Trust In Love: A Love Mark Romance

by Linda Kage

  “And cut out his tongue,” the king added. “I’m tired of his incessant prattling.”

  As the guards dragged the weeping, flailing dignitary from the room, they had to jerk to a halt and pause when another man stumbled through the entrance, blocking their path.

  Yawning and scratching his chest as he came, the newcomer eyed the trio impatiently before stepping aside to allow them departure, waving his hands in dramatic sarcasm for them to go first. Then he reached between his legs and grabbed himself, leering after them, before he swaggered across the floor toward his own seat of honor to the left of the throne, finally gaining the king’s attention.

  “Greggor!” my father greeted his dearest companion and top advisor with a relieved sigh. “Where the hell have you been, old chap? I’ve been surrounded by imbeciles in here.”

  “Oh, I’m not so sure about that, Tor; the imbeciles had a point, if you ask me.” Groaning in pleasure, Greggor fell into his cushioned chair, hooked his legs over one armrest, and rested his arm on the other to get comfortable before languidly returning his gaze to the king. “We’ll incite High Cliff by taking their princess from Donnelly. Then you’ll have two realms after your head. Not to mention Donnelly has that dragon. Do you really wish to risk all that just because you couldn’t throw another boy?”

  Ignoring the insult against himself, the king waved an unconcerned hand. “My sources tell me the Donnelly dragon’s dead.”

  “Fine then.” Greggor belched and picked up an apple from his side table before dusting it off against his chest and biting into it. “Start a war with Donnelly. Who am I to deny the most powerful man in the kingdom?” After winking at the king for his mocking flare over the title, he inadvertently spit apple chunks when he added, “But seriously, don’t take Brentley’s wife. High Cliff won’t be as feverish to join the fray if you choose someone other than their precious princess to mutilate.”

  The king scowled at him. “Then who do I take?”

  Greggor tapped the apple thoughtfully against his chin before holding it up. “I’d say the best bet would be the Donnelly princess, not the High Cliff one. They say Brentley’s young sister is quite a treasure. Beautiful, intoxicating, and kind. She must be adored by both her people and the king himself. He’d be outraged and heartbroken all in one if we stole her and raped her of her pretty, polished glow. Why, her big brother might never recover.”

  “The Donnelly princess, you say? Not their queen?” The king squinted through a considering nod. “I wasn’t even aware there was one.” Then he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “But I like this. Yes, let’s kidnap Princess whatever-her-name-is.”

  Greggor smirked in amusement. “It’s Nicolette, I believe.”

  Nicolette?

  Pulling back, I blinked in shock because I knew Nicolette. Barely, but still…

  Recognition poured through me as my father waved a hand. “Whatever. Just get her to me. I want to be personally involved in paying her back for what her brother did to my son. Hell, maybe I can grow a male in her belly.”

  Shuddering, I eased deeper behind the tapestry as my mind reeled.

  Nicolette.

  I guess she had told me she was the king’s sister, but it hadn’t registered that she was the princess Greggor and my father were discussing until they’d said her actual name.

  At the time of our whirlwind introduction, I’d been too swept away by the energy and life in her dark brown eyes to truly comprehend who she was. My savior in a nightdress and dark flowing hair had snatched me from the jaws of death and led me out of the Donnelly castle mere moments before I would’ve been executed.

  The night our army had first invaded Donnelly, and the very same night my half brother, Murdock, had lost his life, I’d been captured and chained with a dozen other soldiers. We’d been held in their dungeon for hours before we were paraded in front of their new king.

  Donnelly had promised to grant us clemency if we would only bend the knee and place our allegiance to him. Most of the others had given in immediately, kneeling before King Brentley and bowing their heads, becoming traitors to Far Shore.

  But I hadn’t. How could I? What would my father have done if he learned I’d decided to serve another kingdom instead of his? No, it would’ve been much nobler to die loyal to his name. Maybe he would’ve been proud of me then, possibly even commissioned a small statue in my honor—as he had for Murdock—and claimed me as his son postmortem.

  Before I knew it, though, some stranger commanded that I be separated from the others. He then led me away to the lovely, exotic Nicolette of Donnelly who’d freed me from my chains.

  As soon as she’d torn the metal cuffs from my wrists, she had touched my face tenderly. “You don’t have to understand. Just know that I love you with every breath of air in my lungs, and I’ll do everything within my power to make sure you live.”

  She’d obviously been soft in the head. Her ignorant guard must’ve been sleeping on the job, and she’d escaped her room to roam the castle a little too freely. Or something. Whatever the case, it mattered little in that moment, because a man didn’t just forget something so bizarre and baffling.

  While most of that night had been a blur, those few moments with her had stuck with me. They’d confused the devil out of me, but they’d stuck. Because the dazzling stranger had kept her promise. I had lived that night.

  She saved me.

  I had worn myself to the bone, hiking through the Vast Desert for days before I set foot on Far Shore land again in order to return home. All because the girl who’d called herself my one true love had given me the chance to make it.

  I owed my life to her.

  Listening to my father and Greggor discuss capturing and torturing her set off an uneasy churn in my stomach.

  From what I remembered, Nicolette had been sweet and innocent and way too gentle to mar in the vicious way they were describing.

  “I hope she’s untried,” the king was saying, his lips spreading wide with lascivious delight as he rubbed his hands together greedily. “I want to be the first to breach her maidenhead, show her what a true cock feels like.”

  I winced.

  “In that case,” Greggor answered. “Don’t send Morell for her. He’s entirely incapable of keeping his prick out of a woman. She’d be half-swollen with his child by the time they made it back to Far Shore.”

  “Fine. We’ll send the eunuch Borell, then.”

  But his advisor made a face. “With his temper? Borell would strangle her to death the first night she whined and pleaded for a pillow and a foot massage.”

  “Then who should we send to fetch her?” Torrance roared. “Curse you! Stop coming up with obstacles and do your damn job for once. Give me some fucking solutions!”

  In his frustration, he threw a goblet across the room.

  Directly at the tapestry I was hiding behind.

  The cloth gave a sudden lurch as the cup slammed against it, near my head. I hissed in surprise and ducked just before the entire piece of embroidered artwork ripped free from its frame and pooled to the floor in front of me, leaving me exposed to the room full of dignitaries, guards, and my already-enraged father.

  Hell fire. This was not the best night to get caught spying on the most cantankerous king in the Outer Realms. His son or not, I was probably as good as dead now.

  “What the devil? Seize him!” the king shouted, making a swarm of guards surge forward and descend upon me, hollering and aiming spears at my throat.

  Straightening from my cringe, I offered them a rueful smile and then waved. “Um, greetings?”

  2

  Farrow

  “Who is it?” I heard my father demanding from across the room. “A thief? An assassin? What type of weapon is he brandishing?”

  Around me, the guards eased closer, ignoring the fact that I had my bare hands lifted in surrender to show them I came in peace and was unarmed.

  When one moron actually nicked my collarbone, I flin
ched and scowled at him.

  “Ouch, you fool.” I wiped at the cut, and my fingers came away smeared with red. “Watch where you aim that thing. That hurt.”

  “Never fear, Your Majesty,” Greggor announced, yawning, as he had a better view of me from where he sat than my father did from the throne. “There’s no danger here. It’s just Farrow, the bastard.”

  “Who?” King Torrance made a face, not comprehending. “Will you idiots just step aside and let me see the cutthroat before I have him run through?”

  Immediately, I was given room to breathe again as the guards scurried backward until I was exposed enough to face my father fully.

  Keeping my hands up and exposed, I gifted the king with a small, private smirk before bowing regally. “Your Majesty,” I greeted. “Fancy running into you here.”

  “Oh,” he muttered in extreme disappointment before he fell back into his chair. “It’s just you.” Then he sniffed. “What? Come to have a look at the new whelp, did you?”

  I nodded once, since there was no reason to lie. “I heard it was a girl. My felicitations on gaining yet another princess. You must be ecstatic.”

  He narrowed his eyes over my backhanded compliment before curling his lip into a sneer and offering his own. “Aye. I’ll pass your regards on to Kalendria, since she’s so fond of you.”

  “Sounds superb.” Ignoring the barb, I bowed my head again and started to turn away, hoping to leave without incident. “If you’ll excuse me, then…”

  My father could be charitable, depending on his mood. At times, he would have me sit with him in front of the fire over a draught of ale and a full meal, talking late into the night as if we were the closest of companions. He’d had men killed for simply bullying me. He’d set me up with a tutor to teach me my letters and numbers. He’d plied me with prostitutes to make me a man when I’d come of age.

  And yet, at other times, he had me dragged in and whipped before him just because he was bored and sought entertainment. He’d branded me with a hot iron once to claim me as his personal servant for life. And he’d ignored my biggest plea to him: to bring my mother to the castle to live. Instead, he’d taken me from the brothel so I could work in his stables, while he’d left her behind. I had received word within a moon cycle that she had suffered from consumption and died.

  I was like his favorite play toy that he both cherished and abused.

  It was always easy to gauge which disposition he would be in that day. And tonight, his rage was as evident as ever. It was best to leave with the utmost haste before he vented by hurting me.

  Except he lifted his hand, halting me before I could escape.

  Dammit.

  I just hoped my thrashing wouldn’t be too severe.

  Squinting, he asked, “Do you sneak in here and spy on me often, whipping boy?”

  Nearly every day.

  I shook my head, however, and looked him straight in the eye. “Tonight just seemed like a special occasion, Your Majesty. I was merely curious.”

  “Curious?” The king pinched his expression into a scowl. “Curious? Why, you damned nuisance!”

  Picking up his bowl still filled with bread rolls—since he’d already thrown his goblet—he heaved it at my head, missing me with the bowl when I ducked to the side out of the way, while still managing to pelt me in the arm with a hardtack of rye.

  “How dare you think you have the right to my private business, you worthless whore’s son. God, how I wish it’d been Murdock and not you who’d come home from that bloody battle. Why couldn’t you have been the one to die?”

  I didn’t answer, wisely remaining mute as I watched his cheeks fill with angry color.

  “Why did you have to be the only pathetic bastard to ever come back from either of those blasted wars we declared on them? No one returned but you. That’s not how it was supposed to happen.”

  “By God, you’re right,” Greggor said suddenly, sitting up in his chair as if a brilliant idea had just occurred to him. “He is the only one of us who’s been to Donnelly and back.” Spinning toward the king, he added, “Tor, I believe we just found the very person we need to send on your crusade to kidnap that princess.”

  “What?” I cried with horrified doom. “The fuck if you have!”

  Over my dead body was I going to kidnap Princess Nicolette so they could rape and maim her.

  The king seemed similarly appalled. “You can’t possibly be suggesting I send Farrow to Donnelly?”

  “Why not?” Greggor shrugged. “What’s so wrong with the idea?”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Torrance blustered. “Well, he—it—this is an honorable king’s mission, worthy of great praise and the highest esteem. And he’s a fucking bastard.”

  Only thanks to you, I wanted to mutter.

  “Then it’s no loss if Donnelly catches him and slices his throat before he completes the task,” Greggor said in such a logical tone that I lifted my eyebrows his way, but he paid me no heed. “Think about it, Tor. He’s the only person from Far Shore who’s been to the Kingdom Within the Sand and lived long enough to return and tell us about it. Hell, he claims he’s even been inside their Iron Castle.”

  I had, but my father huffed in disbelief and rolled his eyes.

  “It’s not as if he hasn’t been trained by our knights’ royal guard either,” Greggor went on, motioning toward me. “You certainly had no qualms about sending him off to battle five years ago with the rest of your elite crew.”

  “That’s only because he was on the front line,” the king grumbled reluctantly. “I expected him to die within the first five minutes in the hopes it’d give my experienced warriors ample time to breach the castle.”

  Wow. I was really feeling the love here.

  “Well, he didn’t die, and he was able to breach the castle walls himself. So what’s to say he can’t now as well? He’s our best chance. We can send him in, clandestine this time, with two knights for assistance, and he can snatch the Donnelly bitch for us, right out from under her fat brother’s nose.”

  The king scowled, wringing his hands. “I don’t know. I want someone experienced, someone I can trust to get the job done.”

  I arched an eyebrow, offended to the root of my being.

  The idiotic asshole had no idea he’d never find anyone as loyal to him as I was. I could’ve taken off to anywhere after Nicolette helped me escape the Iron Castle. I could’ve done anything. But I had come home. To him. While a part of me hated him and resented everything he’d ever done to me and my mother, another part was more strongly tied to him than anyone else in the Outer Realms.

  The man was my father. Aside from his daughters, he was the only family I had left. Evil or not, he was who I served.

  But I said none of that to him. Despite the fact he could trust me more than any of his dignitaries or special knights, this was not a quest I wanted to take.

  I mean, kidnapping the princess of Donnelly? Nicolette? No. I wouldn’t. She had saved me. I was alive because of her. I had no desire to kidnap anyone, but I especially couldn’t pay her back by dragging her to what would become her own death. And a brutal, drawn-out, traumatic, painful death, at that.

  So I stayed as quiet as possible, hoping the king would follow his gut instincts and not listen to his top advisor for once in his life.

  But Greggor—damn him—was too slick for his own good. “I don’t know, Your Majesty,” he murmured, eyeing me as if he could see inside my head. “Given the proper incentive, Farrow here might be more reliable to fulfill this quest than anyone in all of Far Shore.”

  I narrowed my eyes. The douche might’ve just complimented me, but I’d never trusted him. Whatever Greggor was thinking, I already knew I wouldn’t like it.

  “What do you mean?” the king asked curiously, and I shook my head, wishing he’d just disregard the damn advisor’s suggestion already. Find someone else for his stupid mission. Or better yet, just forget about the idiotic idea altogether.

 
But he didn’t.

  “The boy’s quite fond of that middle girl of yours, isn’t he?” Greggor’s top lip curled into a wicked snarl as he watched my face drain of color. Then he rasped one word.

  “Sable.”

  And just like that, my entire world shifted on its axis.

  Cold, slippery dread slithered through my system.

  I immediately waved both my hands, disagreeing. Whatever he wanted to do that involved Sable, I was out. She was an innocent twelve-year-old child. Why should she be brought into any plans that involved kidnapping another kingdom’s princess? This already sounded disastrous.

  “No,” I said.

  But the panic on my face only caused the king to blink in surprise before he motioned to his advisor. “Keep talking.”

  “No,” I growled more vehemently as Greggor said, “We could hold the child in the dungeon until Farrow returns with the Donnelly bitch. And if he fails his mission…” He glanced at me and smiled. “Sable dies.”

  “What?!” I shouted. “The hell you say.” Turning to my father, I was even more horrified because I could tell the ignorant ass was actually considering this madness. “Have you lost your damn mind?” I boomed. “How could you even ponder such a ridiculous notion? Sable is your daughter.”

  King Torrance shrugged. “And you’re my—” He cut himself off before finishing the sentiment.

  I held my breath, wondering if this was going to be the moment of truth, when he finally called me son. My heart beat hard in my chest, yearning for that one word, while my stomach churned, also dreading it. Being his would mean I actually belonged somewhere; I was someone. But did I really want to be the heir of this brute?

  He snickered and waved a hand. “Well, whatever you are. You’re both equally useless to me, so…” He motioned toward a pair of guards by the entrance of the room. “Fetch the girl.”

  “No. Stop! Wait.” I rushed toward the guards to waylay them, but the king waved his hand again, and four more knights stepped into my path, blocking my way.

  I snarled at them before whirling back to the king. Shit had just gotten real. With Sable involved, my will collapsed like a poorly dug well.