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First, one day had passed without a visit from Hyrk. Then another. Then another.
The span of a mortal moon came and went with no sign of Danu’s jailor. This was strange, in and of itself, but even stranger was the stasis of her bars. They hadn’t thickened so much as a hair’s breadth since she’d last seen him.
This would seem to suggest none of her people had died in that space of time, but that was impossible. Death was a part of life. It was the way of mortality. The way of all things created, her creation especially, since wolfkind’s population was now skewed toward the aged.
Perhaps Hyrk had somehow been weakened. If the demigod had come to harm, he might siphon power from this cell for temporary aid.
Or perhaps he planned to keep the cell open enough that he could taunt her eternally, thus depriving her of the one silver lining of being sealed within: freedom from his self-important ramblings. At the moment, she would give a lock of hair for a visit from him. She would bear his vile presence if it meant discovering the reason for the cell’s stasis.
Her snort disturbed the silence of the dungeon. Never would she have imagined desiring to lay eyes on her enemy.
“There is a first time for everything,” she muttered.
“Don’t tell me you’ve begun talking to yourself, love.” A male voice rose above the quiet. Not Hyrk’s.
Her pulse sped. Only one being in all existence possessed the skill to enter, unseen and unheard, a place as secure as Hyrk’s dungeon. “Duff? Is that you?” She squinted past the bars, searching every patch of blackness untouched by torchlight.
“Aye, ’tis me.”
She followed his voice with her gaze, not seeing him, of course, but finding the shadow he’d donned as his cloak. He’d chosen a pyramid of darkness at the base of a nearby rock. If the space between the bars weren’t so narrow, she might be able to reach through and touch him.
Oh, to touch another! It had been so long since she’d known the silk of another’s skin, the warmth of another’s life. And Duff wasn’t just any other. He was her friend. And former lover.
“How did you come here? Why have you come?” Shock stole her composure. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. “I thought I’d never see you again.” Or anyone, for that matter.
He chuckled. “Story of my life, love. No one will ever see me again.”
A sound that was half-laugh, half-sob escaped her throat. “You know what I mean. It is—” She had to swallow and begin again. “It is good to hear your voice. It has been so long.” So long since she’d heard anything but Hyrk’s taunts.
“Likewise, dear goddess.” Duff must have heard the longing in her voice, because he said. “Here. Feel my breath.”
She pressed her cheek to the bars and forced herself not to recoil from the frigid pulse of Hyrk’s power. The sweet wind of Duff’s breath made her eyelashes flutter.
A pang of remembrance brought her back to long before her imprisonment, when Duff had warmed her bed. They’d shared good times, but being mere Fae, Duff had known better than to seek anything beyond satisfaction of the flesh with a deity.
Their affair might be long over, but that didn’t mean her caring for him had ended. “You should not be here. Get away, before Hyrk returns.” Just because her jailor hadn’t shown himself in recent days didn’t mean he couldn’t appear suddenly. He would show no mercy to a perceived rival.
“Have you forgotten, love? ‘He shall abide forevermore in deepest shadow, where no being, mortal or immortal, shall gaze upon his ensnaring beauty ever again.’” He mimicked the Fae king’s imperious tone. Duff had always done well at impersonating others. If he’d been born a mortal, he would no doubt have joined a troupe of entertainers. “Just as you cannot see me, so will Hyrk never see me. I am safe. I vow it.”
“He might not see you, but he will sense you. If you won’t leave for your own wellbeing, do it for mine. He will assume I summoned you, and punish me for it.”
Hyrk could not harm her physically, for the cold-iron bars that nulled her power also prevented his from reaching her, but he had other ways of causing her grief. With her imprisoned, there was no one to stop him from manipulating her people with his half-truths and temptations. He tormented her by describing in horrifying detail how some of her people had begun raping and mutilating wolfkind women and, recently, women Hyrk claimed were from a parallel mortal realm, the human realm. She couldn’t bear the knowledge of her wolfkind inflicting such suffering. More, she couldn’t bear Hyrk’s jubilation at such despicable acts.
“Do you really think I would have come if I posed any danger to you? I remember your command well.”
Two thousand years ago, Duff had risked a single other visit. It had been the very day she’d fallen victim to Hyrk’s scheme and been thrust into this wretched cell. Using rocks from the dungeon floor, she’d shorn off her hair and created from the strands a relic to hold the portion of her power that sustained her people. She’d disguised it as an ordinary amethyst and used glamour to replace the appearance of her hair until it regrew. Tossing the moonstone into a shadow outside her cell, she’d willed it to summon Duff. The magic had worked, and despite knowing his trespassing might cost him his life, he’d come to her, faithful friend that he was.
“Take it,” she’d told him urgently when he’d found the gemstone on the dungeon floor. “Keep it safe. Should I escape, I’ll find you and reclaim it that I might restore myself to my people. If I am to remain here forever—” She’d pressed on despite darkest despair. “At least I’ll know a piece of me remains free and my people will live on. Hyrk will never be able to rule them as his own. Now go and never return to this place.”
Separated from her people, she had no way of blessing them, not even if she managed to break free from Hyrk’s dungeon. She was effectively a demigod and would remain so unless she reclaimed her power from her moonstone. The difference between her relic and Hyrk’s was that his made him a demigod. It was the source of his power. Its destruction would mean his destruction. Hers held only the portion of the power she’d used to create wolfkind. If destroyed, her relic would return its power to its origin, and she would be a full goddess again, though one locked within a cursed cell.
“How can you be certain Hyrk won’t discover you?” she asked Duff.
“Because His Self-proclaimed Darkness has gone missing.” Duff snorted at the name Hyrk favored. They both knew Duff was far better suited to the name Darkness, having been one with it for so long.
“Missing? How?”
“No one knows for sure, but it might have something to do with your king, Magnus.”
The wolfkind realm she’d shaped and breathed life into for her own glory lay utterly beyond her reach. She knew nothing save what Hyrk chose to share with her.
During his visits, Hyrk liked to crow about a tall, pale king he had at his command. “You should see him, darling. A virile specimen seven feet tall. He bears lupine strength and cunning in measures far beyond your intent, thanks to me. He will show no mercy to those few who still hold you in regard. Pity you won’t be privy to the battles to come. But never fear. I shall regale you with the tales. Over and over again, I shall remind you of how your followers fell to my Bantus.”
This Bantus could not be who Duff meant. He’d clearly said Magnus, a name she’d not yet heard, because Hyrk had not mentioned it. “My king Magnus?” she asked.
“The most loyal of your followers,” he replied. “Since the time of Lachlan, the kings of Marann have kept a temple and priests for your honor. The current king is no exception. You would be well pleased in him, I’d wager.”
“I’m through with wagers.” A wave of regret crashed over her at the mention of Lachlan, the last ruler of her people she had known. Not only had he been brave and true, but he had fought for her glory even after she’d foolishly made him the object of a wager with Hyrk.
She’d let Lachlan down. She’d let her people down.
Her knees hit the rocky floor, bleeding then healing. She relished the brief sting. “They worship me still, but I cannot hear their prayers. I cannot send them aid or blessings. What a pitiful goddess I am!”
“Whist, love. Enough. No good can come from self-pity. Now listen. I will tell you all.”
She scowled at his rebuke, but Duff took no notice. As if they had sat down together for tea, he summarized the last two thousand years in her realm. From Hyrk, she’d learned only those facts that had suited him, but Duff, a stealthy and curious Fae, had observed all, having taken an interest in her realm since he carried her moonstone.
Where Hyrk only told her of his victories, Duff recounted several defeats the demigod had suffered, including the most recent. It seemed the battle Hyrk had anticipated during his last visit had never come about. Once again, according to Duff, her enemy’s attempts at evil had been thwarted by Lachlan’s descendants, including this Magnus her friend told her of.
Duff’s lilt took on a teasing tone as he described King Magnus’s physical attributes. “He stands a head taller than most males and has the lean build of a stealthy hunter. His skill at spearing prey is matched by his prowess on the battlefield. Did I mention he is a young king? His predecessor sired him late in life and went to your breast while Magnus was barely more than a—what do your wolfkind call their young?—a pup?”
Her bosom swelled with pride to know this king honored her and ruled justly. But as Duff described his physical characteristics, a stirring of something other than pride caused warmth in her stomach. She hadn’t felt anything like it since before her imprisonment. The unsettling sensation grew the more Duff talked.
“Even though he has ruled for half a century, he is still in his prime. Silver streaks his temples, but his royal crown sits upon a head of hair as golden as a lion’s mane. They call him the Lion King for his resemblance to the wild beasts from the southern climes. Rumor has it he’s every bit as skilled at bedsport as he is at hunting and skirmishing. Seems he’s given his seed to every remaining woman of childbearing age in an attempt to gain an heir, and none have found his attentions lacking.”
Duff’s words had her imagining a golden-haired wolfkind male rutting female after female. The warmth inside her grew to a tingle of carnal awareness. She pictured him training every ounce of power in his well-formed muscles on the primal thrust of his cock into willing wetness.
Longing made her fists clench. How she missed the basest and most rapturous dance of life! “Enough about this king,” she said more sharply than she’d intended. “Tell me about Hyrk. What happened to him? Where did he go?”
“No one knows where he is, only that he must be lurking in a mortal realm since no immortal has heard a whisper from him. What I do know is that he had two of your wolfkind at his beck and call, both men of power. Ari was second in command to your King Magnus. The other was—”
“Let me guess,” she interrupted. “Bantus.” The king who found pleasure in the pain of women.
“Aye.” Duff sounded surprised. “How did you know?”
“Hyrk likes to boast.”
“Ah. Of course. He likely left out the part where your Magnus defeated Bantus’s army in a war twenty years past and had every last female removed from Larna’s borders.”
Danu found herself liking this Magnus more and more. “You are correct. He did not regale me with this tale of his defeat.” She stored the information away for next time Hyrk taunted her.
“Unfortunately,” Duff said darkly, “Once Hyrk finished licking his wounds, he resumed his wickedness. He taught his followers how to replace the women Magnus took from them. Using his relic.”
She gasped. “He wouldn’t!”
It violated the Sacred Way of All Things to allow mortals access to a relic, like the one she’d created to keep her power. Like the one that gave demigods like Hyrk their power. Even demigods were far too powerful for mortal comprehension. In the wrong hands, a relic could destroy an entire realm. She dared not even imagine what could happen if a mortal got hold of her relic, bestowed with the power of a full goddess.
“Oh, he would, and he did,” Duff assured her. “Hyrk’s followers used his relic to steal women from the human realm. Twelve of them.”
The ones Hyrk had crowed about. “Those poor creatures.”
She had never troubled herself over the affairs of humans, having dismissed the ancient race long ago for their short lives and fragile health compared to her wolfkind. Nevertheless, hearing about their suffering sickened her just as much as when Hyrk had described the abuse of wolfkind women.
“Do not worry for them, love,” Duff said gently. “Your Magnus rescued them in another victorious battle, a recent one at that. The human women are safe, at least for now. Though I would not put it past His Sniveling Shite-Licker to fix his target on them if given half the chance.”
“Why would he seek to harm the human women? Why not take revenge on Magnus for his victories?”
“Oh, he hates Magnus. You can be certain of that. But he hates the human women nearly as much. You see, it was a human woman who slew his servant Bantus. Her interference gave Magnus the advantage and cost Hyrk his relic. And a human woman is said to have appeared to Magnus in a vision as the mother of his future heir. Wherever Hyrk is, I’d wager he’s plotting to reclaim his relic and prevent this vision from unfolding.”
She waved away the notion of a vision, knowing she had not granted one since before her imprisonment. Even if she’d wanted to, the bars made such a thing impossible. What concerned her more was the mention of her enemy’s relic.
“So. Hyrk is without his relic.” She tapped her chin. “That would make him next to powerless.” It also explained the stasis of the bars. He was surely diverting power from her cell for sustenance until he secured new followers. She sniffed. “That’s what he gets for entrusting the source of his power to mortals. The fool.”
“Yes, well—” Duff cleared his throat. “Not only does your Magnus have Hyrk’s relic in his possession, but he had it blessed by the priest who serves your temple. That is why Hyrk has gone into hiding. Not only has he lost his most faithful followers, but he has been cut off from his source of power. Even if he manages to get his hands on his relic, it won’t work for him unless he can find a mortal to put faith in him.”
If not for the evidence surrounding her, she would find Duff’s news too good to be true. One thing didn’t fit, though. “My priest would have no power with which to bless Hyrk’s relic. I am captive.” She motioned around herself. Being Fae, Duff ought to know the properties of cold-iron. “What you suggest is impossible.”
“Is it?” Duff sounded smug. “Have you considered the possibility of your power moving in the mortal realm and working your will even without your active participation?”
“Of course not. What power I have left cannot pass through the bars.” Was Duff acting dense simply to annoy her?
“Have you forgotten our last visit?” Duff said. “Hyrk is not the only one with a powerful relic in the mortal realm.”
She stilled. Even the breath in her lungs froze in time. Not a molecule shivered in or around her. “Tell me you have not lost my moonstone.” Her voice reverberated with a trace of power. Though faint, it was enough to make the bars hum. The relic contained a portion of her very soul, the portion that sustained her people. Any mortal seeking to use it in her name, even for good, could unleash unprecedented destruction on their realm.
“Easy, love. I have not lost it.”
She began to relax.
“I gave it away.”
