Page 12

Chapter Twelve

SYLVIE

I waited for Crispin’s footsteps to fade. Then I waited some more.

I’d gotten good at it on the Isle of the Gods, where everything happened at Perun’s pace. Rivers were patient. They carved furrows into the hardest rock even when it took centuries. Waiting was nothing to me.

Confronting my husband was another thing entirely.

He hadn’t moved since the door shut, his jaw tense and his gaze fixed on the fire in the hearth. Briar stared at him. Then he looked at me.

“Come here,” I said. As Tanyl faced the bed, I sat up. “Both of you.”

They glanced at each other, and it was all the confession I needed. But, of course, I didn’t really need one. Saltvale had shimmered between them since the moment Briar rode across the bridge.

Slowly, they came to the bed. By some unspoken agreement, Briar stayed by the footboard as Tanyl settled in Briar’s abandoned chair.

Silence draped over the bedchamber like a blanket, the lack of sound broken only by the occasional pop of the fire. I smoothed my skirts over my legs and then folded my hands in my lap. Briar gripped the carved wood of the footboard, his face tight and pale. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw.

Tanyl met my stare. Held it. “I was unfaithful,” he said quietly.

I braced for pain. When it didn’t come, I released a slow breath, and I prodded the expectation like someone testing the edges of a bruise. Something within me was tender, yes, but it wasn’t wounded.

“I gathered as much,” I said, surprised when my voice was steady. I kept my gaze just as steady as I looked from Briar back to Tanyl. “What happened this morning? Besides you getting on your knees.”

Tanyl winced, and he let me see it. He was far too practiced at court machinations to display emotion unless he wanted to.

He also knew better than to reach for me, but he shifted forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees as he spoke in a low, serious voice. “What Briar said is true, Sylvie, but I swear to you on Perun and all the gods that I have never betrayed you since we wed. I’ve kept my vows.”

“Except for this morning,” I said.

He didn’t wince this time. “Yes.”

I looked at Briar. He stood stiffly, his posture as wooden as the footboard he gripped.

“It started in Saltvale,” Tanyl rasped, pulling my gaze back to him. “You know part of the story. My father preferred someone else fight the Scarrok, so he shipped me to the Rivven. The elders made it clear they wanted nothing more than to put me on a boat and send me straight back. Rumor had it they placed bets on how long I’d last before I broke down and begged to go home. It made me angry, and I was determined to pass their little test.”

Nothing about Saltvale was little. I didn’t need to experience it to know the deprivation Tanyl had endured. But he obviously hadn’t deprived himself of certain kinds of comfort.

It wasn’t as shocking as it might have been. Word of Tanyl’s appetites had reached as far as the Isle of the Gods. And after we wed, he’d confirmed his desires extended to men as well as women. But he’d also vowed to be faithful.

The chair creaked as he leaned closer, his sharp gaze missing nothing. “I meant every word of our marriage vows, Sylvie. I have never been with another, not in all our years together.”

“Until today,” I said, the bruise twinging.

His gaze didn’t waver. “Until today,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry for it. I’m also selfish because I beg your forgiveness even though I don’t deserve it.”

Something drew my attention to Briar, who stared at Tanyl. And there was the pain I’d expected, the sheen of it raw enough to steal my breath.

“What happened in Saltvale?” I asked, unsure which man I addressed.

“We happened,” Tanyl said, and Briar looked down. Tanyl kept his eyes on me. “We didn’t plan it.” He straightened, and the firelight played over the braid that had all but unraveled on his shoulder. “The elders probably should have planned it,” he continued, some of his customary irreverence slipping into his voice. “Two young men dumped in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but try not to die.” He huffed. “Of course we fucked.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Briar said, his harsh voice making Tanyl and I turn to him. He stared at Tanyl for a moment before lowering his gaze to the bed.

Tanyl’s expression softened. “What was it like?”

Briar shook his head. “I don’t… It wasn’t sordid. But it was wrong.” His fingers on the footboard turned white. “I took my vows at age eighteen. I broke them at age twenty.” He lifted his head, his gray eyes locking with mine, and the pain there was a knife, not a bruise. “I kept them for fifty years, Your Grace, only to break them again, Perun save my wretched soul.”

I moved without conscious thought, shoving the blankets back and swinging my legs over the mattress. Brushing past Tanyl’s chair, I rounded the bed. Briar’s eyes widened when I reached him, and he tightened his grip on the footboard as I cupped his jaw.

“Love isn’t a sin,” I said. “It’s a gift. Only fools refuse it.”

Silence held. Briar’s shaky breath coasted over my wrist. “You don’t understand,” he murmured. “I made vows to the gods.”

I stroked my thumb over his cheek, shivers coursing through me at the rasp of his stubble against my skin. His lashes swept down, and he kept his eyes closed for a second before he met my gaze again. When he did, I lifted my other hand and showed him my wrist.

“You think I don’t understand devotion to the gods, Briar Finthir?”

A soft creak made me turn. Tanyl had stood, and his eyes glinted as he approached, stopping just behind me and taking my wrist. His features were sharper in the firelight, his cheekbones carved from shadow and flame as he lowered his head and brushed a kiss over the sestra’s chain around my wrist.

“You still desire him,” I said, making it a statement. It wasn’t the one that hovered in my mind. Some deep instinct told me to keep it to myself for now.

“I do,” Tanyl said, and Briar’s jaw moved under my palm. My husband brushed his lips back and forth over my wrist, his eyes locked with mine. “And you want him too.” As Briar stiffened, Tanyl touched the tip of his tongue to my pulse. “I’m not sure if that makes things easier or more complicated.”

My nipples tightened, the truth of Tanyl’s words raising goosebumps on my skin as surely as his tongue. For all his sacrilege, he knew the Faith better than any sestra. Intention was the same as the deed. And when Briar had healed me, attraction had spiraled into something more. When he’d leaned into me, his hand on mine and his big body throwing off heat, my marriage vows had been the last thing on my mind.

As Tanyl pressed a kiss to my fluttering pulse, I turned back to Briar. Color burned on his cheeks, and the pain in his eyes remained. But now, something else joined it.

Longing.

He looked at me—and then he dipped his eyes to my breasts.

And another instinct whispered within me, speaking not in words but deep knowledge that told me Briar Finthir might have first broken his vows with Tanyl, but he would break them again. This time, for me.

The air shifted, tension pulling tight. The fire crackled, the chamber suddenly too warm. My senses sharpened, every part of me aware of the brush of Tanyl’s lips and the taut edge of Briar’s jaw. Poised between them, I could only wait.

Tanyl lifted his head, his blue eyes darkened to midnight. “It’s treason for the queen to touch another man.”

My breath hitched, desire pooling low in my body even as remnants of anger stirred. But as always with Tanyl, the second fueled the first. Which was almost certainly why he’d said it.

“Does that rule apply to the king?” I asked.

He shook his head, and he stepped into me, his groin brushing my backside. His heat caressed my skin as he slid his hand up my arm, not stopping until he dipped his fingers into my neckline. He paused. When I turned my head, he watched me.

I didn’t stop him. I didn’t want to. Perun help me, I’d never wanted to, not even when he pushed me too far. Especially when he pushed me too far. Briar said nothing, but his jaw flexed under my hand.

“There are no rules for kings,” Tanyl said, sinking his fingers lower. My bodice gaped, exposing my breasts, and I let my eyes drift shut as lust crested, the wave indecent and irresistible. Briar’s gaze on me burned like a brand. His jaw flexed again, stubble rough against my hand. Cool air caressed my nipples, and I opened my eyes just as Tanyl’s fingers closed around the aching peaks, pinching lightly. “It’s terribly unfair, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

He pinched harder, and I couldn’t hold back my gasp as pain shot through my breasts. “A queen must die for her hunger,” he said, “while a king feasts wherever he pleases.”

I turned back to Briar, who watched Tanyl play with my breasts, his lips parted and his breathing uneven. When I lowered my hand from his face, he swayed on his feet. The footboard protested under his grip.

“But I can be merciful,” Tanyl said, releasing my nipples long enough to tug my gown off my shoulders. It puddled at my waist, and he reached around and cupped my breasts with both hands. He put his mouth next to my ear. “I can punish you instead.”