Page 3

Chapter 3

So Much for Diplomacy

P haris

This was hell.

All my sins had caught up with me, and I was being punished.

I wasn’t lying to Raewyn—we really did need to get off the road. My father’s troops would be on the hunt for her any time now. Perhaps they already were.

But I wasn’t any more eager to stretch out this journey than she was. Riding with her plump little bottom in the saddle just in front of me was torture of the cruelest kind.

My body had no idea that this woman—out of an entire continent, an entire world of women—was the one my brother had fallen in love with.

At least the slow travel gave me time to try to figure out how Stellon could have fallen so hard and so fast if the witch had been telling the truth about there being no love spell.

And to understand how the matchmaker’s glamour could have said Raewyn was my perfect match.

None of it made sense, and I intended to get to the bottom of it.

“I’m sorry you’re stuck with me,” she said, shaking me from my troubled thoughts.

I couldn’t help but smile. “Apology accepted.”

“Though, really you should be mad at Stellon, not me.”

“Oh believe me, I am,” I assured her, though of course, I’d volunteered for this journey.

Stellon had seemed truly shocked when I’d made the offer. Honestly, I’d shocked myself.

And now, here we were, meandering through a beautiful forest, inches apart on my horse, her fragrant hair brushing my nose.

Other parts of her brushing other parts of me, depending on her position.

Yep—hell.

“I’m serious,” Raewyn said. “I can tell you’re annoyed at having to take care of me, but you’re doing it anyway. And I want you to know I admire what you’re doing for your brother’s sake. I respect that.”

“Imagine my delight at hearing that,” I said, “as I live for your respect.”

She gave a little shrug. “Be sarcastic all you like. You’re not as bad as everyone says.”

“You don’t know me very well,” I told her.

I was every bit as bad as people said, but not in the way she meant.

“And that’s the way you like it, isn’t it?” she said. “Keeping everyone at a distance. Why are you like that?”

This was not something I was going to get into with a human commoner I barely knew. Especially not one my brother and lifelong best friend had laid claim to.

There would be no soul-baring conversation on this ride.

“Rotten to the core, I suppose. You know how those ‘wicked Randalins’ are.”

“Stellon isn’t wicked,” she argued. “And he doesn’t think you are either. He insists there’s a good heart beneath your glib facade and overactive libido.”

At this, a laugh escaped me. “My libido is the best part of me, my lady.”

“And yet, you haven’t found a permanent bond-mate to spend your life with.”

Her tone was so prim, reminding me of the strict governess our mother employed to educate my siblings and me. It had been one of the joys of my childhood to find new ways to rattle the woman’s composure.

I found myself wanting to rattle Raewyn as well, to say something shocking, muss her hair and loosen the buttons of her high collared dress—

Stop. Not helping the shared saddle situation.

Unaware of the detour my unruly thoughts had taken, Raewyn went on with her lecture.

“No one should walk through the world alone, not even you,” she said. “If you’d be real and open up to it, you might even find someone who actually loves you.”

Making my tone as forbidding as possible, I said, “I feel sorry for any woman who thinks she’s in love with me. She wouldn’t fare any better than the wife of that man we encountered on his way back from the pleasure house.”

“You’re saying you couldn’t be faithful?” Raewyn asked. “That you’d fill your own retinue with brainwashed human attendants —or that you’ll continue to dally with ‘commoners’ who ‘wash up well’ even after you’re married?”

“I’m saying this conversation is over. You’re boring me. Go back to sleep. Even your hard little head knocking against my sternum is preferable to listening to you prattle on.”

Raewyn made a little noise that sounded like Hmmph and was about to give me some sort of no-doubt sassy retort, when I slapped my hand over her mouth to silence her.

Be quiet, I warned without speaking aloud. We’re not alone.

Realizing belatedly she wasn’t Elven and couldn’t hear the mind-to-mind message, I whispered close to her ear, “Someone is coming this way.”

I hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, but my ears had picked up traces of faint conversation.

Dryad conversation.

The aforementioned governess had taught me all the Fae dialects, and this one was unmistakable. Guttural and quick, it would sound like no more than birdsong and animal chatter to untrained ears.

Unfortunately it wasn’t just one or two voices, but several.

Shaded stars. I’d hoped we’d be able to pass through their territory without running into any Dryads. It was daytime after all, and they were mostly a nocturnal species.

No such luck. Based on the increased volume of their conversation, they were almost on top of us, and the dense trees would foil any effort to make a quick escape.

It was also impossible to hide an enormous horse—and a human, no matter how small she was. Raewyn had no speed or agility or cloaking glamour, and my own newly acquired shadow glamour was useless in the daytime.

If the Dryads spotted a mysterious dark cloud among the trees, they’d simply shoot it full of poison-tipped arrows, and we’d be dead in minutes.

I was going to have to talk my way out of this.

A moment later, they appeared, emerging from the underbrush. There were four of them. Males—hunters based on the weapons they carried.

With their rough, bark-like skin and green hair and eyes, Dryads were perfectly suited to forest life, their natural appearance giving them camouflage among the trees they resembled.

They stopped abruptly, eyes going wide at the unexpected sight of an Elf, a horse, and a human woman trespassing on their lands.

Four bows emerged, and four voices started peppering me with loud questions.

“What are you doing here, Elven scum?”

“You know better than to tread on our lands,” another one said.

The tallest one, a particularly ugly fellow who reminded me of a walking stick insect, smiled.

“A brave one, aren’t you? You’re not in Merisola now, lad.”

“Pretty far from the king’s road,” the fourth one said in a taunting tone. “No one’s going to hear you scream this deep in the woods.”

Either they knew I was King Pontus’ son, or their hatred of him had expanded to cover our entire race.

My father had made many enemies among the other Fae species. Like everyone else, they were afraid to defy him or threaten Elves—in public.

We were not in public.

Far from it.

I dismounted, keeping my sword sheathed, though my palms rested on the hilts of my daggers. Silently, I willed Raewyn to stay quiet and not attract any more attention to herself than necessary.

“Hello, friends,” I said in their language.

Several of them blinked, and one of them, the one who’d called me “Elven scum,” took a step closer to me.

“Friends?” he said. “Speaking our tongue doesn’t make you a friend, Elf boy.”

The fact he’d referred to me as a “boy” led me to believe he was much older, which was bad. All varieties of Fae became more powerful as they aged.

It was possible these four had a total of hundreds, if not thousands, of years between them.

Very bad indeed.

“We mean no harm,” I said. “We’re just trying to stay off the road and get through the woods to the villages on the other side.”

Their attention moved to Raewyn astride Dargan’s back.

“What’s an Elf doing traveling to a human village?” the tall one asked. “It isn’t tax time again, is it?”

“No, I’m just returning this woman to her home. She got… lost in our lands.”

“A lost human,” he repeated with a chuckle that said such a thing was a tasty prospect.

“Why not take the King’s road?” he asked.

I hesitated, trying to come up with an answer that didn’t further pique his curiosity about Raewyn. Already his beady green eyes were darting back to her face repeatedly.

Unfortunately, the apparent leader of the pack started putting the pieces together before I could come up with anything.

“This human has some value,” he said, directing the proclamation to his companions.

They nodded and began shifting their vine-covered feet, clearly getting excited.

“The question is, to whom?” the leader asked. “The humans? The Elves? Or to this one in particular?”

As he aimed his own arrow at me, his lips split in a toothy brown smile that lifted the short hairs on the back of my neck. This guy was having fun, relishing a rare moment of power in the presence of an Elven man.

One of the Dryads in the back piped up, declaring, “He looks rich.”

“Yeah, and she looks pretty… for a human,” one of the others said.

Now they were all four staring at Raewyn, carnal interest apparent in their vivid green eyes.

My nostrils flared, and sweat broke out across my brow. Adrenaline rushed through my veins, engorging my muscles in readiness for combat, but I held my position.

As much as I wanted to bury my blade in some Dryad flesh, it would be hard to take on all four of them in these tight quarters, where the swing of my sword could wedge it into a tree trunk instead of a Dryad skull where it belonged.

And the arrows that were sure to fly as soon as I drew my weapon could easily strike Raewyn and Dargan, poisoning them.

There was still a small possibility of diplomacy.

“I am quite wealthy,” I said. “I have some coin on me, in fact, which I’ll gladly share in exchange for safe passage.”

“We know you will.”

The Dryad leader snickered in a way that told me the group had already decided to rob us. I only hoped that was the extent of their intentions.

“I wonder,” the tall Dryad said as his eyes fondled Raewyn, “what else you might be willing to share.”

Still speaking in the whistles and clicks that comprised their language, I said, “Not the girl. She’s mine.”

The Dryads laughed.

“Elf-boy has a human pet,” the leader said.

Licking his rough lips, he said to his crew, “Let’s find out what makes her so valuable .”

As his men trained their aim on me, he stepped forward and grabbed Raewyn’s ankle, attempting to pull her from Dargan’s back.

Incandescent rage bloomed in my chest at the sound of her frightened squeal.

Before I quite realized what was happening, my sword was out of its sheath and arcing through the air toward his extended arm.

The severed limb released its grip on Raewyn and dropped to the leafy forest floor while its former owner let out a howl.

So much for diplomacy.

An arrow whipped by my head, missing my ear by fractions of a measure. Another bounced harmlessly off my armored jacket.

Grabbing Dargan’s reins, I turned him to face toward the unseen open lands that bordered this tract of forest and slapped him on one sleek hindquarter.

“Run for the light, boy,” I commanded.

Apart from Stellon and Mareth, I loved that horse more than any living being on this earth. I desperately did not want anything to happen to him.

A moving target would be harder to hit at least, and it wasn’t like staying here would be any safer for him—or Raewyn.

“Lean forward! Lie flat against his neck,” I yelled to her as the huge Friesian Stallion began to pick up speed, dodging and weaving through the trees.

She did as I instructed, just before an arrow flew her way. It whizzed through the air over her back.

Whirling back around, I drew both daggers from my waistband simultaneously and hurled them at the shooter who’d almost hit her and the Dryad next to him who was aiming at me.

Both of them dropped.

The group leader was on the ground now as well, mourning his lost arm and busy bleeding out.

That just left one, the tall, mouthy one who’d inquired about my willingness to “share” Raewyn.

Now I drew my sword. The tall Dryad eyed it and his fallen comrades nervously.

“Let’s talk about this, friend,” he entreated.

“I think you’ve talked enough… friend.”

A dark cloud formed in front of the man, blocking his vision of me. He began to scream. He knew I was coming, just not from where.

Blade tip pointed toward him, I charged into the darkness.

Retrieving my daggers from the other fallen Dryads, I wiped them clean on a patch of moss then began walking in the direction I’d sent Dargan and Raewyn.

Unless our luck was unusually horrific, they’d made it out of the woods to open space without encountering any more Dryads.

I was almost certain neither of them had been struck, but Raewyn had to be scared out of her wits, and they weren’t much safer in open space than here in the woods. I picked up my pace, crashing through the underbrush toward the edge of the forest, sword still out and at the ready.

The trees thinned, letting in more and more light, until I emerged from them entirely to find faithful Dargan grazing not far from the forest’s border.

Raewyn stood next to him, stroking his neck as he bent and grabbed another mouthful of grass then lifted his head and chewed.

Interesting.

My horse had a reputation for being something of a hellion. The stable hands had joked we were a matched pair, complaining of his hostility toward pretty much everyone but me.

I’d never seen him willingly allow anyone else to touch him. Not that I blamed him in this case.

Standing in the field in the morning light with her long hair curling around her shoulders and down her back, Raewyn was a vision.

A vision you shouldn’t be appreciating, I reminded myself.

Inhaling a deep breath, I regained my grip on my thoughts and strode toward them.

“Get your hood back up,” I barked at her. “The last thing I need is to be spotted with a fugitive.”

Raewyn jumped and turned toward me. Her frightened expression melted into something softer.

She drew her hood over her head and clutched it as she ran toward me, the long grass impeding her progress in her ankle-length skirts.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Who were those people? What did they want? Did they hurt you?”

A little off-put by the concern in her voice, I looked down and began wiping the blood from my sword on the tall grasses.

“Dryads,” I said. “Not a friendly bunch.”

When she reached me, her eyes fell to my blade. “Why is it green?”

“Dryad blood. They’re not like us.”

Her face creased in obvious horror. “And so you slaughtered them?”

It took me a stunned second to realize what was going on.

Unable to understand their language, Raewyn hadn’t been aware of the level of threat we’d faced back there—though the leader grabbing her and trying to yank her off the horse should have been a clue to their less-than-friendly intentions.

And I didn’t appreciate the judgmental tone.

“So you love being assaulted by wooden men, do you?” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time. For now, we need to find a place to wait out the daylight. We can’t go back into the forest, and we can’t stay in the open like this.”

She looked around us, taking in the open fields and rolling hills, punctuated by the occasional rock formation. I hoped one of them would contain a large crevice or a cave tall enough for Dargan to enter.

Raewyn’s gaze came back to me, looking confused. “Wait out the… you can’t mean we’re going to spend all day hiding instead of traveling to my village?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. Traveling by night will be far safer. Come on, I’ll put you back on the horse.”

I picked her up and headed for Dargan, intending to speed our pace by lifting her over the grass that reached her ribcage. Immediately she began kicking me and bucked against my grip.

“Let me go! I can walk .”

Having little choice, I set her down. This woman was less tame than some of the wild creatures Mareth brought into the palace.

“It wasn’t intended as an insult, Little Wyn.” I chuckled. “It’s just that you are… little. I was trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help. And I’m not little. I’ll have you know I’m the tallest woman in my village.”

A laugh escaped me. “Quite an accomplishment… in a village of tiny humans.”

She ignored me and turned her back, struggling through the grass on her own once more toward Dargan. As she stomped and awkwardly lunged forward, she yelled at me over her shoulder.

“I don’t want to wait for nightfall. I want to keep going. I need to get home.”

“Yes well, we all want things, my lady,” I said in a droll tone. “For instance, I want to keep my promise to my brother and not be charged with treason in the process. Keep your voice down.”

We reached Dargan, and I lifted her up then swung myself up behind her.

“And if you want to make it to your home , then you need to listen to me. We don’t want to be spotted. By this time, my father’s troops will be combing the lands.”

I looked around, seeing no one, but that could change at any moment. All it would take was one scout and we’d have an entire regiment bearing down on us.

“My shadows will do us no good in the daytime,” I explained. “A dark cloud trotting across a field in broad daylight isn’t exactly great camouflage. But the shadows will cloak us very well at night. We’ll travel then and at least have a chance of making it to your village.”

I urged Dargan forward, keeping us close to the tree line as I scanned the fields, looking for a likely spot to hide.

“You said your ‘shadows.’ So that’s your glamour then?” Raewyn asked a few minutes into the ride. “You can cast shadows and cloak yourself in darkness?”

I gave her a noncommittal hum. The shadow power was a recently acquired thing, bequeathed to me when its original owner died.

That had been the second most shocking thing about it—the first was that I’d been able to borrow his glamour in the first place without his permission.

It had happened during an altercation with the guards posted outside of Stellon’s chambers. I hadn’t even intended to siphon the guard’s glamour.

We were in the heat of battle, my own glamour kicked in, and the next thing I knew, I was controlling his shadows. Then the guard had taken his own life, leaving me in possession of his shadow-wielding abilities.

I thought at first it might have somehow replaced the Gleaning glamour I was born with, but I’d used my inborn gift several times since then. It appeared I now held them both equally.

“You know about glamours, do you?” I asked Raewyn.

Clearly she knew next to nothing about me . I guess I couldn’t blame Stellon for not spending his private time with her these past two weeks discussing me.

Raewyn sounded contemplative when she spoke again. “I’m not sure why you’re so ashamed of it.”

“What?”

“I asked Stellon about your family’s glamours,” she said. “He wouldn’t tell me about yours. He said you were private about it because you found it shameful—the way he finds his shameful.”

“I think his is magnificent,” she added.

I was shocked to know that while Stellon hadn’t shared my glamour with her, he had shared something so deeply personal about himself. I’d never told anyone apart from him and Mareth how I felt about the Gleaning glamour I’d been born with.

As far as I knew, Stellon had never discussed his own embarrassing Exalting glamour with anyone but us.

Until now.

“Yes, well you really know nothing about it, do you,” I said, sounding more irritated than I’d intended.

And then I added a barb meant to irritate her . “... being a mere human and all.”

Raewyn’s spine straightened in offense, and her gasp was so loud I could hear it over the noise of Dargan’s trotting. I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud.

“You’re awfully cheerful for someone who just took four lives,” she snapped. “I shouldn’t be surprised you are unaffected by the brutality of what occurred back there. Did you really have to kill them all?”

“Yes,” was all I said.

How could I explain to her the madness that had overtaken me as that lecherous Dryad had touched her—when I couldn’t explain it to myself?

In truth, I’d had no choice but to slay them all. If one had escaped and alerted other Dryads, we’d have soon found ourselves surrounded by an army of vengeful tree people.

But that wasn’t the whole reason.

I’d wanted to do it.

The minute they’d started looking at her with lust and violence in their eyes, my blood had begun to simmer. Their obscene comments about her had turned up the heat further.

The frightened sound she’d made as the leader grabbed her had tipped it over into a full boil.

At that point, I could barely think anymore.

I’d had just enough presence of mind to send her and Dargan out of there toward safety, and then I’d let the frenzy overtake me.

As someone who was renowned for his self-control, the experience had left me shaken.

I’d faced plenty of hand-to-hand combat in my lifetime— that, I was prepared for. What I hadn’t been prepared for was the overwhelming primal urge to protect someone who wasn’t my family.

It was more than just keeping a promise to my brother.

How much more wasn’t something I wanted to consider too deeply.