Free Shadow's Curse by Alexa Egan Page A

spine-sizzling rusty screech. Then they werethrough, lights and laughter left behind as they made their way through the heavy gloom of the narrow mews.
    “You call yourself a soldier, St. Leger? My granny could foil a scent better than you.” Eudo Beskin’s voice oozed like slime as he stepped out from the shadow of the stables.
    Once the Ossine discovered that David was living under the shadow of a Fey-blood’s curse, his sentence of exile had been returned quick as a headsman’s ax. If only the punishment had been so clean and swift. Instead, it had been a drawn-out torture by inches meted out by the enforcer now standing a few feet away, eyes glowing in his pale face. David had spent the past two years dreaming of the day he would exact ruthless vengeance on the man who’d stripped him of his clan mark and then his dignity; who’d stolen his life but never once offered him the death he craved.
    Here was his chance and yet fear stole his breath and his will. Faced with the moment of reckoning, he couldn’t move, his brain thick with fog. Despite all his preparations, he froze, drowning beneath a flood of paralyzing memories no amount of whisky had been able to obliterate.
    “Caught in the act with a pretty little Fey-blood whore,” Beskin sneered, his eyes raking Callista with one disparaging glance. “Do you whisper Imnada secrets in her ear while you’re stuffing her? Does she pretend to enjoy it as she wheedles information out of you?”
    Beskin drew his sword from a heavy leather sheath. The moon’s faint shine glinted down the length of the blade.
    Silver.
    No wonder David wanted to be sick.
    Trained over a lifetime of service to withstand its effects, all enforcers carried such weaponry as part of their arsenal, though they rarely resorted to it. Silver didn’t affect humans or Fey-bloods, the Imnada’s normal enemies. It was a dangerous sign of the times that Beskin carried such a sword. More so, that he seemed so comfortable attacking one of his own.
    “Hand over the book, St. Leger, and I might spare the Fey-blood’s life,” Beskin said in a smooth, cold voice. “Of course, I might have to remove her tongue first. Can’t have her blabbing about our little encounter to her Other friends, can I?”
    “David, what’s happening?” Callista’s frightened voice finally jarred him free of his demons.
    “What are you talking about?” he asked. “What book?”
    “Don’t play the fool with me,” Beskin snarled. “Kineally stole it. Sir Dromon and the Ossine want it back.”
    Immediately, David began to regroup. Plan. Scheme. Plot. He was a soldier, damn it. Beskin might hold all the cards—and a silver sword—but there was no fucking chance David would lie down and make it easy. He might play the fool these days, but he still knew how to outsmart an enemy.
    He snatched up a discarded shovel and the lid from an empty grain bin. Hardly knightly sword and shield, but in a pinch, they’d do. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a book, though if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t give it to you.”
    “Maybe not voluntarily.” Beskin’s slash of a smilewidened, fangs extended and gleaming like knives. “But by the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be begging to tell me where the book is, along with the names of your dirty traitor friends. It will all come spilling out of you along with your bloody entrails.”
    David swallowed down the sour bile clawing its way up his throat. Slammed his mind against the images of his vicious punishment at the hands of this man ready to stun him into frozen panic once more if he let them.
    “Tough talk from a coward whose opponents are usually chained and helpless,” he snarled.
    Beskin lunged, his sword striking David’s makeshift shield. Again the enforcer thrust and again David countered. Attack and parry over and over, David giving ground as he struggled to keep the silver blade at bay. As weak as he was, it wouldn’t take