Deadmen Walking

  That image of him rutting with her sister was forever seared into her memory. He’d only stopped when he realized she was watching them in horror.

  Instead of being embarrassed, he’d given her an insolent smile. “Care to join us?”

  Blushing, and chiding him for his jibe at her, Vine had grabbed a fur to cover herself. “It’s not what you think, Mara!”

  Without any remorse or modesty, Du had rolled over onto his back and propped himself on his elbows to watch them. His obscene display had caused Mara untold discomfort as she sought to glance anywhere else in the room.

  Though, to be honest, he’d held one of the best physiques she’d ever seen on any male. Rippling with muscles, his tawny skin could beckon even the most chaste. And he was exceptionally well endowed. Something she’d really tried her best to ignore.

  But it hadn’t been easy.

  Worse? Du had known it. He’d always known how women coveted his body, and that devilish smirk on his face confirmed it as he cut a glance toward her sister. “Actually, it’s exactly what she’s thinking, love. I was buried to me hilt inside you when she arrived to disturb us. Damn shame she couldn’t have tarried a bit longer.”

  Vine had blushed an even a darker shade of red than Marcelina. “Why are you being so cruel as to taunt her?”

  Refusing to answer, he’d let out a deep sigh, then gotten up to wash himself off without dressing or covering any part of his anatomy.

  He was a shameless barbarian, after all.

  But it was only then that she’d seen the horrendous scars on his back and across his buttocks. Deep and ridged, they’d made her jaw go slack as she tried to imagine the horrendous beatings he must have endured to be marred so grievously.

  Vine pulled her dress over her head, then rushed to Marcelina’s side. “He’s not so awful, sister.”

  As if! She knew better than what Vine proclaimed. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see—”

  Vine had cut her words off by placing her fingers over Marcelina’s lips before she led her into a dark corner. “You are the one who told me that no one is beyond redemption or unworthy of forgiveness.”

  Mara had choked on those words being thrown in her face. While she believed that where others were concerned … “He’s a different beast!” Most assuredly!

  Those whispered words had caused him to glance at her with a sneer that had chilled her all the way to her soul. Snatching at his black robe that had been cast to the floor with careless abandon, he’d thrown it over his head, and left them to speak in private.

  But not before he’d given her a look so cold and malevolent that it had rattled her all the way to the marrow of her bones.

  “What were you thinking?” She’d scowled at Vine.

  “That an enemy leashed is better than one who wanders, unwatched.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We have no one to protect us. You are bound to him. Forever. Since you can’t leave and I have nowhere else to go, I was trying to woo said beast and tame him.”

  Marcelina had gaped in horror at the very thought. “Are you mad? There are some beasts beyond taming. And I’d plant him firmly at the top of said list.”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “Neither do you.”

  Vine shrugged and stepped back. “Maybe, but he’s the best chance we have at survival. You know it as well as I do.”

  She’d rolled her eyes at Vine’s naiveté. How could her sister be so stupid?

  So blind?

  And against all her protestations and rationale, Vine had pursued Dón-Dueli until he’d convinced them both that he was harmless and in love with her sister. Like Vine herself, Marcelina had bought into those lies.

  Though he’d never been overly affectionate toward Vine, he hadn’t been cruel to her. Which for him was a miracle, as he was a bastard animal to everyone else.

  Everyone.

  Even fiercely trained, massive warriors had scuttled away like terrified rodents at his approach.

  But to her and Vine, at least, he’d practiced restraint. So long as Marcelina had lived in his home, he’d treated her with deference and had gutted anyone who showed her anything less than their best behavior. His protection over Vine had been even more extreme. To the point that some of his savagery still haunted her.

  Honestly, Mara didn’t know what had finally happened to tear his marriage apart. Or why her sister had chosen to kill him. Vine had never explained herself. While Vine had been high-strung and at times overemotional, she hadn’t normally been that extreme, reckless, or cruel.

  Of course, Du tended to bring out the very worst in all beings.

  And since their return to the mortal realm, Du had been even more distant and hollow than while married to her sister.

  Colder. Meaner.

  Until Cameron.

  In all the centuries Marcelina had known him, she’d never seen him so …

  Kind. And for the first time, it made her wonder what he’d been like with his sister. Could he have been someone’s beloved older brother, who watched after and cared for her?

  If that were true, then maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t the tyrannical animal she’d always thought.…

  Was he?

  *   *   *

  “I don’t want to be here!”

  Devyl let out a tired sigh at the strident tone that left his ears figuratively bleeding. “Neither do I, Miss Jack. Believe me. But until we recover your brother and secure him, I can’t allow you near the…” He paused as if biting back an obscenity. “… creature we just took custody of.”

  “Is she one of the evil beasts who captured him?”

  The intensity of her tone caused him to look up from his book to see she’d stopped pacing in front of his desk to glare at him. He had to force himself not to smile at the cheeky way she postured with clenched fists as if ready to take on the world. He’d always admired courage in anyone, but especially one so tiny.

  “Supposing the answer was aye, what do you plan to do?” Bleed on the bitch would be the most apropos answer, as she was hardly prepared to deal with a creature of such powers and venom.

  “Depends on if the answer is aye or nay.”

  He laughed in spite of himself. And the sound of it shocked him thoroughly, as it was a real, unexpected laugh. Not the feigned kind he normally practiced whenever it was socially expected of him.

  What the hell?

  Sobering to his usual gruff demeanor, he cleared his throat. “No need in you being ruffled, lass. Calm yourself and rest. Tomorrow’s a bitter day.”

  “Meaning?”

  He turned the page in his book, and tried not to think about the Sight he’d been born with that too often fed him coming details he’d rather not know. “’Tis nothing. We are a ship without marque, sailing through pirate waters and bearing the red jack as our only color. Trouble is forever finding us, even when we try to avoid it.”

  Cameron hesitated at his words. A letter of marque was what some captains carried that authorized them to prey on ships and cargos from enemy nations. Essentially legal pirating. Most pirate crews carried such letters, many of them forged. Along with flags from multiple nations, just in case.

  The fact he didn’t bother with a forgery or fake colors said he was a man of honor.…

  Or completely insane.

  “May I ask you something, Captain?”

  He let out a sigh that said he was put upon by her question. “If you must, Miss Jack.”

  “How is it you came to be captain here?”

  He whispered something that sounded like a curse beneath his breath before he answered. “Lady Marcelina made it so.”

  “Why?”

  “No doubt so that she, much like your incessant inquisition, could forever torment me.”

  That caused one corner of her mouth to quirk up as she struggled not to smile. “I torment you?”

  He glanced up. “Conversation in general annoys me.”

  “You soun
d like me brother. He used to threaten to sew me lips shut if I didn’t shush around him.”

  Grunting at that, he returned to reading.

  “So where do you intend to sleep, Captain Bane?”

  With a deep growl, he slammed his book shut and set it on his desk. “Apparently, in my bed, as you seem to have no interest in using it for yourself. Am thinking one of us should get some use out of it in these wee hours. Aren’t you the least bit tired?”

  For some reason she couldn’t even begin to fathom, an image of him in said bunk went through her mind. Followed by a thought so scandalous that it caused her entire face to heat up.

  He stood slowly. “Careful where your thoughts lead you, lass.” As he headed for the door, she stopped him.

  “Can you hear my thoughts?”

  “I can read your expressions, and they lay bare everything in your mind.”

  Heavens, he was astute and frightening. And still she dropped her gaze to his lips. She’d never kissed a man before. Had never wanted to.

  Until now.

  She didn’t even know why. Bane was completely unacceptable to her. He was a beast and a terror. A man who liked to intimidate and frighten others.

  And yet …

  “What made you marry a Deruvian if you hate them so?”

  Devyl winced at a question that shredded what little blackened soul he had left. He didn’t intend to answer. He never answered such questions, as they offended him and were no one’s business.

  But his lips didn’t listen. Like everything and everyone else in the universe, they betrayed him. “Vine was kind to me.”

  Cameron scowled deeply at such a shocking, unexpected answer. “Kind?”

  “Aye, Miss Jack. When you’ve never been fed anything save insults, degradation, and horror, a little kindness goes a long way.” And with that he left her to seek fresh air and a clear head.

  That was what he intended. Unfortunately, the past was a treacherous bitch who forever sought to bring him to his knees. Tonight that whore was after him with a vengeance, churning up images he’d rather see buried for eternity.

  Except for one.

  It was the only comfort he’d ever known. And it’d come to him on the night he’d murdered his parents.

  Or maybe “murdered” was a bit strong, given that it was self-preservation. After all, his bastard father had been trying to kill him first. And for what crime? Having the nerve to protect his sisters.

  Even now, he could feel the heat of the fire on his face as his sisters had cried in the shadows.

  While their mother’s shrieks as she begged for mercy echoed against stone walls, they’d come running to his room, where he’d been trying to ignore his mother’s pain. Not because he didn’t care, but because the one time he’d tried to stand up for his mother as a boy, she’d punished him for it far worse than his father had.

  “He’s my husband, boy! And your father! You don’t ever raise a hand to your parents!”

  So while he hated to see his mother beaten, he’d learned to leave his parents alone to deal with it.

  Until that night.

  He hadn’t known what the fight between his mother and father was about—it could have been anything from his father’s dinner hadn’t been salted properly to his mother had put her shoes in the wrong place.

  At least not until Edyth and Elf had burst into his room to hide. Bemused by their peculiar act, he’d scowled at them. Though none of them liked the sounds of their parents fighting, they were well accustomed to the routine familiarity of it.

  Like him, his sisters normally stayed in their beds and pretended to sleep through the cacophony.

  Yet this night, everything was different. The fact that Edyth had come into his room was strange in and of itself. Barely a year older than him, she had never thought much of her younger brother. Other than to use him as a target for her acerbic tongue and ridicule. He couldn’t remember a time in his life when they’d gotten along.

  So for her to seek him out was a rare event indeed. Elf, on the other hand, had run to his bed and thrown herself against him to weep such horrendous wails that he’d feared for her health.

  “Calm yourself, Elf! Breathe and…” His voice had trailed off the instant he’d seen the marks on her young body. The heartbeat he’d seen what their father had done to her.

  Horror had filled him as he met Edyth’s tormented gaze over her rumpled hair.

  “I tried to stop him, Duel.” Her sobs had matched Elf’s. “I never thought he’d do it to her, too.”

  Too? That one word had hung in the air like some ghastly fiend that taunted him without mercy.

  Clutching Elf against him, he’d sat there stunned and cold as his fury turned into something he couldn’t even begin to describe. A rage so deep and dark and foul that it’d left him with a heightened sense of calm that terrified him. “How long?”

  Shame darkened her gaze. “Since I was Elf’s age.” Edyth had sunk down in the shadows as if trying to blend in with them. “I-I-I tried to keep him from her, then I went to get Mum.”

  “And?”

  “She held me in her room until he finished. Then he came for me and … they started fighting.”

  Closing his eyes, Devyl had cursed himself for being such a stupid fool as to not realize the source of Edyth’s bitchtress nature. To have never known what went on between them at night. How could he have been so incredibly blind to his sister’s pain and suffering?

  So stupid?

  But no more.

  With a kiss to Elf’s head, he’d stood with her in his arms and carried her to Edyth. “Stay here. Both of you.”

  Edyth had clutched Elf against her trembling body—like a mother with a toddler. “You can’t go out there! Ta will kill you, Duel!”

  “I came into this world fighting and covered in someone else’s blood, Ed. I got no problem leaving it the same way. And if I must go out like that, then I plan to take the bastard with me to Caer Vandwy and hand his heart to Y Diawl meself. One way or another, I swear to the gods that he’ll touch you no more!”

  Still cold. Still furious, he’d walked out of his room to find his father in the Great Hall. His mother sobbed off to the side while his father sat in his chair as if all were right with the world.

  At least until their gazes met and locked.

  His father had snorted derisively, then poured himself more wine. “What do you want, boy?”

  With a calmness he still couldn’t fathom, Duel had walked to the wall, pulled down an axe, and smiled. “Your head … both of them.”

  The stupid bloody bastard had had the nerve to laugh. And then he’d sicced his hounds upon Duel with a kill command.

  They’d charged him, but, too angry to care, he hadn’t moved. Rather, he’d glared at the ferocious beasts and dared them to attack. “You want me? Bite me and I’ll send your heads to Annwn, where you can guard for him!”

  Those growled words had caused the hounds to back away in confusion, then whimper and flee.

  Unlike his father, who lacked the hounds’ good sense. Instead, Axe of the Dumnonii had risen slowly to his feet and unsheathed his long sword. “Well, well, the worthless tosser’s finally found his spine.” The fierce dark warrior had come at Devyl then, with the intent to lay him in his grave.

  But too many years of frustrated abuse, hatred, and vengeance burned inside Devyl. Within a few strokes, he’d taken the bastard’s head as he’d promised he’d do.

  Instead of being grateful that he’d finally liberated her from his father’s cruel fist, his mother had rushed him with her dirk, screaming that she’d avenge his father.

  A dirk she’d sunk deep into his shoulder, then yanked out and aimed at his throat.

  Devyl hadn’t meant to kill her. He’d struggled with her in an attempt to wrestle the knife from her hand. But when she’d used her own powers against him, they’d ignited his. Too young to have full control yet, he was unable to stop the innate self-preservation that was dee
ply rooted in his blood. It lashed out without compassion or restriction and consumed his mother in one single fiery emotional blast.

  Horrified by the sight of her scattered remains lying in his father’s blood, Devyl had finally lost the fury inside him. And with its passing, he began to shake. To cry.

  To feel.

  And he’d hated every moment of it. Bitter and gutting, his grief had risen inside like an unholy serpent that was feasting on his innards. Shredding and eating away every last bit of innocence he’d ever possessed.

  Not that he’d had all that much. His father’s brutality and mother’s weakness had seen to that. It devoured all his worth and happiness. Any sense he’d ever had of being decent or good. It left him shattered and bitter. Worthless and used up. With a sense of being hollow and lost.

  Too stunned to move, he’d still been there hours later when the servants had come in for work, only to discover the carnage that surrounded him.

  Since his father had been the leader of their tribe, Devyl had fully expected to be hanged for what he’d done. He’d expected no mercy whatsoever from anyone as his father’s men had rushed in to check on his parents’ remains.

  Still coated in the blood of his father, Devyl had refused to answer any question. Refused to speak at all.

  How could he explain it? He didn’t want to tell anyone their family secrets. Didn’t want to expose what had been done to his Elf or to Edyth. He refused to see his sisters shamed or harmed in any way. Their parents had wounded them enough. By the gods, their brother wouldn’t harm them, too. It was his duty to protect them.

  Let their people damn him alone. It was a secret he would take to his grave.

  And as the watchmen sought to drag him from the room and into their custody for the murders, Edyth had come forward to shove them away. “There were wandering bandits who broke in during the night! Duel fought them off by himself! You can’t take him for it. He’s our hero! But for him and his bravery, we’d be dead now, too. He saved our lives!”

  Elf had backed her story.

  It was the only time in the whole of his life that anyone had sought to protect him and keep him safe. The only time anyone had ever stood to defend him. While he’d loved his little sister before that, he’d become even more devoted to her.