Alexa Egan - Shadow’s Curse

He glanced once more to the window to see that night had truly fallen, not even a glimmer of orange to brighten the purple, star-shot sky. Stared down at the table, flinching only slightly at the stump on his right hand. The maiming played havoc with his handwriting and his table manners would need some adjusting, but it wasn’t the loss of a finger or the aches in his wrist or even the piratical scar down his cheek that gripped him immobile in his chair. It was the untouched cup of rancid Fey-born brew infused with his blood. A potent blend of Imnada power and Other magic; two forces wholly opposed and always at war. No wonder the draught killed him and saved him at the same time.

He’d not taken it in two weeks. By now he should be retching his guts up, his entire body one exposed nerve as the curse tore through him like shrapnel. Sunset. Sunrise. The days marked off by the forced shift as his body morphed from man to wolf against his will while he screamed.

Two weeks. Nothing. He remained healthy. He remained in control.

He remained completely and incurably confused.

He ran a hand through his hair. Rubbed at the back of his neck. “I don’t understand.”

“You died.”

He peered over his shoulder at Badb, who’d materialized in the cheerless garret, her shift of feathers rustling as she crossed the floor, her naked body lithe as a willow.

“The MacDonalds should get a cat,” he groused.

She laughed, her snapping black eyes alive with mischief. “You seek answers. I bring them. You died, St. Leger. You went into death. And death took you.”

“Then spat me out again, no thanks to Deirdre Armstrong.” He rose to pour himself a glass of wine. Only one. The rage had left him. And for some reason, loss left no room for drink.

Badb crossed to his side to lay a hand on his arm. “The necromancer pulled you free from the paths. You should be grateful. The door to death—”

“Only opens from the outside, I know. But what’s that to do with the draught and the curse and why I feel . . . good.”

She frowned, tossing her cap of curls. “So dense, you are. The answer stares you in the face. You died, and so, too, did the curse. It ended with your death as the spell was originally wrought. Though I doubt that the Other who cast it intended such a flouting of his purpose.”

“So, that’s it? The spell is broken just like that? No more draught? No more shift? No more . . .” Wine forgotten, he dropped into a chair, staring unseeing in a haze of amazement.

“You are not dying, shapechanger. You are reborn. New. Cleansed of the curse. Free of its taint.”

He held up his mangled hand. “Yet still missing a finger.”

“I see your dubious idea of wit remains intact as well.”

“So, if Mac . . . if Gray . . .”

“No, shapechanger. This was your path. Theirs still remain for them to follow.”

The curse had been broken, his death sentence lifted. Too late for him to make amends? To create a future with the woman he loved? He dared not go himself to find out.

“Can you deliver a letter for me?”

* * *

Fog hung in ghostly streamers across the valley, the long narrow loch gleaming like polished steel beneath the gray sky. Even the distant hills took on a soft blue and purple patina in the damp air. From here, she could look south and east across the endless mountains or turn her face to the north for a last glimpse of the sea and the rocky shores of Skye far to the west. She stood upon the brink; both paths still within reach. No decision unchangeable . . . yet.

Below her, the coach waited, the Duncallans lounging upon a blanket with a basket luncheon. As Callista watched, Katherine leaned over to kiss her husband. His arm wrapped round her waist. A quiet breathless giggle carried on the breeze to where Callista walked alone.

She swallowed the hard ache in her throat and scrambled farther up the slope, out of view of her companions. She didn’t need a reminder of what she had almost had. What might have been hers but for a Fey-blood’s black spell.

A fold in the hillside led her into a hidden meadow. Mist moved like water over the ground, but here and there, sheltered from the wind, star-shaped leaves grew in a burst of bright green from a craggy rockface and small purple flowers littered the long grass.

He stood at the far end of the meadow. A figure as gray and wraithlike as the mist-shrouded hillside. Only his gaze burned hot and startling in a face carved in harsh lines and grim angles. No longer the Adonis, he still paralyzed with a stomach-plunging intensity. A bolt of lightning. A sword cleaving the heart. “I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from them,” he said. “They make a sickening couple.”

“They love one another. There’s nothing appalling about that.”

Heat crawled up her throat and into her cheeks, and she shivered imagining David’s hands upon her body, his fingers combing out the heavy curling fall of her hair. Desire flooded her with a new and different ache, a throbbing between her legs, a tingling in her breasts. Their eyes met, and she knew he knew what she was thinking . . . and feeling. His mind was open to her touch, as her thoughts were clear for him to read. “Are you a ghost?”

He laughed. “What does your power tell you?”

“That you’re real . . . you’re alive.”

“And mostly in one piece.”

“What have you done, David?” she asked.

He approached, his body leaving a trail within the dew-silvered grasses. “The blood I offered you connects us. I’m part of you . . . as you’re a part of me.”

As if he’d a map to her soul, she felt him inside her, a presence filling the hollow place in her heart. “You can’t . . . I mean, you said you couldn’t read my mind.”

I still can’t, Callista. Or not entirely. Thoughts sharp and loud, these I catch snatches of now and then. He switched to speaking out loud. “But no, you’re safe from that trespass.”

“Then what do you mean, ‘we’re connected’?”

“Honestly?” He gave a brittle laugh. “I have no idea. But Gram’s stories always spoke of the bond between those who’d shared the afailth luinan. Souls connected. Destinies intertwined. It’s the most powerful magic the Imnada possess and is not given lightly.”

“Yet you left me.”

“I fled Dunsgathaic. Your aunt saw me offer you the life from my veins. She would not have been satisfied until she drained me of every last drop.”

“Aunt Deirdre is not Victor Corey.”

“She may not have sold me off a vial at a time, but her brand of sucking me dry would have amounted to the same thing. The Imnada are under siege. I would not be the fuse to bring the walls tumbling down around them.”

“Even after they tortured and banished you?”

“Once I would have said good riddance and run the other way. But someone I know told me to stop running and face my demons. The Imnada are still my people. I won’t turn on them when they need me most.”

“I’m returning to London,” she said. “My aunt and I have come to an understanding of sorts, but the priestesses are not where I belong.”

“Where do you belong, Callista?” he asked.

“I thought I knew. But that was a mirage, wasn’t it? This is good-bye.”

“What if I told you I never want to say good-bye? That I would hold you forever if I could—if you would only say yes? What then?”

Her mind grappled with this odd new awareness of him. The slow draw of his lungs as he breathed. The scent of him, musky and sharp and intensely masculine, the hard angles and planes of his face, and the jump of need that matched her own. She felt it sizzle the air between them. “I would take you for as long as the gods would give us.”

“For a lifetime?”

Her eyes widened, her heart crashing against her chest. “Would, could, might, if . . . what are you trying to ask me, David?” she snapped.

He laughed, grabbing her around the waist, his grip nearly crushing her lungs. “The curse is broken. Your aunt saved my life in more ways than one, though I doubt she meant to, the old besom.”

Callista lifted her face to the sky, where a bird floated high on an updraft. A small dark shape against the backdrop of wind-chased clouds. “I asked again and again. The answer was there all along.”

His eyes glowed silver. “Marry me, my beautiful? I can’t guarantee what the future will bring nor that the days ahead won’t be dangerous. I only know that I love you and can’t live without you. Not for a week nor the next fifty years.”

She drew him down to her, hungry for his kisses, his touch, the hard vitality of his body against hers. “I will have you, Mr. St. Leger. Till death do us part.”

Afailth luinan. Also known as the blood cure. According to ancient legend, Imnada blood possesses great healing powers. It’s said that a drop can heal most injuries or illness, though few believe the old stories anymore.

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.

Dunsgathaic. A mighty fortress located on the Isle of Skye in Scotland that encompasses both the military headquarters of the brotherhood of Amhas-draoi and a convent of Sisters of High Danu.

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 bloodline 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 clan leader 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 Traveler. 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.