Centuries of self-discipline permitted him to move through that which was immovable, and gradually emerge from the clinging nothingness into a distant sense of his physical body. He could feel all around him his stronghold, his men, the club. With a final surge of will, he came to awareness, although he still remained outside his body, only hovering near it.
The enemy had taken him over, mind and body, and had draped him over an armchair sitting in the center of the dance floor. A bottle of bloodwine dangled from his right fist; in his left gleamed a copper-clad sword. Lucan recognized the weapon as Turner’s finest work: a gift the weapons master had presented to him when he had joined the jardin. He swiped it through the air and drank from the bottle as twenty of his men stood in defensive positions around him.
Aldan glanced back at the impostor. “Someone has broken through the front line, my lord.”
“It is the boy, I wager. Disarm him, but do not kill him,” Lucan heard himself command. “He has knowledge I must have.”
The doors to the club flung open, and Jamys Durand stepped inside, the daggers in his hands wet with fresh blood. The boy turned briefly to bar the door before he moved forward and inspected the interior of the club. He then leveled his gaze on the impostor.
“Where is she?”
* * *
When Thierry Durand had gone mad, Jamys had understood the reason for it. The hideous tortures inflicted on his father by the Brethren were nothing compared with the agony of believing Angelica was dead. The bond between Darkyn lord and sygkenis was absolute; severing it resulted in insanity. That his father in his deranged state had somehow bonded a second time, with Jema, had been a miracle, and the saving of him.
Jamys had known he was doomed from the moment the voice of the same Kyn he had contacted through Gifford had come into his head. You will not interfere, boy. He had struggled even as he felt his limbs growing numb and leaden. To his shame, he could do nothing but watch as Lucan dragged Christian out of the room.
Not even at the mercy of the Brethren inquisitors had he felt so helpless—or enraged.
It didn’t matter to Jamys that Christian was mortal, and the bond between them imperfect. She was his woman, his wife, his love. And for taking her from him, Lucan would die.
The Kyn held Jamys captive in his own body until the sound of the speedboat faded from the air, and then released him as suddenly as he had taken him over.
He takes her to his stronghold, his voice purred. She belongs to Death now.
She is mine. At the instant he regained control of his body, Jamys flung himself out of the bed and dragged on his garments. He ran from the house to the pier, searching the dark, empty waters. As he climbed onto the boat and cast off, he could smell her in the air, her scent permeated with love and terror.
He engaged the engine, and sailed from the island to the mainland, dropping anchor just beyond the shallows and diving from the deck into the chilly waters. He swam to the beach, emerging at a flat run for the nearest vehicle he saw, a sedan sitting at a traffic light.
The driver’s eyes widened as Jamys wrenched open the locked door. “What do you think you’re—” His voice cut off as soon as Jamys clamped a hand on his shoulder.
You want to give me the car and walk to your destination.
“Here, take it,” the man said as he unfastened his seat belt and climbed out. “I’m going to walk home.”
Jamys got in, slammed the door, and drove, swerving between two cars turning in front of him. As brakes screeched and angry voices shouted, he pressed the accelerator to the floor, speeding away.
Lights, cars, and buildings became a blur as Jamys drove north. Dimly he felt the seawater dripping from his clothes to soak the seat beneath him. He carried but two daggers, and as a mortal with an annoying voice crooned a holiday song from the dashboard, he clenched his fist and rammed it into the console, silencing the radio.
Lucan had a stronghold, a garrison, and the most dangerous weapon of all, his killing hands. Jamys had a car, two daggers, and a power that affected only mortals. He could almost hear his father’s voice: Be rational, my son. This is suicide.
The voice was his father’s, but not the sentiments. More than any other warrior, his father would understand this.
Should by some narrow chance you save the girl, she will never be yours, his mother whispered. You are destined to live forever. She was born to die. Forget her. Save yourself.
By betrayal his mother had saved herself when she had been captured by the Brethren. She’d won her freedom by becoming their agent and luring countless Kyn into the hands of the enemy. Knowing they would die slow, hideous deaths by torture, she’d done the same to her entire family. How easy it had been for her to tear apart the bonds of marriage and motherhood. . . .