Page 69 of Wine & Warlocks

“Aye, and I’m not sure if you’re friend or foe, Reg, but ya can quit being helpful now,” Ronan said tightly. He’d been secretly hoping Loman, with his mad desire to amass more power, would’ve failed to catch that the Guardian aura was gone. But he should’ve remembered Loman never missed a trick.

“The controller, boyo,” Loman repeated, his tone bordering on lethal. “Toss it to me now.”

After sharing a grim look with Reggie, Ronan nodded. “Aye. Give it to him.”

“I’m not going back in that cage,” his cousin said, inching away from Ronan and adding more distance between Loman and himself.

When they were children, their parents’ favorite pastime was torturing them for imagined slights. The objective: teach the next generation to be as ruthless and unfeeling as they were. Whenever the adults felt a lesson needed to be taught, one unfortunate O’Connor child was beaten and locked in the damp, window-less tower for days on end. Similar to the dank prison where they now stood, the rooms had been spelled against escape.

Their cousin Moira had gone half mad and returned from her punishment crueler than when she’d started it, much to the delight of Loman and his siblings. So it was understandable that Reggie would balk. And for as much as he’d tried to play it off, to remain careless and seemingly unfeeling, he’d become highly claustrophobic, the same as Ronan. Neither could stand to be confined.

“For Dubheasa,” Ronan said in a low voice for Reggie alone. “Please, cousin.”

Reggie forgot himself, and his British accent slipped. “Jaysus! You’re askin’ a lot of me.”

“The longer we delay…” Swallowing hard, Ronan shook his head.

With a savage curse, Reggie chucked the bracelet at Loman’s feet.

“Yeah, and it’s time ya return to your cage, Reginald,” Loman crowed. “Where you belong!”

The taunt was one too many, and the rabid animal buried deep within Reggie tore loose of its restraints. With a chilling, outraged cry, he launched himself at Loman and played right into the man’s hands.

Already expecting the reaction, Loman snapped his fingers, and the forgotten crossbow was propped against his shoulder, locked and loaded. With a sweep of one arm, he used his magic to throw Reggie into his former cell.

“Clostra!”

The bars slammed into place with a reverberating clank.

Reggie paled as Loman aimed the crossbow.

“No!” Ronan shouted and charged forward, directing the weapon upward with the heel of his hand. “If you want me to cooperate, you’ll kill no one else.”

The back of Loman’s elbow crashed into Ronan’s nose, and the crunch of bone on bone, followed by a riot of pain exploding in his face, was another reminder of his father’s teachings. The most ruthless family member made the rules and expected those rules to be obeyed.

“Ya dare tell me no, boy? You? The eejit snivelin’ over a worthless dead girl?”

A side kick to his gut sent Ronan flying backward, and his head slammed into the cement wall between the cells, causing an explosion of stars behind his lids. Using every ounce of restraint, he didn’t so much as grunt. Any sign of weakness brought with it a harsher beating. For Reggie and Dubheasa, he’d take the punishment without complaint.

Wiping the dripping blood from his nose with the back of his wrist, he met his father’s contemptuous gaze. “I’m after begging your pardon, Da. It was an instinctive reaction.” Cautiously straightening, he gestured toward Reggie with his head and immediately regretted it when the room spun around him. He tried to appear casual as he leaned against the wall for support. “If you kill him, you can’t convert him back to your side. Reggie’s always been useful in the past, hasn’t he?”

With a considering expression, Loman studied Ronan for a long moment. A crafty smile curled his lips, and before anyone could react, he pointed the crossbow and pulled the trigger.

Dubheasa’s father grunted once, then breathed no more.

“If ya see her again, be sure to tell yourhorthat your insolence was what caused her da to die, yeah?” Loman told Ronan. “See how she feels about ya when she learns you’re to blame.”

Never had Ronan’s desire to tear Loman’s smug head from his body been as strong and necessary as it was at that exact moment. His muscles fired and shook in an effort to break his tight control.

“Yeah, and it’s time for you to enter your own cage, Ronan, me boy.” Loman eased down to pick up the controller, careful to keep his son within his sight. “Now.”

Feeling decidedly insolent, Ronan swept his arms wide. “Sure, and I don’t see any with my name on them.”

“I’d have thought it obvious. It’s the one with your dead lover and her da.”

His stomach rolled and vomit threatened. If Loman closed him in with two dead bodies, one being Dubheasa, Ronan would lose what was left of his rapidly declining sanity.

His father, however, didn’t give him a choice. “Get in the cell, boyo, or I kill your precious cousin here and now.”

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