by Moira Rogers
Now they had only awkwardness and silence, for nothing of substance could pass between them under Mal’s watchful gaze. So she cleared her throat and tried to say with her eyes what she could no longer say with her words. “Thank you, First Warlord. I owe you a great debt.”
“You owe me nothing.” The words were innocuous enough, save for the fine thread of pain that wound through them, a pain that took root in her heart and made her entire chest ache.
It would work out, if only she kept Ennon from leaving the camp. At least until she found a way to talk to him without her cousin standing over them. “Perhaps you could dine with us tonight?”
He was shaking his head before she finished the words, but Mal cut in. “Of course he shall. Where else would he dine?”
Ennon’s mouth snapped shut, and he nodded. “Of course.”
The camp was likely ill-equipped for her to play lady of the palace for them, but she’d never been very accomplished at the quiet tasks of a gently bred noble woman. That she felt the lack now was truly the height of folly. Here she was, saddled with a helpless desire to seduce Ennon with her suitability as a wife, even though the skills required had never interested her before.
One thing was certain—if she didn’t retreat and gather her senses, her desperation would show all too clearly on her face. She turned her back on Ennon as if she’d already forgotten him and smiled at her cousin. “Do you have a place where I can clean up and rest for a few hours?”
He answered absently. “I’ve cordoned off a section at the center of camp with extra guards. Use it as you wish.”
“Will you show me?”
Mal muttered something under his breath, so low even she couldn’t understand, and offered her his arm. “Cousin.”
There were undercurrents here she didn’t understand, perhaps couldn’t. So she settled her hand on Mal’s arm and promised herself she wouldn’t let Ennon suffer the consequences of her curiosity.
Mal patted her hand, deep in thought. “How was your journey?”
“Well enough.” Her cousin navigated the camp effortlessly, though she supposed it was easy enough when his men all but flung themselves out of the way, creating an unencumbered path between the long rows of tents. The encampment itself was almost identical to the ones in which she’d been hiding—browns and tans, endless canvas and rope, and a field turned to dirt by thousands of boots.
Eventually they reached a large tent, indistinguishable from the others save for the sheer number of armed guards surrounding it. “This is yours,” Mal told her. “I stocked it as best I could.”
Inside, she found the closest thing to luxury that she’d seen in months. A simple cot, perhaps, but piled high with blankets and pillows. A soft rug covered the ground, and sturdy furniture provided a table large enough to share meals as well as another chair more suited to lounging, perhaps with one of the leather-bound books stacked on the side table beside the glass lantern.
Care and thought had gone into everything, and tears stung her eyes until she blinked them away. “Thank you, Mal.”
“You’re welcome.” He drew in a deep breath. “We’ll finish breaking camp tomorrow and head back to the palace. You can decide then what you want to do next.”
Kisri sank into the more comfortable chair with a tiny sigh of relief. “What will you do?”
“Get used to ruling in a time of peace, I suppose.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Take up a few new hobbies?”
“And will you follow in our uncle’s footsteps and try to marry me off?”
His gaze sharpened. “I rather thought I’d let you decide that matter.”
It would not be wise to forget her cousin was a shrewd tactician—and that he’d known her for her entire life. Kisri glanced at her hands, which had somehow ended up tangled up in her lap, fingers entwined so tightly they ached. “I know I could have already been married, but most of the men who might have appreciated a lady with more spirit than decorum were at war. I didn’t desire an old man who only wanted me in hopes of gaining your ear.”
“You sound as though you’ve given it some thought,” he said casually.
She sidestepped. “I gave plenty of thought to what I did not want when it was being forced on me day after day.”
Mal flashed a feral grin. “No one will force you to do anything, cousin. On pain of death.”
That, at least, she believed. “And you’ll respect my choice, whether he’s a peasant or a noble or not a lion at all?”
He nearly winced. “Not a lion at all? Isn’t that taking things a bit far?”
Kisri laughed and teased him with a careless shrug. “We’re allies with the wolves now, are we not? Surely your friend the High Lord has many handsome wolves under his command.”
“None fitting for a royal lioness,” he grumbled.
“Oh, Mal.” She rocked to her feet and up onto her toes to kiss his cheek. “Don’t be so grumpy, cousin. The war is over, and now you can go home and marry a pretty lioness and have dozens of babies who will keep you too busy to frown at me.”
“I still worry about you, and about Ennon.” He paused. “He was very quiet when you arrived.”
He was circling like any good lion, stalking the truth as his prey. Kisri evaded him by patting his cheek. “You should glance in a mirror. Your scowl is even more intimidating than it used to be. If I weren’t a royal brat, I might be quiet too.”
Mal sighed and ducked away from her. “My scowls have never affected him that way before.”
She had to be careful to skirt around an outright lie. “I was a trial to deal with. I imagine he finds silence safer than such an admission.”
“Perhaps.” Mal strode to the tent’s makeshift door and turned to look at her. “Dinner. I’ll have the cooks prepare something special tonight, in your honor.”
“I’ll be prepared,” she replied, hoping her smile was as easy as her voice. It would give her a few hours’ time, in any case. A few hours to devise a plan that would steal her precious secret minutes with the First Warlord. In the midst of the High Lord’s own camp.
She could only hope tactical cunning ran in their family.
The first thing Mal did was hit him.
Ennon took the punch because he deserved it, and because the High Lord wouldn’t have doled it out if he hadn’t already figured out what had happened.
At least partly. No way did he suspect what Ennon had really done, because he wouldn’t have limited himself to a punch. No, he’d have come at him with claws and teeth, and Ennon would have been fighting for his life instead of rubbing a sore jaw.
“You son of a bitch,” Mal growled. “I gave you one task—one.”
“I know.” Ennon rose and waited for the next blow. “I brought her back safe.”
“But not untouched.” The High Lord’s biting stare dared him to deny it.
He couldn’t, of course. “No, not untouched. But I took nothing by force.”
“Oh, I don’t give a damn, En,” Mal spat. “I didn’t accuse you of rape. I accused you of flouting my orders, and of taking advantage of an innocent.”
How could he possibly defend himself when it was all true? He’d known that taking her, initiating her into the ways of sex, was better saved for the man who would take her as his wife as well as his mate. Anything less wasn’t fitting for a royal like the High Lord’s cousin.
He squared his shoulders. “I did things I should not have done, but Kisri didn’t suffer. She won’t, not after I’m gone.” Too bad he couldn’t say the same for himself.
Mal closed his mouth abruptly and stared at Ennon. “You mated her. I felt the echo of it when the two of you came into camp, thought it must have been my imagination, but it’s real. You mated her.”
It felt like more of a damnation than a blow from Mal’s fist. “Kisri—she doesn’t know.”
He’d thought Mal couldn’t look more surprised, but his friend’s mouth dropped open. “Why?”
“It was an accident
,” Ennon ground out harshly. “I never meant for it to happen, and she can’t know. She can’t. She’s already had idiots fighting over her because of her royal birthright, and I refuse to let her think I did this so she’d have to pick me.”
“Too bad, because now she’s bound to you, whether she likes it or not.”
“Temporarily.” The reminder brought pain, but not as much as he deserved. “For a short time. Then she can let go, and it will be as if it never happened.”
His friend watched him intently. “Not as simple for you, though. You’ll be mated to her until you die, even if she rejects you. Even if you mate another, you’ll feel her loss.”
He hoped he would. At least he would have that much of her to hold, no matter what happened. “I know.”
“Dinner,” Mal said abruptly.
Ennon blinked at the non sequitur. “Dinner?”
“Dinner. In honor of Kisri’s arrival, so it would hardly be fitting for you to skip it.”
He was certain that Mal’s intention had been to eject him from the camp, but he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. “I still have my things packed. I was going to go—”
“Dinner,” Mal said again, his tone implacable. “That’s an order, Ennon. And try to follow this one.” With that, he turned and stalked off.
Chapter Six
Dinner was miserable, mostly because Ennon had no idea what Mal had up his sleeve.
Kisri seemed in good spirits, though she spent the first part of the meal darting frantic looks at Ennon’s jaw while Mal ate and drank and pretended not to watch them.
No matter. Whatever future hell his friend had planned for him, it couldn’t be worse than the torment of not even being able to offer Kisri a reassuring look or smile.
A particularly long silence fell as Kisri refilled her glass. Her third serving of wine, and her cheeks were flushed. She took a sip, then shifted her gaze from Ennon to Mal and back. “If dinners at the palace are going to be this awkward, I may eat in my rooms.”
Mal lifted both eyebrows and picked up his own goblet. “Ennon won’t be accompanying us to the palace. Will you, En?”
He dropped his fork and laid his napkin on the table. “No, I won’t.”
Kisri’s eyes narrowed. “Are you staying to oversee the disbandment of the army, then?”
“In part.” That much he would be doing, anyway. “Then I’ll be headed to my own home.”
She was still watching him with that shrewd, suspicious look. “I suppose your estates suffered for lack of your attention.”
“I’ve been away a long, long time.” Perhaps the less said, the better.
“Of course.” But she was stubborn, and turned her gaze on her cousin. “If the two of you have some great secret, you can excuse yourselves and see to whatever matters you deem too serious for me to handle.”
“On the contrary, I’ve no great secret.” Mal shrugged and rose. “Ennon, however, has something to discuss with you before he leaves, so I shall leave you to it.”
Damn him. “Mal—”
“Shut up and get to it, Ennon,” he said pleasantly, already walking away.
The tent flap had barely closed behind him when Kisri bit off an entirely unladylike curse. “He hit you, didn’t he?”
“Just once.” Ennon rubbed his jaw. “Really, I deserved more.”
“Because you seduced his foolish little cousin who doesn’t know better, I suppose.” She drank half of her wine in one gulp, then leaned forward. “Did you tell him that it was my idea? Or did you let him think I’m too witless to want a man without being coerced?”
He bristled. “No one lets Mal think anything. Not that it matters. I knew very well when he put you in my care that I was meant to keep my hands to myself.”
“And you did not.” Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table. “Are you being punished for it? Banished from court? Because I won’t allow it to happen.”
There was no way out of it now, no way to keep his secret. “Mal is upset that I bedded you, but that isn’t the—I—damn it.” He couldn’t do it.
Now she simply seemed confused. “What could he possibly find more—” Her teeth snapped together. Her dark eyes widened. “No. I would know.”
“Would you?” he asked wearily. “Because I mated you, Kisri. Not on purpose—I wouldn’t have done that to you for the world—but it still happened.”
For an eternity she simply watched him, her eyes unreadable, her breathing ragged. The noises of the camp drifted on outside, soldiers making rounds, the wind tugging at the tent, fires crackling in a hundred tents as men prepared to return to their homes.
Finally, Kisri frowned. “Why would he be angry at you? You’re the one who will suffer if you return to your home without me. I can be mated again, unless I hold you in my heart. Or would I be the first of many, now that you have leisure to take mates?”
The thought ripped at his heart. “No,” he told her hoarsely. “No other mates.”
“Just you, on your estate.” A brittle edge filled her voice. Danger filled her eyes. “You intended to leave without telling me. To leave me bound to you until I realized what had happened.”
His own pain lent his voice a defensive tone. “Because you deserve better than an accidental mating with the first man to touch you.”
“You’re right,” she replied sharply. “I deserve a choice, and a man strong enough to face me. I was ready to—” The words cut off as she dug her teeth into her lip and looked away. “Well, it hardly matters. You’ve clearly decided what’s best for me.”
“Yes, I suppose I have.” More than anything, he was tired. “Better that you’ve discovered my cowardice now, Kisri. Run while you still can.”
She moved—fast—but not to run away. Instead she shoved the table aside, mindless of the plates that clattered to the floor or the wine that pooled on the carpet. She lunged at him and curled her hands around the back of his chair, as if she could trap him with her small body straddling his legs. “What are you so afraid of?”
Only the truth, if anything, could defuse her righteous anger. “I’m afraid of having you hate me.”
“Are you sure?” she whispered, her arms trembling on either side of his body. “Dismissing me, lying to me, abandoning me… Those are the things that would make me hate you.”
Against his will, he lifted his hands to her face. “At least then you’ll be rid of me. But I could not stand waking up every morning with the knowledge that I’d bound you to me, and that you despised me for trapping you.”
Kisri bared her teeth at him in an angry snarl. “Are you listening to what you’re saying? Or do lions truly think we’re helpless before you? Yes, you can mate us without our knowledge or will, but you can’t keep us. If I despised you, I wouldn’t be trapped. I’d be free to offer myself to another.”
“Would you have that freedom,” he asked, “if you weren’t the High Lord’s cousin?”
At least she paused to consider it, which was something, considering her arms still trembled under the force of her furious grip on the back of his chair. She worried at her lower lip as she studied his face, then shook her head once. “No. I imagine not.”
“Take your freedom now,” he urged quietly. She had to. A few more small steps, and she would be as irrevocably bound to him as he was to her. “Kisri.”
Instead she frowned at him. “You’ll never be free of me. Are you so afraid of having me hate you that you’d rather watch another man mate me, even if you’ll feel the loss in your soul forever?”
Ennon looked away. “You forget your cousin has a say in the matter, as well.”
This time she took his face between her hands and forced him to meet her gaze. “And on what grounds do you imagine he’ll object? Because he wishes to override my happiness for a more advantageous union? The only lions with more wealth and power than you are related to me.”
No, Mal would likely object because he knew him better than Kisri did, and had judged him
unsuitable. “Wealth and power aren’t the sum total of the things that make a marriage happy.”
Her fingernails bit into his scalp. “For such a celebrated warrior, you are a coward. How many excuses will you find before you confess that you simply do not wish to take me as your mate?”
It was too much. His fingers bit into her hips, but he couldn’t force himself to release her. “You’ve been spoiled, Kisri. You’ve gotten everything you ever wanted, including me, with no thought of consequence or denial.”
“I’ve been spoiled,” she agreed softly. “I got a taste of what it is like, to live without the protection of the royal family. To have men desperate to conquer me, to mate me and hope they can break my spirit before I fight free of the bond. You are the only one who had nothing to gain and everything to lose, and I’m sorry.” Her hands fell to the back of the chair again, struggling to push away, to break his grip on her hips. “I’m sorry.”
He held tight. “If it were up to you, what would we do?”
Her face was closed off to him, eyes hard and unyielding. “If it were up to me, I would be mated to a man who wanted me. Who would fight to have me, not shame me into leaving by reminding me that he is a slave to my selfish, royal whims.”
The words found their mark, and a fresh well of pain surged through him. He dropped his hands. “I think I prefer your cousin’s blows. They’re cleaner.”
Kisri surged out of his lap and strode to the opposite side of the tent, skittish energy rolling in a wave after her. “What do you expect me to say? I forced you into an intimacy that will shadow the rest of your life. You’re the one who is trapped. Perhaps I do not wish to wake up every day next to a man who hates me. Who is only with me because I was stupid enough to voice a desire that my royal cousin might enforce with his wrath.”
Ennon rose. “Your cousin has the power to make life difficult for you. He could disown you, Kisri.”