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I’d been taught to ride alongside the princesses. Even though I’d excelled in those lessons, outshining my younger sisters, I fearedmy instruction had only been rudimentary. Anytime I traveled a significant distance, I was in the comforts of a carriage.

“I hope you do,” he added with a grim set to that lush mouth of his.

“Yes. I ride,” I replied with far more bravado than I felt, telling myself to reveal none of my doubt among these hard-faced warriors.We will not pander to your whims.I most definitely wouldnotbe offered a carriage at any point in this journey. There would be no velvet seat cushion. No blanket for my lap with hot bricks to warm me. Then and there, I vowed I would become an expert horsewoman... and if I didn’t, I would not dare complain.

“Aye, we heard just how well you like to ride,” one of Dryhten’s men, whom I recognized from the bedding ceremony last night, taunted.

Laughter broke out among the warriors.

Mortification stung my cheeks. Like most of the warriors, he was brawny and thick-necked. His flinty gaze collided with mine, and I felt a shiver of apprehension at the animosity reflected there. I quickly looked away, moistening my lips, preferring my husband’s apathy to this.

Lord Dryhten sent a warning look to his warriors. They all quieted under his sharp gaze. There was no humor in his expression. For a long moment nothing could be heard over the clinking of harnesses and stomping hooves and wind whistling through the bailey. At last my husband signaled with a whirl of his fingers that we should all move out. Riders turned their horses and started toward the gates at a swift clip, eager to be on their way.

My husband lingered, hovering close to my mare and looking up at me. “Where are your gloves?”

I dipped a hand into the pocket of my riding skirts and dutifully pulled them out. He waited as I slid them on, the supple leather smoothly encasing my fingers.

He took up my reins and passed them to me. Accepting them, I looked at him questioningly. He glanced after his warriors, who had filed out of the courtyard. From them he looked to the king and queen and their retinue, then back to me again.

Was he having second thoughts? Contemplating leaving me here, after all?

His expression was unreadable, and I held my breath, not certain what to hope for in this instance. Whatever he decided did not change that I was bound to him for the rest of my life. Here or in the Borderlands, I was his wife.

“The crossing isn’t for the weak,” he warned me. “You need to keep up and do as bade, understand?”

He was decided then.

I nodded and moistened my lips. “What shall I call you?” Should I forever address him asmy lordorLord Dryhtenoryou there? He was my husband, after all. If he was going to be bossing me about, I’d like to know what to call him.

He considered me thoughtfully and sent a glance after his party. They were well ahead of us, through the portcullis now. His eyes locked with mine again. “You may call me Fell,” he said, but there was a strange note to his voice. Resentment, maybe.

Fell.

Something jumped inside my chest then. A flicker of reaction that I could not decipher.

He left me and swung up into his saddle without even touching the reins or seat horn. I whispered his name soundlessly, trying it out, tasting it on my tongue, and that spot in my chest flared like an ember catching to life.

Shaking my head, I tightened my grip around the reins and braced myself to follow him. My mare seemed to know, falling in immediately behind him.

We formed a line out of the palace, plodding down into the City, mindful of bodies in our path. People stepped aside in the streets, their expressions wary as they paused to watch us pass. Several mamas tucked their children behind their skirts, pushing down the cheerfully waving hands of their youths as though such friendliness to the barbarians from the north would draw undue attention to them.

Once we cleared the outer walls of the City, the road widened,and we spread out a little more. My mare dutifully trailed Fell’s horse. The warrior lord moved as one with his destrier, his big body rolling and fluid atop the giant beast, and I knew he had probably never once been a passenger inside a carriage. He looked born to the saddle.

I admired the impressive breadth of his shoulders and back, my cheeks heating as I recalled the sensation of Fell’s muscled back beneath my palms. I wrenched myself away from such lusty thinking. I’d never had such thoughts before. It was astounding how much could change in so short a time.

The older warrior from earlier rode back to us from the front of the group. “I’ll take the rear,” he volunteered, easily managing his spirited mount.

Fell gave a single nod.

The grizzly warrior passed my husband and then wheeled around, riding abreast of me. I glanced at him uncertainly and gave a perfunctory incline of my head. “Good day.”

He ran his pale white fingers through his thick beard as he considered me bitterly, the barest hint of his lips visible through the coarse hair. He smirked as he assessed me bobbing atop my saddle. I knewIdidn’t look one with my horse. I couldn’t even pretend otherwise.

“It’s a long and dangerous journey, lass. Anything can happen on the crossing.” He glanced ahead to my husband, who was unaware of or indifferent to the conversation happening behind him. The morning sun emerged, breaking through the clouds and striking my husband’s tar-black hair, the strands flashing purple as a raven’s wing in the sunlight. “Even the most veteran warrior can perish. And you”—the older man savored the words—“are no warrior.” The pronouncement sent a chill through me, and that was when I knew.

If this man had anything to do with it, I would never reach the Borderlands alive.

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