“Calm yourself, Elf! Breathe and…” His voice had trailed off the instant he’d seen the marks on her young body. The heartbeat he’d seen what their father had done to her.
Horror had filled him as he met Edyth’s tormented gaze over her rumpled hair.
“I tried to stop him, Duel.” Her sobs had matched Elf’s. “I never thought he’d do it to her, too.”
Too? That one word had hung in the air like some ghastly fiend that taunted him without mercy.
Clutching Elf against him, he’d sat there stunned and cold as his fury turned into something he couldn’t even begin to describe. A rage so deep and dark and foul that it’d left him with a heightened sense of calm that terrified him. “How long?”
Shame darkened her gaze. “Since I was Elf’s age.” Edyth had sunk down in the shadows as if trying to blend in with them. “I-I-I tried to keep him from her, then I went to get Mum.”
“And?”
“She held me in her room until he finished. Then he came for me and … they started fighting.”
Closing his eyes, Devyl had cursed himself for being such a stupid fool as to not realize the source of Edyth’s bitchtress nature. To have never known what went on between them at night. How could he have been so incredibly blind to his sister’s pain and suffering?
So stupid?
But no more.
With a kiss to Elf’s head, he’d stood with her in his arms and carried her to Edyth. “Stay here. Both of you.”
Edyth had clutched Elf against her trembling body—like a mother with a toddler. “You can’t go out there! Ta will kill you, Duel!”
“I came into this world fighting and covered in someone else’s blood, Ed. I got no problem leaving it the same way. And if I must go out like that, then I plan to take the bastard with me to Caer Vandwy and hand his heart to Y Diawl meself. One way or another, I swear to the gods that he’ll touch you no more!”
Still cold. Still furious, he’d walked out of his room to find his father in the Great Hall. His mother sobbed off to the side while his father sat in his chair as if all were right with the world.
At least until their gazes met and locked.
His father had snorted derisively, then poured himself more wine. “What do you want, boy?”
With a calmness he still couldn’t fathom, Duel had walked to the wall, pulled down an axe, and smiled. “Your head … both of them.”
The stupid bloody bastard had had the nerve to laugh. And then he’d sicced his hounds upon Duel with a kill command.
They’d charged him, but, too angry to care, he hadn’t moved. Rather, he’d glared at the ferocious beasts and dared them to attack. “You want me? Bite me and I’ll send your heads to Annwn, where you can guard for him!”
Those growled words had caused the hounds to back away in confusion, then whimper and flee.
Unlike his father, who lacked the hounds’ good sense. Instead, Axe of the Dumnonii had risen slowly to his feet and unsheathed his long sword. “Well, well, the worthless tosser’s finally found his spine.” The fierce dark warrior had come at Devyl then, with the intent to lay him in his grave.
But too many years of frustrated abuse, hatred, and vengeance burned inside Devyl. Within a few strokes, he’d taken the bastard’s head as he’d promised he’d do.
Instead of being grateful that he’d finally liberated her from his father’s cruel fist, his mother had rushed him with her dirk, screaming that she’d avenge his father.
A dirk she’d sunk deep into his shoulder, then yanked out and aimed at his throat.
Devyl hadn’t meant to kill her. He’d struggled with her in an attempt to wrestle the knife from her hand. But when she’d used her own powers against him, they’d ignited his. Too young to have full control yet, he was unable to stop the innate self-preservation that was deeply rooted in his blood. It lashed out without compassion or restriction and consumed his mother in one single fiery emotional blast.
Horrified by the sight of her scattered remains lying in his father’s blood, Devyl had finally lost the fury inside him. And with its passing, he began to shake. To cry.
To feel.
And he’d hated every moment of it. Bitter and gutting, his grief had risen inside like an unholy serpent that was feasting on his innards. Shredding and eating away every last bit of innocence he’d ever possessed.
Not that he’d had all that much. His father’s brutality and mother’s weakness had seen to that. It devoured all his worth and happiness. Any sense he’d ever had of being decent or good. It left him shattered and bitter. Worthless and used up. With a sense of being hollow and lost.
