Cameron gasped as she saw Kalder change forms completely. She stumbled away from him. Her hair and Paden’s turned stark white at the same time as Kalder’s eyes went from their silvery pewter to something unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
The left one turned an incredible shade of vivid sky blue and the right one turned yellowish-orange. Streaked like the eyes of a hawk and lit as if the fires of hell itself burned within it. Indeed, the colors seemed to flicker from some unholy source she couldn’t name.
His hair turned darker and vicious scars appeared over his face like some giant bird had slashed and attacked him, and left them there as a bitter reminder.
“Captain?” Belle drew her sword and prepared to fight their crewmate.
Kalder stalked the queen the way a fierce, hungry lion would go after its prey.
Captain Bane placed his hand over Belle’s to stay her attack.“You asked me once about the fury inside him, Lady Belle. Now you know, and you understand why I wanted him for our crew. He’s a Cyphnian.”
Paden growled in anger. “He’s one ofthem! And you let him out?!”
Cyphnians were rare and most coveted for their abilities to siphon off the powers and emotions of other demons and weaken them. At one time, they’d been rounded up and offered to the god Apollo as part of his menagerie at Delphi. But the downside of their abilities was that since those powers and emotions weren’t theirs, they couldn’t handle them, and it would ofttimes drive them mad, and cause them to lash out and become more of a threat than the creatures they took the powers from to begin with. Only a tiny handful of their breed could control and master their full destiny, and they were the most coveted of all.
When Paden moved to attack Kalder, Devyl caught him with his powers and slung him high into the opposite wall, where he crashed hard, and slid to the floor. He landed in a painful lump that made Cameron cringe in sympathy.
“Lay one hand to him, Captain Jack, and you’ll wish I’d left you in Vine’s tender custody.”
Kalder turned to hiss, but when he saw that Paden was handled, he resumed his quest for Bron, who was scrambling to escape him.
Cameron debated what to do to stop him.
Her brother pushed himself to his feet and wiped his hand across his bleeding nose. “Those are some of the very demons we’ve beencharged with policing and returning to hell! How could you let one of them out, and serve on your crew?”
Devyl met Mara’s gaze, and when he spoke his voice was thick with sincerity. “Kalder cannot help what he was born as.” His gaze went to Belle. “There are those of us who chose our path to damnation. We earned what we got and embraced it with both arms, every step of the way. Kalder was born a Cyphnian. As are all the males conceived by merewyns—it’s why his mother was forbidden to keep him. They are cursed the moment they fill their mothers’ wombs. Every day of his life, Kalder’s fought against that rage, even while it’s torn him asunder. And you would damn him for that strength and conviction?”
“But he ain’t fighting now, Captain. He’s made friends and bedded down with that rage. Am thinking they had puppies and are planning a summer palace for it.” William jerked his chin toward Kalder, who was tearing through the soldiers dumb enough to get between him and Bron.
Bart started to intervene, but the captain stopped him, too. “He’ll kill you.”
And if someone didn’t do something, he’d kill his own people,andthe queen.
Terrified, and knowing she couldn’t stand by and let this happen, Cameron ran for him. Before her common sense could grab hold and make her do something intelligent, like run for the door and save her own hide, she took his arm.
“Kalder?”
He turned on her with fangs bared and fist raised.
She flinched and held up her arm to protect herself, fully expecting him to attack her, too.
But the moment he saw her there, he froze.
Time hung still.
Her heart broke as she saw his beautiful face that was ravaged by such ugly, vicious scars. In her mind, images played of him in their battles together, and those memories merged with battles he’d fought without her. And as she saw her fierce, handsome warrior, standing bitterly alone for those fights, she knew how he’d gotten those wounds.
The demons who’d put them there while he’d been damned for Bron’s actions.
Worse, she saw the very day Muerig had died.
Kalder had been on his way to meet him.
On time.
The tale she knew—that Kalder knew—was a lie.
She saw everything as clearly as if it were her memory as much as his. As if she were there that day, living through it with him.
