Knight of Darkness (4 page)

Closing his eyes, Varian took himself from Avalon to the dark back halls of Camelot. He was one of the few who could travel between the two realms who was actually willing to do it. Not that he particularly enjoyed this. Since his mother was the right hand of Morgen, their most-despised queen, and his father had been Arthur’s right-hand champion, it left the inhabitants of Camelot a little…shall we say, abrupt with him.

There wasn’t a creature here who wouldn’t love to carve his heart from his chest secretly. And the key word was “secretly.” None of them would ever come from the front.

So with his hand on his sword, he walked slowly down the hallway with the gait of a predator. Every shadow could contain an enemy. Every whisper could be one of the braver fools coming at his back. He kept his head bent down and searched the darkness with his peripheral sight while he listened carefully for any telltale sound.

As he neared the torches on the walls that were held in brackets made to look like blackened arms, they lit themselves, then extinguished once he’d passed. The smell of the rush lights was pungent
and thick in the air and it was stirred by his movements.

Varian cocked his head as he felt a whisper behind him that could only come from one of the sharoc—a shadow fey that was renowned for its cruelty and mischief. He gripped the sword hilt, ready to draw it instantly as he continued on his way, waiting for the attack.

But the sharoc pulled back…no doubt going to report his presence to his mother or Morgen.

Let it. Varian had other matters with which to concern himself. He headed down the turret stairs that led to the underground floor. On the north tower, this area was reserved for the dungeon and Morgen’s torture chambers.

On the southern tower where he was, it was the domain of the MODs. “MOD,” pronounced mode, was an acronym for Morgen’s minions of death. At one time, they’d been servants for the Celtic god of death, Balor. Confined to the underworld by their master, they’d been the scavengers sent to battlefields to kill and torture any who turned coward and fled.

It was rumored that they were originally the beloved children of the Celtic gods Dagda and the Morrigen. But they fell from favor when they sided with the Milesians in an ancient war against their father Dagda. As Dagda was driven by his enemies into the underworld, he’d cursed his children to be servants there under the direction of Balor.

Balor wasn’t one of the more benevolent gods. Vicious and cold, he’d been the one to teach the MODs many of their more brutal ways.

His cruelty to them was what had ultimately led to their turning on him and killing him by ripping out his single eye. Legend said it was his grandson Lugh who’d done the actual murder, but that’d been a lie perpetuated by the gods who didn’t want it to be common knowledge that Balor’s servants had that kind of power.

Under a death warrant that’d been issued by the entire Tuatha Dé Danann group of gods, the MODs had been hunted to virtual extinction until Morgen had offered them refuge in her shadowy realm. Now they all lived with a tenuous pact that Varian kept waiting to see end with Morgen’s untimely death.

Unfortunately, that hadn’t happened yet.

Varian pushed open the heavy iron door that led to the MODs’ quarters. Since they weren’t exactly civilized and disdained even the dim light that was found here, they’d decided to live beneath Camelot, in a cold, damp hole. The stone walls oozed some effervescent green muck that smelled like rotten limes. And in true MOD form, they lived in a commune environment. Bracken was the only one of them who had private quarters. The rest fed, slept, ate, and fornicated out in the open.

There were probably a hundred of them strewn about the open area, but only a small handful
even bothered to look at him as they went about their business, which included eating the flesh of Adoni victims scattered about the floor.

His stomach turned at the sight and the smell of it. One of the MOD females looked up with a speculative gleam in her eyes as he walked past. He gave her a look to let her know that he wouldn’t die easily.

More to the point, he wouldn’t die alone.

Licking her bloodied lips, she returned to her “dinner.”

All in all, he had to give the MODs credit. Like the Adoni, they were beautiful. Golden and fair with wings that were black and amber, they were more akin to the angels attributed to heaven. Though their magick wasn’t as great as the Adoni, they still held enough of it to make them formidable enemies, and what they lacked in esoteric power they more than made up for in raw physical strength.

Varian paused as he rounded the corner that led straight to Bracken’s room. He’d expected to meet the demon lord on his own terms. What he hadn’t expected was to meet Bracken while the demon was nuzzling Varian’s mother.

That action was wrong on so many levels that he couldn’t quite sort out which one disturbed him most. One thing was certain, he’d never call that bastard Dad.

“Am I interrupting?”

Bracken pulled back from his mother’s neck
before he raked Varian with a sneer. “You are ever a pain in my ass.”

“Good. I’ve spent the whole of my life aspiring to hemorrhoid status. Nice to know I’ve finally attained it.”

Bracken’s black eyes flashed red at the same time his mouth opened like a snake’s to show a row of jagged teeth. His skin mottled from tawny to reptilian brown, then as soon as it appeared, he brought his anger under control and returned to his more aesthetic being.

Varian still couldn’t keep his lip from curling at the fact that his mother could cuddle up to something so repugnant. “Nice trick. Bet you’re hell on the other contestants at a freak party contest, huh?”

Bracken would have attacked him had his mother not put herself between them.

“He’s only trying to get under your skin, Bracken. Ignore him.”

Bracken’s eyes flickered in the dim light. “If you want to keep him breathing, Narishka, you’d best get him out of my domain.”

Varian eyed him without fear. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll be out of here so fast, I’ll leave a vapor trail.”

“And that is?”

His mother answered before he could even open his mouth. “He wants to know what the grail knight told you before you killed him.”

How nice of his mother to help him for once. Not that it mattered. Bracken laughed at her words. “He didn’t say much. Pietra tore his tongue out after he refused to tell her his clue.”

In a very fucked-up sort of way, it was nice to know that the fine art of torturing someone for information was lost on the MODs.

Varian forced himself not to react even though inside he ached dearly for the poor unsuspecting man who’d been up against Morgen’s pets. The fact that MODs held no compassion for anyone was what had enabled them to turn on their own parents. “How did you capture him?”

One corner of Bracken’s mouth quirked up. “I can’t be giving away our secrets, turncoat. If I did, you might know how to keep us from dragging you off one night while you sleep.”

Varian gave a low, lethal laugh. “I would pay you to try. Just one night, you and me.”

Bracken’s mouth flashed back and forth again, letting Varian know that the demon was salivating for the chance. Which meant someone, most likely his mother or Morgen, was holding the demon back.

His mother stepped closer, placing her hands on his breastplate. “Come, Varian. You visit me so seldom that I don’t want to waste our time down here with the MODs.”

He started to correct her about the fact that this wasn’t a mother-son visit. But she knew as well as
he did that he hadn’t come to spend time with Mommie Dearest. He allowed her to turn him around and lead him back the way he’d come, which made him wonder what she wanted with him. Normally, whenever he visited Camelot, she left him completely alone.

Neither of them spoke as they left the underground chamber and headed back upstairs.

“I’m beginning to get nervous, mum,” he said, as she opened the door to the third floor and led him into a narrow hallway.

“Why would you be nervous, love? I’ve already told you that we want you on our side. I merely have someone I’d like for you to meet.”

He froze in the middle of the hallway as her words went through him like acid. “And you also told me that you’d see me dead, which makes me wonder if this person is the one you’d have kill me.”

She laughed lightly. “No.” She pulled at his arm, but he refused to take another step.

It was time for him to return to Avalon. “I’ve learned what I wanted to know. I’m leaving now.” Yet before he could move, he felt her snap something onto his wrist.

He looked down at the small gold bracelet that was heavily etched with the fey words—
Era di crynium bey. Freedom is an illusion.

It didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t figure out why she’d placed it there. “What is this?”

There was an odd serenity to her face that scared
him more than an entire raiding party of MODs. “That is your shackle, dear boy.”

“Shackle for what?”

She stepped forward to whisper, “You can no longer travel through the veils. You’re stuck here, Varian. More than that, your magick is neutralized so long as the bracelet is on your wrist.”

He tried to flash himself out of here, but true to her words, nothing happened. “What the hell?”

“You
will
join us, Varian.”

“Never,” he said from between clenched teeth.

And before he could move, his mother clapped her hands. A group of male Adoni appeared.

“Take him,” she said coldly.

Varian struck out at them, but since their magick wasn’t negated, he was fighting a losing battle, and he knew it. He succeeded in knocking several of them back and splitting their lips. In the end, however, he was outnumbered.

One minute he was in the hallway and the next, he was in the bowels of the northern tower. The cell was small and cramped. Even though he continued to fight, they clapped a chain on each wrist and chained his arms to opposite walls so that he was standing in the room with his arms spread wide.

There was no missing the satisfied gleam in his mother’s eyes. “Peel his armor off.”

“Love you, too, mum.”

She didn’t respond as they tried, only to learn it was held in place by the spell he’d put on it in
Avalon. Since his magick was now missing, he couldn’t have taken it off if he’d wanted to. “It won’t come off.”

She narrowed her eyes on him as she crossed the floor and tried to remove it herself.

“I’m not
that
stupid, mum.”

Shrieking, she struck him hard against his back, forcing him forward so that his arms were wrenched by the chains. She turned to the others. “Fine, then, fetch us two mandrakes and sledgehammers.”

Varian forced himself not to react to that. He had to give her credit. Even in armor, a sledgehammer would hurt. Given the fact that it would be wielded by a mandrake—a half-human, half-dragon fey creature, it would hurt a lot.

He locked gazes with her, but there was no compassion to be found there. Not that he’d expected it. No Adoni had ever possessed an ounce of maternal instinct. It just wasn’t in their genes.

“You might as well kill me now, mum. I won’t join you.”

She ran a cold finger down his cheek and eyed him as if measuring his strength. “You say that now, Varian. Let’s see what you say in a few hours.”

“I will still say it.”

The door opened to show him two large, stout mandrakes. As was typical of their breed, they were extremely tall and well muscled. Their silver eyes flashed with eagerness as they took the
sledgehammers out of the hands of the servants who came in behind them.

Varian pulled against the chains and tried to use his magick to get out of this, but it was useless.

His mother tsked. “Words are so easy to say. Now, let’s have a go at that conviction of yours.”

And as the first mandrake slammed his hammer down on Varian’s shoulder and he felt it all the way to the marrow of his bones, he knew this was going to be a seriously long day.

“Are you ready, chit?”

Merewyn looked away from the mirror at the sound of Narishka’s voice. She’d been mentally preparing herself for this for hours. Her job was to seduce Varian, which, given how randy the Adoni were as a rule, seemed an easy enough task.

The only part that gave her pause was the fact that she’d never been touched by any man. Her father had kept her carefully sequestered as a child, and once Narishka had turned her ugly, her father had cast her out, and no man would look at her, never mind touch her.

But that didn’t matter. Her virginity was a small price to pay for freedom.

“I’m ready.”

“Good.” Narishka motioned her to follow. “Now remember, you have to weaken him. He’s strong. Too damned strong, honestly. I doubt we’ll get
him to break without you. Your goal is to be nice to him. Take him food and water.”

Merewyn paused at the unexpected order. “Am I not supposed to do more than that, mistress?”

“No.”

Still, she was baffled. “I thought you wanted me to seduce him.”

Her brow furrowed in aggravation, Narishka turned on her with an impatience that would normally result in a vicious slap. But her mistress must have feared marring her face. “That is seducing him, chit. Trust me.”

Trust her? That would never happen.

But as she started after her mistress again, she was greatly relieved by this turn of events. When Narishka had said “seduce,” she’d naturally assumed intercourse. This bargain was looking better and better.

Merewyn frowned as they started down the back stairs that led to the dungeons. Fear shot through her as the hallway narrowed, and she could hear the screams and pleas of those being tortured.

Was Narishka lying to her? Servants who came down here seldom returned, and the last thing she wanted was to die in one of Morgen’s torture rooms. “Why are we going this way?”

Narishka raised her arm as if to strike her, then caught herself. “Relax, simpkin. This is where we’re keeping him for the time being.”

That didn’t make sense to her. If they wanted
someone to join their ranks, wouldn’t they be kind to him? “You’re torturing him?”

Narishka gave her a look that asked, what do you think?

Merewyn cringed as she caught a whiff of the stench of blood, fear, sweat, and decaying remains. She pressed the back of her hand to her nose to keep from choking on it as she tried to understand the woman who seemed immune to the nastiness of this place.

The fey Adoni continued down the stairs and into the bowels of the dungeon without any visible signs of being disturbed by the men and women who begged her for mercy as she passed their rooms.

Merewyn only wished she was equally as cold. But the truth was each and every cry went down her spine like a lash. If she could, she’d free them all.

This is your fate if you fail…

And that cemented her determination. Just like them, no one would ever come to her aid. No one would care. She’d be left here alone to die. Painfully. Cruelly. There was no compassion in this world. People would only help others if they could profit by the aid, and she had nothing to offer anyone.

It was why she had to escape this place.

Trying her best to ignore the others, she focused on Narishka. “I thought you wanted Varian on your side.”

“We do, and I know my son well enough to know that he won’t be bribed.”

So they thought torture would work? Were they mad?

Foolish question that. She’d lived here long enough to know that they didn’t think of kindness. Ever. It was all but alien to them.

Narishka finally paused beside an old oak door that was held by thick black iron hinges. She manifested a tray of food and water, then handed it to Merewyn. “Just feed him and leave. That’s all you have to do,” she whispered.

Narishka pulled open the door.

Merewyn took one step inside, then froze in place. The horror of what she saw made her stomach turn. Varian was slumped over as two chains on opposite walls held him on his feet with his arms spread wide. He couldn’t even kneel to rest himself, not without the chains pulling at his arms and hurting him more.

His long, black hair fell forward, obscuring the handsome face she’d seen in the abbey. His black armor was dented and twisted, but what disturbed her most was the blood that was pooled at his feet. As she watched, more blood dripped at sickening intervals from his downcast head to the floor below.

What had they done to him? He was a far cry from the proud, powerful man she’d met in the tavern. He seemed more human now. Vulnerable. Yet for all the pain, she could feel his anger
reaching out to her. He wanted blood for what they’d done to him. It was a sentiment she fully understood.

And all thoughts of herself fled as she slowly approached him.

Varian heard the soft rustle of a woman’s gait. Assuming it was his mother come to ask him again to convert, he didn’t bother looking up. Honestly, he hurt too much to breathe, never mind move. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to see his mother’s face again. At least not unless it was while he was choking the life out of her treacherous body.

He wanted to lie down so badly that he could taste it, but the chains kept him from it. Every breath, every heartbeat made his crushed armor bite into his flesh. In spite of the bracelet, he’d discovered that he had enough magick to remove the armor, but that would have been stupid beyond stupid.

Not to mention it would get him killed. Unfortunately, though, not until after they’d stepped up the torture to a mind-blowing level.

He felt a gentle hand on his head an instant before it brushed the hair back from his face. It was so tender that for a moment it actually weakened him. It was the kind of caress he’d ached for all his life.

But no one ever touched him like that.

Prepared to spit the blood in his mouth at his
mother or Morgen, he lifted his head to confront whoever dared touch him.

Shock riveted him as all of his anger fled. It wasn’t either of them.

Instead, it was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her long, dark brown hair fell in soft ringlets all the way to her waist. Her face was small and oval, with brown eyes tinged with amber that slanted up like a cat’s. Her lips were full and inviting.

But it was her pained expression that seared him as she gently used a cloth to wipe at the blood on his brow and cheek.

“They told me to feed you,” she breathed in a soft, dulcet tone that was tinged by an old Anglo-Saxon accent.

He laughed at that. “Why bother?”

“To keep up your strength.”

“So they can torture me more? Forgive me if I’d rather die of starvation.”

Merewyn was surprised by his dark humor. How could he make a joke now? She frowned at the damage they’d done to him. His brow was split and bleeding. His lips swollen and purple, but not nearly as much as his left eye, which he could no longer open at all. There was no trace left of his handsomeness. Indeed, he looked more like her when she’d been a crone.

She couldn’t imagine how much pain he’d have to be in. Her own beatings had hurt so badly at
times that she hadn’t even been able to move afterward, and none of them had left her this bloodied or swollen. How could he even be conscious? During her centuries at Camelot, she’d seen a great deal of horror and numerous atrocities, but never anything like this, and the fact that it was his own mother who had done such was incomprehensible to her.

Her heart aching for him, she carefully wiped away the blood from his mouth, then picked up a small bite of garlic-roasted venison and held it to his lips. Given his earlier comment about starving, she half expected him to spit it at her or refuse. Instead, he dutifully parted his lips and allowed her to place the meat on his tongue.

Varian wasn’t sure why he was allowing her to feed him at all as the salty meat burned the cuts on his lips and his loosened teeth. Yet he couldn’t seem to help himself. He was afraid that if he refused, she’d leave him, and he was strangely enjoying her pampering, such as it was. No one had ever been so kind to him, especially not when he was weak like this. All the people he’d known, including his father and brother, had only attacked him more whenever he was down.

Her touch was gentle and warm, and it soothed him on a level that was frightening.

But what surprised him most was the fact that she wasn’t a miren, mandrake, Adoni, or sharoc. There was no magick to this woman whatsoever. No power.

She was human. Completely.

How was that possible?

He winced as he swallowed the meat down his bruised, parched throat. “Why are you here?”

She looked back at the tray of food on the floor. “To feed you.”

“No,” he said quietly. “How can a human be here in Camelot?”

Her eyes turned dark and sad. “By great foolishness on my part.”

It was then he understood. And when she met his searching gaze, he knew exactly what had happened to her. “You made a pact with an Adoni.”

She nodded glumly.

To his shock, Varian actually felt for her and whatever stupidity had possessed her to make her bargain. The Adoni never fulfilled their promises, unless they involved pain and torture. No human should ever be at their mercy. “How long have you been here?”

“A few hundred years.” There were tears in her eyes that she didn’t allow to fall as she wiped more blood from his brow. “Early on, I kept thinking that I would eventually die of old age and leave here. But they wouldn’t even allow me that. So here I am, eternally at their mercy.”

“I’m sorry.”

She frowned at him as if she found his words as hard to believe as he did. Yet he truly meant them. “Why should you be sorry? I’m not the one chained to the walls.”

She did have a point. “True, but eventually, I’ll get out of here and kill them.”

She looked doubtful as she fed him more venison.

Varian carefully chewed and swallowed before he spoke again. “Do you have a name, lass?”

“Merewyn.”

It was a beautiful name that fit her ethereal grace. In the fey Adoni language, a merewyn was a sea witch. A tempting mer-creature that would grab unsuspecting sailors from their boats and drag them down to the bottom of the sea and trap them there to serve them until they grew tired of the man’s presence or form. Then the merewyns would feed them to the sharks.

Perhaps that was a fitting name for a woman like her.

“Would you care for wine?” she asked softly.

“Please.”

She lifted the cup to his lips, then tilted it a bit too much. The wine ran into his mouth, stinging his cuts and causing him to gasp at the new pain. He choked.

She pulled the cup away and quickly wiped his lips with her towel. “Forgive me. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

Varian closed his eyes. Even through the agony of his body her touch soothed him. How could he feel anything other than the pain of his beating? It didn’t make sense, and yet somehow he did. Some
how she touched him through it all, and that honestly scared him.

As she fed him a piece of bread, he caught a whiff of her sweet skin. She smelled of rosewater and lilac and it made him wonder what it would be like to lay his head in the crook of her neck and just inhale her fragrance.

What it would be like to touch her smooth, soft skin. Taste her mouth and have someone so kind…so human, in his bed.

But then he knew better than to even think that. No matter how much he might wish otherwise, he was Adoni. Conceived by deception and sold for one woman’s vanity. It wasn’t for him to have a human. He didn’t deserve such comfort. All he deserved was hatred and scorn.

Angered at the thought of her kindness and at the fact that she was weakening him, he pulled back. “Leave me.”

Merewyn was stunned by his harsh words. “What?”

He pinned her with an icy glare that cut straight through her. “Leave,” he growled in a tone so guttural, he reminded her of a gargoyle.

“Merewyn?”

She flinched at the sound of his mother’s voice. She didn’t want to leave him alone to their cruelty again. How could she? No one deserved this.

“Did you hear me, scab?” Narishka snarled.

Still she hesitated even though she knew she’d
most likely be beaten for it. She didn’t want them to renew their cruelty to a man who was so obviously suffering. Her stomach tight at the thought of what more they’d do, she took a moment to clean his swollen face one last time.

Varian met Merewyn’s gaze and saw the compassion and regret that filled her. She gently wiped his mouth before she released him.

He had to clamp his swollen jaw shut to keep from calling her back. How ironic, their cruelty hadn’t once moved him to tears or pleading, but the thought of her leaving him almost did. It was why she had to go.

Weakness was death to a creature like him. Strength. Solitude. Those were what he needed to live and thrive.

And when she paused at the door with the tray held in her hands to look back at him, it was all he could do not to beg for mercy.

Instead, he glared at her, hoping…no, praying that she didn’t return. He couldn’t afford it. Closing his eyes, he let the pain take him away from any solace. Let it seep through him until it was all he felt. It allowed his magick to grow in strength, but it still wasn’t enough to get him out of this. Not yet. But with any luck, if they kept beating him, it would.

Then he would show his mother exactly what she’d bargained for. He would happily give her a taste of his hell-born powers.

Merewyn felt a single tear slide down her cheek as Varian dipped his head again so that he was looking at the floor while his dark hair hid his features from her. Wiping the moisture away, she hated the thought of what else they’d do to him. His face was so misshapen, and his eyes had been filled with utter agony. But that wasn’t her business. She’d done what her mistress required.

Stiffening her spine, she walked through the door and closed it tight, then glanced at Narishka, who appeared proud of her accomplishment.

“Will you continue his torture now?” she asked, as the tray dissolved out of her hands.