Unbound Heart

by Jane Atchley

She clasped her hands to her mouth, stifling another laugh. “I’m sorry, Kree. The twins were afraid you’d hurt him.”

  The captain’s hand shot out, but instead of striking the impertinent female, as any Descendant male would, he caressed the curve of her cheek with his knuckles.

  “The twins, huh? Admit it woman, you wanted to watch my blade-work.”

  The woman rolled her eyes, “Like I haven’t seen that a hundred times.”

  Arching his eyebrows, Captain Fawr tried to look offended, but didn’t quite manage it. “Katie. Didn’t we agree you’re not to go about camp without Garen?"

  “We did.” Katie tilted her head toward the circle of men. “He’s there.”

  Glancing in the direction the lady indicated Faelan saw a hulking dark-haired Nhurstari male standing beside Eamon and—Eamon. Oh. Twins.

  “Honestly, My Captain, I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “There’s a solid fact. You need a keeper. That’s why I married you.” He dipped down dropping a kiss on the tip of his lady’s pert nose. His soft smoky voice was definitely not scary now.

  Katie gave him a cheeky grin. “Really? I thought you married me because you can’t keep your hands off me and you’re afraid of my father.”

  Instead of a reprimand, Captain Fawr gave her a lop-sided grin and a well-yes-there-is-that sort of shrug.

  Katie raised her chin. “I can take care of myself, you know. I could stampede every horse in this camp. Want to see?”

  “No!” Captain Fawr and Duncan shouted as one.

  Duncan cleared his throat. “Sir, I am very sorry.” He opened his hand. “What am I meant to do with your braids?”

  The captain tore his gaze from his diminutive lady. “Have Roland braid ’em into your helmet crest.”

  “Will you dine with me tonight, sir?”

  The captain shook his head. “I dine with my lady wife tonight and every night."

  Duncan gave a slight bow, took the little woman’s hand, and brushed her fingertips with his lips. "I’m sure the generals will welcome the addition of your beautiful Kayseri."

  The lady was not so tiny beside Duncan. It was just that her kin-slayer spouse was huge. She was perfect and beautiful and Duncan had not released her hand. His amazing sapphire eyes gazed at her on fire with determination. Jealous, Faelan moved up beside Duncan and leaned against his leg.

  The kin-slayer chuckled. “Namar’s tears, you’re desperate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right.” Captain Fawr’s eyes narrowed in mock fury. “But first, I must visit the goddess and have my hair re-braided.” He reached down to pet Faelan. She growled and bared her fangs. He drew his hand back. “Beautiful dog.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Duncan frowned down at her. “I think so.”

  “What dog?” Kayseri slipped her hand into the captain’s, gave him a little tug to get his attention. “There’s no dog here.”

  “Huh?”

  Faelan held her breath, but the woman tugged on her husband’s hand again and said, “I want to braid your hair.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  They walked away hand in hand.

  “I can braid as well as some priestess. I know all the prayers. Pleeeease.”

  They had moved too far away for Faelan to hear his soft voiced reply, but he must have acquiescence, because his lady gave a delighted whoop, hugged him, and scampered over to talk with her tall, muscular Nhurstari bodyguard. Faelan watched them, dread in the pit of her stomach. The kin-slayers lady appeared a silly little creature, but she had been the only one to recognize Faelan’s true nature. She would do well to avoid her in the future.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Faelan spent the whole tedious dinner avoiding the kin-slayer’s capricious half-pixie wife while trying to spy on the man himself. At the end of the last course, Captain Fawr touched his wife’s cheek and whispered, “I love you,” before turning her over to her body guard. His blatant display of affection surprised Faelan. Descendant males didn’t make confessions of love before an assembly of warriors. But then again, no Descendant male handed his woman off to so covetous a bodyguard. What had the kin-slayer said? Garen already has bids. The captain didn’t consider the other male a threat, and given that his lady didn’t notice the way Garen looked at her, he was right.

  Captain Fawr was a paradox. Descendant history painted him a murderer, but Duncan considered him a hero. Captain Fawr laughed, he joked, loved his wife, and he was nice in a rough sort of way. Faelan shuddered. Nice. The man killed her ancestor. Descendant children learned to hate this man in the cradle, and here she was thinking him nice. Were the stories wrong, and shouldn’t the kin-slayer be older?

  “Katie, take Duncan’s dog out too.” That snapped Faelan’s attention back to the present. “Poor thing has been under the table all night.”

  Kayseri gave her husband a look any woman recognized as silly man. “There is no dog,” she said.

  Faelan tensed, ready to bolt, but Kayseri’s short attention span shifted to Garen.

  “The moon’s full,” she told him. “Let’s go swimming.”

  “As my lady wishes.” The Nhurstari tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and escorted her from the tent.

  “Damn,” Captain Fawr groaned. “A moonlight swim.”

  “Go, sir.” Duncan nodded toward the door. “Talk can wait.”

  The captain shot Duncan a lopsided grin. “You know I can’t swim for shit. And you and I, we need to walk the camp.”

  “Walk, sir?”

  “Sometimes it’s best. A horse puts distance between a fellow and his men.”

  They left the garrison quarter together and walked from campfire to campfire pausing to pass a few words at each one. Faelan trotted beside Duncan and watched Kree Fawr cast a kind of glamour over the men-at-arms. There was no other way to explain their reaction to him. But when one man struck up a song about the death of her ancestor, Captain Fawr turned and walked away.

  Duncan stayed and listened to the song a moment longer before he followed. Faelan padded along at his side. The captain stood in the darkness staring at the twinkling Descendant campfires across the river.

  “The song offends you, sir. Why?”

  “It’s a lie.”

  “Sir?”

  The captain remained silent so long Faelan thought he wasn’t going to answer and she very much wanted to hear his answer. When he spoke, his voice was softer than ever.

  “I was sixteen, my friend, Lathan Bruin, barely twenty. The Earth wizard and his tattooed warriors, swept down on our garrison out of nowhere. They killed two-thirds of our force in the first attack, and imprisoned the rest of us. It was a dark time for me. He took our Great Lady, Orria prisoner, and he executed my father before my eyes. Me—” He barked out a bitter laugh. “Maybe he was afraid to kill me, because the ritual magic surrounding my birth affords me goddess-born status. He flayed me, stripped the skin off my back a quarter-inch at a time.”

  “You want to know a secret, Shug? I would have told him anything. I just didn’t know what it was he wanted to know. ‘I don’t know,’ I said it over and over until my voice gave out. I’m not a hero. I would have sold out my mother if I’d known who she was at the time.”

  Captain Fawr gave Duncan a quick glance. “I’ve shocked you?”

  Duncan followed his captain’s gaze to the enemy camped across the river. “Having seen the scars on your back, sir, I would have to say, no.”

  “He left me to die. I would have, I guess, except for Lathan. He took me to the pixies. They took me in. I hadn’t had goddess-nectar for a couple of days. I was a raw, shaking, shivering wreck. We killed the Earth wizard out of despair not heroism. There wasn’t anything else to do. Goddess knows we couldn’t treaty with him. We didn’t have anything he wanted.” Captain Fawr laughed softly. “I’ve never been a hero. Now you know all my secrets.”

  “I doubt it, sir. Everyone has secrets.”

  “Really? And yours are?


  “Mine to keep.”

  Great Ancestor. Faelan trembled. The captain’s story was nothing like those her people told. Yet she didn’t doubt its truth.

  “Did you or Mister Bruin believe you would succeed, sir?”

  “Fuck, no. We knew we were screwed."

  “But you fought on. That is heroism, sir. It is why men love you, why they sing songs about you.”

  Captain Fawr scrubbed his hands over his face. “Ari Foley was an evil man, a powerful wizard, and he hated my father. I never knew his reasons, and if the Lady Orria knew them, she never shared them.” Kree gestured to the army across the river. “Now, here’s another army calling themselves The Army of the Descendants. Why? What do they want? Are good men dying because I defended my home twenty years ago?” He turned to Duncan. “Send them an envoy. I’ll fight any champion they choose. Maybe you can save lives on both sides.”

  Duncan’s breath rushed out with his answer. “No.”

  “I can make it an order.”

  “No, sir, I command here, not you.” Duncan put his hand on his captain’s shoulder. “You amaze me. Who offers up his life with one breath and takes exception to poetic license with another? You alone are worth an entire army.”

  “Am I worth your entire army?” Captain Fawr turned toward his tent. “I was born and bred for this shit, Duncan,” he called over his shoulder. “I won’t lose. Got too much to live for. At least think about it.”

  ****

  “You saw him, Lannie? The kin-slayer? You saw him with your own eyes?”

  Faelan regarded her brother with unabashed affection. His dark scraggly whiskers had developed into a dark scraggly beard since she had seen him last. His brown eyes sparkled with excitement.

  “Yes Quinn, for the third time, I saw him and the sorcerer too. They’re both in the camp. Now put the towels down and get out so I can finish bathing. I smell like a dog.”

  “But I missed everything,” Quinn complained setting the rough thread-bare towels within easy reach.

  “I’ll give you a full report when I’ve finished bathing.” She flicked wet fingers at him. “Be gone.”

  An hour later, clean for the first time in weeks, smelling of lavender, and dressed in a gauzy white sari, Faelan felt ready to face her doubts. She had many. Her brother walked beside her, her hand tucked in the crook of his arm. He had packed a picnic lunch while he waited for her to finish her toilet. The basket bounced against his thigh with each step. Since attaching herself to Duncan’s army, Faelan was seldom in her own camp during the day, and she knew Quinn missed her company. Growing up, they’d only had each other. Their uncle wasn’t a shifter. He loved them, but he didn’t understand them.

  “Sooo…tell me.”

  Faelan glanced around for Nicholas. Just because she didn’t see him did not mean he wasn’t lurking somewhere. “Let’s walk a little farther.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can still smell the camp.”

  “Laa-nie,” Quinn complained as she led them farther into the woods.

  He spread their blanket under a tree where it was cool and shady. Faelan lay propped on one elbow watching her brother unpack their meal. He set a block cheese and a loaf of still warm bread between them.

  “No more stalling. Spill.”

  She pushed herself upright. “What if our old stories are wrong?”

  Quinn chewed a bite of cheese while he considered her question. “Did something happen?”

  “No—yes.” She gave a gusty sigh. “It’s just…the kin-slayer isn’t what I expected. He isn’t a giant. He’s just a very tall man, maybe a head taller than Nicholas. Snakes don’t grow from his scalp. He wears braids dozens and dozens of thin braids.”

  Quinn shrugged. “Does it matter? You recognized him didn’t you?”

  “But he’s young, not any older than you.”

  Her brother shook his head. “He’s not the kin-slayer, then. Maybe he’s a son.”

  “Oh, it’s him. He told Duncan he was a boy when he killed our grandfather.”

  “No boy killed grandfather, Ari.”

  “Why would he lie? I expected the worst sort of villain, and I got a revered and beloved man who leads about a capricious half-pixie wife.”

  “Would that be the half-pixie who knows you’re not a dog?”

  She felt her face heat. “The very one,” she said with a wry smile.

  “What about the other one, the sorcerer?”

  Washing down a bite of bread with a swallow of wine, Faelan took her time answering. This sorcerer, Lathan, was difficult to pin down. She’d only seen him once. “He calls himself a theurgist.”

  “Huh?”

  “He calls himself a theurgist, a god-worker, not a sorcerer. He is standoffish and he has weird prophet eyes. He spends all his time in the infirmary. The kin-slayer’s wife is his daughter. Do you suppose his wife is silly, too?”

  Quinn threw his head back and laughed so hard he had to struggle to catch his breath. “Some men actually prefer them. Men like your little field marshal maybe. Huh?”

  No. Duncan wants someone he can talk to, an equal the same as I do. Pressure built in her chest. Her throat tightened and her eyes burned. Suddenly she was crying, blubbering, clinging to Quinn while great wracking sobs shook her to the bottom of her soul. All her life she had searched for a man who wanted an equal only to find him in the face of her enemy. It wasn’t fair. Hot tears scalded her cheeks. She felt like a fool. She never cried. Never.

  Alarmed, Quinn held her and stroked her hair. “I was just teasing, Lannie.” His ineffectual touch filled her with aching loneliness.

  “He-he-he.” Faelan hiccupped, and Quinn crushed her to his chest.

  “Dear God, Lannie. What’s happened?”

  Faelan sniffled, pushed herself away from her brother’s comfort. He produced a handkerchief from his sleeve and offered it to her. The concern in his deep brown eyes almost set her off again. She sat back on her thighs wiping her eyes and took a deep cleansing breath.

  “He bought a slave girl from his home land.”

  Quinn looked away. “And now he goes to her.”

  “He gave her a tent of her own, and he does not go to her. He says it is a sin for one person to own another.” Quinn’s gaze snapped back to hers. “Oh, Quinn, I am the biggest fool. You warned me, but I wouldn’t listen. And now...I am so in love with him.” Her chin quivered.

  She fought back fresh tears. “There can never be anything between us. I know that—here.” She touched her temple. “I shouldn’t go back to his tent. The pixie woman knows I’m not a dog. Duncan loves his dog. Losing her—me will hurt him. I can’t stand the thought.” She pressed her palms against her temples. “I think I’m going crazy.”

  For a long time Quinn just stared, then he heaved a sigh. “Fate is a strange lady. Who can say we were not brought to this place and time so you could meet this man?”

  The cruelties of war had made Faelan forget her brother’s romantic nature and his own heartaches. He was forever scribbling poetry or spouting verse to his wife before he’d lost both her and their child to childbirth. Only Quinn would think fate started a war so she could find her soul mate. She found a real smile for him. “But he hasn’t met me. He’ll never meet me.”

  Quinn shook his head. “You want my advice? Dress yourself in your prettiest sari, walk into his camp, and ask for asylum. If he is half as fine as you say, he’ll grant it.”

  “He’ll recognize me as the woman in his dreams.”

  “He’ll think he saw you on the battlefield and his imagination filled in the rest. There’s no reason for him to connect you to his dog.”

  “Except for his dog’s sudden disappearance, you mean. I have no reason to think Duncan loves me. He suspects spies in his camp. He will not welcome me.”

  “Does he welcome you in his dreams?” Faelan cheeks burned, and Quinn grinned. “It’s your chance, Lannie. Take it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kree Fawr stifled another y
awn and surveyed the room over the rim of his beer mug. If ever he had doubted Duncan was the right man to command the allied army, a single evening with this collection of popinjay generals was proof positive. He had endured three such evenings in the last span of days. Goddess knew he would have cracked heads by now. Solid fact. But Duncan, bless his gentlemanly soul, sat there with his pretty native girl fluttering around him and actually looked interested in the ridiculous opinions these idiots spouted. He even managed to nod at appropriate intervals and murmur, “I hear you,” a time or two.

  Kree would pay real money to know what was going on in the lightning-fast mind hiding behind Duncan’s soft, concerned eyes. About the only entertainment these evenings offered was watching Duncan interact with his new House-holden. He fed her off his plate. She fussed over him in their island language. Which was called Maoliou not Addir, and wasn’t that a surprise.

  Addiri, when the girl said it, was a title. Owning a shit-load of titles himself, Kree recognized one when he heard it. And how did Duncan introduce her? “Captain Fawr, may I present, Ky’lara, my first House-holden.”

  Sweet goddess, what a lovely woman, all dusky and lush. Mad for girls since age twelve, Kree itched to touch her just to see if her skin felt as satiny as it looked. It was an itch he would not scratch. Once he would have, but he lived and breathed for his Katie these days, and contrary to what people thought, he knew right from wrong. He would never do anything to hurt Katie.

  That said, he was neither dead nor blind. No wonder his man, Duncan, was taut as a bow string. House-holden? What did that mean? Duncan’s connection with Ky’lara embarrassed the man somehow. Interesting, since Duncan leaned toward stoic. A fellow had to work hard to get a rise out of him. As soon as this interminable evening dragged to a close, he would make Duncan explain House-holden. It was more interesting for sure than whatever they were saying now.

  Kree focused. Oh. Strategy. Who were they kidding? Duncan had forgotten more about strategy than these meatballs would ever know. Kree smiled to himself. That wasn’t true. Duncan never forgot anything, except maybe your name. These fools didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as his first lieutenant, and they sought to school him. Hell, even that damn surly dog of Duncan’s was glassy-eyed with boredom. It was time to put an end to this torture. Judging from the look on the lovely Ky’lara’s face, she thought so too.