The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride

by Kati Wilde

  “Because a severed head can’t cast a healing spell.”

  A soft breath of laughter escaped her. “No,” she agreed, then lifted her arm and indicated her sleeve. “This is him. We dared the forest long enough to collect his skin, and divided it equally between the hunters who’d chased him that night. There were thirty of us in all.”

  Yet her coat was as long and generous as a giant’s cloak. Truly a monster. “You deserve that name,” he said. “Anja the Wolfkiller.”

  By the turn of her head, he could see the barest hint of a sad smile as she ruffled her fingers through the thick gray fur. “It was my last hunt. I was forbidden by my parents after that. It was too dangerous for a princess, the heir to the crown.” Her voice caught thickly. “But not very long ago, the council took my crown anyway.”

  Tension gripped him. “Who took your crown? And…you are Ivermere’s heir?”

  “No longer. Did you not wonder why the only daughter of a king and queen would leave her realm to marry elsewhere?”

  In truth, he had not. “None of my kingdoms came by inheritance. So I did not even think that yours might.”

  She laughed. “No. I suppose you wouldn’t.”

  “Who took yours?”

  “The High Council of Ivermere.” She tipped her head back against his shoulder again, and her throat worked before she continued, “My parents fought the decision. They had seen to my education; I knew all there was to know about spells and potions and ruling Ivermere. But the council determined that anyone without magic could not claim the throne—and neither can anyone in my line, though it’s entirely possible that this curse would not afflict any children I have. So the crown will pass to a cousin instead. And my parents were…so shamed. Devastated that their line would end.”

  He could not bear the pain he heard in her voice, the tears that were unshed but that dripped from every word. “I will take Ivermere’s crown for you.”

  She gave a watery laugh, shaking her head. “There is no one in Ivermere who wants to see me wear it. Even my parents, it was only a matter of pride—if they’d ever had another child I’d have been shunted aside. And I see no point in fighting so hard for a place there, when they will never want me. Especially not after I have seen the people of your kingdoms, and how they love you. I would be forever yearning for that, instead.”

  Yearning to be wanted, but not yearning for him. “I would give to you Lyngfen,” he said, gesturing around them, “but it is a worthless swamp.”

  She laughed again, and this time there was a true, merry note within the sadness. Then she drew another breath and said, “But now I recall why I told that story—and it was about your people fearing you or loving you, and whether you deserve the second.”

  By the gods, his Anja was tenacious. “You do not have to—”

  She ran roughshod over his protest. “And I have seen a monster, Kael. I have seen his glee as he killed innocents, how uncaring he was of the pain left behind. I have seen how he reveled in his cruelty, and in their agony and fear. And I have seen you butcher men, but there was no glee. No revelry. Rage, for certain, but they had earned it. You are not a monster; you are a man who makes certain that what needs to be done is done. You are simply very…thorough.”

  Undisputedly so. “I will place that on my seal beside my other names,” he said dryly. “‘Kael the Thorough.’ Not a gut left intact, not a limb left unhacked.”

  She nodded primly. “Not a skull left uncracked.”

  A breath passed, then she giggled, and Kael’s own laughter roared out across the fen, shaking him so hard that he had to grasp the saddlehorn and wrap his arm tighter around Anja so they didn’t tumble to the ground. Her fingers clasped his wrist as she bent forward, her body quaking and her ribs expanding as she gasped for air, then lost every breath to another bout of laughter.

  Then she sat up again, and the movement was a long stroke down the length of his cock. Kael’s laughter was silenced, choked by a stifled groan. Anja abruptly went still, her fingers clenched around his forearm, her entire body trembling and tense.

  Imagining what Kael did? That his hands would slide into the open back of her coat and cup her breasts, find her nipples hard and ripe. Or that his fingers would slip between her legs and tease her clit until she was wet and ready to take him. That he might grip her hips, and lift her, and fill her sultry sheath with his length, and they would rock together, slowly, until she found her release and he filled her with his seed.

  Though he could not do that. A virgin was she, and he would not take her upon a horse. Not the first time.

  And a virgin was she, so the same thoughts were not likely what held her so still. For certain she gave no indication that she wanted anything more. She only trembled and waited. For his cock to subside?

  She would have to wait forever.

  His forearm an iron band around her waist, he dragged her against his chest again, as snug as they had been. She made a small sound—of dismay or disappointment—and when she tipped her head back against his shoulder, her cheeks were flushed and her breath came in soft pants.

  Yet although he wished it with all of his being, she didn’t turn her head and place those panting lips against his throat. Didn’t look up at him with want in her gaze. Didn’t give an invitation, and he could not know if this was arousal or if she was simply overheated beneath her coat.

  Instead she closed her eyes and trapped her lower lip between her teeth, and remained that way for what seemed an endless time. A village was visible in the distance when she finally let go a shuddering breath and asked softly, “What name would you take, if you had only one?”

  He did not even have to think. “Kael the Free.”

  A soft smile curved her mouth and she looked down the road, her dark eyes contemplative. “Do you think I might be happy here in your kingdoms, if I leave Ivermere?”

  Sudden hope filled his chest. “Why would you return here?”

  For him?

  “Because there is nothing for me in Ivermere.”

  Not for him. “Is that why you answered the call for a bride?”

  “Yes. It seemed suitable. I was raised to be a queen. But I can be useful in other ways. As a hunter, perhaps.”

  He frowned. Being a queen was only suitable? Had it not been what she wanted?

  “You said that you wanted what I had,” he reminded her. “You did not mean my kingdoms?”

  “I suppose it is more precise to say that I wanted to do what you had done—and you made a place for yourself.” The curve of her sad smile was like a scythe slicing through his chest. “I meant to carve out a place for myself, too. Even if I had to carve out your heart first.”

  She had made a good start. That organ was no longer his own. She had already taken it. “I carved out my place with my sword,” he told her. “It was a fine plan to use your blade to kill me to gain the same.”

  She turned her head against his shoulder, hiding her face from him. “But you do not want a bride.”

  No. He did not want a bride. He wanted Anja. And if she ever showed a hint of desire, a sign of wanting him in return—a desire not seduced or forced from her, but freely given—then he would marry her in an instant.

  But she gave no indication, no invitation. She didn’t want him. She wanted a place where she fit.

  He could give that to her. Again that hope rose. He could give her a place close to him—and slowly win her heart as she had so quickly won his.

  And he would rather any torment than never seeing her again. Even the torment of having her near, knowing she would never want him in return.

  “After we have killed the spider, return to Grimhold with me. There is room for you in the stronghold and plenty to do.”

  With a startled gaze, she glanced up at him. “I am not a sorceress. So I wouldn’t be of much use to you in your court.”

  “Just as well, for I have no use for a sorceress. Only a ward-keeper, and I have one already.” And he cared not at all wha
t she did, except that she obviously wanted to have purpose. “You should come as my…royal advisor. Already you have served me better in these past ten days than they have in over a year. So I would rather have you than the fools around me now.”

  A smile tugged at her lips and a hopeful light brightened her dark eyes. Her gaze moved down the road again, but he didn’t think she looked at anything—instead she chewed her lip in quiet contemplation.

  After a long moment, she asked quietly, “Do you think you will ever marry?”

  Only if she would ever have him. “I don’t know.”

  “I suppose…” She hesitated, and her breath stuttered before she finished, “I suppose you have no need for a wife. There must be many women in the stronghold who would see to your…needs.”

  “There are.” Though he had no interest in touching them. Only her. Never again would he want anyone as he did Anja.

  “Oh.” That small reply was followed by a long silence in which she did not look back at him. She let go of his forearm and hugged her middle, as if cold beneath that long coat. Finally she continued in a thick voice, “It is very kind of you to offer. But I do not believe there is a place for me there.”

  No place with him.

  She had once said there were things worse than death. Kael had not believed it then, for despite all that he had suffered, death seemed far worse. But now he understood. For he had only thought of physical suffering. He hadn’t known the depths of pain a heart could feel—and whatever torments were worse than death, he would know them all when he let her go.

  If he let her go. And if he did not, may the gods forgive him for not heeding her choice, because after he chained her to his side, Kael didn’t think Anja ever would.

  But better to have her hate him than not to have her at all.

  8

  Anja the Unkissed

  Dryloch

  When Anja had seen the public inn where they would stay the night, she had wanted to keep riding. For it was Midwinter’s Eve, and the music and sounds of revelry from inside struck painful discordant notes across her shattered heart. But there was nowhere else to go. This was the last village before the Scalewood passage.

  Tomorrow they would ride through that dark forest and arrive in Ivermere.

  Anja sensed the celebratory mood suited Kael no better than it did her, though he didn’t say so. These past days, they had spoken little. She had felt too battered inside to risk a conversation that might hurt her more than she could survive, and Kael had lapsed into a brooding silence. Every day, he held her close, for they still rode double. He had not seen another horse that he thought was worth purchasing. Anja had seen many suitable horses, but had not spent her gold on them or argued in favor of one. Instead she’d hoarded every last moment she had with him.

  Even though his mood was so dark, and his body always taut with frustration. She thought the cause might be the eternally swollen size of his manhood—but never did he suggest that she might ease his arousal. He never mentioned his arousal at all. Perhaps because she was not the reason for it. He hadn’t wanted her for a bride, so he likely didn’t want her as a bedpartner, either.

  And perhaps because he might find that partner here.

  As they had been at every place they’d stopped, immediately they were offered bedchambers—but were apologetically told that the chambers were not ready for immediate occupation. So Anja could not hide as she wanted to, but found a table where she could sit and wait, her mood as dark and heavy as Kael’s had been.

  Had been, because upon entering the tavern, he’d recognized men—also former slaves—he’d once known in the Blackworm mines. Now he sat with them at a table across the room, and laughed with them, and drew appreciative female looks from every direction—appreciation that was mixed with the fear and apprehension that Kael initially inspired everywhere he went. But here were also people who knew him, and because he was trusted and liked by them, the women’s fears would not likely last long. No doubt they would work up the courage to approach him, to offer their invitations, and extend that appreciation to his bed.

  Anja had more to offer than gratitude. Because unlike these women, she knew him. Not just the stories, but knew his rage and his worries and his kindness. So why did she never offer an invitation?

  But she knew why. He’d rejected her once. She couldn’t survive his rejection again.

  And she couldn’t survive seeing him with another woman.

  A hand settled on her shoulder and an unfamiliar voice said, “Here you have been hiding— Oh!”

  Startled, Anja looked up into a wrinkled face surrounded by hair almost as white as her own.

  The older woman chuckled, and returned her gnarled hand to her cane. “Forgive me. I mistook you for my sister, but I was only partly wrong. You are not Tessa. A sister, however, you might be.”

  Anja smiled warmly. “Sit with me, then. If your sister searches for you, she cannot miss two white heads together. I am Anja.”

  The woman grinned and carefully eased her thin form into the seat beside Anja’s. “Thank you.”

  “The company will do me well, and so the gratitude is mine.” A conversation would hopefully bring her out of this sour, hurtful mood—and she could not mistake the woman’s guttural accent, even thicker than Kael’s. “You are from the Dead Lands?”

  The other woman nodded, her keen eyes studying Anja’s face. “And you are from Ivermere,” she said. “But clearly you do not belong to them.”

  Her quick blue gaze cast a significant glance across the room at Kael.

  The woman was mistaken. Anja didn’t belong to him, either. But it would hurt too much to confirm it out loud.

  But there was no reason to say anything. A loud cheer from across the room drew their attention, and a group of villagers burst into a bawdy song about a maiden’s Midwinter wish.

  A song Kael knew well, she saw, when he joined in.

  Beside her, the old woman sighed happily. “It warms my heart to see so many come together for Midwinter. Much has changed over the years, but that has not.”

  “Did you also celebrate Midwinter in the Dead Lands?” Anja could not imagine it. Midwinter was a time of cheer, and everything she’d ever heard of that land said that no happiness lived there.

  But then, much had been said of Kael, too—and not all of it was true.

  “We do, though since the Reckoning, not in the same way as our people once did. It is said that the Midwinter celebrations used to be as they are here. In these days, however, all the clans come together, and those who do not have enough to live through the cold bare season say what is most needed—and if the other clans have it, it is shared among all. Those clans with plenty do not ask for anything, but only make their Midwinter wishes. And if all of the clans lack the same thing, then they share that burden and fear, and none are alone in their suffering.”

  “So ‘they shared their plenty and they shared their sparsity,’” Anja quoted softly. “That is part of a Midwinter song. The stories of ancient Midwinter celebrations sound similar to those in the Dead Lands now.”

  “Well, it was not the first Reckoning the world has known. Nor will it be the last.”

  Perhaps the next would be closer to home than Anja liked to imagine. “In Ivermere, everyone has plenty, yet still asks for gifts, as well as making their Midwinter wishes.”

  “If there is plenty, there is no harm in asking. And there is never harm in giving…or wishing.” Her eyes twinkled merrily. “Though I wonder how often Midwinter wishes come true in Ivermere, when it is only through pure magic that they are granted.”

  Pure magic. Struck by a sudden realization, Anja laughed aloud.

  The old woman smiled at her. “Now you must share in the thought that made you laugh. And that will be the Midwinter gift you give to me.”

  It was probably what this woman already knew. “That is why wishes can’t be said out loud, isn’t it? Because when they are spoken aloud, they become a spell, and a sp
ell is corrupt magic.”

  Pleasure wreathed her wrinkled face. “So that one has taught you something of real magic.”

  “Yes.” Grinning, she glanced at Kael, then her heart seemed to rend in two when she saw the pretty maid who had sidled up to him during the song. He did not seem to pay her any attention, but soon the song would end and she might speak to him.

  And she would likely be the first of many who tried.

  Throat burning, she tore her gaze from the painful scene and hoarsely asked the woman, “Do you know much about true magic, then?”

  “I would think so.” She eyed Kael, then Anja’s stricken face, but said nothing of what she concluded of the situation between them. “I am the witch of our clan.”

  Shock cut through Anja’s misery and she stared at the woman with jaw dropped. She had heard that term before, but only said in the most derogatory way.

  As if amused by Anja’s reaction, the woman chuckled. “In the Dead Lands, that is no insult. It only means that I am a…” She lifted a gnarled hand as if searching for the word. “Not a priestess, because I do not commune with gods. But I oversee births and conduct ceremonies—and heal when I must.”

  Heal? “You are a spellcaster?”

  Her grimace deepened the wrinkles around her mouth. “When I must,” she said again. “Better to heal without spells, if it can be done.”

  “Yes,” Anja agreed softly. Just as Kael had said, too. And the maid had gone away from him but already another woman had slipped closer. “Do you know much about love?”

  “I do. I know how it burns so strong and bright that it can seem to give off its own light. And you shine like the sun, Anja of Ivermere,” the old woman said. “But I see shadows, too.”

  Eyes burning, Anja shook her head. “I don’t think it can be love. It doesn’t feel bright and pure. It feels like poison inside me.”

  “Ah.” Smiling, the woman said, “Because that is not love. It is jealousy.”