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Leif turned, finally, and faced the standing mirror in the corner, only to recoil in distaste when he saw the ridiculous way the clothes clung to him, as though all the air had been sucked out of them, and cleaved them to his skin. “Perhaps they’re the normal ones. And we’re overdeveloped.”

That got another burst of loud laughter from Ragnar. It was a happy, glad sound, and Leif found that, too-small clothes aside, he felt buoyant and lighter than he had in weeks, and it was all down to that laugh.

“I’ll trade outfits with you,” he tried. “I think your shoulders are a little smaller.” He held up thumb and forefinger a scant quarter inch apart to demonstrate.

Ragnar shook his head, his grin wide. “No, alpha. I didn’t get my clothes ripped to shreds by little drakes. This is your just punishment.” His smile dimmed, however, once the words had left his lips. The torq jerked on his throat. He was remembering, Leif could tell: recalling the sight of Leif limp and bloody on the road, gouged to bits.

Leif heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes with the intention of distracting him. “Fine, fine. Let us go.”

Ragnar followed at his heels, eager as a puppy as they left the room and descended the staircase, his limp only somewhat noticeable as an uneven thump on the treads.

Halfway down, Leif slowed, and then stopped, when the knowledge that he was inside a Southern nobleman’s house struck home. The room had been fine, though dusty from disuse, all its linens and drapes frayed at the edges. And though he’d noted the dainty, decorative frills of the furniture, and the ways it differed from the sturdy, rough-hewn timbers and rune-carved pieces in Aeres, he hadn’t truly appreciated the starkness of the differences until now, on the staircase.

The steps themselves were of a dark-stained wood, but down their center, their footfalls were muffled by a patterned carpet that, though faded, flaunted a host of differing colors and swirls of flowers and embellishments. The banister, on which his hand rested, was of a smooth-polished, rounded hardwood, unlike the stone balustrades and rope hand-holds of home. The spindles were of wrought iron, hammered at their bases into the fanciful figures of lions and men on horseback, alternating as the staircase descended. The wall to his left was painted with an intricate, colorful mural of what he assumed was the house itself seen from outside, with sprawling lawns and gardens, fields studded with horses, and a little pond with a boat on it, rowed by a man with trimmed whiskers and short hair, a lady seated in the bow holding something that, once he’d thought on it a moment, he was able to correctly label as a parasol.

Opposite, the wall was papered in torn and peeling silk, a deep green flecked with gold flowers. He could see part of the front hall below, its checkered tiles, and a dainty-legged table that had become a repository for gloves and helms.

Then he looked up, and saw that the ceiling was of smooth plaster, rather than the bared timbers of Aeres; cobwebs spanned the corners, but in the center was a wide plaster rose, intricately patterned and detailed.

Ragnar leaned in close behind him, his breath warm on Leif’s ear as he whispered. “It’s not like home, is it?” He sounded both awed and regretful.

It didn’t seem possible that he was missing his small, hide tent, his small, shaggy horse, and his small band of unwashed wolf raiders – but Leif knew he was, just as he himself missed the soaring hearths, and stone walls, and squabbling dogs of his hall back home. Even in disrepair, this place was fine and grand.

But it held no charm for them.

Leif shook his head, resumed his pace, and let Ragnar direct him toward the dining room, which was where the meeting was to take place.

Voices reached them, as they turned down the appropriate hall. Overlapping and masculine, save one low and sultry feminine one that walked pleasant fingers up the back of Leif’s neck. It wasn’t Amelia speaking, though;shestood outside the dining room, leaning against a section of cracked wall paneling, waiting for them, it seemed.

She pushed off the wall as they approached, and inspected him, head to toe, with the frank appraisal of a military commander…and with a laugh lurking in the corners of her mouth, one she suppressed with pressed-together lips.

“It’s nice to see you up and about,” she said. “And that the clothes…um.Fit.”

He ached a single brow. “Do they, though?”

She stopped suppressing her smile, and it was…it was a nice smile. Sharper, more mischievous than her sister’s. An expression all her own, that didn’t remind him of her relatives, thankfully. “I’m afraid they’re the largest we had to hand.”

Leif made a show of sighing. “They’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure I can talk a saddler or a tailor into modifying something better-suited,” she offered, and then gestured to the open door behind her. “Shall we?”

“Yes.”

Strangely, Ragnar had been silent throughout their exchange. He never missed a chance to say something suggestive or teasing, so Leif found that strange, and nearly turned around to inquire about it, until he reached the threshold in Amelia’s wake, and realized why Ragnar had been so quiet.

Nerves gripped him, hard and sudden, and when he paused to take a deep breath, he could smell the sharp tang of Ragnar’s nerves as well.

Ragnar, he felt, as a beta, as a collared thrall, was nervous about his place at this meeting, and his reception by these Southern nobles, far finer and more polished than even Leif had expected. This once-grand house was proof of all the superficial ways they might as well have been from entirely different worlds. To go from the wild life of a clansman, to attending a war council in an Aquitainian mansion was a dramatic shift.

Leif was a little nervous for those same reasons – minus the gleaming torq – but mostly, he harbored significant doubts as to the ways his wartime education would rub up against theirs. Though an unfair assumption, he couldn’t help but think he was about to spend the majority of this meeting arguing, rather than agreeing.

He took a deep breath – gods, his ribs ached, still – pushed his shoulders back, and tried to project his alpha status. For the other meeting goers, yes, but mostly for Ragnar, whose fingers brushed his back in a brief display of comfort-seeking, just before they entered the room.

It wasn’t much larger than the private family dining room at Aeres, but its walls were smooth paneling edged in gilt plaster molds, rather than rough stone, and its ceiling was another masterwork of soaring plaster, though painted, here: a scene of blue sky, and white clouds, and the gods, he realized, though dressed in Southern style, rather than the traditional furs, boiled leathers, and rough-spun, practical wools he knew.

But no, he mustn’t get distracted by trivialities. He focused on the table, long and intricately carved, with seats enough to sit twenty. Only five sat in attendance, though, ranged down the length of the table. Amelia went to the head of the table, and the pushed-out chair there, a delicate, steaming teacup already awaiting her. That was her seat, at the head: the seat of the fearless leader. The two chairs to her right were empty, as were most of them, and Connor and Reginald sat to her left. Halfway down the table, a striking woman in her middle years, with a plunging neckline and exposed decolletage sat beside the dour-faced Colum who’d unwound his bandages a half-hour ago. At the foot sat a dark-skinned man with long, thin black braids, decorated at the ends with smooth, unembellished beads of black-and-white painted wood that clicked softly together when he turned his head to regard them. His expression was impassive, impossible to read, and his scent was smooth, and cool and composed, and betrayed not a trace of aggression, only curiosity.

Leif approved of him immediately, especially when he noted the breadth of his shoulders, and sword calluses on his hands.