But then, he wasn’t called Devyl Bane without a reason.
He picked her delicate hand up and rubbed her limp fingers against his lips. Closing his eyes, he tried his best to access his Sight and see the future.
Like everything else in his life, it failed him utterly. It shouldn’t surprise him. He’d never been able to depend on anything when he needed it. His own horse had once thrown him in battle. His sword had broken at the worst possible time.
My own wife cut my throat.
Sighing, he placed a kiss to Mara’s palm and tucked her hand beneath her covers. His side still ached, but the pain had lessened, letting him know that the spell had begun to work.
What a futtocking bad day this had been.
But then he’d known going in it wasn’t going to be a boring one.
Dawn would be breaking soon. He had a fledgling Seraph on board, along with a Dark-Huntress who couldn’t be in daylight. One massive hole in the side of his ship. A crew of human pirates trailing them who were being pursued by an infamous pirate hunter who wanted a piece of them all. A motley band of dead lunatics at his command and the bitch of all time out to send him back to hell.
“It’s good to be the living dead,” he said with a bitter laugh.
But then he’d never been one to shirk from a challenge of any kind.
He was a surly bugger that way.
And honestly? He was looking forward to the fight.
Staring up at the heavens, he smirked. “Bring it, bitches. With both fists. You want a piece of me? I’m ready for you.”
Because they’d never gotten the best of him.
Even after they’d killed him, he’d still found a way to strike back from the grave.
One thing about the Devyl, he came with the heat of hell behind him and packing an army of demons in his wake. And if you knocked on his door for a fight, then you better be prepared for what you were asking.
It was a new day and the Devyl was here to get his due.
9
Mara awoke to the warmth of bright sunshine on her face and the welcomed scent of fresh salt water. Seagulls screeched from outside, along with the sounds of raucous laughter and jovial music. For a moment, she forgot where she was and thought herself a girl again. It felt and smelled just like the seaside town where she’d been born. Where she’d frolicked with her sisters in the nemeton.
But that happiness inside her heart didn’t last, because she knew this wasn’t ancient Cornwall.
And those weren’t her people out there.
Then again …
Perhaps they were. At least they were the closest thing she had to a family now. The thought lightened her spirit a bit, but it didn’t return the joy to her heart. Not really. Because it wasn’t the same. She hadn’t felt that raw, unmitigated happiness of homecoming in so long that she could barely remember the taste of it. The sensation of that long-forgotten friend.
All she recalled was loneliness.
Isolation.
Desolation.
An unending sense of despair, and unquenchable longing for family that she’d once known. Du had robbed her of so much. Not just her safety and normality, he’d taken away all semblance of belonging to a community.
His people had been so incredibly violent and callous. Animals who wore itchy wool and lived in spartan hovels. Warriors more at home on a battlefield than at a feast. Their belief had been that you were judged more on how you died than on how you lived. And warriors who died in the midst of bloody battle were rewarded far greater than those who’d lived long, honorable lives and died peacefully in their sleep, surrounded by family.
And that had never been the belief of her race.
She shuddered at her memories of having been forced into Duel’s world of violence and mayhem. They had never gotten along.
