by Brenna Lyons
“They’re coming,” Abbo shouted from the doorway.
Regana raced through the crowd to watch their entrance. Andris took her breath away. A blood soaked tunic — obviously Gawen’s — was wrapped around his left shoulder. A dark bruise marred his throat. His weapons belt was slung over his right shoulder, cinched but looking suspiciously short. The smell assaulted her before she locked on the blackened blood staining his hands and clothes, painted on his forehead and chest beneath his torn tunic. Without a word, he held his amulet aloft as a sign that he would wear it no longer.
A cheer resonated through the room. The other house lords rushed forward to greet him, while Gawen moved to her slowly. It was not her place to congratulate him, and Regana couldn’t have managed it if she tried. From the looks of him, she almost lost her son.
“Couldn’t keep him out of trouble, could you?” Ditrich teased Gawen in a booming voice.
“Too much of Pauwel in him,” he replied in good humor, though Regana could clearly see the strain on his face. He avoided her eyes.
“I did not disobey a single order, Uncle,” Andris shot back happily.
“That is true,” he conceded wearily. “You fought well, Andris.”
“Then, what is this?” Wil demanded, tipping the new lord’s chin up to inspect the bruising. “And this?” He poked at the makeshift bandage.
“Veriel had other ideas,” Gawen confirmed. “We may have to send out more than one warrior with first nights with Veriel looking to educate them in this fashion.”
The crowd went stony still, and Regana had to force herself to breathe. Veriel had tried to take her son from her just as she had always feared. Gawen took her shoulders from his place behind her to steady her.
“The blood is Veriel’s?” Olbrecht asked quietly. “You sent him to ground?”
Andris shook his head and smiled sheepishly. “I’m not sure Gawen and I could have stopped his rampage alone,” he admitted. “He had the strength and speed of fifty.”
“How did you escape him, then?” Cunczel asked, though they all expected the answer.
“Another beast with a prior issue to settle with him sent him to ground to frustrate the mad deceiver,” Andris offered.
“What beast? Name him,” Ditrich asked quietly.
The young lord hesitated. “I forgot to ask his name, but Gawen has had dealings with him before.” He turned to face his uncle uncertainly.
Regana stiffened, as his hands tightened on her shoulders.
“He is known only as the great beast killer,” her brother confirmed.
“He went to ground as well,” Ger decided, “after the battle.”
“No,” Gawen interrupted before Andris could speak. “He challenged the young Lord KreuzStütze and met his end.”
Regana spun to face Gawen in a panic, searching his eyes for some sign that she’d heard wrong. It wasn’t there. The crowd fell into a sort of split. The older warriors were quiet, while the younger ones in training roared their approval.
Gawen met her eyes miserably. “I’m sorry, Regana. He wished to grant Andris his seal, and he was mortally wounded. We would likely never have had a chance like this to free him again,” he whispered.
Regana pressed her hands to her stomach and stifled a sob. “Pauwel,” she managed brokenly under her breath.
Gawen nodded and wrapped her to his chest to comfort her, but there would be no comfort for her.
“Look, Regana. You must see what Andris is about to do.”
She turned to watch. Her son walked half the length of the room to Ger. The room quieted in anticipation of whatever interaction was to come. The move was a clear challenge of some sort. Andris stopped an arm’s length away from the older man.
“You wish to speak with me, Lord KreuzStütze?” Ger challenged him openly.
“Gerhardus, Lord Landwirt,” he greeted him without the slightest bow of his head, proudly announcing his own status as house lord. “Tonight I earned my blood seal and my autonomy. I am lord of my house. I ask you now, warrior to warrior, for my right of choosing.”
Ger stiffened, and murmurs of surprise rose and fell throughout the room.
“I know Berna is still half a year from fifteen, and I would not presume to claim her as wife tonight. With your permission, if she will have me, I would offer her my protection this night, give her my seal to hold for our children, and wed her when that time has passed. I await your decision.”
Ger looked at the dark blush on his daughter, her glittering eyes above a shy smile, and darkened in rage. He turned on Gawen. “How much of Pauwel is in his son?” he demanded.
Gawen laughed lightly. “I believe he has more of a head on his shoulders, but that is a question you should ask the Lord KreuzStütze himself.”
“You had best be right, KlingeStütze.” He glanced at Andris dangerously, but the young man held his ground admirably. “It would be a shame to have to kill off a great house for so impetuous a pup,” he warned.
The other lords laughed, knowing Ger would not dare take the life of the only son of Raga. If anything, Andris would be denied his right to choose Berna and would not breathe without pain for a week or two.
“What of it, Lord KreuzStütze? Have you laid hands on my daughter?”
“No. I have not.” Andris glanced at Regana with a raised eyebrow and a crooked smile that made him appear half his age. “My mother taught me the proper respect for a woman very well,” he informed the other man.
Regana laughed through her tears despite the fact that her heart was breaking, while the others roared in approval at his wit. “I’m glad to see you were listening,” she teased. “I thought, sometimes, that you set out to ignore me.”
“Of course not, Mother! Your back swipe is deadly,” he finished ruefully.
That admission prompted a new round of cheers as Andris faced Ger again.
The older lord met his eyes evenly. “Berna, will you have this man as lord, husband, and mate?” he asked.
“I will,” she decreed, her smile heartfelt and wide.
Ger placed her hand in Andris’ and nodded. “You have my permission on one condition. You will not take her high cycle until you are wed. Berna is too young to carry your child, and I want to make sure you survive that long, to determine how much of your father’s impetuous nature you share.”
Andris darkened, but he nodded his agreement and clasped Ger’s arm firmly to seal the pact. “You have my word. When I take her, it will be as you say.”
“Then, make your promises to her with my approval.”
Andris released Ger’s arm and placed his amulet in Berna’s hand. “Hold this for the children we will have together. When you are of age, I will take you to my bed as wife. Now and always, you have my protection and my love. That is my vow to you. Do you accept what I offer you?”
“I will accept what you offer.”
Andris bent to seal his vow, but what was intended as a chaste promise ignited into fiery passion, while his training brothers cheered.
“Two weeks,” Gawen guessed. “He’ll bed her within two weeks.”
“Only if she’s high cycle,” Regana countered. “I give him three days, otherwise.”
Watching Andris with his chosen made Regana’s heart ache. Never again would she have Pauwel by her side. Tonight, she would go with Gawen and the other lords to bury her husband.
Chapter Fourteen
518 AD
Regana checked on Berna and found her sleeping soundly. She closed the door quietly, sure that nothing could disrupt her plan this time. She had waited a year, patiently biding her time while Andris wed his chosen and brought her home to his bed. Berna had carried his child after the first high cycle in his home. Still, Regana waited until Berna was well established before carrying out her plan.
A year— For more than a year, she’d lived without Pauwel. Regana found little joy in all the joyous things happening around her, and she knew her family worried about that. Gawen and Bavin
understood, though they could offer little comfort. Andris stopped asking after her troubles long ago, when it became clear to him that Regana would take her concerns to the grave with her rather than share them with her son.
And the grave was where Regana intended to go — to meet her husband again. “Without you, I die,” she whispered as she strapped her weapons belt on. She left her cloak and went hunting for Veriel. If she had to beg him, he would do this one thing for her. He would do this one thing that would bring her peace.
She took no lamp or torch but made her way past darkened homes to the place where the beast Jörg took her first, their place together. Regana settled at the base of the great tree to wait for him. He would come. Veriel would feel her presence here and come to give her peace, to give her rest with Pauwel.
* * *
Jörg materialized and took in the sight of Regana, sitting demurely on the grass beneath the tree they played and loved in the shelter of. He eyed her weapons suspiciously. “I told you never to come here, Regana. Why do you torture me?”
She turned her head slowly, and his breath caught at the tired circles beneath her eyes, the look of defeat and apathy.
“I ask a favor of Jörg — if any of Jörg still exists as Pauwel believed he did.”
“He does. What favor would you ask?” he inquired quietly.
Regana stood and unsheathed her weapons, and he took a step back.
“Battle with me,” she replied.
“I can’t do that. You couldn’t possibly win. You could never...” Jörg stopped, mute in the realization that the old jokes were in poor taste after all they had been through. He had no right to use them with her after all the pain he had caused her.
“I know,” she whispered, her breath puffing out through her dark lips in trails of smoke. The night was a cold one, and she had come with no cloak. “I do not believe that Pauwel is anywhere but the warrior’s rest. I am tired. I would join him there now. If Jörg exists, he will understand and allow me this. If you are only Veriel, you will leave me in suffering.”
“You cannot ask this,” he breathed. “I cannot touch you, even if I wished to.”
Regana caught the loop of the thong holding her amulet and sliced it cleanly with one of her weapons. She met his eyes as it fell to the grass between them. “Now, you can. Battle me and give me peace.” She didn’t plead. It was an order she issued him.
“Regana, you know I cannot do this.”
“I know you can.”
She advanced on him and back sliced, wounding his arm. Jörg let her land the blow, knowing she couldn’t kill him with it. It was the least he owed Regana for all the pain he had caused her.
“Fight me, damn you,” she demanded.
Regana lunged for a heart shot, knowing his beast would force him to react, but Jörg and his beast had come to an understanding the first night. The force of his reactions were his own, no matter how poorly he chose that response.
Jörg clamped her wrist in his hand, and caught the other when she swung that blade at him. “Drop them,” he ordered gruffly.
“Never. I will die fighting you. It is the only way.” Tears misted her eyes.
Jörg leaned close to brush his lips over hers. She looked at him in shock, as he kissed her gently, showing no reaction, positive or negative, to his invitation.
“Can you fight this?” he asked. “I know the mistakes I’ve made, Regana. Let me make as many as I can right. I was never Veriel, not willingly.”
Regana seemed to regain her composure. “There’s nothing left to make right. It’s all gone,” she argued. “You were always a beast. How can I trust you?”
Jörg pushed her away in frustration, knowing she was right even as his heart tore at his condemnation on her lips. “Go home. I cannot do what you ask.” He started to walk away, but her blade planted firmly in the back of his ribs, and he stopped in confusion. It was painful, but Jörg had learned to live with pain. He turned at looked at her in disbelief.
“Now, you have to fight,” she decided. “You can’t use your tricks unless someone removes the blade for you. It is outside your reach, is it not?”
“Why do you want this?” he demanded.
“I am already dead. I died the night my husband did, but my heart no longer speaks to me and so does not know that it is a sacrilege that it continues to beat unwanted. I am damned and in pain, until you set me free.” There was no emotion, only brutal honesty.
Jörg sighed in resignation. “If I refuse? What will you do?”
“I will search out another beast to do this for me.”
“Then take your blade from my back,” he decided.
“So you can leave,” she spat. “Coward.”
“No,” he managed, a sick swirl in the pit of his stomach, “so I can free you from your pain.”
She nodded and pulled out her blade.
“Fight me,” he invited. “I will make it as painless as I can for you.”
“Pain is immaterial,” she assured him.
Regana closed the distance, and Jörg sparred with her gently, angering her. When she finally lunged at him, Jörg captured her wrists again, brutally this time. He pulled her to his chest, shuddering at the feel of her pressed against him. It had been so long—
He sank in his teeth for the kill, replacing her pain with orgasmic pleasure as soon as their minds connected. The very pleasure he had always denied her was granted her only for death? Jörg cursed himself for the thought even as it took hold.
Jörg tried to drown out the flow of her memories by giving her his own, but still he sobbed as his callous actions — filtered through her eyes — confronted him. He murmured sweet words to her, soothing Regana through the odious thing he was doing to her, unable to stop even as he realized that it had no purpose.
She embraced the darkness he offered and even tipped her head to give Jörg better purchase. Her body shuddered in the ongoing release he was providing to her. Her body’s reaction was very real despite the fact that she was experiencing no actual sexual contact with him. The very thought of such a thing while he killed her was odious and foul, though Regana would be whatever he wanted of her now with no regrets.
Despite his promise to her, he resisted taking the last of her blood. Instead, Jörg dropped to the grass with her in his arms. He left the wound open and controlled her pain.
Regana looked at him and smiled sweetly. “Thank you, Jörg,” she breathed close to his face.
“Don’t thank me. I have done far too many things wrong where you are concerned. This is the only thing I can do right for you.”
She started to speak, but he stilled her with a gentle kiss that she didn’t protest.
“Please, don’t. I would give anything to change them all. I caused all my own pain. I know that, now. Once, I wanted nothing more than to live with you. Now, I wish I could die with you. Without you, I am already dead, but I fear I will not follow you to wherever we are all bound for a very long time.”
Regana’s eyes fluttered shut. “I lied to you. If you had not gone to the stone, I would have been yours alone.”
“I know. I have seen it in Pauwel’s mind and in yours. It was better for you this way. He was better for you. I am sorry I took him from you. I would likely never have been the husband you deserved or the father Andris deserved, and I took that from him, too.”
Regana murmured something as consciousness deserted her at last.
Jörg held her for hours, feeling her weak heart stutter and stop. Still, he held Regana to him, shedding bitter tears at her loss. When, at last, his own blood loss became dire, he slid into the earth beneath him, screaming his protest as she left his arms.
He had hoped the warriors would find him there and end him. The young Jäger, Ditrich’s son, had first nighted eight months earlier and turned in his amulet to a chosen at his first kill more than two months later. He could die now that there was a Jäger warrior to kill him.
Jörg wondered that they hadn’t
sensed his kill. Perhaps, the gods were being kind to their chosen mother, a fact he learned from feeding on Pauwel. Even now, Jörg prayed that he hadn’t upset that plan by taking away the other man’s ability to give her children. Surely, Pauwel was her true mate, not a beast that could not do better by her.
Or perhaps, the gods were simply punishing Jörg with life yet again.
* * * *
Gawen sat on the hill where Regana died as he had the three previous nights. Veriel was here. He had no doubts of it. Whether he was hiding from the hunters or he was honestly injured made no difference to Gawen. He would be here every night, until that damned beast showed himself and answered for what he had done.
His stomach clenched as he remembered Andris’ face as he stood at the door that morning.
“What’s wrong?” Gawen asked. “Is it Berna?”
“No, it’s mother. She’s gone. She left during the night while I hunted. Is she here?” he asked, frantic and out of breath.
“No, but I’m sure she’s fine. Maybe she’s with Anabilia or Emecin and Landric,” he suggested.
“Her weapons belt is gone,” he admitted quietly.
Gawen cursed solidly and pushed past his nephew.
“Where are you going?” he asked, grasping at his uncle’s arm.
He wrenched free. “Where she would have,” he commented as he shot onto the path to the great tree with his nephew falling behind in the strange surroundings.
Regana had never allowed Andris to play here as she had, so this section of the wood was foreign to him.
Gawen knew what he would find before he burst into the clearing and rushed to her side. Still, he wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Regana’s amulet had been sliced from her neck, much as Andris’ belt had been sliced from his body. Her blades were both fouled to the hilt with beast blood, and dark stains marred the white skin of her hands. One weapon lay near her feet and the other was still clasped in her hand. It clattered to the ground as he raised Regana to his chest.