by Jessi Gage
Licking his lips and setting the drink down, his sire said, “I prefer to get my news from the messengers who bring the monthly reports.”
The barkeep made a dismissive noise. “A little gossip keeps things interesting, don’t it?”
His sire’s friend, Vorish, appeared at their backs, dropping a token onto the bar. “Usual,” he said to the barkeep. Then he greeted Riggs and his sire with slaps on their shoulders. “Let Rolf have his fun. He only feels important when he’s got rumors to distribute.”
“He’d do better to distribute booze,” his sire grumbled, but he did so with a grin.
Rolf pushed out his lower lip, pretending offense, but his eyes gleamed with whatever news he couldn’t wait to share. Leaning over the bar, as if the news were for their ears only, he scratched his beard and said, “Apparently, Glerick’s finished the portrait the king commissioned. His Majesty unveiled it two nights ago at a big to-do at the palace. Get this. When the curtain parts to reveal the long-awaited portrait, the ladies and gentlemen gathered in the great hall gasp as one. The subject, it’s not Himself, as tradition holds. It’s a lady.” Rolf’s eyes went wide. He looked between the three of them, waiting for a reaction.
Riggs failed to see how this was interesting. Everyone knew King Magnus honored the ladies. It was probably a portrait of Diana or something. He drank some more and turned his attention to the boy, wondering how close they were in age and who his mother might be.
He caught snippets of the conversation at the bar, but was trying to listen to the boy’s lyrics. He sang about a world where women ruled and men fought each other to the death for the right to breed with their queen. Riggs lost himself in the fantasy, imagining himself a full-grown warrior, wielding a battle axe, wearing a breastplate and armor on his arms and legs, winning exclusive breeding rights to his queen.
“But not just any lady, I heard,” Vorish said.
“A dark-haired beauty,” Rolf piped in. “Visited the king’s dreams the night of his coronation, I heard.”
Riggs’s ears perked up. His mother had dark hair, like him. And she was lovely enough to dream about.
“Not overly dark,” Vorish said. “The color of roasted chestnuts. If you’re going to gossip, be specific, man.”
Not Hilda then. Riggs tried to return to his fantasy. His queen welcomed him into her bedchamber. She waited for him on her bed of fine furs, naked and glorious.
“Yes, yes. Chestnut hair,” Rolf was saying. “But that’s hardly as notable as the fact her breasts were hairless. Pink little nipples in the center of smooth ivory orbs, like twin moons.”
Riggs abandoned the fantasy. Hairless breasts deserved his undivided attention. He turned back to the bar to find Rolf cupping his hands before his apron.
“She’s not wolfkind,” Vorish said.
Rolf slapped his dishrag on the bar. “Who’s telling the story?”
“Sorry. Go on. What else was remarkable about the lady?” Vorish exchanged grins with his sire while Rolf recovered his rag and tucked it into his belt.
“Tell us more about her breasts,” Riggs said.
His sire smacked the back of his head to the laughter of the other men.
“Fine, round, succulent things, I heard,” Rolf said, showing his yellow teeth. “Smooth and tasting of honey.”
“Tasting of paint, more like,” his sire said.
They all laughed at that.
“Tell them about her markings,” Vorish said.
Rolf leaned in again, conspiratorial. “On her cheek, the lady in the painting bears the brand of the goddess, the paw-print of Danu in her wolf form. And around her neck she wears a gemstone. King Magnus says it’s a gift from the goddess, a sign that she’ll be the savior of our people.”
Riggs rolled his eyes and pushed away from the bar. Nonsense. Either the king was as batty as half the country seemed to think, or Rolf got his news from Chroina’s most imaginative drunks.
Before joining a table of men to listen to the boy’s next song, he heard his sire say, “When is this savior supposed to come?”
“No one knows,” Vorish said. “Not even His Majesty.”
He’d scoffed at the barkeep’s gossip then, but over the years, he’d wondered. His sire had always believed Danu would not forsake them. He’d scolded Riggs for suggesting King Magnus was mad for the vision he’d claimed to have.
Now the king’s vision sat on his pallet, claw marks like a paw print on her cheek, and a magical gemstone that could very well be a gift from the goddess in her hand. Beneath his shirt, her breasts would be bare. He could tell from how smooth her arms and legs were. The hairs there were as fine as wood dust.
He’d fantasized about bare-breasted women for years after that visit to Figcroft. Never in his wildest imaginings had he imagined his own shirt would conceal such rare treasures.
He’d known he would need to take her to Chroina because it wasn’t safe for females outside the city gates. But now he understood just what had been entrusted to his care. Anya was the king’s lady. The one whose portrait the king had hung in the throne room and commanded Marann to anticipate. Each report from the palace ended with the charge: Hope is alive. Danu has not forgotten her people. A savior comes.
Apparently, he would be the one to bring that savior to the place where she belonged. Not just Chroina, but the palace.
King Magnus had never taken a queen or a concubine, claiming he waited for his special lady. He attempted to breed, of course, not discounting the possibility of creating an heir with one of Chroina’s fine ladies. But he claimed no woman for his own, denied no woman access to other men, other chances to conceive.
The king would take Anya as his pledgemate, his queen. Of all women, she alone would belong to one man. Why should that burn a hole through his chest?
“Why did ye burn it?”
He looked sharply at her. Did her gemstone give her the power to read minds as well as speak his tongue?
She widened her eyes impatiently. “My dress. Why did ye burn it? I could have mended the tears. Did it occur to you ’twas all I had to wear?” She spread her arms, indicating herself in his shirt.
His chest swelled with pride. The king’s lady wore his shirt. When he delivered her to the palace, she would smell like him.
“Had to destroy it. It carried your scent.”
Her jaw dropped. “Aye, it needed washing, but to burn it? Must you insult me as well as hold me prisoner?”
He spun to face her. “Prisoner?” Is that what she thought?
“What else am I to think? You carry me away to your cottage. You take away my clothes. You doona bother telling me what ye plan to do with me.” She gestured with her arms as she ranted. Her voice rose along with the color in her cheeks. But when she stopped, her shoulders sagged. Her doe-eyes turned down to the floor. “What’s to become of me?”
He went to her and sat on the pallet beside her. He started to reach for her, but remembering his vow, stopped before he touched her.
She lifted her gaze to his, and it felt like a thread went taut between them. It pulled at his stomach, unsettling him even as it seemed to anchor him. She felt like his. But she wasn’t. She belonged to the king.
“You are not my prisoner,” he told her. “I am your servant.”
She frowned. “I should be your servant. I owe you my life.”
“You’ll serve no one. Not ever again. You will want for nothing. This I swear. But first, I must take you to Chroina. It’s not safe for you anywhere else. It’s a long journey, and we should leave soon. There may be Larnians tracking us. That’s why I burned your dress. Less scent for them to follow.”
She searched his eyes and must have found what she’d been looking for, because she nodded. “Well, I canna go in naught but your shirt. What am I to wear, o’ servant of mine?”
His heart turned over. She was so brave. Crippled and lost, she had nothing left to her, not even the clothes on her back. Nothing but the magical gemstone curle
d in her fist. Yet she gave him her trust.
He would not fail her. He could not. Not when the survival of his people depended on her womb.
Chapter 5
Anya sat on the bed and watched Riggs paw through the large chest in the corner near the fireplace. He was looking for clothing he’d worn as a lad, he’d told her. While he searched, she uncurled her fist and studied the smooth amethyst gem Gravois had given her. When she held it, she and Riggs could understand each other. Like magic. Had Gravois known what would happen to her?
“Your destiny lies elsewhere,” he’d told her. “There is a place for you. Perhaps you will find it if you take a leap of faith.”
Or if a meddling magic box gave her a push.
Did her destiny lie here with this man? She looked around his cabin, feeling quite at home already. She could be content standing at that broad, stone hearth to boil coney stew. She could be content in this pallet beneath the brawny body of the most powerfully built man she’d ever met. Aye. She could belong in this place.
But he’d said they had to leave. He intended to take her to a place called Chroina that was far from here. For her safety, he claimed. Likely ’twas because he didn’t want her. She didn’t blame him, but that didn’t keep his rejection from stinging.
A thumping sound made her look up. Riggs had dropped a pair of heavy-looking boots at her feet.
“Here.” He set a stack of folded clothing on the bed and toed the boots closer. He was taking great care not to touch her again. That stung too. She liked it better when he was gazing fondly at her and stealing private caresses, however brief.
He opened the door to the sound of chirping birds greeting the day with enthusiasm. Only a mild ache remained from the knock to her head yesterday, thank the saints. A night of rest had done her well.
“There’s bread and tea over there.” He indicated the hearth. “I’ll be gone a while. When I return, we leave for Chroina.” He left, closing the door behind him.
“Man of bloody few words.” At least she could understand them now.
She grabbed the clothing he’d left her and shook out a pair of trews cut from heavy canvas, then a sturdy linen shirt. Both smelled like cedar and clean dog. Thankfully, they were sized much smaller than the shirt she currently wore. She stripped and put on Riggs’s old clothes, tucking in the shirt. The fit was reasonable, though the trews were wide in the waist and required rolling at the ankle. Not to mention, it felt odd sheathing her legs like a man from the Lowlands. The seams scratched her skin and felt thick between her thighs. The deep pocket on her right hip provided a safe home for the gemstone. Now, if only she had a belt to help hold them up. She looked under Riggs’s bed, not finding anything to use as such. When he returned, she’d have to ask him where he kept his rope.
A pair of woolen socks darned many times over had been rolled together and stuffed into the right boot. Just looking at the boots, she kent they’d be too big. But beggars should not be choosers. At least they fastened with leather laces, so they wouldn’t fall off. She supposed she should be thankful he had spare boots from when he’d been a child.
While she imagined Riggs as a child—all boundless energy and wild black curls—she put on the boots and tied them up nice and secure. She took a few jarring steps. Might as well have bags of sand strapped to her legs, they were so heavy. But the thick soles, like cork seasoned with pitch, would protect her feet. ’Twas definitely different from walking in her doeskin shoes, but she’d get used to it. Had to, since he’d burned her shoes along with her dress.
Riggs was, in fact, gone “a while.” She ate the half-loaf of warm bread he’d left her, sipped some strong tea, swept up the ashes from the fire, tidied his workbench, and fetched fresh water from the brook that ran near the cabin. She’d just thrown open the shutters for fresh air when she caught sight of a towering dark form loping out of the forest and splashing into the brook.
She gasped with fear until she realized it was Riggs. In all his naked glory, like he’d been when she’d first laid eyes on him. Only then, he’d been too close for her to notice the animal grace infusing each of his movements, the beauty of his coat of masculine hair as it grew thick on his chest, forearms and lower legs and thinned on his shoulders, thighs and flank. Her eye went immediately to where that coat was thickest, between his legs. Her cheeks warmed as she stared. She had yet to look her fill before he turned his back and bent to wash himself.
He scooped up great handfuls of clean water and let them trickle down his powerful hips, across his broad back, over his head, turning his black hair blue with a wet sheen.
As the water returned to the brook, it was pink. His skin grew fairer, as though the water carried away something dark. Not dirt. Blood.
He was covered in it. Especially his hands, beard, and neck. She hadn’t noticed before, so enthralled was she with his form.
A pang of worry struck her. She looked at the bandage around his thigh, relieved to see the blood that had seeped through made a spot no larger than a thumbprint. Searching his fine body for other wounds, she found none. ’Twas not his blood. That meant it belonged to someone or somat else.
“I was hunting,” he’d said when they’d first met.
“You hunt naked?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
He’d hunted this morning. That’s where he’d gone. And he hadn’t brought anything back with him, which meant he’d already eaten whatever creature whose blood he was washing off. He’d eaten it raw. After catching and killing it with his bare hands. And those large teeth.
A chill swept through her.
He was not human. She’d kent it before now, but the reality of it struck her anew.
Riggs stepped from the brook and raised his chin, looking toward the cabin.
She ducked away from the window, heart thundering.
She’d instinctively trusted him, but she’d done so without truly understanding what he was. He hunted and ate like an animal. But he also baked bread and heated water for tea. He was built like a beast, but he slept on a beautifully crafted bed in a cozy cabin. Were all the people in this place like him?
The sound of a door closing made her return to the window and look toward the shed twenty paces from the cabin. He must have slept there last night. Was he changing the bandages on his tusk wound? Clothing that powerful body? Och, none of her business.
Forcing her attention to matters that concerned her directly, she moved toward the workbench to wipe out her teacup. Her trews inched down her hips with each step. This wouldn’t do. She looked under the workbench for rope or somat else to use as a belt. Och, the chest by the fireplace. That’s where he’d gotten her new clothes. If he had a belt her size, it would be in there.
She hobbled over and lifted the heavy lid. There may have been clothes folded underneath, but resting on top of a linen sheet was an axe so shiny and fancy, she doubted it had ever been used for anything as mundane as chopping down trees. Its head flared in a wide arc, the tips tapering to sharp points. The back of the blade narrowed to a wicked spike. It gleamed from black handle to steel blade, and it was probably worth more than the half-dozen sheathed knives lining the lid combined.
The door banged open.
The lid slipped from her hand and crashed closed, nearly taking her hand with it. She pulled it back just in time.
Riggs rushed toward her, fully clothed, his hair shining with moisture. His eyes were wild. Was he angry she’d been snooping? Her heart stopped with fear.
“Are you all right?” He grabbed her hands, inspecting them. His worried gaze jumped to her face. “I thought—” He closed his eyes and released a great breath. “I thought you’d caught your hand in the lid.”
He wasn’t angry. Her shoulders began to unwind. He’d promised he wouldn’t hurt her, but she had no assurance he’d keep the promise. He’d also said he wouldn’t touch her, but he kept doing so. She slipped her hands out of his. “Well, you can see I am unharmed,” she said shortly.
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His face hardened, but not quickly enough to hide his hurt from her. He stomped to the pack on the floor and fiddled with its straps.
“What did you have to break your fast?” she asked.
He looked up from the pack. “Found a lynx in the valley south of here.”
“And you caught it with your bare hands and ate it out in the forest?”
His brow furrowed like the answer should be obvious. “Yes.”
Saints above. She didn’t ken whether to be impressed or disgusted. “You ate it raw?”
“Of course,” he said as if there was no other reasonable way to eat meat. He stood and pulled the pack onto his back, buckling a belt-like extension low around his hips. Which reminded her what she’d been about before he’d come in.
“Do you have a belt I can use to keep these trews up?” she asked in a meek voice quite unusual for her.
He went to the chest and lifted the axe out as easily as if it were a quill. After propping it beside the hearth, he dug in the chest and came up with a leather belt. “Here.” He held it out.
Her feet couldn’t decide whether to go to him to take it or not. Part of her was afraid of him. Part of her still tingled with warmth over the memory of his naked form.
His eyebrows, straight, thick sweeps of black hair, lowered to shadow his eyes. A soft growl came from him. He looked dangerous, but oddly, that look dispelled her fear rather than heighten it. It also turned the tingling warmth inside her to flaming heat.
He tossed the belt on the bed. Then he took a sheathed hunting knife from the lid of the chest and tossed that on the bed too. Grabbing up the axe, he said, “Time to go,” and stalked outside.
She’d upset him. That shouldn’t bother her. But it did.
Cursing herself, she put on the belt, slipping it through the knife sheath, and followed him outside, closing the door behind her.
He was already across the rough-hewn bridge spanning the brook, trudging into the forest.
She hobbled after him as fast as her legs could carry her. It bloody well hurt, but she gritted her teeth and pressed on, doing her best to match his stride. When ten minutes had passed and he was still a stone’s throw ahead of her, she shouted, “Humans doona eat raw meat.”
