Chapter 9

In the little rented cottage, hot water poured over Ursula’s skin, soothing her body. After washing her new bob and scrubbing down her body, she stepped out into the steamy, white-tiled bathroom. The glass of merlot she’d poured for herself earlier still stood on the tile counter. She dressed in a matching set of pink knickers and a bra, then pulled on a blue T-shirt and dried off her hair. But as she pulled open the door to the living room, she froze. Something felt wrong here, as if a powerful, dark magic was pooled in the room. Ursula flicked on the light in the living room, and her heart skipped a beat.

Bael stood barefoot in the center of the carpet, dressed in a black shirt and trousers far too small for him, his eyes the color of blood. Water drenched his clothing and hair, droplets sliding down his golden skin. Shadow magic whirled from his muscled body, seeming to snake and writhe along the vicious tattoos on his forearms.

Ursula dove for the katana, snatching it from where she had it hidden under the bed. Rolling to her feet. she pointed the blade at his chest. “Just trying to keep you at bay, my dear?—”

Bael growled and charged for her in a blur of shadow magic, ripping the sword from her grasp. The next thing she knew, he was pinning her to the wall by the fireplace, his powerful body pressed against hers, clothing dampening hers. He stared down at her, eyes blazing crimson.

“You made me into a monster.” he snarled, his hands gripping her wrists possessively. Shadows darkened the air around him, sending icy fear up her spine.

“You were going to die,” she said. “It was the only way.”

He leaned in, sniffing her throat, his eyes closing. For just a moment, his lips curled back from his teeth, and his mouth moved closer to her neck.

Bollocks.He was in complete control here, and there was not a damn thing she could do about it unless she wanted to burn him. But when his teeth grazed her neck—surprisingly gently—a shiver of pleasure rippled through her body. Strangely enough, she found herself tilting back her head, a silent invitation.

Bael smelled of sandalwood and sea air, and when he lifted his face from her neck, peering down at her, the blood-red seemed to fade. His irises slowly shaded back to pale gray ringed with deep blue, a stunning contrast with his gold skin, his black lashes. A dark heat burned in his eyes, and Ursula was struck once more by his godlike beauty. Slowly, the shadows around him receded, and he released his grip on her. For just a moment, he lifted his hand, rolling the ends of her shorn hair around his fingers. “You cut your hair.”

A smile curled her lips. “What do you think?”

“Beautiful.”

Heat warmed her core, and she smiled again.

Bael blinked as if waking from a dream and stepped away. For a few moments, they simply stared at each other, and Ursula tried desperately to clear her mind, to forget the feel of his powerful body against hers, or his mouth on her neck.

At last, when she could think straight again, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Zee found me. She told me you were headed for Cornwall.” He spoke softly now. “I know the dragons are after you, and I thought you could use my help.” Shadows slid through his eyes. “Assuming I can control the blood fury. Sorry about…” Trailing off, he gestured at the fireplace.

“It’s fine. You seem better than the last time I saw you.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. How did you get here so fast? And how did you know where I was? I texted Zee not that long ago.”

He arched a dark eyebrow. “You have your ways of traveling, and I have mine.”

“Nyxobas’s waters, I take it.” She frowned. “The Forgotten Ones?—”

Bael shrugged. “Were not a problem this time. Zee told me you’re looking for Avalon. The location is shrouded in mystery. Have you learned anything?”

“Sort of. I know it’s somewhere on St. Michael’s Mount.”

“How did you find that out?”

“A river hag told me, and Mordred and his sons took a boat there tonight.”

Bael shook his head. “Mordred. Of course.”

“You know him?”

“He’s one of Nyxobas’s most powerful vampires. I did business with him a long time ago.” Bael turned, walking for the door. When he reached the threshold, he turned back to her, his pale eyes piercing. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Where?”

“To St. Michael’s Mount.”

“We don’t have a boat.”

“The tide is ebbing. We will be able to walk along the causeway.”

With her swordat her hip, Ursula walked by Bael’s side along the cobblestone path toward the sea. He kept his distance from her, not uttering a word.

At last they reached the beach, where moonlight bathed the sand in silver. The lights at the castle’s peak had been turned off, and St. Michael’s Mount loomed dark and mysterious in the middle of the misty bay. Starlight streamed through the fog.

Bael moved swiftly over the sand, and Ursula had to hurry to keep up with him. She got the distinct impression that he wanted to maintain space between them—that if he got too close, he’d find his teeth hovering over her neck again.

“What do you know about Avalon?” she asked.

“Hardly anyone knows anything about Avalon,” he said. “Only what you’ve heard in legends. King Arthur was buried there, and Excalibur beside him.”

“Excalibur,” she murmured. “It’s a magical sword, I suppose?”

“Yes.” The sea breeze toyed with a few strands of his black hair. “And it kills dragons.”

“Ah. So that’s why Kester came here.” She frowned. “And why are you helping me?”

“You’re in danger. I can help protect you.”

“Why do you want to?”

At the sea’s edge, he stepped barefoot into the water. She looked him up and down, for the first time realizing why his clothes fit so poorly. He’d come through one of Nyxobas’s portals, which meant he’d arrived naked.

“Where did you get your trousers?”

“I borrowed the clothes from a gentleman sleeping on a bench.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’d imbibed too much alcohol.”

“I see.”

Bael took a few more steps into the sea, then stopped and turned back to face Ursula. The waves lapped around him and the hulk of St. Michael’s Mount loomed ominously in the distance.

Ursula didn’t want to ask about his bloodlust, but she had to know what she was facing if she was going to venture out into the dark waters with him.

Bael turned to look at her, his pale eyes glinting in the silver light. “Are you coming?”

“What stopped you from biting my neck back at the cottage?”

His penetrating gaze rooted her in place. “I only temporarily lost control of the hunger. It won’t happen again. I’m nearly rid of it.”

“Okay.” Ursula sat on a rock and unzipped her boots, pulling them off. “So you really traveled all the way here to help me?”

“That’s not the only reason.”

She stuffed her boots into her rucksack. “And what’s the other?”

“I also have unfinished business with the Queen of Avalon. I haven’t been able to find her. The path to the Fortunate Isle has been lost for centuries.”

She rose. “Do you suppose we’re on the right track?”

“I cannot say. It is said that you must possess a Torc of Malicus to enter. But the path itself has been lost for centuries.”

Ursula gripped her rucksack as she waded into the water. She’d expected sand, but instead round cobbles met her feet, like a road beneath the dark water. She followed Bael through the shallow water, the icy waves lapping at her ankles. As she walked, she shivered, wishing she’d worn something heavier.

As they walked through the water, her senses seemed to intensify: the nighttime breeze that caressed her bare arms, the taste of salt on her lips, and the rhythmic lapping of the waves. Bael walked gracefully ahead of her, barely more than a dark shadow. She tried not to think about the bloodlust that had nearly consumed him earlier.

The sea receded as they walked, the tide continuing to ebb. As the water thinned, Ursula looked down at the cobblestone causeway beneath her feet.

When they reached the shore, the path sloped gently upward over rock, the stones now dry under her feet. Ahead of her, at the base of a stone wall, Bael stopped and sniffed the air.

“What are you doing?” asked Ursula.

“I can smell the vampires.” Bael stared into the darkness, then whispered, “Get your sword out.”

Holding her breath, Ursula unsheathed her katana.

With the vamps scented, Bael picked up the pace, and Ursula had to practically run over the cobblestones to keep up. The path sloped sharply upwards, lined by a rough stone wall on one side eventually giving way to lush greenery and thick woods. Above, the dark castle towered over the island. Ursula’s breath burned in her lungs as she jogged along just behind Bael.

Suddenly he stopped, holding up a hand. Up ahead, a shout pierced the air.

“What is going on?” she whispered.

“If we are indeed in the right place, those screams mean someone has woken Cormoran.”

Cormoran?Whoever that was. Ursula was beginning to remember Bael’s infuriating tendency to leave out key details until they were in the thick of it. Before Ursula could press him on this point, another scream ripped through the quiet night.

A dark form swooped over their heads, followed by a crack behind them as it smacked into the trunk of an oak. Ursula strained her eyes in the dim moonlight, her stomach clenching as she recognized the headless body of one of Mordred’s sons. In the next moment, the body turned to ash.

Bael turned to his left, nodding at a rocky hill thickly overgrown with brush. “We keep going.”

“Who or what is Cormoran?” she hissed.

Ignoring her question, Bael launched into a sprint, and Ursula chased after him, gripping her sword.

Fast as lightning, he moved up the rocky hillside, and Ursula ran after him, weaving through the shrubs. As they moved, the surroundings seemed to change, growing more thickly forested with oak and hazel.

At last, they burst into a clearing at the top of the mount. Ursula caught her breath, staring up at the dark fortress. The castle stood off to the side on top of a series of battlements. In the dark, she nearly missed the enormous man looming over them, until he stepped into a shaft of moonlight.

Ursula’s heart skipped a beat, and she took a step back. The man had to be twenty feet tall, his hair long and greasy, and he wore only a tattered loincloth. In one hand he held a monstrous club. In the other, he gripped Mordred’s remaining son. Mordred himself was nowhere to be seen.

“That’s Cormoran,” said Bael next to her.

The vampire flailed wildly in the giant’s grip, his eyes wild with fear. Suddenly, Cormoran threw him high in the air, the vamp’s body catching the moonlight. As the vamp fell to earth, the giant swung his club like a baseball bat. With a crack of shattering bone he severed the vamp’s head, sending it rocketing into the night sky like a cannonball. Ursula’s stomach dropped. Holy hells.

With a feral roar Bael charged at the giant. Maniac. He doesn’t even have a weapon. Cormoran swung for him with his club, but with a burst of shadow magic Bael soared over the swing, clutching onto the beast’s shoulder. He pulled himself into position on Cormoran’s back and locked his arms around the giant’s neck. The giant spun, dropping his club to claw at his back, but he couldn’t reach Bael.

Her grip tightening on her sword, Ursula stepped closer, starting to circle the giant, her eyes on Bael. His muscular arms squeezed against the giant’s throat like the coils of a snake, and the giant’s face reddened, his eyes bulging. The giant stopped swatting at its back, bringing its hands to its throat instead. Slowly it began to peel Bael’s arms away, sucking in a ragged breath. Bael needed help.

Ursula lunged, slashing at the giant’s leg with her katana, but the blade seemed to bounce off his skin. No wonder he’s not wearing anything.

Grunting, the giant peeled Bael’s other arm from his throat. With a brutal jerk, Cormoran pulled Bael off his back, holding up the Lord of Abelda with one arm. Frantically, her heart beating a wild tattoo, Ursula slashed and jabbed at the giant’s legs, but her sword wouldn’t penetrate the skin.

“Begone, demon,” Cormoran roared, in a voice that sounded as if his vocal cords were made from flayed flesh. He reared back his head and flung Bael into the darkness. Ursula’s stomach dropped, as the giant turned to face her. Still, she had to believe Bael was all right, given that he’d survived a fall from the top of the Plaza Hotel.

Cormoran’s tongue flicked over his purple lips. “Now, you’re a pretty one.”

Emerazel’s fire stirred within her. It was one thing to be attacked by a giant, but it was quite another to be objectified by one.

She pointed her sword at the giant, knowing it would do fuck-all against him, but bravado was about all she had in her arsenal right now. “Where is Mordred?”

The giant growled, reaching for her with one of his massive hands. She dodged, barely escaping his grasp.

“I won’t hurt you, my little lovely,” he purred.

Ursula dodged again as he snatched at her. So far, she’d been able to stay out of his reach, but she could also see he was slowly herding her toward the castle battlements behind her, trying to block her in. If she got too close to the walls, there would be no room to dodge. She needed a plan. Perhaps the battlements could actually be useful.

As the giant reached for her, she dove under his grasp, then rolled between his legs. She leapt up and broke into a sprint toward the castle, somehow moving as fast as phantom wind.

The giant picked up his club. “You can run, little thing, but you cannot hide.”

Ursula sprinted up the hillside, letting the winds carry her, as Cormoran lumbered after her, until she reached a small battlement—a six-foot-high stone wall holding back the cliff face. She threw her sword on top of it before pulling herself up after it. Cormoran paused as he reached it.

“Now I’ve got you,” said the giant, placing a hand on a parapet, trying to box her in.

Ursula picked up her katana and ran back a few paces before turning to face the giant again. Then she charged, leaping into the air as Bael had done. However, unlike Bael, she had a weapon, and she used it to stab at Cormoran’s face.

She aimed for his eye, but he ducked and she only grazed his forehead. Worse, she had miscalculated the height of the battlement. Between the height of her leap, the height of the wall, and the steeply sloping hillside she was now a good fifteen feet in the air. Tumbling as she hit the slope, she curled into a ball and rolled head over heels. She didn’t hear any bones crack, but she lost her grip on her sword. At the bottom of the hill, she crawled to her feet, a little woozy.

An earth-shattering crash rumbled the ground next to her—Cormoran landing on the grass. Before she could dodge, he caught one of her ankles in a vise-like grip.

“Gotcha, little one.” He lifted her into the air, dangling her upside-down in front of his face. He stared at her with yellow eyes, his fleshy tongue wetting his lips. His hot breath reeked of rotten meat. “You’ll be an obedient little wife, now, won’t you?”

Blood trickled from the gash on his forehead. As he pulled her closer to his face, Ursula swung her body closer and punched him hard in the cut.

Cormoran grinned. “Oh, I like when tiny ones put up little fight first.”

A feral roar rumbled over the horizon, sending a shiver over Ursula’s body. She didn’t have to turn her head to know it was Bael.

The giant dropped her and she hit the ground hard, pain splintering her skull. Coughing, she rolled over to see Bael leaping for Cormoran. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, Bael’s blood-red eyes flashing in the silvery light.

His fist slammed into Cormoran’s face, and the giant went down hard, sending shudders through the earth. His lips sagged, and his eyes rolled back into his head. He was out cold.

Ursula crawled to her knees, rubbing the back of her skull. Her entire head throbbed, and dizziness washed over her. Nausea climbed up her gut. She couldn’t quite manage standing yet. Just a few yards away, Bael stood with his back to her, his muscled body rigid with tension.

“Bael?” she asked tentatively.

Next to her, the giant’s body twitched.

“Stay away.” Dark magic stained the air around him.

One of the giant’s fingers moved in the grass.

“Bael, Cormoran is still moving.”

When Bael turned to look at her again, his eyes had returned to that beautiful, pale gray, though a dark hunger still burned in them. “We need to hurry. He will revive soon.” He crossed to her and offered his hand, helping her to her feet. “Nice work cutting him on his forehead. The blood blinded him.”

The giant took a shuddering breath.

Silver light glinted in Bael’s eyes. “I think we’ve come to the right place.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“Legend says that a giant named Cormoran guarded the path to Avalon, and that his grave formed the entrance.” He closed his eyes, sniffing the air, then pointed to small grove of apple trees at the edge of the clearing. “There.”

As they entered the clearing, an enormous, dark hole came into view. Bael led her to its edge.

By his side, she peered into it, straining her eyes in the darkness. “Is this it? The entrance to Avalon?”

Instead of responding, Bael began muttering in Angelic, and a glowing orb appeared above them. With a flick of his wrist, Bael directed it into the hole.

The orb descended, revealing an earthen floor twenty feet below—and from that, a deep tunnel carved into the earth that sloped further downward. Bael jumped down, kicking up a cloud of earth when his feet landed. Of course. It’s not like he’s going to bother explaining anything.

After taking a final glance at the unconscious Cormoran, Ursula hopped into the earthen hole. She hit the ground hard, but the dirt on the floor softened the landing. Already, Bael was walking into the tunnel, his amber orb lighting the way.

Sword in hand, she hurried after him, until she caught up with him. The earthen tunnel walls sloped downward, the high ceilings tall enough for a giant. Up ahead, the earth walls of the tunnel gave way to dark stone before reaching a small rough-stone chamber. Unlike Cormoran’s pit, this seemed older, almost prehistoric. Apart from a dusty pile of red cloth, it was completely empty.

Rough Angelic words marked one of the walls, and Ursula translated them in her mind:

The path to Avalon is before you.

A golden apple, an unsullied body

Will reveal the way.

Below the inscription, a small, apple-shaped niche had been carved into the rock.

“Any idea what that means?” asked Ursula.

Bael simply stared at the inscription.

“Mordred had a golden clasp on his cloak,” she offered. “But I don’t suppose that helps us now.”

A loud thud rumbled over the earth, dislodging dirt from the earthen ceiling. The giant was stirring, and dread shivered up Ursula’s spine. She traced her fingers along the apple carving. There was something familiar about it—something she’d seen before.

“Wait,” said Ursula her eyes flicking to the pile of dusty, crimson cloth that lay discarded just below the inscription. Was it a crimson cloak? Like the one Mordred had worn? “Those—” She pointed at the clothes. “I think that was Mordred.”

Bael reached down and picked up the cloak—the exact same shade as Mordred’s. When Bael picked up the garment, Mordred’s golden apple clanged onto the stone floor.

Just then, the earth rumbled. Ursula peered down the tunnel, her heart racing as she caught a glimpse of Cormoran’s form dropping into the earthen pit behind them.

Bael rolled the golden apple in his fingers. “Something killed Mordred when he tried to use this.”

Ursula nodded. “The river hag said only the pure may enter. Any idea what that means?” With any luck, this wasn’t a virginity requirement.

Behind her, Cormoran’s voice boomed through the tunnel, and dirt rained around them. “I see you’ve found your way into my little cell, my love cave.”

Bael met her gaze. “It’s the same to travel through Nyxobas’s waters. Clothing makes us impure. We must remove our clothes.”

Ursula swallowed hard. “Of course.”

I hope to hell this works.As fast as she could, Ursula tore off her clothing, slipping out of her panties and bra. The cool night air kissed her skin. She tried not to stare at Bael’s perfect body as he undressed, his back to her. As the giant’s footsteps echoed off the tunnel, Bael pressed the pendant into the apple-shaped niche. And when he did, the rock shimmered, thinning before them to a heavy mist. Without looking back, they stepped into it.