by Megan Crane
Eiryn gritted her teeth at the thought of actually wearing either bizarre get up and reached down to rearrange the princesses on the couch before her. She eyed the bony one, finding her dress fastening on the side of the copper bodice and opening it up. Then it was easy enough to tug it down toward the floor and off her body. She learned a few things about princesses while she did it. First, they didn’t bind their breasts. Or this one didn’t. And furthermore, this one had removed every last speck of hair from her pussy. Personal preference or one of those strangely specific compliant rules for the care and maintenance of aristocratic pussy-for-hire? She supposed she’d never know.
When she’d freed the dress from Nasally’s feet, she sighed again. She held the headache-bright dress up against her own chest, hoping fervently it wouldn’t fit. But it wasn’t that far off, sadly. She tossed it on the arm of the elegant couch, then got on with it, sweeping her T-shirt up and over her head and letting it drop on the floor. Because the princess wasn’t wearing any binding and she was nothing if not thorough in her commitment to passing for various compliant women, she unwrapped herself and dropped her length of wool, too. Then she reached over to grab the dress again, and that was when she heard it.
Soft. Sharp.
But undeniably an intake of breath.
Which meant someone was in this room with them.
Eiryn went on instant high alert. She did another visual sweep of the room even as she crouched down to pull her dagger from her boot. As she stood again, she felt more than heard Riordan move in behind her.
She was headed for the window and the set of heavy, brocaded curtains that hung on either side of it even as Riordan called it out.
“The window,” he barked, all the laughter gone from his voice.
But before she could get to the window, the heavy curtain beside it rippled and a woman stepped out from behind it.
Another princess, clearly. Or maybe the princess, if there was such a thing.
The woman standing there, framed by the window and the richly patterned curtains, was one of the most beautiful creatures Eiryn had ever seen and that included the almost supernaturally pretty Maud. She had soft brown skin and melting dark eyes shot through with gold that canted slightly upward in the corners. Her lashes looked long and thick without any dark crap all over them. She had lush, full lips, a straight, elegant nose, and the kind of cheekbones that suggested she might actually be a queen in her spare time. Her hair was cut short in a way that reminded Eiryn of Maud again, though this woman’s was dark black, straight, and slicked close to her head. Her dress was pure gold. It shimmered down the length of her lovely, soft, and obviously pampered body, making her seem to gleam from within rather than reflect the light from around her like the others.
“Please don’t kill me,” the princess said, in a voice that was neither breathy nor nasal. If anything, she sounded calm, which made another alarm go off inside Eiryn.
Those compelling dark gold eyes widened as the woman took in Riordan and didn’t get any less wide when she looked back to Eiryn. She swallowed. Then she dropped her gaze to the intricate web of tattoos that spanned Eiryn’s side, a map of battles won and enemies her blade had claimed. The story of who she was, stamped deep into her skin.
This princess’s voice was hushed. “You’re raiders, aren’t you?”
The shock of that went through Eiryn like a bolt of lightning. Beside her, she felt Riordan tense.
“I didn’t know women could be raiders.” The princess hazarded a smile, as pretty as the rest of her, which suddenly and oddly made Eiryn feel like a great, lumbering beast in comparison. It only added to her burning desire to add this creature to her pile of princesses. Then the gold woman laughed slightly, as if she wasn’t three seconds away from pain and a few hours of forced oblivion. “Not that it matters. What are you doing here? I thought I’d have to sell myself to the bandits to find you.”
Eiryn lowered her dagger. She bent to tuck it back in her boot and when she rose she folded her arms beneath her breasts as if she wasn’t standing there, half-naked, while a gloriously shimmering golden creature glittered there in front of her, like the physical representation of all the delirious femininity Eiryn would never, ever possess. Then again, this female had obviously never laid eyes on a woman warrior before, so maybe they were even.
Still, she was afraid that if she looked at Riordan to gauge his reaction to all the feminine perfection before them, she would be forced to carve out his kidneys with her bare hands.
A feeling she opted not to analyze too closely.
“Who the hell are you?” Riordan growled, sounding like he might deserve to keep his kidneys. For the moment.
Eiryn still didn’t spare him a glance. She knew better than most that seemingly unthreatening women could actually be the most lethal creatures in any given room. Especially when they didn’t look it.
“And why were you hiding?” She cocked her head slightly as she tried to read the glowing golden vision before her. “Were you spying on us?”
“I’m Kathlyn,” the princess said. “My father is King Athenian.” When neither Riordan nor Eiryn reacted to that name, she blinked, as if that was unusual. She nodded toward the heap of princesses on the couch. “I’ve known Portia and Dhina my whole life and believe me, you’d hide from them too.” She eyed Eiryn, then. “Well, you don’t have to, of course. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who could shut them up.”
“Why would you be looking for raiders?” Eiryn asked, keeping her attention where it belonged. “Most people—smart people—run the other way. Do you have a death wish?”
Kathlyn’s smile did not reach her eyes. “I’m King Athenian’s only daughter,” she said. “A death wish would be redundant.”
“None of this matters,” Riordan muttered darkly. “Exciting as it is to find princesses hidden in the furniture.”
Eiryn moved toward Kathlyn, her hand already curving into a fist. To her credit, the princess didn’t back away or cringe. She only stood there in that same elegant way, her head up and her hands at her sides, practically offering herself as a target. Eiryn couldn’t have said why that tugged at her.
“I need to tell you about my father,” she said, her voice still calm, though there was an undercurrent of a certain urgency. “Then, by all means, knock me out all you like.”
Eiryn shook her head. “We have daddy issues of our own. What do we want with yours?”
“My father is the most powerful of the western kings,” the princess said, as if they should care deeply about that. “His territory spans most of the Great Basin, for a start.”
“I’ll make sure to congratulate him the next time I see him.” Riordan started moving toward the door, stopping only to swipe the copper dress up off the floor. With a muttered head’s up, he threw it over to Eiryn, who reached up and snatched it out of the air.
“You don’t need that dress,” Kathlyn told her. Still so calmly, as if there was no pressure or threat here. Or, Eiryn corrected herself, if she was used to both. “I can take you to the bishop, if you’re sure you really want that. He stays in his confessional until midnight.”
“Start talking,” Eiryn suggested softly. “You have about two minutes before I drop you.”
She stepped into the copper dress and pulled it up over her jeans and boots, then over her breasts. The material was cool inside and out, and slippery. She couldn’t say she liked the feel of it against her skin, like plastic. She kept her eyes on Kathlyn as she fought to zip it up, her toned muscles a little wider and more solid than the skinny woman’s frame.
“My father is a man of many obsessions,” Kathlyn said while Eiryn dressed. “He calls them hobbies. Or wars. Bishop Seph is just one of the influential leaders of the western highlands he likes to keep in his pocket in case another obsession hits him.”
Eiryn went still at that, and she didn’t have to look to know that Riordan had, too.
The princess looked from Eiryn to Riordan,
then pressed on. “He’s been particularly obsessed with finding a certain vagabond family for years. He claimed they stole an artifact from him and he wanted it back.”
“What artifact?” Eiryn asked.
“Some old tablet.” Kathlyn laced her fingers together in front of her. “Every time the bishop would come to pay his annual respects after the June solstice, my father would rant and rave about the indignity of having to chase these people across the drowned Earth. By which I mean he sent hired men. He certainly didn’t do it himself.”
“And what happened?” Riordan asked from the doorway, the same suppressed excitement coloring his voice that Eiryn felt coursing through her. Because what if the family in question was Helena’s? How many different families could there have been out there, being hunted down for an old-ass tablet that bishops and kings might want? Very few, Eiryn imagined. Maybe only the one. “Did he find this family?”
“I have no idea,” the princess said. “I don’t usually hear the orders he gives, unless they’re about the new and exciting ways he plans to control my life.” Her smile was thin. “Another hobby of his. But this summer, everything changed.” Eiryn was close enough to hear her take a breath. “Something happened midway through when some men came to see him from a small compound outside of Atlanta. With the bishop, which was unusual, as he’d already visited us in June. Whatever they told him made my father furious. More furious than I’ve seen him in years. He lost it. He was more vicious than usual, and you have to understand, this is a man who finds the darkest cruelty a sweet little pastime in between more serious tortures.”
A small compound in Atlanta was where Tyr had found Helena earlier this summer. Not long after he’d taken her back to the raider city, the douchey little kinglet of that compound had appeared on the shores of the raiders’ eastern island home, making a whole lot of grand pronouncements. He’d also brought along that piece of shit Krajic, the mercenary asshole who had killed a brother and messed with entirely too many raider settlements over the years. Tyr had cut down both of those motherfuckers in the center of the Lodge, with all the brotherhood looking on and voicing their enthusiastic approval. Wulf had sent the survivors of that afternoon in the Lodge to the interior to do a little hard farm labor and to keep them quiet. But there had been a whole boatful of idiots in the ship that had brought the fools to clan territory in the first place who hadn’t been allowed off that ship once it touched ground. Eiryn knew they’d been offered a choice the way many intruders were, after Krajic and the kinglet had been dealt with: turn around without any supplies and see if the sea was kind, or die where they stood.
It wasn’t a tremendous leap to imagine that ship could have made the return journey across the sullen Atlantic, one way or another. Leaving a number of little fucktard survivors to race off to their western king master and tattle like the bitches they were.
“Why are we standing here talking about some rich asshole’s temper tantrum?” Riordan asked from the door, as if none of what the princess was saying was at all interesting.
“It’s what happened next that I think will interest you.” Kathlyn swallowed hard. “He’s declared war.”
“You said he does that the way some men scratch their balls,” Eiryn pointed out, pulling at the copper dress’s bodice to see if it felt any better against her breasts. It didn’t. “Who cares?”
“Against the raiders,” Kathlyn clarified. “He said he would lay waste to the eastern islands or die trying.” When neither Riordan nor Eiryn responded to that, too busy staring at her in utter shock that any land-bound asshole would dare issue such a threat, she hurried on. “My father is not a man who only talks. He’s forming an army and he plans to move on the raider king. As soon after the March equinox as possible once the seas are passable.”
“There isn’t only one raider clan,” Eiryn said harshly, not that she or anyone in the clan thought too highly of the others. They existed either way. “And there’s more than one man who calls himself a raider king.”
She didn’t make the rude noise she usually would at that notion, because obviously there was only one true clan and only one Wulf. And like before in the hallway, she was surprised to find that it didn’t stick in her craw to think positive things about her blood kin. She shoved that aside. This was about far bigger things than her petty little family drama. The threat of an early spring attack, when so few dared bring the fight to the raiders at all and none ever attempted it in as changeable a month as March, when the sea was an even bigger whore than usual, was infinitely more serious than her own personal shit.
Still, Eiryn willed this golden, gleaming princess to name one of the other ragtag wannabe raider kings who carved out their own versions of clan in the eastern islands. The other woman only straightened her spine, as if she anticipated some kind of retaliation, which couldn’t be good.
“This particular raider king’s name is Wulf,” Kathlyn said quietly. Seriously. Her dark gold gaze was as steady as it was intense. “And my father plans to make his bones into a hat.”
12
“Incoming,” Riordan bit out from the doorway, not letting the idea of his king’s bones as some asswipe’s hat take hold of him—because that kind of insult could only end in blood. Right here, right now, and he’d heard a whole lot of voices and feet against the marble floor. Coming this way. Fast.
He was moving before the word was fully out of his mouth, heading for the couch where the unconscious girls were still in a heap. He tagged Eiryn’s T-shirt and binding wrap from the floor, shoving them in the waistband of his trousers. Then he arranged the princesses themselves on the couch with their backs to the door and only their heads visible from behind, so it might look as if they were engaged in a serious private conversation instead of knocked the fuck out. At least at a casual glance.
By the time he made it over to the window, the ridiculously beautiful Princess Kathlyn with the gold dress and the game-changing story was sitting on the couch nearest the curtain she’d emerged from and urging Eiryn to sit down with her.
“Just run your fingers through your hair and let it hang there,” she was saying as she studied the raider sitting next to her, pretending to be a princess. “And make sure to keep those boots hidden under the gown’s hem. Your hair isn’t done to standard and the dress doesn’t quite fit you, but that only means they’ll think you’re the daughter of a lesser nobleman.”
“A lesser nobleman.” Eiryn’s voice was a flat warning of impending violence. “Really.”
“That’s a fact, not an insult,” the princess said briskly, either not hearing the warning or wisely choosing to ignore it. “Higher ranked nobles will pretend they don’t see you if they think you’re too far beneath their notice, and that’s a good thing. You want them to think you’re an upstart, especially because you dare to sit next to me.” Her voice got a touch dry. “Unless, of course, you want them to find out you’re something far more alarming than merely one more woman with marital aspirations far above her station.”
Eiryn’s gaze cut to Riordan’s as he hit the curtain. She looked lethal and murderous and remarkably hot, just the way he liked her. He smirked at the sight of her in that brash copper dress that made her part princess, part pissed-off brother, then upgraded that to a full grin when she shot him the finger.
“I’m beginning to think that’s your version of a love letter,” he told her.
He was pretty sure the disrespectful babe was implied. And that she heard it, loud and clear.
Her dark gaze simmered with violence while, beside her, the notably calm princess with the surprisingly cool game face looked faintly surprised, if that. It probably meant she was shocked to her royal compliant core.
“Go fuck yourself,” Eiryn suggested. Almost nicely.
“You’re making my point for me.”
With that, Riordan stepped behind the grand, brocaded curtain and went still in the next instant. There were small slits cut into the heavy fabric surrounding him, sugges
ting a great many people liked to stand back here and stay hidden. He hated the fact that he was one of them. He was a brother of the clan, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t hide like a weakling bitch. Ever.
But that was the deal. He couldn’t take out a Cathedral full of compliants, not even with the fastest blade in the clan at his back. He had to suck it up and choose his battles. All his freaking battles. Here tonight and all over the damned mainland. With Eiryn, not that this was the time to think about that. It was hard to get his head around having to stand still and wait when all he wanted—with everything that roared in him and reminded him he was a brother and a warrior and the fact he was hiding was bullshit—was to make these assholes bleed.
He had to bend into a weird position to get his eyes in the right place on the carefully cut slits, but once he did, he could watch. And the moment after he got the curtain to stop moving around him, a stream of women flooded into the room, all of them in the same metallic dresses in the same colors. A whole mess of silvers and a lot of coppers he noticed. Maybe one or two other golds. But he couldn’t figure out if they meant something or if compliant princesses happened to really like metal-colored shit and weird, slicked up hair.
And he had to deal with the fact that he was standing here, hidden in a curtain like a little bitch, paying attention to dress colors when there was some psycho king out there not only talking war—which Riordan figured everyone did for shits and giggles the same way he did, because what else was there to do during the long winters but plot out the intricate deaths of any and all of a man’s enemies—but making actual plans to bring that fight to the eastern islands.
Hitting the clan in March was smart. Too smart for Riordan’s peace of mind. It sent something cold straight down the length of his spine, making him tight and tense. No one would ever expect an attack that early. In the history of the clan, no one had ever tried it that close to winter. Mainlanders were giant pussies when it came to the sea. Their boats were slow and their sailors were pathetic. It was a generally held truth that mainlanders attacked rarely, but when they did, it was always in high summer when the sea was as calm as that sullen gray bitch ever got.