by Jessi Gage
“Did the king take it from you?”
She shook her head, not understanding. Then she thumped a frustrated fist on his chest and pressed her forehead to his shoulder with a fresh wash of that salty scent.
He’d never had a treasonous thought until that very moment. He’d believed King Magus good and wise, but only a very cruel man or a very foolish one would steal from a lady he claimed was a miracle.
He held Anya tightly and soothed her with long strokes of her silky hair. Resting his cheek on her head, he glared in the direction of the king’s tent.
You can make her yours on paper, but she’ll never belong to you. You don’t deserve this treasure.
Chapter 20
Early evening on the second day of riding with King Magnus’s party, Anya gaped at the stories-high wall of mortared stone stretching as far as the eye could see to the north and the south. It was the first thing she’d seen when they’d emerged from a thin, hilly wood onto a road lined with ruined buildings and abandoned mud huts like the ones she’d seen in Valeworth. With crenellated towers and iron spikes jutting outward like jagged teeth, the wall itself appeared impossible to penetrate. That was before she’d noticed the sun reflecting off a shining ribbon of water at the base of the wall. A moat.
“Does the moat go all the way around?” she asked Riggs. It boggled her mind that a wall would encapsulate an entire city, but where would they get enough water to fill a moat if it went all the way around as well?
He looked at her with raised eyebrows, not understanding.
Och, she ought to be used to it by now, but she still blurted things now and again, forgetting. Curse Magnus’s eyes.
She’d stuck resolutely to Riggs’s side since the king had taken her gemstone. Occasionally, she felt the king’s gaze on her, but she never looked his way. Riggs did enough glaring for both of them. Her pledgemate was none too pleased with his king. His loyalty had been abused.
Did Magnus have any idea what a gift he’d tossed away by acting like a jealous cuckold? Likely not. The man didn’t seem to consider much beyond his own pride.
Well, she had her pride too. Magnus might be the only man she could communicate with, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of going to him for any reason. She muddled her way through the simplest tasks with Riggs, making ridiculous hand gestures and using sticks to carve pictures into the earth when the party made camp in the evenings.
“Drayith,” he said, pointing at the imposing structure they approached. Wall. He’d used the same word for the stone barriers demarking pastures they’d passed. He lifted his hand, pointing to one of the towers. “Fornith.” The moat. “Entieth laich.” Laich sounded similar to loch. It was one of the words their languages shared nearly in common. Once she heard them in isolation, they were easy to spot.
Their tongues were not all that dissimilar. Now that she’d gained an ear for it, she was learning rapidly. She could even say a few simple sentences.
I ride the horse was Meh peehirath dorchlah.
Give me more meat was Hat feth brahnlach meh.
Mayhap she ought to thank Magnus for forcing her to do this. She was mated into Riggs’s kind now. ’Twas time she began learning the language.
She repeated the words after Riggs.
He grinned as he kept his eyes ahead, pleased.
Warmth suffused her chest. It shouldn’t affect her so, making a man proud of her for somat so simple, but Riggs’s pride meant the world to her. He meant the world to her. And she kent she meant the world to him. Her pledgemate had gone without meat the last two days because he refused to leave her side to hunt. No man, no person since Seona, had ever been so attentive to her, so steadfast. But even Seona had left, like her mother. Riggs would never leave her. She sensed it. She felt it deep in her bones.
Magnus likely sensed it too. ’Twas why he behaved so jealously.
The evening they’d met the king’s party, his royal majesty of pulsating pustules had dragged her and Riggs into his tent and fairly forced them to sign his bloody pact. That was after he’d informed her that if she had come to him free of a lifemate bond with a commoner, he would have made her his pledgemate and queen. As it was, he couldn’t even take her as concubine—her association with Riggs precluded any royal title. As if she’d want to be concubine to his royal highness of piss pots.
At least the pact allowed her to be with Riggs whenever the king did not “require her presence”—a clause open to bloody broad interpretation, but the king hadn’t appreciated her pointing that out. He’d cited the case of Aine and Gregor and claimed he would honor the lifemate bond so as not to cause either one of them distress or to call into question that which Danu had blessed.
Och, she couldn’t believe he’d bought it—lifemates! She wasn’t even wolfkind. But she wasn’t complaining. It was the one thing keeping Magnus from taking her for himself and leaving Riggs out in the cold, or worse, tossing him in a dungeon.
Riggs would be given quarters at Glendall, Magnus’s keep. He would be given access to the king’s hunting grounds so long as he exchanged his tanning services for the kills he made. If he chose to earn coin in the king’s army, he’d be allowed. He wouldn’t be as content as he would have been at his own cabin, on his own land, being his own man, but it was far better than being a prisoner, somat the king liked to remind them was within his power, somat he would execute without compunction if they should break the terms of the pact, mainly if the king ever scented Riggs’s seed on her.
Because there could be no chance she might already be with child, a physician would examine her after a full moon cycle. If she was found to be with child, the pact would be dissolved. Riggs would take sole custody of the child when it was weaned. Anya would be permitted to visit with him and the child, but he would never again have breeding rights to her. Their visits would be under guard. Bloody waste of ink that portion of the contract was, since ’twas no way she could be with child.
“Make the most of your time with your lifemate,” Magnus had told her just before he’d dismissed them. “Once I know you carry no child, I shall require you in my bed every night, all night.”
So she was to be the king’s whore. Until she did the impossible and bore him an heir.
Meanwhile, he forbade her from being with her husband the way her body yearned to be. The unfairness of it had her sitting stiff in the saddle. Her horse flicked his ears in irritation.
Forcing her concentration to the new words Riggs had just taught her, she said. “Entieth laich” and drew a circle in the air to indicate around. “Chroina sumeth?”All Chroina? If this city was to be her new home, she might as well learn about it.
Riggs restated the sentence the way it was supposed to go. She committed it to memory as a little thrill went through her at getting her meaning across.
“Ee-ah,” he said with a nod. Aye. Then he said some things she didn’t understand. But he gestured around and made a cutting off motion. Then he said land and sea, two of the many words she had learned in the last two days. Mayhap he meant the moat continued as far as the sea. So it would be seawater in the moat. Interesting. That explained the scent of brine in the air.
It wouldn’t be long before they could speak easily to each other. Already, they were leagues ahead of where they’d been. That first night, after signing Magnus’s bloody pact, Riggs had held her close in the bedroll, whispering unknown assurances to her and kissing her gently. Her body had burned for more, and the evidence of his desire had prodded her hip, but he hadn’t tupped her, hadn’t so much as touched her in an intimate fashion.
“Hinatha, hinatha. Chroina,” he kept saying. Soon, soon. When we reach Chroina, she thought, but she couldn’t be sure.
Did he mean he’d love her with his mouth, with his hands? With his cock, but not to completion? Och, to have another man place restrictions on that which should be theirs alone to enjoy however and whenever they wished rankled to no end. If Magnus had been anything but a king, she would ha
ve rebelled.
She dared not rebel, for she sensed Magnus’s mood teetered on a precipice. If she pushed him, he’d make things even more difficult for them. Bloody jealous cur.
She’d thought fate had smiled kindly on her. Turned out, ’twas more of a cruel jape fate had played, letting her believe she’d found pure happiness only to yank too much of that happiness away.
As the party approached the moat, a great log and plank drawbridge lowered to welcome them. The horses’ hooves thundered over the planks as they entered the city. The gate opened into a grassy bailey full of manicured trees, topiaries in the shapes of wolves and elk and other forest beasts, and curving paths lined with benches. Though lovely, the bailey was completely enclosed by tall stone walls. The only breaks in the wall were the drawbridge they’d just come through, a smaller gate directly across from it, and a passageway on each side just large enough for a pair of horses and a carriage. She understood why most of Riggs’s people chose to live in Chroina. If the double walls went all the way to the sea, like the moat, enemies would have multiple barriers to overcome before breaching the city. She’d never seen a place so secure.
The second gate cranked open as the party approached. Beyond, the streets looked much like those in Inverness. Cobbled stone underfoot, markets and pubs stacked side by side with painted shingles she couldn’t read. Men conversed in doorways, and did business at street carts. Everyone stopped and gaped at the royal party. Some bent their knee. Others lifted their chins in greeting. Some watched with nary an emotion on their faces, their eyes empty.
She watched all this from under the hood of Riggs’s cloak, since riding while keeping herself covered had become habit. She didn’t have to hide here in Chroina, where women weren’t uncommon. Nevertheless, the thought of letting down the hood and inviting curious stares curdled her stomach. What would the people make of her? Would they be as disappointed in her as Magnus was? Och, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t who they all thought her to be.
As if sensing her unease, Riggs pressed his horse closer. They rode with their calves brushing. His nearness comforted her.
After a half hour’s ride, the street opened to a large square lined with fine stone buildings. One had stained glass windows and a spire with an orb at the top. The full moon. She’d begun to associate the symbol with the goddess Danu. At the far end of the square, the buildings sat wide apart, and between them was a grassy vista that stretched toward a multistoried castle large enough to have housed Ackergill Keep five times over. Midway down the vista, a fountain as big around as a horse corral shot water into the air. The plume was perfectly centered between the two tallest towers of the castle. Atop the towers, banners of crimson and gold snapped in the breeze. Behind the castle to the north were snow-capped mountains. Behind and to the right was nothing but cheerful blue sky. The ocean lay that way, though it couldn’t be seen from here. The visual effect should have been stunning, but she took it all in with dispassion.
“Glendall,” Riggs said, eyes on the keep.
“Welcome home,” she muttered.
Riggs pressed his horse even closer and took her hand. He twined their fingers and curled their joined hands to his chest. “Hinatha.” Soon.
A shiver of anticipation went through her.
* * * *
The king’s party divided as they took a cobbled road around the keep to the stables in the back. Most of the soldiers turned off the main path and rode under an archway through which Anya glimpsed a green field scattered with hay-stuffed dummies and archery targets. That must be where the soldiers practiced. Mayhap they had their own stables. Four guards remained with her, Riggs, Magnus, and Neil. These four, all older men with shuttered gazes, were always with the king. His personal guard, mayhap.
As they approached the fine stone stables, the sun was sinking in the sky, making the shadows long and the hay in the outdoor troughs appear dull brown. There was more than a nip in the air. ’Twas quite cold, in fact. Without Riggs’s cloak, she would have been shivering.
A dozen or so aged men in woad-dyed livery met them as they drew to a stop. Stable hands or servants or some combination thereof. One man appeared more distinguished than the others, his livery a crisper blue than the rest. The knotted linen at his throat was brilliant white. He wore a pin of fanned crimson tartan on his breast. All the servants had clean-shaven faces—they were the first clean-shaven wolf-men she’d seen—but the distinguished servant wore a neatly trimmed beard and moustache that framed only his mouth, leaving his cheeks bare. The king dismounted and began speaking with him, confirming her suspicion he must be the head of household. The servant’s eyes wandered her way as he listened, but with her hood shadowing her face, he wouldn’t be able to see her well.
Fine with her. She had no wish to be gaped at by Magnus’s servants. Bad enough she’d had to endure the frequent sidelong glances and outright stares of the soldiers in their riding party for two days. Worse, though, were the looks the men had cast Riggs’s way. They hated him. Most, she suspected, believed he’d made her his lifemate kenning she was supposed to be the miracle their king had been waiting for.
He’d brought her through his country determined to give her to another man despite wanting to keep her for himself, and he’d done it out of loyalty for his king. He’d only pledged himself to her once he realized she could not be Magnus’s miracle. And this was his reward? Becoming the bane of Chroina? The unfairness of it choked her.
But when Riggs gazed upon her, there was no regret in him. She saw only love reflected in his gold-flecked eyes.
He dismounted and reached for her. She gladly trusted herself to his strong hands, and he lowered her to the ground slowly enough for her legs to adjust to bearing her own weight. She buried her face in his chest and inhaled his soothing scent. Since their pledging, his scent had a nearly intoxicating effect on her. She craved it, couldn’t get enough of it. He seemed to feel the same about her. As he wrapped her in his tight embrace, he nuzzled her head and breathed deep, murmuring things she couldn’t understand.
The keep represented uncertainty and fear. Foreboding stole over her as cold gray stone loomed many stories into the sky at her back. She did not wish to go inside. But Riggs’s presence soothed her. As long as they were together, all would be well.
The clearing of a throat pulled her from the spell of security she’d found in her pledgemate’s arms.
Magnus.
Riggs stiffened, but he didn’t release her.
“Neil requests your company, trapper,” Magnus said in his imperial voice. “When he’s finished with you, my men will escort you to your new quarters. You’ve had two days to enjoy our pactmate. Now it is my turn. I require her presence for the evening.”
After two days of gestures and learning new words with Riggs, two days in which the king never once spoke to her, suddenly being able to understand someone made her head spin. Then the king’s words penetrated. He was dismissing Riggs, and it sounded as though she wouldn’t be permitted to see him again tonight.
She clung to her pledgemate and narrowed her eyes at Magnus. “Two days we’ve had together, aye, but you’ve seen to it we’d no’ be able to speak to each other. I’ll go with you now, but I’ll expect to be shown to my lifemate’s quarters for sleeping.”
Magnus’s mouth made a hard line. “Of course, Lady Anya. In the meantime, I’ve instructed my head of household to prepare a bath and a meal for you. If a handful of hours puts undue strain on your bond, it is my hope that the gifts I plan to shower upon you will soothe the pain.” His mouth tipped up in a strained smile. “Come. I’ll show you your new home while the water heats.” He extended a hand to her.
She had difficulty letting go of Riggs. They hadn’t been apart since his brief hunting trip on the hilly plain the morning after their pledging. She commanded her hands to uncurl from his shirt and they refused to obey.
Riggs ran a hand over her hair and whispered “Hinatha” in her ear. He uncurled one of her
fists and placed her hand in Magnus’s. He was telling her to go, and if she translated the twinkle in his eye correctly, he was telling her not to goad the king while they were apart.
Och, she was acting like a lass with her first fancy. If Riggs could bear their separation, surely she could as well. How many times had he called her his brave lady?
Lifting her chin, she sent her own twinkle his way. “Hinatha,” she said, and she let Magnus lead her into the keep. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Neil rest a hand on Riggs’s shoulder. Both men watched her go with somber expressions.
* * * *
Anya disappeared into the castle with King Magnus and four of his Knights of the Crescent Moon. Riggs’s chest snapped tight with longing. Being away from her caused him pain. Actual pain, like a constriction he could hardly breathe past that could only be eased by wrapping her in his arms again.
“Come on, son,” Neil said with a pat on his shoulder. “She’ll be indisposed for a while. Might as well come with me to the dungeon to interview Bilkes. Man lied about you. You have the right to be present when I read him his charges.”
So the messenger would be formally arrested. Good. It was his fault Anya had been taken by the trackers, also his fault Magnus had intercepted them on the plain, wrecking Riggs’s plan to explain himself to his uncle before bringing Anya to meet the king. He hoped they’d tossed the little shite into a dark cell deep in the castle’s underbelly.
Neil led the way through the armory. It hadn’t changed much since Riggs’s days as an axeman for the king’s army during the war. He followed Neil down the stairs into the tunnels that led to the dungeon. Neil was strangely quiet as they walked the underground corridors.
Shrugging, he let his mind wander to what he would do to his lifemate once they reunited. Though it left a bad taste in his mouth to know Magnus would provide for her from now on, he took comfort in the fact it would be him to bring her pleasure for an entire moon cycle before the king had her in his bed. In that time, he’d brand the feel of his hands and mouth on her. He’d give her his prick, too, but he’d be careful not to release in her per the terms of their pact.
