Warrior's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood)

  Praise for

  THE IMNADA BROTHERHOOD SERIES

  “A compellingly dark Regency world of shifters, fey, and passion. Alexa Egan promises to be a star of the genre.”

  —Kathryne Kennedy, author of The Elven Lords series

  “Complex world-building and compelling characters. Egan’s creatures are sexy, soulful, and dangerous.”

  —Molly Harper, author of the Nice Girls series

  “Replete with dark, sensuous, and honorable characters and a fast-paced, intricate plot, this highly romantic and exciting story is a winner.”

  —RT Book Reviews (41/2 stars)

  “Sexy shifters, ancient blood feuds, and a heroine who won’t quit her man.”

  —USA Today bestselling author Caridad Piñeiro

  “Brilliant and inventive storytelling.”

  —VampChix

  “A series to keep an eye on.”

  —All About Romance

  “You will be pulled into the magical parallel reality created by Alexa Egan and not want to leave.”

  —Bitten By Romance

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  Prologue

  DEEPINGS, CORNWALL—

  THE PRIMARY SEAT OF THE DUKE OF MORIEUX SUMMER 1815

  No matter what, they would not see him weep.

  Instead Gray bit his lower lip until blood dripped hot down his chin to mix with the streaks already smearing his bruised and battered chest. He twisted against the silver fetters clamped around his wrists and ankles, his torn flesh mottled a sickly shade of green from the metal’s poisonous touch, but the struggle served only to sap him of the little strength he had left.

  “Just get it over with,” he shouted, despising the weakness cracking his voice and the tremors shaking his knees.

  The old man merely stared with milky pale eyes upon his only surviving grandson. An aura of disappointment carved long lines in the duke’s aged and solemn face. His heir had let him down—again.

  Gray’s gaze widened to take in the Gather elders ringing the duke like hounds round a carcass. The ruddy-faced, corpulent Lord Carteret, down from his lonesome highland holding. Owen Glynjohns from Wales, with his bold good looks and bard’s clever tongue. The Skaarsgard, who’d traveled from the ocean-sprayed Orkney cliffs, where the basking seals and the rugged fishermen considered each other kin. Each of the men looked on impassively, their duty done if not enjoyed.

  The fourth elder watched the proceedings with a face pale as bone and eyes hollow with mute rage, his hands clamped against the arms of his chair like claws. No doubt Sir Desmond Flannery was imagining his own son’s sentence, due to be carried out on the morrow. Mac would never snivel or flinch in fear. He was the consummate soldier, unlike Gray, once his senior officer.

  Sir Desmond leaned forward, his mouth twisted in disgust. “Enough dallying. Let’s have it done then. The sun’ll be down in another wee bit and he’ll”—he seemed to choke on his words—“he’ll shift. The chains aren’t intended to hold a bird on the wing.”

  The elder was right. Already Gray felt the queasy slide of Fey blood magic stealing over him, flames burning blue and silver at the edges of his vision. The sun would set soon, and the curse would take him over, twisting his unwilling body from man to beast for the hours of night. His eyes flashed wildly toward his grandfather before darting away again, his bowels churning ominously.

  “Of course.” A nondescript little gentleman with a clerk’s fastidiousness stepped forward in response. The Arch Ossine—Sir Dromon Pryor—had eyes that missed nothing and a mouth trained for truth-twisting. “Mr. Copper. Whenever you’re ready.”

  Gray tried meeting Pryor’s triumphant stare but faltered when the enforcer stepped to the scaffold, a red-hot iron brand held in one brutish fist.

  The restless audience whispered, feet shuffling against the benches, but no one called out or came to his defense. They knew the laws that had governed the Imnada’s existence for a hundred generations. Understood that the weak and the sick and those no longer able to serve the bloodlines must be excised like a cancer lest the whole pack be brought low. Lowest peasant or heir to the Duke of Morieux himself, it made no difference when it came to preserving the safety of the five clans.

  Gray found himself scanning the crowd for one particular face—though he knew she wouldn’t be there. The duke had sent her north months ago. Still, Gray found himself repeating her name in his head like a mantra, a way to hold himself together in these final horrific moments.

  What would she have done had she been here to witness his sentence? Would she have turned her back like the rest of them? Or would she have leapt to his defense as she had so many times over the years? He’d never know, and for that he was almost glad.

  The brand’s heat could be felt from three feet away. Gray clamped his jaw lest he embarrass himself with last-minute pleas for mercy. Still, two rasping words leaked from his bloody mouth as he stood bowed and shaking beneath the weight of his fear.

  “Grandfather. Please.”

  The duke’s chin lifted from the sagging folds of his neck while his hands fluttered for a moment. Then Sir Dromon leaned close to the aging leader of the five clans of Imnada, whispering his poison like silver into the old man’s ear. The duke nodded. His hands relaxed into his lap. His mouth pursed and his eyes hardened once more, pale and uncaring as stones in a pool.

  The enforcer laid the brand to Gray’s back, singeing through the skin to the muscles and tendons below. The charred stench of roasting flesh filled his nose. Screams ripped from his body and tore up his throat. They bounced off the stone circle of the Deepings Hall, echoing back to him in waves of anguish. His knees buckled as he arched away from the pain, every nerve aflame, every drop of blood in his veins on fire, his very soul cleaving from his body.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, he escaped to the darkest corner of his mind as a hunted creature burrows away from even the hope of light, but the desolate keening sounds of his disgrace followed him as his clan mark was burned away in a stripping of all he was or would ever hope to be. He retched until his ribs cracked and piss leaked into his boots.

  But not one tear fell.

  They never saw him weep.

  She never saw him weep.

  1

  LONDON

  AUGUST 1817

  The bells were ringing nine in the morning when Major Gray de Coursy stepped from the hackney at Tower Hill. Despite the hour, fog cloaked the streets in a thick, choking darkness. It swirled in the alleys and gathered in the parks, bringing with it the stench of dead fish, river mud, and chimney soot. Lanterns threw dim greasy pools of light over the cobbles while footsteps and voices echoed eerily in the green-gray miasma. A link boy offered Gray his services but was waved away. His keen vision cut the gloom like a knife, and he wanted no witnesses to his destination.

  He passed through a narrow, dingy lane, coming out near the disused waterstairs south of the Tower and St. Katherine’s, stopping finally in front of a door set deep into a stone wall—part of an ancient chapterhouse, though the wall and yard beyond were all that remained. He knocked once, then twice more.

  A key turned. A bolt slid clear and the door swung open on the hunched figure of a man. “She awaits you, my lord.”

  “It’s simply Major de Coursy, Breg. Lord Halvossa was my father’s title and would have been my brother’s after. Never m
ine.”

  “Yes, my lord . . . er . . . Major, sir. As you say.” The porter bowed him in, throwing the bolt behind him. “I offered her breakfast but she refused.”

  “You did as you should.” Gray approached a low, columned outbuilding, Breg following. At the entrance, the old man paused, shuffling foot to foot.

  “Out with it,” Gray said sternly.

  The porter licked his lips and gave a quick breath as if steeling himself. “It’s an enforcer, my lord. Prowling the streets near Cheapside last night.”

  “How could you tell it was an Ossine?”

  Breg huffed. “I may be rogue and cast from my holding, same as yourself, but I can still sense a member of the five clans right enough. And I know a shaman when I cast my peepers on one. They’re different, ain’t they?”

  “What was he doing?”

  “Asking questions. I was afraid to get too close. Didn’t want him catching wind of me following. No clansman would sob to hear old Breg had ended as food for the grubs with a stake through his heart, that’s for sure.”

  Gray’s mouth curved in a faint smile. “This clansman would. If you see him again, send word. But don’t go sniffing around on your own. I can’t afford to lose you.”

  “They’re growing bolder, ain’t they, my lord . . . Major, sir? I heard tell of a rogue near Clapham disappeared and turned up dead. Another one up north off Islington Road by the Quaker workhouse. It’s not safe to be unmarked no more.”

  Gray’s hand tightened around the head of his cane. “Things will change. They must, or the clans are doomed.”

  “Hope you’re right, Major. I surely do.”

  Gray left Breg and entered the outbuilding, placing his worry over the man’s revelations aside to be mulled over later. This morning’s meeting was too important for distractions.

  Lady Delia Swann rose from her chair to meet him, the lamplight gilding her golden hair and flushing her rose and cream skin. “It’s been a long time, Gray.”

  Her serene beauty hid many secrets, as Gray well knew; her Fey-blood magic, her alliance with his rebels, and her sexual activities with a prince of the realm, two generals, and an archbishop. She assumed she knew all his secrets as well, but there were some things he did not speak aloud. Some fears he refused to name.

  “I’ve been busy.” He bowed over the hand she held out, ignoring the glitter of conquest in her eyes.

  “As have I, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be busy together from time to time.” Her gaze traveled sensuously over him, lifting the hairs at the back of his neck. “By the looks of you, I’d guess you haven’t been to bed yet. Was it that little Nicholls girl? She practically leapt into your arms last night at the Praters’ ball. I wouldn’t think virgins were to your taste, but then you’ve always been full of surprises. And she comes with an ample dowry.”

  “I’m old enough to be her father.”

  Lady Delia laughed. “Only if you’d sired her at the ripe old age of eleven.”

  “I should have said I feel old enough to be her father.”

  “That I would believe. But if it wasn’t the Nicholls girl, it must have been Lady Bute.” She laid a finger against her full lips, gold-flecked eyes lifted in thought. “Then there’s that opera dancer they say tried to drown herself in the Thames for love of the mysterious Ghost Earl. Hmm . . . so many choices . . .”

  “Whoever came up with that damned sobriquet should have their heads boiled in oil.”

  She crossed to his side. “You should be flattered. It makes you seem dashing and dangerous and passionately gallant. A hero in a swashbuckling romance.” She cupped his face in her hands. “If they only knew the half of it, am I right?”

  He stepped back, out of her reach. “Can we move on with the reason for this meeting?”

  She gave a little half shrug. “Of course. Have you made the arrangements we spoke of? If I’m to disappear, I want to be sure all my affairs are in order, and that includes the boy.”

  His hand tightened around the head of his cane, lips pinched tight. “It’s been done just as you asked.”

  “And my personal payment for services rendered?”

  Gray took a leather pouch from his coat and tossed it on a nearby table. “You can disappear quite thoroughly with what’s there. Make a new life on the Continent or in the Americas. You’ll be safe. You’ll be free.”

  “I like the sound of that. I’ve already booked passage on the packet to Calais. From there, the world is my playground.”

  “You leave so soon?”

  “You sound disappointed”—she offered him a sly smile which he did not return—“but now that you’ve done as I asked, there’s nothing more holding me here.”

  “The boy is here.”

  “A boy no longer. He’ll miss me for a short while, but life will rectify that quickly enough.” She shrugged, though he knew she cared more than she let on. “I’ve been asked politely by Lord Burrell to vacate my town house in favor of his latest affaire du coeur, and the family pile in Devonshire was never a home to me.” She shivered. “Too full of ghosts for my taste. My sister is welcome to it.” The leather pouch disappeared inside her voluminous cloak, and a narrow flat jeweler’s box, designs etched into its surface with an artist’s skill, was laid on the table in its place. “The last missing Key of Gylferion, as promised. I believe you have the other three already?”

  “I might.” Gray opened the lid to reveal a notched copper disk, dulled green with age and bent at one corner. On one side, the crescent of the Imnada; on the other, two vertical opposing arrows within a diamond. “How did you get hold of it?”

  “Best not to ask. You might not like the answer.” She cocked her head, watching him. A frown drew her lips into a pout. “You know, I could take your money and still sell you out to the highest bidder, Gray. The Ossine would be on your doorstep by nightfall. And if they didn’t kill you, the Other would. Your enemies are mounting.”

  He closed the box and slid it into his coat pocket. “You could, but you won’t.”

  “What makes you so certain? I’d sell my own soul if it gained me a profit.”

  This time it was he who reached out and touched her cheek. “You say these things, but I know you better.”

  “You always did.” She sighed. “Probably why we never got along.” Her eyes grew troubled. “Be careful, Gray. In my line of work, I hear the whispers. You’re being watched by my kind as well as yours. There are wagers about who’ll move first to eliminate you. Perhaps you should think of joining me in Calais.”

  He rubbed a thumb across his scarred palm, the myriad pale lines crisscrossing the roughened skin like a tangled skein of threads. Each day brought a new cut and a new scar as he worked the magic that kept him whole and the black curse at bay. A magic that had become an addiction. He could not stop. He could not continue. Either choice brought sickness and then death. “If I can’t break the Fey-blood’s curse, neither side will have to worry over me for long. I’ll be dead and the Ghost Earl shall be ghost in truth.”

  * * *

  The mouse squeezed its way into the narrow crack between street and foundation, glancing back once to make sure it had not been followed. No sign of pursuit. The way was clear. Wriggling through the maze of lathing and plaster, it followed its clever rodent nose past the kitchens, which were quiet this late at night, and upward to the ground floor. The study was dark; the dining room, empty, but the mouse expected that. The hour was late. It was the perfect time to explore unseen, and the perfect form in which to do so unnoticed. What was one mouse among a colony of such? A nuisance, but hardly worth more than a stiff whisk with a broom. Better that than a sword in the gut, which might be the reaction should Gray discover the real identity of the rodent creeping along his wainscoting.

  Sliding under a broken slat, the mouse moved through the walls with purpose, assessing the town house’s layout should quick escape be necessary, searching rooms as it went. No guests resided in the empty chambers. Only half a han
dful of servants lay sleeping in the attics. Of guards, it saw no sign. He was alone and unprotected. Didn’t he understand the danger?

  Reaching a small room at the back of the second floor, the mouse paused at the flicker of candlelight coming through a gap in the chair rail. Following the dim glow, it sniffed and pushed its beady-eyed head out through the hole. A bedchamber. His bedchamber, by the lived-in, cluttered look of it.

  A shocking thought followed close upon this observation. A shocking, unnerving thought that had the mouse shoving its way out through the hole into the room to rise on its hind legs, whiskers twitching. Did that heap of blankets in the bed move? Was someone sleeping? Was it two someones and were they sleeping at all? What if they were in the middle of . . .

  So focused on determining whether the four-poster in the corner contained one or two people, it missed the quick descent of a crystal glass that trapped it, held in place by an enormous hand.

  A face leaned close, studying the mouse, searching for answers. Older now. Harder. The gentle rounded features and sweet innocence of youth had been stripped bare and scraped raw until it seemed honed like a knife blade, no softness to dull the glittering edge. No tenderness to moderate the harsh austerity. But the same icy blue eyes shone from beneath dark winged brows, the same tiny scar remained at the edge of a strong uncompromising mouth. The same long aristocratic nose flared now with suspicion and doubt.

  Scooping up glass and mouse both, the man lifted them to eye level. “Eagles eat mice, you know.”

  * * *

  Meeryn Munro was the last person Gray had expected to visit him—in his bedchamber—in the middle of the night . . . alone. Yet here she was, shed of her mouse’s skin and seated on the edge of his bed in nothing but his borrowed robe. At this point, he would have preferred her covered in fur. It was far less revealing. Far less apt to make his thoughts wander away from what her unexpected arrival meant.