Deadmen Walking Read online

  And to Edyth. He would have done anything for her after that day.

  When she’d died of a rare fever a year later, it’d damn near destroyed him. How cruel that they had finally become close, only to have something as pathetic as a worthless cold take her life and rob him of a very special friendship.

  So he’d clung to his Elf after Edyth’s passing even more and with a passion that had oft left her so frustrated at him that she’d spent endless hours playfully teasing him for it.

  You’re stifling me, brother! Can I not have a moment to myself? I swear it wouldn’t surprise me to find you sitting atop me one day as I do my morning business in the privy, like some great mother hen! Indeed, you’re so close that I eat the food and you burp for me. Words she’d spoken with humor and never with malice.

  Unlike him, his Elf had never held any ill will or anger toward anyone.

  God, how he missed her.

  Don’t think about it.…

  Because thinking about her even now, after all these centuries, still tore him apart.

  “Captain?”

  He looked over his shoulder to see Belle headed his way. “Aye, milady Morte, what can I do for you?”

  “Be ye aware of what it is you’ve taken aboard the ship, sir?”

  “Indeed. Why? Is she giving you trouble?”

  “You could say that.”

  He arched a brow at her evasiveness. “I did say that. What sayest you?”

  “Well … she got a bit lippy with us.”

  Ah, dear gods. He arched a brow as she paused in her recitation of what all “lippy” entailed.

  “And?” he prompted when she failed to elaborate.

  “Well,” she repeated, “be it all right with you if Mr. Death pins her to the wall?”

  Devyl hesitated as several scenarios for those words went through his mind. William having his way with the beast in a corner.

  Or Will literally daggering the hag.

  Not sure which of the two would be worse for the lot of them, Devyl headed for the women’s quarters, where he quickly found his quartermaster one heartbeat away from killing the bitchington.

  Grabbing the sword from Will’s hand, he arched a brow. “Really?”

  William grimaced at him. “Begging your pardon, Captain. I should have asked. May I kill the worthless trollop?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Death. I want that particular amusement myself.”

  Gagged by a piece of linen, Mona shrieked and struggled against the ropes William had double-knotted around her hands.

  Especially when Devyl turned on her, sword held at the ready. Aye, this time, he was going to gut her.

  Gate be damned.

  And no one would stop him.

  8

  Just as Devyl would have killed the Deruvian, Mara appeared in the room and used her powers to dissolve his sword. His temper flaring, he glared at her. “Don’t need a sword to destroy your sister.”

  As he started to choke Mona, a massive, invisible wave knocked him away, into a wall.

  “Don’t push me, Du. I’m not the scared little child you found that day in the Fforest Fawr. I’ve come a long way, and so have my powers.”

  Growling, he faced Mara with his full demonic visage. One that caused Belle, Janice, Sancha, Valynda, and even William to pull back in fear. Even the bitchling slithered toward the shadows to hide from his wrath.

  “And who gave you those powers?” he growled.

  “Do not push me!” she repeated.

  He closed the distance between them so that barely an inch separated them. “Ditto.”

  Her breathing ragged, she lifted her chin while her eyes blazed defiance and hatred. An unseen wind flared her pale hair around her slender form while she hovered above the boards of the ship that had been crafted from her body. “You’re still just an animal, aren’t you?”

  Those words cut him to the quick, but he refused to let her or anyone else know it. Insults and abuse were mother’s milk to his blackened soul. They were all he’d ever known, and so what if she gave them to him? “Savage and rabid from my first breath to my last.”

  “Then you need to leave and let me deal with this. Calmly. Without you.”

  It took everything he had not to retaliate. She had no idea how lucky she was that he wasn’t the beast she accused him of being.

  He curled his lip to sneer at her. “Deruvians forever, aren’t you? It’s why we hated the Vanir so. You were always so high and mighty in your arrogance. Thinking yourselves above the rest of us.”

  If only she knew the real truth.

  “You dare lecture me on morality? On humanity? Seriously?”

  He let out a bitter, scoffing laugh. “Nay, lady.” He sneered the word, turning it into an insult. “I would never deign to tarnish your people. None of you ever committed a single atrocity against anyone. Did you, now?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Think about it.” With those words, he stormed from the cabin to leave them to it. Let Marcelina have it. He was done seeing condemnation in her eyes.

  Damn her for it. Even after everything her sister had done to him … after the atrocities her Vanir people had committed against his, she still refused to acknowledge it. They were perfection, while the Aesir were feral barbarians. That’s all she’d ever seen any of them as.

  Her blind loyalty to her people over all others galled him to the core of his being.

  But it hadn’t begun that way. Her precious Vanir were the ones who’d started the war between them. And for what?

  Futtocking selfishness of the worst kind.

  Marcelina could deny it all she wanted. He knew the absolute truth of it all. This battle between their cultures and generations of hatred had started when his great-grandfather had made the mistake of asking the Vanir Deruvian princess Gullveig and her court to help their people after a plague Gullveig had deliberately sent to them had swept through their lands, laying waste to everyone.

  Man and beast.

  Sadly, they hadn’t known the Vanir were behind the plague then. Naïve to a fault, his great-grandfather had been unable to conceive of such treachery. All he’d known was that Gullveig was a goddess of healing and her skills in that regard legendary.

  So Woden had swallowed all pride and appealed to her to save the life of his son Tyrin and their people. As a goddess of healing, it should have been easy for her to do so. And that was all that had mattered to the Aesir king. Not his pride. Not his crown. His love of his son and people had led Woden to make a bitter, foolish bargain.

  But that was the way of the Aesir. They were a communal race who believed in the good of all. One life was inconsequential when compared to the benefit of the whole. They were born a cog in a larger machine, and it was hard-wired into them to serve the good of their race. To put others before themselves in everything.

  Not so with the Vanir. To them, the one was always greater than the whole. Petty and vain. Better to sacrifice their entire species than see one hair on their individual head harmed. The rights of one individual were forever superior to the rights of the whole.

  They were selfish, through and through.

  And so Gullveig had agreed, but only if she married the king and was given the whole of their gold.

  Since his people didn’t value gold over life, Woden agreed. After all, what good was gold to the dead? It was only a metal to be bartered for supplies. Too weak to smelt for weapons, it wasn’t even used by his people for decoration. The Aesir had never placed any real value on it. In fact, they’d used iron for coin because it was the more valuable metal to their people. Far more important than gold.

  So they had turned all their gold over to the greedy goddess without hesitation.

  The moment Gullveig had it and was wed, she’d used her magick to poison the great king and all his heirs from his first wife. Her people had quickly moved into their lands and begun taking everything for themselves.

  But Gullveig hadn’t known about Woden’s daughter, who’d married a fey husband long before the arrival of the Vanir goddess. A daughter who had gone to Alfheim to live there among her husband’s people.

  Determined to avenge her Aesirian family and save what remained of her people, Devyl’s grandmother had returned to her father’s home. There, Kara had stabbed the goddess and set fire to Gullveig in the hall of the murdered king.

  Not once, but thrice she’d laid the goddess down in flames.

  Each time, the Deruvian whore had returned to life. That had been the Aesir’s first exposure to the regenerative powers of the Vanir Deruvians.

  Worse? Gullveig had come back stronger after every death, and on her third incarnation from the flames, she’d emerged as the goddess Heiðr—more powerful and more evil than any creature the Aesir had ever encountered before.

  A ten-year bloodbath had ensued as the Vanir gods had demanded vengeance against the Aesirians for the attacks on Gullveig. They’d wanted the life of Devyl’s grandparents.

  And all hell had broken loose as a result.

  Yes, his people had gone more and more feral during that war. The Deruvians had forced them to it in order to survive against them and their unholy magick.

  The sad truth of survival was that it seldom brought out the best in anyone. Rather, it forced people to take actions that went against every moral they held and left them bankrupt and bitter. Wondering if they’d ever be whole again.

  Over a thousand years later, and Devyl was still as broken now as he’d been then by his own wars he’d led against the Deruvians for additional crimes.

  And for what?

  Not a damn thing, in the end.

  I should have stayed in hell.

  At least there he knew his place and had found a sick kind of comfort with his misery. Or at least he’d come to terms with it.

  He didn’t belong in this callous world where no one could be trusted. He never had. There was nothing here for him save pain and utter misery. Everything he’d ever loved had been brutally stripped from him.

  Friends. Family.

  Devyl had no quarter of any kind.

  Suddenly, and as if to prove those very words, he felt a sharp, stinging pain to his side. Gasping, Devyl doubled over from the vicious ache.

  “Captain!”

  He tried to blink past the staggering agony, but even without Will and Bart, who continued to call out to him, he knew what had happened.

  Marcelina was wounded. Damn her for her blindness in dealing with the other Deruvian wench!

  With a fierce grimace, he bit back his groan and headed for the cabin where he’d left her. He ignored the men who tried to explain the events he had full knowledge of.

  Marcelina had reached out to Mona and the Blackthorn bitch had taken advantage of it.

  As was Mona’s Deruvian nature. They were treacherous to the end. Why was Mara in such denial when she had to know that even better than he?

  His vision blurring, he found Mara on the floor with Belle standing guard over a jubilant Mona.

  Growling deep in his throat, he issued orders as fast as he could. “We’ve a hull breach! Death? Meers? Gather the men and find it! Sancha, head us toward land before we sink entirely. Get every man on the pumps!”

  They ran to obey him.

  Mona gave him a twisted smirk. “You won’t make it.”

  “You best pray we do. Otherwise your heart is the last thing I’ll be feasting on.” His breathing ragged, he turned to Janice. “Guard her, and if she so much as belches in your general direction, set her ass on fire and burn her to ashes.”

  With those words spoken, he picked Mara up to carry her from the cabin toward her own chambers. But that was much easier said than done given the amount of pain he was in. Which told him how severely the ship was wounded.

  “How much water are we taking on?” he gasped as he struggled to carry her.

  Marcelina groaned as she clung to him—an action that betrayed the depths of her injuries. Otherwise she’d die afore she touched the likes of him. “I’m trying to close the gap.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “Thank you, Du.”

  “For what?”

  “Not rubbing my nose in this.”

  He answered with a grimace as he kicked open the door to her room and carried her to her frilly bed that looked more like a cloud than a place of rest. With a gentleness he resented, he set her down and staggered back, intending to leave. Unfortunately, he only made it to the opposite side of the small room before his own misery drove him to his knees. Damn … it’d been a long time since anything hurt him this much.

  Glowering, he grimaced at her. “What hit us?”

  “Not sure. I told William to keep Kalder from the sea, lest it kill him. Whatever it is, it’s a foul beast that has ripped me asunder.”

  With a bitter half laugh, he met her gaze. “Well then, ’tis high time I met him and thanked him personally for this stomachache.”

  Mara gaped as she watched Du push himself up. “You can’t be serious?”

  Yet against all odds, he managed to stand. “He wants a fight … I’ll give him one.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  Mara shrieked in frustration as she called him back, knowing it was futile. Duel listened to no one.

  Ever.

  “You stubborn, stubborn fool!” What was it in him that he could never back down from a confrontation of any kind? She’d never seen anything like it.

  Coughing and choking, she rolled from her bed and tried to go after him. What good would it do if he got himself killed?

  Again.

  He’d take her with him to the grave. Then what would become of their crew?

  Of the world they were sworn to protect?

  Then again, what did she expect from someone who’d been born of such a violent race? All he knew was bloodshed and killing. Mayhem. Chaos.

  Yet she couldn’t quite forget the gentleness of his touch as he’d carried her to her bed. Even while he’d been in pain, and though it must have galled him to come to her rescue after he’d warned her of Mona’s treachery, his touch had been as gentle as a fairy’s kiss.

  Just as he’d been kind to Cameron even though he’d known her origins. As much as he hated the Seraphim. As much as he hated Menyara.

  And why shouldn’t he hate them all? He’d sold his soul to the dark forces to keep the Romans out of their lands. Had tapped forbidden power and the blackest magick to make himself king and ensure that no one could ever defeat him. He’d fought against Thorn and the Sarim for years. Had laid waste to every army they’d dared send against him. Gutted any man who’d tried to take his crown or questioned his authority in any manner.

  After years of living in hell with the oafish brute, Mara had been delighted when she’d learned that Menyara had combined her forces with Thorn’s and planned to move against Du in an all-out attempt to overthrow him and end his bloody reign and life. She had been sure they’d finally defeat him and free her from their godforsaken bond.

  But that hadn’t happened.

  Instead, Du’s army, at his command, had torn them asunder. He’d scattered their forces and set them ablaze with a zeal that still caused the bile to rise in her throat whenever she thought about it, or the way he’d returned home afterward. Triumphant. Jubilant.

  Giddy.

  He’d laughed as he recounted the carnage in gory detail. Worse? He’d mocked her for the fact that she didn’t share in his merriment over such raw brutality.

  “What’s the matter, Mara? No stomach for it?” he’d asked while he drank warm, mulled red wine from the stained skull of the largest soldier he’d killed in battle.

  That had left her retching for days.

  Nay. She’d never had any stomach for the lot of it. And even less for blood and gore.

  Unlike him.

  But that being said, never once had he ever acted ignobly toward an innocent. Never slaughtered a child or raped a woman. Nor had he allowed his men to do such. If they killed a woman, they were punished harshly for it.

  Indeed, for all his evil ways, he wasn’t one for deceit of any kind. Duel came at his enemies in the open. Well announced. And usually with a great deal of fanfare.

  It was virtually his only endearing quality.

  But now that she thought about it, he had a number of … well “good” was a stretch.

  Better traits?

  He could be extremely tolerant of others. Where many would be put off by the flamboyant and oft-eccentric ways of his crew, Duel was practically indulgent of them all, no matter how peculiar their quirks. He never said a word about Sancha’s extreme language or drinking. Or Belle’s pungent spells that required some rather noxious ingredients. He guarded Sallie’s soul bottle as a sacred object and made sure no one harassed Kat and Simon for their unconventional relationship. Indeed, he’d even performed a marriage ceremony for them without lifting so much as an eyebrow over it.

  She was the only one he was openly rude to. And much of that was her own fault. She did bait him unnecessarily and without cessation.

  Much like a nagging spouse …

  Feeling a foreign twinge of guilt, she forced herself to stand, and followed after him.

  On the upper deck, she found Duel locked in battle with a giant squidlike monster that was rising from the water, breathing fire and trying its best to engulf them all. He and Zumari, along with William, Bart, Belle, and the rest, were throwing their own fire and tar grenades at the beast. Shooting cannons.

  Nothing deterred it.

  With fangs as large as a man, it snapped at them, and reached with its barbed tentacles, trying to flay them where they stood. Several of their crew were lying on deck, wounded, while others tended them.

  She used her own powers to keep the ship upright even though she could feel the lower deck taking on water. The sensation made her sluggish and sick. Tipsy. But if she gave in to the weakness, it could kill them all.

  That she could never allow.

  If Duel could find it within him to fight in the same condition, then it was the least she could do to carry on for them all, as well.

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