Sharon Ashwood - Unchained

Damnation! His heart hurt for her, for Ashe. He had never dreamed that he would hold Ashe Carver while she wept. It hadn’t lasted long before she pulled away, whipping herself to action, but he had felt her grief through his whole body.

She had turned to him for comfort. He treasured the gift of her trust, and yet it was the greatest condemnation of all. He was a guard. After the bizarre attack in the library, he had anticipated another strike—but he had never dreamed it would be directed at Eden.

Thrice-damned idiot! By God, he would fix this. He’d organized everyone within an inch of their lives. Then he marched back into the house. He had the beginnings of an idea. Fortunately, because the searchers were turning up nothing.

Now he truly understood the loss Constance had felt when he’d separated her from her son, and he hated himself anew for causing such desperate pain. It felt like a stain—dark and twisted as the guardsmen’s tattoos—blackening the hole where his soul should have been.

I have to fix this. For Eden, for Ashe, and perhaps to make amends for his past crime. Whatever it takes.

There was one place no one had thought to look for Ashe’s daughter.

The house felt heavy and sad, as if in mourning. Maybe it, too, blamed itself. Reynard jogged up the stairs to the second floor, where he knew Holly had a separate room to work her magic. She was the only adult still inside, and she was trying to cast a tracking spell.

He paused in the doorway, catching his breath after the run up the stairway. Not something he had ever had to do before. He was growing weaker. Reynard swallowed hard, pushing down fear for himself. The safety of a child came first.

Holly’s room was lit with myriad candles, except for the corner where Robin’s wicker crib sat, the baby fast asleep inside. The floor was covered in a plain blue carpet ringed with a white circle. Stones were carefully placed along the ring, marking the points of the compass. In the center was a square of silk threaded with glinting silver. On it sat Holly’s magical tools and a brass bowl with sweetly scented incense. Holly knelt in the circle, a map spread before her. She held a crystal on a long silver chain, waiting for it to point the way Eden had gone.

Reynard waited in the doorway until Holly looked up. Her green eyes, so like Ashe’s, were wet with tears. “I can’t make it work. It’s like she’s shielding us, but that’s not possible. She hasn’t come into her magic yet.”

“Or else someone else is shielding her.” His idea was taking shape, pieces fitting together like shards of broken pottery.

“Who?”

“Have you looked inside the Castle?”

Holly’s eyes widened. “Why would she be there?”

“Because we know Belenos has connections there.”

“Who?” Holly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, as if she felt sick. “I sound like an owl, don’t I?”

“Just do it.” Reynard’s voice was harsh.

She swallowed. “I need something from the Castle.”

He crossed the room in two strides and picked up the white-handled knife that sat on her silvery cloth. It was poor etiquette to breach a witch’s circle, but that was just too bad. He sawed through a lock of his hair and handed the knife and a clump of brown strands back to her.

Holly took them, astonished.

“I was there for centuries. Part of my body should suffice.”

“Okay,” she said uncertainly. “Give me a minute.”

Her skin brushed his, warm and buzzing with magic. She was so like her sister, and so different. Reynard realized he would have given anything to reach out and grab Ashe’s hand. The images flickering in his imagination were enough to drive any man to need comfort.

Holly looked up from her spell to give Reynard a long, considering look. “I think you’re right. I think she’s there, but the trace is faint. Just like she’s being hidden.”

Now she had a hand-drawn map of Mac’s part of the Castle on the floor before her. The crystal was moving to the left of what she’d drawn, the point lifting away from the chain like a dog straining against its leash. It wobbled a little, as if uncertain, ranging over a small area of the uncharted paper as if trying to find its mark.

That meant Eden was weakened, or else someone with a lot of magic had her captive.

Reynard swallowed hard. The air around him lost its warmth. How much strength do I have left?

Realistically, they had made little progress in finding his urn. Its absence was telling on him. When he had returned to the Castle even just long enough to change clothes, it had drained him badly. If Reynard pushed himself too hard, he would simply perish.

For a moment, he closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the decision he had to make and knowing that there was only one possible outcome.

What choices did he have? Die slowly, taking what pleasure he could as his humanity came back in one last hurrah, or die quickly, and perhaps save Ashe’s daughter? Duty, dignity, death.

An aching lump worked its way up his throat, as if all the arguments for life scrambled for breath at once. He choked them down in one hard swallow.

At the last moment, he let his gaze linger on Holly’s baby, softly sleeping in the corner. As his last vision of the outside world, the innocent infant was a good one. She was a symbol of everything love could achieve. Life from death.

He couldn’t make life, but he could save it. He could do his duty.

“Will that crystal work outside the circle?” he demanded.

“Sure, the spell’s got an hour or two left on it.”

“Will it work for me?”

“Yeah—”

“Then give it to me.” He held out his hand. Reluctantly, Holly handed it over. Her elfin face was filled with questions.

Reynard took a deep, steadying breath, finding the discipline that had kept him strong for centuries. He pulled himself straight. “Tell Ashe that I know where her daughter is, and that Eden will be safely home by morning.”

“Wait a minute,” said Holly, her voice rising with tension. “What are you planning? You know you can’t go back into the Castle. It makes you sick.”

Reynard couldn’t help smiling. It was so nice that someone cared what became of him. He hadn’t always had that. “There’s no time to argue. I know the Castle. I can find Eden faster than anyone else.”

As he spoke, he pulled power from the air, grabbing the scraps of Holly’s magic and the wild anxiety of the searchers roaming the streets and calling Eden’s name. He spun it, letting it build fast and hard.

Holly grabbed a slender wand from where her tools were arranged, her knuckles turning white as she gripped it. “Reynard? Don’t go all cowboy on us.”

He shook his head. “The vampire is working with the dark fey. I’m sure of it. No one knows what fairies might do, much less their prince.” The fey take children, and Miru-kai has been in the thick of this from the start.

“Dark fey?” Holly demanded, the words cracking with fear. “What are you talking about? What’s happening to Eden?”

He released enough energy to make a portal. The charred scent blasted the room. A spinning dot appeared and spread like oil poured in a pan, growing to man height in a wash of bright orange, prickling energy.

“Talk to me, Reynard, or I’ll zap you,” Holly warned, raising the wand. “Don’t think I won’t!”

He would have rather told her all that he knew, explained his choices, but every second counted. Eden’s welfare trumped everything else. “Tell Ashe I’ll make everything right.”

The portal swallowed him with a pop.

Miru-kai stared at the little girl, delight in his heart. A human child! Who would have thought such a prize would come to him here, in the dismal Castle?