Free Devil's Angel by Mallery Malone Page B

be unaffected by your brother’s death?”
    “I would weep for Olan, but I know that if he died in battle, he would be taken to Valhalla with singing and feasting. For a warrior, you speak strange words, Devil of Dunlough.”
    “A blade is not the only way to settle a disagreement.” His anger showed through in his voice, and he did nothing to temper it. How could she talk so calm of killing and death? What had happened to her that she could speak of it as some women discussed their weaving?
    “Many are they who are quick to war, and they are the ones quick to die. Be sure of this, Angel of Death: I fear little in this world and I have stared Death in the eyes many times. When I pick up my sword, I use it—and not to wound.”
    He stopped before another door complete with a pair of guards. He dismissed them and they left, giving her more hostile looks. Conor opened the door and motioned for her to enter.
    Wary, she peered inside, then hurried in as she caught sight of the man lying on the pallet before the fire. With a small cry, she knelt beside him.
    Conor turned to leave, but paused, caught by a curious sound. Erika was speaking in her native tongue, but that wasn’t what caught his ears. No, it was the way she touched the face of the man on the pallet, the way she leaned over him, the way her shoulders shook.
    The Angel of Death was crying.
    It caused a curious sensation in Conor, as if something thawed inside him. He supposed it was the anger draining out of him at the realization that Erika was not as callous as she seemed. That ’twas possible she had a heart. Deep in thought, Conor closed the door, leaving brother and sister alone.

Chapter Nine
    “Who is it that brings tears to your eyes?” Olan demanded. “Tell me, that I may give him grief.”
    Her brother’s voice, humming with menace, stanched her tears and forced a laugh from her. “Ease your berserker rage. My tears are for you, because you live.”
    With a sweep of golden lashes, the fury in his eyes diminished. “It was a near thing, Rika,” he admitted, using slow movements to sit upright on the makeshift pallet. “I could hear the hoofbeats of the Valkyr, come to bear me to Valhalla. But into their path came an angel with raven hair and eyes as green as new-grown grass.”
    “The Lady Gwynna,” Erika confirmed. “She is a gifted healer.”
    A curious expression crossed her brother’s face at the mention of the healer, a potent mixture of anger and yearning battling for supremacy. Anger won out. “She would not let you come to me.”
    “Gwynna was not able, though she did try,” Erika insisted. “She told me what little she could of your progress while I was locked away, and for that I am grateful.”
    Blue eyes, blazing like sapphires, pierced her own. “All I knew of you was that you were alive, and at times, I could feel your fear.”
    His voice was as hard as the tempered edge of a sword. “Have you been harmed? Did that scarred whoreson who stabbed you in the belly attempt to touch you?”
    Erika hesitated. She had never lied to her brother, though she had omitted telling him things at times. “My only injuries were from the battle. One guard attempted to harm me, but Conor prevented it. And more than that, I was able to challenge him to a duel, to first blood. When I win, we will go free.”
    Her news did not have the reaction Erika expected. A short, bitter word broke free of her brother’s clenched features. “That you even have to face this is more than I can bear,” he said in a harsh whisper. “I have failed in my duty to you.”
    “No, Olan, you haven’t! Do not blame yourself for this.”
    “How can I not?” Anger drove him to his feet, though he swayed with the effort. He raked his uninjured hand through his shoulder-length mane, away from his sweating brow. “This life we lead—this is no life for you!”
    Concern rising like bile in her throat she rose to her feet, facing him. “But it is the life I