He was everything Mara despised. Everything she found repellent in the world.
Meanwhile, she was the epitome of beauty and grace to him, even though he did his best to deny and extinguish all untoward thoughts. A light that shined so brightly he didn’t dare look at her for fear of going blind from the intensity of her innocent purity. Never had he met her equal in character or kindness.
If only she’d have shown some to him. Instead, they had fought worse than his parents. Any time she came into his presence, it ended in a vicious verbal altercation that left him wanting to strangle her. Left him one heartbeat away from the violence he deplored as much as she did.
Nay, there was nothing between them except centuries of hostile regret and bitter words.
“Duel?”
He froze as he moved toward one of the decapitated demons. Awake and alert, it stared up at him with eyes that were the same color and form as his ex-wife’s. He smirked at it. “Well, well … the empress of all bitches finally speaks. How are you, Vine?”
She hissed at him. “As if you don’t already know. But have no fear, Duel. I will get out of this hole where you cast me.”
He gave her a tolerant smile. “Tell me where you are, love, and I will come get you. Open the door myself and let you out.”
She released an evil, seductive laugh. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
More than she’d ever know. Thoughts of their reunion were the only thing that kept him going.
“You should have kept fighting when I told you to, you worthless bastard. But no … you wanted peace. Tell me, how does it taste?”
He tossed another demon onto the fire. “Wouldn’t know, since you deprived me of it.”
“You promised me the world!”
“And you promised me your heart. Guess we both lied.” He reached for another head to add it to the pile where he’d already placed the others. “Any final words?”
“Watch your back, Duel. I won’t lose again.”
“Neither will I. Beat to quarters, love. Be coming for you, dead running. Above board.” He tossed the head in and watched the flames consume it as he tried not to let her words get to him. It was, after all, what she wanted. Mental warfare was how she played, and he knew it well.
Besides, she couldn’t possibly have a spy among his crew. No one would be so stupid. They were too afraid of him for that, and well they should be. One thing he’d learned from his father, an iron fist went a long way in limiting treachery.
Betrayal was never served from the hand of an enemy. It was a blow that by its very nature came from the fist of a friend or loved one. Hence his current stint in this lesser perdition known to his people as Myddangeard and his sentence in the greater inferno Christians called hell.
And for what?
Not giving a large enough shit about himself and his own needs. Rather, he’d been damned for trying to save his people. For his crimes in attempting to drive the Roman plague from their lands and for keeping the dark fey tribes from overrunning them.
Marcelina was right. He’d been a brutal, bloody warlord after the death of his sister. One who’d sold his soul to keep his clan safe from all who wanted them enslaved or eradicated. It’d seemed a fair enough trade at the time. There had been nothing and no one else for him to live for.
He’d lost all hope. All sense of any kind of purpose or desire. His own existence had meant absolutely nothing to him in those bleak days. Because of the brutality of Elf’s death, he’d gone to war with the world and hadn’t cared about anything, other than making sure no other woman or child under his protection fell victim to a similar fate.
In truth, he’d wanted death to come and spare him the agony of living. But he’d been too good at fighting to go down in battle. Too contentious and spiteful to die to a lesser swordsman. They’d taken everything else from him. He wasn’t about to let them take his reputation, too. Nay, by the gods, he wouldn’t fall to a lesser barbarian.
If he was going to perish from this earth, it would only be to a greater bastard than he.
At least that was what he’d thought back in the day.…
Devyl blinked as the heat and flames of the pyre in front of him took his mind back to that one moment so long ago in Iron Age Tintagel when he’d stupidly slit his own throat and not known it. Unlike his parents’, his death hadn’t come so swiftly from his own stupidity. Oh no … Once set in motion, it’d taken Vine a bit longer to find the courage to end him.
But she would never have done it had he not given her the motivation.
“What do you mean you’re negotiating peace with those mindless sheep?”
Still covered in the blood of the boys he’d slain in battle, Devyl had set his dented helm on the table and reached for the goblet of mead Vine had been drinking upon his arrival. “You heard me. I’m done with this, wife. ’Tis time we let peace reign in our fields for a while. Our borders are secure. The Romans have retreated. I’ve been at war and in battle since before I first grew whiskers on my cheeks. No more.”
Draining the cup, he poured more and locked gazes with her. Damn, she was ever a great beauty. With hair as red as her fiery temper and curves that men dreamed about losing themselves in, she never failed to turn his thoughts away from anything else whenever she was near. “Besides, you promised me a son. ’Tis time we set about that family.” And right then, she was the only field he wanted to plow.
She’d screwed her face up at him. “But what of the Mercians? The Saxons?”
“What of them?”
“What if they encroach? For that matter, the Romans are likely to return. You can’t trust them.”
Scoffing at her ridiculous concern, he passed a droll stare over her body. “Given the number of heads upon pikes on our borders, I doubt it. Am told even the Picts and Adoni Fey pissed themselves when last they saw my grisly fence.”
In retrospect, he should have known by the way her eyes darkened that she was plotting his demise that night. But his thoughts had been on the fact that her gown had dipped low enough to expose the top swell of her breasts. And on the fact that her hair teased the creamy crest of it. The fact that if she leaned forward just a bit more, or sneezed, she’d most likely spill out of her gown completely.…
I was such a fool.
His own parents had been incapable of showing him even a modicum of affection. Why had he thought for even a heartbeat that a Deruvian bitchington would be any better?
He’d been nothing more than a tool for her. A weapon she’d used to strike back at her own enemies.
Devyl blinked as he forced himself to return to the present and to the fire, where he cut the heart from the last of the demons for his supper, taking care to save its blood, and then threw it to the fire.