48. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Samhail
Samhail considered Bressen more of a brother to him than any of his blood siblings, but the look on the Lord of Hiraeth’s face when he stepped through the portal was anything but brotherly. Bressen’s eyes immediately lit on Talyn, and his face darkened.
Samhail had the instinctive urge to step in front of her, but two things stopped him.
One was the certainty she wouldn’t appreciate the blatant attempt to try and protect her.
The other was the raging erection currently pressing at the front of his pants.
The evidence of his arousal wasn’t likely to help their case where Bressen was concerned, so he needed to get himself under control first.
“Samhail,” Bressen drawled, and Samhail wondered if that had been a flash of red in his friend’s eyes. “I was starting to think you forgot about us. It was a pleasant surprise to get your message.”
Samhail was about to speak when Surgeon and Serise stepped through the portal, and he clenched his jaw shut. Fucking hells.
Cyra closed the portal behind them and came up to stand next to her husband as the twins took up positions behind her. Samhail tried to read in her face how she felt about this reunion, but her expression was impassive. He suspected she wasn’t as angry as Bressen, though.
Samhail glanced at Talyn. Her body was tense, as if she was ready to run – or port – if needed.
“I know you don’t agree with how I’ve handled things,” Samhail said to Bressen, “but I had my reasons for doing things this way.”
“I suspect I know your reasons,” Bressen said, his gaze shifting between Talyn and Samhail, “but what makes you think I don’t agree?”
Samhail bristled at the obvious implication he was thinking with his cock, but he ignored the comment for now.
“You sent them after us,” Samhail said, giving Surgeon and Serise each a glare. They grinned back at him.
Bressen smiled as well and nodded behind him. “And you sent them back with holes in their hands. Or rather, the assassin did.”
“They deserved it,” Talyn and Samhail said at the same time.
Surgeon and Serise stopped smiling.
Bressen chuckled. “At least the verdict is unanimous.”
His head ticked toward Cyra the barest amount, and Samhail knew she must’ve said something into his head. When several seconds went by and neither said anything else, he was sure the two of them were having a silent conversation in their minds.
“What I think Bressen means to say,” Cyra said finally, “is that we were worried about you, Samhail.”
“I understand,” he said, “and I apologize for worrying you, but I needed to do it this way to give you deniability.” He looked at Bressen again. “As you’re aware, I can get away with things you can’t in your role as a Lord of the Triumvirate.”
“So you were protecting me?” Bressen said, raising a brow.
“In a way,” Samhail said.
“Or were you protecting someone else?” the lord asked as he looked pointedly at Talyn.
“That’s not what I was doing,” Samhail said, looking instinctively at Cyra for confirmation. He wasn’t sure if it was the truth or not, but Cyra didn’t react, and neither did Bressen.
“Regardless of your motivations,” Bressen went on, “now would be a good time to tell us what in the hells is going on.”
“I need a favor first,” Samhail said.
Bressen’s brows rose again. “Oh?”
“Talyn was injured in the fight against the soldiers,” Samhail said. He turned to Cyra. “Can you heal her?”
Cyra opened her mouth to speak but stopped short, and Samhail knew Bressen must again be speaking into her mind because she shook her head slightly before saying, “I’m happy to do what I can. I just need to have Lord Aidan join us first.”
Cyra turned and opened another portal behind her. This time they saw Aidan on the other side, along with Maziren, his captain of the guard. The two stepped through to join them in the tent.
Samhail had developed a relatively good relationship with the new Lord of Derridan during the trials the man had undergone to win his position, but Aidan’s expression as he stepped through the portal was as hard as stone.
Samhail thought he even saw a glint of hatred in the man’s eyes.
Aidan’s demeanor toward him had changed recently, but he was having trouble pinpointing exactly when or why it had.
Maziren’s eyes lingered on Talyn, and the captain’s hand went to rest on the pommel of the sword at her hip. Her eyes flicked to Samhail next, and he gave her a look that warned her not to do anything rash.
“Someone needs to start explaining now,” Aidan said as Cyra closed the portal behind him. “What’s going on? Why are you all in Derridan?”
“I’ll explain in a minute,” Samhail said. “First, Cyra needs to-”
“Why don’t you go talk to Bressen and Aidan outside,” Cyra suggested, cutting him off. “I’ll stay here and take care of Talyn.”
“No!” Samhail and Bressen both said together, then looked at each other in surprise.
Cyra arched a brow at them. “Talyn and I will be perfectly fine here on our own. Won’t we?” She turned to Talyn. “I assume you’re not planning to assassinate anyone?”
Talyn frowned but nodded. “No assassinations today, my lady. I don’t mean you any harm.”
“She speaks the truth,” Cyra told Bressen, and his mouth thinned into a hard line.
Samhail looked to Aidan, and he thought he saw surprise on the lord’s face at the mention of Talyn’s name. Perhaps Aidan had heard of her.
Aidan’s expression shifted then, but Samhail didn’t understand what he saw.
Experience told him it was lust in the lord’s eyes, but that didn’t make sense.
Aidan didn’t take women to his bed as far as he knew.
More importantly, Aidan was happily married to a man he loved deeply.
Samhail must’ve mistaken whatever it was he thought he saw.
“Fine,” Samhail said as he turned back to Bressen. “This way.”
He led the way out of the tent while Bressen, Aidan, and Maziren followed. He didn’t think Talyn and Cyra were in any danger from each other, but he was wary of what they might end up talking about, especially in front of Surgeon and Serise.
It was eerily quiet outside. The only sounds were the snapping of the Rown banners in the wind and the occasional crackle of the fires.
“What is this?” Aidan asked as he looked up at the banners. “I thought we were in Derridan.”
“We are,” Samhail said.
“Then why are we in the middle of what is obviously a camp of soldiers from Rowe?” Aidan asked.
“Because these soldiers invaded Derridan,” Samhail said. “They attacked a town a few miles east of here. I was the one who sent you that message of the attack, Lord Aidan.”
Aidan frowned but nodded.
“The camp looks deserted,” Bressen said. “Where are the soldiers?”
“This way,” Samhail said as he headed toward the spot on the outskirts where he’d engaged most of the soldiers.
They soon encountered the occasional body on the ground lying in its own blood.
One was headless, and Samhail felt a new appreciation for Talyn’s skills as a fighter.
He’d fought with women warriors before and had a healthy respect for them, but none had the grace and speed he’d seen Talyn fight with.
Her ability to port helped her a lot and kept her out of harm’s way, but that didn’t diminish her fighting ability in his eyes.
“Your handiwork, I take it?” Aidan said to Samhail as he stepped over a man whose entrails had spilled out onto the ground.
“No. Talyn’s,” Samhail said.
He glanced at Bressen, but far from being impressed, the lord’s face only hardened more at the revelation. It occurred to Samhail belatedly that showing Bressen just how deadly Talyn could be after they’d just left her alone with Cyra might not have been the best idea.
The metallic smell of blood became thicker in the air as they arrived at the place where Samhail had taken on most of the regiment. It mingled with the occasional whiff of shit or urine, since soldiers often soiled themselves when they saw him in his gargoyle form.
Samhail’s foot sank into the ground where it had been softened into mud by the blood that soaked in.
Bodies littered the landscape in crumpled heaps, evincing far more blunt-force damage than those Talyn had left.
Broken bones that pierced the skin abounded, as did limbs that were twisted at odd angles.
Bodies had buckled in ways that made one hope they’d been long dead before they reached that state.
In truth, Samhail often found it difficult to see the aftermath of what his gargoyle form wrought in battle.
He much preferred the quick, almost elegant deaths his blades allowed, as opposed to the mangled messes that were left behind when he shifted.
As he’d anticipated, he’d been unable to control himself enough to keep anyone alive – or at least conscious – for questioning, and he felt a stab of guilt that at least some of the villagers would never return to their families.
Their return had been doubtful anyway once they’d been turned to symbionts, but now it was certain they’d never go home.
Even worse was that there was a small part of him that always thrilled when he shifted into the beast, when its bloodlust filled his head, and he could give himself over to the mindless destruction that came so easy in that form.
He could rampage through dozens or even hundreds of men at a time, confident they couldn’t harm him.
That feeling of invincibility and the almost primal urge to annihilate that he felt when he was in his beast form were heady, and there were times the need to give in to those feelings burned through his blood like wildfire.
It was why he tried to limit the time he spent in that form. Not because it felt bad, but because it felt so good. Too good.
Bloodlust inevitably gave way to simple lust when he finally shifted back to his human form, and it wasn’t unusual for him to spend the next few days after a battle fucking one or more women until the insistence of that lust finally subsided.