by Megan Crane
“Your woman was telling me her life story,” Wulf interrupted smoothly, his blue gaze as hard as the stone walls around them. The bastard.
Gunnar knew perfectly well Wulf was diverting attention away from the why and the how of Amos’s crippling. Was he protecting Eiryn? But a quick glance at the sheen of something like misery in Maud’s eyes made him feel murderous all over again, and he didn’t care why Wulf was doing this. Only that he was. To Maud.
“Did you know that Krajic stood right here in my Lodge and claimed he was hired by a bishop of the church, Gunnar? I know you do, because you stood in the hall yourself and heard him say it. Yet at no point since did you think to let me know that your nun not only knows a bishop herself, but that she saw this bishop in Krajic’s company earlier this very same year.” Wulf sounded very nearly jovial. It might as well have been a death knell. “Can you explain to me how it is you, of all people, long held to be the smartest member of this clan by a wide margin, failed to recognize that you should have shared this information with me?”
So polite. So deadly.
Such an epic asshole.
Gunnar smiled, and even he could feel how cold it was on his own mouth. “I thought you liked it when obvious things stayed hidden for no good reason. I thought that was how you wanted things in your mighty kingdom. Did I get that wrong? My bad.”
“Don’t,” Wulf said softly.
But Gunnar kept going. He shifted his hard gaze to Eiryn and held it. She still had that triumphant look on her face. She’d distracted him and put Maud into this position in the first place. And she might be his little sister, but she was also a brother of the clan, so she could suck it up like the rest of them.
“Hey, Eiryn,” he said, almost conversationally. “I know you have that hard-on for Tyr. But how blind do you have to be not to realize that he never would have crippled the new king’s father without permission?” He laughed, short and hard. “Not just permission, but with an absolute and unambiguous order to do exactly what he did. Hate him all you want. But he was only following orders.”
Wulf only glared frigidly at Gunnar. Eiryn stiffened. But he’d been trying to hurt them. It was Maud’s reaction that made Gunnar feel like shit. She didn’t move an inch, but her wide blue eyes filled with emotion. Tears she didn’t let fall, but he could see them. Worse, he could feel them.
And he felt like a monster.
Eiryn stepped back from Wulf’s chair as if she didn’t trust herself that close to him any longer. Neither did Tyr, if his muttered curse was any guide. But her expression stayed eerily blank. Wiped clean, not furious.
She didn’t look at Gunnar, she looked at Wulf.
“I don’t have to ask you if it’s true. I can see it is. You did it.”
And to give the fucker his due, he didn’t shrink from it. He held her gaze.
“I never claimed otherwise,” Wulf said, power and fury and that sharp edge in his voice. “You assumed.”
Eiryn didn’t shake. She didn’t crumble like a bitch. More important, she didn’t reach for her famous blade, and Gunnar was sure he wasn’t the only one who saw her fingers twitch by her side as if she was considering it.
She swallowed. Then she jerked her hard, dark gaze from Wulf to Tyr, who still stood there against the stone side of the fire with his big arms crossed over his chest, his dark gaze hard. Gunnar thought he saw a muscle clench in her jaw, but then she kept going, that furious glare of hers landing on Riordan.
“You knew this, too. All this time.”
Her voice was stark ice and fury, and all the harsher for being contained. Because she didn’t shout. That might have been better.
Riordan shook his head, though he looked stiffer than he had only moments before, as though he was warding off a blow.
“Everybody knew,” he said bluntly.
Eiryn bared her teeth at him. Only him. “Fuck you.”
And the king’s bodyguard turned and slammed back out of the tower, abandoning her post and leaving a taut and seething silence in her wake.
One beat. Then another.
“Nice.” Riordan pushed away from the wall, his lethal gaze on Gunnar. “What the hell is your problem?”
“Oh, sorry,” Gunnar murmured. “Is this not a circle of truth?”
“I’m sick of your shit,” Riordan snapped. “Any other member of this clan pulled the crap you have and he’d be food for the wolves.”
“An issue you should take up with your beloved king, not me.” Gunnar shrugged as if he didn’t care either way. He was surprised to discover that was no longer true. Not when his little nun was sitting there watching him, her summer eyes wide and a little too close to scared.
Riordan was practically vibrating with rage. “I keep telling you. Our king. If he’s my king—”
“Are you sure that makes me your enemy?” Gunnar threw at him. “Or is that what you’ll tell yourself when you take a swing at me—because that’s much better than dealing with what you’re really pissed about?”
“You have to be the last person on this shitty earth I want to hear psychoanalyze anyone.” Riordan’s words were like bullets. Ones that actually hit their target, for a change. “How pathetic do you have to be to fall for the kind of bullshit Audra was feeding you all that time? I get that the crazy ones make for a wild fuck, but you think she didn’t spread that around, Gunnar? You think you’re the first fool she tried her crap on?”
“Is that a confession?” Gunnar asked. Through his teeth. “Are you volunteering your head on a platter, brother?”
“For what?” Riordan’s voice was harsh. Cold. Bitter. “You collect mates the way some men collect blades. It’s hard to keep track of which trespasses might offend you.”
“You’re wearing at least five blades that I can see.”
Maud’s calm, faintly cheerful voice was like a dousing of ice water, the way the adults had separated warring children back in the nursery. And she didn’t wilt or blush when they all turned to stare at her. She only sat a little bit straighter.
“And you could have five more beneath that shirt,” she continued in an aside to Wulf. “Maybe more.”
“Do nuns spend a lot of time counting blades?” Wulf asked quietly.
Gunnar’s heart kicked at him, because he knew that tone. And the only thing worse than Wulf furious was Wulf fascinated.
“Only mates,” Maud replied, heedless of the danger she was in, as ever. She smiled sunnily at Wulf, then aimed that same smile across the room at Riordan. “Gunnar has only had two, not ten.”
“Are you defending me, little nun?” Gunnar asked. He wanted to storm over there and get his hands on her, to assure himself that she was okay. He wanted to get her the hell away from here. But he knew any advance on Wulf would be seen as an assassination attempt on the king, so he ground his teeth and stayed where he was.
“Someone needs to defend you,” Riordan growled. “Why not your latest piece of ass, since you can’t seem to do it yourself?”
“Enough.”
Wulf’s voice was a blade, a sharp and decisive cut through the tension. He rose from his armchair in a single, smooth roll that completely belied his previous pretense of relaxation.
As if responding to that as some kind of secret signal, Tyr jerked his chin at Riordan in the next instant. “Take a walk.”
Riordan glared, but he didn’t argue.
“That was an exciting diversionary tactic,” Wulf said when the heavy door slammed shut behind Riordan. Almost conversationally. Though there was nothing relaxed or easy in the frigid blue glare he aimed at Gunnar. “But I’m still waiting for your explanation.”
“Which explanation?”
“Pick one,” Wulf suggested. “Your decision to keep information you knew I wanted to yourself. Or any other decision you’ve made in the past year, I don’t care. Give me a reason not to agree with all the rumblings around here, that Audra was a traitor and you were too. Tell me why I shouldn’t conclude that since you brought a
nun back here from the clutches of the very bishop I’m interested in talking to about any number of things, you might be as in league with him as that dirtbag Krajic.”
“Believe what you want,” Gunnar said, his voice clipped. “You will anyway.”
“Audra had Dandro wrapped around her finger,” Tyr said from the side, his voice harsher than before. Gunnar kept his eyes on his blood brother. “He might as well have had a ring through his cock. She led him right into that battle and she got them both killed. And I watched her run at Wulf with my own eyes.”
“Is this where you finally admit that you killed her?” Gunnar hurled at his blood brother. “After all this time, will you finally admit that all the laws you make and the speeches you give about honor are meaningless when you decide they don’t apply to you?”
Tyr started to roar out something in his usual hard-ass way, but Wulf lifted a hand, never shifting his furious gaze from Gunnar’s. Tyr fell silent. Wulf took his time lowering his hand, seeming to fill the entire interior of the tower as he did. As if his temper were smoke, black and choking.
“Audra,” Wulf said very softly, very deliberately, “was a treacherous little agitator one step away from being branded a traitor to the clan and executed in the village square, and that was before she talked her way into that raid and forced our poor, dumb brother into a tactical disadvantage that got them both cut down. I’m not sorry she’s dead. But I didn’t kill her, our enemies did.” He let that sink in, his expression ferocious. “I only wish I’d had the pleasure.”
Gunnar absorbed that like the body blow it was clearly meant to be. He reeled, though he knew he didn’t move an inch. He heard Tyr saying something from his left, but he couldn’t jerk his attention away from Wulf. Not even to check on Maud, who he knew was witnessing this deliberate smackdown—and that, somehow, seemed to hurt more than the rest.
“I watched her drip feed her poison into you for years,” Wulf continued, making no attempt anymore to conceal the strong, furious emotion that poured from him and made his voice shake. “I watched her worm her way inside your head. You were my blood brother. My kin. And she made you my enemy.”
“You did that yourself.”
“Bullshit.” Wulf’s voice was a lash then. Pain Gunnar had been pretending he couldn’t feel bloomed, hot and red, or maybe that was his temper. Gunnar couldn’t tell the difference any longer. “You saw what you wanted to see. You let her in. She couldn’t have turned you against me—against the brotherhood—if you hadn’t let her do it.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, as usual,” Gunnar retorted. He didn’t know when he’d moved, only that he’d circled out into the floor space between the sitting area and the great long table where the council met, as if checking out the best angle of attack. “Life has always been a little joyride for you, hasn’t it? Everything you do is golden. Everything you desire is handed to you. Everything you want or need is served up on a silver platter.”
“That’s not you,” Wulf growled. “That’s her coming out of your mouth like she’s still crouched behind you, whispering her twisted little stories straight into your ear. You and I were all we had. You think I’ve forgotten that? You put yourself between me and that drunk, violent asshole when you were eight years old.” He was mirroring Gunnar’s wide circle, his hands at his sides. Not yet in fists. “Other people make a lot of promises about what they’d do for their king. You did it for your little brother when you were a child yourself.”
Gunnar couldn’t take that in. He told himself he barely remembered that particular cold and bloody winter’s night Wulf was talking about. When Amos had beat him to a pulp because Gunnar wouldn’t let him backhand four-year-old Wulf out into the snow. They’d gone into the clan nursery full-time after that—after Gunnar recovered from his injuries. He told himself that had all happened to someone else. Someone long lost.
“Your gratitude is noted.” He might have sneered it.
“You’re alive, you ungrateful dick,” Wulf roared at him, his usual iron control gone, and Gunnar couldn’t find any joy in that. “You think I’d let anyone else talk to me like this? You think any other member of the brotherhood could tell me to go fuck myself and then disappear for a year when there are questions about his loyalty?”
“Then execute me,” Gunnar threw right back at him. “Is that what you want? I know you need everyone else to love you. Do you need my permission to kill me?”
Wulf’s eyes flashed sheer mayhem, and his hand went to his blade. Gunnar responded in kind, heard Maud gasp from her chair—and then found the war chief in his face.
“I can’t let you draw on the king,” Tyr gritted out, straining to shove Gunnar back when he tried to get at Wulf anyway. “That’s a death sentence and you know it. I’ll take you down myself with a blade in the back and I’ll sleep like a baby afterward.”
“Let him go.”
Wulf’s command was harsh. Fierce.
Tyr craned his head around to scowl over his shoulder. Gunnar peered around the arm bar at his throat. Wulf was peeling his blades from his body, tossing them one by one to the surface of the table. He even tore off his shirt, so there could be no mistake that he was unarmed.
“You want a piece of me, Gunnar?” he asked in little more than a pissed-off guttural growl. “You think because you kicked my ass when I was fourteen you can do it again?”
“Blades off,” Tyr muttered, with his entire shoulder in it, in case Gunnar got any ideas.
Gunnar stepped back, raising his hands so Tyr would get the hell off him. The war chief did, but warily. Gunnar stripped down himself, dropping his single blade to the floor and shrugging out of his shirt.
“Satisfied?” he asked Tyr. Through his teeth. With his eyes narrowed and on Wulf.
Tyr only grunted, but he stepped out of the way.
And then it was on.
Gunnar was well aware that Wulf loved to fight. Maybe even more than the rest of the brothers, which was saying something. He took time out at festivals to go a few rounds with any clan member who wanted the privilege, always happy to bust a few noses and blacken some eyes. But this was different. For one thing, Wulf wasn’t grinning.
He opened his arms wide and stood there, powerful and deadly and making no move toward Gunnar. It made Gunnar slow down. Look for the trap, the trick.
Wulf only waited.
So Gunnar hauled off and punched him. Hard. Right in the jaw.
The impact threw Wulf backward, but he didn’t fight it. He went with it, letting the force of Gunnar’s strike throw him down to the floor—where he rolled, as elegant as he was lethal, and was on his feet again that easily.
He laughed. Then raised his hand to his jaw. He rubbed the point of impact for moment, then spat blood.
“That was your free shot.” Wulf lifted his hands, not quite curled into fists. His fighting stance. “Are you done? We can stop here.”
“Afraid?”
Wulf laughed again as they circled each other. Darker this time.
“Of what? You? I don’t know what the hell you’ve been doing for the past year, but it wasn’t training. I’m sure you terrified the priests. But you’re in the eastern islands now.”
“Is this the shit-talking part of the fight?” Gunnar asked. He dodged Wulf’s right and took a mean kick to his side, but only growled through the blast of agony that rocketed through him. “Or are you trying to put me to sleep?”
“Sleep tight, bitch,” Wulf murmured, and then the blows were coming too quick and too hard for chatter.
They grappled, vicious and brutal, then tore apart again.
Gunnar was pleased to see that Wulf was breathing just as hard as he was. He swiped a mix of sweat and blood from his face, then glanced to the side to see Tyr standing there, stone faced, and behind him, Maud. She’d gotten to her feet and had given up on any pretense of serenity, one arm wrapped around her middle and the other at the nape of her neck. Touching her brand, he realized, the wa
y she did when she was upset. Or what part of it she could reach below her collar.
That she was upset at all was one more crime he could lay at his blood brother’s door.
“What’s it going to take?” Wulf asked, shaking out his hands as he moved from foot to foot. “What kind of exorcism to get that woman out of your head?”
“Because it’s impossible for you to imagine that she might have had a point.”
Gunnar smacked a leg strike down, away from his kidneys, then pivoted to throw an elbow. He missed Wulf’s face, but landed a decent hit against his chest. Then he took a killer punch to his head, so hard the room spun for a moment.
He shook it off. Faced his blood brother again and so what if his head was ringing.
“Listen to me.” Wulf’s voice went deadly serious. His blue gaze was cold and steady. “That woman was poison. The only reason she wasn’t banished from the clan years ago is because she hooked up with you. Sometimes I wondered if that was why she hooked up with you.”
“Fuck you.” Gunnar threw that at him. “She was mine. Only mine. She’s the only member of this clan who looked at both you and me and wanted me. The only one who valued me above you. And you can’t stand that.”
He launched himself at his blood brother then, and everything seemed to slow down into that tense, bright syrupy space of battle. Gunnar was aware of every strike, every kick. Every breath. He could sense Wulf’s intention and moved to block, to counter, to parry. They went down hard. Rolled. Then fought their way apart again, until they were both on their feet again.
Bloodier. And even more angry.
“There has always been one member of this clan who valued you more highly than me, and it wasn’t Audra, you dumbass.” Wulf didn’t shout but still, it seemed as if his voice made the stone tower tremble. “It was me.”
Gunnar staggered back a step and hated himself.
Wulf slowed that sleek and brutal fighter’s dance of his, lowering his arms. But he wasn’t finished.
“And now you show up with a nun and claim her the minute you walk in the hall,” he bit out. “It’s tempting to imagine you might have moved on, but you haven’t. You’re still storming around like the grim reaper. Now you’re in my face, fighting over a dead traitor.”
