His father, over his shock at being taken down from his saddle, rolled onto his back and unsheathed his dagger, the snarl upon his face like an animal’s. On a curse, Xcor reined up and halted his rescue, for surely his sire would take control: The Bloodletter was not the kind of male you aided—he had beaten Xcor for it in the past, less
ons that had been hard learned and well remembered.
Still, he dismounted and readied himself on the periphery in the event there were others of this Valkyrie’s type in and amidst the forest.
Which was why he heard her say clearly a name.
“Vishous.”
His father’s rage segued into a brief confusion. And before he could resume his self-defense, she began to glow with what surely was an unholy light.
“Father!” Xcor yelled as he raced forth.
But he was too late. And contact was made.
Flames burst out around his sire’s harsh, bearded face and they o’ertook his corporeal form as if on dry hay. And with the same grace with which she had taken him down, the female leaped back and watched as he frantically sought to beat out the fire, to no avail. Into the night, he screamed as he burned alive, his leather clothing no protection at all for his skin and muscle.
There was no way to get close enough to the blaze, and Xcor skidded to a halt, raising his arm afore himself and bowing away from the heat that was exponentially hotter than it should have been.
All the while, the female stood over the contorting, twitching body . . . the flickering orange glow illuminating her cruel, beautiful face.
The bitch was smiling.
And that was when she lifted her face to him. As Xcor got a proper view of her visage, at first he refused to believe what he saw. And yet the flames’ glow told no lies.
He was staring at a female version of the Bloodletter. Same black hair and pale skin and pale eyes. Same bone structure. Moreover, the same vengeful light in her near-violent eyes, that rapture and satisfaction at causing death a combination Xcor himself knew all too well.
She was gone a moment later, fading into the fog in a manner that was not as his kind dematerialized, but rather that of a waft of smoke, departing by inches and then feet.
As soon as he was able, Xcor rushed to his father, but there was nothing left to save . . . barely anything to bury. Sinking to his knees afore the smoldering bones and the stench, he had a moment of deplorable weakness: Tears sprang to his eyes. The Bloodletter had been a brute, but as his only claimed male offspring, Xcor and he had been close. . . . Indeed, they were one of another.
“By all that is holy,” Zypher said hoarsely. “Whate’er was that?”
Xcor blinked hard before he glared over his shoulder. “She killed him.”
“Aye. And then some.”
As the band of bastards came to stand about him, one by one, Xcor had to think of what to say, what to do.
Stiffly rising to a stand, he wanted to call for his stallion, but his mouth was too dry to whistle. His father . . . long his nemesis and yet his grounding, too, was dead. Dead. And it had happened so fast, too fast.
By a female.
His father, gone.
When he could, he looked at each of the males afore him, the two on horseback, the two on foot, the one to his right. With weighty realization, he knew that whatever destiny lay ahead, it would be shaped by what he did in this moment, right here, right now.
He had not prepared for this, but he would not turn away from what he must do:
“Hear this now, for I shall utter it but once. No one is to say a thing. My father died in battle with the enemy. I burned him to pay homage and keep him with me. Swear this to me now.”
The bastards he had long lived and fought with so vowed, and after their deep voices drifted away on the night, Xcor leaned down and raked his fingers through the ashes. Raising his hands to his face, he streaked the sooty marking from his cheeks to the thick veins that ran up either side of his neck—and then he palmed the hard, bony skull that was all that was left of his father. Holding the steaming, charred remains aloft, he claimed the soldiers before him as his own.
“I am your sole liege now. Bind yourselves unto me at this moment or thou art mine enemy. What say you all.”
There was nary a hesitation. The males set upon bended knee, taking out their daggers, and bursting forth with a war cry before burying the blades into the earth at his feet.
Xcor stared at their bowed heads and felt a mantle fall upon his shoulders.