by M. J. Scott
His words were like cold water poured down her spine. Husband. She had power. She would be married. Soon. “It’s not like anyone will ever know.” Though she wasn’t feeling so certain now. The haze of pleasure was retreating, and in its place a tide of confusion swarmed in. She’d had . . . sex with Cameron. It was as good a term as any, she supposed. She was no longer virgin. And an unmarried royal witch. If it was discovered, there would be hell to pay.
Cameron didn’t look convinced either. “Are you sure of that? You’ll excuse me for being blunt, milady, but you have power. Your value in court just went up immeasurably. You will be married. And nobles expect virgin brides.”
Sophie stiffened. She knew what nobles expected. But she also knew that there was no easy way to tell if a girl was a virgin. Eloisa and her ladies talked frankly, filling in the gaps of her official teachings about marital duties. She knew that not all girls bled the first time. “My husband, whoever he may be, will be getting a royal witch for a bride. He is unlikely to make a fuss. Besides, the princess—” She broke off, as Cameron’s expression shut down even further at the word “princess.” Something cold settled in her stomach. Why did he look like that? “Besides,” she said, starting again, “it’s likely the court has bigger issues than me right now. If we do not say anything, we won’t be discovered.”
“I hope you’re right, milady,” Cameron said. “And I apologize. Again. I should not have treated you that way.”
She gaped at him. Treated her? That’s what he was calling it. There was a hard, hot knot of humiliation forming in her belly. But she ignored it and the heat that wanted to flare in her cheeks. “I was hardly unwilling, Lieutenant,” she said coldly.
“You were confused by the power.”
“In which case, so were you, I presume, if you felt it in the same way I did. So if anyone is to blame, it is me. I’m the one who touched the ley line. I’m the one who will take any blame. I’m sorry that you found it . . . objectionable.”
He swore then, or at least, she thought the rolling Carnarveine dialect syllables were curses. They sounded like curses.
“As I said, it wasn’t objectionable, milady. But it was a mistake. One we can’t repeat. So to be safe, you will not touch me again unless there is an immediate risk. Is that clear?”
It was perfectly clear from his tone. Clear that he had no desire to touch her again. That he wanted to be free of her. Probably couldn’t wait to get her back to the capital and see her safely married before what they had shared could become a problem. He’d probably rather cut off his far-too-honorable hand than touch her again. Which sent another boiling surge of guilt and humiliation into her gut. Because she still wanted to touch him. “Yes, Lieutenant,” she said. “You’ve made your point.”
His hand curled at his side a moment, the knuckles stark white against the darker skin. “Good. Then I think we should be on our way. Go and change if your other clothes are dry. I’ll get the horses ready.”
Cameron was careful not to touch Sophie skin to skin again as they made their way to the portal. His horse seemed to have lost the limp overnight, but he still made sure to take things a little more slowly than he would otherwise have liked. It was nearing midday when they neared the portal, and several times he’d had to block Sophie’s path when she had turned toward a ley line.
She’d been flustered and apologetic each time it happened, but at the same time, he’d seen the hunger in her eyes as he’d led her horse away from the temptation. The same hunger he’d seen this morning when she’d looked at him. The same hunger that had led to his utter . . . well, he wasn’t sure it was stupidity, because once that surge of power had swept through them, it hadn’t been a conscious decision on his part to—he shied away from the thought of what he’d actually done. Gone and fucked a virgin royal witch. On the ground. In the open. When they were supposed to be running for their lives. Granted, the mere fact that he’d laid hands on her—and more—was the gravest part of his sin, but the way he’d let her response to the power take him off guard was at best carelessness.
It wasn’t as though he’d been trained in how to handle a royal witch on her twenty-first birthday. In the normal fashion, by the time a royal witch who had manifested was presented to the court, she had already been attended by the temple and dedicated to the goddess. Which presumably gave her control of her power, because he’d never been to a birthday celebration or heard of one that had broken out into an orgy, despite the fact that several ley lines ran through the foundations of the castle.
But he did know that the first taste of power could be heady. He should have at least thought about the possibility that Sophie might have that sort of reaction. But no. He’d been too busy trying to figure out what their next moves must be to think it through properly. His old squad commander would have had him serving night duty in the coldest corner of the castle for months for that sort of failure. The Red Guard were taught to think of all the possibilities that might eventuate and then think of some more.
He’d failed that particular charge last night. And worse this morning.
He’d taken her. Or maybe she’d taken him. He didn’t know exactly what had happened. But the outcome was the same regardless.
Still, there was nothing he could do to take back what had happened. His body tightened even remembering, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he would take it back if he could. It had been . . . incredible. Overwhelming. He’d thought they might just both go up in flames, the fierceness of it and the leap of his power to answer hers even stronger than it was with Elly.
Goddess. Elly. They’d made no promises to each other about keeping chaste. She could make no promises to him, after all, besides temporary admittance to her bed, but he felt guilty all the same. Sophie—Lady Sophia, as he was trying to force himself to think of her—was one of her ladies and a protégée of a sort.
So he’d managed to royally fuck things up.
His hands tightened on the reins reflexively, and the horse tossed his head, sidling a few steps sideways toward the edge of the narrow track. Cameron loosened his grip and pressed with his leg to guide the beast back to the center of the path. The last thing he needed was for the fool creature to go lame again.
Twisting in the saddle, he checked on Lady Sophia, following behind him. She looked down when their eyes met, mouth flat, and Cameron bit down a curse as he turned back. Now she couldn’t even look at him. Royally fucked up didn’t begin to describe the situation. And if he felt this way, he could hardly imagine how she must have felt. After all, she was the one who’d been, um, deflowered in a fairly unusual fashion. He’d never actually slept with a virgin before, but he imagined there were better ways to introduce women to lovemaking than the frantic coupling they’d shared. She was giving no sign of discomfort—at least no more than she had previously—and she’d claimed, when he’d inquired, that he hadn’t hurt her, but he couldn’t imagine that was true. And now he was making her ride miles and miles on a horse.
No wonder she couldn’t look at him. She probably thought him the biggest bastard in the kingdom right about now. But if that were true, then he was just going to have to live with it. Her safety—and his—took precedence over a few physical aches and pains. She could at least bathe when they got to Alec’s holdings and, if luck decided to be in their favor for once, Alec might be able to summon a temple prior or devout to perform whatever could be performed in the way of Ais-Seann rites for her. Even if it wasn’t the full panoply of whatever ceremonies royal witches underwent, there must be something that could be done to at least help her manage her power—for it was evident that she had plenty of that—a little more easily.
His horse snorted and tossed his head again, and Cameron realized that they’d come to the fork in the path he’d been looking for. If his mental map of the area—memory for such things a gift of his blood magic—was right, there was a small clearing a few hundred feet up the right-hand path. There was a stream there, and they could leave
the horses and then come back and take the other fork. The one to the portal. Either someone would come across the horses, or, perhaps, Alec would be able to spare someone to come back and collect them and take them to the nearest small town to be sold.
He turned back to Sophie and pointed to the right-hand path. She nodded and then fixed her gaze where he’d pointed, deliberately not meeting his eyes again. Cameron sighed and turned back to the job at hand.
Two hours later, they emerged from the portal on Alec’s land, having taken another two quick stops on the way to help confuse any followers. Sophie was slightly green in the face again, her expression set as she followed him out of the portal and onto the road that led up to the house.
“Do you need water?” he asked.
She shook her head. “How far is it?”
“Not far. Maybe fifteen minutes’ walk.” At least she hadn’t thrown up at each portal this time. Maybe her magic was shielding her a little from the effects of the transfer.
She nodded and hitched the saddlebag that held her gown and cloak higher on her shoulder.
Cameron took that to mean that he should get on with things. He gestured toward the road and started walking, still keeping a safe distance between them now that he didn’t have to touch her for the portal transit. Each time he touched her, it became harder to move away again, his senses drawn to her in the same way she was drawn to the ley lines they passed. At least the only ley line here at Alec’s was a minor one, and it looped around the other side of the portal and in a different direction to the road, so he wouldn’t need to shepherd Sophie away from temptation. No, all he had to do was shepherd himself. Even now he wanted to turn and look at her. Not to make sure that she was following—he could hear well enough the crunch of her footsteps on the gravel road—but just to watch her.
He didn’t like it, this growing urge to be near her. He hoped it was just some strange effect of her newborn power spilling out onto him rather than something more tangled than that born of their ill-advised activities of the morning.
It wasn’t as though she had suddenly become beautiful overnight. Magic didn’t work that way. Royal witches could work small spells to make themselves more attractive, but true glamour and illusion was more the province of practitioners of the Arts of Air, and there was no reason why Sophie would have had any training in those.
So anything he saw in her now had been there, still the same brown eyes and dark hair and slim build. So why the pull?
Because he had no explanation, he was determined to ignore it. So he kept walking, the weight of the saddlebags he carried with the remains of the food he’d bought and his uniform pulling at his shoulder. They weren’t particularly heavy, but he was growing tired after two days’ travel and portal hopping and sleeping out in the open. He was reaching the limits of how far the power of fear and worry could drive him without more sleep and a few meals containing food more substantial than half-burned fish, day-old cheap bread, and cheese and ham. Lucy, Alec’s wife, was a good cook, so unless the house was in an uproar due to the problems in the capital, that problem should be solved sooner rather than later. Sleep would have to wait until he knew what was happening and what their next steps would be.
They reached the bend in the road that brought them into view of the house, and his heart eased a little at the sight of the sturdy structure, the green veins of the local granite that formed its walls—the same prized granite that had been carted the length of the country to build the palace at Kingswell two centuries ago—shining in the sun. Before his father’s father had died, when Cameron had been just short of five years old, they had lived here at the northern holdings for a year or so when the main house at Loch Kenzie had undergone some much-needed renovations. It had been the freest time in Cameron’s life, and he and his brothers had been left to run much wilder than they had been before.
In a way, he envied Alec for getting to live here now, with all those pleasant memories and tucked away from his father’s immediate line of sight. “Almost there, milady,” he said, turning back to Sophie. From the direction of the house, a storm of barking started up. Alec’s hounds had noticed them even if no one else had yet.
The dogs came bounding down the road as they came closer to the house, their warning barks changing to something more friendly as Ludo, the largest of the pack, recognized Cameron and loped over to try to lick him to death. Cameron told him to get down with a stern “Off.” Ludo complied but only as far as to stop licking and sit at his feet, leaning his not inconsiderable weight against Cam’s leg.
To his right, Sophie was ringed by the other five dogs, two more banehounds like Ludo, large and shaggy beasts of red-and-black fur, who came up past her waist and were butting their heads against her for pats whilst the other three—two quicksilver white-and-gray herders and Lucy’s aging small brown curly dog, Bit, whose parentage had never been fully distinguished, darted around her legs. She was smiling and patting and talking softly to all of them, seemingly not bothered by so many dogs at once. But, then, she’d grown up on a small estate, too. She would be used to animals.
She looked beautiful with the smile lighting her face and chasing away the tension. Like she had earlier when he—
No. He wasn’t going to think that. Wasn’t going to watch her. It only made his hands tingle with an oddly strong urge to touch her.
Ludo barked then, a soft greeting whuff of welcome that Cameron recognized. He turned his gaze from Sophie and saw Alec had emerged from the house and was walking toward them. His brother was dressed in head-to-toe black.
CHAPTER SIX
Sophie saw the smile on Cameron’s face die and turned to see what he was looking at. A man dressed all in black was walking toward them. From the height and the dark hair and the clearly Mackenzie angles of jaw and cheeks, Sophie gathered this was Cameron’s brother Alec.
Dressed in mourning clothes.
For whom, exactly?
The pleasure she’d felt in the wagging tails and soft fur of the dogs surrounding her drained away in an instant, replaced by the return of the sick gray worry that had become so familiar in the last two days.
“Who?” Cameron demanded as Alec reached them.
Alec put his hand on Cameron’s arm. “Come inside, little brother.”
“Who?” Cameron repeated.
Alec shook his head and then slanted his gaze at Sophie. “You’ll be Lady Sophia, then, milady?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to be able to answer without also asking who.
Relief flashed over Alec’s face, and he gestured back at the house. “There was word from the capital that you would likely be with my brother, milady. Please come inside.”
Sophie was worried that Cameron was going to come to blows with his brother by the time they were seated inside in what would have been a comfortably cozy parlor if it were not for the tension filling the air. She suspected the only thing stopping Cam was the presence of Alec’s wife, Lucy, a tiny woman who had come armed with a baby strategically placed on her hip.
“Who is—” Cameron demanded again, and Lucy shook her head.
“Not yet,” Lucy said decisively. “You need something to eat and drink. There won’t be much—” She cut off the words, shook her head. “You can wait a few more minutes.”
Won’t be much what? Time? Sophie didn’t like the sound of that. She felt the urge to go to Cameron, to touch him for reassurance, but that would hardly be wise. He had been clear that there wasn’t to be a repeat of the morning.
She bit her lip, tried not to watch the muscles clenching and unclenching in Cameron’s jaw and neck as he tried to stay silent.
Food and tea appeared as Lucy busied herself making sure Sophie was comfortable. Sophie sipped the hot tea gratefully, but she wasn’t sure that her stomach would deal with food just now. Not until she had heard the news.
“Enough,” Cameron said abruptly. Lucy gave him a sidelong glance, but she didn’t say anything.
Ca
meron turned to Alec. “Tell us. What’s happened? Who is the black for? What’s happening in Kingswell?”
Alec’s face was bleak. “I assume, because you’re both here, that you know about the attack.”
“We were in Kingswell when it started,” Cameron said. “But out of the palace. So we left.” His shoulders squared a little, as though he was bracing himself for criticism, but Alec just nodded.
“Well, that was wise. There was a lot of damage.”
“We saw the explosion,” Cameron said. “We know there’s damage. I don’t care about the palace. What about the people?”
“Long live the queen-to-be,” Alec said.
Sophie heard the words, but it took a moment for them to make any sense. When her brain finally assigned them a meaning, the breath left her body in a rush, like she’d fallen and winded herself.
“The king is dead?” Cameron asked. “Eloisa is queen?”
“She will be, once she can be crowned,” Alec said. “The queen-to-be was hurt, but she is recovering.”
“Hurt how?” Cameron demanded, a little too fiercely. Something twisted in Sophie’s stomach. Cameron was one of Elly’s bodyguards, but there was something in his tone that sounded . . . more.
“There were no details in the message that came. Just that the Red Guard has control of the palace once more and to send you and Lady Sophia back if you should turn up.”
“And Margaretta?” Sophie asked.
“She is alive,” Alec said. “The message said that much.”
Well, that was a relief. It meant that Eloisa had an heir for now. Which would buy Eloisa some time to marry and beget some more direct heirs.
Cameron took a breath. “What else did the message say? Do they know who is behind the attack?”
“No. Nothing on that yet. But—” Alec looked down, his hands braced on his knees a moment, shoulders sagging forward. Sophie’s throat went tight and hot as he looked back, pain clear on his face.