With his powers, he cut another hole through, into a small room from his shadow realm into that of Camelot. Shadow stayed back while they walked through. Then he joined them and sealed the rupture tightly closed.
Medea screwed her face up at his actions. “How do you do that?”
“That’s like asking me how I breathe. I don’t know. I just think it and it happens.” Shadow gave her a sarcastic grin. “It’s magick.”
Rolling her eyes at his sarcasm, she shook her head at him. “You’re a sick bastard.”
“Always.” As he stepped away, Medea frowned.
There was a smear of blood on the floor. Even though there was no color in this room where they were—everything appeared as shades of black and white, like an old movie—she knew the looks of it. The smell of it.
And it took her a few seconds to realize the source.
“You’re wounded?”
Shadow paused at her question, but didn’t answer.
Then she saw it. The huge, gaping wound in Shadow’s side that was partially concealed by his cape. “Shadow?”
His eyes rolled back into his head as his legs buckled. He would have hit the ground hard had Falcyn not caught him and lowered him slowly to the floor.
Yet no sooner did he pull back than the door opened to show a small group of Adoni who weren’t their allies.
The rasping of metal filled the air as the Adoni unsheathed their swords.
An instant later, they attacked.
14
Alone in the stone tower with her prisoner, Narishka watched as Maddor attempted to reach her so that he could kill her. Luckily she had the mandrake quelled. Though the term was becoming more a hope than actual reality as the mandrake continued to fight against the magick she was using to imprison him.
“Let me out of here!”
She tsked at his furious tone. All in all, she’d give it to the huge feral beast. Like his father, he was a handsome one. With black hair and eyes, he bled an innate, raw masculinity that drew others to him. And though she’d never had a taste of his lush, sexy body, she suspected he was incredible in bed. At least that was what all the rumors of him said.
Again, just like his father. Oh for the days when Falcyn had been much more reckless and nondiscriminating. When he hadn’t cared who ventured to his bed or where he found himself in the morning.
What he drank …
But that was for another day to test the boundaries of Maddor’s tastes.
Right now, she had to keep him caged.
And far away from her throat he was so desperate to tear out.
“Don’t make me drug you.”
Drugging a mandrake was a very tricky thing that killed about half of them. And if Maddor died, Falcyn would rip out her heart and force-feed it to her. Little did Maddor know, their profound fear of Falcyn’s temper was the only reason the beast was still alive.
“Why am I here?”
She shrugged. “Why are any of us in this thing called life? That’s a question for the ages and for philosophers. Is that really what you want to discuss?”
“No. What I want is to feast on your fetid heart, bitchtress!”
Aye, she knew that fiery, hate-filled glare in those dark eyes. How no one had ever guessed that Maddor was the single, true son of Veles she couldn’t imagine. They were so similar in temperament and mannerisms. Even more alike in words and actions. They might as well be the same person. Only a fool could miss how similar they were to one another.
“Is that any way to speak to your aunt?”
He scowled at her unprecedented and unexpected disclosure.
One that succeeded in taking a degree of his bluster and fury from him. “My what?”
Folding her arms over her chest, she cocked a brow at the beast she’d finally subdued. “Aye. Seems we’ve kept a few things from you over the centuries you’ve been imprisoned here. The least of which is that your birth mother, Igraine, was my true blood-born sister.”
Maddor froze. By his expression, she could tell he was debating whether or not to believe her. “You’re lying. Just like you always do.”
“Truth, dearest nephew. Absolute, stinking truth. There is no reason for me to lie over this. And I have another bit of information you might want … that mangy beast you hate so much—”
“Kerrigan.”
Oh, she’d forgotten about that one.
Come to think of it, he had a long, torrid list of those he hated to the marrow of his bones. So much so that if she continued to play this game, they’d be here for weeks.
She shook her head. “Nay, the beast who serves him … Blaise.”
“What about the worthless wretch?”
Scoffing at his tone, she approached his cage ever so slowly, wary of any sudden move he might make against her as she prepared herself for the most fatal blow to his mind that she intended to give him.
Aye, this would take her fair mandrake down a few pegs.
And cause him to hate the others for all eternity.
“There’s something you need to know about our dear Blaise … and how he’s related to you and your real father. Brace yourself, boy … this is going to kill you.”
More than that, it would make him kill his own father.
*
Medea manifested her sword and charged it with her powers before she caught the first Adoni’s blade with her own. She parried his thrust and drove him back while the others moved around her to battle their individual opponents.
Brogan stayed by Shadow’s side to defend him as they dealt with this newest assault.
Of course the Adoni sounded an alarm. ’Cause keeping quiet would just be too much to ask. Wouldn’t it?
Damn villains. Unlike her, they didn’t have a code they followed. Mannerless pigs.
Urian cursed. “Well, this wasn’t how I saw these events unfolding.”
Falcyn snorted at his sarcasm. “I knew better than to get involved with Daimons and Dark-Hunters. What I get for coming out of my hole.”
With a grimace, Medea lopped the head off her Adoni opponent, then turned toward Falcyn before she engaged another enemy and sought to end him, too. “Stop whining, dragonfly! Why don’t you shift and set fire to them? Make this a little easier on us? Eh?”
“Simple spatial awareness. If either Blaise or I change right now, we’d kill the lot of you, as we’d take up this entire room and you’d be crushed beneath us. Still want me to shift, love?”
Oh. Medea flashed him a grin as she kicked her opponent back. “Please, don’t.”
“Thought you might feel that way.”
Just as they finished off their Adoni and began to make sure there weren’t more, the door flew open.
They turned as one solid group to face this new onslaught.
As tall as Falcyn, the newcomer was swathed in the gold and green armor of an Adoni guard. A thick leather hood covered his head. Muscled and fierce, he stood with the cocksure stance of a warrior who knew how to fight to the bitter end.
Yet he didn’t draw his sword.
Rather, he held his hands out to his sides as if amused by them and their predicament.
Medea braced herself for a psychic attack. Or one born of magick. That was what someone like this usually went for.
Instead, laughter greeted them. “Bet if I sneezed right now, I’d send the lot of you jumping straight to the ceiling like a glaring of cats.”