The Night Everything Fell Apart (The Nephilim Book 1)(113)

He shrugged. “You might be happy with a witch in your bed. I prefer otherwise. It’s my business, innit? Just because I live in your bleeding castle doesn’t mean... ”

He must have taken a closer look at her expression, because his complaints died on his lips. His gaze sharpened. “Something’s happened,” he said. “What?”

Morgana drew up her sleeve. An oaken cuff, carved in the form of a dragon, encircled her upper arm. An emerald had once formed the dragon’s eye, but for the last seven years, a ruby had taken its place.

The gem was aglow.

“Holy shite,” Collum muttered. “First demons swarming th’ skies, now this.” Turning abruptly, he rooted around on his nightstand. He lifted a silver chain, from which dangled a disc of apple wood. The ruby in the center, a matching gem to her own, shone like blood.

“Mab,” he muttered. “What could the bitch be about after all these years? We’ve done as we were told. We’ve neither of us set foot out of Scotland since that terrible day. She should let us be.”

“She’s the clan alpha,” Morgana said grimly. “She owns our fealty. She can command us as she wishes.”

“What do you suppose the bloody besom wants?”

“I cannot imagine.”

Collum’s fingers closed on the disc. The light shone through his fingers. “We could ignore her summons.”

“Are ye daft? She’d kill us both. She came within an inch of it seven years ago.”

“If she wanted us dead,” Collum said, “we’d be dead. Like—” He looked away.

Morgana swallowed past the lump in her throat. Like Magnus, he’d been about to say. Morgana’s twin had challenged Mab, and had given his life in the effort to defeat her. Morgana felt the loss as if it had happened yesterday, rather than seven empty years ago. At least, she told herself yet again, Magnus had died during the duel. If he hadn’t, Mab would have taken him as a thrall.

“If only,” she began. “If only Tristan had—”

“Stop.” Collum held up his hand. “Dinnae go there, lass. It’ll only upset you. There’s no sense in dwelling on what’s over and done.”

‘Lass,’ he called her, though she was barely a decade younger than he. As for his advice, it was fine and true, Morgana was sure, but she’d never been able to take it to heart.

“Damn Alwen for her weakness,” she spat. “How could that Alchemist bastard have cozened her so completely? She was a disgrace to Merlin’s line. ‘Twould have been better had she died during her Ordeal.”

“So you’ve said,” Collum reminded her. “Many times. Over, and over, and over—”

“And the lad.” The loss of the lad, the last of Merlin’s direct line, had been a crushing blow. “Arthur would be almost of age now, had he survived.”

“Well, he didn’t survive,” her cousin said flatly. “He died. Accept it. Forget it.”

“If only I could,” Mab murmured.

But she knew it would never happen. Not on this side of Oblivion.