The boy scrambled to his feet and screamed as if Tynan had hacked him with a sword. “Monsters! Monsters!”
He began to run, limping heavily on his left leg. Tynan dashed after him. Better to scare the boy than to let him get away and very likely be a snack for some demon. Tynan caught him just before the boy managed to scramble over the stone wall bordering the near field.
“Easy, easy, you’re safe.” The boy kicked and slapped and screamed, shooting fresh pain into Tynan’s hip. “You need to be inside. No one’s going to hurt you now. No one…”
He thought he heard something—chanting—and tightened his grip on the child. He turned, ready to sprint back for the house when he heard something else, something that came from what he held in his arms. It was a low, feral growl.
The boy grinned, horribly, and went for his throat.
There was something beyond agony, and it took Tynan to his knees. Not a child, not a child at all, he thought as he fought to free himself. But the thing ripped at him like a wolf.
Dimly he heard shouts, screams, the thud of arrows, the clash of swords. And the last he heard was the hideous sound of his own blood being greedily drunk.
They used fire, tipping arrows with flame, and still, nearly a quarter of their number were killed or wounded before the demons fell back.
“Take that one alive.” Lilith delicately wiped blood from her lips. “I promised Lora a gift.” She smiled down at Davey who stood over the body of the soldier he’d killed. It swelled pride in her that her boy had continued to feed even when troops had dragged the body, with the prince clinging to it, away from the battle.
Davey’s eyes were red and gleaming, and his freckles stood out like gold against the rosy flush the blood had given his cheeks.
She picked him up, held him high over her head. “Behold your prince!”
The troops who hadn’t been destroyed in the brief battle knelt.
She lowered him to kiss him long and deep on his mouth.
“I want more,” he said.
“Yes, my love, and you’ll have more. Very soon. Toss that thing on a horse,” she ordered with a careless gesture toward Tynan’s body. “I have a use for it.”
She mounted, then held out her arms so that Davey could leap into them. With her cheek rubbing against his hair, she looked down at Midir.
“You did well,” she said to him. “You can have your choice of the humans, for whatever purposes you like.”
The moonlight shone on his silver hair as he bowed. “Thank you.”
Moira stood in the brisk wind and watched dragons and riders circle overhead. It was a stunning sight, she thought, and would have sent her heart soaring under any other circumstances. But these were military maneuvers, not spectacle.
Still, she could hear children calling out and clapping, and more than a few of them pretending they were dragon or rider.
She smiled a greeting when her uncle strode over to watch beside her. “You’re not tempted to fly?” she asked him.
“I leave it for the young—and the agile. It’s a brilliant sight, Moira. And a hopeful one.”
“The dragons have lifted the spirits. And in battle, they’ll give us an advantage. Do you see Blair? She rides as if she was born on the back of one.”
“She’s hard to miss,” Riddock murmured as Blair drove her mount toward the ground at a dizzying speed, then swept up again.
“Are you pleased she and Larkin will marry?”
“He loves her, and I can think of no other who suits him so well. So aye, his mother and I are pleased. And will miss him every day. He must go with her,” Riddock said before Moira could speak. “It’s his choice, and I feel—in my heart—it’s the right choice for him. But we’ll miss him.”
Moira leaned her head against her uncle’s arm. “Aye, we will.”
She would be the only one to remain, she thought as she went inside again. The only one of the first circle who would remain in Geall after Samhain. She wondered how she would be able to bear it.
Already the castle felt empty. So many had already gone ahead, and others were busy with duties she’d assigned. Soon, very soon, she would leave herself. So it was time, she determined, to write down her wishes in the event she didn’t return.
She closed herself in her sitting room and sat to sharpen her quill. Then changed her mind and took out one of the treasures she’d brought back with her from Ireland.