.

She offered him a dark stare. “Does it matter? He died a very long time ago.” She returned to her packing, such as it was for someone who’d only unpacked this morning. “Now, can we discuss my departure, or better yet, yours? Sir Dromon’s not known for his patience. Any delay might change his mind and this chance for peace would be lost.”

“Do you want peace for my sake . . . or his?”

“Peace is peace. We all win.” Her ferocity dimmed. “I know you think this is some kind of scheme to lure you back to the holding, but it’s not. His Grace has a few weeks left at most. Once he’s gone, whatever happens among the clans will happen. I understand that.
But this might be your last chance to make up with your grandfather. Can you really let the opportunity slip through your fingers without even trying?”

Was he a fool to trust her with his life? Was David right that desperation caused him to ignore the danger? Questions continued to dog him, but in the end he focused on the most important; did it matter? Meeryn was his only hope of getting close to Jai Idrish. Vigilance and caution would be his watchwords, but he’d no other choice except to risk it all on this one throw of the dice. And pray he could keep his cock in his pants while he was around her.

“I’ll go—”

“You can send me away, shove me off onto your friends, but I’m not leaving London without you and that’s final.”

“You win.”

“I’m just as muleheaded as . . . what did you say?”

“I said I’ll go with you to Deepings. I’ll sit down with Sir Dromon. I’ll make my peace with Grandfather.”

Barely had the words left his lips than she flung herself at him. “Gray!” she cried, her arms circling his neck in something akin to a choke hold. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

Her hug caught him off guard. Her kiss knocked him sideways.

His breathing stopped for that one amazing moment her lips moved soft over his mouth, her arms pulled him close, and her body fit against his like a missing puzzle piece. Then it was over, she was dancing away as if it had never happened, and he was left adrift, alone, and very, very aroused.

What he would give for a fist to the jaw.

Rain drummed on the coach, seeping in through every crack and crevice, one very irritating drip in the roof forming a puddle at her feet. Mud sucked at the wheels, slowing their pace to a crawl, turning a few days’ travel into an ordeal resembling a Greek odyssey. Had it been two days since they’d left London? Three? A month? Meeryn had lost track. She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, sighed, opened them again to look out on the soggy gray landscape and wish for the hundredth time that horses had wings. At this rate, they might never reach Deepings. Or if they did, they’d be moss-covered and pruny as raisins.

“Why don’t you try reading? It might help.”

She shot a withering look at Gray, who balanced a writing desk on his lap, somehow managing to scratch a letter without either dribbling the ink or smearing it in impossibly unintelligible lines. “I saw your library,” she griped. “Not a book there was less than five hundred years old, didn’t smell like curdled milk, or was the least bit interesting.”

She waited for a smile that never appeared, but at least amusement glimmered in his eyes and his lips twitched encouragingly. She swallowed, recalling for the hundredth time since departing London, and in excruciating detail, the way those lips felt upon hers. The startled, then ardent, exploration of his mouth, the strength in his arms as he’d drawn her close, the point where cautious became commanding.

What on earth had she been thinking to fling herself at Gray? It was as if another person had taken over her body. A humiliating fool of a person who leapt into men’s arms and planted great sloppy kisses on them. She might know a man’s touch, but she’d never been a whore.

Thanks be to the Mother, she’d come to her senses in time, playing it as if it had been no more than the act of a heedless, giddy girl. He’d never know how close she came to surrendering to that sweep of unexpected heat pooling in her belly and between her legs. How much his touch still meant after all the lost years between them.

“I apologize for the lack of torrid romances, but this one might pique your curiosity.” Gray reached into a satchel at his feet and pulled out an enormous book hinged and clasped in tarnished brass. “It’s a collection of stories from King Arthur’s reign, written in the sixteenth century by a bandraoi priestess of High Danu.”

Pulled back to the present, Meeryn accepted the book with a wrinkle of her nose. This volume possessed the aroma of curdled milk
and
old cheese. Lovely. “Let me guess—the Imnada are depicted as demons who ate babies and deflowered virgins until
the valiant Fey-bloods rid the world of their filth in a blaze of righteous glory.”

His humor vanished, eyes flat and impenetrable, giving nothing away. “She does a lovely job of describing weather.”

“I’ll bypass the pleasure if you don’t mind.” She knew she was being whiny and difficult. She couldn’t seem to help herself. She’d not realized how unsettling it would be to see Gray again, or how easily his presence would unlock old childhood dreams from the buried places in her memory.

She turned back to the window and her dreary rain-washed view. A sodden cornfield, a farmer bundled to the eyebrows in mackintosh wading along the verge, a flock of ducks skimming low to land in a farmer’s pond. But all the while she remained oh-so-uncomfortably aware of him across from her; the scratch of his pen, the scent of his soap, the stern line of his profile.

Gray had gone away to war starry-eyed and scrawny. He’d come home with an athlete’s muscled body and an uncomfortably perceptive gaze. He’d never be handsome in the classical sense; his features taken one at a time were only ordinary—cheekbones high and sharp, a wide mouth and full sensuous lips, intelligent blue eyes beneath swooping dark brows. But all together, they became startling in their intensity, fascinating every eye, drawing all attention. He was a man one ignored with difficulty and dismissed at one’s own peril.

And then there was that kiss . . . that dratted kiss . . . It hung between them like a poised sword. Did he think her shameless? Wanton? Barely adequate?

The walls of the carriage seemed to close around her; the air grew thick in her lungs, the damp clung to her skin. Every jut of the coach irritated her. Every scratch of Gray’s pen made her grit her teeth. She needed to escape. From Gray. From her reckless thoughts. Lose herself in her aspect where instinct took over and painful regrets and unwanted feelings could be outrun. She straightened with sudden inspiration. “We’ve been stuck inside for days. What if we instructed the coach to go on without us while we took a quicker mode of travel?”

He followed the track of her gaze. “You want to shift? I doubt mouse would be much faster.”

She waved off his sarcasm. “Mouse worked to get me into your house unseen, but I was thinking more of, say”—she tilted a winning smile his direction—“eagle?”

“Ahh, still lording your ability to flux over me, are you? How little has changed in the past ten years.”

“Can I help it if I’m unbound by clan aspect and able to assume any form?”

“No, but you don’t have to rub it in.”

She gave a nod toward the coach door. “So, what say you? Stretch our legs and spread our wings for a few miles?”

Gray’s brows lowered, his gaze locked on the scene beyond the glass; though Meeryn had the impression he saw none of it, his thoughts turned far inward. His thumb ran idly up and down the spine of the book he held, his jaw hard with some unknown emotion. “We’ll keep to the road and leave the skies to the ducks.”

“Gray . . .” she began, but he interrupted with a curt, “It’s safer.”

“Pryor has guaranteed your safety. No Ossine enforcer will go against his orders.”

“Perhaps not.” He rolled his cane back and forth between loose fingers. “But I learned through five years of war not to look for trouble. It would find me easily enough without the bother. The same premise holds now. Pryor might seek out a reconciliation, but I don’t fool myself into believing he wouldn’t be relieved if I conveniently disappeared.”

“Then why did you agree to come with me? If you’re right, I’d say that’s searching out heaps of trouble.”

A touch of some expression passed across his face and was gone before she could identify it. Excitement? Desperation? “To make my peace with the duke,” he replied. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

She studied him, wishing she might read the truth behind his words, but the ability to see another’s thoughts was rare among the Imnada. Not even the immense power of Jai Idrish offered her that gift. “I just can’t help wondering . . .”

“What’s that?”

“What your real purpose is?”

This time he did smile, a cool humorless twist of his mouth that made her shiver. “Read the book. The answer’s clear as day.”

*  *  *

“It’s as the lady N’thuil spoke, sir. His Grace lies ill and close to death in his chambers at Deepings. They don’t expect him to live to the end of the month.” Zeb Doule’s gaze darted around the crowded smoky tavern as if he expected Ossine enforcers to leap through the
windows, swords brandished to skewer him where he stood polishing glasses at the bar.

Gray had hesitated over his decision to meet with the clansman, but he needed information, and Doule, whose brother worked as a groom in the Deepings stables, was a perfect conduit. The more Gray knew about the goings-on at Deepings and the holding, the better he might prepare himself.

He’d waited until almost midnight, when Meeryn would surely be asleep, to sneak out of his room at the posting inn, walk the short distance to this seedy, out-of-the-way tavern, and ask for Doule. The barman had skulked out of the back, his face draining of color when he caught sight of his visitor. It had taken two ales and a cider before he recovered enough to answer Gray’s questions without stammering or ducking at every loud noise. Unfortunately, the impulse to tug at his forelock at odd intervals continued to be disconcerting.

“What of Pryor?” Gray sipped at his ale, a rancid brew that reminded him all too much of the sickly viscosity of the Fey draught.

“He’s closeted with the duke mostly. But they say he’s starting to fret. Looking less dapper than his usual self as if he’s worried over happenings. Rumors are flying, and it seems like a power struggle is inevitable. Some say The Skaarsgard plans to ride south from his islands as soon as the duke breathes his last. Others are saying Glynjohns is hungry for the Duke of Morieux’s power and he’s got ties to the dukedom through his wife.” Doule’s throat worked nervously, and he hunched closer, his voice dropping an octave until Gray could barely hear him over the din of the tavern’s rowdier customers. “Last week, the Ossine
trapped three of us in a house in Ashburton. Me and another man got away, but they murdered the families, babes and all, before they strung up the third fellow with a stake through his chest.” He used the cloth in his hand to wipe the sweat beading across his brow. “I’d not go to Deepings if I were you. It’s too dangerous. The enforcers would snatch you up faster than a fly on a cake. They’ll stake you. Stake you and leave you to die in the dirt. I’ve told my brother to get out but he won’t. Says he’s got to stay, but it’s a risk.”