A Prisoner's Desire Read online

  A PRISONER’S DESIRE

  SONG OF THE BEAR BOOK II

  SHELBY MORGAN

  MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-84360-279-2

  Mobipocket (PRC) ISBN # 1-84360-280-6

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), & HTML

  (c) Copyright Shelby Morgan, 2002.

  All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave.

  Ellora's Cave, Inc. USA

  Ellora's Cave Ltd, UK

  This e-book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by email forwarding, copying, fax, or any other mode of communication without author permission.

  Edited by Martha Punches

  Cover Art by Kate Douglas

  Warning:

  The following material contains strong sexual content meant for mature readers. A PRISONER’S DESIRE: SONG OF THE BEAR BOOK II has been rated NC17, erotic, by three individual reviewers. We strongly suggest storing this electronic file in a place where young readers not meant to view this ebook are unlikely to happen upon it. That said, enjoy…

  Prologue

  The constant drip of the water was a torture he could not escape, like the smell of the mildewed stone walls and the damp that seeped through the floors into the core of his being. Worse was the drag of the chain that bound his Torc to the heavy iron ring on the wall.

  He should have felt defiled. Subjugated.

  He threw back his head and roared out a bellow of defiance, his laughter echoing through the depths of the dungeon.

  He could taste their fear on the air. He laughed again. Their footsteps sounded fainter as they hurried away down the long, echoing corridor. Their whispered voices became almost inaudible as the moved beyond the range of his straining ears.

  No matter. He knew what they said.

  Hunger gnawed at him. The dinner tray sat just inside the cell door, close enough that he could reach it if he wanted to, simply by extending his toes far enough to grab at its edge. This far they would trust him—as far as the pole they used to push the tray in would reach—and no farther.

  No matter. He knew what they did.

  They could pile the delicacies of a Dwarven Bazaar before him and he would not eat. He was no such fool. He was of no use to them now. The food would be poisoned—drugged at the very least. Drugged to make him sleep.

  Sleep was his enemy, too. Sleep would put him off his guard. They could get to him if he slept. Could get the shackles on him again. Could blindfold him.

  If they could blindfold him, he would be powerless against them.

  Just as he had been all his life.

  Until he had come of age.

  "Fools! Surrender now while you may. Your only hope is to set me free!"

  Mad. They thought he was mad. And perhaps he was. But he was not the one cowering in the hallway in fear. For once they were powerless over him. He bent his mind to the tray. Earthenware dishes launched themselves into the air and pursued his tormentors down the length of the hall. His maniacal laughter followed their shrieks and the clatter of breaking dishes.

  Sleep—sleep was the only enemy he could not tame now. Blessed, dreaded sleep. He sobbed as he stared at the spot down the hallway beyond which his vision could not reach. "Cowards!" he screamed. "Come fight with me, man to man. I will use nothing more than my hands. Challenge me, cowards!"

  The empty darkness responded with silence. They had turned out the lamps. Alone in the darkness he paced the cell to the length of his tether chain, praying to gods he had no reason to believe in not to let him fall asleep.

  Chapter One

  "Stay," Balthain begged. "Stay here with me."

  It was no use. Tâkuri clung, attempting to hold him, but she knew she was too late. "I would stay if I could," she sobbed. "Find me, Balthain. Please. I need more than this. I need you…"

  "I will find you," he promised. "I will find you, and I will claim my prize. You will be mine, for more than just a passing encounter in the night."

  * * * * *

  Tâkuri jerked back awake as another shout of maniacal laughter rang out through the halls. Angry tears stung her eyelids. Why did the fool find it necessary to bring her back to this world? She had been happy in the dreaming. Happy and warm and content in the arms of her lover. Now this idiot had to go and spoil everything. If she'd had her powers, she'd have…

  She'd have what? Was what she had in the dreaming worth killing a man over? What was she thinking? Had she sunk so low as to ignore the man's pain? Was she so self-centered, so self-absorbed, as to not care that one of her fellow prisoners suffered thus?

  The knowledge shamed her. She hadn't even tried to find out who he was or what was wrong. He was here. He was someone she could touch. Someone she might be able to help. She had a duty, a responsibility to these people…

  Balthain's desperate touch as he clasped her in his final release pulled at her heart. The prisoner's pain pulled at her mind. With a sigh, she bent her will to locating the man. She closed her eyes and started her search.

  * * * * *

  The candle burned to a stub, then flickered and died. His last weapon against the things that lurked in the darkness gone, he squeezed back into the corner, so that they could not come at him from behind. For they would come, now. Of that there was no doubt. He could hear them, their soft, furry feet sweeping over the tunnel floors. So he waited.

  And waited.

  The constant drip of the water was a torture he could not escape, like the smell of the mildewed stone walls and the damp that seeped through the floors. But fear itself was his biggest enemy.

  The feet scampered, just out of reach, searching, testing, waiting until he was weak enough, waiting, always waiting.

  He could wait no longer. He screamed out a war cry as he lunged to his feet, pickaxe swinging through the darkness in wide arcs as he charged down the tunnel, screaming as he ran, slinging their huge, bloated bodies aside as he cleared a way through the nest. He stumbled and nearly went down as one of them gripped his leg. The poison took effect quickly, so quickly, the numbness working its way up from his calf, but the spiders were behind him, and although he stumbled more frequently, he was still running, the terror his only companion.

  He was screaming again. The noise brought her back to the reality of her cold stone cell. Tâkuri took a deep breath to steady herself, banishing her anger. Whoever he was, he was Clan Bear. He was one of hers. He was her responsibility.

  She could feel him, his anguish a great disturbance, like a hole in the dreaming. She could reach him. She must reach him. Saving him, if she could, might be her last act as guardian of her people. She took another deep breath before she closed her eyes and slipped back into the dreaming.

  Friend, how can I help you?

  He jerked awake with a start. It took a moment to remember where he was. No long abandoned tunnel, this. No fat bloated bodies gushing their life's blood beneath his feet. No. No, he was back.

  Back in hell.

  Let me help you, friend.

  What was this? Voices? Voices in his head? They were trying to take over his mind, now? Couldn't let them. No. Couldn't let them inside. "Get out!"

  I am not your enemy. I am a prisoner here, like you.

  "I don't believe you. This is another one of their tricks."

  Touch me. I am real. I am Tâkuri, of the Tuatha Dé Danann. I am Sidhe. Fey in your language. I cannot harm you. Think. Remember what you know of us. Let me help you, friend.

  He was still asleep. She was not real. No…It was more of a whimper this time, almost a sob. No one can help me.

  He knew, even as he jerked back awake, that he had spoken the truth. "No one can help me," he whispered aloud as he opened his eyes to the darkness of his
cold stone cell. He was not lost in the tunnels. Oh, no. He was somewhere much worse. "No one can help me," he whispered to the voice in the darkness. "I will die in this hell. All I ask now is that death might come swiftly."

  * * * * *

  Braunnan rolled beneath her blanket, trying to forestall the last moment of awakening, but 'twas no use. The idiot was at it again. His laughter echoed throughout the camps, caught by some strange twist of the rock until it shook the very stone she lay upon.

  Unreasoning anger catapulted her from her bed. The madman had been at this for nearly two weeks now, and growing steadily worse. She'd had little enough sleep that even the vile camp coffee was no longer enough to keep her awake through her work-shift. She jerked her tattered tunic over her head and marched out of her hut, long strides carrying her quickly through the length of the large stone cavern. She armed herself with a pick as she passed the piles of mining tools. Not that any single guard would be fool enough to stand in the way of an angry woman.

  If the guards were too powerless to quiet the fool she would do it herself.

  She could not follow the sound of his laughter, for it seemed to seep through the very walls, but she had a good enough idea where he must be. Everyone knew where the isolation cells were. 'Twas not often the guards needed to remind the miners they were prisoners. Prisoners who caused enough trouble to visit the isolation cells once rarely needed to be reminded again.

  Those broken former inhabitants of the isolation cells served as a more graphic warning to the others than any threats the Dark Priestesses might ever make. Apparently this prisoner had not broken. Or if he had, 'twas with madness, rather than subjugation.

  Braunnan had no idea who he was. No one from her camp, that was certain. She'd had no madman among her kindred—nor fools, either, for that matter. She stormed toward the dungeons, intent on her mission, determined to silence the bastard no matter what the cost. The guards had better…

  There were no guards. None that she could see. The guard posts were empty. Scattered shards of pottery lay everywhere, along with the remains of an Élandra-cooked meal, as tempting now as the damp stone floor upon which it lay. The damn fool had thrown his food at the guards?

  Another thought filtered uneasily through her mind. If the guards had deserted them, who would protect them from the evils above? What if the Dark Priestesses descended upon them unawares? With no one to guard the passages, her people could be in far more danger than one madman represented. If—

  The laughter was her only warning. As she spun to face the cursed voice that had shattered her sleep shift after shift, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. After twenty years in the mines, she knew better than to wait to see what it was. She tucked and rolled, coming out well out of range of the projectile. Behind her she heard it land with a splat.

  Waste.

  The smell rose to her nostrils, confirming what her ears and her eyes had already told her. The lunatic was hurling human waste at her.

  "Cease, you foul daemon!" she roared as yet another missile narrowly missed her head. "Is it not enough that you have robbed your own people of a cycle's sleep? Now you hurl filth at me? Are you a man or an animal? Even rats avoid their own—"

  Braunnan stopped in her tracks as the pile of filth she'd thought to avoid froze in mid-flight, only to drop straight to the ground, as if it had suddenly lost propulsion. How in the name of the nine hells had he done that?

  "Who are you?" a voice that grated like a sharpening stone demanded.

  The mid-air calisthenics of the unspeakable projectiles could wait. "I am Braunnan, Mistress of the Fifth House of Clan Bear." Braunnan made no attempt to stifle the self-mockery in her proclamation. Never had her title felt more meaningless than it did this shift. "And you, fiend? Who is it that so disturbs my sleep?"

  "I…Forgive me, M'Lady. Go back to your bed. I will not disturb you again."

  He sounded so contrite she almost regretted yelling at him. Almost. "Who are you?" she asked again, a little more gently this time.

  "I am no one." She had to strain to hear his answer. "No one. I had not thought beyond the range of my own misery. Forgive me, M'Lady."

  Guilt pulled at her, but she shoved it away. By the gods. Was the man actually crying? Was he mad? Laughing one moment and sobbing the next? Would he be shouting curses at the gods next? Braunnan said a short prayer for patience, although she knew it to be of little reward. "Well, Sir No One, it would appear you have chased off the guards, at least for this shift. Since your cell door is open, I will pay you a call, as long as I'm here, if you will promise not to throw anything else at me."

  "No!"

  "No?"

  "It is…I am…do not come in here, M'Lady."

  He was definitely crying. She could hear it in his voice. Guilt won out over common sense. "I'm coming in, No One." She hesitated just to the side of the open door. "If you throw anything else at me I shall beat you to within an inch of your life."

  "No, I…do not come in, M'Lady, I beg of you, in the name of all that is decent," the hoarse, ruined voice croaked. "'Tis no place for a Lady. 'Tis…."

  Staring into the dim interior of the cell, she stepped into the doorway, so that he might get a good look at her. "By the gods," she whispered, utterly appalled. Braunnan wrinkled her nose in disgust. A heavy chain suspended from a ring in the wall led to a figure huddled in the darkest corner of the cell, his knees drawn up against his chest, his long mass of hair spilling in a wild tangle over the shoulder he presented her with, as if to hide his nakedness.

  The stench in the cell was nearly unbearable. The wood shavings that littered the floor appeared not to have been changed in weeks, and the waste bucket had long ago overflowed.

  "Forgive me, M'Lady," the broken voice sobbed. "I would not have you see me like this. 'Tis not fitting that you should have to be exposed to such filth."

  He was concerned that she should not be exposed to the filth he was existing in? "Are you mad?" she managed through the shock.

  She couldn't see his face. The hair trembled as he spoke. "I do not know, M'Lady. Perhaps I am by now."

  "Why would the guards do this to you?"

  His response was not so quick in coming this time. "They say I'm mad. Dangerous. They keep me here to protect you." He swiped a hand across his face, though she still couldn't see much beyond the hair. "They told my shift-mates I'd been eating Liberty Caps."

  Half a smile pulled at her mouth. "Were you?"

  "I've tried them," he admitted. "There aren't any growing in this cell though. If I'm mad it's not from mushrooms."

  At the very least he was honest. "Are you going to try to hurt me?"

  "I couldn't—I would never—no. If the word of a madman is worth anything, I give you my word I will not hurt you, Mistress Braunnan."

  Braunnan snorted softly. "Keep your eyes covered," she warned.

  With a perversity she'd almost expected he raised his head. Braunnan got a glimpse of dark eyes sunken into a drawn face as she shifted her stance to shield his body with her own, although it placed her back to him. The move was risky, but if he was mad enough to attack her, she might as well find out now. Braunnan tested the weight of the pickaxe in her hands. She was in as good a shape as she'd ever been in her life, and armed with a weapon she knew well. He'd not get far.

  She swung the pick in a mighty arc, bringing the tip down hard, slightly above the iron ring that anchored the chain to the wall. The first blow bounced off ineffectively.

  "Is it a fight you want, rock?" Braunnan changed her stance, taking a looser grip on the pick's handle, flexing her knees, swinging from the hips as she attacked again. She poured her anger and worry and frustration out through her pick and turned it loose on the wall, finding comfort in the familiar weight of the swing, peace in a job she understood. This time a chip of rock fell away as she connected the point of her pick with the stone face.

  "What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?" the madman demanded,
interrupting the solace she'd found in her work. "Do you think the guards will just let me walk out of here? When they come back they will kill me, and give you my cell!"

  Had she lost her mind? Oh, that was precious. Braunnan worked her words into the rhythm of the pick, refusing to let the madman get to her again. "They. Might. Try."

  "The guards want me dead. They will come looking for me."

  Find your rhythm. Don't fight the rock. Let the pick do the work. It's an extension of your arm. How many times had she said those words? The rock has been there for hundreds of thousands of years. You will not frighten the rock into submission by the strength of your will.

  The bolt had not been planted into the rock anywhere near far enough to resist her. It fell at her feet with a loud thunk.

  The sunken eyes looked up at her now from a filthy face streaked where he'd scrubbed at his tears. Whatever she'd thought she'd heard in that voice, whatever spark of humanity she'd been foolish enough to think she could bring back to life, it was gone. There was nothing there but a flat wall, as closed to her as the end of a mineshaft. Braunnan caught up the chain in one fluid sweep as she shouldered her pick. "You need a bath. After that we'll talk."

  "Be merciful. End it now, M'Lady. Please. Kill me."

  If she'd considered what would happen next, if she'd actually analyzed what response she'd expected from the man after she'd risked her life to free him, she might have been surprised, even angry, but as things stood, she was too tired to care. Instead she stood over him with the pick in one hand and his chain in the other, trying to decide whether it was worth her effort to do as he requested.

  "Get up," Braunnan hissed, "Or I will use this chain to drag you out of here."

  "I would not be responsible for your death. They will come back, M'Lady. The guards will come back, and they will kill us both. They will—"

  "Shut up." She knew she would regret this come work-cycle. Braunnan yanked the man to his feet. The cell was too dark to see much detail, but she could tell he was tall. He must have stood half a head taller than her. Or would have if he could stand up straight. Instead he wavered on his feet, clutching the rock wall for support. With a sigh Braunnan scooped him up and tossed him over her shoulder.