Sword of Darkness (4 page)

Yet he didn’t want this tiny woman to fear him.

“Nay, Seren. You have nothing to fear from me.” He brought the lock of hair to his lips so that he could feel it against his lips, smell the faint, sweet rose scent of her.

Seren trembled at the sight of a man so dark, so fierce, being so tender. It was incongruous and puzzling.

He released her hair, then smoothed it down. “Come and eat, girl. You need to keep up your strength.”

She started to remind him what he had just said about not caring, but decided to hold her tongue. She was, in fact, starving.

He held his arm out to her. Seren took it, then withdrew with a hiss. His black armor was so cold that it burned her skin. “Forgive me,” he said, moving away from her. “I forgot about that.”

“Why are you so cold?”

“’Tis the nature of my existence. My armor only knows heat when it’s beneath the human sun, otherwise it’s the same temperature as my skin.”

She frowned as she balled her hand into a fist to warm it. “Are you always so cold?”

A tic started in his jaw. “Aye, little mouse. Always.”

Without another word, he led her back down the hallway to the end where two doors opened into what must have been a grand hall at one time. It was clean, but dark gray like the rest of the castle. A large, shiny, black round table was set in the center of the room, where it held precedence. Intricately carved black chairs were placed around it every few inches.

Like Kerrigan, it was both beautiful and sinister.

Staring at it, she wondered if it was the table of legend. “Is that—”

“Nay,” Kerrigan interrupted quickly. “This is
le cercle du damné.
It is similar to Arthur’s Round Table, but very different.”

“How so?”

He pulled a chair out for her where one of the places at the table was set with trencher, food, and a golden goblet. “Have a seat, Seren.”

She did as he bade.

“Drink.”

“But my goblet is empty.” The words had barely left her lips before wine appeared in it. She looked at it suspiciously.

An amused light seemed to dance in Kerrigan’s
midnight eyes. “There is no spell in your food, mouse. You may eat and drink in peace.”

Still, she hesitated as she sniffed at the scented wine. “Can I trust you to be honest with me?”

“Nay, you cannot. Ever. But in this, I do not lie. Eat without fear.”

There was far too much food for one person to consume. “Would you care to join me?”

Kerrigan looked longingly at the food before he shook his head. How he wished he could sample that fare, but he hadn’t tasted food in countless centuries.

He moved to the other side of the table while she began to eat.

She was strangely beautiful as she gracefully cut her roasted lamb and brought it to her lips. She closed her eyes as if to savor the flavor of it. Her manners, unlike his, were flawless. When he’d first come here, he had eaten with his hands like a savage. Morgen had been repulsed by him. It was why food could no longer sustain him.

“We shall have to find something to nourish you that you can ingest without disgusting me.”

Morgen had done much to change him from the man he had once been. Indeed, he didn’t even recall being human anymore. At least he hadn’t until he saw the trusting fool before him. She touched something inside him, and he wasn’t sure what it was.

She paused in her eating to look up at him. “Am I doing something wrong?”

“Nay, why do you ask?”

“You watch me so intently that it makes me nervous.”

He shook his head at her guileless words. “You should never tell someone when they make you nervous, little mouse.”

“Whyever not?”

“It gives them leverage against you since they know how to make you uncomfortable.”

“Or it gets them to cease the behavior that causes the discomfort.”

He scoffed at that. “You are terminally naive, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t think so. I only believe that most people will do the right thing whenever they can.”

Aye, she was a naive little chit. “I am of a differing opinion. I only have faith in people taking advantage of any situation to serve their own purposes.”

“And what advantage do you have with me here, eating your food and dressed in your gown?”

“You are my prisoner. My advantage is your presence here. I am using you to get what I want.”

“And what is it you seek?”

“Arthur’s Round Table.”

Seren frowned at him and his quest. “Why do you want it?”

He had no business answering her question, but what harm could there be? It wasn’t as if she could do anything to stop him and it wasn’t as if Merlin didn’t know exactly why the table was important to them. “It holds at its center a great magic. One that when combined with other sacred objects is
capable of rendering its wielder invincible. With it here, there would be no one who could stop us from ruling the earth.”

He could tell by her innocent face that the very concept baffled her. “Why would you wish to rule the earth, my lord? What point could there possibly be in it?”

“If you have to ask that question, then you cannot possibly wrap your tiny little mind around the concept to understand the answer. I am a selfish and self-centered bastard. I only want to play by my rules. As a great man once said, it is good to be king.”

Her eyes snapped at him. “Thank you, my lord, for the insult to my intellect. But I would return to say that it is indeed a small-minded man who cannot allow others to have their own share of the world. It is a surprisingly large place with room in it for all of us.”

Kerrigan was taken back by her angry retort. “Are you a fool to insult me?”

She lifted her chin to pierce him with a malicious glare. “You insulted me first.”

Kerrigan felt something he hadn’t felt in centuries. Humor. He actually laughed at her audacity. It amazed him. Anyone else who dared insult him would now be lying dead at his feet. But this woman…

She amused him.

“You are a brave woman.”

“Not especially. I’m merely a frank one.”

“Well, I find your frankness refreshing.”

Seren returned to eating, but she was still uneasy with the way Kerrigan stared at her as if he were a starving man and she his feast.

As she finished her food, she started to rise. Kerrigan vanished from his seat to appear directly behind her chair so that he could pull it back from the table.

She jumped at his sudden appearance.

“Forgive me for startling you.”

“How do you do that?”

He shrugged as he moved the chair back for her. “I think it and it happens.”

She crossed herself. “You are a devil, aren’t you?”

“Aye, my lady
souris
. Damned and cursed.”

And yet there was something about him that reminded her of a lost soul that wanted to find itself again. It was a stupid thing to think. She had no idea why she even thought it when he seemed to take such pleasure in being evil.

He leaned toward her ever so slightly, his presence overwhelming as he seemed to smell the air around her. The corners of his mouth lifted. It softened the harshness of his features and the chill in his gaze. “You had best return to your room now.”

“Why?”

“I am a man of very finite patience, my Seren. I am not used to denying myself what small pleasures I can have. And you…you test the limits of what little self-control I possess.” He reached out one cold hand to lightly brush against her cheek.

Seren could feel the warmth leave her skin at his touch. As she stood before him, her gaze dropped
down to his neck, and there she saw the star amulet Magda had mentioned.

Her heart hammering, she reached to touch it.

Kerrigan immediately captured her hand. “What is it you do?”

“It…it is lovely.”

He moved her hand away from it and stepped back. “Go, Seren. Before it’s too late for you.”

One moment she was before him, in the next she was back in her room. Only now it no longer had a door in it.

She swallowed as true fear took root inside her. Whatever was she going to do? Kerrigan was so powerful, so dark. How could she ever escape someone like him?

You have no choice.

Nay, she didn’t. Somehow, someway she must find her way out of this land of the damned, back to her own home.

Kerrigan reclined against the cushioned seat of his large,
black throne as he watched Morgen “entertain” the other members of her
cercle du damné
.

Like him, most of the other one hundred and forty-nine men and women of their brotherhood had once been human. Some of them had even sat at the Round Table with Arthur and pledged their swords to goodness.

But there was no goodness or humanity left here in Camelot. Much like its famed king, it was long gone and would most likely never be seen again.

With one hand resting on the dragon head carved into the arm of his throne, Kerrigan tipped his goblet back to drink deep of a wine that could never nourish him.

Nor could it make him drunk.

“Come, my king,” a beautiful Adoni female begged as she approached his dais. Her long black
gown plunged all the way past her navel, baring to his gaze most of her abdomen and breasts—the tips of which had been painted a vivid red to stand out as they puckered invitingly against the sheer material of her dress. She was an amply endowed woman who would most likely please him for a moment or two. “Will you not join us for a dance?”

Kerrigan slid his black gaze to the gathering where his demon knights danced with the fey. Some of them were already sprawling half naked in corners, uncaring of who watched them as they sought to sate their bodies. The loud dance music that played through the room came from CDs that Morgen had brought back from her journeys into the future—like many of the residents here, she loved the grace and style of the medieval, but preferred the conveniences and toys of future societies. And one of her penchants was for a style of early twenty-first-century music known as Dark Wave. Rather fitting, all things considered.

Personally, he could take or leave the music. For that matter, he could take or leave the inhabitants of Camelot.

He’d long grown weary of this place and of the creatures who called it home. He wanted more than the cold passion of the fey who gave their kisses and bodies without care. One cock was as good to them as any other.

“Begone from me,” he snapped at her.

The Adoni’s eyes flashed red. She would attack
except she knew the folly of such an action. Curling her lip, she left him to seek out another of the knights.

“What say you, my lord? Are you ill?”

Kerrigan tensed at the voice that came from behind his throne. “Don’t stand behind me, Blaise. Not if you wish to continue living in your current state.”

The tall, lithe mandrake moved forward to stand to the left of Kerrigan’s throne. Born with albinism, Blaise had been cast out by his superstitious people when he’d been barely more than a babe.

His eyes were a pale, unforgiving shade of violet. He wore his snow white hair in a long braid that fell over one shoulder, to his waist. His skin was a deep, golden tan that belied what most expected from one with his condition. It was a common misconception that all of those with albinism were completely lacking color. If not for the fact that he knew the mandrake took pride in his physical differences, Kerrigan would have suspected the darkness of Blaise’s skin to be from his magic.

In human form, Blaise could barely see at all. He used his magic to sense where others and objects were around him. But as a dragon…his vision was sharp and clear.

He was without a doubt one of the most powerful mandrakes in service to Kerrigan and the closest thing to a friend he’d ever known. Though to be honest, Kerrigan didn’t understand why the mandrake chose his company.

If he didn’t know better, he might actually think the mandrake liked him.

Kerrigan took another sip of his drink.

“Why do you not participate in the orgy, my king?” Blaise asked quietly.

“Why do you not?”

Blaise shrugged. “I sensed your discomfort. Your restlessness. I was hoping to find a way to amuse you, my lord. Do you wish me to take dragon form?”

“Nay. A ride will do nothing to improve my mood.” Not even bloodshed would ease the fire that currently simmered deep in his loins.

Only Seren could sate his mood.

But she had trusted him, and for some insane reason he couldn’t name, he didn’t want to violate that trust.

Suddenly the music in the hall changed. Kerrigan grimaced as he heard Morgen’s favorite song from a century far ahead of the one in which he’d been born. Moments such as this, he hated that they could travel through time.

Morgen danced to the beat of it as her male Adoni consorts circled her.

He groaned.

Blaise’s expression remained stoic. “Does my king not like INXS?”

“I did until your lady decided to play it to the point of nausea.” If he never heard “Need You Tonight” again, it would be too soon.

Morgen swayed to the music. She turned around, looked at him, and crooked her finger for him to join her.

Kerrigan shook his head.

He felt her powers invading him, pulling at him. But he refused to let her control him. Those days were long past.

Closing his eyes, he summoned his own song. Papa Roach’s “Do or Die.”

Morgen’s eyes blazed at him as he gave her a taunting smile. The music immediately returned to INXS with “Devil Inside.”

“You are either the bravest man ever born, my king, or the most foolish,” Blaise whispered beside him.

“Perhaps I am both,” he said before drinking.

“It appears our king is possessed of malaise,” Morgen said to the group as she approached his throne. “What do you think we should do to cheer him?”

One of her Adoni males moved forward to whisper in her ear.

Morgen smiled evilly. “Aye, my pet. I think that would be a wonderful idea.”

Kerrigan yawned at her. Knowing the Adoni, whatever the idea, it was guaranteed to only bore him more.

Two heartbeats later, Seren appeared before Morgen.

He sat up instantly and handed his cup to Blaise. “What are you doing, Morgen?” he demanded.

Seren looked around with panic in her heart. She’d been alone in her room, trying to find a way to escape. The next thing she’d known, she was here in a gilded hall with horrible music playing that thumped like a frantic heartbeat.

The voice of the singer was wickedly smooth, but the words were unintelligible to her.

There were beautiful men and women all around her, mixed with the twisted graylings and other things that appeared to be demons of some sort.

But the woman who caught her attention most was the one beside her who wore a dress so red, it didn’t look natural. It looked as though the material itself were bleeding.

The woman’s long blond hair was worn in tiny braids that were held in an intricate design around the crown of her head with jewel-tipped pins. She approached Seren with a sinister twist to her lips. The woman grabbed Seren’s long blue manche sleeve and pulled at it angrily. “Who put her in this?”

Kerrigan came instantly to his feet as his eyes turned a vibrant red that matched the woman’s dress. “I did.”

The woman hissed at him. “You know the laws here, Kerrigan. I am queen of the fey, and no one wears such a color in my world. No one!”

“And I
am
the law here, Morgen. It goes with my crown. That is, unless you wish to challenge me for it.”

Seren swallowed at his words as she stared anew at the woman who held her sleeve. Could this truly be the famed Morgen le Fey? Sister to Arthur and mother to Mordred?

If she was, then this sorceress held wicked powers that could enable her to take the form of beasts and enchant anyone she chose. There was no telling what she could do to them.

It was a sobering thought.

“I will challenge him for you, my lady,” one of the handsome knights offered as he moved forward in the crowd.

Morgen arched a brow at that as a slow, evil smile curved her seductive lips. “A challenger. Why, Kerrigan, it appears your reign may be over.” She grabbed Seren roughly and pulled her toward a door.

Kerrigan moved toward them with deep, angry strides. “Release her, Morgen. Now!”

Seren fought against the woman’s hold. When Morgen refused to let her loose, Seren bit her.

Morgen screamed and released her instantly.

With nowhere else to go, Seren ran toward Kerrigan. He met her and placed himself between her and the other woman. The sound of steel scraping steel rang out as he drew his sword forth to confront them.

Seren trembled as she looked about for somewhere else to flee to, but the crowd of people wasn’t conducive to such. They completely encircled her and Kerrigan. No doubt they would fling her back toward Morgen if she dared to run. Therefore, her safest course of action would be to stand with Kerrigan.

Morgen arched a brow at Kerrigan’s raised sword. “Well, isn’t this interesting? I haven’t seen fire in your cheeks in centuries, Kerrigan. Tell me what it is about this pathetic little human that you would dare raise your sword against me in protection of her?”

“You gave her to me, Morgen. Remember? You
said she was mine to do with as I please until she ceases to be of use to us. And I protect what is mine, whether it is this throne, my sword…or her.”

“That’s far from comforting,” Seren said in a tone she was sure Morgen and the others couldn’t hear.

Kerrigan passed her an irritated glare.

She stared her own ire back at him. “Well, I’m not your shoes,” she whispered. “I am a person…with value.”

The withering look on his face said he might not share her view.

“Are you rebelling?” Morgen asked him.

He turned his heated stare at the fey queen. “Are you?”

Her insidious laughter rang out over the music and echoed in the hall. Morgen crossed the distance between them. With an unparalleled daring, she brushed his sword aside with her hand so that she stood toe to toe with him.

“Careful, my lord,” she said in an almost sweet tone. “Remember who it is who gave you your power. Damé Fortune is fickle. One day a peasant, the next a king, and the day after, a peasant again.”

He didn’t flinch. “One day a sorceress, the next a bad memory.”

Seren gasped as the Morgen’s eyes slithered between yellow and orange.

“Tostig,” she snapped at the knight who had agreed to fight Kerrigan. “Don your armor. Kill the king and you shall replace him.”

Seren sucked her breath in sharply at those words. She was quite certain that if the black knight was dethroned, she wouldn’t fare very well.

Kerrigan shook his head. “Stand down, Tostig. I’ve no wish to thin my army needlessly.”

Black armor, the likes of which Seren had never seen before, appeared on the knight’s body before he drew a black sword with the strangest blade she’d ever beheld. Instead of a straight blade, it was rippled and shone with an eerie green light.

Kerrigan gave a heavy sigh as if the matter of the fight merely bored him. He turned toward her. “Seren, stay with Blaise until I kill him.” He pushed her gently into the arms of a man who was every bit as eerie as Morgen. “Guard her, mandrake.”

Blaise nodded grimly as he pulled her to the side.

Kerrigan, unlike his opponent, didn’t bother with a helm as he stood ready to fight. Indeed, he appeared as nonchalant as a man waiting for a friend to join him. There was nothing in his stance or countenance to say that he was about to fight to the death.

Seren frowned as she saw Tostig whisper to another knight. Unlike Kerrigan, he appeared nervous and uncertain.

“What is he doing?” she asked Blaise. “Is it some spell against Kerrigan?”

“Nay,” he said in a flat tone. “He’s not strong enough for that. Tostig is new to our company. He
is asking the men around him for Kerrigan’s weakness.”

“And that is?”

One corner of his mouth lifted into a knowing smirk. “None.”

She scoffed at that. “All men have a weakness.”

“Men do, but Kerrigan is no longer human.” As if to prove his words, a large, black shield appeared on Kerrigan’s arm out of nowhere. “There is no way to defeat him, and Tostig is being told that by the others. It’s why no one, not even Morgen, dares to challenge him for power.”

She watched as Tostig went from knight to knight. There was no pity on their faces, nor was there any help as one by one they shook their heads at him.

“I grow weary of waiting, Tostig,” Kerrigan said in a bored voice. “Either fight me or cede your challenge.”

Morgen faced the knight with a condescending sneer. “Have you grown craven, Tostig? Where is my new champion and future king?”

The knight let out an unholy bellow as he raised his sword and ran at Kerrigan, who deflected him with ease. The crowd fanned out, giving them a large circle in the center to fight.

Seren went weak as she watched the two powerful warriors encircling each other. In spite of what Blaise had said, she was nervous. Should something happen to Kerrigan, there was no telling what Morgen or the victor would do to her.

Kerrigan might be frightening, but he was the
devil she knew. She sensed heat in him, even wickedness; however, there was no true malice there. Not like she felt whenever Morgen or the others looked at her.

Tostig attacked again, striking Kerrigan’s sword with a powerful blow that caused sparks to fly from it. Kerrigan raised his round shield that held what appeared to be a dragon devouring a castle and used it to drive the other knight back.

Tostig twisted and swung for Kerrigan’s waist. Kerrigan deflected the blow, then shoved the knight away with his shield. Tostig staggered a bit before he returned with a swing that barely missed Kerrigan’s neck. Only Kerrigan’s speed and agility kept it from making contact. He immediately parried with a thrust that cut across Tostig’s arm.

The knight cried out, but didn’t falter as he attacked, and again Kerrigan parried.

While the men fought, Morgen approached Seren with a wicked and delighted smile on her beautiful face.

Blaise pulled Seren back from the fey queen.

“Don’t worry, mandrake,” Morgen all but purred, “I mean your charge no harm.”

Blaise scoffed. “You mean everyone harm, Morgen.”

Morgen laughed.

A chill went down Seren’s spine as Morgen moved closer…so close that she couldn’t move without making contact with the woman. She tried to step nearer to Blaise, only to find her body
unwilling to obey. It was as if someone else was controlling her.