But no matter who she was or what the future held, he did want her.
Lust was much more beneficial than love.
It was an oddly warm day, pleasant and refreshing. Ryn felt not so hot as he had in the beginning days. His flesh against hers was merely warm. Maybe it was the lust he spoke of that warmed her, not the sun or his skin or the oddly warm waters of the lake.
Ryn lifted Juliet easily and carried her from the lake. While he walked toward shore, leaving a rippling wake behind him, she laid her mouth on his neck, kissing, tasting, and growing warmer. Did she want love in spite of the curse that had plagued her family, or could she be satisfied with this? The physical connection was spectacular, and she could not deny that she liked Ryn well enough. But romantic love...was that what she’d been afraid of all her adult life? It had destroyed Isadora, and it had made fools of many of the women she’d treated for unwanted pregnancy or a broken heart. It had destroyed many a Fyne witch in the past three hundred years.
Maybe love was the claws that always ruined her dreams. Maybe Ryn was right and what they had was better.
He kicked the bedroll open and laid her upon it. There was still light in the sky, but not much. Just enough for her to see the man who called himself her husband as he lowered himself to hover just slightly above her. She had seen the wildness in him before she’d seen the man. The wildness remained, in his hair and his method of dress and in the way he moved, but it was the man she had come to like so well.
“I never realized that skin against skin could feel so good,” she said as she raked her hand along his side.
“Neither did I,” Ryn growled.
She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him closer, just a little bit. “You said that you’d been waiting for me. What if we’d never met?”
“We did meet.”
“But what if the soldiers hadn’t taken Isadora and me along that road, or if we’d defeated them at the cabin, or...” She didn’t want to ask what would’ve happened if the soldiers had killed her. “Would you have found your connection to another woman and taken her instead?”
Ryn laid one hand on her breast, and she closed her eyes and let the sensations ripple through her body as he tenderly caressed her. “Do you not yet know, wife?”
Tonight she would not tell him not to call her wife. She felt very much like his wife at the moment, though she still wasn’t sure what tomorrow would bring. With Ryn touching her, tomorrow seemed very far away. “All I know is that I want you.”
He touched her where she throbbed for him, and stroked his fingers there. “That is as it should be.”
He filled her, not slowly as he had last night but with a thrust that quickly took him deep inside. Her body arched and shuddered, and she gasped. She fisted his hair in her hand and moaned, and there were no more words. The lust Ryn spoke of ruled their bodies, and they mated in a way that was primal, without gentleness or beauty or sweet words. Everything else faded, but the way he felt inside her. It was primitive sex and nothing more, a fast and furious mating that brought new sensations to life in the body she had protected for so long.
Not because she was afraid of men, after all, but because she had been waiting for Ryn, just as he had waited for her.
Juliet arched her back and he drove deep, and she climaxed with a cry that echoed around them. Ryn came with her, with a growl instead of a scream. When the lust he declared better than love had been sated, he lowered himself to cover her body with his. She trembled from head to toe, her heart beat much too fast, and her mouth had gone dry. They remained joined, and she did not let go—not of his hair, not of his body.
“There can never be another,” Ryn said as he rose up slightly. “If you had not come along that road, I would have followed your scent and my instincts until I found you.”
“But if something were to happen to me...”
“Nothing will happen,” he said in a raspy voice. “You are my woman, my wife. I will protect you from all harm until the end of our days.”
“But...”
“You have spoken too many buts today,” Ryn protested. “You have too many questions. You are my woman and always will be.” They were still joined, and she didn’t want to let him go. Not yet. He placed his hand beneath her head and lifted her slightly, threading his fingers in her tangled curls and bringing her face closer to his. “Anwyn mate for life.”
Isadora had lost count of the days. Winter had come at last and it was bitterly cold. She wished for the comfort of Will’s spirit, but he had deserted her once again. She wished for death so she could join him, but that wish did not come true, either.
Bors was very cautious with her, assigning one expendable soldier or another to touch her when it was necessary that she be fed or allowed to see to her personal needs. It was an unnecessary precaution. Even if she could rouse the power to do so, she didn’t intend to kill again, not when taking the life of one soldier or even two would not save her or her sisters. Destruction had dampened her magic, and she didn’t know if it would ever grow strong again. She remained compliant, and her captor became quite bold at his success.
It was dawn when Bors woke her, prodding her into a sitting position with the end of a stout stick, and then pointing westward with that same stick. “By the light of day you can see the palace from here,” he said in a voice that grated like coarse sand on flesh.
Sure enough, the towering structure that had been unseen last night when they’d stopped to rest was now visible in the morning gray.
“Ugly, isn’t it?” Bors observed. “On the outside, at least. Some of the Levels are quite nice on the inside. Silks and furs of the finest quality, food such as you have never tasted, jewels everywhere you turn, the most comfortable furnishings that exist in this or any land. And the women...I hear the women on Level Three are trained in all ways of pleasuring a man.”
The palace was indeed ugly, from this vantage point. The massive, gray stone structure climbed high, sloping slightly inward toward the top. Sophie had gone there to save her child and now Bors was taking Isadora there to die.
“Have you given any thought as to how you wish to be executed, once the emperor has finished with you?” Bors asked casually. “Fire, hanging, beheading, poison. All have been utilized in the prison on Level Twelve.”
“I don’t care,” she said, a deadness in her voice. There had been times when she’d wished for death, so she could join Will in the land of the dead. But now she wondered if she would join him after all. He had been such a good and kind and tender man, he had surely found a place in paradise. She had killed, and caused others to be killed and tortured. The odds that her spirit would join that of her husband were small.
But she was not afraid. She’d lost everything. Her husband, her magic, her home, even her sisters. She had nothing of value left for Bors to take from her.
Juliet tied her skirt up to her knees to make long strides easier and to let the cool air whip under her skirts. She ran up the slope, not behind Ryn this time, but ahead of him. There was something about the air in these mountains that invigorated her, that filled her with life and joy in a way nothing else ever had. Even Ryn, with his talk of mating for life, couldn’t dampen her newfound enchantment.
“How far?” she asked as she crested the rise and surveyed the land below.
“Four days,” Ryn answered in a soft, strong voice.
“Is it pretty?”
“The City?”
“Yes, The City.” She turned and grinned at him. “Will I like it there?"
“It is very pretty, in some places, and you will most certainly like it there.”
“What about your house, what’s it like?” She leaned against a rock that was barely taller than she was and rested for a moment. Ryn was anxious to keep moving, but he would stop on occasion on her account.
“Our house,” he corrected.
“Our house,” she repeated softly. “What’s it like?”
He hesitated for a moment
and his eyes turned toward home. “I built it myself, when I began to feel that the time for finding you was near.”
There was something very touching about the fact that Ryn had built a home for her. For them.
“It’s of a moderate size, and constructed of gray and pink stone. There is a family parlor and a small parlor for visitors, a kitchen, and three bedrooms. The parlors and the kitchen are at the front of the house, and they have many windows, but the bedrooms are set in the deep stone of the mountain. You might find it too plain to suit you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with plain,” Juliet said.
“It has been a long time since the Caradon have gotten past the walls of The City, but if that ever happens again, my family will be protected on all sides. We will be well inside the rock, where no man or beast can touch us.”
No one would ever burn that home down, Juliet realized. “Furniture?” she asked.
“Some. You will choose your own furnishings and the best artisans in The City will build them for you. Again, they will be plain, but sturdy and comfortable.”
Oddly enough she could see the house in her mind’s eye, even though the connection to Ryn remained severed and she saw nothing through his eyes.
“And if I decide not to stay?” she asked softly.
“You will stay.”
He sounded so confident. She was happy; she was excited. But she was not confident that she would be content to remain in Ryn’s city forever. She could not settle down, not even in a pretty place with a beautiful man, until she knew her sisters were safe and well. Once that was done, then...perhaps.
Judging by the look in his golden eyes, Ryn was no longer thinking of the home that awaited them in four days, but of how it would feel to take her up against this rock, quick and hard. She had been thinking of that, too. She wanted him with the sun on her face and the warm air on her legs.
“We’ve been all but running toward your city,” she said, offering him a hand.
“Yes, we have.” He took her hand and dropped the bedroll to the ground.
“Would five days not be soon enough?”
“Soon enough.” He lifted her skirt and his and picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all. She wrapped her legs around him and held on tight.
Juliet did not know what awaited, and he did not know how to tell her. He would have to tell her soon. Otherwise, she would not understand.
She asked often about babies, not because she wanted them but because she did not. That alone told him she was not yet sure about her future. He was sure, though. He wished he could be less sure.
Juliet would be fertile three times a year, as those extraordinary Anwyn females through history had been. She would bleed for three or four days, and then she would be caught in a frenzy of desire that would put the past days of passion to shame. She would drag her mate to her bed and they would not leave it for days. In that time she would conceive. Boys, not girls. Anwyn sons.
She lay with her bare body against his, but she did not sleep. The draw of The City that was in her blood called to her, and with each step the Anwyn in her came more to life. She had no mirror to see the change, but he saw. Her eyes were now as much gold as brown.
The color of her eyes was only a small part of the change. She was discovering the life of the mountain within her. Just this afternoon she had discarded her boots as unworthy, and she walked barefoot as he did. Her step was steadier, more sure on the rocks, and she possessed a strength and speed she had not yet tested.
She placed her hand upon his chest. “If I decide I cannot live so far away from my sisters, we could always move, right?”
“Move?”
“We could live in a village somewhere in Columbyana, in the lowlands. I could make money as a healer, and you could hunt and work with stone.”
“Why would we move?”
“The City sounds strange to me,” she confided. “And it’s so far away from home.”
“No, it is home.” He rested a hand in her hair.
She did not give up easily. “We could cut your hair or pull it back, and buy you some nice clothes, and when we had babies, if they didn’t take that vow before the Queen, they wouldn’t have to become shape-shifters, right? And you said if you were far enough away from The City, even you...”
His entire body reacted to her offer, his muscles tightening and his stomach turning over unpleasantly. “Again, you ask me to deny the wolf.”
She rose up slowly and looked down at him. He had built a small fire with which to cook their dinner, and what remained of that fire illuminated her face for him. The wolf agreed with her. She was more beautiful than ever.
“I was just thinking out loud.”
They wanted the same things from life. A small home, a family, a normal life—though what was normal for him and normal for her were not the same. Neither of them would have what they wanted. She would rule. He would be the Queen’s consort, available at her command.
“What do you know of your father?” he asked.
She blinked in surprise. “I never knew him.”
Ryn nodded, but he did not understand. It was unheard of for an Anwyn to travel to the lowlands to lie with a woman who was not his mate.
“His name was Kei, that’s all I know of him.”
Ryn’s heart thudded in his chest. Kei. There were not many rogues among the Anwyn, but Kei Deverin of the Ancikyn Clan was one of them. Years ago, the unthinkable had happened. His mate, the woman who was meant to be his wife, had died shortly after he’d captured her. There had been no children from that very short union, and having his promised happiness ripped away from him had driven Kei from The City. He lived in the hills, the man as wild as the wolf. Apparently he had also traveled far from home and lain with another woman, one who was not his promised mate. Such was not the way of the Anwyn, but neither was it impossible.
“You speak of sisters,” he said.
“Half-sisters, actually. The three of us have different fathers.” She squirmed as if the discussion made her uncomfortable. “My mother was a very sweet woman and she loved her daughters, but she was unconventional where men were concerned. She would have agreed with you that lust is preferable to love. The curse frightened her, so she didn’t want to risk loving any man.” She fidgeted, obviously uncomfortable with the conversation. “What of your family? Do your parents live in The City?”
“My father died many years ago, during an attack by the Caradon.”
“I’m sorry. Your mother?”
“She died in her sleep within two cycles of the moon. Anwyn rarely outlive their mates, but when it happens...it shouldn’t happen,” he finished softly.
“But your mother, she wasn’t Anwyn. Right?” Juliet asked, confused.
“She was not born Anwyn, but she became Anwyn.”
“Do you have brothers?” she asked, desperately trying to shift the conversation to a happier subject.
“Three.”
“Are you close to them?”
“They are family. Calum and Ansgar have mates and sons to keep them occupied, so I do not see them every day, but before I was called to fetch you, I visited often. Denton is a soldier in the Queen’s palace, as I am, so I see him more frequently.”
“Denton has not yet fetched his mate?” she asked.
Ryn shook his head. “He has not been called, but he is still young. The day will come.”
He didn’t want to tell Juliet what he knew to be true, not now when she had just begun to accept that she was fated to be his wife. But he could not allow her to enter The City unprepared. “Your father is Anwyn,” he said softly, not knowing how to tell her the truth in any other way.
“No, that’s not possible,” she argued sweetly. “You said yourself that Anwyn men make Anwyn men, and besides, I am certainly not a shape-shifter.”
“I explained this to you. Every fifty years or so, an Anwyn girl child is born,” he explained. “This girl child can be the offspring of any Anwyn male,
and she becomes
Queen when she reaches the age where the wolf can come upon her under the full moon.”
“I’m not...”
Ryn spun Juliet onto her back, not for reasons of pleasure as he had been known to do in the days since she became his wife in every way, but because she would not listen to him and somehow he had to make her understand.
“I built a house for you, but we will not live in it. I planned a life for us, but we will not live it. When we get to The City, I am honor-bound to take you directly to the Palace of the Anwyn Queen. We will not be wed. You will place your hand upon the sacred stone and take the vow that will make you Queen. That vow will also make you Anwyn in every way.”
She blinked hard and pushed lightly against him. “I would know if such a horrible thing was true.”
To be one of his kind was horrible to her. He had known that she despised the wolf within him all along, but he had hoped she would come to accept what he was. What would she say when he told her she was destined to bring about peace by taking a Caradon lover?
“You have cut yourself off from your abilities, in days past.”
“Yes.”
“Open the tendrils that connect you to the earth and tell me what you feel.”
“I don’t—”
“If you wish to know the whole of the truth, reach into the heart of the earth and let it come to you. I will be with you, vidara, I promise.”
Ryn lowered the barrier between them, and skeptically, uneasily, she did as he asked. He felt the release of energy, the jolt of power, the raw force. Juliet’s gift of sight had become stronger in past days, not because she had kept it closed but because as she grew nearer The City, her power grew. Touching her, allowing her gifts to wash over them both, he saw some of what she saw. He felt her pain because she shared it with him.
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