Her Knight in Tarnished Armor: A Medieval Romance Collection Read online

  Daroch grunted. “Good bloody luck with that command,” he muttered. He divested himself of his satchel of fish and bladder of air. He may not live long enough to eat.

  Calculating odds, his mind flew through a series of observations as he tested his muscles. His body was moderately fatigued from swimming, fishing, and climbing, running at about seventy percent maximum strength and, due to the extra adrenaline dump from almost dying, sixty five percent of maximum agility without extra stores of energy.

  “You’re not going to hurt him, are you?” The desperate note in the Banshee’s voice thrummed something soft in the center of Daroch’s chest that he thrust aside with cold estimations.

  “I’ve already hurt him.” Ly Erg bragged, drawing the curved, long-handled sword from a scabbard decorated with intricate Fae Symbols. “I’m here to finish him.”

  Ly Erg’s Fae strength amounted to roughly four hundred percent of Daroch’s own maximum. But since the hubristic nancy bastard insisted upon appearing the part of soldier, his constant armor of Faerie mail did slow him down to comparable speed.

  What the Banshee Queen’s sometimes consort didn’t realize, was the magic runes on Daroch’s sword allowed it to slice through Fae mail like hot iron through flesh. He just needed to get to it, and because of the angle he’d climbed up the rocks, his possessions were on the other side of Ly Erg.

  Fucking Faeries.

  “Why must you finish him? He’s not threatening anyone.” The Banshee drifted into the space between them.

  She may or may not know it, but her incessant curiosity was helping him, for once, giving him the time to work on a stratagem. Daroch reached his Druid sense out to the surrounding moors, calling for help. A stag lingered nearby and answered his call. A mother fox hunted by a loch, but she declined for obvious reasons. As did the flock of ravens feasting on a kill left by a pack of wolves that’d unfortunately moved out of his range. Sheep grazed on a nearby hill. Useless. Though a serpent or two slithered through the grasses to his aid.

  Strength and cunning. He would need both.

  “Is that what he’s convinced you of, that he’s no threat?” The Fae soldier’s silver eyes lit with mild amusement, contrasting with the shimmering gold of his braided hair. “That makes you twice the fool. Think about what you risk. In three more months you’ll no longer be a dead woman, but a lower caste of the Fae.” His sneer turned lecherous. “I’ve had untold millennia to think of ways to punish unruly girls like you.” Ly Erg ineffectually slashed through the Banshee with his curved blade, drawing a dark growl from Daroch’s throat that surprised none more than himself.

  Where had that come from?

  The Banshee trembled, but held her ground. “The Fae can’t just go around killing innocent humans,” she argued. “The Queen, Cliodnah, told me there was a pact struck with the Gods.”

  “All pacts are not ironclad,” Ly Erg sneered. “And this human is no innocent. He spends his time trying to work a way to slaughter all of our kind, and our seers have told us he is close.”

  The Banshee gasped, turning to him with those lovely, wounded eyes. “Is that true?”

  Daroch could feel his animal guardians drawing near, power and strength surged through his veins until he nearly burst with male aggression as the stag bounded toward them. Clarity and cunning sharpened his senses as the snakes wove sacred, ancient knots into the grasses.

  “Aye,” he snarled. “Every last one of ye.”

  The Faerie attacked. Though he was stronger and faster, Ly Erg telegraphed every move he was about to make before he followed through. By not focusing on any one part of his opponent, Daroch was able to see all of him and use the acumen lent by the snakes to predict his attacks.

  Ly Erg slashed and sliced, mostly carving the air as Daroch dodged and lunged around him. Taking a calculated risk, he curled and dove past the enraged Faerie, paying for it with a shallow slice to the thigh, but unfolding from the roll with his sword brandished in front of him.

  “You think that will make a difference to the outcome of this battle?” The Fae soldier scoffed. “Since finding out it cuts us, all your human weapons have become iron.” He hacked at Daroch with bone-jarring force. “Still doesn’t kill us,” he mocked. “Just stings a little.”

  Daroch recovered, twisting away from Ly Erg, and sliced upward, slashing the Faerie’s torso through the armor. He reveled in the momentary look of shock as the Fae inspected his precious armor and the blood pouring from the deep wound. “That mail might protect ye from Fae blades, but not mine.” The runes on his blade pulsed with power and light, even in the midday sun.

  Ly Erg’s skin made terrible, wet sounds as it knit together. “Fortunate, then, that I require no protection from you.” His offensive was swift and brutal, yet methodical enough to be learned from centuries of bloodshed. Daroch had to adjust his style to deflect and avoid his devastating blows to conserve strength. For he fought Ly Erg, the most lethal Fae in the history of mankind. One who had slaughtered so many ancients that his hands were forever stained with blood so as to alert an unsuspecting human to not be fooled by his beauty or artifice.

  This Faerie lived for the kill. And hated all humanity.

  Daroch most of all.

  Thrusting when Ly Erg sliced, Daroch made him pay for every offensive. But the wounds he inflicted instantly healed, while the few nicks and cuts Daroch received remained open and bleeding. His strength was failing, his limited magic waning. The angles he used to his advantage were slower to manifest themselves. His calculated odds for survival fell lower and lower out of his favor.

  As it was wont to do during mortal combat, time slowed and sound only reached his ears as though he were still submerged in the sea. He couldn’t go on like this, and Ly Erg was likely only toying with him. Perhaps the time had come. He could roll over and submit. All of this would be over, one way or the other.

  Only one other time in her memory had Kylah felt so helpless. This was all her fault. She wrung her hands and pulsed with terrified light. Though he may desire her death, she didn’t want the Druid to die. Not because of her. If she were to scream now, she might distract him. Her impotence infuriated her and the feeling was fed by the hatred pulsating from the two warriors in front of her.

  Daroch was magnificent, his every movement fluid and dynamic. She could see the sinew of each muscle respond to his commands, directing superhuman power into each blow.

  The battle lasted for hours, or only minutes, the flurry of parries and blows eliciting gasps and strangled sounds from her.

  Until the moment all the keen intelligence went out of Daroch’s eyes. All skill and method seemed to drain out of him as he leapt at the Faerie with a shout of pure madness.

  With a victorious smile, Ly Erg easily deflected the blow that would have flayed open any man and heaved the Druid to the ground.

  Daroch landed heavily and was still for a few moments, his sword fell to the soft earth just out of reach. With a cough and a groan, he pushed himself up from the moss, his arms straining and causing the tattoos on his shoulder to ripple.

  “Daroch,” she whispered before she could stop herself. He froze at the sound of his name leaving her lips and turned his head toward her. The shells at his temple ran across his cheek with the movement until his eyes finally found hers.

  “This is fitting, is it not?” Ly Erg stood over him. “You dying on your hands and knees where you always belonged. Too bad she’s not here to watch. You remember, Druid, how she loved to watch before joining in?” The Fae used two hands to raise his lethal sword above his head.

  Kylah saw it then. Daroch had kept it from his eyes until this very moment. All the humiliation, rage, anger, misery, and loss she’d detected inside of him shone hotter than the sun above them. The emotion lashed out at her, reaching into her soul and amalgamating with her own memories until she trembled from the force of it.

  Her mouth dropped open. Her eyes darted toward the sword and back to him. If he lunged for i
t. If he only had a moment. A distraction.

  He nodded to her and she let it loose, a keen so powerful the serpents died and the Stag retreated in astounding leaps. His pain fed her wail until the sea raged with it, the sky darkened with it, and the Fae froze for the moment they needed.

  Daroch lunged for his sword, surged upward, and in a powerful arc, sent Ly Erg’s beautiful head soaring over the cliff into the depths of the Sea.

  7

  “We did it!” The Banshee cheered as Daroch kicked the Faerie’s lifeless body over the cliff. His blood still flowed with untempered fury and he didn’t trust himself to speak. “Well, you did it.” She joined him where he stood and they silently watched Ly Erg’s long fall into the ocean far below. “You slaughtered him.”

  “He’s not dead, the head will grow back.” Daroch spat over the cliff and turned away, inspecting the damage done by Ly Erg’s curved blade. Less than he’d expected. Only his thigh still bled.

  “Oh.” Her deflated voice drew his notice. He found the worried wrinkle between her delicately shaped brows oddly adorable. Still simmering with heat and aggression, the blood pounding through his veins naturally looked for a different outlet, and raced south. Averting his gaze, he set to collecting his belongings.

  “How long does it take for a Faerie to grow his head back?” She still squinted over the edge, looking for a sign of the Executioner.

  Daroch strapped his satchel of fish onto his shoulder and considered her question. “Maybe a day or so. Once he can, he’ll return to the Isle of the Fae to finish recovering.” Stooping to pick up his sword, he strapped it to his hips with the vine belt and grabbed his staff.

  “Then he’ll be after you again?”

  “Likely.” He set off down the hill toward Lake Shamrock. There he would find what he needed and some bog myrtle for the wound on his thigh.

  “Why?”

  Gritting his teeth, Daroch turned on the Banshee who followed close behind him. “You know why. Because I’m going to find a way to kill the Fae.” He stepped closer and narrowed his eyes so she’d catch his meaning. “All of them.”

  Her eyes fixed on the string of shells at his temple and followed the long strand down to his chest. “Why?”

  If she asked that question one more fucking time… “Knowing my intent, do I still have the use of yer father’s forge?”

  Her gaze flicked to his sword and her face became very serious. “What did he mean by what he said before you beheaded him?” she whispered. “About you being on your hands and knees?”

  Something snapped inside him. “Answer my question for once!” he roared, his hands aching to grasp her wee shoulders and shake her senseless. “Are ye going to help me or not, knowing one of my weapons might one day kill ye?”

  She retreated a step. Regarding him for a long, silent moment, she finally said, “I… I think I will. Yes.”

  It occurred to Daroch in that moment that he neither needed her help nor her permission to use her father’s forge. If it was truly abandoned, he could walk in and use it whenever he liked. He opened his mouth to inform her thus.

  “What is yer name, Banshee?” His question stunned them both.

  “Kylah MacKay.”

  Kylah. Lovely, feminine. Like her.

  “Ye made a dangerous enemy today, Kylah MacKay.”

  “I know.” Her iridescent face shone with earnest regret. “I’m sorry to cause you all that trouble. I’ll do what I can to make amends.”

  That foreign, soft emotion bloomed in his chest, soothing the cold fury pulsing there. “I didna mean me, lass. I meant Ly Erg.”

  A dark shadow crossed her illuminated features. “He doesn’t frighten me.” She drifted around him and took a slow pace down the bluff.

  Daroch followed her, for once, catching her easily. “He should. Ye doona ken what he’s capable of.”

  “Yes, I do.” Her eyes remained fixed on the fragrant fields of blooming spring buds. “I really feel so terrible that he found you because of me. That’s how he did it isn’t it, because you had to use your magic?”

  “Aye, well, no permanent harm befell me.” If Daroch were completely honest with himself, it wasn’t her presence that had surprised him into gasping water into his lungs. It had been her beatific smile. She’d taken his breath with her loveliness, and it happened to be in a place where air was in short supply. His brows drew together. “Let’s forget it ever happened.”

  She nodded, seeming eager to do just that. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Lake Shamrock.”

  Her mouth formed a relentlessly familiar shape.

  “Because,” he cut her off. “I need a shamrock and some bog myrtle.”

  “Bog myrtle for your wound,” she seemed pleased with herself. “I should have thought of that… but a shamrock? wh—”

  “Because when one is holding a shamrock, one can see a Faerie, whether they want ye to or not,” he answered quickly trying to stay a step ahead of the dreaded word. “Who knows what they’ll send after me next? Or when.”

  She was thoughtful for a blessedly silent moment. “May I ask you something?”

  A harsh laugh escaped Daroch’s throat. “Did ye just ask a question about asking a question?”

  It was her turn to look exasperated. “Well?”

  “When has it stopped ye before?” Daroch motioned for her to proceed, shocked to discover that he wasn’t as aggravated at the lass’s questions as he’d previously been. He wouldna say he was enjoying himself. Nay. He wouldna say that.

  “How old are you?”

  Daroch frowned. “That’s actually a good question. One to which I doona know the answer.”

  “Well, it’s not that complicated, in what year were you born?”

  He furrowed his brow, trying to remember. “About… sixty four.”

  “Thirteen hundred and sixty four?” she asked, aghast.

  “Nay lass,” he smirked. “Sixty and four, about twenty years before Agricola and Caledonia.”

  “The Romans?” she nearly shrieked.

  He winced.

  “That makes no sense at all. You say you’re not a man of magic, yet you are. You say you aren’t blessed by gods or a Faerie creature, and yet you’re centuries over a thousand years! I can’t believe all this, and I’m a bloody Banshee.” She swung a slap at his shoulder, but of course it only resulted in chilly goose bumps.

  “Did yer father ever tell ye Faerie stories when ye were a wee lass?”

  She sobered a little, her eyes becoming wistful. “All the time.”

  “Did he ever mention what happened when an unsuspecting human ventured into a Faerie ring and spent a night in the land of the Fae?”

  “He said that a man would spend one night in Faerie and come back in time to meet his grandchildren all grown. That time doesn’t pass there like it does—ohhhhhh.” Comprehension dawned and her eyes went round as an owl’s.

  “Imagine what a month or so would do to ye.”

  “Dear me!” she exclaimed. “In what time did you return to Scotland?”

  Daroch focused on the pain in his leg so as to deny the hollow ache lancing through his chest. What time had he returned? In a time where the Druids had mysteriously disappeared leaving not a trace to prove their advanced existence. To a time where the united people of the holy emerald isles had divided into warring clans living in hovels while their English overlords oppressed and objectified them. To a time when everyone he knew and loved was long dead and forgotten and he’d taken on the clan McLeod because they’d been the first to shelter him and show him kindness. “In time to ride with Robert the Bruce against the English,” he answered darkly. “I was the mood for warfare right about then.”

  “A hundred years at least!” she put a hand to her forehead in disbelief. “And you’ve been so young and…” she gestured at him with a helpless hand and Daroch found himself mighty interested as to what descriptive word she would pull out of that inquisitive brain of hers. “And… v
igorous this whole time?” Her pale translucent cheeks tinged a becoming shade of pink.

  She thought him vigorous, did she? Heat crept up his collar from beneath his robes and he cleared his throat. “My theory is the food I ate and drank in Faerie had properties that slowed the aging process down, though I seem to have aged about fifteen years in the last twenty, so I also theorize that the process is accelerating again.”

  “Oh? So that would place you at about five and thirty, I’d wager, though your physique is far better than that of any man I know of that age.” Her blush intensified.

  A niggling warmth swelled inside him and Daroch squelched it the best way he knew how. Intellectual distraction. “I find it fascinating that ye blush.” He squinted at her creamy complexion, the tinge still prominent through her ever-present green hue. “Blushing is usually a body’s reaction to emotional stimuli through the thermo dilation of blood veins. But yer heart doesna beat. Yer blood doesna flow. So how does blushing occur?” The temptation to reach out and touch her skin became so overwhelming, he passed a finger through her cheek.

  Startled, she jumped back from him and batted at his hand like a wee kitten. Both of their attempts at contact were predictably unsuccessful. More was the pity, in his case. Which caused him pause. He hadn’t wanted to touch a woman in over one hundred years. Why had that suddenly changed?

  “Now who is asking silly questions?” she huffed, clearly disconcerted. “It’s magic, who knows how it works, only that it does? Everything seems to work as it did before except that I don’t eat or drink anymore, of course. But when I cry, tears flow. When I spit… well it’s strange but it… happens. Mostly.”

  The erotic possibilities of her admission slammed into him.

  Gods be damned.

  “And only lately, I’ve started to feel my heart beating. Very fast, in most cases, like it’s going to jump out of my chest.” She pressed a dainty hand to her breast and speared him with eyes the color of Irish moss.