by Megan Crane
“Does she?” Wulf asked idly. “You gave her to me for free.”
Athenian smiled at that. “So I did.”
And neither one of them admitted why that was. Not out loud. Athenian had wanted to humiliate both Wulf and Kathlyn tonight, and that was what Wulf was banking on—that he still did.
“Do not tell me, my barbarian friend, that a little taste of a highborn princess is all it takes to render a raider king a romantic,” Athenian said after a moment, a cold sort of gleam in his dark gaze.
“Not at all,” Wulf assured him. He looked at Kathlyn then. At the way she stood so still, only the wild pulse at her neck giving any indication that she might be less composed than she appeared. He tightened his fingers around hers, silently commanding her to trust him. He looked back at her dick of a father. “I don’t believe in romance. I believe in the old ways, when a man’s word was his honor and his life. If I tell you that I will marry your daughter in exchange for peace, that is what will happen.” He leaned in slightly. “And I think you and I both know that there are already rumors. It is up to you. Do you want your kingdom to think of your daughter as ruined in the conventional way? Or would the long winters here be enlightened by lurid tales of your princess getting ravaged by the raiders in a faraway place where the consequences of her fall from grace can never bother you again?”
He didn’t have to look at Kathlyn to feel her shake at that. He kept his gaze trained on her shithead of a father.
“Careful, friend,” Athenian murmured. “You sound something like political, after all.” He rubbed two fingers over his thin lips, as if he was trying to keep sharper words in his mouth. “Ordinarily it would be unthinkable, of course. My daughter was the jewel of the western highlands, second to none. But now she has been ruined and mounted by a raider, in short order. Perhaps I am the sentimental one, to imagine her stock might rise again. If you want her, you can have her.”
“I want peace,” Wulf told him, loud enough so all the straining asslickers could hear him. “She is as good as a handshake, I assume.”
“This will not be a winter marriage,” Athenian warned him. “I can’t imagine how I would get the raider stink off of her after six months with you. You understand.”
Wulf made himself smile. “Raiders keep what they take.”
King Athenian eyed him for a moment, then sat forward in his chair and clapped his hands together.
“The equinox is in five days’ time. It will be an auspicious day for a wedding, don’t you think?” He didn’t wait for Wulf’s response, shifting his gaze to Kathlyn instead. “Do you hear that, daughter? You are to be married, despite all your attempts to drag my name through the muck. Thank me for my benevolence.”
“Thank you, father,” Kathlyn said on cue, so musical and serene, bowing her head beautifully. Wulf could track the graceful line of her back all the way down, then the swish of her bright white dress that made her brown skin glow, despite the so-called bloodstains toward the bottom. He didn’t understand how someone like her could exist in a place like this. So vibrant, when she was surrounded by all these sharp knives and ulterior motives. “Your benevolence is unparalleled.”
Athenian’s gaze gleamed with malice as he waved them away. “Go. I will begin planning this new spectacle in the morning.”
This time, Wulf did not need Kathlyn to guide him through the crowd. He did that, holding her fast until they put a courtyard between them and her father.
“I’m sorry to spring that on you,” he told her in an undertone.
“Don’t be sorry,” she replied, and when she looked up at him her gaze was clear. “I understand politics. And I was always going to be married off to a king. It might as well be you.”
She said that so briskly and matter-of-factly that Wulf shouldn’t have felt it prick at him. And yet. “What a rousing endorsement.”
“And I am soiled goods,” she continued doggedly. She nodded at her dress. “It was all well and good to manage a well-blooded mounting, but it doesn’t change anything. He’ll take pleasure in the fact you’re asking for me when I’m worthless now. Everyone will know he tricked a raider into agreeing to a peace treaty over a ruined, worthless girl. It’s supposed to humiliate you.”
“I think I can muddle through the embarrassment.”
“And it will never happen. King Athenian’s daughter? A raider slag? Not in his lifetime. No matter what he says.”
“You appear to be under the impression that I take the things your father says to me at face value, princess.”
Kathlyn ignored his dry tone. “Surely you must know he doesn’t mean to go through with it. He likes using me as a pawn. Why would he give that up when he could reap the benefits of years of my winter marriages first? Not to mention the sort of price he’d demand for a permanent marriage.”
Wulf studied her. “Are you suggesting that I can’t pay his price?”
“You must realize he plans to kill you,” she threw back at him, and this was that part of her he should hate, he knew. Imperious and impatient, as if they were equals. He’d never allowed for the possibility that he could have an equal. But for some reason, on Kathlyn, he liked it. “You’ll be helping him plan your own execution, which is exactly the kind of sick thing he’ll love.”
And for the first time since he’d walked into this weird-ass kingdom, he was tempted to tell someone why he was here. Not “someone.” Kathlyn. He wanted her to stop looking at him like that, like he was at risk and didn’t fully grasp that, when he knew better.
“Don’t worry, princess,” he said instead. Quietly. “I’m hard to kill.”
Kathlyn shook her head at him. “I’m sure the many ghosts who haunt this place, all victim to my father’s temper and sheer cruelty, would say the same. I’d like to think that my mother would have wanted the mounting ceremony I just gave her. But I’ll never know, because my father killed her after a few guards claimed she’d suddenly, after no history of any such behavior, entertained the lot of them in her rooms. He called her into his throne room, told her she was getting a very special present because she was so widely beloved, and killed her himself.” She leaned in closer. “That’s what he does. He feeds off your anticipation and revels in killing it. Literally.”
“Let me handle your father,” he suggested, something a little too complicated to be temper rolling through him. “I understand that you’re afraid of him. I’m not.”
And he didn’t have the slightest idea why he wanted to touch her, then. Not have sex with her, though he wanted that, too. But he wanted to pull her close. He wanted to wrap his arms around her until she lost that faint brittle air about her. He had no idea why. He only knew it had something to do with that faint sheen of emotion in her dark gold eyes, that elegant nose, and her sweet, lush mouth that still showed faint marks of the teeth she’d dug into her lower lip. It was all of that, and it was her, and his ears were ringing again when he knew that no one had hit him upside the head with any weapon.
No one is attacking you, he told himself darkly. You’re just fucked.
“Is this the night you wanted?” he asked. And for once he was almost happy that none of his men were with him here. Because he thought that if someone who knew him could see the look on his face then—no matter that he was trying to hide it—they would hardly recognize him. She nodded once. “Then I’m glad. No matter how fucked up this whole ritual is.”
And that was when she smiled at him. A sweet, bright smile that lit up this already overlit palace like they’d somehow transported themselves to the blaring glare of the Great Lakes Cathedral. But he thought she’d outshine even that.
“Don’t worry,” she told him softly. Fiercely. “I understand my father. I’m not going to let him hurt you.”
And Wulf was torn between feeling that warmth again, spreading through him and lighting him up, and outrage that this small, breakable woman thought she needed to protect him. It was an insult—and he also thought he might hoard it like treasure.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had protected him, or tried, on or off the battlefield. His own bodyguard was a line of defense, but he protected himself.
One of the guards stepped toward them then. He swept a cold glare over Wulf, and inclined his head toward the princess.
“They’re waiting for you in the grand hall,” he told Kathlyn. “They’re ready.”
“Ready for what?” Wulf asked.
And he was sure that there was more than a little wickedness in Kathlyn’s eyes when she looked at him again.
“The dancing,” she told him. “Didn’t someone mention it to you? It’s customary for the mounted girl and her partner to lead the dance.”
Wulf shook his head. “I don’t fucking dance. Ever.”
“Oh, you’ll be fine,” Kathlyn assured him, with the sort of airy disregard for his stated word that should have enraged him. He was endlessly amazed that things he would find unacceptable in anyone else, he enjoyed in her. “I’m sure it’s just like all the fighting you do. Except you don’t actually try to knock other people down.”
Kathlyn looped her arm through his, and it took Wulf a moment or two to realize that he hadn’t even objected to that. Not now, not before. He didn’t mind that this woman kept touching him as she pleased, when no one dared touch a raider without his permission. That was a good way to lose a hand. But with Kathlyn, he couldn’t bring himself to mind.
When the guard fell behind them, she leaned a little bit closer and she tilted her face up toward him.
“It’s another test, of course.” The look on her lovely face was polite, as if they were engaging in the kind of pointless small talk everyone here enjoyed so much. And Wulf understood that it was her armor, as much a part of her as his blades were of him, and she was perhaps as skilled at this as he was at that. “They don’t think you can do it. Or they hope you won’t do it. It’s designed to embarrass you, like everything else.”
“Taking the princess on the stage wasn’t enough?” he asked quietly.
And there was that look in her eyes then. That combination of wickedness and intelligence that he liked entirely too much. The woman was walking around with bloodstains on her dress like she was dressed in gold and the finest furs. She’d barely reacted to the notion that she was to be married off to a barbarian. As far as he could tell, he was the only one who’d ever rattled her at all.
“They already knew you could do that,” she pointed out mildly. “If anything, I think you disappointed them by not making me scream out in agony as I suffered your animal attentions.”
“Are you sure you didn’t scream?” Wulf smiled. “That’s not quite how I remember it. You have the marks on your lip to prove it.”
She looked away, but not before he saw the heat in her eyes. And the way she licked her lip, as if tasting the indentations she’d left there.
It was like she wanted him to walk around with a hard-on.
“My father has great fantasies of humiliating you,” she said quietly, because she’d only had sex twice, he reminded himself, and had no idea what she did to him. “One way or another. And he’ll keep trying until he gets it right. He’s relentless.”
“He can knock himself out trying.” Whatever note he had in his voice made her look up at him again. “You can’t humiliate someone who knows who he is. And I’ve known exactly who I was since I was eighteen.”
Her gaze was solemn. “No doubts? No second-guessing yourself?”
“Never.”
“I envy you.” Her grip on his arm tightened. “And I wouldn’t blame you if tonight was the first time you engaged in a little second-guessing. Because you really can’t refuse to dance. It would prove my father right, and I’m betting you’d like to avoid that at all costs.”
“You say that like I’m not easygoing. Relaxed and flexible. A pleasure to be around at all times.”
“Why are you really here?” she asked, her voice as serious as her gaze. She lowered her voice. “I don’t believe for a second you’re in the habit of negotiating about anything. With anyone. And especially not for a peace treaty with a man like my father.”
Again, Wulf wanted to tell her. Some part of him thought she deserved to know—but he was afraid that part of him was his dick, a known shitty judge of character.
“That offends me deeply. I’m a great fucking diplomat. You can ask anyone I let live.”
“You’re making my point for me.”
Kathlyn nodded regally at a pack of aristocratic bitches as they passed. Wulf didn’t like the sharp looks any of them shot at her, but when they looked at him they kept their mouths shut. Kathlyn appeared not to notice either way, which was one more reason he liked her a little too much.
“I believe you’re a king,” she was saying.
“I’m delighted my legitimacy is assured.”
“But a diplomat?” she shook her head. “No. That’s not how you operate. I doubt you have to, and I don’t understand why no one here sees it. You’re the least accommodating man I’ve ever met in my life, because I think you’re the most powerful man I’ve ever met. You don’t bend. Do you even know what that means?”
Wulf didn’t answer that last question. He didn’t need to.
“I don’t like it when assholes declare war on me.” His smile was fierce then. “I tend to take it personally.”
Kathlyn’s gaze gleamed. “Now that, I believe.”
Since they’d left the great hall after the ceremony, it had been cleared. The stage had been dismantled and taken away. All the seats and risers had been removed. The hall was wide open again, with rings of tables around the perimeter and a band of people playing different instruments, old and new, at one end. There were people crowded into the tiers again, looking down from above.
“Think of this as the triumph of low expectations,” Kathlyn murmured next to him. “Anything that’s not you breaking furniture or accidentally decapitating me? Will be considered a win.”
“I appreciate that, princess,” Wulf replied. “But I’m a raider, not a little bitch. I count a win as a win. Not some whiny-ass consolation prize.”
“I understand completely.” Kathlyn snuck a look at him, then looked back toward the center of the hall. “But I would actually prefer not to be decapitated.”
The king swept into the room then, with his usual pack of acolytes and ass kissers, and aimed a chilling smile laced with benevolence at Wulf and Kathlyn. Then waved his hand from his place near the arched doorway.
It was funny that it was that—that tiny, peremptory wave that was clearly an order when Wulf did not fucking take orders—that almost did it. That had Wulf tense and ready to go for that asshole’s throat after weeks of far more grievous insults.
He felt Kathlyn clutch at his arm, and reminded himself to unclench his damned jaw, stop trying to measure his dick, and remember where he was. Remember. Even if he decided to get his bloodlust on right now, it was unlikely that even he could take down an entire palace by himself.
Not all at once, anyway.
If Athenian noticed how close Wulf was to snapping, he didn’t show it. He only nodded at the band, and then waved a single finger to the empty floor before them.
“Whenever you are ready to wow us,” he said in his oily, malicious voice, bolstered by his tittering crowd of douches.
Kathlyn started walking, and Wulf had the feeling that it was to get him the hell away from her father before something exploded. As if he couldn’t control himself—or once again, she imagined she needed to protect him. And he still didn’t know how he should feel about that. He didn’t need her protection and was vaguely insulted she thought otherwise, but he liked that she kept doing it.
He liked it a lot.
Wulf was halfway out into the middle of the floor when he saw that it wasn’t a flag hung over the railing of the first-level balcony, the way he’d half thought it was. It was a bloody fucking sheet. Kathlyn’s bloody sheet.
And Wulf knew it wasn’t blood. He�
�d felt that weird thing she’d stuck up inside of her. He knew the sticky substance he still had all over his dick definitely wasn’t blood. But no one else here knew that. And that meant that this twisted, sick society displayed proof of the virginity they were so weirdly obsessed with for all to see. Losing it was a community sport, they hung the evidence high in the middle of a grand palace, and then they had a party beneath it.
And they thought raiders were fucked up.
Kathlyn turned to look at him when they reached the center of the dance floor. And there was no getting out of this. There was no sacking a city or killing a battalion or killing even two of the dumbasses to avoid it. He was going to have to dance.
As far as he could tell, it was a particularly half-assed test of his manhood, so Wulf didn’t waste any time trying to get out of it. He hauled Kathlyn into his arms, he clenched his jaw so hard he thought that his teeth might shatter, and he fucking danced.
She gazed up at him with something like wonder in her dark gold eyes as he moved her across the floor, using the steps he’d been taught in the clan’s nursery by—now that he thought about it—a teacher who’d started life in the mainland.
“Wulf . . .” Kathlyn whispered, and this wasn’t the place to show her how much he liked his name in her sweet, lush mouth.
“I didn’t say I couldn’t, baby,” he said gruffly. “I said I don’t.”
But for her, tonight, he did.
14.
The summons to her father’s private quarters the following day made Kathlyn uneasy. More than uneasy.
“Be careful with your father,” Yajaira had told her much earlier that morning. She’d snuck into Kathlyn’s rooms after the mounting ceremony, while the courtyard was still gray with the barest suggestion of dawn. Kathlyn had woken up at the sound of her door opening, then had gripped the sharp dagger Wulf had given her that had so far done nothing but leave deep slashes in her linens and pillows. When she’d crept out of bed to see Yajaira in her living room, dressed in last night’s silver dress and walking gingerly, she’d stashed the dagger on the table in her bedroom.
