Page 47 of Dark Embrace

The giant grinned back and began twirling the ball on the chain.

Aidan lifted his double-edged broadsword higher as the giant said softly, “Mayhap you should have taken power last night, instead of pleasure from a virgin in her dreams.”

Aidan froze as the spiked ball spun at him. And his sword gave way, for his arm could not break the surprising velocity of the blow. He gasped as the skin was flayed from wrist to elbow, but he somehow kept a grasp on the huge sword. Who was this?

The ball swung back at his chest.

Too late, Aidan roared, putting his entire might against it, using the sword again. The ball struck hard on the blade and skidded across it, digging into flesh and bone before bouncing away. The pain surprised Aidan and brought him to his knees.

“If you prefer virgins, my son, it can be arranged.”

Aidan looked up at the giant, and there was no mistaking his eyes. No longer black, they were blue. They were his father’s eyes.

Aidan lurched upward as the giant swung his mace at his head.

He caught the blow with his shoulder this time, grunting. The giant had his father’s strength because Moray had possessed him—as no deamhan had ever possessed a human before.

There was no time to understand how the giant could look at him with Moray’s cold eyes. And before Aidan could defend the next blow, the spiked ball ripped across his chest.

Almost blinded by the pain, he finally struck at the giant, cutting a swath from his throat to his navel.

The huge monster towered there, reeling as if in a wind. “Ian lives,” the giant said softly, and he viciously struck the mace at Aidan’s knees.

His kneecaps seemed to shatter as he went down hard on his chest and face.

The giant said again, “Hallo, a Aidan,” and there was no mistaking his father’s voice now.

There was no mistaking his father’s mocking laughter, either.

On the ground, Aidan roared in fury and swung his broadsword across the giant’s ankles, severing his feet from his legs.

The giant grunted, staring down at Aidan in surprise, and then began to topple over.

Aidan dropped his broadsword, his short sword and his dagger in his hands. He stabbed his dagger into the giant’s heart, but his father laughed at him again. The sound did not come from the giant, and Aidan realized his father’s power was independent of this body. He drew his shortsword across the giant’s neck, panting. And he stood staggering over the body, watching the giant’s head rolling across the rocky ground.

More laughter sounded, but from above.

Aidan stiffened, still reeling. His knees seemed useless, and he had to fight to stand. He looked toward the cruel, taunting laughter, and saw a black energy spiraling into the sky. Aidan had just beheaded an inconsequential being—and his father’s power remained intact.

Moray had returned. But what was he, now?

BRIE PACED OUTSIDE OF AIDAN’S TENT. It was growing dark. Most of the men had returned from the battlefield after noon, all bloodied, many wounded, but the majority of them pleased, clearly having enjoyed a bloody battle to the death.

Where was Aidan?

She had been vomiting all afternoon. The brutality of the battle, the cruelty and death, swirled over her, through her, making her dizzy and faint. So much violence was on the plain below that she couldn’t block it out, nor could she isolate what was happening to Aidan. Her empathy was a curse she might not survive. She thought she had felt every blow delivered that day.

God, where was he?

She began to shake with the depth of her fear for him. It would be dusk soon. She had expected some kind of brief engagement, but the sound of medieval artillery—the explosions made by mortars, the clash of swords, the screams of horses—had awoken her at dawn.

Now the camp was raucous, the men celebrating. Fires were roaring, instruments like flutes and fiddles were playing. Women laughed, the men were drunk and loud and some were actually fornicating out in the open with the camp women, who seemed to be enjoying it.

Brie ran up to almost every soldier who passed, begging for word on Aidan. Every reply was the same. “He still fights, lady.”

But she knew the battle was over, because she couldn’t hear swords clashing, or gunfire, or cannons. And suddenly she couldn’t stand upright.

Brie collapsed, screaming, the skin on her arm burning as if it had been torn off. And then another terrible lash seemed to flay her chest and belly, leaving it raw and burning, as if on fire. She clutched her abdomen. Looking down she expected to see blood, but nothing was there except the tunic she’d belted over her modern clothes.