by Jessi Gage
He stopped and looked back. Even from this distance, she could see his hurt feelings in the narrowing of his eyes.
“I doona eat raw meat,” she explained as she gained ground. When she got near him, she stepped closer than propriety dictated, wishing to remove the hurt from his eyes by showing him she didn’t fear him. She put a hand on his brawny forearm. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up to expose the powerful muscles. Touching this gentle beast sent a thrill through her.
He looked at her hand, then at her. The anger melted from his features. “Of course you don’t eat meat.”
“What do ye mean, of course?”
“You’re not built to hunt, even if your legs were right. Your hands are too small. Your teeth are too blunt.”
She scoffed. “My teeth do just fine, thank you, and even cripples can buy meat from the butcher and cook it to their liking.”
“Cooked meat,” he murmured. He made a small noise of consideration, as if he’d never thought of such a thing.
“Aye,” she laughed. “Like your bread. Cooked. I adore meat when it’s cooked.”
After a moment of thought, he nodded. “I can cook meat for you.” Then he started walking again, this time keeping his pace slower so she could remain alongside him. “You’re human?” he asked after a while.
“Aye. And you are?”
“Other than your servant and protector?” he asked with a grin that made her stomach flutter pleasantly.
She rolled her eyes. “Aye, other than that.”
He smiled full at her, and the sight of his eyes crinkling with warm affection turned the flutters in her stomach to shivers that raced over her whole body. “We are wolfkind,” he said.
“Wolfkind.” The term seemed to fit him. His animal grace, his teeth, his eyes that practically glowed with ferocity when he was angry. “I’ve never met a...wolf-man before. Have you ever met a human?”
“No.”
She must seem as unusual to him as he did to her. Mayhap that explained some of his gruffness.
They were of different peoples. Different lands. ’Twas only by the magic of Gravois’ gift they could understand each other.
She took in the forest around them. The trees were bigger around and taller than in Scotia. The air was scented more richly with moss and loam. But the differences weren’t so pronounced she felt as though she were in a different world. Yet she must be. She’d always assumed talk of mythical peoples and places was nonsense. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Barmy tink.”
* * * *
Are you all right? Does it hurt to walk? Should I carry you?
Riggs bit back the questions as they came to him. Anya would not appreciate them. He hardly knew her, but he knew that much. The woman had as much pride as any man.
For most of the morning, he’d let her set the pace and had remained by her side as they followed the creek northward. This route, which would take them through Marann’s northern foothills, was not the quickest to Chroina, but it was the most secluded. And if they were being pursued, the trackers would not expect it. As long as they made it to the lake by nightfall tomorrow, they would elude any trackers.
Given Anya’s pace, that was not guaranteed.
He walked five paces in front of her, keeping his steps short, his speed almost painfully slow so as not to tax her. He’d moved ahead of her when the sight of her upper body weaving with her stride had become too much to bear. It had to be hell on her back. He could no longer see her, but he still heard her. Her breathing was heavy but regular, her steps uneven but rhythmic, like a lilting tune.
And he smelled her. Even after bathing with his lye soap and putting on his old clothes, she still smelled like flowers and hyssop. And woman. Another benefit to being in front of her was that she couldn’t glimpse his half-hard prick. Would it ever fully relax in her presence?
“How far is this Chroina?” she asked.
He directed his voice over his shoulder. “By horse, we could comfortably ride there in four days. A man can make it from border to coast in two with frequent changes of mount.” Though, not by the route they were taking.
“So it’ll take us a week or more, walking.” She was no stranger to traveling.
“At least.” He could do it by himself in five days, even with a uniwheel cart laden with skins for Chroina’s market. But with the rest Anya would need, taking the time to cook meat for her, with her limp... They’d need to find horses along the way to make it in a week. But horses could only be rented in well-populated villages. Going to one would make it harder for him to keep her secret.
The sooner they got to Chroina, the safer she would be, but to get there quickly would draw unwanted attention. Protecting a female was becoming more complicated by the minute.
“Tell me about these Larnians who might be after us. You didna seem to lose any sleep over slaying two of them. Are they an enemy clan?”
He huffed a humorless laugh. “‘Enemies’ is putting it mildly. Larna and Marann have hated each other for nearly the entire history of Eire.”
“Eire? Is that what you call this land?”
He nodded. “It is an island of two nations. Marann to the east. Larna to the west.”
“So we’re in Marann, I take it, but not far from Larna, since you’re fashing about Larnians tracking us.”
“I won’t let them get you,” he vowed.
“I ken it,” she said, as if she felt completely safe with him. Her confidence made his chest swell. “But who are they? Why is Marann at odds with them? Do they steal your livestock? Pillage your stores? Rape your women?” She rattled off offenses as casually as items on a shopping list. Were these things common where she came from? These days, Maranners and Larnians lived far enough apart that such trespasses were almost unheard of.
“Nothing like that, at least not since the last war. Their blood is corrupt.”
“But they doona harm your people or your land?”
“Not anymore.”
“Then why do you pay them heed? Why hate them when you could simply ignore them? No good ever comes from hating.” Her tone turned bitter at the end, as if she spoke from experience.
“Who have you hated, Lady Anya?”
“Doona call me lady. And we werena talking about me.”
“We are now. If you won’t tell me who you hated, tell my why you don’t consider yourself a lady.”
She made that snorting noise she liked to do, like a mix between a laugh and a scoff. Why should such a brash sound make his blood heat every time he heard it?
“Doona expect me to tell stories if you willna.”
He smothered the chuckle that rose in his chest. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just...my sire was the storyteller, not me.”
“No’ hard to tell a story,” she said. “You start at the beginning, pass through the middle, and stop when you reach the end. What’s the beginning? When did Marann and Larna first become enemies?”
He thought about how his sire would start. He would have gone all the way back. “You can’t understand the present unless you look to the past. And our past begins...” “Long ago,” Riggs said, “legends were told of Danu, our goddess. She traveled the threads of time and searched every realm for beings with uncommon strength, loyalty, ingenuity, and beauty.”
The words came easily. He could practically hear his sire’s voice in his head. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to tell a story. He’d just never tried it before.
“But no one race had all these qualities to her liking. So she took the seed of a fey prince and placed it in the womb of the wolf queen to create a people superior to those of any other god.”
He glanced down and found Anya’s eyes round with interest.
She waved a hand at him. “Go on. You’re doing fine. ’Tis a fascinating tale.”
Her encouragement filled him with confidence. “A Larnian king, Jilken, tried to improve on Danu’s creation. He wanted fiercer warriors for his army and tried to
get them by breeding men with the most ferocious she-wolves he could find. When he couldn’t get the wolves to conceive, he summoned magic from the low realm to aid him. Eventually, Jilken got offspring from the wolves. Soon, Larna was filled with people who had more wolf in them than Danu intended. They were savage and ruthless and constantly attacked Marann. They tried to dominate the whole of Eire. But where they gained strength from their unnatural breeding, they lost their cunning. Our kings set traps and used spies to out-maneuver them. Marann held her borders, as she always will.”
Anya wrinkled her nose. “Men bred with wolves? Disgusting. Though mayhap less so if your people come from wolves, at least in part. Still. I doona like to consider such a thing.”
Neither did he. Which was why he didn’t put much stock in the legend of their creation: a fey bred with a mythical wolf by a goddess. Yeah, he had some things in common with wolves and with the fabled fey, but he was wolfkind, not immortal, not an animal. He certainly didn’t condone mating with animals. The Larnians, on the other hand...
“More disgusting is what they did to the offspring Jilken didn’t find pleasing. Any whelps who appeared weak or didn’t have the desired traits were thrown out like threadbare rags, especially the females, since they didn’t have as much value on the battle field.”
Some thought that’s when the curse began. Children were treated like refuse, so the goddess made children rare, especially female children. If there was a goddess, he didn’t think she cared about them enough to curse them, but he could see the logic in the assumption.
Anya was silent. What was she thinking behind those somber brown eyes?
“I have told you a story,” he said as they came upon a fast moving stream spanned by a log with its bark rotted away. He didn’t trust Anya to cross it on her own. Stepping onto it, he held out his hand and said, “Your turn. Talk.”
She looked at his hand, then at the log, then back at his hand, no doubt remembering his vow not to touch her.
“Take it,” he said. “If you do it, I won’t be breaking my word.”
“I doona ken if I should trust a man who claims to be part wolf and part fey.” She narrowed her eyes, but a smile played at her lips. “Wolves are bloodthirsty and the legends I’ve heard about the fey claim they’re mischievous trouble-makers. Not to be trusted.”
“Guess you’ll have to take your chances. A bloodthirsty trouble-maker or the possibility of wet socks for the rest of the day.”
She harrumphed, but slipped her hand into his with a sparkle in her eye that made his trousers feel too tight. Luck help him if she looked down.
Her skin was cool and softer than lily petals. When he closed his fingers over hers, her delicate bones pressed together. He relaxed his grip, worried he’d hurt her.
“You won’t break me,” she said, grasping his hand more firmly as she followed him up onto the log. “I doona particularly wish to fall in. I suppose I can tolerate your touch to keep myself dry.” Her eyes danced with her own human brand of mischief. “Shall I tell you how I came to be here, then?” Ah, she would tell him a story now. A fair one, his lady. Lady...
He slid his feet over the wet wood, holding fast to her hand, adjusting his balance when she wobbled this way or that, ready to sweep her into his arms if she started to fall. “No. If I’m to get just one story from you, I want to know why you don’t consider yourself a lady.”
Her lips compressed in a hard line.
They finished crossing the log, and he helped her onto the bank. He thought she wasn’t going to answer, but at last she said, “Whores cannot be ladies.”
He froze in place.
She hobbled past him. “If you expect me to lead the way, I’m afraid it may take us more than a week to get to Chroina.” She said it without looking back.
“You’re a whore?” he blurted out. He thought of the young men who sold themselves in some of the villages. He’d never thought poorly of them. What they did wasn’t very different from what Marann’s esteemed ladies did: attempting to breed with lottery winners in exchange for a sizeable share of the lottery pot. A veneer of respectability and necessity didn’t change the fact that the ladies mated with men chosen for them by chance in exchange for money.
He didn’t think poorly of Anya, but the thought of her selling her body caused a burn behind his breastbone.
“Aye,” she said, her tone flat. “Used to be, anyway.”
He forced his feet to move and caught up to her.
She glanced at him briefly, her expression impassive, hiding what she felt.
“Is it because you came here that you’re no longer...a whore?”
She shook her head. A thick lock of hair tumbled free from the knot at the back of her neck. It curled under her chin, snaking into the collar of her shirt. The sight of that shiny tress tickling the tops of her hidden breasts made him ache to touch her. He ignored his desire, more concerned with the melancholy that had settled over her.
“I’m finished with that life.” As they passed under the sparse canopy of late-autumn leaves, spots of sunlight made her hair wink with gold. Like her eyes, her hair would be almost dull one moment and shining with life the next, depending on the light. “When my body was worth somat, I didna mind selling it. Now—Christ, why am I telling you this?”
She was distressed. He wanted to touch her. A caress on her shoulder. A brush of his hand over her sleek locks. But he remembered his vow. “Now what?” he prompted.
“Och, I suppose it doesna matter.” She blew out a breath that billowed her cheeks. “I’m no’ going back there.” They walked several strides in silence. Then she said, “They would put me on the ground floor now. With my legs the way they are. With my face the way it is. I’d earn half the coin for twice the service, and I wouldna even have the privilege of earning it in a private upper room.” She shivered. “’Tis no’ difficult to be a beautiful whore, to have your pick of the men who come through, to have a man want you because you’re the most bonny of the lot. But when you’re a last resort, when ye have no choice but to go to a man, no matter who he is, no matter if ye want to or no’...”
He felt the ache behind her words. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on, lovelier and more valuable than a whole herd of marbled boar, maybe even more valuable than all the ladies cosseted in Chroina’s safe houses put together. But she thought herself ugly, ruined.
Then the implication of her words penetrated his mind. “When you’re a last resort, when ye have no choice but to go to a man.” She valued her choice.
And he was taking her to Chroina to give her to the king, knowing he would take her as his queen. He was taking away her choice.
But without her, his people would die. Her going to King Magnus had been predestined. The king himself had seen it, seen her. Riggs hadn’t believed it until he’d seen her gemstone and felt its magic, or rather the loss of its magic.
It wasn’t him taking away her choice. It was fate. Or Danu, if he was willing to believe the goddess still gave a shite about them.
Still, uneasiness stirred within him. How would Anya react when he told her the truth? Would she hate him? It shouldn’t matter. He was not the one she would need to breed with.
If only he could convince his body that was the case. To borrow a curse from Anya, he was getting bloody tired of walking with a hard-on.
Chapter 6
Tall birches soared over Anya’s head. The woodsy scents of moist bark and dried leaves filled her lungs. All around were the sounds of scurrying creatures and chirping birds who had not yet headed for warmer climes in preparation for winter’s chill. Alive. The forest was alive. And it made her feel alive too. She almost didn’t notice the pain in her legs or the way her back and side had started to burn with her labored gait.
Several paces in front of her, Riggs led the way to Chroina, this city that would apparently be her new home, where he claimed she would not have to be a servant and would want for nothing. She believed him about
as far as she could throw him. Nothing in this life came free, especially not luxury.
She didn’t fash overmuch about it. Riggs gave her bread to eat and clothes to wear, and he treated her well. He seemed concerned with her safety. He might be part wolf and part fey, but he was all man, and she’d known precious few men in her life as trustworthy as Riggs seemed.
Things could be much worse. Especially if she’d never come to this place. She’d probably be dead by now, at Steafan’s hands, and rightfully so since she’d betrayed him and nearly murdered his nephew. ’Twas by the grace of the saints the viper she’d handed Darcy in that bag of apples hadn’t killed him. Or his wife. Or the wee bairn on his wife’s lap.
“Any whelps who appeared weak or didn’t have the desired traits were thrown out like threadbare rags.”
The venom in his voice when he’d spoken of the abominable Larnians applied equally well to her. She’d taken a foolish risk with the life of a child who’d done no wrong to her or anybody else. Vengeance had blinded her to the kind of morality respectable women took for granted.
There was somat broken inside of her, and it had been broken long before her fall. ’Twas almost a relief to have her outside match her inside. And ’twas why she didn’t fash about Riggs’s plans for her. Mayhap they were innocent—he didn’t seem the type to lead a lass into harm’s way intentionally. But mayhap they weren’t so innocent. Sometimes he got a secretive glint in his eye, and he liked to dodge certain questions, like what she might expect when they reached Chroina. She didn’t press. If she came to harm by trusting Riggs, ’twould be no more than she deserved.
In the meantime, she focused her energy on moving forward in her trews and clunky boots, and she drank in the sight of the stunning wolfkind male cutting a confident path through the forest. If she walked herself to a damning fate, at least she’d enjoy the view along the way.