Page 41 of Heart of the Hunter (Band of Bastards #3)

“C ome to the solar,” Galiena said to Anora after they had spent the early afternoon cooing over the babies.

Anora had slept only a few hours since arriving at the manor belonging to her friend earlier that morning.

She was too excited and exhilarated to sleep any more.

Excited about being with her dear friend and cuddling with the babies.

And exhilarated from the memories that kept flooding her mind of Hunter’s hands on her and the amazing things he did with his mouth.

She’d not seen him since she’d left him at the stable that morning, but a smile came unbidden to her lips each time she remembered the look on his face when she told him she’d not wait for him for long if he left her at Hawkspur, despite his promise to return.

I’ll promise you this, angel: I’ll not leave you for long.

Her response had been flippant, but after the way he’d pulled her close with everyone watching, looked at her with those smoldering eyes, and gave her a promise that made her heart almost explode in her chest, she’d had to do something to change the mood because she’d been on the verge of throwing herself into his arms and begging him to kiss her again.

As preoccupied as she was with where those kisses would lead, she needed time away from him to clear her head and ponder what all of it meant, and what she was willing to do about it—that was assuming it did mean something to him and that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

She just didn’t know for certain what exactly it was she wanted.

She’d wait until later, when she was alone to sort through her muddled thoughts. Right now, she had Galiena’s sweet little babies to keep her attention.

Little Erik was settled in his crib, and Ani was cradled contentedly in Anora’s arms. Galiena had offered to relieve her of the burden of the baby in her arms, but Anora had refused, insisting that her friend enjoy the opportunity to rest. She settled into the cushioned chair facing the hearth in the solar while Galiena plopped down tiredly in the opposite chair.

“Red said to tell you he found a messenger going to Oswestry and sent your letter with him for your father.” Galiena stifled a yawn and stretched her arms above her head.

“Go take a nap,” Anora offered. “I can look after Ani.”

Galiena shook her head. “I’d rather spend time with you.”

“And for that I am grateful,” Anora said, smiling at her friend. “And I’m grateful to Red for making sure my letter finds its way to Papa. He will be worried if he doesn’t hear that I’ve arrived at Hawkspur safely.”

“You must look at the chalices on the hearth. They were commissioned by the king,” Galiena said with a tired, knowing grin at Anora.

“They are beautiful,” Anora said as she admired the silver cups from where she sat.

They were small, sized for a child, and each was engraved with the profile of a wolf, its head thrown back as if howling as its emerald eye glittered in the light.

At the feet of each wolf were the links of a broken chain.

They were crafted so that the wolves faced one another when placed side by side, and the detail was intricate and finely done.

And, it was Anora’s best work yet—though, the credit had gone to her father because the king assumed when he made the commission that the cups would be crafted by Frode.

The opportunity to make such fine pieces for the king was too good to pass up, and she and her father had agreed it would be their secret that the design and nearly all the work had been Anora’s.

“They are exquisite,” Galiena continued.

“I am particularly fond of the way the chain links are patterned to include the first letter of each of their names. I did not notice the letters at first, but I’ve stared at them for so many hours now that I have every detail memorized.

” Her broad smile showed her pleasure in the pieces.

“I do like the subtlety of the detail,” Anora said, unable to suppress the smile that pulled at her lips.

“I know it was your hands that crafted them,” Galiena finally said. “The insignia on the bottom is that of your father’s goldsmith shop, but I did not miss the added embellishment on the symbol—your mark to make the insignia your own.”

Anora felt a surge of pride at her friend’s appreciation of the pieces, and acknowledgment of her hand in the work.

“It is not often the King of England commissions a piece from anyone other than his private smith. It was a great honor. Papa insisted on giving the final inspection and would not release the chalices on behalf of the king until he gave his approval, but you’re correct. The design and the crafting are mine.”

“You have a special talent, Anora,” Galiena said, stretching out her arm to rest a hand on Anora’s shoulder.

“If only others could see the same,” Anora said with a sigh. “The irony is that the first commission of any substance that I secured was because Baron Payne vouched for me to a merchant in Shrewsbury that he knew well.”

“Even after you refused his proposal? That was kind of him.”

Anora stayed silent on the matter, not yet wanting to burden her friend with the long, sordid tale of all that had transpired with the baron over the last year, the stolen gems, and how she’d encountered Hunter at Castle Whyte.

Galiena was near to falling asleep as it was, and it was a story that could wait for another time.

“It was very generous of the king to commission the pieces from my father,” Anora said, diverting the conversation back to the silver cups on the mantle. Then with a laugh, she added, “He’d probably hang us for treason if he ever found out I actually did the work and not my father.”

Galiena chuckled and flipped her hand in the air dismissively. “Red and Hawk will plead for your life if it comes to that.” She paused, then added, “And Hunter, it seems.”

Anora ignored the comment and her friend’s arched eyebrow. Instead, she turned the conversation again. “The king is now indebted to you and Red for exposing the man who tried to kill his heir.”

“That seems so long ago,” Galiena said, folding her hands in her lap as she leaned her head back in the chair and closed her eyes.

“Nearly two years ago, and look at you now, living in a fine home,” Anora said, looking around her at the finely appointed solar of the roomy manor, “with a husband who worships you, and two beautiful little babies.”

Galiena laughed. “Who could have predicted running into the arms of a big, red-headed stranger in the middle of the street and using him to escape an assassin would lead to all of this?”

Anora noticed Galiena looked at the baby sleeping in her arms when she said the last. Her friend had endured much heartbreak losing her first husband and young daughter before Red came into her life.

She’d never expected to find love or be a mother again.

“No one deserves this happiness more than you, Galiena.”

Galiena smiled as she put her hand on Anora’s arm and squeezed it. “You are a dear friend, and I owe much of this to you.”

“Tell me of the emeralds,” Anora said, tipping her head toward the chalices on the mantle. “The king’s messenger was very insistent it was to be those exact gems and no others.”

“Red’s uncle made a matching set of daggers when they lived in Norway,” Galiena explained.

“The handle was designed to look like a wolf from Norse legend, and the eyes were made of gems. He gave one dagger to Red, with rubies for eyes, and the uncle kept the other, which had emeralds for eyes. The very day they arrived in England, they were ambushed, and his mother and uncle were killed, and the assassin stole his uncle’s dagger. ”

Anora gasped. “That is terrible!”

“When I overheard the men in the alley plotting to kill the king’s son, who would have thought one of them would be the same man who killed Red’s mother and uncle.

And to think it was Red’s arms I ran into in my haste to escape the men.

” Her lips curved into a small, humorless smile at the memory, and she was quiet for a long moment.

“Whether it was fate or God, I am so grateful he was there. He saved my life.” She took a deep breath and turned her gaze to Anora.

“The horrible man still had the dagger and still used it.” Galiena shuddered as she said the last. “The king offered to return the dagger to Red after…well, after Red executed the assassin with it at the king’s behest, but he did not want it, as it was tainted with so much death and evil.

” Galiena sighed and turned her gaze back to the chalices.

“King Edward had the silver melted down and, for the queen, fashioned a small dagger as a reminder to be careful whom she trusts in the future. And the gems he sent to you to be placed in the chalices for the twins as a reminder to Red that his family name will live on in his children.”

“And what beautiful babies they are.” Anora touched a fingertip to Ani’s nose where she lay snuggled in the crook of her elbow.

Her perfect little pink bow lips parted, and her icy-blue eyes opened as she stretched and squirmed to wake up.

“She has her papa’s eyes, but in all else she looks like you. ”

“Do you want to hear something astounding?” Galiena turned her head where it rested against the back of the chair so that she was looking at Anora.

“When I was standing in the shadows in that alley behind the inn that day, I had been praying for something to take me from the mundane, lonely life I was living. I didn’t want to go on feeling as I did.

” A smile curved her lips. “I didn’t realize at the time that the big, red-headed oaf was the answer to the prayer I had sent up to the heavens, but that’s exactly what he has been to me. ”

Anora laughed, remembering the possessive way Red had loomed over Galiena from the moment she’d burst through the back door of the smithy with him following behind her, refusing to let her out of his sight. “We could all see he was smitten with you from the very beginning.”

Galiena’s smile broadened, then she said with a wink in Anora’s direction, “Red seems to think Hunter is smitten with you.”

“He is protective out of obligation to my father,” she responded, but her skin tingled at the mention of his name.

“Perhaps, but Red says he’s never seen Hunter so agitated as today.”

“Hunter is always agitated.”

Galiena shook her head. “He is withdrawn, stoic even, but always the picture of control. I’ve never seen him agitated.”

“Up until recently, I’ve rarely seen him not agitated,” Anora said with a disbelieving bark of laughter. “Perhaps you do not see him often. Or you are distracted with Ani and Erik.”

“It is true, I do not spend much time with him, but Red says Hunter has been restless and unfocused ever since you arrived this morning.”

Little Ani wrapped her tiny fingers around one of Anora’s and stared in fascination at it. She wiggled her finger at the baby and the little girl smiled a big, toothless grin. “You are far more pleasant a companion than that mean ogre,” she said in a singsong voice to the baby.

“Do you love him?”

Anora’s mouth dropped open as she scoffed at the question, but then she closed it and sighed. Galiena was her dearest friend, and the only woman in her life she could ask for advice. Truly, there was no one else she trusted to discuss her feelings about Hunter.

“The last time I saw both of you together, he could hardly take his eyes from you. And now, you blush when I say his name.” There was no judgment in Galiena’s tone, or in the way she looked at Anora as she patiently waited for Anora to respond.

“I do not know if it is love,” she admitted. “But I am infatuated with him, and I feel like I am going to melt every time he looks at me or…”

Galiena chuckled. “Touches you?”

Anora could feel her cheeks burning as she nodded.

“You need not feel any embarrassment with me, Anora,” Galiena assured her. “I understand how you feel. Once I decided I wanted Red to kiss me, and let him, I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted to be in his arms every possible moment.” Galiena gave Anora a knowing look, and added, “And in his bed.”

“Would it have been that way even if you had not been married once before? You, at least, knew what awaited you.”

“Even if I had been a virgin when I met Red, I suspect I would not have resisted sharing his bed so soon after being thrown into his company.” She smiled wistfully. “He was very persuasive. Still is.”

Anora was shocked Galiena spoke so openly about her attraction to Red, but she was grateful her friend was as blunt and forward as she herself was. “Do you ever find it difficult to be a wife? To live up to the expectations placed upon you?”

Galiena was silent for a long moment, then said, “It is not always easy. But then, I suspect that Red does not always find it easy to be a husband. Yet at the end of the day, I would rather be with him than without him.”

Anora imagined her mother, if she were alive, would have said something very similar about marriage with her father. “Do you have disagreements? Or get angry with each other?”

“Oh, aye,” she said, her eyes widening to emphasize her vehemence. “With his temper and my stubbornness, it is inevitable.”

“But you find a way to get past it?”

“We do.” She smiled sweetly and her gaze dropped to little Ani, still cradled in Anora’s arms and tugging at her finger. “That is what the nights are for.”

Anora felt the heat staining her cheeks as she thought about the wonderfully intoxicating things Hunter had done to her after he laid her down on the blanket by the stream, naked under the night sky.

It was true that in those moments, nothing else seemed to matter and all of her aggravations with Hunter were forgotten. But was that love?

“What are you smiling about?”

Anora’s eyes shifted to her friend. “Was I smiling?”

“Aye, you were,” she said with a smirk. “Does it have anything to do with the whatever happened during the extraordinarily long time it took for you to bathe in the stream on your way to Hawkspur?”

Anora could not stop the wide smile she felt spread across her face. “Aye, it does. And it was wonderful, and I cannot stop thinking about it.” She’d not meant to say all of that, but it felt good to blurt out her excitement with someone who would understand.

“Oh, my,” Galiena said with a mocking groan. “I think you and I need to have a long talk.”

“Yes,” Anora agreed eagerly, “please!”