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.
And to Edyth. He would have done anything for her after that day.
When she’d died of a rare fever a year later, it’d damn near destroyed him. How cruel that they had finally become close, only to have something as pathetic as a worthless cold take her life and rob him of a very special friendship.
So he’d clung to his Elf after Edyth’s passing even more and with a passion that had oft left her so frustrated at him that she’d spent endless hours playfully teasing him for it.
You’re stifling me, brother! Can I not have a moment to myself? I swear it wouldn’t surprise me to find you sitting atop me one day as I do my morning business in the privy, like some great mother hen! Indeed, you’re so close that I eat the food and you burp for me. Words she’d spoken with humor and never with malice.
Unlike him, his Elf had never held any ill will or anger toward anyone.
God, how he missed her.
Don’t think about it.…
Because thinking about her even now, after all these centuries, still tore him apart.
“Captain?”
He looked over his shoulder to see Belle headed his way. “Aye, milady Morte, what can I do for you?”
“Be ye aware of what it is you’ve taken aboard the ship, sir?”
“Indeed. Why? Is she giving you trouble?”
“You could say that.”
He arched a brow at her evasiveness. “I did say that. What sayest you?”
“Well … she got a bit lippy with us.”
Ah, dear gods. He arched a brow as she paused in her recitation of what all “lippy” entailed.
“And?” he prompted when she failed to elaborate.
“Well,” she repeated, “be it all right with you if Mr. Death pins her to the wall?”
Devyl hesitated as several scenarios for those words went through his mind. William having his way with the beast in a corner.
Or Will literally daggering the hag.
Not sure which of the two would be worse for the lot of them, Devyl headed for the women’s quarters, where he quickly found his quartermaster one heartbeat away from killing the bitchington.
Grabbing the sword from Will’s hand, he arched a brow. “Really?”
William grimaced at him. “Begging your pardon, Captain. I should have asked. May I kill the worthless trollop?”
“Sorry, Mr. Death. I want that particular amusement myself.”
Gagged by a piece of linen, Mona shrieked and struggled against the ropes William had double-knotted around her hands.
Especially when Devyl turned on her, sword held at the ready. Aye, this time, he was going to gut her.
Gate be damned.
And no one would stop him.
8
Just as Devyl would have killed the Deruvian, Mara appeared in the room and used her powers to dissolve his sword. His temper flaring, he glared at her. “Don’t need a sword to destroy your sister.”
As he started to choke Mona, a massive, invisible wave knocked him away, into a wall.
“Don’t push me, Du. I’m not the scared little child you found that day in the Fforest Fawr. I’ve come a long way, and so have my powers.”
Growling, he faced Mara with his full demonic visage. One that caused Belle, Janice, Sancha, Valynda, and even William to pull back in fear. Even the bitchling slithered toward the shadows to hide from his wrath.
“And who gave you those powers?” he growled.
“Do not push me!” she repeated.
He closed the distance between them so that barely an inch separated them. “Ditto.”
Her breathing ragged, she lifted her chin while her eyes blazed defiance and hatred. An unseen wind flared her pale hair around her slender form while she hovered above the boards of the ship that had been crafted from her body. “You’re still just an animal, aren’t you?”
Those words cut him to the quick, but he refused to let her or anyone else know it. Insults and abuse were mother’s milk to his blackened soul. They were all he’d ever known, and so what if she gave them to him? “Savage and rabid from my first breath to my last.”
“Then you need to leave and let me deal with this. Calmly. Without you.”
It took everything he had not to retaliate. She had no idea how lucky she was that he wasn’t the beast she accused him of being.
He curled his lip to sneer at her. “Deruvians forever, aren’t you? It’s why we hated the Vanir so. You were always so high and mighty in your arrogance. Thinking yourselves above the rest of us.”
If only she knew the real truth.
“You dare lecture me on morality? On humanity? Seriously?”
He let out a bitter, scoffing laugh. “Nay, lady.” He sneered the word, turning it into an insult. “I would never deign to tarnish your people. None of you ever committed a single atrocity against anyone. Did you, now?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”