Page 33 of Faeling (Monstrous World #4)

She didn’t seem to pay the conversation much attention, her gaze instead flicking now and again to the bowls on the table.

Between her fascination with the bowls of food she wasn’t eating and Ulrich doing his best to ignore her very presence at the table, once Vallek concluded his tale of the night in Innrinhom, the conversation lapsed into silence.

Pulling the jar of pickled turnips toward him—a dish only Ulrich enjoyed—the lord commander asked, “And did he say anything about the timber?”

Opening up friendlier relations with Innrinhom and Hrothgar could mean a vast wealth of timber for Balmirra. Although a city of stone, there was plenty they could do with more fine Innrini timber—including building more ships and barges to sail Dyfan Bay.

“Only a mention, but he’s interested,” Vallek confirmed.

“We’ll need to— hrk —” Ulrich choked on his words, bending in half and clutching his stomach. “Forgive me, I— ack —” Face contorted in a grimace, Ulrich panted as his stomach grumbled and groaned ominously. Sweat broke out across his brow, and his face flushed puce.

He stood so quickly, the table and all the dishes rattled. Still clutching at his middle, Ulrich hurried from the tent, and it wasn’t long before they heard the miserable sounds of retching.

“Bad luck,” Ravenna muttered, although not quietly, grinning over the rim of her cup.

The servants and few guards looked amongst themselves and murmured.

Frowning, Vallek reached for the jar of turnips to smell.

Ravenna was quicker. “No no,” she said almost breezily, snatching the jar away. “It’s likely bad.”

Vallek didn’t think pickled turnips could go bad. He narrowed his eyes at his mate, the most animated she’d been all night.

She wouldn’t…

Mattias dropped his spoon and leaned back from the table.

“Don’t worry, captain,” Ravenna chirped, “I like you very much.”

Mattias, one of the strongest, bravest orcs Vallek knew, gulped as he gawked at the small woman sitting across from them.

Vallek dropped his face into his palm and sighed.

“The whole camp will be terrified of you by morning,” Vallek grumbled later that night as they lay together in his bed.

His annoyance at this bitter enmity between his mate and his lord commander was beginning to chafe. That didn’t mean, however, that he didn’t want to hold her lithe body close and feel all her delicious curves against him while he scolded her. He had been away, after all.

“Good,” she said, utterly unrepentant.

Vallek didn’t know whether to be proud, aroused, or annoyed. Perhaps a bit of everything.

Smoothing his hand up and down her leg, he rucked her nightgown higher with each pass. One day soon, he would convince her of the needlessness of the garment. He slept naked and so should she. For efficiency, if nothing else.

“What did you do to him?”

“Nothing fatal.” The minx smiled when she said it.

Vallek sighed, ruffling her dark hair. “I can’t have you poisoning my best men, sprite.”

“I didn’t poison your best men. I poisoned Ulrich.”

“Why do you despise him so?”

“He raided my room, took my mother’s grimoire. Tried to strangle—” Her nostrils flared, and she took a moment to regain her composure. “Besides,” she eventually continued, “he started it. He’s always been against me.”

Well, that was true. Ulrich had wanted to leave her where they found her. “We don’t need a soothsayer. Your future is clear enough,” he remembered Ulrich saying.

“Ulrich has been my most loyal friend since we were boys,” he explained.

“I know. That’s why it wasn’t fatal.” She traced her fingers down the side of his face, her touch featherlight. “He sees what you refuse to—that I threaten, even undermine all that you’ve worked for.”

Vallek tightened his arms around her, not liking that at all. “I liked it better when you disagreed.”

“He doesn’t want you to throw everything away for me. I don’t want that, either.”

“I’m hardly throwing everything away,” he snorted. “I’m adjusting . As anyone would when they’d found their mate.”

“Yes, but not just anyone is a king.”

“Because I’m king I can’t have my way? That hardly seems right.”

“It means sacrifice. You’ve already worked so hard toward unification. You will achieve it, I know you will.” She smiled sadly. “I worry our bond would only thwart you.”

“Never.” Pushing his hand past the hem of her nightgown, he splayed his palm along the warm skin of her lower back. “Perhaps all this time, unification has been for you.”

Her lips parted as the breath rushed out of her. “You don’t mean that.”

“Maybe I do,” he said, his mind whirring. “Maybe all this time, I’ve worked to unify my people so that I could take a faeling mate.”

“You don’t have to be king to do that,” she reminded him.

“Perhaps not. But to keep a hellion like you safe, yes.” Nuzzling her hair, he added, “But no more poisoning.”

Smoothing her hands over his chest, she told him, “I do nothing unprovoked. I’m small compared to all of you. I can’t let anyone get away with threatening me.”

“ No one will threaten you,” he vowed. His blood rushed with anger just thinking about it.

“Ulrich does every day.”

The revelation struck him harder than a blow. He knew Ulrich was determined to separate him from Ravenna, but to threaten her, even knowing she was his mate?

A growl built in his chest.

“No, none of that,” she whispered, kissing the skin over his heart. “I’m not trying to tattle. I can handle myself. Ulrich is loyal to you and has his use. I can bear that.”

His growl didn’t quite abate, but he managed to bite it back into a purr for her.

It seemed he needed to have a word with his lord commander.

While Ulrich had served him loyally for years, that didn’t excuse such behavior toward his mate.

Ulrich didn’t have to like Ravenna, but he did have to respect that she was in Vallek’s life now.

“Very well,” he said reluctantly.

Quiet overcame them, and if Vallek was a little more selfish, he might have let her continue to pet him softly in the velvety darkness. The night was cool and the tent quiet. It would’ve been nothing to finally enjoy his mate.

But he made himself say, “Now tell me about the unicorns.”

Ravenna pulled a face. “Yes. That.” Sucking in a long breath, she explained, “There are currently four unicorns trailing the camp. They come from a larger herd that grazes outside Balmirra.”

Vallek’s ears rang. So many unicorns so near his city—and no one knew?

A choked sound escaped his throat.

“They came with me, you see. To protect me.” Vallek listened, stunned and amazed, as she told him of her father’s dread-mount Oberon, a silver stallion, and how he and his mother’s herd had sworn to protect Ravenna.

She spoke of them with love, her face softening as she described Oberon, Callistix, and the others. She knew all about the herd politics, described the newest foals, and which young mares would soon want to challenge for leadership or leave to form their own herds.

He could only listen in wonder. Many orc-kin had died on the sharp point of a unicorn horn, and his natural aversion to the beasts was there. Still, he couldn’t help but admire the loyalty and love shared between Ravenna and her unicorns.

To have traveled so far, to live in unfriendly lands so long, just to keep her safe…

He didn’t even mind so much when she told him of their plans to besiege Balmirra when Vallek had first confined her to his quarters. While he was mildly horrified to hear it, he could still appreciate their devotion.

Vallek was quickly coming to realize there wasn’t a city he wouldn’t besiege, an enemy he wouldn’t destroy, nor a land he wouldn’t conquer for Ravenna.

“I should like to meet them,” he found himself saying, “when it’s safe.”

Her brows arched in surprise before a warm smile broke across her face. “You would?”

“Yes.” Drawing her leg over his hip, he said, “I have to thank them for bringing you safely to me.”

Her smile grew wry. “Oberon will have many things to say about my safety.”

“I look forward to it.” And he did. From her explanation, and the way she so desperately begged for their lives, it was clear that these unicorns were Ravenna’s kin. It pleased him to know she wasn’t alone in the world. That she hadn’t just materialized out of the mist one day.

She had shared this truth with him, and he vowed it was to be the first of many. She had a past, his mysterious mate, and he intended to find out every little bit. He would have her secrets, starting with this.

His chest swelled to know that he’d gained some of her trust.

Purr deepening, his hand slid over the plush curve of her backside to delve between her legs. Her sharp inhale had his pupils dilating, and he buried his face against her neck, soaking in her scent as his fingers began to work.

“Now then, I think it’s time we get back to practicing, yes?”