by Megan Crane
It was all so pointless. Sex in secret. Sex as something to take in the dark hours, sneaky and defiant and ashamed. Sex as a weapon, dirty and degrading for the only women the men were permitted to touch in all these noncompliant ways. Wulf made no secret of the fact he loved sex in any possible form and had spent his life having a whole lot of it in a variety of places and numbers and positions. But there was no joy here. He saw nothing but power games and scumbags who liked the fact their woman couldn’t refuse them as much as they liked blowing a load. Maybe more.
Wulf watched winter husbands courteously escort their winter wives back to their rooms, then turn around after dropping them off to throw a courtesan to her knees and cruelly fuck her mouth in a nearby alcove. The women they were allowed to fuck they treated nicely. Politely, anyway. The women they weren’t supposed to fuck, they hated, as if it was the courtesans’ fault they were two-faced pigs who didn’t know what to do with their own dicks.
And the longer he slipped around this place like another shadow, the more he understood the undercurrents of that fucked-up conversation he’d been a part of in King Dickhead’s throne room. And the more he worried that Kathlyn’s asshole of a father had left her in pieces after Wulf had been marched back to his tower room.
Wulf didn’t do very well with worry. He preferred action.
Tonight he opened up his unlocked door a few hours after midnight. He moved silently down the stone hall, wearing his boots but managing not to drum out his approach the way all the morons here always did. When he got to the end of the long, doorless hall, he found the usual shift of two guards there at the end of it. They were each slumped on either side of the entrance to the hallway, snoring up a storm. Wulf couldn’t understand why they kept putting guards on him when all they did was stamp around dramatically for an hour or two and then take a nap.
He wouldn’t stand for this bullshit on the eastern islands. The clan was everybody’s responsibility. That meant if you were given a job, you did it. If you fell down on the job—if you decided to catch up on your sleep while you were supposed to be on watch, for example—you just might find that you couldn’t get up again. Ever.
“Pathetic,” he muttered in disgust. Out loud. As he stepped right over the snoring guards and headed out for his usual nighttime explorations.
He’d liberated a black hooded jacket from one of the guard stations he’d found in his travels a few nights back, because it was bulky enough to hide his battle harness and a few choice blades. He pulled the hood up to hide his blond hair and the braid that marked him a raider warrior, and when he walked through this palace he might as well have been invisible.
It was a strange feeling for a man who had been grabbing attention at the center of his clan for most of his life, before and after he’d taken the throne.
He didn’t like it. Wulf preferred to do his hiding right where his enemies could see him and underestimate him. Not off in the shadows like some punk bitch who was afraid of being noticed.
How exactly are you going to do reconnaissance on this place if you’re locked up in some cell? Riordan had asked when they’d finally landed on the Nebraska coast after that two-week gut punch of a brutal Atlantic crossing. They’d all taken a day before heading further into the mainland to complete their set tasks, to get their land legs on, and appreciate cheating death on that slippery bitch of a winter sea. Riordan was one of the highest-ranking brothers, the clan’s best tracker by far, a trusted member of Wulf’s council, and, since last summer, mate to Wulf’s half-sister and personal bodyguard, Eiryn. And at that moment his dark eyes had been gleaming with the same smile he wore on his brown face. You’re a little bit recognizable.
I think you’re underestimating my ability to blend, Wulf had retorted, lounging beside the fire, happily eating a little bit of dried meat instead of hunched over a slick tiller with grim death crashing over him with every giant-ass wave, frigid and cold and vicious, the way he had been for the previous two weeks.
Eiryn had let out a bark of laughter from her place at Riordan’s side. Yes, that’s the first thing anyone notices about you. The blending.
Their blood brother Gunnar had even smiled, a rarity for that grim-faced pain in Wulf’s ass, even if Maud, the little nun he’d claimed, had lightened him up a little this past winter. For Gunnar all that meant was slightly less of the scowling that made him as white and ghostly as his mate upon occasion. I’ve always thought you had the look of a common mainland farmer. I’m sure you’ll be all but invisible.
Wulf had shaken his head. Is this the way you speak to your king on the eve of a great siege? With such troubling disrespect?
I thought we were talking to some farmer, his war chief Tyr had grunted with a grin. He’d had his brawny, bronzed arms bare because Tyr acknowledged no cold, wrapped around his woman, Helena, who knew her way around mainlanders whether they were farmers or not. She’d hid her smile behind the mug she sipped from, bundled up so all that was visible was her pale gold face. I wondered where the fuck you went.
But for all he liked to pretend he didn’t listen, Wulf had taken that shit to heart. The first time he’d broken out of his tower he’d made sure to find himself clothes that helped him disappear. Blend. Become part of the shadows unless someone saw him, and then just another guard wandering around the palace once they did.
For the past few nights, he’d systematically worked his way through the palace, adding to the map in his head with every turn. He was looking for the very specific tunnels that Helena’s ancestors had indicated had to be there somewhere in the stronghold, or so the legend went. And though the palace itself seemed deliberately built to confuse anyone who didn’t know exactly where he was going, he was searching for his princess, too.
Wulf bled from one dark space to another without making a sound. He passed within inches of noble dickheads staggering back from the common rooms, where they gathered and drank too much, played their insipid card games, and made their laughable boasts about everything. The palace was a very different place at night. It was the province of men, as if the daytime was nothing but a thin veneer of respectability they trotted out so as not to offend the presumably delicate sensibilities of the ladies who swished about in their metallic gowns with their hair slicked into strange shapes.
During the day, or even in the long evenings when the guards paraded him around as if he was something other than the latest attraction for all these rich fucks to point at and laugh about, it was all commotion. Laughter and conversations floating down from the high, wide galleries, and the endless trill of that laughter particular to women who dared not reveal themselves in public.
Things were softer in the darkness. In many ways, more dangerous. The laughter at night had an edge to it, rough and uncertain. The courtesans roamed more freely, dressed the way that Kathlyn had been, far bolder by night than they ever were by day. The dark of night was their time, when all was shadow and they weren’t required to hide. Aristocratic men, cocks out and eyes blind with their drink, staggered from one courtesan to the next, sampling whatever took their fancy.
Compliance was a lie they told by day. And it only applied to the women, as far as Wulf could see. Like his princess, apparently, who was ruined because she’d dressed in the wrong clothes.
He didn’t like thinking about Kathlyn, so soft and unscarred, left behind on the cold stone floor with her father salivating to take a piece out of her. He knew the look that fucker had been aiming at her. He hadn’t liked it all that much when his own father had been aiming it at him, pretty much every day of his childhood, both when he’d lived with the asshole and when he’d been spared that bullshit but still ran into the abusive dickhead all over the raider city.
Wulf knew exactly what King Athenian wanted to do to his daughter.
But he couldn’t find her.
After so many nights of creeping around this place, Wulf knew his way around the different courtyards, one after the next, spreading out from that central hall
on both sides. He knew where the young men lived, as fresh and heedless and stupid as pit wolf puppies. Rolling in and out of their rooms with their subdued winter wives, and then, later, with women who laughed louder and longer and far sharper. He knew where the king lived, but he hadn’t been able to explore that wing of the palace because it appeared to be the only part of this place where the guards weren’t asleep at their posts.
There were other courtyards. One that appeared to be set aside for visitors who rated a much warmer welcome than he had received. One that was all various common rooms that clearly had a ranking system that escaped him. Another that seemed to be entirely populated by old men. Still another that was for servants and lower-ranked people in family groups. And there were levels below the courtyards, deep into the mountainside; what the locals called the stews. This was where the courtesans lived. Where whole wings were dedicated to the kinds of unsavory pursuits that Wulf imagined compliant people pretended only ever happened off in the distance somewhere, under the rule of savages like him. Drugs and drink. Intoxicants of all stripes. Flesh and contraband for sale. Dangerous games involving all of the above. Anything and everything a jaded motherfucker could want, if he was rich enough to pay for it.
But there was only one main courtyard, up on the main level of the palace, with a different sort of guard. Instead of a bunch of strutting assholes who marched back and forth with tremendous self-importance—or lines of them six deep like the ones guarding the king’s wing, who had notably not looked sleepy—the entrance to this particular courtyard sported an actual gate and its own guardhouse.
Wulf knew the moment he found it that this was where the compliant women were kept, locked up tight so they couldn’t be tainted by the actual goings-on in the palace at night.
He didn’t approach the gate head on tonight. He couldn’t see anyone inside the guardhouse—he’d seen no movement last night when he’d finally found this place—but there was no point taking unnecessary risks. He had no desire to find himself in the sort of prison he would have to expend a lot more energy breaking out of. Not when he still hadn’t located either his princess or the tunnels. And while there was still time left before the equinox, he was all too aware how quickly that would pass. He’d rather not pass it chained to a wall somewhere.
He’d spent most of last night going through the rooms in the women’s courtyard, looking for a princess he couldn’t seem to find. Tonight he headed straight there, buzzing with the need to see Kathlyn before something in him exploded. He didn’t ask himself what that was. He just went with it. Just as he had the night before, he climbed up the theatrical steps to the top floor, wondering why anyone needed jewels encrusted at their feet. Did that speak of wealth or was it just a sign that everyone in this palace was an asshole?
Wulf knew which way he’d vote.
Once he reached the top floor, he circled back around the exterior corridor that connected the courtyard to the galleries. The courtyard rooms backed up to a long drop down to the main floor, but Wulf had discovered that with only the smallest little jump from one of the railings he could make it to one of the windows. At which point it was easy enough to hoist himself up and into the window itself.
This palace had obviously been built to confuse the average mainlander. But it hadn’t been built with raiders in mind.
Wulf moved to the railing and surveyed the area quickly, careful to scan the shadows for signs of wildly copulating assholes and other potential witnesses, but there was no one around. This was the most deserted part of the palace.
They don’t want all that sin they love so much to rub off on their compliant women, Wulf thought derisively. The douchebags.
He jumped from the floor to the top of the railing, balancing himself in the space of half a breath. Then he eyed his trajectory. It was a decent jump out over the wide-open space, no matter what level he opted to go for. Last night he’d chosen a particular window on the top floor because it was open. It wasn’t open tonight, but it took him about three seconds to decide that it was still his best option.
He threw himself across the divide, landing exactly where he wanted to. There were all those stories below him and the hard marble ground, but he didn’t bother looking down. He gripped the windowsill, spreading his toes pretty wide on the wall below him, knowing he hadn’t made a sound as he’d landed.
He levered himself up, pushing on the window with one hand while he hauled himself up with the other, to see if the glass would move. When it did, he pushed it open. He ducked down once more to get his free hand back on the sill, and then he jackknifed up and threw himself inside.
He dove toward the floor and started rolling as he hit it, letting the momentum throw him up and onto his feet. And once he was standing, he paused. It was quiet, but even so, he could sense movement around him—another difference from the night before.
The small living room he stood in had a fire going and electric lights set low, despite the fact there was no one here who needed either to see. But he no longer bothered to register his astonishment at the cavalier use of electricity to light empty rooms when there were whole swathes of the mainland even now huddled in the dark, desperate for the sun to rise in the morning to give them a little heat and a little light. There was no point thinking about any of that. It wasn’t the fault of whatever confined and controlled female lived in this chamber. If she was like the rest of these high-society women, she couldn’t choose the man she’d spend a winter screwing, much less anything else. Maybe abundant electricity was all she had.
There was a faint noise from the door that led to the bathroom—a real bathroom, with actual running water, instead of the primitive facilities he enjoyed—and he figured he had less than a second to do something. He did nothing.
He stood there as a girl wandered out, sleepy-eyed. Her hair was free of the usual slicking shit the women here all used, and was in a brown mess around her head. Her eyes were dark and sleepy, her lips in a half-unconscious pout. She was wearing an oversized tank top that reached nearly to her knees, and she looked straight at him as she walked into her living room.
And she did absolutely nothing as she kept walking, across the small room toward her bedchamber.
About halfway across the room, she blinked. Then blinked again. And it seemed as if she was finally focusing on him.
“You’re dreaming,” Wulf told her in a low, commanding voice. “Go to bed.”
She blinked again, then nodded. Then she kept on her way, leaving him standing there as she disappeared into the bedroom. He heard the sound of a mattress creaking, and when he peeked inside, she was sprawled facedown on her bed, her breathing deep and regular.
He doubted she’d even remember that she’d dreamed him.
Wulf let himself out of the room, then moved swiftly down the hall. One side was a balcony that overlooked the courtyard floor, which was handy. It let him scan the different floors of the place as he made his way down to the ground. This was the one part of the palace, if he was drawing the right conclusions from the bullshit he’d seen around here, where there could never be any courtesans. Which cut down considerably on the amount of creeping around in the shadows. More than that, the winter husbands tended to import their brides into their own rooms for their daily attempt to repopulate the earth. Last night that had meant that there was no one around but him.
But he didn’t exactly relax. He passed one room after the next that was dark and quiet, either because the person inside was sleeping or because she was off attending to her dumbass duties. He kept his hood up. He stuck to the shadows. And he made sure he moved as quietly as the night all around him.
When he made it to the ground floor, he moved past the rooms he’d already checked and started with the ones he hadn’t. It was an easy enough job, since no one bothered to lock their doors. Either the woman was in her bed, in which case he could see whether or not she was his princess, or she wasn’t. If she wasn’t, he checked the closet for gold. Then he moved on
to the next, moving as quietly as if he was doing recon for a major siege, the way he’d done a hundred times before.
He wanted to see Kathlyn. He wanted to make certain with his own eyes that she hadn’t suffered too terribly at her father’s hands. Wulf tried to tell himself that he would have the same urge to check on any person unlucky enough to be in this bastard king’s crosshairs—but he knew better.
He’d spent a lot of time with King Athenian in the past week. Far more time than he’d ever spent with a man he so dearly wanted to kill with his bare hands. Wulf couldn’t recall the last time he had been forced to suffer a fool for more than the time it took to exterminate him. Much less one who imagined he had power while Wulf did not. Or one he had to pretend to tolerate.
Every fucking day, in fact.
It reminded him a little too much of those last years before he’d taken the throne. When King Donovan had been threatened by the upstart kid who everyone murmured had a kingly air about him. Donovan had been sure that air meant insurrection, and he’d gone out of his way to cut that shit off at the knees. Meaning he’d been all over Wulf. He’d barred him from becoming a prospective brother at sixteen like everyone else his age. He’d only begrudgingly allowed Wulf in after he’d challenged every other prospective brother to a fight in the green outside the Lodge—and won. Then he’d tried to assassinate Wulf on the battlefield his first summer out raiding. He’d sent two of his little ass-licking loyalists, but Wulf had beaten them back with Tyr’s help.
Then there was what had happened Wulf’s eighteenth summer, which was worse. Much worse. And it had led right to the insurrection Donovan had been so afraid of all along, like a big old self-fulfilling prophecy.