The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride: A Fantasy Holiday Romance

by Kati Wilde

  His answer had not lessened her horror. “In Ivermere,” she said, “this is the worst punishment. A mark of shame, even worse than death.”

  Did she think he had been punished? “And in the Dead Lands, it is a choice.” Because she was still shaking her head, with tears standing in her eyes, he added, “There’s no shame in it. Instead it declares the kind of man I choose to be. If I harm anyone, it will be because I mean to harm them, not because a spell has scaled and stolen something from someone else.”

  Drawing in a shuddering breath, she finally nodded, as if accepting that view of it. She smoothed her fingers over the small mark—as if she meant to comfort him, to ease his pain, though there was no pain to ease.

  No pain that was his. Because her voice was thick as she told him, “It’s not chosen in Ivermere. It’s a punishment given to criminals. It means exclusion and exile from the realm. And if you delay in going, they will hunt you down and cast you out.”

  Ragged emotion opened a hole in his chest as understanding speared through him. In many ways, she had been wearing that mark all of her life, though invisibly. A mark that was a punishment, a mark of shame.

  And she had said so many times that she was her parents’ shame. As if her inability to cast spells was a punishment. Then this very morning, she’d realized that her king and queen had essentially cast her out.

  He’d understood that she’d been hurt. But he hadn’t understood how deep the hurt must have gone…or how deeply he must have hurt her last night, too. When she’d asked for a kiss, everything Kael wanted was suddenly placed in his hands, and he’d rushed to secure it before she slipped away. Yet to Anja, it must have seemed another part of her lifelong pain. She had once again been unwanted, rejected. Cast away.

  Never again would he allow her to feel that way.

  Catching her face in his hands, he looked into her eyes. “You are not a punishment, my Anja. You are the greatest gift.”

  Her lips parted in surprise, her brow furrowing. She stared at him with a chaotic storm of emotions sweeping across her face, chief among them confusion. As if she couldn’t understand what he was saying—or why he would say it.

  Then he would make certain she knew. “Never could I imagine a woman who has added so much light to my life. I was smothered and dying, and now every breath is free. When we return to Grimhold, no matter how many meetings I sit through, with you at my side every moment will be a joy.”

  He knew from last night what her happy tears looked like, and they were the same as the ones now shimmering in her eyes. In a trembling voice, she said, “We will still make certain there are not so many meetings.”

  If that was her response, then she didn’t understand what he was trying to say. “I won’t care if there are. Everything else might remain the same, but everything for me will be changed,” he told her gruffly. “That is what loving you has done to me. It has changed everything.”

  She went still, her dark gaze searching his, her face alight with wonder and hope. “You love me?”

  “I do.” His voice deepened. “I know you do not yet feel the same, but I will win your heart—”

  “I do! I do feel the same.” Those happy tears filled her eyes again. “Did I not tell you last night?”

  Anja loved him. Him. The Conqueror, the Butcherer, the Raviner. He had more blood on his hands than an ocean could wash away. Yet she loved him.

  The emotions swelling and rising in his chest threatened to choke him. “You only said that you wanted me.”

  A blush stained her cheeks. “Maybe I was too distracted by the rest.”

  “Too distracted by a kiss to say you love me? You will have to do better than that, my wife.” With his heart in his throat, he lowered his head and brushed his lips to hers. “Tell me.”

  Breathlessly she whispered, “I love you.”

  He kissed her throat and waited.

  Hoarsely now, she said, “I love you.”

  He went to his knees. Her breath caught. Then her fingers slid into his hair as he lifted the hem of her tunic, revealing the sleek skin at the tops of her thighs, the soft tangle of white curls, the glistening pink flesh peeking out. “Now I will show you how a king eats his Midwinter feast.”

  She laughed, a sound lightened by amusement and roughened by her need. “By the gods, how I love you!”

  And he could taste it, the sweetness of her love and need bursting across his tongue when he teased her with a single lick. She gasped another “I love you,” her thighs trembling, the magic she possessed shining from her skin.

  Powerful magic. It had to be. Because every one of his Midwinter wishes had come true. Anja the Kind would be at his side every day and in his bed every night. Anja the Courageous had pledged herself as his wife. And now Anja the Beloved had given her love in return.

  And with every kiss, every lick, she would tell him again.

  So Kael claimed her cunt and feasted like a king did—on his knees before the queen who owned every part of his heart.

  10

  Anja the Witch

  Scalewood

  It was always dark in Scalewood. The forest grew so tall and thick that the sun never touched the ground, except upon the narrow swath of road that passed from Dryloch to Ivermere. The path had been cut in ancient times, when the magic within the forest hadn’t been so powerful and the creatures residing there not so dangerous.

  If not for the wards placed at either side of the road, the forest would have consumed the path long ago. But every few paces stood a heavy column of granite marked with a rune, and the faint golden glow of the active wards were a constant, reassuring sight.

  Yet still Anja’s heart raced every time the thundering steps of an unseen terror echoed through the trees. When limbs cracked and trees swayed beneath monstrous weights. When glowing eyes shone through the darkness and ravenous howls joined unearthly screams.

  She clutched Kael’s forearm as a giant creature emerged into the half-shadows beside the road, easily three times taller than their own height upon Kael’s warhorse. Covered in shaggy fur the color of rust, it walked upright, yet there was no mistaking the monster for anything humanlike. A thick hump sat atop massive shoulders hunched over like an old man’s. Beady black eyes peered down at them over a long and pointed snout lined with sharp yellow teeth and long, thick tusks. Overlong arms roped with muscle dangled at its sides. From one taloned hand dangled the remains of a half-eaten stag. The other held a bloodied club that dragged on the ground with every giant step, leaving a shallow furrow through the soft earth.

  Though she felt his own tension, Kael softly kissed the side of her neck and said, “We are safe.”

  She knew. On a shuddering breath, she tore her gaze away from the hideous beast and focused on the path ahead. The thing kept pace with them, as they sometimes did with travelers on the road—but they rarely stepped fully out of the shadows. Some in Ivermere believed that the sun burned them, but Anja thought it more likely that they simply weren’t stupid. The wards had been up for far longer than living memory, so any creature within this forest knew the futility of trying to attack humans passing through. And when the Mistress of the Hunt and her hunters rode this path, from the safety of the road they would use spears and arrows to kill any creatures that strayed near enough to target.

  A shriek sounded from the western side of the forest. The beast screamed an answer, a ululating howl that rose to a painful pitch. Prancing uneasily, Kael’s horse tossed his head, snorting.

  With a soothing murmur, Anja leaned forward and patted its thick neck, then coughed and gagged as a putrid odor washed over them. She glanced over and wished she could unsee the sight of the beast defecating on a fallen tree.

  Cursing, Kael nudged the horse into an easy canter. Anja began giggling as soon as she could draw a breath of fresh air, then fell abruptly silent when crashing footfalls sounded behind them—the monster catching up to them, then easily keeping pace with the running horse.

  Kael slo
wed and the beast did, too.

  She rubbed her palm over his tense forearm. “It will be well.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. Then asked, “Are they known to throw anything at the road?”

  “Are you worried about its club or what it left back there on the tree?”

  His laugh rumbled against her back. “The club.”

  “Rarely. I think they know there would be no point to it. If it killed us, it couldn’t come for our bodies to eat. And it would lose its club. It would be like throwing your sword into a river hoping to hit a fish. You might succeed, but you’ll have neither fish nor sword at the end.” She glanced toward the shadows again, saw something squirming beneath the fur covering the beast’s hump, and quickly looked away again. “I can tell this place unsettles you.”

  Amusement deepened his voice. “Can you?”

  “It is the first time your manhood isn’t swollen behind me.”

  He gave a shout of laughter—but didn’t deny it, she noted. Instead he lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm. “You are clever, my wife.” A deep breath lifted his chest. “Are you angry?”

  Frowning, she glanced back. “At what?”

  “That I did not tell you about the ward, or the mark that binds the magic to my skin.”

  She shook her head. “Not angry. Afraid, at first—”

  Hard fingers caught her chin, tipped her face up to meet the bleakness of his. “Afraid of me?”

  “No. Only afraid that if you had magic, then you wouldn’t want me. But only for a moment,” she reassured him and watched the fire return to his gaze. “And that was not because of you. Just…what I expect from magic-wielders, because it is the reaction I have known from them all of my life. Then the feeling was gone.” Burned away when he’d showed her the mark. “Then I was angry, but only because I thought you might have had the magic taken from you, and I was sickened to think that you might have been treated the way I have been. But now that I know you did it yourself, and why, I am only left with…awe.”

  He frowned. “Awe?”

  “Wards are only as strong as the magic that maintains them. Yet Toatin Zan’s spells didn’t touch you, and he was by far the most powerful sorcerer in living memory. How long has it been since the Reckoning?”

  “Countless generations.”

  “With each generation stronger than the last?” She laughed and settled against his chest again, her head resting back against his broad shoulder. “Yet so very few spellcasting now, and instead taught purer magics. I think the world should be glad of—”

  Sour fear shot up through her throat like bile, choking her.

  Immediately Kael held her tighter. “Anja?”

  “The wards,” she breathed, her terrified gaze on the nearest granite column. “They’re not glowing.”

  The sudden tension in his arm squeezed the breath from her chest. As one, they both looked to the beast, but the creature had not seemed to notice any change. He walked through the shadows, gnawing on the stag’s carcass, sharp teeth tearing into the flesh and ripping it free.

  “It can’t see the runes from that side of the column,” Anja whispered. Yet that was hardly a relief. “But if it looks across the road, it might see that the western wards have failed, too.”

  “Perhaps not easily,” Kael said. “The sun is bright. It can be hard to see the runes glow when there is so much light.”

  “Yes.” A violent shiver wracked her body, then another. “We are still an hour from the edge of the forest.”

  “It will be but twenty minutes,” was his grim reply and nudged the horse toward a gallop.

  “No no no.” Her already-pounding heart racing faster, Anja caught his hand holding the reins. “Slow him again.”

  Kael pulled back on the reins, though she could feel the tremors that ran through his every muscle when he did, as if fighting to make himself to do it. She glanced over at the beast. It had increased its speed for a few strides but now matched walking their pace again.

  “No running,” she said. “If we run, it might not just be one monster’s attention that we catch. And the others might be more observant. We need to keep riding at this slow pace—and not give it any reason to look this way more than it would otherwise. So don’t draw your sword or ready your axe, as the sunlight shining on the metal might draw interest.”

  The faint grinding behind her could only be his teeth. A moment later he gritted, “I mislike this plan.”

  “I know,” she said unhappily. “There is nothing of any of this to like.”

  His big hand tangled in her hair and he tugged her head back, kissing her hard upon the lips before releasing her.

  “You will be safe,” he swore.

  Though cold sweat slithered down her spine, she nodded. “We will be.”

  She settled back again—not at ease, for that was impossible, but needing to have as much of Kael against her as she could. He pulled her in tight, his muscles like coiled steel springs.

  “If more come,” he said starkly, “We will not wait for them to see the wards are gone. I will take to the road on foot and draw them to me, while you ride for Ivermere at speed.”

  “No,” she said, and lay her hand against his, just as they had been when woven together with the ribbon. “We are bound together.”

  His voice hoarsened. “Anja—”

  “It will be well. We have powerful magic on our side.”

  He gave a harsh laugh. “We do, and it is called fear. It tells me to let you run—and perhaps will save your life, because no matter how kind or courageous you are, bones crunch the same between a monster’s teeth. But I love you so desperately that I would fight all of Scalewood to keep you alive and to see you safely away. I love you so mightily, I might even survive it.”

  Tears stinging her eyes at the emotion in his voice, she shook her head. “I do not refer to fear or love or courage. I refer to knowledge. I am familiar with these woods, and I truly believe that we shall be unharmed if we continue at this pace, even if more creatures come near to the road. And if this one beast sees the wards are broken, better to fight him together.”

  “Knowledge isn’t magic,” he said flatly. “It is a tool. Like a sword. Or medicine.”

  “Truly?” She pursed her lips. “I think it should be magic. Then what of trust? It seems as if it should be a powerful magic, particularly if shared between two people.”

  “It is.”

  “Then trust me, Kael,” she said quietly. “Trust me now, and follow my lead. And if that beast crosses the wards, I will trust that you know how best to fight him, and follow your lead.”

  His lips brushed against her temple, a soft and swift kiss. He could not stop holding her and touching her, it seemed—and she felt the same, clinging to his hand, her fingers numb from the tightness of their grip.

  From that point forward, every howl and crash from within the darkness of the forest seemed like a harbinger of their death. Horrible tension chained them for an endless minute when, on the eastern side of the forest, another giant creature emerged into the half-shadows beside the road, a stick-limbed demon with blue skin hanging from its skeletal frame in ragged sheets, bloodied claws as long as Kael’s sword, and teeth like sharpened knives. But it only gave them one disinterest look before skittering back into the trees.

  Finally she could see the tall granite pillars marking the entrance to Scalewood’s passage, and the road stretching ahead through sunlight and snow-covered fields. It seemed those last few hundred paces took years to travel. Even after the humpbacked beast ambled back into the forest, she kept expecting every monster within the wood to realize the wards had disappeared and devour them.

  Simply passing through the pillars did not make them safe—with the wards inactive, there was nowhere safe now—yet still it seemed a great weight slipped away. From Kael, too, as he began kissing the side of her neck, her face, then simply tangling his hand in her hair and pressing his hard jaw against her temple and holding her
tight. And, for the first time since they’d entered Scalewood, his big shaft was swollen again.

  “How did you know?” His voice was hoarse, as hers was, though they had spoken little in the hour. But her throat was so raw from the unceasing tension it seemed as if she’d spent that hour screaming.

  “It’s difficult to unlearn something that you’ve believed is true all your life. Especially if you don’t have reason to look and see if it’s still true. The monsters didn’t have reason to look at the wards.” A shuddering breath escaped her. “But we were also lucky.”

  He shook his head. “You are the only person to have ever ridden through Scalewood without the protection of the wards or spells and emerged alive. That was your courage and knowledge, not luck.”

  “You made it through, too.”

  “And without you to guide me, I would have been dead,” he said. “It is I who am lucky, that I have such a wife. Do you know what a woman of great magic and wisdom is called in the Dead Lands?”

  She did know. And her reaction to the word was something she would have to unlearn, too. “A witch,” Anja said.

  “Yes. But I call this one my queen.” His chest lifted against her on a deep, impatient breath. “How long must we ride at this slow pace?”

  Because what lay ahead might be more terrifying than what lay behind them. The wards were not linked to any one magic-wielder’s power, but to everyone in Ivermere. Replenishing the Scalewood wards was the single most important ritual of a spellcaster’s day. Yet it must have been two or three days since anyone in Ivermere had done it.

  “Until the crest of that hill, I think,” she said. “We would not be easily seen from Scalewood past that point.”