She broke off when he seized her, pulling her against him and burying his face in her hair. Even as overwrought as he was, he made sure not to touch her skin. “I kept asking for you,” he whispered brokenly. “At first they said you wouldn’t come, and then that you couldn’t. Until I saw Chuffta, I thought…”
He trailed off, so she tugged at his hair, tipping down his face so he’d look at her. They’d cleaned him up, trimmed his beard, and tied back his hair. The new scar on his face had healed some, though it still pulled with angry red. And the flinty gray of his eyes held the dampness of grief. “You knew that was a lie. There’s never a time I wouldn’t come to you if I could.”
A crooked smile twisted his mouth. “Because you love me.”
She sighed in exasperation. “You’ll never let me forget I said that.”
“No. It means too much to me.” He stroked a hand over her hair. “You only just awoke—are you all right?” He looked around the room, seeming to notice it for the first time. “Why are you in the ward for Arill’s Blessings?”
She laughed, beyond happy just to see him alive and well. “Just awoke, remember? And I don’t even know what that means.” Over his shoulder, several of the other patients had sat up, eyeing them with curious dark gazes—including the healer, whose face was aghast. “But we do have an audience.”
He didn’t even look. “We won’t for long. I’m taking you to my chambers. Can you stand?”
When she hesitated, he moved to scoop her up—she barely stopped him. “Your side, Lonen. I can tell it pains you.”
“Not having you with me pains me more.”
“Your Highness.” The healer stepped up, gathering her authority of common sense that outranked even a king. “The…your wife is correct. You shouldn’t even be out of bed. You cannot risk opening the wound again or you will risk being abed another week. Or longer.”
He rolled his eyes at Oria, and she ducked her face close to him so the healer wouldn’t see her smile at his irreverence. “She’s right,” she said to him. “But I’m all right here. Get some food in me and I’ll be good to stand and walk soon.”
“They haven’t fed you?” His expression went thunderous.
“It’s hard to feed a sleeping person. But I’m tough and stubborn, as you know.”
“I do know. Your stubbornness will be the end of me, I swear to Arill. But you can be as stubborn as you like in my bed. Talya—send for a litter to carry Her Highness to my rooms.”
The healer, apparently named Talya, hesitated long enough for Lonen’s face to go to stone. He turned and gave her one look—and she stalked off to do his bidding.
“She’s not happy that I’m here,” Oria noted. The other faces that watched them, including Destrye who’d clearly followed Lonen here and lingered outside the doorway, talking in consternation and gesturing at her, all looked unhappy. She’d warned him of this, that the Destrye would not be pleased to have one of their sworn enemy among them. “None of them are. They think I’ve cast a spell on you.”
“Ask me if I care what they think.”
“Lonen, seriously!”
“I am being serious.” He looked at the crowd by the door. “Leave us. Unless you’re carrying a litter for my queen or food for her, be gone. Enough of this.” With a grunt, he picked her up. “Chuffta, man, clear the way.”
“Lonen!” she snapped. His limp was obvious as he strode after her Familiar, the hall now empty. “If you make yourself worse again, I’ll—”
“Nurse me back to health?” He turned his head to grin at her, then nuzzled her hair. “That could be fun.”
She sighed. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I’m happy to have you with me. You’re never leaving my sight again. I’m taking you where you belong and then I promise to rest. After I see that you’re fed.”
The hallways, strangely narrow and twisting, all in forms of wood, some with leaves and branches, sometimes open to the cold sky, flew past as he carried her. “Will you sit on me?” she teased.
“If necessary.” His tone made it obvious he didn’t find it all funny. He carried her into a grand chamber, dominated by a large bed and huge fireplace, all familiar for some odd reason. Then she realized—one of the soothing images that he used to reassure her. Setting her on the bed, he called for servants to stoke the fire and bring soup. Shivering, she crawled under the furs, these so soft she couldn’t resist stroking them. Chuffta, with mind-trills of delight, went to the fireplace.
“This is much better. You’ll get well here. Soon you’ll be stronger than ever.”
If only. Lonen, paler, hand holding his side, sat beside her on the bed. “What? What’s that expression?”
“And you say you can’t read my thoughts.”
“I can’t.” He looked supremely annoyed about it, too. “I couldn’t even feel you inside me. I’d lie in this bed, dreaming of you and the golems, and I’d wake up and not know where you were.”
“You’ve had a fever.”
“Yes. Cursed infection. But see?” He gave her that optimistic grin. “We made it to Dru. I told you we’d do it. Everything will be okay.”
Not everything. “Lonen.”
His smile dimmed. “Save it. Whatever you’re about to say, we’ll talk about it when we’re well.”
“No, I have to say it now. You couldn’t feel me because my magic is gone. There’s none left and very likely no way for me to get it back now. I can’t help the Destrye. You married me for no reason.”
His face went deathly still. “What are you saying?”
“You’re not listening to me. We married for specific reasons that no longer exist.”
He shrugged that off. “Things change. Those reasons don’t matter. We made vows to each other.”
Exactly what she’d thought. She drew herself up. “Your people put me in that charity ward because that’s what I am. I’m not even a decent trophy anymore. I can’t go home, but neither will I be a burden on you.”
He sighed heavily. “Arill knows, you are a burden.”
She tried not to let that hurt, because she’d known it. Fragile Oria. Always potentially something, never more than a not-quite-good-enough. “Look. Out in the desert when I tried to get you to leave me behind, we talked about this. And you said that you were determined to get me to Dru no matter what so I could save the Destrye. But I can’t.”
He stared at her, incredulous. “I said that to give you a reason to live, to dig in, because you were so het up to sacrifice yourself. That’s not why I wanted you to live, to come to Dru.”
“Of course it is. I understand that. It’s not like you love me. And there’s Natly to consider, so I’m willing to release you from—”
He cut her off with a raised hand. “Stop right there. Of course I love you. I tell you so all the time.”
Her mouth dropped open, temper rising that he’d make such a claim. “You have not. Never once have you said so.”
“All the time,” he repeated evenly. “I call you ‘love’ all the time.”
“I didn’t know that’s what you meant,” she floundered. When had he first called her that? Ages ago. In the desert, maybe. Or the oasis.
He raised his gaze to the ceiling. “Arill give me patience with this woman. What, Oria, did you think ‘love’ meant?”
“I don’t know!” She threw up her hands. “For all I know you Destrye call your cattle ‘love’ before you slaughter them. Maybe you mean ‘juicy little snack.’”
He lowered his gaze to her, the flinty frustration lightening with blue sparks. “Well, you are that, so I agree it could be a valid interpretation.”
His words shouldn’t have warmed her, but they did. “Does it matter, though?” she persisted. “There’s so much to be overcome.”
“Be still,” he said. Then, tucking his robe around himself, he got into the bed behind her, adjusting her so she lay back against him, the furs over them and his arms tight around her. “Be still and listen. I love
you, Oria. You love me. It doesn’t matter what brought us to this moment. It doesn’t matter what the future will bring. All that matters is us, being together. Everything else is just a part of that story.”
“The story they’ll tell about us in the history books?” she asked, drowsy with warmth and his comforting nearness. With feeling his love wrap around her.
“Yes, complete with illustrations. The mighty-thewed Destrye king and his powerful, copper-haired Báran sorceress queen.”
“You’ll need to eat better, to build up those thews again,” she murmured.
“We’ll work on that, too.” He kissed her hair.
“And their faithful derkesthai companion” Chuffta inserted, belly up in front of the fire.
She relayed that to Lonen, and he laughed. “Along with their fierce warhorse, Black Buttercup.”
She smiled at the image. In that moment it all seemed possible.
The story continues in
The Forests of Dru
Coming early 2017
About Jeffe Kennedy
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include novels, non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award.
Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion; an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera; and the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, which includes Going Under, Under His Touch and Under Contract.
Her award-winning fantasy romance trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms hit the shelves starting in May 2014. Book 1, The Mark of the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review and was nominated for the RT Book of the Year while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose received a Top Pick Gold and was nominated for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014. The third book, The Talon of the Hawk, won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015. Two more books followed in this world, beginning the spin-off series The Uncharted Realms, with The Pages of the Mind in May 2016 and The Edge of the Blade in December 2016.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular SFF Seven blog, on Facebook, on Goodreads and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Connor Goldsmith of Fuse Literary.
jeffekennedy.com
facebook.com/Author.Jeffe.Kennedy
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Titles by Jeffe Kennedy
OTHER FANTASY ROMANCES
A COVENANT OF THORNS
Rogue’s Pawn
Rogue’s Possession
Rogue’s Paradise
THE TWELVE KINGDOMS
Negotiation
The Mark of the Tala
The Tears of the Rose
The Talon of the Hawk
Heart’s Blood
For Crown and Kingdom
THE UNCHARTED REALMS
The Pages of the Mind
The Edge of the Blade (Coming 12/27/16)
SORCEROUS MOONS
Lonen’s War
Oria’s Gambit
CONTEMPORARY EROTIC ROMANCES
Exact Warm Unholy
FACETS OF PASSION
Sapphire
Platinum
Ruby
Five Golden Rings
FALLING UNDER
Going Under
Under His Touch
Under Contract
EROTIC PARANORMAL
MASTER OF THE OPERA E-SERIAL
Master of the Opera, Act 1: Passionate Overture
Master of the Opera, Act 2: Ghost Aria
Master of the Opera, Act 3: Phantom Serenade
Master of the Opera, Act 4: Dark Interlude
Master of the Opera, Act 5: A Haunting Duet
Master of the Opera, Act 6: Crescendo
Master of the Opera
BLOOD CURRENCY
Feeding the Vampire
Hunting the Siren
BDSM FAIRYTALE ROMANCE
Petals and Thorns
OTHER WORKS
Birdwoman
Hopeful Monsters
Teeth, Long and Sharp
Thank you for reading!
Table of Contents
Title Page
About the Book
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
About Jeffe Kennedy
Titles by Jeffe Kennedy
The Tides of Bára Page 18
