Prince Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  Because he was innocent.

  The compassion seeping into my chest broke a hole a bit wider. The leak became a small trickle.

  “Stop that,” Bar complained.

  “Stop what?”

  “That blasted goody-goody, syrupy ‘find the good in everybody’ attitude. I’m so sick of your sweetness I think I’m going to vomit.”

  “I bet you I’ll hurl first.”

  “Bet what?”

  “You owe me ten white feathers if I puke first.”

  “What do I get if you make me puke first?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead I reached out a trembling hand to touch Rygel’s damp, dirty shoulder. He looked up. “I’ll pray that you are telling the truth. If you are somehow, someday, vindicated, we’ll heal this breach between us.”

  Taking my hand within his own, gently, carefully, as though to do so might break me, Rygel kissed it. “Thank you, my queen.”

  “All right,” I said, trying to turn away, twisting in Right, or perhaps Left’s, arms. “Clear a path. I’m going to hurl.”

  Agony speared through my entrails as I vomited up the breakfast Arianne shared with me, many long hours before. Now I saw out of neither eye. Darkness swirled about my vision, the dizziness spun me about so hard I didn’t know up from down. Strong arms steadied my hot, trembling body, concerned voices drifted up and over me. I didn’t understand the words, though.

  “You planned that,” Bar accused.

  At that moment, I wasn’t even coherent enough to answer him. The darkness deepened about me. I followed it down, welcoming its comforting folds, its warmth protecting me from the pain, the nausea. At last I could sleep. Raine? Where are you? Raine –

  I woke slowly, opening my eyes crusted with sand and grit, my left hip aching. At first I thought my eyes weren’t functioning correctly. I saw black surrounded by grey and tan. Lifting my hand, I wiped away some of the grit, clearing my vision. Oh, I get it. I stared at a knee. A knee dressed in black.

  My mental functions returned with a rush. I lay with my head pillowed on someone’s lap. A rock dug into my hip as I lay on my side, explaining the ache there. Being that the leg I rested on wore black, I knew my head lay on either Left or Right’s thigh. I peered around and upward.

  “Welcome back,” said Bar, in my head.

  “Welcome back,” said Kel’Ratan at the very same moment.

  That was weird, I thought woozily.

  I don’t know where Bar was, but Kel’Ratan sat directly in front of my face. Obviously, he waited on me. I tried to sit up, but fell back. Damn it. Things should be working better than this.

  With the strong hand of the twin whose body cradled mine, and Kel’Ratan’s hand under my arm, I found myself sitting upright. Swaying, needing support to sit straight, I looked around, trying to get my facilities back in working order.

  “What happened?” I asked, brushing my hair out of my face and taking a deep breath. The world steadied a bit and my mental functions took a step forward.

  That didn’t hurt. I breathed again, deeply. No pain. I touched my fingers to my cheekbone where Rygel’s fist struck, not once but three times. Not only no pain answered my questioning fingers, but no swelling did either. I saw from both eyes. My hands travelled to my belly, inquiring.

  “Rygel healed you,” Kel’Ratan answered my questioning hands and eyes raised up to his. He smiled. His mustache didn’t bristle. Not once.

  “Oh,” I said, courteously shaking off the helping hand of the twin. “How long did I sleep?”

  Kel’Ratan squinted at the sun. “Maybe three hours. But if you hadn’t woken on your own, I would have. We need to get moving.”

  “Where’s Rygel?”

  “Over there.” Kel’Ratan jerked his chin to my right and slightly behind me. “He passed out moments after you did.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. He lay on his side in the sand, his head pillowed on his saddle. Arianne wrapped his bared leg in a bandage, her lips twisted in concentration. Shardon stood behind her, his head lowered just over hers, no doubt offering clinical advice. Could I stand to have him near, forever on my guard? Was he truly a traitor, and a top-class actor? Did I just make a colossal, fatal mistake?

  “You’re an idiot,” Bar snapped.

  “Shut up,” I murmured aloud, my eyes filled with Rygel.

  Kel’Ratan looked offended, scowling darkly and his brows furrowed over his narrowed eyes.

  “Not you,” I said, brushing my hair from my eyes. “Him.”

  Arianne put the finishing touches on a bandage around Rygel lower leg as I called her name. She glanced up, inquiring.

  “Wake him up,” I said. “Time to go.”

  She nodded, and shook Rygel’s shoulder gently.

  From the lap of the other twin, Tuatha emerged with a yawn and a stretch, his pink tongue curling at the end. He uttered a mixture of a whine and a growl when he saw me, and slid to the ground. He stretched like a plump cat, his back arched and his tail sticking straight up like a dark fuzzy stick. Reaching out with a body that didn’t hurt in most places that counted, I gathered him to me.

  “Hey, baby,” I cooed, rubbing his ears and massaging his neck. I kissed the top of his head, feeling strong and supple and free. He gazed up at me, licking his black nose, his blue eyes adoring. “Thanks for the rescue. You big bad wolf.”

  His lips peeled back in a white snarl. I pushed them back down over his teeth. “Don’t say that. Rygel may be innocent. We must weigh all the evidence before judging.”

  “You’re in idiot,” Bar repeated.

  “Didn’t you agree he may be telling the truth?” I snapped, looking up into the sky, searching for him. Of course, he was not there. He was lurking in hiding, as usual, the big coward.

  “I did agree,” Bar replied smugly. “I can still call you an idiot, though.”

  “Just wait until I get my hands on you,” I grumbled. “You owe me feathers.”

  “You cheated.”

  “I did not cheat.”

  “Cheat on what?” Kel’Ratan inquired.

  I dragged in a deep breath, smoothing my ratty hair, trying to regain some semblance of normalcy. “We had a bet on who would vomit first. I won.”

  “You cheated.”

  “You – “ Kel’Ratan began, his eyes bulging.

  Setting Tuatha on his feet in the sand, I stood up, brushing dirt from my slave’s clothing. I rubbed my hip where the rock dug deep, soothing an ache that felt almost welcome in the aftermath of the agony I felt earlier.

  “I think I’ll have Rygel break that mind link,” I murmured to Kel’Ratan and the twins. “I liked him better before I knew what he really said.”

  “You just can’t handle the truth,” Bar commented, snide.

  Finding both twins standing to either side of me, I turned. Snaking my arms around their waists, I drew them to me. As my face reached only their chests, I buried it somewhere between them. I felt their hands creep around my back, tucking me in. As they never spoke, I didn’t feel the need to, either. I simply looked up at them, meeting twin sets of dark eyes, dark hair and tiny smiles. Pursing my lips up at them in an air kiss, I squeezed them tight for a long moment. The three of us, slaves together. They’d no need to speak: I felt their love caress me like gentle fingers across my skin.

  Around me, my boys rose to their feet, dusting off their clothing. Yuri, Yuras and Tor put away their dice game atop a saddle blanket. Tor shook the sand from the blanket before tossing it over his saddle, upended nearby.

  My glance brought my warriors closer in.

  “Until proven guilty, Rygel is innocent,” I said firmly. “There’ll be no retaliation against him.”

  I expected no argument, and received none. I suspected that they all, like me, realized that perhaps Rygel had been the victim of an outside force bent on my destruction. And we all knew that something, or someone, very powerful wanted me dead very badly.

  My voice caught the attention of Rygel himself
and Arianne. Rygel’s face, pale and drawn, told me he stood at the end of his limit. His healing powers took far more from him than me. Raising his slender right hand to his brow, he shut his eyes, breathing deeply. In the long moments that followed, Arianne bit her lip and watched him. Shardon shook his mane and watched me. I shrugged.

  “Get busy,” I snapped to my boys, who stood about, silent, also watching Rygel spell himself with new energy. “We’ve a long way to go.”

  With hasty salutes, they tackled the task of fetching in their grazing horses, filling packs, shaking sand from saddle cloths, all the while maintaining a very short, very protective, distance from me.

  Rygel straightened, his skin tan once more, his amber eyes bright and smiling as he bent swiftly to snatch a kiss from Arianne’s cheek. She of course, giggled. Hand in hand the pair crossed the sand toward us, Shardon one step behind.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, embracing me fondly, planting a kiss on my neck.

  She smelled of lilac and sand and just plain, simple Arianne. I cupped her soft cheek with my hand, unable to put a halt to my own smile.

  “Better,” I said. “How’s by you?”

  “I’m well, thanks,” she replied shyly, half turning away to include Rygel in her warm, glorious eyes. Speak to him, those eyes said. Please.

  I obeyed. No reason not to, I supposed. I did give him a second chance, after all.

  When my eyes reached him, he bowed low. Still unwilling to meet my eyes, I thought with humor. I reckoned had I grievously injured a liege I vowed love and loyalty to, I couldn’t meet one’s eyes either.

  “Relax, Rygel,” I murmured. “I meant what I said.”

  “I know, Princess,” he replied quietly, his eyes on the ground. “I – I feel so awful.”

  I didn’t reply. Perhaps he meant them, or perhaps, in Bar’s words, he fooled us all. Yet, that question couldn’t be answered now. However, I had other questions that might be.

  “Arianne,” I said, gathering her attention. “Earlier you said the lieutenant had suspicions. Care to explain that?”

  Arianne gulped and nodded, her huge eyes worried. “That’s why I invited him along. I knew it was dangerous, but I had to. He’d have followed along, at a distance. He knew, or suspected, who we really were. I used the wolves as an excuse to invite him, to allay those suspicions.”

  “How’d you know he was suspicious?”

  Her worried expression dropped. Her mouth frowned down and her pale brow puckered. “Oh, please.”

  My jaw slackened. “You read his mind?”

  Her tiny shoulder in its dirty brocade shrugged. “If that’s what you call it.”

  Kel’Ratan stepped forward, all but leaning over her. “Is that how you knew what happened to the real Princess Irridi?”

  “Of course,” she answered, as though speaking to a child. “I plucked it from his mind. How else would I know her history?”

  “You plucked -“ Kel’Ratan began.

  “Do you read everyone’s minds?” Witraz asked hastily, lifting his saddle to his piebald, his long hair swinging.

  Alun smacked him upside his head. Witraz almost dropped his saddle.

  “Your Highness,” he amended quickly.

  Arianne frowned. “No, not really. Only if the voice inside my head is loud enough. Or if I want to know what someone is thinking.”

  “What am I thinking?” Kel’Ratan asked.

  Arianne’s blush rose like a new dawn.

  Kel’Ratan harrumphed, his own cheeks slightly rosy. “Well, I reckon she does at that.”

  “I need some clarification here,” I said, scowling at my cousin. “You read from the lieutenant’s mind that he found us suspicious, correct?”

  Arianne nodded.

  “He believed us to be Kel’Hallans and not Zhous?”

  “Exactly,” Arianne said, relieved.

  “He’d have tagged along, hoping to spot Kel’Hallan behavior and not Zhou?”

  “Or rather, he hoped he’d have the proof he needed that you were indeed…you.”

  “So-o,” I answered, drawing the word out. “By bringing him along for a time, begging his protection, you hoped he’d think he’d found a brainless twit of a Khalidian princess? When he hoped he’d found Brutal’s runaway bride?”

  She waved her small arms about, frustrated. “If you know it already, why are you asking me?”

  “What if we made a mistake?”

  Arianne stood up straight, her confidence shining through like the sun at noonday. “How could we?”

  “And when you tripped,” Kel’Ratan went on. “That enabled a slave’s punishment. For what loyal servant would beat his liege?”

  All eyes stared at Rygel. He had the grace to drop his eyes to the ground and clasp his hands behind his back.

  Kel’Ratan stroked his mustache, frowning heavily. “A few smacks with a stick across her shoulders might have sufficed to ease their suspicion and cause hardly any harm.”

  “Unless something interfered,” Corwyn said quietly from atop his horse a few paces to Rygel’s back.

  “Or engineered.”

  A profound silence fell at Rannon’s quiet statement, as we all pondered the implications.

  “So here’s what we’re looking at,” Kel’Ratan said, holding up his hand, his index finger raised. “One: he/she/it knows Ly’Tana is acting as a slave. Two.” His second finger popped up. “He/she/it screws with Rygel’s head. Three.” His third finger rose. “He/she/it plants suspicion in the young officer that we are indeed the Kel’Hallans Brutal wants. Obviously, Arianne isn’t a Kel’Hallan princess, so Brutal’s intended must be the red-headed Zhou slave. Four.” His ring finger popped up. “He/she/it has Rygel lose his mind in a rage and all but kill her. After all, Ly’Tana splashed water on his beloved.”

  “That’s number five,” I said. “Number four was my tripping, giving Rygel the excuse.”

  Kel’Ratan nodded slowly, glancing around at the others. Rygel’s head rose higher, his hand ran through his disheveled hair in the old familiar, impatient-Rygel way. However slowly, he returned to normal. He actually met my gaze and offered a half-smile. I returned it with a slight nod. Perhaps his vindication neared.

  “I don’t know what tripped me up,” I went on, glancing around. “It seemed odd at the time. Perhaps we know why now.”

  “All right,” Kel’Ratan said loudly, glaring around at everyone. “If he/she/it can meddle in Rygel’s brain, then any of us could be next. You’re all ordered to report any odd or weird thoughts that go through your heads.”

  Witraz opened his mouth.

  “You are exempted, Witraz,” Kel’Ratan growled. “You always have weird thoughts in that fool head of yours.”

  Snapping his mouth shut, Witraz’s lips twisted and his brows rose, clearly offended by Kel’Ratan’s comment. Rannon smirked and poked him in the ribs.

  Grinning at Witraz, I slid my gaze around to the rest of them. I tried to gauge the level of their hostility toward Rygel. While he wasn’t openly included in the jest, he wasn’t covertly reviled with glances of hate, of anger. I saw no whispers behind averted heads, no hands that stroked blades while eyeing him sidelong. I knew my people well: not a one of them owned a subtle bone in his body.

  Judgment held in abeyance.

  I could accept that. My boys, on their end, refused to apologize for their behavior. Nor would I expect them to. Eyeing Rygel sidelong, I observed he didn’t seem to want any, for he put his arm around Arianne, sharing a reassuring smile with her.

  My glance caught Alun’s. He offered a lightning quick half-smile and a flickering glance toward Rygel while his shoulders rolled under his tunic in a tiny shrug. I recognized Alun-speak for ‘we’ll see what we see’. I dropped my brow in a subtly nod, my eyes refusing to glance toward Rygel. My action earned a half-salute.

  Alun murmured, “We’ll be ready to move in no time, Your Highness.”

  “Yes,” answered Kel’Ratan heavily. “We need to fin
d those secret monks. Any chance there will be one there?”

  His eyes found Rygel at the same time his chin jerked in the direction the tent city, Ararak, lay.

  Rygel shook his wheaten mane. “I doubt it. That place is nothing more than a city-size market. Only business is transacted there. No temples.”

  “Where then?”

  Rygel gazed off to the northwest, frowning, his brows lowered over squinted amber eyes. “I think there are a few small cities beyond the desert,” he said slowly. “Once we pass through the lands of the Mesaan tribes, we’ll enter more populated Khalid territories. I’m sure we’ll find someone there.”

  I exchanged a long, despairing glance with Arianne. That could take weeks. By then the snows will be deep in even the lower elevations of the mountains. Those high passes will be too difficult for us to traverse, if not bloody impassable, by then. Raine will have reached the lair of the dragons and the entrance to hell long before we even got halfway up. Damn and blast, I thought savagely. This he/she/it who wanted me dead is really pissing me off.

  “We may yet make that tent city by dark,” said Rannon.

  “Ararak,” I murmured.

  “How’d you know that’s its name?” Kel’Ratan asked.

  I half-shrugged, lifting one shoulder. “I heard the soldiers talking about it. Start thinking of the supplies we’ll need.”

  Yuri, Yuras and Tor mocked shoved each other toward the back of the group, near the horses, my near-death experience already forgotten. The sun had long passed its zenith. This entire adventure had taken up almost an entire day. A day we desperately needed to not lose.

  “Saddle up,” I said, motioning toward the herd of horses. “Have they been watered?”

  For answer, Kel’Ratan gave me a long suffering look.

  “I was just asking,” I said defensively.

  Shardon followed Rygel to his saddle, Arianne tagging along, almost skipping. Her dress is still filthy, I thought. We’d need to clean both her and Rygel up before we left the tiny canyon we hid in. I frowned down at myself. Blood-stains on a slave was probably acceptable.

  Corwyn walked his roan closer. “Are you well enough to travel, Your Highness? We can simply stay here the night, and leave in the morning.”