Rise of Anowen Read online

  “Perhaps there is a better way,” he offered, speaking toward the jewelry as it twirled lazily on the chain. “But this is the way I have chosen. I would have our own path before I walk the way of the Aegean Houses — before I rule them. They have had nothing but treachery to offer their own blood, and apathy besides for the Sovereign warmonger they now recognize in Silvanus of Eromerde. No, we fare well enough in our own strength, and I will take their slights before I take that mantle.”

  Mercedes’s lips curved slightly in a wry twist of a smile. “How you rage against our brothers,” she murmured, “without seeing how very like them you are in your proud heart.” Leaning forward, she touched a kiss to his cheek. “But we are all our Mother’s children. There can be no help for it. You have given us all that you can give, Lian, and we are happy for the cause. Now, it remains only for the giving of what you alone cannot.” Briskly, she rose to her feet.

  Lian watched her; watched her as she spared a moment to tuck her fan away and as she smoothed the feathered coils of her hair back into place upon her head. She lingered there only as long as she took to decide he would give her no further words. Then, with the same slight smile that had bewitched so many men of the Spanish court, Mercy bowed and left Lian alone.

  His gaze left the door as her shadow disappeared, only to lower in a reflective study of the ring in his grasp before he tucked it away and out of sight once more.

  Chapter 3

  Like a night-blooming flower, Anowen Castle stirred to life with the moonlight.

  It began with the fires that pitched light and shadows across the uneven surfaces of the blown-glass windows. Then, in the coven’s blood, their symphony rose in a crescendo to a livelier melody as they roused themselves from their day’s rest. Silhouettes of queens and lords passed by, casting long shadows on the courtyard that sprawled beneath the castle towers.

  Standing there, in the warm, orange light of the torches, Lian watched Anowen’s human servants at work. The Grahams, a man and his son who served as warden protectors to the coven, were bent over in the torchlight tacking Anowen’s great, black horses to gilded coaches.

  Tonight, there were two vehicles; enough to carry two lords and three queens. There had been a time when the hunting parties were larger, but such a luxury was not something Lian was willing to afford them now.

  The queen’s blood matted her golden hair and stained her dress....

  The elder felt the rise of whispered thoughts from his coven, gentle and familiar, but he still lifted his fingers to the bridge of his nose to press the intrusion away.

  A small body crashed against his, knocking him a step forward. Wiry arms wrapped around him, and then a head wedged itself between his arm and his side. Lian looked down into the pale, upturned face of a girl and she flashed him a white-toothed smile, revealing a hint of fangs in the gloom.

  He smiled slightly in response. “Are you ready?”

  Eden, who had not been much more than a child when her time had stopped, unwound her arms from her sire and danced a step in front of him. Hers was the body of a sixteen-year-old, for all that she was over a century in her Immortal life. Her pale, corn-silk curls were shorn and a fitting match to the boy’s doublet and breeches she wore.

  “Aye, how do I look?”

  Chucking her chin with the curl of his index finger, his smile grew. “Handsome.”

  Satisfied, the girl dropped into a low bow.

  “And how do I look?” The voice and face of the lord who eased around Lian was chipper. With a wolfish grin, Pascal stepped back to give the elder a full view of his green doublet. The lord swept his dark hair back and dipped into a flourishing bow.

  With a smirk, Lian lifted a brow, “No doubt you spent enough time before your mirror that you needn’t ask, brother.”

  “He looks like he has every intent to drink the world dry,” a female voice interjected. Anowen’s redheaded queen turned a steady, green-eyed gaze toward the men, and a storm cloud rolled through the depths of her expression. “Which will hardly suit if the wrong eyes are watching.” The ghost of irritation that colored her observation was scarcely hidden. “Not that such have proven a challenge otherwise for this family.”

  Snorting, Pascal dipped into another bow. He drifted behind the woman with a touch of a kiss to her fiery crown. The storm in her eyes did not lessen for his antics, though the lord seemed not to care. “Come now, Bryna. It’s been ten years and will be ten more, and you will still be a queen. There is no need for so dark a song on every hunt.”

  “She will sing how she will,” Lian offered, and allowed his expression to gentle as it rested on the red-haired queen. Once, not so long ago, she had been a mortal and a hunter of Immortal kind. Even if he could not hear the darkness of her song or the whispers of her thoughts, the twist in his chest that arose in her presence would still have tightened. It did now as he lowered into a bow. “And have a successful hunt, my Lady.”

  The queen’s lips pinched for his gallantry, but as if Bryna could not help herself for the reaction, she managed a sweeping curtsey of her own. “I do not doubt that I shall. You are nothing if not efficient in your attention to the matters of my initiation, Lord Redmond.”

  Lian’s smile remained as he straightened, and he nodded in acknowledgment of her words and the bite behind them. It was well-earned, given he had taken her into his fold as a penance for the assault on his family by her brood. There were few things he had been unwilling to do for their safety.

  Against his chest, the weight of his father’s ring grew leaden.

  “A little more urgency to your steps.” Another queen’s voice called from across the courtyard. She stood, towering and statuesque, by one of the coaches, with Eden in her looming shadow and at the side of another lord with graying hair. Ayla, with the calf-length darkness of her hair restrained to a braid, had her gaze and attention set upon Pascal. “Unless we intend to risk the sunrise.”

  “It would be almost worth it for enjoying this spectacle,” Pascal sighed. “I do wonder how long her grudge will last. Eternity is so very… eternal in nature.”

  The lord swept long fingers through his hair, but the winking flash of his shoe buckles in the moonlight betrayed that he had paid heed to the summons. His steps directed him to the carriage under the attentions of the wardens, and he offered a careless dismissal with a wave of a beringed hand when the elder servant made as if to assist him into the transport. “The least I can do with the gift of strong calves is manage my own climbs,” he said cheerfully. “My sisters may have a greater care for the coddling.”

  Ayla lingered in the darkness until the last of her family were loaded into the coaches.

  “You will take care.” Lian said quietly.

  Housed Immortals were not the only danger that lurked in the shadows for his family. There were others of Aegean blood in their world — Fae and Shifters among them — with even less cause to care for the wellbeing of the Immortal children he had sired.

  “I always take care,” the dark queen answered with a slight smile.

  Then, with a gentle bow of her head Lian’s way, she turned, waving away the human servants as she made her own ascent.

  Lian remained outside, listening to the content harmony of their songs as the distance between the coaches and Anowen increased. When they were out of sight, the blond lord rubbed the knots of tension he felt settling into the back of his neck and breathed a low exhale.

  In silence, he returned to the warmth of the castle.

  Chapter 4

  On a raised dais in the castle salon, a golden-haired queen played a lilting melody on a lute. A few queens and lords swept across the stone floor in a dance, but more remained seated on the plush furniture to converse in the firelight.

  Lian had settled into a seat to watch those gathered. Now however, he found himself increasingly distracted by the play of light on the strands of his starlight’s silver hair. The lord lowered his head, nuzzling his lips past his queen’s coll
ar to find the swan-like column of her throat. He nudged a kiss against her pulse and heard her sigh as she leaned back against him.

  A perfect fit, if ever there had been. From the first, tentative moments their forbidden love had blossomed, he had known there would be no other. Nearly four hundred years since he had found his heart, it still held true.

  His teeth caught her skin in a gentle nip before he touched another kiss to her hair.

  Celia laughed.

  “There are times, beloved,” she teased, “when I wonder if you would love me as much were my locks a mousy brown. Though I have only your kiss to thank for making something almost beautiful of mourning gray.”

  “It was beautiful before my kiss,” he assured against the shell of her ear, looping his arms more securely around her waist.

  Her unusual gray hair had only served to fascinate him, as had everything else about the Italian Contessa. Many a night he had answered her siren song. He had shamelessly stolen into her suites and freed her of both the moral restrictions and fashions of that age.

  The fashions of the present day were hardly less cumbersome, but here, in the comfort of home, they wore the more manageable styles of dress. Celia’s muslin gown was soft against the linen fabric of his robes, and her skin softer still when he rested his brow against her shoulder.

  Mercy’s distracted tones interrupted the moment. “Lian is a man, dearest, and as such is wont to speak pretty words. But in this instance, he might be vouched for.” The Spanish queen looked up from her reading. “He did not turn an eye to the darkest of heads as he moved in the court — I doubt he had a taste for brunettes then or ever. I all but despaired I had lost my touch.”

  Lian breathed a laugh and lifted his head to rest his chin on his queen’s shoulder.

  “My dear Mercy, I fear were I not already well claimed, you may have been the only one of dark hair to have me ensnared,” he offered with a smile. “But I would not have had any other for a sister of your king’s court.”

  “You see what I mean about pretty words?” Mercy offered briskly, but her lips curved. “You may rest assured, brother, that it was your wit more than your charm that won me to your shadows.”

  “And that was all?” Lian’s brows rose with the tease, and the queen leaned forward to swat him with her book.

  The musician on the dais began another round of dance music, though the three lords who had been obliged to occupy their sisters settled in for a moment’s respite instead. Lian noted it with a twinge of guilt.

  When he could build his coven again there would have to be more males, lest the ones he had were worn to their second deaths.

  A fifth lord entered the salon, wearing working-class clothes as if he had been on a hunt. He was a man of broad shoulder, befitting his Austrian ancestry, who had been older when he was turned — if not old enough that the tawny brown of his hair bore any evidence of age. The lord crossed the floor, distractedly tamping tobacco into his pipe. He brought it to his lips, but did not light, as he dropped into a seat near Lian and the queens.

  The reed horn that was his instrument sang quietly; unconcerned despite the furrow of his features.

  “You were in town?” Lian offered the opening.

  “The Sovereign has fallen,” the lord said. He had never been one to speak more than he needed. “Silvanus was murdered by his brother. The fighting has begun again.”

  “Absalom killed him?” Mercy interjected as she set her book aside with a stitched brow. “I suppose it had to be. Few in Eromerde would have had the means or trust otherwise, to get close enough to the Sovereign to do the deed. Will that House never rest?” She didn’t seem disconsolate for the thought.

  Celia’s weight shifted slightly in Lian’s embrace, and her felt her concern in her touch as much as he heard it rising in her music. There was never a greater danger for the Free than when the Housed chose to be lawless.

  “Even the bond of mortal brotherhood between Eromerde’s sons was not enough to break their curse,” the silver queen said quietly.

  Lighting his pipe, the Austrian lord nodded.

  Lian was silent, absorbing the words and their implications. House Eromerde was the recognized Heir of Athanasia’s power; its Arch Elder was Sovereign over the Houses of England’s Immortals. It had once been ruled by the bloodline of her eldest fledgling and bond, Dunstan; Lian’s sire. The House had been gifted to Dunstan’s daughter, to Lian’s sister, Verona. But that had been long before the betrayal born of a lust for power — the treachery that had slaughtered Athanasia’s bond and his offspring for the sake of a crown.

  All but one.

  Dunstan’s ring felt heavy and hot where it rested against Lian’s heart, and the Immortal lifted his head to straighten in his seat. His hold on his queen did not lessen.

  “Another war will be a draw for hunters in town,” he said quietly.

  It had already brought them once, when he had claimed the red-haired huntress for a queen.

  But nothing would be done to stop it from happening. He could picture the faces of the Royals. They had done nothing when their brother, Hadrian, turned on Eromere, as it was then named, and they had done nothing when their sister’s remaining blood was murdered or scattered as rogue Immortals across Britannia.

  Now Hadrian and Verona were dead, and only Eromerde remained. Eromerde, its endless civil war, and its Sovereigns who fell faster than they could be crowned.

  “If you are worried for the children, perhaps it is best we leave Anowen until their warring ceases,” Celia murmured, and he could feel the cool length of her fingers wrap around his own. They had scarcely survived the first advent of the hunters unscathed, and he knew his music betrayed his concern.

  “Nonsense,” Mercy interrupted before he could answer. “Eromerde will be entirely distracted for their power play, and without a recognized Sovereign that House is no House. There has never been a more perfect moment to travel to Nevirnum. You are Athanasia’s rightful Heir, Lian, and Anowen recognizes its Lord. It would be foolish not to take advantage when there is so clear a need and opportunity.”

  She spoke of the hidden city beyond Rome’s borders, where their Mother and her siblings slept away the centuries. Of waking them to claim a birthright he did not want.

  His father’s blood.

  The ring was stained red when he pushed it into Lian’s hand.

  “Have I not already suffered your scolding on the matter, Mercy?” Lian asked, and breathed in until he could trust himself to calm his music. He was unsuccessful, and his queen’s fingers closed more tightly around his own. “Do we not do well enough away from the Houses and their politics? I would sooner leave England for the stability of Europe before calling them brothers and sisters.”

  It was foolish stubbornness, and he knew it even as the words escaped. One hand slipped away from Celia’s waist so he could rub the lines from between his brows, and he again heard the rise of whispered thoughts around him.

  “The pacts have meant nothing when they were most needed, and everything when it means bending to the will of the Houses,” he insisted.

  “And yet,” Mercy said gently, “there will come a time when our family may need them.” She reached out to touch his arm. “Even now, the coven has become more than will easily be tolerated. Will you choose to be confined by what they say we cannot be? Forever is a long time to exist in a gilded prison.”

  His hand slipped from his brow to where hers rested, and his touch lingered there. “Mercy.” Her name was almost a request when it passed his lips. “You ask me for more than I can give.”

  He should not have told them, any of them, of their birthright. But he had not wanted a coven of secrets and mistrust. Wasn’t that how wars began? His hand escaped hers, returning to wrap around Celia’s waist.

  “We will discuss Eromerde’s war with our Council tomorrow,” he said, and took care to ensure his tone brokered no further word on the matter at hand. “And if we should leave Anowen.”

/>   Chapter 5

  Well before dawn the hunting party returned, and the High Council convened in their Chambers. Their music was troubled, keening beneath the more pleasant rise and fall of the coven’s symphony, and Lian had felt the words that remained unspoken on their lips. Words whispered through their harmony and in their thoughts.

  There was one way to set things right.

  Especially given the decision that had been made to remain at Anowen despite the trouble brewing in Eromerde. The Council had been unanimous in their agreement to do what they could to increase the security of the family — they had been less so about how Anowen might best use Eromerde’s misfortune to their own advantage.

  He had not slept well as the day wore on, and even his queen’s touch could not work free the tension that had shivered up his spine.

  So, he kissed her, then watched her comb her hair in his looking glass as he dressed.

  While the sun was still hanging in the sky, he and his Castilian brother left the castle for neighboring Easthaven.

  The growing town was an hour’s coach ride east through the winding trails of the forests. It was also territory to Eromerde; though most of their Immortal kin had little choice but to keep to the shadows in the day.

  The only evidence of the war that had begun was in the odor of Aegean blood carried on the wind; its scent threading between the trees like a prowling cat.

  Too close.

  Lian glanced out the open window of the coach as if he might see the invisible threat approaching.

  “We must find something in town for Eden,” he said, diverting his train of thought as he leaned back in the carriage seat.