Quench the Day (Red Wolf Trilogy Book 1)

by Shari Branning

  “May I have the next dance then, while you decide?”

  She raised an eyebrow at him as she sipped her water. “Certainly, if it saves me from the puppies.”

  He gave her that cocky half grin again, and they stood and talked while the music went on without them. They skipped the next song as well.

  When the second song ended, they rejoined the mingling dancers and took their place on the floor. The musicians in their corner of the room had raised their arms to begin playing again, when a bugle sounded outside.

  Mr. Daws hurried to throw the doors open, and two guards stepped through, positioning themselves on either side of the doorway. Mr. Daws bowed to the person standing outside and turned to the room. “May I present our noble lord, King Ormand D’Araines.”

  Rowan felt Aaro shift beside her. She glanced at him. He had moved to rest his hand at his hip, a natural gesture for someone who usually wore a gun or a sword, who felt threatened. His brows were lowered in a frown, but when he turned and met her gaze, his expression cleared. He smiled and tugged her hand, drawing her further back into the crowd, away from the door.

  “It seems my cousin has arrived,” he said, “which means I shall be going soon. But perhaps we might make it through one more dance.” He smiled, but all the relaxed assurance had gone out of him, and, while still appearing outwardly calm, she sensed his agitation. Even anger.

  A thread of unease trailed through her. Not for herself, but for this young man with the ice-cold eyes and chestnut curls. She wished suddenly and intensely that she could run her fingers through that unruly hair, then nearly blushed again to catch herself with the thought.

  Mr. Daws was making King Ormand welcome, sweeping his arms to encompass the ballroom in a gesture of welcome. She studied the king as he greeted several of the guests. He reminded her of his brother, High King Heymish, who ruled East Talva. Heymish had appointed Ormand to rule West Talva, since the sheer distance of the expanding country had made it cumbersome to be managed by a single ruler.

  Of course, the two kings were twins, which would put Ormand’s age at a bare thirty years. He was handsome, like his brother, though she found their younger cousin, Aaro, more to her liking. The king had a narrower build, his hair cut shorter, with a silver circlet around his head. He wore an embroidered black vest, and an ornate sword and dagger rode his hips. His blue eyes were a shade darker than Aaro’s.

  Already the musicians were picking their instruments back up. She returned her attention to Aaro as the song started. He seemed sober this time as he watched her. She could see the thoughts flickering behind his eyes, but they remained unspoken. The song was a slower one, more reflective, and the dance echoed the somber strains, pulling the partners close. Close enough that Aaro could rest his hand again on her waist as they turned.

  “It’s not my place to advise you,” he said finally, bending his head close to her ear, “But beware the king. He seeks a wife.”

  “Some would seek the office of queen gladly,” Rowan replied, her voice matching his for quietness, though she was somewhat taken aback.

  “Not you though, unless I am mistaken. And unless I have misjudged you entirely, I think you would be no great match for my cousin, though you will draw his eye.”

  “As I’ve drawn yours?”

  Shameless! She rebuked herself.

  “Even so.”

  They parted in an elaborate series of steps and turns, and came back together again, closer than before. She with her hand on his shoulder, feeling the layers of muscle beneath his soft leather vest, he with both hands circled around her waist, prepared to lift and twirl with her. She caught the scent of leather and gunpowder on the air as he turned, and his breath brushed her cheek, his face so close he was within inches of kissing her.

  “Might I interrupt?”

  The voice came so suddenly and so close that Rowan gave a little yelp as she and Aaro separated, turning to the intruder. Couples continued to whirl around them, turning their heads to watch but too polite to stop the dance.

  “Cousin,” Aaro said, his voice devoid of emotion. He did not bow, or even incline his head to the king as he faced him.

  “Will you introduce me to your charming friend?” Ormand said, his eyes on Rowan as he spoke to Aaro.

  “Rowan Keir,” she said, before Aaro had time to respond. She bobbed a curtsy. “An honor to finally meet you, sir.”

  “I assure you. The honor is all mine.” He bent to kiss her hand, and her eyes met Aaro’s for an instant over top of his head. The danger she’d seen lurking there earlier had taken place over merriment. The icy blue had turned to steel.

  The king straightened and turned to Aaro. “I’m certain you must have elsewhere that you need to be, my cousin.”

  Aaro’s mouth pressed into a thin line, though a corner of it tilted slightly upward in a hard half smile at the king’s dismissal. He bowed to Rowan. “Until we meet again.”

  Rowan’s gaze followed him as he melded with the crowd beyond the dance floor. She caught a brief glimpse of him again as he turned around in the doorway and cast one more look back at her. He’d taken his wide-brimmed hat from the rack by the door, and he tipped it in farewell.

  She turned back to the king, forcing her ire not to show, save in the fact that she didn’t wait for him to speak first. “Sir, I fear we are hindering the dancers. Might we step aside?”

  He smiled at her, a perfectly attractive smile which she found repulsive in light of his dismissal of Aaro. “Will you not finish the dance with me?”

  She didn’t dare refuse him, so she gave him a tight little smile and nodded. The lift and twirl that Ormand had interrupted when she danced with Aaro was about to repeat, and he put his hands around her waist. Where Aaro’s grip had been gentle and respectful, the king’s felt possessive. She fought the desire to slap him. Or at least to slap his hands away. She could feel herself blushing again, and resented it. In fact, she suddenly resented the whole situation. People had watched in surprise before, when she danced with Aaro. Now they stared.

  “Keir is an old name. There are not many of the Keir house out here on the frontier. You must belong to Lance somehow.”

  “My uncle, on my mother’s side.”

  Rowan’s father had taken her mother’s family name, since hers was older, more respected, and dwindling in lineage. It was not an unheard-of practice, but had fallen out of favor more recently.

  “Your family must be very devoted to the old ways. I had no idea Lance had such interesting and charming relations.”

  “Perhaps. Certainly more interesting than charming, though.”

  The song ended, and she excused herself.

  “You would not dance again with your king?” Ormand said, still smiling.

  “It would be an honor. But perhaps after this next round. I am thirsty, and my friend is there, waiting to speak with me. Forgive me.” She bowed her head and curtsied before making her escape.

  Annalie waited for her, her brows puckered into a frown as she tried to politely stave off a young noble set on dancing the next round with her. Her frown broke when she saw Rowan coming.

  “My dear, are you well?” She took Rowan’s hands. “You’re flushed.”

  “Yes. Can you have missed all that?” Anger sharpened her tone, though she kept her voice low. Still, Annalie looked alarmed.

  “Hush! Not here.” Her eyes darted to the people surrounding them. “Keep your wit in check tonight. Tomorrow I will call on you. We must speak.”

  “That’s all very well, but it doesn’t keep me from having to dance again with that—with his majesty again tonight,” Rowan hissed.

  Annalies’s eyes widened, and again she leaned up so she could whisper in Rowan’s ear. “Go to your cousin Dustan and feign you are unwell. He has been enamored with a certain young lady all evening, and will not wish to leave, so I shall offer to take you home in my father’s buggy.”

  Rowan looked at her friend with new appreciation, but with somet
hing close to unease. She remembered Aaro’s warning, and now saw her friend’s near panic. She shook her head, muttering, “I swear, everyone in this fool place has gone mad.” But she sought out Dustan anyway, and began making her way over to him, aware that people’s gazes still followed her.

  Chapter 2

  Aaro D’Araines stepped out into the night, shedding the stifling heat and crowded chatter of the ballroom like a soggy coat. Stars glittered in a black sky, only slightly dimmed by the light pouring from the windows. He could breathe out here.

  A dark figure peeled away from the shadow of the flower bushes and strode toward him. He recognized the height and movement of the man before he could see his face, and relaxed.

  “The horses are saddled and waiting,” the man said. “I thought once Ormand arrived you wouldn’t be staying long.”

  “So it seems.” Aaro cast a look back to the blazing windows, hearing the faint murmur of music and conversation from inside, and thought again of the girl with the coppery red curls and the sharp wit. Her eyes, somewhere between copper-brown and hazel, had regarded him with playful interest, and for once, it irked him to be on the outside looking in. Especially when Ormand was at that moment dancing with the very same girl.

  “’Raines?” Jake questioned.

  “What?” Aaro still stared back at the house as though it would give him some special insight as he scowled in thought.

  “Something happen?”

  “Reckon so.” He spun on his heel and headed toward the stables, talking as he went. “We’re staying in town tonight. You’re going to deliver a letter for me in the morning.”

  “Alright.” If Jake was surprised, he didn’t let on. “This about Ormand?”

  “Partly.”

  They reached the stable, lit dimly by lanterns hung from a few of the rafters.

  Ormand’s soldiers played a game of cards on an upturned barrel near the door. They looked up as Aaro and Jake entered the stable. None of them spoke.

  Aaro’s hand went automatically to his belt, but the only weapon he wore tonight was the knife in his boot. He nodded to the king’s men and followed Jake to the stalls where their horses waited. Moonlight streaked down through a high window, mingling with the lantern light outside the stall. He checked his saddle girth. The mare sidestepped, her ears pinned back, velvet nostrils wuffling as she twisted her neck around toward him, sidestepping again until her saddle scraped against the opposite wall.

  “Take it easy,” Aaro muttered, reaching for the saddlebags where his weapons belt waited. His hand paused on the buckle, and the horse moved away again, stomping nervously. Something felt wrong to him. Not any one thing, but dozens of little things that he hadn’t even considered to be things until that instant. Ormand’s dismissal. The soldiers’ lack of greeting. The horse’s unease. The dry whisper of movement, of something brushing against hard leather that he hadn’t heard at first.

  He heard Jake moving in the stall next to him, heard the door open and the horse’s hooves thudding dully on the packed dirt floor as Jake led him out into the aisle.

  “Waiting on you,” Jake said.

  “Come in here a minute,” Aaro replied.

  His friend swung the door out and stepped through, holding his gelding’s reins loosely. The horse laid his ears back and tried to tug away.

  “Listen,” Aaro whispered. “Hear that?”

  They stood listening. The horses huffed in and out. The king’s soldiers talked in hushed voices back in the tack room. And again, there came a whispering scrape of movement.

  Jake’s hand dropped to his gun belt. “What is it?”

  “I’m guessing another surprise from my cousin,” Aaro whispered. “A man like him could consider himself fortunate, when his enemies keep dying in accidents.”

  Jake muttered a curse under his breath. “Like that brand-new saddle girth that turned up frayed a few weeks ago.”

  “My saddle girth,” Aaro replied. He reached again for the saddlebag with his gun belt inside, and undid the buckle, then stepped back against the wall and threw the flap open. He jerked his hand back an instant before a forked tongue flicked into view above the lip of the leather bag, followed by a sleek yellow head and yellow eyes.

  “Viper!” Jake hissed.

  “And one that has no business being in this part of the world.” Aaro bent and pulled the knife from his boot scabbard, using it to reach cautiously from the side and flip the saddlebag closed. The yellow head disappeared. He leaned forward, keeping as much distance as possible between himself and the saddlebag, and undid the buckle, slipping it away from the saddle. Jake drew back away from him as he carried the whole thing at arm’s length out of the stall, then followed him back to the open tack room where they’d come in, and where the soldiers still sat around their barrel playing cards.

  Without a word, Aaro upended the saddlebag, dumping its entire contents on the floor at the soldiers’ feet. There were startled exclamations and curses as the yellow viper slid away from Aaro’s canteen and gun belt. The men jumped to their feet, stumbling backward from the snake as it rippled over the straw-strewn floor. Aaro bent and plucked one of his guns from the holster. The shot clapped into them in the enclosed space, followed by the startled whinnies and stamping of the horses.

  The slender yellow body convulsed for a moment without its head, but that didn’t interest Aaro so much as the fact that it lost its bright color almost immediately. The, poisonous yellow faded to dull gray-green along the back, and a pale cream color on the belly. Darker stripes ran along the length of its back. When it finally lay still, it was no longer a yellow viper, but a common garden snake.

  “What…?” Jake murmured. “Was that…?”

  “You boys might want to check your gear,” Aaro drawled. “Seems like they’ve got a vermin infestation here.” He nudged the body with his boot toe, despite the chill of revulsion that zinged through him. A viper that wasn’t a viper?

  People were pouring out of the house, the buzz of their questions loud in the still night as Aaro and Jake rode away. Neither bothered to stop and offer an explanation for the gunshot. Let the soldiers do that.

  They turned onto the road that would take them back to the city and into New Town, where the buildings were built of pine rather than ancient stone and brick, and where there was a new hotel. Aaro’s ranch lay three hours’ ride to the north and east, and it would be nearly morning by the time they got there if they tried to go home now.

  They walked the horses for several minutes in silence, and Aaro could feel the other man’s unvoiced questions. They were loud in the squeak of leather as he shifted, the rustle of clothing as he repositioned his hat, and in his sigh. Soon he would break down and ask, but it was better to talk on the open road where no one was listening.

  “Two reasons,” Aaro said, knowing the first question would be why they were going to the hotel rather than riding for home, since Aaro had made it clear before the party that he had no intention of staying in town, no matter how late it was. He paused to be sure Jake was keeping up with his thought process.

  “Go on,” the other said.

  “We’re going to get some supplies. I’m riding east.” Silence met this announcement, and after a pause he continued. “Ormand has gone too far, too many times. First Embur, now me. And that…whatever that snake was.”

  “Unnatural is what it was,” Jake muttered. “You think those rumors are true?”

  Until that night Aaro would have scoffed at the idea that Ormand was using magic. People liked to speculate, and if there was a mystery, they’d ascribe the most outlandish explanation they could to it. But now… he could think of at least one sudden death in the past year that had no explanation whatsoever. It was shrugged off as a sudden heart malady. But it could have been poison. Unlike a rattlesnake, a viper would never give away its presence, unless, like Aaro, you were already wary.

  He sighed. “We can’t prove any of that. But Ormand’s ruthlessness extends beyond
murder, and that we can prove. If Heymish will listen to anyone, it’ll be me.”

  “He won’t think you’re bidding for the throne?”

  “He knows I’ve no interest in kingship. Let him appoint someone else, or let there at least be checks put in place. But Ormand must be stopped.”

  “So we get supplies tomorrow. When will you leave?”

  “That depends on my other reason for staying in town tonight.” He stopped, as much because he was questioning himself, making sure his resolution held, as because he enjoyed toying with his friend.

  Jake let out a pained sigh. “Which is?”

  “I’ll be sending a marriage proposal to Lady Rowan Keir first thing in the morning.”

  Jake stopped his horse in the middle of the road, staring at him. “You sure that snake didn’t get you?”

  * * * * *

  Rowan was alarmed, but also a little relieved to hear the gunshot that sent everyone crowding to the windows and doors. King Ormand had been headed in her direction, and she hadn’t been able to speak with Dustan yet. The shot effectively stopped the party mid-dance, scattering the dancers, one of whom was her cousin. She grabbed his arm, stopping him from following the others, and pulled him aside.

  “What is it?” He cast an anxious look to where everyone crowded around the door before turning his attention to her.

  “I’m leaving. Annalie is going to take me home in her carriage. Please give my apologies to our host.”

  Dustan scanned her face. “Are you well?”

  “I am. But say that I am not.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t say. But you needn’t worry. Enjoy your evening. Annalie is saying her goodbyes now.”

  “Tell me what this is about when we get home?”

  Rowan laughed shortly. “I will if I have it sorted out by then. Please, don’t leave early for my sake. You must enjoy your young lady while opportunity smiles on you.”

  Dustan’s face tinged red.