The Royal Trials: Seeker

by James Tate

  I nodded and gave him a small smile as I squeezed his fingers. “I know, but it must be for someone else. There’s nothing but good going on in Ironforge tonight.”

  Zan looked unconvinced, but nodded and pulled me closer until our lips touched. For just a second, he kissed me tenderly, but he was so tightly strung with emotion that his whole body was shaking. Cupping the back of his neck with my hand, I pulled him closer to me, deepening our kiss to show him everything I needed to say, but was too scared to voice out loud.

  No, I couldn’t choose between them because I cared for them all equally yet totally uniquely. No, I couldn’t walk away from them despite the fact that I knew it was the “right” thing to do. It wasn’t fair to them for me to play them like this. It wasn’t fair to any of us. But I couldn’t deny my feelings... and in light of the death sentence the gods had apparently issued on me, why should I even try?

  Our tongues danced in harmony, and Zan kissed me like I was the only thing keeping him alive. Ironic, really, considering how only days ago he had died to show how much he cared for me.

  My mother’s information about her mark made it clear to me that Zan had died on top of me, but I had brought him back. Somehow in that moment of intense terror and gut-wrenching despair, I’d accessed some latent magic and forced it into him to bring him back to life.

  All of this rushed through me as I kissed him—my utter relief that I was able to do that, able to save him, and my absolute, soul-shaking fear of how close I’d come to losing him.

  Our bodies pressed together, and his hands roamed down my scarlet gown in a way that made me desperately wish we were in private with a whole lot less fabric between us.

  Just as I was preparing to suggest this, he reluctantly broke his lips from mine and cupped my face. His eyes held me captive, and I saw all of my emotions and more reflected back at me.

  “To be continued later, Princess Zarina,” he promised in a husky voice, making me shiver. His words dripped with desire, and I badly wanted to tell him, “Fuck later, how about now?”

  But he was right. The celebration had already started in the streets of Ironforge, and there were far too many eyes on me to be able to sneak away. Already a woman was pressing a bottle of wine into Zan’s hand and kissing me on my cheeks as we made our way over to the inn where the rest of our party had disappeared.

  I sighed and grumbled under my breath about timing, but Zan just quirked a rare smile at me and winked. “I’ll make it up to you,” he whispered as we passed through the door into the inn, and my thighs quivered in anticipation.

  22

  The celebration raged throughout the night, and by the time dawn began to hint at the red-stained horizon, my feet were almost raw from dancing and my head was spinning with scarlettberry wine.

  I’d finally been able to plead exhaustion and peel myself away from the ladies of Ironforge, who seemed determined to show their appreciation by throwing the best party I’d ever been to. It was all a bit uncomfortable since it had been Barmzig who’d broken their curse, not me. But none of them would listen to reason when I tried to explain this and instead just gave me more wine.

  Weaving slightly, I stopped at the inn’s bar for a glass of water before making my way upstairs to my room.

  Uncomfortable with my new identity, I’d chosen to stash Ophelia’s crown beneath a loose floorboard rather than wear it. To put it on seemed far too much like acceptance of all the responsibilities that were piling up on my shoulders, and I wasn’t there yet.

  As I made my way along the corridor, I trailed my fingers along the walls and felt the reassuring hum of the crown in response. It was still where I’d put it, thanks be to... uh... fate would be an inappropriate choice, given that would be Sal—who’d started this whole mess in the first place.

  Pushing my door open, I swayed in with a swish of my red, god-made dress.

  The door slammed hard behind me, and a hand reached out of the darkness to grab my wrist. After a strong tug, my balance shifted off its axis, and I found myself pressed up against the door with a very strong, very hard body flush against me and hot breath feathering across my lips.

  “Zan,” I sighed, melting into his familiar touch. Now that I understood his mark, I knew how he’d sensed me drowning. We were linked together, a small piece of my soul was lodged in his chest where that silver zigzag mark was located.

  “My queen,” he whispered back with reverence. “I’ve been waiting for you for an eternity.”

  I giggled lightly at his dramatic exaggeration. The sweet tang of scarlettberry on his breath was evidence enough that I wasn’t the only one the ladies of Ironforge had been plying with wine. “It’s only been a few hours,” I replied with a grin.

  “It felt like an eternity,” he amended his statement. “All I have been able to focus on all night is the curve of your waist, the arch of your back, that soft moan you make when we kiss...” As if to demonstrate what he meant, he lowered his lips to mine and teased me with light, breathy kisses until I was whimpering and my knees shook.

  “Zan,” I sighed as his hands bunched up the fabric of my dress and found my bare thighs beneath. “Don’t tease me.”

  His lips curved into a smile against my neck as he kissed me there, sucking lightly at my pulse point and causing me to shiver. “Tease you is exactly what I plan to do,” he promised me. His breath fanned across the moisture on my skin, raising delicious goosebumps in its wake. “Remember when I had you tied to my bed?” he pressed, even as his hand found my hot, wet center and his fingers stroked down my flesh. I’d noticed earlier that my magically created dress hadn’t included any underwear—not that I’d been wearing any since losing my panties in the magical fuck-flower meadow—but I’d been quietly hoping this liaison with Zan might have happened sooner and hadn’t bothered to put any back on.

  “Uh-huh,” I breathed out my response, then gasped as his index finger slipped between my folds. “What about it?”

  His finger slipped further, pressing inside me before withdrawing to tease at my clit in a way that caused my thighs to tremble and my fingernails to bite into his waist. “I rather liked having you at my mercy.”

  I laughed a throaty, sex-filled sound. “Until you decided to break your oath and die on top of me while I was still tied up.” I grabbed his face between my palms and brought his eyes level to mine. “Never, ever scare me like that again, Zan,” I demanded in a pleading, desperate whisper.

  His fingers kept moving on me, rubbing circles around my clit until I was almost seeing stars before he sank two fingers deep inside me, making me moan softly. Still, I held his gaze firm, and he simply stared back at me like I was his whole damn world.

  We stayed like that, his hand dragging pleasure out of me by alternately teasing my clit, then filling my pulsing cunt until I shattered in an exquisite, passionate climax that left me panting. Sweat ran down my forehead, but still our gazes didn’t waver from each other.

  When my pussy finished spasming and the shaking in my thighs subsided, Zan kissed me gently. His grip tightened on my bare hip beneath bunched-up red skirts.

  “Never again.” He whispered his promise to me. “I love you, Luna. I’ll never risk losing you again, now that you’ve chosen me.”

  Those words were like a bucket of ice water, and I instantly sobered.

  Gone was the glittery, loved-up haze we’d just been existing in together. The stark understanding that Zan had misread what had just happened between us made me ill, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Zan,” I croaked, shaking my head slowly. “I’m not... I haven’t...”

  The dazed, happy smile melted from his face, and he frowned, stepping back from me. My skirts fell back down again in a horrible echo of what I could see Zan’s emotions doing—shutting down.

  Pain and betrayal hummed in his voice, though. “How can you do this to us?” he asked me, a frown lining his forehead. “How can you expect us to share you and all just be happy about it?”<
br />
  “I…” I had no words.

  He sucked in a deep breath, then blew it out in a huff like he was trying to work through his emotions and failing. “What if I asked the same of you, Luna? What if I asked you to share me with other women? Would you be fine with that?”

  Guilt and sorrow tightened my throat. “No,” I whispered with total sincerity, despite what a hypocrite it made me. “No, I couldn’t do that.”

  “So?” he prompted, but I just shook my head. What the fuck could I say to make it all better? Was it even possible right now?

  “Luna,” Zan said, low and with a hint of anger. “Are you seriously trying to tell me you didn’t just choose me? After everything I said about not wanting to fight with my brothers, about how you needed to make up your mind...” He trailed off, and in the gloomy room, he ran his hand through his hair slowly.

  “But that was...” I floundered for words, desperate to fix this. “Lee and Ty aren’t making me choose.”

  Instantly, I regretted my choice of words.

  “Well then,” Zan said in the coldest voice I’d ever heard. “I wish the three of you all happiness.”

  “Zan, that’s not—” I crossed the room to try and grab his hands, but he dodged my attempt. Instead he brushed past me and yanked the door open.

  “Where are you going?” I demanded, following him out into the corridor.

  In the lantern light, there was no mistaking the stark betrayal on his face as he cast a look over his shoulder. “Away,” he snapped. “I told you I couldn’t do this; I can’t share you with my brothers. Seeing you with them makes me into a person I don’t want to be.” He continued striding away from me, and I followed like we were tied with a harness.

  “Don’t do this,” I begged him. “Please Zan, just give it until morning, and we can have a rational discussion. All of us.”

  He was heading for the stables, and panic started to choke me.

  “Zan.” He ignored me, reaching for the door that connected the guest quarters to the stables. Alma, the innkeeper, had mentioned earlier that our horses had all been moved there.

  “Zan, stop this!” I demanded, ducking in front of him to block the doorway.

  His jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle ticking in his cheek. “Luna, I will only tell you once. Get out of my way.”

  I tilted my chin up, stubborn defiance radiating from my core. I wouldn’t give up that easily. Not in a million years. “Or what?” I taunted him.

  He stepped closer to me, leaning down until his mouth hovered above mine. Heat radiated from his lips, and my breath caught in my throat. Zan’s hands came up to my waist, clasping me just above the swell of my skirts, and for a moment I let myself hope.

  “Or I will move you myself,” he whispered in a voice dripping with pain and anger. His hands tightened, lifting me clean off my feet and depositing me back in the hallway.

  The loss of that brief glimmer of hope was staggering, and he was gone through the stable door before I could right myself with a hand on the wall.

  “Zan!” I shouted after him as he unbolted the door to his mount’s stall. “You’re acting like a spoiled little prince! Throwing your toys out the window because you don’t want to share them.”

  I’d followed him into the stables, and as I said this, he whirled on me. His dark eyes flashed with fury, and he backed me against a wall, slamming his hand into the wood beside my head.

  “I will not stay around to have my heart ripped out of my chest and trampled on day after day. You’ve chosen them, so be it. I don’t have to like it, and I certainly don’t have to witness it.” The raw emotion in his face made pain and fear fight for dominance within me, and my throat closed over.

  “Please don’t do this, Zan,” I choked out, feeling my face wet with tears. “Please. Don’t leave me.”

  His gaze shuttered, and he turned away.

  “Please!” I sobbed, and he paused, turning his face to look at me.

  “Me or them, Luna. I won’t share you.”

  Fresh tears flooded my eyes, and pain ripped through my chest as my heart broke.

  “I can’t choose,” I whispered, true to how I felt. “I won’t.” Because I knew, without doubt, that if I chose Zan, I would experience this exact same pain with Lee and Ty. The love I felt for the three of them was equal.

  “Then you can’t force me to stay,” Zan said. His voice was soft but carried an icy chill. “And if you seriously think they aren’t just as selfish as I am, you’re deluded. They’re just playing the long game.” With practiced ease, he looped a bridle over his horse’s face, then mounted the creature bareback.

  “Zan,” I cried, the pain of his rejection making me shake, and the wall at my back was the only thing holding me upright. “Please!”

  He gave a small shake of his head, looking down at me for a moment.

  “You’ll be a good queen one day, Luna. But you can’t blame me for not attending the royal wedding.” With that, he kicked his obsidian stallion and flew out of the stables into the glowing red dawn.

  His departure seemed to kick some fight back into me, and I grabbed my skirts up in my hand, running after him as I screamed his name.

  It was a futile gesture, though, and I knew it. His horse was already carrying him into the distance toward the towering suspension bridge that marked the entrance of Ironforge.

  My eyes followed him even as my legs gave out beneath me, collapsing me to the ground as his horse stepped onto the bridge. He was really leaving. Not just leaving Ironforge, but leaving me.

  What had I done?

  Sobs wracked my body as I stared after him. My eyes were so full of tears that everything was foggy. It was because of that that I second-guessed myself when I saw the suspension cables snap.

  23

  Screams rose from somewhere behind me, and I instinctively turned to look in that direction. I saw nothing, though, as someone barreled into me with a full-body tackle that knocked me to the ground.

  “What—Sagen?” I exclaimed, recognizing the silken, almond-scented black hair in my face. “What the fuck are you doing? Get off me!”

  “I just saved your life, dumb shit,” she snapped at me, shifting her weight to the side and peering around before dragging me forcefully back to the stables. “You just came a lizards dick away from being shot with an arrow!”

  I fought her shockingly strong grip and peeled her fingers off my wrist. “Sagen, stop! The bridge...” I turned back toward the suspension bridge just in time to see the rest of the suspension cables snap off in quick succession, one after another, like someone had just run an invisible blade through them.

  Time seemed to slow; the air in my lungs turned to lead and my blood to acid. For a second, nothing happened.

  Then it fell.

  A wordless scream tore from my throat as the whole bridge collapsed into the deep ravine below... taking anyone and anything that was crossing it to their doom.

  The next few moments passed in flashes of color and black as Sagen hauled me inside the stables and an arrow embedded in the doorframe just inches from my head.

  But Zan…

  No, I must have imagined it. Surely life, fate, the gods... they couldn’t be so cruel.

  “Sagen,” I whimpered as she slammed the door shut and hauled a bolt across it. Without her hands on me, I’d sunk to the straw-covered floor in a puddle of red fabric and tears. “Did... did that just happen?”

  She crouched in front of me and gave me a severe scowl. “Did the village just come under attack and I save your life twice in a matter of moments? Yeah, Pond-dweller, it did.”

  I shook my head as hysteria clawed at my mind. “No, the bridge. Did the bridge...” The words stuck in my throat, and I sobbed.

  She frowned in confusion. “Collapse? Yes, I imagine it was part of their ambush. They’ve cut off the main access route out of Ironforge, forcing everyone here to fight or die.”

  I tried to speak, tried to explain, but all that
came out was a high-pitched keening sound, which only stopped when Sagen smacked me across the face. The slap was hard enough for me to see stars, but it was the shock I needed to pull my shit together.

  “I seriously doubt you have a sentimental attachment to bridges,” Sagen muttered in a serious, hurried voice. “So I am going to guess that this reaction is to someone being on the bridge when it fell?”

  I gave her a short nod. “Zan,” I croaked out, feeling fresh tears falling at his name.

  She blanched, and her brow creased in pain for a brief moment before she shook it off.

  “Come on. He would be furious if you got yourself killed because you sat here crying while this town got massacred.” Her tone was gruff, thick with sadness, but her grip on my upper arm was strong as she pulled me to my feet. “Are you going to be able to help? Or do I need to lock you in your room like a pathetic noblewoman?”

  Somehow, this got through to me with more clarity than anything else. I’d never, ever let someone else fight my battles for me. I wasn’t about to start now.

  Rage and determination flooded through me, and I tightened my hands into fists. Whoever was responsible for this attack, for Zan… they’d pay. They weren’t dealing with Lady Callaluna, soft-skinned aristocrat from Riverdell.

  I was Rybet Waise—Pond-dweller, criminal, imposter.

  I was Zarina—lost daughter of a murdered queen and heir to the throne of Teich.

  I was Calla, Lo... Luna.

  I was strong, and mad as hell.

  Someone was about to learn exactly what that meant.

  Giving Sagen a short nod, I swiped the damp from my face and swallowed my grief. “We need weapons,” I told her in a husky, raw-edged voice.

  “That’s more like it,” she replied softly. “Come on, I saw some antique swords displayed in the common room. If nothing else, they’ll make a dent if you hit someone hard enough.” Turning as she spoke, she led the way through to the deserted inn’s common room. It was right on dawn, and everyone was either still partying or asleep. Or they had been.