Rowenna loved Rolland... yet, she was bright enough to know she was not in love. Aye, she had heard that therein lies the difference. She was not immune to feminine conversation and had come upon it from time to time. The females claimed that you could love a man or you could love the very air he breathed, suffocate without him in it.
Rowenna had scoffed. The males were... something to be thankful for... as they kept the clan secure. They were Band and that was all. It really was not complicated to grab hold of. Yet, when love had struck her it had been vicious and unforeseen.
“Rowenna!” Harland hissed from beneath her.
Rowenna extracted the stiff strand of hay she had been chewing on and without moving answered, “What say you?” A fire lit deep within her belly at just the sound of his voice.
She could almost see Harland's look of consternation. “They be looking all about for you. Rolland is settling into a panic...”
Rowenna slapped her palms down on the rough wood with a huff. He certainly did not feel the least bit of panic when he stalked off earlier.
She sprung up and walked to the ladder, looking down at the stable boy. Which was not entirely fair, he was much more than that, Rowenna knew. He had a decent amount of the blood of the Band, though he did not possess throat slits. No matter, he had the physique that was so reflective of the warriors who protected her people. Right now, his strong arms were crossed over his chest and he was glaring up at her.
He also ignited the blood between them like a fire in the dry patches of fields that lay all around the clan where they lived.
“Get down here and take care, Rowenna!” he said and turned away to afford her privacy as she descended because she had nothing on underneath her tunic save linen undergarments. Her lips curled into a smirk at his prim deference for she knew he wanted nothing more than to touch her, hold her... be with her. They fought their mutual biology like a siren's wail.
As she shimmied down the ladder, Rowenna knew her mother would faint at her in men's breeches in any event. However, Rowenna thought them a fine thing for riding a steed. Horsehair was itchy and uncomfortable against her bare legs; the linen afforded not the slightest barrier against the abrasion. She reached the end of the beaten and smooth rungs of the ladder with the easy movements of practice, hopping lightly to the ground that was littered with hay, the dirt packed hard from the animals' travels in and out of the large wooden building. The smell of stable and sea crashed into her, instantly lightening her spirits, the scents of her home a comfort.
Harland turned, towering over her, all the height and strength of the Band yet relegated to tending the animals. Rowenna knew a secret which he did not: he would soon be moving to duties of the Band. He was not Band enough for scouting, yet he could offer the security that was so necessary right here in the clan. He did not complain, even though since they had been small Harland had watched the males go about their business of protection with an avid attention. The life of a half-breed was a difficult one. The blood manifested as it wished, without rhyme nor reason. Some of little Band descent acquired throat slits, but none of the physical prowess... it was very unpredictable. Rowenna thought it better to have all the blood of the Band or nothing. To be constrained to half duties or never mate with a female because they must all be with the warriors was a life of envy and existence, not fully living. She realized that more as time went on.
Since she and Harland had come of age, she had kept a polite distance as pretense. It would not do for her to get close to any male who had Band running in his veins but could not take part in the Rite. Especially him. She felt the pull of him, she always had. Was it not possible that some blood called more strongly than others, though not a full-blood?
Rowenna had always had doubts. She had been raised to believe that only full-bloods could partake in the Rite. The contention was that persons who were of mixed-blood simply could not expect to have that enigmatic response which brought the select and the male of the Band who was the correct mate for her.
Rowenna no longer wondered if that were true, for Harland was very much Band. Except for the lack of throat slits, he could be a warrior. His father still ran the raids with the Band, his mother was a female from another clan, yet not select. Most females from the clans were alive simply because they possessed some blood of the Band. It was indeterminate how much Harland's mother possessed. No matter, it was but days until Harland discovered the animals would be tended by another. While he became part of securing the clan by the sea making his proximity to her all the more dangerous.
Yet, again... she knew him to be so much more.
Currently, he was giving her a tongue lashing as he paced in front of her and her lips twitched at his blatant irritation. “You are too important by far to give everyone a start...”
She rolled her eyes, so perpetually tired of all the fuss over her beleaguered status as select. “Harland,” Rowenna interrupted his tirade in a throaty whisper.
He stopped pacing and gave her a look, then shook his head, a dark chocolate strand of hair dropping to curl under his strong jaw. “No,” he rasped. “Do not look at me like that, Rowenna.” Harland's hands balled into fists as she prowled toward him. He could not help it, his eyes followed her svelte form, all curves of the female that were wrapped in the lithe skin of a warrior and swallowed over the sudden lump in his throat. Her sultry stroll as she walked closer ignited the flame he kept squelched at all times.
How Harland wanted her, had always wanted her.
She came to stand right in front of him and trailed a finger down the front of the tunic that he wore like all men of the Clan and he felt his hands clench into fists at her nearness. When her eyes sought his in the gloom their pale color, very like the sea appeared as a cat's, nearly reflective and he caught her finger in his hand. “Do not. Rolland is my friend.”
“I do nothing.” Rowenna met his stare with impunity, feeling the heated awkwardness of their closeness, the impropriety running between them both.
“Aye, you do. You know how I feel for you, that it is not allowed, yet you hide here in the stable, hiding from your parents, your intended, your... everything.”
Rowenna ignored his truths. Instead she asked, “Did you tell them?”
He shook his head, dropping her hand and stepping back as if burnt by her touch, his chestnut hair swept into a tight binding at his nape. “I have said nothing. I am the one out of the two of us that tries for fairness and the rational,” he said with more than a trace of sarcasm as his eyes stared into hers and she huffed, turning her back on him. When the silence stretched between the two of them he came to stand behind her. She felt his strong hands drop on her shoulders. “Rowenna.” His voice tickled beside the shell of her ear, his skin burning on hers.
He moved her pale wheat-colored hair away from the sensitive skin of her neck and buried the tip of his nose against her throat. He spoke against her flesh, heat washing over them both, “In another time, another life, it might have been different between us.” His hands caressed the skin of her arms in a long pull that caused goosebumps to rise in response.
All the heat of the Band yet none of the rights, she mourned in an embrace that felt tailored for her and her alone, customized for her soul.
Rowenna let her head drop back against the one she really loved, a half-breed Band who loved her through a wall of glass. Their romance was strictly forbidden. She did feel that burn of the blood when she was held by Rolland, she felt a young woman's lust of a sort for the sphere-dweller yet that was by necessity, fueled by curiosity and his kindness.
Yet it was Harland who made her flame with unrequited passion.
Both heard the males of the Band calling her name and she turned and smoothly came to her tiptoes. She gripped the back of Harland's neck, her fingers tangling in his hair and kissed him.
“I adore you,” she whispered, her lips releasing his, her forehead pressed against his.
He said nothing, his hands latching onto her h
ips. Then with a gentle push, he set her away from him.
“Go,” he whispered, his heart in his aqua eyes. Then he suddenly called out, “Wait!” Rowenna turned, her hair fanning around her at the sudden movement.
“I must know.” His eyes drilled into her, burning twin holes like the sea on fire. “Did he touch you?” Harland asked.
Their hearts beat in their eyes as they looked at each other.
She shook her head and he breathed again, as did she.
Whirling, she blurred to the door of the stable, slapping her palm against the warmth of the brass latch, she slid it aside and burst into the field, escaping what she could not have and her eyes met those of Rolland.
His held anger.
Hers held sadness.
Inside the stable, a male who was far more Band than any knew, fought not to go after the female that he loved, the only one who he had ever loved. Yet he knew it was not to be. All knew that select mated with full Band.
Lesser-bloods had no hope.
Yet a length of hope hung just out of reach and Harland could not help but take a running leap toward the twine before it unraveled.
*
“What say you?” Rolland stomped to Rowenna, her arms already crossed and a glint in her eye.
“I need time to be alone!” she said, stalking off and he grabbed her arm, turning her. “Be alone all you wish as long you are within the womb of the Band, Rowenna.”
His eyes searched hers and she looked at where his hand lay like a brand upon her and he dropped it. “Must we always war with each other?” he asked.
“Yes,” she hissed. “I have respect for all who are Band, but I am not a stupid, helpless female!” Rowenna snapped.
Rolland glared at her. “Oh aye, I know that you are not stupid!” he raged. “No person could be this irritating if they were!”
Rowenna's jaw dropped open. He was such... a swine, she supplied in high irritation.
Then he was in her face, grabbing both her arms, ready to shake her. “Yet helpless you be. If there were many of the Fragment about, how many would it take for them to make off with you, eh?” His dark eyes burned into her and she dropped hers. He shook her once, hard. “How many could you kill before they would overwhelm you Rowenna?” He dropped his hands from her body as other males approached and lowered his voice, the emotion vibrating in its tone. “What is the single greatest advantage the Fragment have?”
Rowenna knew the answer and hated Rolland for reminding her of it.
“It is numbers, my dear little fool...” Rolland answered softly for her, his voice trying for tenderness and Rowenna spun on her heel and ran. She ran from the man she was meant to be with, from the male she wished to be with, from the one who traveled a great distance that she must be with.
Rowenna ran.
Their eyes followed, but not their footsteps. Rowenna burst into her family's summer dwelling, tore past her mother and shut the flap that gave her the barest semblance of privacy and cried her eyes out.
*
Raymond suffered through the entire meal as he watched Princess Ada with growing horror.
She was in obvious thrall over the cups. Her consumption was impressive given her size. It was all Raymond could do not to put his head in his hands then and there. This was his future Queen? A young woman who had a problem with the fruit of the vine. His eyes caught Peter's who stayed a discreet distance from the banquet table should he need something.
Raymond did not. Yet he would give much to escape some of his obligation. Not all but some.
Finally the supper came to an end, for which he was most grateful, as an unsteady and glaze-eyed Ada rose to her feet. She did not stagger and seemed to be alarmingly lucid despite her consumption of the beverage known for changing personalities in a matter of hours.
Two of the royal guard came and each took one of her arms. She turned and gave Raymond a look which was as dismissive as it was sad.
It was beyond disturbing. Raymond thought upon it until he came upon Ada in the hall moments later... then never thought about it again.
Raymond and Peter walked the long corridor as they had many times before, parting ways at the entrance to Peter's chamber that lay a short distance from Prince Raymond's.
“I take my leave of you,” Raymond said with affection.
Peter smiled. “It has been long this day. I am sure you will feel more like yourself after a night's slumber.”
Perhaps, Raymond thought... or no. He gave a sardonic lift of his lips and a small nod as Peter slid through his door. Peter did not mention Princess Ada's troubling proclivity. It mattered not, as he had committed to the arrangement. Yet, he had hoped for a civil union, possibly friendship... mayhap more.
He understood that would be impossible.
Raymond stood for a moment in the great hall that led to the wing of royal chambers at its end, his thoughts swirling in a tireless circle. Princess Ada would be in one of those rooms as well. Try as he might, he could not conjure even the minutest amount of interest or attraction for the young woman. She seemed intent on luxuriating in the appointments of their station while drinking herself deep into her cups. Not a savory or desirous combination, he thought with disappointment.
Raymond became aware of a dim rhythmic noise down the hall and thought it was most odd. He began to move down the corridor, his long legs easily taking him to the origin of the soft sounds.
He stopped dead in his tracks, almost swaying from shock.
There, pressed against the wall like a pinned blue moth kissed by midnight, was Ada, her back sliding up and down against the rough-hewn stone surface of the royal corridor.
One of the guards was giving her the most intimate attention a male could bestow upon a female, his large hands grasping her underneath the heavy deep navy of her skirt, her flushed face turned to the side as he moved against her.
Raymond came awake with a lurching start of adrenaline that roared up from his toenails and nailed his heart like a stab brought by a dagger.
He staggered toward them, certain to his core that the guard was raping his future wife... then she opened her eyes and stared into his own.
What he saw there caused his step to falter then slow.
Lust.
And something even more evil, triumph.
Princess Ada wished for him to see what she was capable of. She wished for him to know she was far from the blushing virgin her sphere had laid before him as fable.
She was a greedy, drunken... whore of a royal.
And he must marry her.
Raymond felt his gorge rise just as a smile of intense gratification crossed her face, those black eyes glittering like a raven from her hawkish expression. She tipped her face back as the male finished her and Raymond left the hall, the music of their coupling and her satisfied lust following him into his room... and the nightmares which trailed him into an uneasy slumber.
Chapter 5
“Rowenna,” Adair called softly from outside her sleeping room.
Silence.
Adair opened her mouth to call again when Rowenna answered in a voice laden with her sadness, “Yes.”
Adair pressed the flap open, hooking it on the brass eye loop that was fastened against the side. She entered and saw the soft golden mass of Rowenna's bent head, undone and uncombed and could smell the vagueness of the sea about her and gave a smile. Rowenna had taken her anger to the sea and left it there, yet the sadness remained.
“My daughter,” Adair began.
“Do not, mother,” Rowenna said, turning her face away.
Adair was not a foolish woman and narrowed her eyes on her willful daughter. “You cannot have him, my child. The heart does many things... says many things, but in this, it cannot have what it wishes.”
Rowenna whipped her face around, her lips thinning into an angry line. “You do not think that I do not know that?” she scoffed, her hand to her chest in disbelief.
Adair's face softened. “Once you
are past this event, and you are filled with the child that is our hope, you and Rolland can be joined and this will all be forgotten.”
“I will never forget him,” Rowenna said with seething certainty.
They stared at each other, blue eyes meeting lavender. “In time, you will.”
Rowenna did not know if that were true. When she was a grown woman with another son and she met her long lost daughter, she knew she would never forget him.
Harland, her mind caressed his name like her touch yearned to do.
*
Raymond could not adequately express his stilted and brittle awkwardness in keeping company with Ada. Nor could he readily dismiss the image of her lasciviousness from his memory. It was clear that she did not wish it, regardless.
He gazed at her as she partook of the most exquisite and difficult fruit to nurture inside the spheres: honeydew melon. She made it seem like an obscene affair. Each melon had been scoured for its pale green meat and then scooped producing small crisp, sweet balls of fruit. Ada carefully plucked each ball and sucked it off the finely tined fork.
Raymond had not touched his breakfast and the young cook and baker, Billy, had sent word that if his royal meals were not up to par that he should be made aware immediately.
Raymond knew the royal cook's skill in fashioning meals had not been lost; only a certain Princess, with her rancid behavior, had come like a thief and absconded with his entire appetite.
Ada studied him as she sucked her balls of fruit, decimating the entire bowl, sucking each ball as though it was not fruit at all but something far more human. Raymond frowned.
“Let us speak plainly, Raymond, my betrothed.”
Of course she must remind him of their carefully constructed arrangement.
It was alarming to him how quickly he was beginning to loathe her and he had been in her acquaintance but one scant day past.
The SAVAGE Series, Books 1-3: The Pearl Savage, The Savage Blood and The Savage Principle Page 59
