Reign Queen

by L. Darby Gibbs

  Shaking her head at him, she gave him a swat on the shoulder. “That was not very graceful, Your Majesty.”

  “But look, we’re almost there.”

  Kambry looked upward expecting to see the narrow stairwell continuing up ahead of them in the dim light of the lamp below. The door to their rooms was inches away from her face.

  “You must open the door for us,” he said. “I rather like this position and have no interest in moving.” His lips trailed down her neck to her breastbone.

  She stilled, her arm midreach for the latch.

  “Of course, we could stay right here.” He pulled her down, the latch quickly out of reach.

  She tugged at her dress, now bunched up around her thighs. “You’re wrinkling my dress.”

  “True. It should come off at once before we damage it.”

  Heat rose on her skin, a thin layer of moisture joining it. Her heart had to be jostling his ribs.

  Hands on her hips, he guided her down until she was looking directly into his eyes. “I’ll help you take it off.”

  Her dress had risen further, his hands inches from exposed skin. What if a guard entered the stairwell below? Sweat beaded on her lip. That thought helped not one whit. “Perhaps when we are in our room.”

  His fingertips danced on her skin, and gooseflesh rose on her legs. Any moment she was going to grab his hands and stop their wandering. Maybe.

  “Kiss me, Kambry.”

  “I’ll forget where we are if I do that.”

  “We’re in our quarters together.”

  His hands drifted lower.

  “Russal, can we go slowly?”

  “I am going slowly. I’ve no intention of startling you, my love. Kiss me.”

  “And then?”

  “I’ll kiss you back.” His fingers stroked down the back of her thighs.

  She dug her fingers into his shoulders. In the shadows, she caught a smug smile on his lips. He deserved to have that smirk taken right off his face. So she kissed him, demanding his full attention. His hands grew very still, and then she forgot all about his hands.

  Chapter Six

  A pounding broke through the haze of feeling warm, engaged in something Kambry could not fathom but didn’t want to stop to figure out. Somehow they had made it out of the stairwell and were laying on the floor only a few feet from their bed.

  “Russal, what is that noise?”

  He stared down at her, his eyes gaining focus, a sense of connection to where they were coming into his expression.

  The pounding repeated itself.

  “Here love, let me help you up.” He stood, straightening his tunic and giggling at her effort to tug up the neckline of her dress. He peered at the wall to the left of their bed. “That’s my passageway.”

  Russal walked her to the bed and patted the coverlet. “Sit here a moment.” Then he strode to the wall he’d kept glancing at. The pounding seemed to come from there, a dull thudding noise as if someone were encased in a box.

  He pressed a panel into the wall, pulling it up and out soundlessly. Behind it was another layer of the wall.

  Kambry tiptoed on bare feet behind him. For a moment, she wondered where her shoes were, but curiosity about what was behind the panel shooed her concerns for them away.

  Russal reached down low and lifted the inner wall panel up and then out, setting it leaning on the thick drapes pulled over windows that had been visible hours earlier when they had been dressing for dinner.

  She gazed around his arm at the rectangle of darkness. Then a leg stepped out, followed by the rest of a person who straightened up after passing under the low edge of the wall above.

  “Tomo,” Kambry whispered.

  “You pick an odd time to visit, Tomo, and an even odder choice of entrance.”

  “We heard there was an attack in the maze.” He looked at Russal, an eyebrow lifting.

  Kambry stepped to Russal’s side and gazed at him as well. He was disheveled, and she suspected she look equally untidy.

  “What are you doing here, Tomo?” Russal put a dry quality in his voice that seemed to say this was the last thing he expected from his friend.

  “They wouldn’t let me come in your front door.”

  “I believe I told the guards I wanted to be alone with my wife. You’re familiar with the concept?”

  Tomo laced his hands behind his back as if having that one part of him retreat from sight was enough to allow the rest of him to remain in their bedroom. “I think we should search about for Covey. Don’t you think it odd he attacked the Laurents and Kambry’s parents?”

  That’s what they had been talking about. “We wondered about that, too,” Kambry said.

  “And what did you think about it?” Tomo asked, fixing his gaze on Kambry, before his face grew pink.

  So she might be a bit more tousled than Russal. She rolled her eyes.

  Russal tucked Kambry under his arm and waved his hand at Tomo. He tugged the shoulder of her dress up. “I think this can wait until morning.”

  “No, it can’t,” Tomo said. “I have to go back to Amily and tell her that Covey is free to roam at will. We have babies he has already kidnapped once.”

  “They’re both quite safe.”

  “We thought ourselves quite safe at Strom Castle, which I might remind you, does not contain secret tunnels.”

  “You are heading back to Amily and going to tell her we will deal with this in the morning. There is nothing to do right now.”

  “Russal, we could search the passageways.”

  “Tomo, go to bed.” Russal turned away, his hand reaching for Kambry’s and tugging her toward the bed.

  She stared back at Tomo, who hadn’t moved. He could be right. Maybe they should hunt for Covey instead of crawl into bed for the night.

  “Two of your guards were found unconscious in the maze.”

  Russal turned. “What?”

  “I went to Burty first. He said he found two guards knocked unconscious in the maze.”

  Russal’s hand worried her fingers. “Help me put the wall back together.”

  The two slid the section of wall back in place and pressed the panel flat.

  Kambry watched them exchange looks and tapped a foot. He was planning something, and they had not discussed the attacks. He’d distracted her, and now she was certain he was going to rush off with Tomo.

  Russal turned and gazed at her, his countenance revealing little more than that he was deciding something she would not like. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I just want to talk to Burty and find out a bit more about the guards he found in the maze.”

  “I’m coming with you.” She turned in place, looking for her missing shoes.

  Russal straightened his clothes with a tug here and there before shaking his head at her. “By the time you’ve found your shoes and combed your hair, I’ll be back.” He smiled down at her and kissed her forehead. “Would you like to sit downstairs with a couple of guards?” He asked as if it were entertainment he was offering.

  “No. I would like to join you and hear what Burty has to say.”

  “I’ll return in a few minutes.” He waved at Tomo. “Come along. You didn’t just pound on my wall so you could stand here gaping at Kambry.”

  “I wouldn’t dare gape at the queen.” He strode past Russal for the stairs. “I was just trying to imagine how you think the rest of your evening is going to go.”

  Russal trod down the stairs behind him, his voice carrying back to Kambry. “What are you talking about?”

  Whatever Tomo’s response was, Kambry didn’t hear it.

  “The list just keeps growing,” Kambry grumbled.

  After more than an hour, she’d done more than brush out her hair. Her dress hung in the closet, her queen’s scabbard lay on the nightstand by the bed, and she turned the bedsheets down. The nightgown Amily had sent was soft and slid over her skin as she paced. There was little else to do, and that bothered her. Over the passing of an hour, more
than a minor irritation had tightened her shoulders. She searched for any activity that would pass the time and distract her from her mounting anger with Russal. Weren’t they ruling Kavin together, and shouldn’t she be with him?

  The room beyond their bedroom had proved diverting for a few minutes. Russal must have remodeled it with her in mind. A chunk of one corner supported a variety of scribe activities. Fresh ink and parchment filled cubbies along with a slanted table she could raise or lower depending on if she wished to stand or sit while working. Her box of tools rested on a shelf designed especially for it, as it ran on runners and tipped to display its contents within easy reach of the table. His thoughtfulness helped her annoyance recede.

  The rest of the room contained a training area with much-used equipment, most held weapons suited to Russal. There were several she found of her own size, and they were recent acquisitions based on their shine and lack of wear. There was another area she imagined Russal used for writing letters or quiet reading. A chair, again sized for her and much more to her taste than the aged brown leather armchair beside it, stood by a packed shelf loaded with bound manuscripts. Her chair sported an oversized round cushion and curved back, and was a soft pale-green material. The room had a separate balcony, which she had stood on for a few minutes.

  She had stared out at the maze. It was no longer lit. Tomorrow she planned to take advantage of the view and look for hidden pockets among the twists and turns where guards might lurk. Lurk was probably not the correct term. Where they might stand sentry when important people roamed Konnelby’s creation.

  She wandered from the balcony to the landing above the stairs and peered down to the unlit room below. The small room just past the stair entry had few furnishings, just a comfy chair and a small dresser. It seemed deliberately incomplete. The emptiness did not hold her interest, and she had returned to stand at the top of the stairs. She’d perused all she could of the rooms off their chambers.

  Below she could pace through larger rooms and work off the fury still rising in her chest. She felt choked with it. However long he’d been gone, it was enough time for her to get properly annoyed at his repeated assumption that she needed to stay behind, waiting for him to fix whatever was going wrong. Her hands clenched, and she descended two steps in the stairwell, which still contained the lamp Russal had set aside when they had been heading up to their room.

  Heading up to their room, that was an inaccurate description. Her face flushed with the memory of how much she had enjoyed going up those stairs with him.

  But where was Russal now?

  She stomped down the stairs, grabbing the lamp, and entered the dark room below.

  Someone stirred on a chair to her left. “You’re far more patient than I am.”

  Kambry swung the lamp toward the male voice, already recognizing Covey’s amused tones. “What are you doing here? How did you get past the guards?”

  “Passageways,” he said, his half smile taking hold of her earlier frustration and using it as a jumping off point.

  Instantly outraged, she yelled, “I want you out of here!”

  “Where’s Russal?” He settled into the chair as if intending to remain until the king returned.

  Kambry strode toward him. “Leave.”

  Covey held out an object to her. The lamp’s rays glinted on the dark shape.

  “Where did you get that?” In his hand lay the walnut panther Master Sazer had carved and finished for her. He had already damaged it once. Or had he acquired a copy?

  “You repaired it.” His voice carried an assumption that made her eyes squint. “I’ll return it later.” He slid it into an inside pocket. “I promise.”

  So this was the original, and he’d taken it from the queen’s parlor. Had he broken it knowing she would use Kavin magic to fuse the pieces back together?

  “Even Russal has failed to realize what one can do with Kavin magic at one’s fingertips. But you, you are a natural. Perhaps he knows that.” He tipped his head as if to consider the impact of his words and patted the pocket.

  She wanted to take the carving from him, but she held herself back and worked to appear calm. She noted he no longer dyed his hair brown. The strawberry blond shone even in the shadows he sat in. He’d had it cut back to the recent growth so that only the tips still appeared a chestnut color. The curls fringed his face and neck. So it couldn’t have been him in the throne room. Was Kavin merely warning her he was here in the castle?

  Covey tapped his chin. “Could he have chosen you for your potential? I do recall when he was quite young how he pored over the books regarding Kavin magic.”

  “What are you talking about?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Just leave.”

  “But I came to talk, and it’s going to be awhile before Russal returns. He kept you fairly entertained while he was here, but Tomo interrupted.” For a moment, his jaw tightened. It relaxed too quickly. “Fortunate. Leave with me, and you won’t have to attach yourself any further to the false king.”

  He’d been watching them? No, he might have heard them, but he couldn’t have been in the stairwell. As for the bedroom, Russal had said there was only one passageway. Of course, that had been months ago when he had not wanted her worried that there were several means to enter her room, what remained of the mistress’s chambers. But she had been up there the entire time. She would have noticed Covey walk by and down the stairs. Unless he had done so when she examined the training and scribing room. The lamp in her hand shook, making the flame dance.

  Was there another passageway leading to their bedroom and Covey had stood inside it watching them? She shivered with embarrassment and anger.

  He didn’t belong here, and there were guards she could call. They would bring Russal, and she hesitated before turning, only to find Covey behind her in an instant. His hand clamped over her mouth, while the other yanked the lamp from her grasp.

  She folded her knees, and he went to the floor with her, wrapping a leg around her and pinning her kneeling legs beneath her. He set the lamp a couple feet away and clasped her to his chest. His cheek pressed hers, and he whispered. “Kambry, let me prove I’m the better man for you.”

  She struggled and threw her weight against his chest, but he held fast. Frustration growled in her throat.

  “My love.”

  She tossed her head back, but he moved aside, and she failed to make contact. Hands free, she clenched her nightgown and railed at her stupidity. Why had she delayed calling out for help? Maybe Russal was right. She needed protection since she had such poor instincts.

  Breathing rapidly, she fought to twist her elbows along her sides. His arms held her tight across her biceps, but she could still bend and twist her arms.

  Releasing her grip on her nightgown, she clawed at his hip and waist. The fabric of his clothes was too thick, and her nails bent back in discomfort. It didn’t stop her from pushing against his weight on her thighs, her hands still searching for means to do him harm.

  “Kambry, I’ve no intention of hurting you or forcing myself upon you. Have I even once stolen a kiss? Has Russal? Does he consider at all what you want?”

  She stilled.

  “You wanted to go with him, and he left you behind. Back in minutes, isn’t that what he said? How long has it been? An hour, more than an hour. Yet all this time, I’ve waited down here.”

  Frustration welled in her chest. Covey delayed him. Purposely?

  “You are not a woman one leaves behind like a treasure. You are a treasure, but one to keep by one’s side. Kambry do Brode is an equal, not a figurehead queen. I know that.” His arm around her waist and arms loosened and his soft breath brushed her cheek. “Give me a chance. Everything I’ve done has been to protect you or help you see the truth about Russal.”

  She shook her head, smashing her cheek against his own. He drew a startled breath but only adjusted to keep her from repeating the move.

  “Kambry, I know you’re frightened. You don’t want to cons
ider you’ve aligned yourself with the wrong man. I understand and don’t blame you. Too much evidence makes me look like the horrible creature in this tragedy.”

  Kambry closed her eyes, tried to push aside the questions his words tugged out. There were reasons for Russal’s actions.

  “Let me tell you a history. I’ve been around the castle since I was a child. My mother brought me here often. She wanted me to know my lands, my kingdom. I watched Russal from the passages.”

  He was silent a moment, his breath slow, almost calming.

  She didn’t want to be calm. She wanted to fight him, drive him out of her home. Her home with Russal. She shoved her weight to the side, tried to push a shriek past his hand over her lips.

  He tightened his arm around her waist. Shifting, he pressed his elbow to her shoulder and collarbone, holding her closer while he crossed both legs over her own.

  She hated the feel of him along her back. His weight on her kneeling legs was painful, the tops of her feet pressed flat to the ground.

  Tears of frustration broke from the corners of her eyes.

  His thumb stroked her cheek, smearing her tears. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

  Was that actual concern in his voice?

  He shifted them sideways, her calves moving to the left, relieving the pressure though still trapped beneath his legs. She couldn’t help but sigh.

  “If you promise not to scream for the guards, I’ll uncover your mouth and let you make yourself more comfortable. Truly, Kambry, I do not want to hurt you.”

  He waited. She couldn’t stop pulling away from him or release her grip on his tunic. She wouldn’t let herself believe him. His words were lies.

  “Let me tell you what I saw,” Covey said. “I wasn’t part of it. I didn’t cause his actions. Will you listen?”

  His voice was so convincing. She wanted to believe him.

  She shook her head, fighting the pressure of his hand over her mouth.

  He exhaled noisily. “Well, you can’t stopper your ears. You’ll have to listen.”