Page 28

W e turned off the main road for the caretaker’s cottage and found three horses tied to the watering trough.

A small, worn-down cart with packs and provisions sat in the small clearing.

The little thatch-roofed building beyond it had no door, no glass in the windows.

The floor through the entryway was made of the same packed dirt as the road. A small stone well sat beside it.

Low voices and laughter rose from the cottage’s opening.

Theodore pulled on his horse’s reins and dismounted. His hand hovered over the dagger at his hip. “Stay here.” His unease swept away all the dreamy heat I’d been basking in.

Before he could duck into the cottage, three young men came out.

Two looked like brothers, small and reedy.

They reminded me of Serafi arrowheads with their black hair and sharp noses.

The third was tall and handsome, with gold-streaked locks, warm brown skin, and mirthful eyes in the palest shade of green.

All of them smiled. “There’s room inside,” one of the brothers said to Theodore. “We’ll sleep outside. Weather’s nice.”

Theodore scowled and gave them a curt nod, but before he could do anything else, the handsome one looked up at me where I sat upon my horse. He crossed to my side with a widening smile. “Need a hand?”

“Lay a hand on my wife and you’ll lose it.” Theodore gripped the hilt of the dagger.

The man’s eyes went round as platters; his arms rose in surrender. “I was just trying to help.”

I shot Theodore a scolding look, but he ignored it. Stormy and inexorable, he stole to my side and reached up to guide me off the horse. With pinched faces and muttered words, the men retreated to a little clearing behind the cottage, where a pit for a fire sat.

“What the hell was that?” I scolded. “They’re not going to share that fire with us now.”

“Pretend you like me.” He reached up for the waterskin at my horse’s side and pulled it open so I could drink. “Act like we’re happily married—a stretch, I know.”

I took an angry gulp of water. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Theodore’s brow buckled. He set a hand to his stomach, over the bond.

“I don’t know them, and the thought of him touching you—” He shook his head and took a drink of the water.

“It’s that Godsdamned bond. Just do this for me, please?

Keep beside me. If they think you are anything other than my wife, then you’re not safe. ”

“You’re jealous.” I gaped at him as he rummaged through the saddlebag. “You thought my reaction during those contract negotiations was ridiculous, but this is exactly the same.”

He shook his head. “That was different. That was the Empress of Obelia—”

“See the handsome one?” Theodore frowned at him over his shoulder. “When you’re asleep tonight, he and I are going to sneak away into the grapevines to make love, and then over breakfast tomorrow, you can listen as we discuss the fate of our future children.”

He glared at me.

“Doesn’t feel good, does it?”

“No,” he conceded in a grumble. “It doesn’t.”

We troughed the horses, and all the while Theodore stewed.

With a small bowl and a rag pulled from a saddlebag in hand, he led me to the little well.

He rounded its stone wall, so his back was to the men around the fire, then sat upon its ledge.

He scooped some water into the little bowl, set the rag into it.

He spread his legs wide. Then tugged me by the hand, so I stood between them.

I stared for a moment—at the dark fan of his lashes, the slant of his nose, the bow of his lips. “What are you doing?”

“Acting like you’re my wife.” His eyes were level with my chin.

He raised his hands and slowly, devastatingly gently, swept aside the stray hairs that had escaped from my braid.

His fingers tickled at my ears, my temples, as he caressed the curls back.

I held my breath as he reached around for my braid.

He gripped it, wrapped it once around his fist, and gave it the softest tug.

It tipped my chin up, baring my neck to him.

He made a throaty, approving sound as he looked from my lips to my neck and down further. Water droplets sprayed as he wrung the rag out with his free hand. Slowly, he dragged it across my cheek. Down the column of my neck.

I bit back a moan. “You don’t have to—”

He dipped the rag again and brought it back to my flushed skin. “You’re covered in dust and sweat,” he said quietly, “and a good husband would see you cleaned up before feeding you and putting you to bed, wouldn’t he?”

“That’s not what you’re doing.” The rag traveled down farther, to my collarbone, where the shirt I wore—his shirt—was pulled slightly open.

My eyes fluttered shut. I didn’t doubt he could see the color rising on my cheeks.

That he could see my breaths coming quicker, growing shallow.

“You’re getting back at me for what I said earlier. You’re teasing me.”

He shook his head. “I promise, I’m not trying to.” The words were a hot caress over my skin. “But I’ll admit, I wish I didn’t care what you thought of me.”

“Two days,” I said. He swiped a bead of water from my chin with his finger, tugging my bottom lip down with the motion. “The bond will be severed. Then you won’t care at all.”

Our gazes locked and when he smiled at me, wry and full, my heart folded over on itself. “Let’s hope.” None of the heat left his eyes as he leaned back and let my braid slip from his hold. He held the rag up between us.

We’d reached a line, and now we toed it.

I thought of Lachlan’s and Agatha’s pleas to let myself be cared for, to care for him.

Despite the tumult of the past week, Agatha thought something more had woven and bloomed between us, like one of Theodore’s flowering vines.

It was desire—attraction—but nothing more.

Nothing sturdy could grow under such conditions, and on the odd chance that something had sprouted, bolstered by our blood bond, we were two days away from ripping it out at the root.

I emptied the bowl and filled it with clean water.

Dipped and wrung out the rag. My saddle-weary legs ached as I perched on his knee.

“So we’ve established that you were once—and still can be—lusty and potent.

” He laughed and I couldn’t keep from smiling at the sound of it. “But I have always been afraid.”

Some of the heat in his eyes banked. I scooted closer to his chest, set my hand to his chin, and tipped it up. As I swiped at the strong column of his neck, he brought up his hand and rested it on the round of my hip. “Of what?”

“Everything. When I was little, I was afraid of the dark.”

“So is every child.”

I dipped the rag again and opened the collar of his shirt, letting myself enjoy the cut of his hard chest. “Maybe my fear was like a normal child’s.

But the darkness in Fort Linum felt different.

It felt sinister. It’s so dark, so thick, that it used to feel like its own kind of monster.

Corporeal. I would forget myself and spend too long in the study reading and then I’d have to trudge through it to get to my chamber.

I’d be crying and shaking by the time I’d reached my bed one level down. ”

His thumb moved back and forth over my hip. “Why didn’t you sleep in the study?”

I shook my head as I swiped the bridge of his nose, his cheek. “I wanted my room. The comfort of a place that belonged only to me.”

“Brave of you.” He looked at me like he had the first night we’d met, like he was taking stock of all the pieces and parts of me, but now, he seemed to look closer. To a lower layer. Foolishly, I hoped that this time, those pieces would fall into a shape he found more pleasing.

I rose from his knee and threw the dirty water from the bowl, wrung out the rag. “I’m hungry.” I looked past Theodore to the three men huddled around a roaring fire. “You’ll have to make nice so we can heat some food.”

Theodore grimaced as he stood, then swiped his hands on his pants. “I’ll make our bedroll first.”

“Bed rolls. As in two.”

He came toward me and took the bowl and rag from my hand. “Bed roll. As in one. As in there is no way in all the sweet hells that this blood bond would let you sleep away from me when we are in the middle of the wildlands with three strange men sleeping beside us.”

The line we toed began to break and blur. I could just as easily sleep safely on my own bedroll, under my own blanket, beside him. And the men who shared our camp were as innocuous as ever, laughing and telling poor jokes. But I couldn’t bring myself to argue either point.

I was selfish, just as Theodore had said. I batted away my shame and nodded. “One it is.”

Back at the horses, I helped Theodore pull our supplies from their restraints. The road we’d taken in had widened, cutting between the long, flat beach and the edge of the vineyard. The waves crashed quite a way out, but I could nearly hear them as the end of the day settled into a hush.

Theodore whistled quietly as he handed me a bedroll and a blanket.

The tune was familiar, perhaps a song I’d danced to before.

It was quick and rhythmic, but he whistled it at half speed.

In his old worn clothes, with his dark hair mussed from travel, he looked roguish and at ease.

A smile curled my lips. “You’re different outside the palace. ”

He gave me a cautious look. “Am I?”

“I think so.”

“You haven’t known me very long.” He smirked. “What if I’m always like this and you and I just met under very trying circumstances?”

I laughed and took a second blanket from him.

“I don’t doubt meeting me made many things worse for you, but I wonder if it’s your responsibilities that make you so…

surly. All that pressure you put on yourself.

” I walked around the horse slowly, toward the cottage, and he followed.

“You seem to like it out here. In the sun and dirt. I like you better out here too, I think.”

By the way he stared at me, I couldn’t tell if I’d hurt him or complimented him. He took the load I carried into his own arms.

“I’m sorry,” I said, when he was still close. “I didn’t mean—you’re right, I haven’t known you that long.”

He shook his head at my apology. “I find you rather terrifying, Imogen.”

“Terrifying?”

“It’s true you haven’t known me long, but somehow you know me rather well.”

He was devastating, standing before me looking windblown and anguished. I wanted to touch him, to smooth the lines etched into his face.

He turned toward the cottage, and before I followed, I glanced out over the waves—then froze.

On the tremulous line of the horizon sat four little ships.

They were no more than shadowy smudges at this distance, but something in my center dipped.

I held my breath and crossed the dirt road toward the beach.

The bond sent rattling worry through my stomach as our distance grew.

“Imogen?” Theodore called. But I kept moving, knowing he’d follow.

My boots sank into the sand, my tired muscles burning as I tried to move over it.

I’d spent my whole life looking at the sea from afar.

Through my window in Fort Linum, a ship on the water’s surface was nothing but a dot from the end of an artist’s brush, but if I stared long enough, they distinguished themselves.

And it was always easiest to tell when it was Nemea’s ships that floated into the harbor.

The red, eel-stitched flag, flapping in the wind as if it were undulating through the sea.

The dark sails, the same color as King Nemea’s bitter wine.

Theodore reached my side; our bond calmed.

He saw what I did, and it morphed his countenance back into that of a king.

His chin lowered. His gaze grew hard. “There he is.”

There was not a hint of surprise in his voice. He’d been prepared, he’d known Nemea’s men would come. So had I, but I found myself staring, slack-jawed, with terror wriggling through me as if it were that Godsdamned eel.

Nemea had come to take back what was his.