Shadow's Curse (13 page)

She leaned forward, amazed at his deft skill. For some reason, it was hard to equate this artistic aptitude with his muscular warrior’s build and predator’s stare. “You’re quite good.”

His lip quirked in a smile. “I spent a very long time in the army.”

Callista watched as he shaped and honed, pausing now and then to study the piece before he laid knife to wood once more. He’d shed his jacket early on during the meal. Now he sat with his shirtsleeves rolled back, his cravat wrinkled and barely knotted. Most men would have appeared disheveled and scruffy. David looked mouthwateringly stylish. Blond hair fell across his forehead as he bent over his work. He shoved it off his face with a quick scoop of his fingers. His eyes
flickered up to hers, then dropped once more to the carving.

“Tell me about this aunt of yours,” he said.

She’d been so absorbed in the quiet intensity of the knife’s flicking in and out and the way his large, blunt-fingered hand cradled the wood in his open palm that she jumped at the sound of his voice, her cheeks burning as if she’d been caught at something wicked. She smoothed her hands down over her skirts and shifted in her seat. “What do you want to know about her?”

“Her name for starters. And where she lives. Scotland covers a lot of ground.”

“Her name is Deirdre Armstrong,” Callista said slowly, gauging his reaction as she spoke. “She lives on . . . Skye.”

“Mother of All!” He nicked his thumb. Sucked at the bloody gash, his eyes wide and accusing as they flashed to meet hers. “The Isle of Skye? She’s a damned Amhas-draoi, isn’t she?”

“Aunt Deirdre lives at the convent there,” she fought to explain. “She’s a priestess of High Danu.”

“Witch or warrior—does it make a difference?” he argued. “Either one would mount my head on the wall without blinking an eyelash.”

“Aunt Deirdre wouldn’t do that. Not if I tell her what you’ve done for me. How you’ve helped me.”

“Right. That should do it. A thousand years of hatred wiped out in five minutes of hurried explanation.”

“You promised to escort me to my aunt. You can’t go back on your word now.”

“You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“A lie of omission . . . my dear.”

He had a point, which only made her feel worse and thus angrier. “I knew you wouldn’t agree if I’d told you the truth, and I was desperate. You said yourself Victor Corey is a dangerous man.”

“Right, while the brotherhood of Amhas-draoi are a cozy basket of kittens.”

She forced herself to remain calm despite an overwhelming urge to weep or shout or both. This wasn’t how and when she’d meant to tell him. She’d wanted to be closer to the border. Farther from London. “And if I’d told you? If I’d explained the whole situation and relied on your sense of honor to convince you? Are you telling me we’d be sitting here having this conversation? I don’t think so. I think you’d be floating in the Thames and I’d be . . .” She couldn’t finish.

He snorted, his expression still thunderous, but he took up his knife again and began to whittle, the long spirals falling faster, his mouth pressed into an angry line, his jaw tight. “Is your aunt a necromancer as well?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she answered, tensing for another explosion. She wasn’t disappointed.

“What do you mean you don’t—” His face was a mask of shocked disbelief. “You’ve never met the woman, have you?”

She looked down at the table, suddenly very interested in her empty plate, refolding her napkin. “It doesn’t matter. She’s—”

“A complete stranger and a witch.” She could almost hear his teeth grinding as he fought to keep his temper. “Does she know you’re coming?”

Callista’s face must have belied her attempts to remain composed. David gave a hard brittle laugh, tossing the knife and the carving on the table with a clatter.
“Hell and damnation! You’ve never met the woman and she has no idea you’re headed her direction with a villainous mob hot on your tail. You don’t even know if she’ll take you in. It’s just as likely she’ll hand you back to your betrothed with a wink and a smile.”

Anger and embarrassment crawled hot over her skin. “Aunt Deirdre is the only family I have left. She won’t turn me away. Not when I tell her I want to join the sisterhood.”

That seemed to startle him. “You, a
bandraoi
priestess?”

“I’ll be safe at Dunsgathaic.”

“Locked away in a fortress on Skye forever? That’s your idea of freedom? To trade one prison for another?”

“What would you know of prisons and free will? You’re wealthy. You’re a man. For heaven’s sake, you’re a shapechanger who can turn into a wolf at will. You’ve never known anything but freedom and choices. You’ve never suffered or been trapped with no way out.”

He lurched to his feet, eyes blazing in his face. “Is that what you think? Truly? You have no bloody idea, Callista. None at all.”

With another muttered oath, he grabbed up the wine bottle, swung on his heel.

“Where are you going?” she asked, afraid of the answer.

His smile was cold, but his eyes held heartbreaking sorrow. “To get pickled drunk.”

Rather than storming out in a temper as Branston would have done, David offered her an oh-so-formal courtier’s bow and departed in ominous silence.

Should she chase after him or give him space to work off his temper? Would he return or did his rigid back and clenched fists signal the end of their tenuous alliance? She rose from her chair, grabbing her shawl from a hook by the door. Got as far as laying a hand upon the latch before she changed her mind. David would stay or he would go. It would hardly be the first time she’d placed her trust in someone and been disappointed. If she woke to find herself on her own, she would manage. Freedom was what she’d wanted. She’d not shrink from it now that it stared her in the face.

Despite David’s accusations, she knew without a doubt that her deception had been necessary. If what he’d told her about the violent animosity between Other and Imnada was true, there was no way he would have agreed to her proposal if he knew what he was agreeing to exactly. And as for writing to Aunt Deirdre, well . . . she
had
begun half a dozen letters, all of them ending in the fire. It seemed so much easier to show up unannounced, leaving her aunt no opportunity to come up with excuses to turn her away. Once on her doorstep, Callista could plead her case in person. Her aunt would have to acknowledge her. She would have to let her stay.

Callista rubbed at her temples, which had started to throb. Her eyes were tired and achy, her body sore from the days cramped in the coach. She rose from the table, catching back a gasp when her gaze fell on the half-whittled piece of wood David had abandoned. Even rendered in the quick sharp strokes of a blade, the similarities were uncanny. The high bones of her cheeks. The deep-set eyes.

It was
her
face David had carved.

A frisson of delicious excitement shivered up her spine.

Perhaps she hadn’t completely ruined everything. Perhaps there was still hope—but for what?

*  *  *

David lingered in the stable’s doorway, the untouched wine bottle resting at his feet. He didn’t have the stomach for even a sip. No light shone from the tavern’s windows, and even the most thorough of drunkards had already stumbled to bed. A far-off clock tower struck the half hour. He was alone with nothing but his thoughts and a bony cat for company.

He’d half expected Callista to come running after him with apologies spilling from those completely kissable lips, that wild riot of dark hair tumbling loose from its pins to cascade over her shoulders like a cloud.

He shook his head in hopes of dislodging that uncomfortable image. Callista’s hair, lips and every other luscious part of her were no concern of his. Once they reached Gray at Addershiels and David handed over this blasted book, he’d pack her onto a convenient mail coach and send her on her merry way north. Bargain or no bargain, he wasn’t about to traipse into the heart of Fey-blood power to have his head whacked off by an overzealous Amhas-draoi.

Surely by the time they reached Northumberland, Callista would be safe from pursuit. Victor Corey was hardly likely to spend so much energy chasing after a reluctant bride. And that pudgy brother of hers couldn’t be much danger.

A small niggling voice whispered that she trusted
him to see her safely to her aunt. That he’d made a promise. That she needed him.

That he might need her.

It was a voice he squashed ruthlessly and efficiently.

Rage was his armor, apathy his shield, and drink his balm. Take any of the three away and he was left with nothing but despair and desolation.

He bent to retrieve the wine bottle. Eyed the contents. Sweet oblivion for an hour . . . perhaps two if he was lucky.

“Should you be drinking?”

He closed his eyes, remembering her solemn stare as she said the words; the concern in her tone. He gripped the neck of the bottle. Smashed it against the wall, glass and wine exploding over his clothes, the heavy aroma burning his nostrils. Ducking into the stable, he pulled off his boots. Shirt and breeches followed. The night breeze cooled his naked body. Trailed like a lover’s fingers over his skin. The moon was a narrow crescent low in the sky. The period of Berenth, when shifting grew more difficult and dangerous, was well advanced. But he needed to escape this form before he went mad . . . before absent thoughts became painful regrets. Before dark memories tore his mind apart.

Rolling his clothes in a ball, he shoved them behind the grain bins. None to notice until the grooms appeared to feed and water in the morning. By then, he’d have long since returned.

He smiled as he left the guttering lamplight to wrap himself in shadows, the magic moving within him like fire in his blood, transforming him, freeing him, returning him to the night where he belonged. Hunter, not hunted.

Back arched, the bony cat hissed in panic before racing for the safety of the darkest corner of the barn, but the wolf, eyes cutting the darkness like two flames, never looked back. And he smiled, knowing that those indoors huddled closer to their fires when they heard him lift his voice to the wind in a lonely call to a family who would never answer.

Callista’s heart lurched. Her eyes flew open. She tried to scream—or breathe—but a hand clamped tight over her mouth. A harsh voice sounded low in her ear, breath hot on her cheek. “Don’t make a sound.”

She nodded, her heart galloping like a runaway horse.

The hand retreated, but the figure remained poised above her, silhouetted in the gray predawn light seeping round the edges of her bedchamber curtain. She sat up, drawing the sheet close around her neck. A threadbare piece of linen was the only barrier between herself and humiliation. “Are you mad?” she hissed. “You scared me to death.”

He put a finger to his lips. “
Shhh.
They’ve found us.” David’s words hit her like a punch to the stomach. “I didn’t expect Corey’s thugs to be so skilled, but even a rabid hound can track a scent once in a while.”

“You saw them?”

“Four men. London accents. Weapons out of sight, but close to hand. They just rode in. There’s few people
awake yet. It’s early. But soon the tap will be full and the maids up and about. It won’t take these chaps long to find someone willing to trade our whereabouts for a purse full of coins.”

“I thought you’d left me.”

“I should have. It seems I really
am
a gentleman. Who knew?”

Gentleman
was hardly the sobriquet she would have used. His shirt was wrinkled and smelled like horse, his breeches were the same, and his boots bore a bog’s worth of thick black mud. She gave a surreptitious sniff. No smell of alcohol on him, and his eyes shone clear and bright, without a drunkard’s stare. In fact, not just clear and bright but glittering with wide-eyed excitement.

“Prove your gallantry.” She swung her feet onto the floor, dragging the sheet with her. “Turn your back.”

“Excuse me?”

“Turn your back while I dress. I can’t very well escape in nothing but a chemise.”

“Is that all you have on under that sheet? I’m not
that
much of a gentleman.”

Under his scrutiny and with the sheet wrapped tight around her, she sidled over to the chair where her gown and petticoats lay draped. “Please, turn around.”

“You have a delightful waddle,” he commented.

“Thank you. Please?” She made circling motions with one hand.

He offered her a rogue’s smile before he swung his back to her, arms folded, eyes trained on the opposite wall. “Like a goose on her way to the pond.”

With shaking fingers, she dropped the sheet to fasten her corset before slithering into her petticoats. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“What?” he said without turning around. “Staring at this horrid painting of a field full of sad cows? Not particularly.”

“I mean being one step ahead of the chase . . . the trap closing . . . the thrill of outsmarting an adversary . . . you like the excitement, don’t you?”

“No, I just dislike being dead. Are you done? We need to move now if we’re to outdistance them before the sun rises.”