Chapter One #2
“Which is why I’m trying to contact a charmer who is a dragon’s mate,” Owain answered, picking up the fedora he had taken to wearing in the daylight.
While he didn’t suffer the same effects of the bloodlust curse that had resulted in modern-day Dark Ones, being out in daylight wasn’t overly comfortable.
“She has more abilities than a normal charmer. Unfortunately, she’s being particularly difficult to find, and I may end up resorting to a thief taker to find her. ”
“A what?” Jericho asked, her frown prodigious. Owain watched her with a wariness born of long familiarity with both his mother’s mood swings and the power she still commanded despite bestowing much of it on himself and his brothers.
“Thief taker. Someone who will find a person being sought, in this case, the dragon charmer.”
“Oh, them.” She gave a roll of her eyes as she strode across the room again, ignoring him standing near the door.
“I don’t know why you refuse to listen to me about this—no charmer is going to be able to break the curse, dragon-born or otherwise.
Not now that Desislav is out in the mortal world again. ”
He had reached for the doorknob when she spoke, but he froze as her words percolated through the desire to leave, his fingers a scant inch from the glass doorknob.
Feeling as if he were as frozen as the ground outside, he asked, “You—he’s out?
How can that be? He was in the Thirteenth Hour. No one can escape from there.”
Jericho shrugged and strode past him, her hands moving in a way that had him wondering if she was about to cast a spell. “I don’t know how he got out, but Vera says a fury is hunting for the blood moon, and has offered some big reward for it.”
Owain could swear he turned into a man-sized block of ice. A livid block of ice. “The blood moon is still in existence? It’s being hunted by others? Who?”
“Vera told me there were mercenaries popping up all over the place to try to find it and claim the reward.” She straightened up a vase filled with holly, sliding him a look that had warning bells sounding in his head.
He thought seriously about hyperventilating, but decided it was beneath him. He’d wait until he returned to his temporary lodgings before he gave in to the panic attack that was threatening to swamp him. “The blood moon was destroyed,” he said in a voice that rivaled Orla’s roughest croak.
“So we thought, but evidently it isn’t. Regardless, you see why I need to be back on the Celtic Pantheon. If I had my full complement of powers, then that annoying Cernunnos couldn’t ban me from rejoining, and I could help you all, my most beloved sons.”
Owain wasn’t at all fooled by the sudden syrupy tone of his mother’s words. “If what Badb said is true—”
“Vera,” Jericho interrupted him. “Badb calls herself Vera now. You really need to get with the times, Owain. Even Cadell gave himself a modern name, although it was foolish and I don’t remember what it was.”
“The last thing I need is the blood moon falling into Desi’s hands. He’ll throw me back into the Hour again!” Fury roared to life within him. “I must find it before anyone else. It’s the only way I can ensure our freedom.”
“Yes, yes, but you see that I can help you if I have my power back.” Jericho had donned her most persuasive of attitudes, patting him on the arm as her black gaze burned deep into the spot where his soul once resided.
“How?” he asked, too shaken to phrase the question nicely. “What can you do? You can’t lift the curse. You couldn’t when Desi and the two other demon princes placed the bloodlust upon us, and it’s had time to strengthen over the millennia.”
“No, of course I can’t remove the curse, but I can do other things.” Her look turned coy as she absently moved a particularly hideous Santa figurine. “I can get your brothers out, for one.”
He thought about it for a few moments, really thought about it.
“You may believe me to be unfeeling when it comes to them, but Rhain harbors too much rage to be anything but a danger to the mortal world, and should not be released. Rhys ... Rhys is Rhys. I have no idea what he’s thinking.
I never have, but he has never been fond of mortals.
Cadell is evidently not a threat, but regardless, until I can have the curse lifted, it’s better if they stay where they are. ”
“You refuse my request, then?” Jericho said, her voice as soft as the wind as she faced him, but instantly, Owain was on his guard.
“Goddess! She’s going to smite us on the spot! Run! We must escape! You can’t end my curse until your own is broken, and there’s no way you can do that if you’re dead!” Orla flapped her wings in warning, making him squint to keep her feathers from his eyes.
“I will return what was given to me as soon as the curse is broken,” he said, anger rising at the idea of Desislav the Destroyer being once again in possession of the blood moon.
Bitterness mingled with regret. Why his brothers and he had thought destroying Abaddon was a good way to save mortals was now beyond him. He’d had almost two millennia to realize the sheer folly of their plan.
It didn’t mean he was ready to martyr himself by imprisonment in the Hour, however.
There was no doubt that Desi in possession of the blood moon was a direct threat, one he would move the stars in the sky to avoid.
“Very well,” his mother said, and, before Owain could say another word, threw her hands wide, the spell she’d been weaving slamming him in the face and sending him reeling backward into darkness, her words following him into its inky depths.
“You want me to be part of the Morrigna again? Far be it from me to deny my child at Christmas. I will summon my sisters, and with their help, I will extract from you what is mine.”