WinterofThorns

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “I don’t know, milady,” he said softly. “Whenever our Overlord is finished with me.”

  Jana winced. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  He put a hand to her cheek, lowered his forehead to hers. “Will you stop worrying? Everything will be all right.”

  “Then why is that man watching every move you make?” she demanded. “Why is he here in our room? Did he arrest you?”

  “Gilly,” Seyzon said, not looking at the man but staring into his wife’s eyes. “Have you arrested me?”

  “You know I have not, milord.”

  “Are you here to arrest me?”

  “No, milord,” Tohre replied. “I was given no orders to arrest you.”

  “See?” Seyzon kissed her on the nose. “I am not under arrest and he’s not going to shackle me once we’re out of sight of Lavenfeld.” He glanced at Tohre. “Are you, Gilly?”

  “Why would I do that, milord?” Tohre queried, dodging the question.

  “Stop. Worrying,” Seyzon told his lady.

  “I can’t help it, Zonny.” Her lip trembled. “I don’t trust him.”

  “I am a trustworthy male, milady,” Tohre said and turned red when both Seyzon and Jana shot him an irritated look. He cleared his throat and looked down at his boots.

  “You know whom I meant,” Jana told her husband.

  “The prince has no reason to be angry at me now, sweeting,” Seyzon said. “Gilly referenced the Reivers problem so that has to be why I am being summoned. Riverglade may have withstood their advance but Frostgate was taken.” He took her into his arms. “Please, please try not to let your imagination run away with you. I will be fine.”

  “Until you are safely back at Lavenfeld, I will worry,” she said and when he hooked a finger under her chin to lift her face to his, she gave him no chance to kiss her. She claimed his mouth so resolutely he stumbled under her savage possession.

  Tohre cleared his throat again as though to remind them he was in the room.

  Seyzon pulled away from his lady, gave her one last gentle smile then put her from him. “I will be back before you know it,” he told her.

  Jana stood in the doorway of Lavenfeld with her mother-in-law at her side and watched the man she loved vault into the saddle of his mount. Reins in his left hand, he raised his right in farewell to her. The horse sidestepped then tossed its head, anxious to be away. As soon as Seyzon put heels to its flanks, it broke into a fast gait.

  “That horse has ever been a hellion,” Lady Millicent said. “I worry about him throwing Zonny one of these days.”

  The troop of men who had come to fetch her husband fell in behind Seyzon and Tohre, the sound of hooves and bridles loud in the mid-morning air as they clamored over the drawbridge.

  Lady Millicent slipped her arm around her daughter-in-law’s waist. “Try not to worry, dear,” she said. “The prince means our boy no harm.”

  “Then why send nine men to fetch him to Wicklow?” Jana asked. “He could have sent a single messenger to bid Seyzon come to him. Why send troops?”

  “Mayhap to protect him?” Lady Millicent suggested. “You know Seyzon is on the Selwyn Reivers most-wanted list. For them to abduct Seyzon—a man known to be the prince’s best friend and one dearly loved by him—would give the Reivers leverage over Prince Vindan. Mayhap he did not want to take that chance.”

  “I pray you are right, milady.” Jana could no longer see her husband or the troops for the drawbridge was being raised, blocking her view. Though she tried to use her psychic power to look beyond the moment, the future that lay ahead was still a murky swirl of gray mist that hid from her what was to come.

  “Come inside, now,” Lady Millicent bid. She gently ushered Jana back into the keep, her arm still looped around Jana’s waist.

  “Let us see if we can find some mischief to get into that will take your mind from the trouble you are attempting to borrow,” Lady Millicent told her.

  Jana doubted anything could take her mind from the worry that was brewing within her. She didn’t trust Vindan not to cause Seyzon more grief. In the weeks she had been at Wicklow, she had come to know the prince better than she let on. Though they had never been alone again after that night at Riverglade, she had caught his eyes on her whenever they were in close proximity. The look in those blue orbs told her the man was deeply enamored of her.

  She was afraid of Vindan Brell. Not because he had given her any reason to fear him. He had not hurt her or threatened her. She feared him because she was afraid her time with him on her wedding night had instilled feelings within her she should not have. He had been the perfect gentleman on that disastrous night, had eased her into womanhood with a tenderness, a respectfulness she knew few men of the royalty would have exhibited. He had been loving, kind.

  And he had made it clear to her that he had feelings for her as well.

  Not in words but in the way he stared hungrily at her. Those times when she found him watching her, his riveted attention did not bear the stamp of lust but of deep growing affection. His smile hinted at something she refused to acknowledge.

  For that reason alone she could not hate him, but she feared him.

  As well as the unwanted desire that came over her when she met his heated stare.

  Now she had something else to fear—him sending for Seyzon.

  She had been sure the troops had been sent to take her back to Wicklow. She had barely taken a calming breath when told that was not the case when her husband informed her it was he the men had come after.

  “Jana, please,” her mother-in-law pleaded as she removed her arm. “Stop worrying. All will be well.”

  Jana nodded for tears were clogging her throat. Seyzon had been gone less than ten minutes yet it felt as though it was entire day. Until he was home again, she knew her worrying would not stop for she was terrified the prince would keep her husband at Lavenfeld.

  * * * * *

  “You had an uneventful trip?” Vindan asked Seyzon. He held up a decanter of Chrystallusian plum brandy and cocked a brow.

  “Aye, milord.” Seyzon shook his head at the offer. “No, thank you.”

  The prince poured himself a generous amount of brandy. “I was worried those pesky Selwyn bastards might attempt to kidnap you.”

  “There was little chance of that happening, milord,” Seyzon said, a muscle working in his jaw. “The Reivers are a hundred miles from Lavenfeld.”

  “More like seventy-five.” Vindan placed the glass stopper atop the brandy decanter. “But I imagine they’ve spies even within Wicklow, don’t you?” He took a sip of the fiery brew, watching Seyzon over the rim of the snifter.

  “I am sure of it, milord,” Seyzon agreed.

  Vindan swallowed, winced a little at the burn that slid down his throat, then swirled the pale-pink liquor. “Milord,” he repeated. “How formal.”

  “You are my Overlord and it is my duty to render respect,” Seyzon said. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, his fingernails digging into his palm.

  “If your body gets any stiffer, Zonny, you will shatter into a million pieces,” Vindan snapped. “For fuck sake, relax!”

  “May I ask why I am here, milord?” Seyzon queried.

  “Aye, get right to the point,” Vindan stated. “That is where our relationship has gone now, eh? To formality and a desire to get the hell out of my presence as quickly as possible?”

  Seyzon didn’t reply. He knew he was being baited and he knew to hold his tongue. Anything he said could—and would—be held against him from this moment on.

  “Our friendship is dead, then?” Vindan pressed. When Seyzon did not answer, the prince began to pace. “You could hold a grudge longer than anyone I’ve ever known.”

  Unable to stop the snort that comment brought out of him, Seyzon met Vindan’s stare with a narrowed one of his own.

  “You’ve something to say, Lord Montyne?” Vindan challenged.

  “Nothing that wouldn’t get me slapped in i
rons, milord,” Seyzon said through clenched teeth.

  “Oh, feel free to express your thoughts, old friend. I’m willing to listen with an open mind. You need not worry what you say will put you in my dungeon.”

  “So you say, milord.”

  The prince threw the brandy snifter across the room. It hit the wall and burst apart. The smell of brandy filled the room.

  “Don’t you fucking dare doubt my word, Montyne!” he bellowed. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

  “Are you giving me your word that what I say will not land me in a cell shackled to the wall, milord?” Seyzon countered.

  “Stop fucking calling me that!” Vindan all but screamed. His face was scarlet red from his fury, his eyes bulging, his mouth a thin slit.

  “Give me your word and I will,” Seyzon said then smiled nastily. “Milord.”

  Vindan marched across the room until he was toe to toe with Seyzon. He fused his gaze with Seyzon’s. “You say that word one more time…” Vindan growled. “Just one more fucking time and see what I do, Montyne!”

  “What will you do, Vindan? Take something else that belongs to me?” Seyzon growled.

  The standoff ticked like a time bomb as the two warriors glared at each other. Neither of them spoke and the only things that moved were their eyes and the grinding muscles in their cheeks. The only sound in the room was the harsh breathing that came from them both.

  “Back off, Montyne. You’d better switch gears, my man, for you are treading on dangerous ground,” Vindan said at last.

  “How so?”

  “You know gods-be-damned well why! You defied me by taking her to wife without my permission. You knew better. You fucking knew better! I could have handed down a harsher punishment.” He moved closer still to Seyzon. “In retrospect, I should have!”

  “You want to have me whipped, Vindan?” Seyzon asked in a soft, deadly voice. He searched the prince’s eyes. “Then do it. If it will ease your conscience, then do it!”

  “Ease my conscience?” Vindan repeated.

  “You knew what you were doing was wrong. You knew it would hurt—perhaps destroy—our friendship, drop me to my knees like a fucking thunderbolt. But you didn’t care. Just like when we were children. If I had something you wanted you took it—consequences be damned—and I was supposed to accept it, suck it up and forgive you.” He lifted his hand and punched his index finger into Vindan’s chest, emphasizing each stressed word with a brutal jab. “Well, guess what, milord? This time I don’t accept it. I won’t suck it up and I fucking won’t ever forgive you!”

  Vindan shoved him as hard as he could and Seyzon staggered back. The backs of his knees collided with a coffee table and he fell onto it, breaking the fragile legs. The table collapsed beneath him and he landed on his back with a grunt. Before he could roll off and come to his feet, Vindan flew at him, falling on him like a heavy log.

  “Son of a bitch!” Seyzon hissed. He wrapped his arms around the prince and they rolled, each trying to pummel the other. Their legs entangled, Seyzon managed to gain the advantage by coming to his knees and planting a vicious right cross, clipping Vindan hard on the point of his chin. Snagging his left hand in the other man’s shirt, Seyzon jacked him forward and hit him again and again—blood spraying from Vindan’s nose—until his arm was caught from behind and he was wrenched to his feet. A second set of hands grabbed his other arm and jerked him backward. Someone shouted at him to stand down and that only infuriated him more. Cursing, hissing like an enraged panther, he tried to get to Vindan but the prince had crab walked on his hands and heels away from him and was staggering to his feet, the back of his hand under his nose.

  “Hold him,” Vindan ordered and he came forward with his fists doubled.

  “Aye, you’d best hold me,” Seyzon shouted. “He can’t take me down all on his own!” He laughed. “Never could and never will!”

  Vindan stopped. His lips peeled back from his teeth and he hawked up a mouthful of blood and spat it at Seyzon’s feet. He wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. “Let the bastard go,” he told his men.

  “Milord…” one of the men began.

  “Let him go!” Vindan bellowed.

  Seyzon yanked his arms out of the other men’s grip and stood there with his chest heaving. His left cheekbone ached where Vindan had got in a solitary punch but he’d drawn first blood and it was dripping from the prince’s broken nose. He watched his old friend walking toward him, braced himself, then waited for a punch that never came.

  “Never bested you, huh?” Vindan asked. “How about all the times I put your ass down, Montyne? Huh? How about those times?”

  “You won because I was told to let you.” Seyzon watched Vindan’s eyes widen. “Aye, milord, aye. Belial warned me if I won he’d whip my ass!”

  At the mention of the long-dead Master-at-Arms who had trained them when they were boys, Vindan growled. “He would not have said that!”

  “Aye, well, he did and you know I don’t lie!” Seyzon yelled at him.

  “Why would he do that?” Vindan demanded. “He trained me the same as you.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Seyzon asked. “He couldn’t let the little prince lose. Little Prince Vindan Brell had to win no matter what the cost. You have no idea how hard it was for me to throw every gods-be-damned sparing match we ever had. How hard it was to swallow my pride and let a lesser man take the laurels right out of my hand every time!”

  “Lesser man?” Vindan said, snagging the word like a fish on a hook. “Lesser man?”

  “Aye, a lesser man,” Seyzon said. “One who couldn’t get a woman of his own so stole one on her fucking Joining night!”

  Vindan snapped out his hand and slammed his fist against Seyzon’s jaw. Before Seyzon could fall, the two men beside him took hold of him—thinking their prince would hit him again—and twisted his arms behind his back with a hard, upward shove that made him grunt. Instead of hitting him, Vindan stepped forward and grabbed a handful of Seyzon’s hair and pulled his head back, putting his face close to Seyzon’s, ignoring the thin stream of blood flowing from the corner of Seyzon’s mouth.

  “Well, you aren’t going to win this time, either, you little son of a bitch,” he sneered.

  “Fucking surprise that,” Seyzon replied through his teeth.

  “You know what you are going to do? You, my man, are going to return to Lavenfeld and send my woman to me.”

  “She’s not you—” Seyzon started to say but Vindan wrenched his hair brutally, eliciting a yelp Seyzon managed to cut off midway.

  “You will send my woman to me else three things are going to happen, Montyne,” Vindan said. “First is I will have your mother evicted from Lavenfeld and second I will have her lands—your birthright—confiscated.”

  “You wouldn’t do that to her.”

  Vindan’s eyes narrowed. “Try me.”

  “Not to my mother. She’s been like a mo—”

  “Stoneway!” the prince said to the man on Seyzon’s left. “I want you to take three men with you to Lavenfeld and pick up Lady Millicent Montyne. Don’t bring her here. Take her to Galrath instead.”

  Seyzon felt as though Vindan had punched him savagely in the gut. At the mention of the infamous nunnery he knew the blood had drained from his face. The Serenian nunnery was the most revolting place in the Cairghrian Galaxy. Women taken there were rarely rescued for those who guarded the notorious convent were members of the Brotherhood of the Domination, as ruthless and evil a sect of men as had ever been brought together.

  “And the third thing that will happen is I will have you taken to Utuk Xul and left to rot!”

  If having his mother sent to Galrath scared him, being threatened with imprisonment in the vilest, most wretched maximum security prison in the Megaverse put the fear of the goddess in him.

  Vindan jerked Seyzon’s hair, twisting it viciously. “Once you are in UX, I’ll make gods-be-damned sure your cellmates have you every way there
is to have a man and then some! By the time they are through with you, you’ll be a jabbering idiot!” He pulled Seyzon’s head back so far Seyzon thought his neck would break. “Are you hearing me, Montyne?”

  Tears of pain formed in Seyzon’s eyes. He dragged deep gulps of breath through his mouth as he fought the agony tearing at his scalp.

  “Are. You. Hearing. Me?” Vindan repeated.

  “Aye,” Seyzon whispered.

  Vindan tilted his head to one side. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Aye, I heard you,” Seyzon managed to croak.

  “Aye, I heard you what?” Vindan demanded.

  “Aye, I heard you, milord,” Seyzon said and mentally cursed himself as he felt a solitary tear drop down his cheek.

  Vindan tugged once more—smiled at the groan his action wrought—then let go of Seyzon’s hair. He patted his cheek. “Good little son of a bitch,” he said. He patted his cheek again—hard enough to make it sting. He nudged his chin at his men and they released Seyzon’s arms.

  Stumbling back, Seyzon put a hand to his upper left forearm for it was on fire from the wrench the guard had given it. He knew his shoulder had been dislocated. Muscle spasms were rippling down his arm all the way to his fingertips and the pain was making him nauseous and lightheaded. He could feel sweat gathering on his upper lip and at his temples.

  “You will return to Lavenfeld and send Jana back to me. While she is en route, I will go before my council and have your farce of a Joining annulled.”

  If the pain in his arm was bad, the pain those words brought was agonizing. He knew from the pitiless look on Vindan’s face there would be no reasoning with the man. He’d seen that same look many, many times as they’d grown up. Once his heels were dug in, there was no turning Vindan from the course he’d chosen.

  “Don’t do this,” he said, hating the pleading he heard in his own voice.

  “I want her here before sunset tomorrow,” Vindan said.

  “Please, don’t do this. I’m begging you, Vin—”

  “Shut up!” the prince shouted. “You have lost the right to call me by my given name! You wanted our friendship dead? Well, dead it is. As you are dead to me!” He looked to Stoneway. “Get him out of here!”