Thomas looked from one to the other. Finally, his eyes rested on Charles. “You do understand, Sir, that you may never touch our monarch without express consent?” His hand held the dirk naked in his grasp.
“Of course, Thomas. It is not I that needs supervision,” Charles said with clear accusation dripping from every syllable.
Matthew drew Clara into his body and Charles’ eyes narrowed.
“Somehow it is acceptable that the brute of the Clan touch her?” he threw his hand out at the two of them bound so tightly together.
Clara had but a moment’s peace in the arms of Matthew, a place she did not allow herself to dwell, then stepped away. With the cocoon of his warmth now gone, a melancholy began to steal its way inside of her.
Sarah approached from the bosom of the forest.
“For Guardian’s sake, what say you?” she huffed, her hands on her hips.
Clara gave a weak smile in her direction. Sarah would thrash her logic about and the men would be left gasping as fish without water.
“Charles and I were discussing…” Clara began.
“Arguing, more like,” Sarah corrected with a narrow look at Charles and Clara sighed.
Charles glared at Sarah and she saw his look. “You are behaving like a jackass!” she stated, affronted.
Thomas sucked in his breath and Matthew hid his mirth badly, a smile forming around his full lips, his blue eyes blazing out of a sun-kissed face.
“Stay away from this Sarah,” Charles warned.
“I will not,” Sarah stomped her foot in the dry prairie grass and it rustled in protest. “It does no good to volunteer to agree to journey with us then protest said journey at every opportunity. Must it always be your way, Charles? Does our Queen not deserve a peace? Does she not deserve to find a true relation?”
Sarah placed her hands on her hips, her blond hair blending with the wheat-colored grass that surrounded the group, moving about her as the wind picked up.
“You cannot be for this. She takes her suitors on this journey, leaves the kingdom to my father and we travel to Guardian knows where to find a mysterious relation. It is by far the worst thing. Oh! and let me expound: the fragment and rival clans lay scattered about and could kill us all before we reach the fabled Cape Cod,” Charles challenged.
“I should not have brought you,” Clara said with sadness. “I knew that things had changed in our understanding, but I wished for it to be as it had been before.” Clara looked at Charles with such sadness, a longing for the easy friendship they had shared.
Charles beheld her expression and could not understand why she didn’t see reason. He was the choice for her. The Band? The Band be damned! It did not matter a fig that she was some select? What of it? He fumed.
Matthew said, “We have not seen fragment these thirty days,” he shrugged a bare shoulder.
Charles turned on him and Clara saw Thomas tense. “What say you? You are so busy chasing her skirt that you let your duties for her protection wane to your voluptuous appetite.”
Clara turned in one fluid motion and slapped Charles’ face, his head rocked back and she instantly regretted it.
Her wrist felt broken, for one.
A red imprint of her small hand lay upon his face. His nostrils flared and he turned without a word and stalked off into the woods.
Matthew took the hand that she cradled against her chest and turning it, he laid a feather’s kiss on the inside of the wrist. He looked deeply into her eyes and she cast hers to the ground, her soft walking moccasins buried in the pale flesh of the grass.
Other shoes appeared beside hers and she looked into Sarah’s cornflower blue eyes. “He has lost all sense. Can you not see? He does not ‘advise’ any longer; he rants,” Sarah said as she put a piece of copper hair behind Clara’s ear.
Clara knew this. She could no longer shake the memory of what they had been together. Her best friend, her most loyal cohort in all things. The one that sought her relentlessly through the Outside to save her from an uncertain fate.
But he was no longer that person.
Charles could not accept a friendship that did not also include romance.
Matthew stood quietly beside her, as was his way. His hair danced along the tops of his shoulders, his eyes intent on her.
She sighed again. “My Lady,” Thomas began, the one guard in the royal contingent that had been left behind when her mother made her devastating journey Outside. “What would you have of me?”
Clara was mortified. She had lost her temper in a most repugnant fashion in front of her first officer of the Royal Guard. She was remiss. “Thomas, I am truly sorry you had to witness…” Clara floundered.
But Thomas broke in before she could continue, “We of the guard understand the position you are in with Charles Pierce. We think he is an excellent man of worth.”
The but stood in the air.
Sarah said what only she could, “He will have to serve in another capacity, Clara. He is too near to you emotionally to offer sound advice, of anything.” She shrugged.
Clara looked at Matthew and Thomas. “Please, gentlemen, leave Sarah and I to finish this conversation in private.”
Matthew shook his head. “There must be someone standing watch at all times, Queen Clara.”
“Clara,” she corrected him and he gave the barest incline of his head.
“Fine,” she said, vexed. Clara began to pace back and forth and Sarah tracked her frenetic rhythm.
“Matthew, Thomas, give us but a moment alone together so we may converse. She needs to be attended by a woman presently.” Sarah stared at Matthew.
He relented reluctantly. “I will stand right there,” he pointed to a stand of evergreens that heralded a natural break of entry into the forest. “I will be observing, very closely.” He moved forward and pressed a kiss to Clara’s forehead and met Sarah’s eyes over the top of her head, his filled with clear warning.
Clara felt the electric tingle that spiraled from the point of contact, his lips departing a thin thread that ran from the warmth of his mouth pressed against her skin to other areas. She blushed, feeling the heat of her embarrassment acutely, visible for all to see on her fair skin.
Matthew gave her a rare grin. He was very aware of what reaction a kiss would elicit from a select so closely affected by one of the Band.
He gave another look at Sarah. Be careful, that look said. She nodded and he made his way toward the trees, his long stride eating up the distance. He arrived and turned, leaning against the tree and sharpening one of his many blades against a stone, the ghost of that smile still riding his lips.
*
“Tell me I am not mad like one of King Otto’s relatives,” Clara said.
It was well-known that people from that sphere were too closely related, causing minds that were soft or worse.
Sarah grinned, pressing her forehead against Clara’s. “Dear Heart, you are many things, but mad is not one of them.” She leaned against Clara and wrapped her in an embrace that was tight and fierce. Clara let herself relax against her friend.
Finally, when she thought she could speak once more, “Is this a fool’s errand, Sarah? Is Charles correct?”
Sarah deliberated. She would tell Clara the truth, that is what friends did. True friends.
Slowly, Sarah shook her head. “He has a seed of truth in his argument.”
Clara’s face crumpled and Sarah rushed on, “He does not understand what it would be to be a royal orphan. And it is somehow worse than that, Queen Ada was not your true blood.”
Clara stared at Sarah and whispered, “I should not have struck him. I am ashamed. After the violence I suffered at the hand of the Queen and Frederic. I should not have.”
Sarah laid her hand within Clara’s and squeezed the smallness of it once and Clara winced.
“What?”
“It hurts!” Clara laughed.
Sarah grinned. “Ah, from the bludgeoning you laid on Charles?” she said c
oyly.
Clara nodded. “Yes, that.” A small smile began to spread across her face, her somber self-recrimination floating away for the moment.
Clarence approached and his eyes were for Sarah first but then fell on Clara. Her guilt over the interchange came surging back in a tide of emotion.
“Queen Clara,” he bowed and she executed a small curtsey. She had long-since given up coaxing him into calling her Clara. He was too formal by far to comply.
Sarah looked up into Clarence’s face. “Why hello, Clarence,” she murmured while batting her eyelashes. Sarah knew full-well her effect upon him. He blushed a maddening brick red and muttered a greeting.
Sarah was antagonizing him. They had been friends, as Charles and she had, the four of them inseparable. But now there was a shift in awareness happening. The journey east had revealed many things.
He turned to Clara, ignoring Sarah for the moment and managed to get out, “Charles is remiss, Queen Clara. Please, would it be too much to ask that you engage in a reconciliation?” Clarence’s eyes pleaded with her to understand.
Of course Clara understood. She wanted nothing more than for she and Charles to come to an understanding.
Sarah interjected, “She is sovereign here. Charles needs to quit acting the fool and allow her to rule, Clarence. It is he that needs to defer to her.”
Clarence turned with a glare on his face and she stepped uncomfortably close and his anger eased, his face softening before her closeness. “I know well your friendship. However,” her hand reached out and ran a gliding finger down the front of the royal purple vest that he and the rest of the small guard contingent wore, “you must be cognizant of how his feelings muddle his intent.”
Clarence tracked her hand, utterly forgetting Clara’s presence, she noted with amusement. Sarah was playing a very dangerous game. Clara was not sure of Sarah’s true feelings for him. And as she thought it, Philip came charging up on his horse. His eyes took in the scene of Sarah with her hand on another man. His brows shot down over his intense eyes, his steed’s hooves dancing in nervousness underneath his massive body.
Sarah snatched her hand away from Clarence and he woke as if from a dream, startling.
“I was coming to fetch the Queen and Sarah,” he said in way of explanation.
“Yes, I see that was so,” Philip said with amusement laced with anger riding the prominent planes of his face.
Sarah smoothed her linen skirt and adjusted the neckline on her thin cotton blouse that needed no adjusting.
Sarah was always nervous in the presence of Philip. Bracus’ brother was the largest of the Band, even more so than Bracus and Matthew. He dismounted, his head above the shoulder of his horse. The muscles in his forearms bulged as he slung the reins over the horse’s neck and took it by the bridle, mindful of its mouth.
His gaze went to Clara and he nodded. “Clara.”
Clara nodded back. She had an easy alliance with Philip. After he had stepped down as a contender for her hand, there had been no reason not to. As this year had passed, she had come to realize he may have his heart set on Sarah.
But Sarah would have none of it. She avoided all the Band and seemed determined to skim the surface of civility with them. It was an infuriating dilemma. One of the many tasks she had to address.
Philip caught her gaze and she held his for a defiantly swollen moment then turned to Clarence. “Our Queen is in apt hands, let us go to the camp.”
She turned to look disdainfully at Philip. “I assume you and the others have readied it?” she cocked a brow in his direction.
His jaw tightened in response to her subtle rankling of him. “It is done. That is why I rode here.”
She smiled up at him. “Good, clansman.” The insult was not lost on Philip and his fists clenched.
Sometimes Clara thought for all Sarah’s intellect she could not see what was in front of her face. The Band were not males to be toyed with. But warriors with an objective of clarity: kill to protect.
Those violent biological imperatives, part of the very fabric of their nature were not to be played as a musical instrument.
Sarah looped her arm through Clarence’s and strolled off, giving a backward smirk to Philip.
And Clara had thought her amusements with Clarence dangerous!
Philip regained his composure and addressed her directly, “Clara, as I mentioned to your friends,” he exhaled forcefully and she controlled her expression, “the camp is ready for the night.”
Clara nodded and he helped her mount the horse. When they were upon the steed’s back her eyes found Matthew’s. His legs were spread far apart, his hair floating on the breeze, eyes pressing on Clara like an erotic weight.
Philip dug his heels into the horse’s sides and they moved forward, toward the forest.
Toward the men.
The Savage Blood, available now!
A Love Letter to My Readers:
As of March 31, 2011, it’s been a year now since my first book, Death Whispers, was published. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you that has supported my writing. Without my readers, I would not have an audience for my work. Many of your emails, support via recommendation, encouragement and critical feedback/reviews have allowed my improvement as a writer and as a human being. Words are an inadequate thanks for the depth of my gratitude to you. Please know how much your support has meant, and will continue to mean in the future to come.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart~
*
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Acknowledgments:
I’d like to thank, You- my reader, for reading my stories!
My glorious husband, who promotes way-better than I ever will!
And my Other Mother, whose discerning and well read eye was happy with what I’d done. Her pride in me is a precious gift.
Books available now:
Death Inception (A Death Prequel)
Death Whispers (Death Series, #1)
Death Speaks (#2)
Death Screams (#3)
Death Weeps (#4)
The Pearl Savage (Savage Series, #1)
The Savage Blood, (#2)
The Savage Vengeance (#3)
Blood Singers, (Blood Series, #1)
Blood Song(#2)
Books publishing in 2012:
Unrequited Death (#5) December 31
Future Titles 2013:
The Savage Protector (#4) March 1
Blood Chosen (#3) May 31
The Reflective (Reflection Series, #1) October 4
The Pearl Savage Page 30
