by Jessi Gage
The king considered her with cocked head. Would he punish Riggs for supposedly making her his lifemate even though she was barren? Would Maranners near and far soon be telling the tragic tale of Anya and Riggs?
After a long while, he said, “The trapper’s guilt is yet to be decided. Sit.” He motioned to the boulder. To one of the guards he said, “Tell the men to make camp. When you return, bring tea for me and the lady.”
The guard left. The other one positioned himself to the side midway between her and the king as she obediently resumed her position on the boulder.
“Start at the beginning,” the king commanded. “Tell me everything.”
He stood rooted to the spot with his hands clasped behind his back as Anya started with the moment dizziness had seized her at her da’s cottage. He must have been a master at diplomacy, because his face gave naught away as she told her tale. Cool and immobile as a frozen loch, he was. Did he find her story credible, disturbing, bloody interesting in the least? The only indications he was listening were the occasional clenching of his jaw or flash in his eye.
“We took pledges to each other last night after I confessed to being barren. Then we continued across the plain, and you ken the rest since you found us soon after.” ’Twas with great relief she finished and great trepidation she awaited his response.
His gaze bored into hers while silence built a wall between them.
She shifted. Her arse was half asleep from sitting on the boulder.
At length, he said, “So it happened last night. He petitioned the goddess for you, and she...” He blinked and looked away, not finishing. For the briefest moment a surprising softness passed over his face. Then he faced her again, and he was back to being the hard-eyed king. He held out his hand and said, “Show me the gemstone.”
Of all she’d told him—the wolves, the villagers, the trackers—that’s what he chose to discuss? She pulled it from her pocket. Somat about the glint in his eye gave her pause as she extended it to him, but how could she refuse? He was Riggs’s king, her king now. She dropped it in his hand.
The hard line of his mouth relaxed as he examined it. He closed his eyes slowly, opened them and met her gaze. “It’s the one.”
“Which one?”
“The one the goddess showed me.”
“What are you speaking about?” She glanced from his sober eyes to the gemstone, back to his eyes.
He handed the gemstone to a guard with enough gray in his beard to mark him as aulder than the king. Then he spoke to her.
She didn’t understand. His speech was naught but a lilting jumble. Her heart beat faster. She suddenly felt vulnerable, sitting low on a rock before this hard-eyed man. Four guards loomed behind her. The one casting a shadow along her left side held her only means of communication. Her fingers clenched with the urge to take it back.
The king paused, judging her reaction. He spoke to the guard.
The guard stepped forward and said to her, “Did you understand any of what the king said?”
Glaring at him, she shook her head.
“His Majesty says Danu gave him a vision of a chestnut-haired woman with a paw print on her cheek and this stone hanging around her neck in a bejeweled necklace. In her arms, she held a baby. His heir. Your trapper would know this. Everyone knows it. He wonders why your trapper didn’t tell you these things.”
She gasped. They tried to make it sound as though Riggs had kept things from her. Aye, he had, early on. But he’d been honest with her at his cave. Mayhap he hadn’t told her how closely she resembled his king’s supposed vision, but he’d made no pretense about his intention for her to give his king an heir. So what if there had been a vision? The result was the same. What ought to concern the king more than Riggs’s forthrightness was the very thing that had given him the freedom to take her for himself. She was barren, for heaven’s sake! Had he not heard her the fifty times she’d mentioned it?
The king held out his hand for the stone, and the guard put it in his hand.
“He has not been completely honest with you, I see.” Smug bastard.
“You’re wrong,” she said.
“You said he saw the stone. Between it and your scars, he would have known unequivocally, you are the one Danu promised to me. It is not I who am in the wrong. It is he. Your trapper is no more than a thief.”
Speaking of thieves. She watched as he turned the stone over in his hand. Her pocket felt too light without it. She felt unbalanced. But more, she worried what the king intended to do to Riggs. “He’s no such thing. He’s loyal to you.”
“Easy, lady.” The king spoke over her. “Don’t worry about your trapper.” His voice was gentle, but his eyes were still hard. “You are lifemates. To separate you from him would be to hurt you.”
There he went with the lifemate notion again. She kept from rolling her eyes with great difficulty. ’Twas best for now to let the lie stand since it seemed to discourage the king from punishing Riggs.
“I will never hurt you,” he went on. “Your happiness has ever been my goal. Now, tell me your name and what breed you are. It is clear you are not wolfkind.”
He’d already hurt her by taking away her gemstone. “I’ll answer your questions when you give me back what’s mine.” She got up from the boulder with a rip of agony through her left knee. She swallowed down the pain and hobbled the two steps to the king.
He didn’t so much as glance at her outstretched hand. “Not nice, is it? Having someone take what’s yours.”
“I was never yours.”
“You will be. Danu promised you to me. Many years ago.”
The certainty in his tone chilled her. He still thought to take her for his own. “But you promised you wouldna separate me from Riggs.”
“And I won’t. But hear this. I will have you. In my bed, carrying my heir. You will be mine.”
“Why, you bloody arrogant—”
“Silence.”
She hated him for wielding the kind of command in his voice that made her instantly obey.
“This is how it will be.” He pinched the stone between his forefinger and thumb. “I will be holding onto this. Your lifemate will be held at Glendall in a guarded apartment. You will be permitted access to him, but his seed is not to touch any part of you until you give me an heir. At such time, I will grant him breeding rights to you and return this. Do you understand?”
Shock stole her breath. Riggs would be a prisoner. Until she could do the impossible and conceive an heir for the king. And he’d keep her stone, thus forbidding them from being able to speak with one another. “Aye, I understand,” she said through gritted teeth. “I understand you’re nothing like the wise, fair ruler your most loyal subject described to me. I understand all too well.”
He stroked her cheek with the knuckles of one hand. “Such spirit,” he said. “I would expect nothing less from the mother of my heir.”
* * * *
The circle of guards around Riggs parted, and a familiar warhorse and rider strode through. “Danu’s tits, Riggs! What’s this I hear about you fucking the king’s lady?”
Brother of his mother, Neil shared Hilda’s forest green eyes and dark hair, which curled from under his helm. His beard was longer than when Riggs had last seen him, and the lines in his weathered face were deeper, but when that face split into an exasperated grin, a bit of tension lifted from his shoulders.
Neil brought his horse nose to tail with Riggs’s and they clasped arms as the guards closed ranks around them.
“She’s not the king’s lady. She’s my pledgemate,” he told his uncle.
Neil sat back in his saddle, an amused tilt to his mouth. “And then some. Lifemate, I heard. Is it true?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” When Anya had uttered those words, it had seemed impossible. But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to fit. Her new scent, their incredible mating, the way he felt like he was missing a part of his body being kept away from her like
this. Lifemate. Anya. “Yes.” He sighed. “I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s true, sir,” one of the guards said. “At least I think so. I was close enough to smell her.”
Riggs glared at the guard. He was the same one who had interrupted him when he’d tried to explain himself to the king. A growl started in his throat.
“Easy,” Neil warned. “What did she smell like?” he asked the guard, curiosity plain in his voice.
“Like mating scent but stronger. Tickles the nose. Like an insult. Makes me want to back away from her.”
Smug satisfaction made Riggs’s chest swell. Mine.
“I imagine it’ll fade once this one’s imprisoned.” The guard smirked at Riggs. “The king’s waited fifty years for her. He’s not going to let a scent stop him from taking what’s his.”
Riggs growled and reached for the axe that was no longer strapped to his hip.
“No one’s going to prison,” Neil said. “At least not yet.” His gaze grew sharp and sober. “You better have a good explanation for this. I’m your uncle, but I’m the king’s war chieftain first. Sometimes he asks my opinion. Sometimes not. If he decides you’re more trouble than you’re worth...” He spread his hands.
Riggs got the message. Neil’s first loyalty was to King Magnus. As it should be. If the king commanded his imprisonment or worse, Neil would see it done without question.
Good thing Riggs had an excuse. “She’s barren,” he said.
Some of the guards stirred.
“You can’t know that,” said the one who’d waxed eloquent on Anya’s scent. “You were out of line, trapper. You never should have stuck your prick in the king’s property.”
Rage surged like fire in Riggs’s veins. He dismounted, grabbed the guard by the front of his armor and yanked him off his mount. He punched him in his surprised face. His nose gave with a satisfying crunch.
The man staggered and fell on his ass.
Horses jockeyed all around him. Swords were drawn.
“Stand down,” Neil said. He dismounted and stood over the fallen guard. “Next time you taunt a man with a lifemate, make sure to draw your weapon first. Go clean yourself up. You’re dismissed until I say otherwise.”
The guard swiped at his bloodied nose and led his horse away with a murderous look at Riggs.
He followed to lay the cocky shite out again, but Neil’s grip on his shoulder stopped him.
“Barren?” His uncle’s voice brought him out of a red-tinged haze of violence.
He forced his hands to uncurl. “You know I wouldn’t have mated her otherwise.”
Neil nodded. His brow creased as he looked past Riggs, in the direction where the king was speaking to Anya. His mouth turned down with disappointment. Like Riggs, he’d probably hoped she was the one. He sighed. “I know it. But the king doesn’t. It’s his opinion that matters. Why don’t you start at the beginning. Tell me how you found her. I don’t believe for a minute the messenger had the right of it. You’d have cut off your own legs before helping Larnians.”
Riggs told his uncle everything, starting with tracking the marbled boar into Larna and hearing Anya’s cries. He left out his suspicion about Ari and human women being held captive in Larna. He’d wait until he had Neil alone to share such sensitive information. He finished with, “I took her as my pledgemate last night. If I did more than that, I didn’t mean to, but I don’t regret it. I love her. She’s mine to protect. Mine to love. Mine.”
Neil looked over Riggs’s shoulder. “Your Majesty,” he projected with a bow of his head.
Riggs turned around to find King Magnus striding to stand toe to toe with him. Shite. How much had he heard? Between the sounds of the men making camp, and the direction of the wind, he’d had no warning the king approached. He cut a glare at his uncle. He might have let him know.
Neil’s face was carefully blank. Some ally he was.
Riggs took a knee. “Your Majesty.”
The king didn’t tell him to rise. “What’s his story?” he asked Neil.
Riggs kept his head bowed while his uncle summarized his story, spending more time on the points that would concern the king, especially the killing of the Larnian trackers at his cave. He wished his uncle would tell the king about Anya’s bravery and resourcefulness. His lady deserved her share of the story to be told. While Neil talked, Riggs stole glances in the direction the king had come from, hoping to spy Anya. She was nowhere to be seen. His agitation rose with every minute of their separation.
When Neil finished, the only sound on the plain was the stirring of the grass in the wind. The whole camp had stopped to listen.
He didn’t raise his head. Propriety required he wait for the king to address him. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the king’s fine doeskin shoes. The wind shifted and Anya’s scent teased him. The king had touched his mate.
He heard ringing in his ears. Mate. Protect. He curled his hands into fists to keep from strangling his liege.
“She tells the same story,” the king said. “We’ll discuss the dead Larnians further in my tent. They were within their rights according to the old treaty to track a woman brought across the border. If I’d thought they’d ever get their filthy paws on another woman, I would have dissolved the damn thing. As for you, trapper.” He paused. The silence grew heavy. Everyone awaited his fate. “You may rise.”
Relief rolled over him, even as he fought the urge to throttle the man. He stood and looked at the king’s chin. Don’t lay hands on your king. Don’t lay hands on your king.
“Congratulations. You’re the first man in a millennium to be blessed with a lifemate.”
He chanced a glimpse of the king’s eyes. They were hard, angry. But his tone was civil.
“And you’ll be the first commoner in history to enter a breeding pact with a king.”
The ringing in his ears turned to pounding. “Breeding pact?”
“It will be the first of its kind. Traditionally, children from a pact would legally belong to all pactmates equally. Bloodlines were not teased out, since it was often difficult to do so, as you can imagine. But, as king, it is imperative that my heir be of my blood. Therefore, I will have exclusive breeding rights to Anya until she gives me an heir. Then you’ll have breeding rights until she bears a child for you. Then me again and so forth. Because you rescued her from the Larnians and delivered her safely to me, I will forgive your indiscriminate mating with her. That is, provided she does not get with child from it. If she does, the child will be yours when weaned, and you will forfeit all future breeding rights to her. You’ll have a chance to read the pact before signing. My runner is drafting it as we speak.”
The king wanted to share Anya.
All the air burst from his lungs like he’d been winded by a mace to the gut. Rage and confusion jumbled his thoughts, but he managed to spit out, “Why? Why do you want her? She’s barren. Didn’t she tell you?”
The king lifted his chin. “She’s my miracle. What’s a closed womb to the goddess who gave us life?” Challenge sparked in his eyes. The look was a double-edged sword. One edge rebuked Riggs for doubting the goddess the king had publicly devoted himself to since childhood. The other edge dared him to protest. Give me a reason, the look conveyed. Say the wrong thing and I’ll let you rot in prison while I claim sole rights to her.
If he and Anya were truly lifemates, it would hurt them both to be separated. The king had the power to separate them, yet he claimed he wouldn’t do so. Riggs bit his tongue until the taste of blood bloomed in his mouth to keep from giving the king reason to change his mind. “Of course, sire,” he choked out.
“Be glad, trapper,” the king said. “For, I have taken the lesson taught by Aine and Gregor to heart. Even though breeding rights will belong exclusively to me for the first term of the pact, your lifemate will be given access to you whenever I do not require her presence. However. If she comes to me with the scent of your seed anywhere on her person, I will consider it a breach of contract
. You will forfeit all future breeding rights to her.”
Riggs’s throat felt thick. His face burned with indignation. Another man thought to tell him what he could and couldn’t do with his mate. Intolerable! But to say so would be to damn himself and Anya. He swallowed the rage, forcing it deep, where it wouldn’t offend his king, soon his fellow pactmate.
Acceptance numbed him like icy lake water. “May I see her?”
The king inclined his head, giving permission. “Of course.” A smirk Riggs didn’t understand tilted the king’s mouth. Then he walked away with his guards, leaving Riggs with Neil and a half-dozen gaping soldiers that quickly found things needing their attention.
“He’s not himself,” his uncle said. “I’ve never seen him so vicious. Never. Tread carefully, son. Tread carefully.”
He didn’t need to be told he was on thin ice. What pissed him off was that there was no reason for it. None. The king shouldn’t want her. Riggs had done nothing wrong, damn it.
He stalked away from Neil and rounded a low hill. Anya sat on the ground, her fists curled in the tall grass, her face angled downward. Four guards stood around her, two of them knights. One knight kept his eyes glued to her as if she might try to run. The other three faced outward, protecting her from attack. The salty scent of her tears stung his nostrils.
Ignoring the guards, he strode to her, met her there on the ground and hauled her up against him. The sight of her eyes swollen with crying, yet sparking with anger, undid him even as the missing pieces of him filled in with a glorious burst of sunshine to have her in his arms again.
“Oh, Anya, sweet Anya. What happened? What did he say to you?” Had the king told her about the pact? Was she so thoroughly bound to him that the thought of another man touching her upset her this much? She didn’t deserve this.
She spoke, but he didn’t understand her. Her gemstone. It was gone.