Closing the door, she moved across the room until she stood close to Blaise. She lowered her voice so that no one outside the room could overhear them. “I do. But if something isn’t done, Varian will die.”
His expression turned to stone as if he were trying to hide his emotions from her. “Varian? duFey?”
“The same.”
“What concern is his life to me?”
“I should think his life is extremely important to you.”
“And why is that? Why do you come to me about the life of a man everyone claims is worthless?”
She swallowed before she answered truthfully. “Because you’re the only one here I can trust. You are the only one, besides Magda, who has ever shown any kindness toward me. For that reason, I believe you can and will help me.”
He tilted his head back as if he were using his powers to sense the air around them. “How do I know this isn’t a trap?”
“I don’t betray my friends.”
He snorted at that. “Since when am I one of your friends?”
She reached to touch his left shoulder blade and pressed her hand against a spot she knew had meaning for him. “You have always been counted as a friend. For many, many years.”
Recognition darkened his gaze as he swiftly caught her meaning. “Why do you want to help Varian?”
“He will help me escape, too, if I find a way to free him.”
Blaise narrowed his eyes in a way that made her wonder if he could actually see her after all. “Is that the only reason?”
“Aye.”
Her arm fell from him as he rose to his feet. “Then come, we’d best hurry before Narishka learns what we’re about and decides to roast us for it.”
Merewyn took a deep breath in relief even though they were far from safe. At least she’d made it this far, and Blaise had agreed to help her. It was more than she’d had before. “He’s in the dungeon.”
Blaise gave her a stare that said “you think?” before he took her hand and flashed them from his room to where Varian waited in chains.
Luckily, the room was still empty.
“Damn,” Blaise said under his breath as he squinted toward Varian. “Even half-blind, I can see that they made one hell of a mess of you.”
Varian jerked his head up. Disbelief was etched firmly on his face. “What are you doing here?”
“Come to save your rotten ass. What else?”
Varian’s gaze went to her.
“I told you I could get you out.”
He scoffed at her bold words. “I’m not out of here yet. And neither are you.”
Blaise moved forward to stand by Varian’s side. He took one of the thick black chains in his hands and tried to pull it apart. “Whose magick binds you?”
“My mother’s.”
Blaise made a face of disgust. “Can you combine your powers with mine to break it?”
“I’m not sure. She’s using a dampening spell on me that is seriously putting a crimp on what I can do.”
Blaise cursed. “No wonder you look like shit.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly date material yourself, buddy.”
“Could you two hurry,” Merewyn snapped at them. “While the bantering is semientertaining, we do have a bit of a dilemma here that will become severe should someone discover us.”
“She has a point,” Varian said.
Blaise grimaced before he cupped the metal cuff on Varian’s left wrist. “All right, on three, two…one.”
The men closed their eyes as Blaise strained to pull the cuff apart.
A sharp light flashed from the two of them and pierced the room an instant before the cuff broke free. Varian staggered and would have fallen to the floor had Blaise not caught him.
“Here,” Blaise said, setting him back on his feet. He moved to cup Varian’s face between his hands as he whispered quietly in Mandrake. “Asklas gardala varra deya.”
Hissing, Varian jerked back as if pain was shooting through his body. The sound intensified as an eerie yellow glow moved slowly over his body. As it did so, his wounds healed, and his armor undented itself until, once more, he was whole and healed.
Varian let out a deep, relieved breath. His eyes were filled with gratitude.
Blaise patted him on the shoulder an instant before he moved to the other cuff. “Again. Three, two…one.”
The cuff broke away.
Varian closed his eyes and rubbed his arms. “Thank you, Blaise.”
Merewyn couldn’t move as she was struck by how handsome Varian was. His face had been so misshapen for so long that she’d honestly forgotten just how incredibly perfect his features were. His black hair hung in waves that only emphasized the strength of his sculpted jaw, which bore a week’s work of whiskers.
Blaise hesitated before he dropped the cuff to the floor. “Are you okay, V?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Just a little disoriented from your healing.”
Blaise frowned as he looked him over. “What did they do, leave you in pain while you were alone, then heal you right before they beat on you some more?”
Varian nodded.
Merewyn cringed. She hadn’t even thought about that cruelty.
“Did you tell them anything?” Blaise asked quietly.
“Tell them what? That I’m an asshole? I think they already know that.”
Merewyn would have laughed, but she froze as she heard someone outside the room. It was definitely the sound of approaching footsteps. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered to the men.
“You two better get going,” Blaise said before he vanished from the room.
“Blaise!” Varian hissed quietly. When the mandrake didn’t respond, he set off into a long string of curses.
Merewyn was baffled by his anger. “Can’t you use your powers to take us out of here?”
He jerked at a small gold bracelet on his wrist. “Not at the moment. No.”
Merewyn felt the blood drain from her face as she looked about for a place to flee or hide.
There wasn’t one. The room was completely empty except for the chains…and them.
The footsteps came closer until they stopped just before the door. Terrified, she looked up at Varian who put himself between her and it. But he was every bit as defenseless as she was. He didn’t even have his magick.
They were dead!
A key rattled in the lock.
She clutched at Varian’s arm, which kept her behind his back as the door was slowly pushed open.
Chapter 7
Varian tensed, ready to fight as the door creaked open. A heartbeat before he saw who was entering, the room went black. Completely black as he felt himself falling into an abyss. Instinctively he tightened his grip on Merewyn, seeking to protect her as best he could.
When next he blinked, he found himself standing in a small bedroom somewhere in the castle, while Merewyn’s tight grip restricted the blood flow in his arm.
He turned to find Blaise scowling at him. “Cutting it a bit close, weren’t you?”
He released a long aggravated breath before he twisted his wrist away from Merewyn. “Not as close as you did. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Me? You’re the one who’s half-Adoni. Why didn’t you get out of there when I left?”
He held up his wrist with the band on it to show the two of them. “Remember what I said? My mother is still restricting my powers. I can’t travel anywhere with my magick so long as I have this on.”
“Then you better find a way either to pry it off or lose the hand, bud.”
“Is that a problem?” Merewyn asked. “Can’t Blaise get us out of here?”
“Yes,” Varian said automatically. He knew for a fact that the mandrake had come and gone between the realms in the past.
“No,” Blaise corrected.
No? The word echoed in Varian’s head as he envisioned himself strangling the mandrake.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I
can’t get you guys out of here either. I don’t have a key to open the portal.”
Varian’s features turned stony and dark. Murderous. “Where’s your key, Blaise?”
“I left it with Kerrigan because some people like your mother were getting a bit suspicious of me after I came back here. Had one of their snoops found it anywhere in my vicinity, my scaly hide would have been picked clean.”
Oh this was just too perfect. Varian felt suddenly ill as he realized that they were completely screwed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He looked at Merewyn, who appeared to be grappling with the matter a bit more calmly. At least she didn’t look like she wanted to strangle Blaise. “So there’s no way for us to leave here?”
“Nope,” Blaise said. “Not unless Varian frees his powers and zaps us out.”
If only.
Merewyn held her hand to her head as if she were getting a vicious headache. “Then it was all for nothing. I risked my life, and now it’s over. Narishka is going to kill me!”
Varian shook his head. “It’s not over yet.”
She turned on him with a murderous glint in her amber eyes. Even though he hated to admit it, she was breathtaking with the heat of anger in her cheeks. Her eyes snapped fire at him, and it singed him to the deepest part of his manhood. “Of course it is. Where are we to go that they won’t find us?”
He glanced out the small window that overlooked the valley at the far end of Camelot. “Val Sans Retour.”
Both Merewyn and Blaise gaped at him. “The Valley of No Return?” Merewyn asked incredulously. “You’d have us go there?”
Varian couldn’t help taunting her. “You got a better idea?”
She growled at him in a way that shouldn’t be adorable and yet strangely it was. “In case you haven’t noticed, simpkin. No one, and I mean, no one returns from that godforsaken place. Hence the name.”
Blaise folded his arms across his chest. “I have to agree with her, Varian.”
He gave the mandrake a droll stare. “No, you don’t. Besides, how do you know they die there? If you had a chance to put this place behind you and live somewhere else, would you come back?”
Blaise thought about it a second before he turned toward Merewyn. “He does have a point.”
Merewyn glared at them both. “That still leaves me trapped here in this realm…with”—she raked Varian with a cold stare—“you. No offense, I’d rather take my chances with your mother.”
Blaise laughed low in his throat. “And that insult’s gotta hurt.”
Varian narrowed his eyes at the mandrake. “I don’t need your blow-by-blow, Cosell. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m right here.”
Suddenly, a loud bell began chiming. It thundered painfully through the air.
Blaise covered his sensitive ears. “It appears they know you’re gone.”
Varian couldn’t help cringing himself as the sound reverberated through the room. He could actually feel it in his bones. No doubt the gargoyles were being activated by now to help Morgen and Narishka search the castle. They didn’t have long before his mother located them.
He turned toward Blaise. “Look, there’s something weird about that Valley.”
Blaise gave him a duh stare. “Yes, and we all know it. It’s enchanted by Morgen.”
That wasn’t what Varian meant. “And it backs up to Avalon. I’m willing to bet that if you make it through the valley, much like Glastonbury, you can walk through to our side.”
Merewyn’s face turned pale at his words. “I can’t go there.”
“Yes, you can. The barrier is only to keep out evil. You’re not evil, Merewyn. You’re just foolish.”
As he intended, that snapped her out of her fearful panic. “And what does that make you?”
“Stupid and evil, both of which are tempered enough that I can walk through the barrier and not turn to dust.” He winked at her before turning his attention to Blaise. “Take us to the opening of the valley.”
Blaise appeared less than enthused about the order.
But it was Merewyn who protested. “And what if I don’t want to go?”
“You have to make a choice. Me or my mother.”
By her face, he could tell she hated her options. He didn’t know why he enjoyed teasing her—it wasn’t really in his nature, and yet for some reason he liked to nettle her.
She let out an exasperated breath. “I suppose you’re the lesser evil.”
“Not really.” He met Blaise’s curious stare. “You need to get us to the valley,” he repeated.
Blaise’s face was doubtful. “That’s easier said than done. If they see us, I’m through as a double agent. They’ll know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m working with Merlin. No offense, but I’ve spent too many centuries spying in Camelot to just throw that away now.”
“Don’t you think they’re going to know you’re on our side when they find us in your room? They’re not dumb enough to think Merewyn brought me here, and they know I couldn’t have freed myself.”
“Good point. But we still have the problem of them seeing us while we flee.”
Varian closed his eyes and summoned what magick he could. It wasn’t much, but it should be enough to provide them with some cover. He whispered the words that would unleash the breath of the dragons who’d once made Camelot home. They were the forefathers of the mandrake people. A stronger, more primitive race, the dragons had lacked the magical abilities of their progeny. A magick that had come as a result of the dragons breeding with the fey until the last of their pure breed had died and left the half-breeds such as Blaise and the rest.
It was said that the elders of their breed slumbered in the ground beneath the castle. And one of the first tricks any sorcerer learned was how to awaken the dragons for a brief time. It was that spell Varian used now.
As he chanted, the dragons’ breath came up from the ground in great bursts of steam until the area outside was thick with swirling gray fog.
“All right,” Blaise said as he shifted from human into his own dragon form.
Varian frowned as his scales turned from their bright green to a shadowy silver and black. “What are you doing?”
“Just in case I get seen, I plan to look like Maddor. Best-case scenario, they’ll think I’m him and kill him. At the worst, they’ll know it wasn’t him and won’t know who to blame, so my butt will be safe. Now, climb on, kids.”
Varian helped Merewyn on first before he climbed up in front of her. He felt the pressure of her against his back, but with the armor on, he couldn’t feel her, which was probably a good thing. She wrapped her slender arms around his waist and slid herself close to his spine. The delicate pallor of her arms struck him. But not nearly as much as her hands, which were ill kempt and raw. She wasn’t a lady. She was a servant who his mother hadn’t hesitated to abuse, and for that he felt a strange pang of guilt.
There were times when he absolutely hated his mother, and this was definitely one of them. However, he had much more important things to think about at the moment.
“We’re ready,” he said to Blaise.
Blaise dropped from the window, spread out his silvery black wings, and took flight over the treacherous landscape. The steep dive actually took Varian’s breath as the open air washed against his face and whipped his hair.
He’d never particularly cared for this form of travel. For one thing, mandrakes could be unpredictable. For another, it meant relying on someone else for his safety, and trust had never come easily to Varian. But at the moment, he was too grateful to be free of pain to question it.
Blaise’s sides heaved under Varian’s legs as the mandrake headed for the valley as quickly as possible.
“Varian?”
He turned his head at Merewyn’s call as she tightened her grip around his waist. Looking over his shoulder at her, he saw the gargoyles in flight behind them, gaining speed. So much for the dragon’s breath. But then it hadn’t reached up this high.
/> “We’ve been spotted,” he shouted to Blaise.
Blaise looked back, then picked up speed as he headed toward the gray snowcapped mountains. Varian sighed in aggravation. A sword was useless against the gargoyles…as was Blaise’s dragon-fyre. The only thing that could kill them would be a sorcerer’s blast which he couldn’t do so long as he wore the bracelet.
Damn.
“Feint left, then dodge right and swoop toward the trees,” Merewyn called.
“What?” Varian asked.
“Trust me. Gargoyles can’t distinguish color, only movement. If Blaise flies around the dark gray trees, the color of his scales will blend in, and so long as the breeze is moving the leaves, they won’t be able to tell which is Blaise and which is the forest.”
Varian frowned. “Is that true?”
“Only one way to find out.” Blaise headed for the trees as Merewyn had suggested. Sure enough, the gargoyles slowed down.
Varian smiled at the sight of their confusion. “I never knew that.”
“Me either,” Blaise said in his raspy dragon’s voice.
“Neither of you have ever had to hide from them,” she whispered in his ear. “Now be quiet so that they can’t pinpoint us by sound.”
Varian did as she said, while Blaise kept low to the tree line. He covered her hand with his as he wondered how many times she’d been forced to hide from the gargoyles that she’d learned this nifty trick.
Her plan was working, at least until Varian heard the sound of approaching wings. There was only one thing that could cause that. “Mandrakes,” he breathed. Unlike the gargoyles, they weren’t blind to color. Or much else. Even Blaise’s eyesight was crystal clear and sharp in dragon form.
They were also incredibly smart and highly predatorial.
“Hold on,” Blaise said in a deep, raspy tone.
No sooner had Varian tightened his hold on Blaise and Merewyn on his waist than the mandrake let out a belch of fire, lowered his head, and dove at the trees. Varian had a bad feeling about his intention.
And it turned out to be correct as they slammed through the trees. The branches and leaves lacerated their bodies as Blaise headed straight for the ground.
They landed with a roll that sent Varian and Merewyn flying from Blaise’s spine. Acting on pure instinct, Varian rolled with her, trying to keep her from being any more bruised than was necessary. Something that was much easier said than done.