Page 7 of The King’s Man (The Kingdom of the Krow #3)

~ DIADRE ~

Riding with Jann at my back was an odd kind of torture. When he wasn’t being an ass, I could appreciate his smile—and his flirting. But it scared me too.

He was… ferocious. Watching him fight during that battle had been breathtaking. And terrifying.

With few exceptions, my life was a testimony to the unreliable character of men.

When I was an adolescent, it had seemed the world bowed to men. I’d wanted to be one. Cursed my body for being smaller and weaker, for having breasts, for producing tears. But while I was still young and not yet a soldier, I’d learned the power my body held over those very same men.

That was an eye-opening time in my life.

And one I mostly regretted. Expecting admiration—perhaps even love—I’d given myself far too easily and far too often to men who proved unworthy of the gift.

Men who were either selfish, or disregarded me once they had what they wanted.

Some had merely wanted to prove their strength to themselves by breaking mine.

I’d been what my mother described as wanton, and she’d lived—and died—in terror that my indiscretions would be discovered by noble society.

I couldn’t count the number of times she’d told me to stop acting like a man.

That I was not a man, and living like one would destroy me.

Neither she, nor any other woman, had ever been able to explain to me why men in our society were expected to live promiscuously—if discreetly so—while the women, who were their bedmates, were condemned for the very same activities.

“That is the way of the world, Diadre. Grow accustomed to it. It will not change,” my mother said with a sniff when I was seventeen years old, and ranting about yet another man who’d used me, yet was celebrated at Court.

In my late teens I was forced to make a decision. Would I submit to my fate as a real noblewoman as my mother put it? Take a husband, produce a family, attend the Queen at Court?

Or would I become a soldier?

Jhonas had been training me for years, and commented that I was faster, and more balanced than many of the men he trained. But I needed more brute strength and wouldn’t find it without devoting most of my time to it.

I wavered on that line for almost a year.

Then I met Walt.

Walt was beautiful. And strong. A capable fighter. And a keenly intelligent mind. He was twelve years my senior… and married.

He flirted, and cajoled. He discovered my secret training with Jhonas and Yilan, and rather than judging me, took an interest.

He said he saw the things in me I’d always wished a man would see: Strength, beauty, desirability, and intelligence. He applauded those things, even told me he wished his own daughters would grow up to be like me.

I’d never had a man appreciate my differences before. I was besotted with him. And very, very quickly, seduced.

The affair lasted months.

At first, when he offered critique on my fighting style—which Jhonas had helped me adjust from the standard form to complement my greater speed and flexibility but lesser strength than men—I thought he was trying to help me, and I only loved him more.

Then one day, after his grip on my heart was complete, he caught me sparring with one of Jhonas’s friends who’d been helping us for years.

Walt flew into a rage, convinced that I trained with the man in order to seduce him.

I was horrified, terrified of losing him, and immediately told Jhonas I wouldn’t spar with his friend anymore.

That soothed Walt’s anger for a time, and things returned to the thrilling, heart-swelling passion we’d had. But now with a tiny tension. A niggle of fear.

I caught myself watching him, looking for that tic in his cheek that meant he was stifling anger. I questioned my decisions—should I train when Walt wasn’t there? Would he hear, and think something was wrong?

Should I train at all, if it wasn’t with him?

Jhonas reprimanded me, claiming I’d become unreliable, and distracted when I was present. I grew defensive. There were pressures in my life—pressures to be something I wasn’t—that Jhonas would never understand. I tore into my brother.

“You are celebrated for being strong and a fighter. You are applauded and promoted and encouraged. Whereas, almost everyone considers this my vice! I have to fight for the chance to fucking fight, Jhonas. Don’t talk to me about being distracted!”

My brother gaped, then his eyes narrowed. “You can be angry at our society, Dee, but don’t throw that at me. I’ve been nothing but supportive since you started playing with my training blades.”

Then he stalked out, the heels of his officer’s boots clipping on the floor, and he looked so strong and dignified and… God, everything I wanted to be. And everything I knew I wasn’t. Yet.

Why were men able to do that? How did they carry themselves in such a way that even if you disagreed, you understood why people believed them?

Why couldn’t I do that? Was it really just their physical strength? Did that control over their surroundings offer them something deeper? Something I could never achieve?

I went weeping to Walt that afternoon, and he soothed me. Reassured me. Made me love him even more. Until I was so encouraged and thrilled that he believed in me—that was all I needed!—that I told him I wanted to make a career out of being a soldier.

And then he laughed.

I stood there in the empty hayloft where we often met because our love was forbidden, feeling my heart shrivel in my chest as he spluttered and chuckled.

I stopped breathing. “Why are you laughing?”

He swallowed his amusement immediately, but as the mirth passed, his gaze grew calculating.

“Hold… You’re serious?”

I gaped. “Of course I’m serious. I’ve been training my entire life. It’s always felt right for me. Always. How can you be shocked? You’ve told me how good I am at this—far better than any of the feminine pursuits I’ve tried. Why wouldn’t you want me to—”

“Darling… Diadre… There is such a difference between playing at fighting, and soldiering . You can’t possibly believe you would survive even a day in formal training? The men would beat you into the dirt.”

I took a step back from him as something inside my chest cracked. “You said… you said that I was better than most of your rank and file. That I was faster and—”

“Quick, yes. An assassin? Maybe. You have a better mindset than the young bucks your age, it’s true.

There’s a humility in you that most fighting men lack.

You are very teachable. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Dee.

I love teaching you,” he purred, then prowled towards me with that heated look that always melted me at my core and shut my mouth and turned my body on and—

“No,” I breathed, stepping back as he reached for me. “No, don’t… don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what? Appreciate you?”

“No, don’t ignore me.”

His expression tightened. “I am here, listening to you, speaking with you, offering my body—offering to please yours. I’m not ignoring you, Dee.”

“You’re… you’re doing what they all do. You’re dismissing me. Like this is some kind of child’s fancy.”

“Because it is,” he said sharply. “I believe women should train. You need to if you’re to have any chance of defending yourself against some bastard who decides he can take what he wants.

I am not ignorant to the failures of men.

Look at me, here, attending you when I am a married father of two…

” He shook his head and his nose wrinkled.

“Make no mistake, Diadre, I will train my daughters, and celebrate their skills. Cheer when they put a blade into the ribs of an unsuspecting man who would hurt them. But to put a woman on the battlefield? It’s laughable. ”

“You said I was better than—"

“I said you learned better. I said you train better—with more diligence. And that I admire your skill—and I do! But that is about your character and your strength as a woman. You are not a man, Dee. And you never will be. I know that better than any of them.”

He smiled again and I almost gave in—when he looked at me like that I felt like the most desirable woman in the world.

But his words…

“You’ve been lying to me,” I breathed. “Seducing me.”

“I’ve been kind to you because I like you—don’t make that an accusation.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head and backing away from him again. “No, you’ve been lying. You’re just like the rest of them.”

“That is such utter bullshit—but you’re only proving my point.

Emotional—you can’t think without those blasted feelings getting everything tangled up.

A man would look at this problem logically.

Could you defend yourself against the Baker’s son when he grabbed you?

Or a stablehand? Yes, of course. And I’d stand by and watch you put him on his face, and applaud it when you did.

But a man would recognize that your body will never have the strength or power needed to overwhelm a true warrior.

And for that reason alone a man would never take you onto the battlefield.

You would have to be watched and protected, rather than relied on.

” He took a step closer, drawing himself up.

“Your willingness to insist on this only demonstrates how ignorant you are of the truth,” he hissed.

“You said—”

“I said what you wanted to hear so that you’d let me fuck you, Diadre. There. Are you happy now? Will you rush off and cry and tell me never to speak to you again because your feelings are hurt by the truth?”

My mouth opened to tell him exactly that, but I stopped, mind whirling, confusion and self-doubt spiraling through me.

I was offended, and hurt, and feeling used.

But he’d twisted that into weakness. How could I stand my ground, argue his points, without affirming exactly what he was saying? I felt… trapped.