Page 54 of The King’s Man (The Kingdom of the Krow #3)

~ JANN ~

I was still learning how to share memories with her, and my pride screamed that I shouldn’t place myself at her feet. But the startled brightness of her gaze drew me deeper.

She needed to know. She needed to understand. So, I took her back to that night of the Jubilee in Theynor. Before we’d revealed ourselves to Melek, even. When my team and I were spies, scouting for an opportunity to steal our uncrowned king back from the Fetch bitch who’d kidnapped him.

The night that the entire noble population of the Palace unexpectedly ventured into the gardens and we followed…

I had ordered the others to spread out. We had to stay among the trees, so there was no way to watch from the north, the direction of the Palace itself.

But I placed Kran and Drek nearest the points where the royal lawns parted the trees and swept into this clearing, while Hever and I took the southeastern and western points.

Melek was easy to find. Even with the lack of lights in the clearing itself and silhouetted against the flames fifty feet away, I picked him by his sheer size. He stood head and shoulders over most of these men. And even the taller among them were far more slight in their builds.

The drums picked up pace and I cursed under my breath, my heart rate increasing with it. But then high, climbing voices joined the drums, and a very few minutes later the point of this strange pageantry was finally revealed.

The men in the clearing murmured and shifted on their feet, peering past those in front of them. The first hint for me was the fluid sweep of white on the lawn behind the fire, but soon, the wearers of the white robes danced into the clearing and spread out around it.

I sat back on my heels, eyes wide.

Women. A hundred women, though there seemed to be a cluster at the center that the others accompanied. Their voices were sweet and high, singing in a language I didn’t recognize, but the men either understood the words, or knew their meaning.

They all leaned closer, their expressions shifting from anticipation to eagerness as the women danced in a circle around the bonfire in opposing lines that split to either side, but continued until they looped around to meet at the bottom of the clearing and began weaving in and out, still dancing.

The drums maintained their thudding and it vibrated in my bones with such resonance, it seemed to sync with my heartbeat. My body grew feverish, inexplicably humming with unprovoked need.

Was it magik? Did these creatures bespell us and we didn’t even know?

When I was able to make out Yilan among the women—dressed in black strapping and soft, sheer red falls that set my blood alight—I grunted and looked away. My skin crawled even as my body thrummed in time with those drums.

I was about to call retreat, preparing to give the soft whistle to get Hever’s attention on the other side of the crowd—we had no interest in Yilan’s mating ritual beyond how it might prove to Melek that she wasn’t the mate he’d thought she was.

But as I took in the breath to give the signal, something flashed in my peripheral vision. My head instinctively turned and I caught sight of a woman dancing next to Yilan, and once again, my body betrayed me.

In this light her hair appeared to be a warm brown, loose and swaying well below her shoulders.

She was draped in a white sheath that was little more than a nightdress—a wide, gathered neckline that tied over her breasts leaving a tantalizing V of skin revealed between them.

The fabric fluttered and swayed as she moved, and had I been any less of a soldier, I would have thought her entranced by the dance.

But her eyes…

I couldn’t see their color from this distance, but as she and Yilan turned in the dance, the wary glint sharpened and I caught her, swaying as if into the dance, but in truth, moving to give herself the visual sweep of the nearby crowd.

She didn’t dance. She watched over Yilan.

A covert guard?

Suddenly, the flatness of her shoulders, the strong line of her neck, and the definition in her arms no longer suggested a servant’s strength, but an athlete’s refinement.

Without thought, my gaze dragged down her body, watching as the fabric sucked against her skin, then lifted and fluttered in the passage of her movement, then pressed to her warmth again—a healthy body. Lithe and lean… but strong.

An assassin? Or a bodyguard? A lady in waiting… to kill any man who overstepped?

The drums picked up again, and the watching men leaned in as the crowd of women eased back to form a hedge between them and the dancers.

Everything looked so harmless. And yet…

As Yilan and her watcher continued their graceful glide and turned around the bonfire, my hackles rose.

I’d underestimated these people with their strict uniforms and corseted dresses, their self-important pomposity, striding around their castle grounds like ants—hard-working, but seemingly unaware of the wider world that passed them by.

I was a fool. Blinded by their apparent fear, convinced the only reason they remained safe through the generations was the supernatural darkness that guarded their land.

But it was time to reassess. Perhaps Yilan’s intelligence and cunning hadn’t been unique among her people.

Looking at this near-tribal display—and now listening to the men, their deep baritones and basses replying with a rhythmic hungh-ah, hungh-ah to the women’s songs as the tension in the clearing climbed higher and something deep within me responded…

Perhaps the Fetch were more than mere spies and tricksters, after all.

Perhaps this people were far more skilled at hiding their true nature than I’d believed when I’d emerged from those fucking shadows, looking for wicked assassins and sorcerers, only to find puritanical bullshit armies, instead.

I’d been so disappointed on our arrival.

Perhaps I had been too quick to judge?

Yilan and her innocent looking dancer passed smoothly out of sight—as smoothly as these thoughts passed through my mind. I bit back the ache in my body as I mentally calculated how best to reassess.

Until the swaying circles returned the women to their original places, and suddenly the pair was back.

And my eyes would not leave her.

The fire behind her glowed through that thin garment, lighting the form of her body beneath it even when the fabric billowed, and my breath shortened.

Her eyes seemed downcast if you didn’t look closely. But I did. And I saw that sharp gaze checking Yilan, following her progress, assessing the nearest men and the positions of the dancers and other women.

Yet, even though her mind clearly stayed on her charge, her body rippled into the dance and dried my mouth.

Undulating, provocative, intentionally suggestive. She moved like a woman who knew her power and enjoyed it.

She moved like a woman unashamed of her body—and confident in its capability.

She moved like a cat that could so casually wrap a gentle tail around your leg, then bury sharp fangs in your unsuspecting hand.

I was lost for minutes, drifting in that dance with her as the drums shifted again and the women rolled their heads.

My pulse responded to the dance. My body to her body.

It wasn’t until the cheering, singing males surged forward as if to overwhelm the dancers that I snapped out of my reverie.

At first I tensed—did the men mean them harm?—but it was soon clear this was all a part of the dance as well. The women who’d ringed the fire linked arms and kept the men from touching their sisters.

I had no idea what game they played, but found myself searching for that woman again—dear God, what was wrong with me? I had to cut loose—

Suddenly, the drums crescendoed, then everything stopped. Including my breath.

The woman, that woman, finished the circle she’d turned and stopped, the fabric of her gown swaying, fluttering, much slower to halt, hugging her curves for a few, delicious glimpses before it billowed around her legs.

She blinked.

Her head was turned almost to profile from me as she stared at Yilan who stood apparently frozen, staring, as the women who’d circled them and kept the men at bay, suddenly parted, allowing only individuals through.

And one of them, that fucking talking uniform of a General, threw himself at Yilan’s feet.

But I couldn’t take my eyes from Yilan’s companion. Her guard. Whose expression was now uncertain, confused.

As male after male was loosed to run to one of the females who’d weaved in the circles, she stood alone.

Her forehead lined so that for a moment, I assumed she was hurt.

Yet, when she turned, it wasn’t to scan the men nearby, to see if one came for her.

No.

Her head snapped straight in my direction, her eyes dark and glinting like blades.

Even though I knew she’d never see me over this distance and in the dark when there was no light nearby, instinctively, I dropped below the cover of the shrubs I’d been crouching behind.

Peering through the tiny gaps between leaves, I saw her brows pinch and consternation on her face. And something deep in my chest pinched to laugh.

But as I drank in the sight of her, and my body made promises my mind had no intention of keeping, the night was pierced by a scream of such desperate terror, my blood came alive with adrenaline.

I leaped to my feet, every warrior’s instinct on high alert, about to lose the obscurity of my wings and dive into the deadly fray when all hell broke loose.

Diadre sucked in a breath and blinked rapidly, jerking back, her eyes coming into focus as she broke the connection and focused on me.

“You were there that night?” she breathed.

I nodded. “I told myself I’d been drawn into the music and the… attraction in the air. But obviously… obviously a part of me recognized you, even then.”

She stared up at me, shocked. “Why didn’t you say anything?”