The Midnight Bride

Kati Wilde

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

THE MIDNIGHT BRIDE

Copyright © 2019 Kati Wilde

Cover design by Kati Wilde. Couple photo © The Killion Group. Background image © metehan and licensed from Adobe Stock. Bonus map sketches © mtmmarek and © only4denn.

All rights reserved.

First Audiobook Edition (Read Me Romance), June 2019

First Digital Edition, September 2019

katiwilde.com

Contents

The Midnight Bride

Map

1. Strax the Last

2. Mara the Defeated

3. Strax the Vowkeeper

4. Mara the Thirsty

5. Strax the Hungry

6. Mara the Fallen

7. Strax the Believer

8. Mara the Champion

9. Strax the Guardian

10. Epilogue

Strax’s Journey

The Dead Lands by Kati Wilde

Author’s Note

Also by Kati Wilde

Newsletter

The Midnight Bride

A Dead Lands Fantasy Romance

To save her family from a tyrant king, Mara of Aremond must win a tournament—and she won’t let anyone stop her from claiming the prize. Especially not Strax, the barbarian warrior who has tormented her every step of the way. But when a sorcerer's trap binds them together, Mara must decide whether Strax is her greatest enemy, or if everything she seeks can only be found in the barbarian’s arms…

Please note: The audiobook version of this novella was originally featured on the Read Me Romance podcast. This release marks the first time this story is available in ebook or print, and includes a bonus epilogue and map not included in the podcast version.

Chapter 1

Strax the Last

Here we are, once again weaving a tale of a bride, hoping the words become a spell and make magic. Others have come before—one mail-order, one pretty—and still we await the midsummer bride.

But now comes one at midnight.

The time is anotherwhen, a date unknown but nearing the conclusion of a perilous tournament. The place is anotherwhere, a world unnamed but far north of the Illwind Sea. And this story begins, as many stories do, long before our hero and heroine were born. Before ink and parchment, before chisel and stone. So long ago, all that is known of this story’s beginning are legends of legends—of two brothers who loved each other, but whose battles broke the world.

Those brothers are not the heroes of this story. Nor are they the villains. Instead they are a warning and a lesson. For we know well the powerful magic that is love.

But sometimes…love is not enough.

The Forest Road

The day that Strax’s heart was torn from his chest began as every other morning did—he awakened from dreams of Mara with his cock hardened to steel and his hand gripping his sword. Each night, sleep revealed everything he concealed while awake: that his body yearned for Mara’s touch as powerfully as his heart yearned to protect her.

But Strax could not help Mara on her quest to retrieve the Gauntlet of Khides. Not without betraying his sacred duty. And with his brother lost to the waves of the Illwind Sea, Strax was the only warrior who could see this journey through to the end.

So when he rose from his furs, Strax didn’t cross the short distance between their camps. Instead he broke his fast with a strip of dried venison and watched Mara stir from her own bed. First her head emerged from the furs, and dawn’s golden light glinted off the russet strands interwoven through her long dark hair like sparks rising through smoke. Then came her shoulders, clad only in a heavy woven tunic. A quiet moment passed wherein she sat hugging herself against the early morning chill, with her legs still covered and her blankets bunched around her waist.

In the autumn and winter, she’d always leapt out of her furs fully clothed, then quickly saddled her mount. But as spring progressed, she lingered longer and longer in the warmth of her bed.

Strax wished he could interpret Mara’s delay as an invitation to join her and truly warm her bed. But the only invitation Strax was likely to receive would be an invitation to stab a sword through his head. She rarely glanced back in his direction—and when she did, no desire burned in her dark eyes. Instead he could only see anger and distrust.

Strax preferred Mara’s anger and distrust to what he suspected kept her in that bed, however. In the past weeks, an invisible weight had settled upon her shoulders. Despair, perhaps. Or hopelessness.

It didn’t matter what Strax called the burden; only its cause mattered, and that he could easily guess. Six months past, Mara had entered the king of Aremond’s tournament to retrieve Khides’ ancient gauntlet from the goddess’s stone keep. Three dozen other contestants had joined the race, all hardened warriors—and they had all quickly outpaced her. Within a week, a full day’s ride had separated Mara from the pack. Within a month, she traveled faster than she had started out, yet the distance between her and the other contestants had widened.

Yet although she lagged far behind, Mara hadn’t given up. Strax had seen the determination that pushed her onto the road each day at first light and kept her there until she fell exhausted into bed each night. He had witnessed her struggle through every obstacle in her path. That she could reach Khides’ keep, he had no doubt.

But she wouldn’t reach it before the others did. To the northeast, the Skull Cliffs were visible in the distance. Not more than a week’s ride away, and Khides’ keep wasn’t much farther than that.

If the gauntlet could be retrieved—and if the guardians at the keep could be defeated—then one of the other contestants probably had it in his possession. Strax would know soon—and so would Mara. There was no other road back to Aremond, so the victor had to ride in this direction to claim his prize. Their paths would soon cross.

So of recent mornings, it seemed that Mara had to force herself to greet a day that might bring her defeat. As if continuing on a quest she’d already lost required more effort from her than simply getting to her feet.

Had Strax not been bound by a blood obligation to stop anyone from winning the tournament, he would have lifted her. He would have carried her.

But he could not.

Instead he called out, “At the speed you move now, woman, a snail will find the gauntlet before you do!”

Her back stiffened. No doubt she was deciding how to respond. Moving quickly meant that his words affected her. But moving slowly proved him right.

As always, she found the response that did neither. Without looking in his direction, she rose smoothly to her feet and called back, “At least I am not the slug in last place, warrior!”

“Today will be the day that I overtake you!” Strax declared heartily. “Then you will be last!”

Her dismissive scoff reached his ears, and Strax grinned. Reclining back on his elbow, he watched her dress in soft leather leggings and boots. Still pretending his comments hadn’t prodded her along, none of her movements were rushed. Yet she didn’t linger, either.

Efficiently she broke camp. Much more efficiently than she had during the first days of the tournament. She had only a few possessions to gather—so different from the woman Strax had met six months before, in a coliseum in Aremond where the race had begun. He and his brother had been standing among three dozen other warriors when a noblewoman had ridden into the stadium on her fine Glacian gelding, leading another horse loaded down with supplies. Her black hair was woven into a shining coronet, and her soft body was clad in silks threaded with gold.

She was the most beautiful woman Strax had ever seen. And he’d assumed her presence in the coliseum meant she must be the victor’s prize—and in that moment, he’d wanted to join the tournament in truth so that he could win her. Then he’d discovered she was another contestant.

Strax hadn’t expected her to last a week. And he’d told her so.

Yet she’d proven him wrong. After a morning when she’d spent more time packing her camp than traveling, she’d given her extra supplies and horse to a villager she encountered on the side of the road. She’d traded in her fine gelding for a sturdy mare that could better handle the grueling pace. Everything that slowed her, she left behind. Now here she was. No longer as soft—and no longer in silks, but leather and furs.

And still the most beautiful woman he’d ever beheld. So Strax beheld her as often as he could.

Only a few minutes passed before Mara mounted her mare and started down the road at a brisk clip. Strax remained where he was. At some point today, he would make a show of attempting to overtake her. But being in last place suited him. He was not here to win.

So it mattered little if he tarried in bed, stroking the thick length of his cock and picturing the smiling curve of Mara’s lush lips. He’d seen her smile before, though it had never been aimed at him. Instead she’d bestowed it upon his twin during those first weeks of the race. But Strax could not be jealous, because everyone smiled at Aruk. Strax’s brother was everything that he was not—always laughing and joking, putting both friends and strangers at ease.

And unlike Strax, Aruk was not last; instead he was simply lost.

Strax’s throat tightened and a dark ache bloomed in his chest. Determinedly he focused on Mara’s lips again—and the memory of her body against his.

He knew that, as well. While crossing the Illwind Sea, a squall had nearly capsized the merchant ship carrying Strax, Aruk, and Mara to the northern shore. After a wave tore Aruk’s hand from Strax’s grip, carrying his brother into the thrashing waters, Strax had lashed a rope around Mara’s waist and tied the other end around his. Then he’d held on to the mast, and from sunset to dawn, she’d clung to him as wave after wave crashed over the decks.

When the storm was finally spent, they’d been battered and wet and cold, yet Strax could still feel the comfort of Mara’s hand upon his cheek. He could hear the warmth of her voice in grief and sorrow—and picture the sympathy in her eyes when he’d insisted that Aruk had survived and so he had nothing to grieve.

Just as he did not grieve the way the warmth in her gaze became an angry fire again when he’d stated that, if not for him, she would have drowned that night. That the race was too dangerous for a woman who wasn’t a warrior and that she ought to give up and return home. When he’d said she would never win.

But the storm had not been the only night he’d known the softness of her body against his. There had also been the six nights through the Noredge pass, when the bitter cold that fell over the mountains would have killed them in their sleep—except they shared blankets and warmth and a fire. For six nights he’d barely slept, holding Mara’s slumbering form tight, his cock and his heart aching for more.

Strax imagined more now, as he had every day since. He imagined that instead of lying stiffly with her back against his chest until her body relaxed into sleep, she had turned to face him. That she’d cradled his face in her hands and drew his mouth to hers. That he’d tasted the heat of her kiss and the sweetness of her cunt before plunging his cock deep. That she’d cried out his name with every powerful thrust, until she began shuddering beneath him, her luscious sheath clasping him tight as he found his own release. That he’d spilled his seed into her clenching depths and not into his hand.

And Strax imagined that afterward, he would not feel this great emptiness within. Instead he would hold her, and every word he said would be the words Strax wished to say—and not the words his duty demanded.

But that could not be. So Strax rose from his furs, washed the spend from his hand, and checked the snares he’d set the night before. Only two rabbits, yet that would feed him well—and Mara, too, if she failed to catch anything of her own this day. She would glower at him when he tossed the rabbit into her pot and remarked upon her poor hunting skills, yet she never refused the meat. She was proud and stubborn but not foolish.

Strax was a fool for helping her at all. But feeding her also gave him reason to visit her camp, where Mara might ask him to stay and share the meal or invite him to her bed, so a fool he would continue to be.

A slow fool, this morning. Despite his promise to overtake Mara, he let his mount amble at a comfortable pace through the forest road. The tournament map given to each contestant showed that he would soon come upon a crossroads marked by two stone obelisks. The sun was high overhead when he emerged from the woods and saw the obelisks standing upon a grassy mound ahead.

The forest road continued east to Wintermere and the Silver Coast, and was well-traveled. The tournament route continued north, onto a road that was a rough track no wider than a game trail.

Strax guided his horse onto the track—then reined the animal to a halt. The skin on the back of his neck tightened.

There was a powerful enchantment here. The corrupted magic skittered over his senses like a spider bursting with venom. He could feel its presence, but because of the wards inked into his skin, the spell could not affect him.

Mara had no similar protection.

His stomach roiling as if he were in the midst of another storm, upon another ship that might capsize and drag him under, Strax dismounted. The source of the spell he found quickly enough—a lure and an illusion, the runes carved into stones and faintly glowing. A spell that would have made her see or hear something that would have drawn her in. A baby crying, perhaps. Or someone she loved shouting for help.

Quickly he destroyed the spell and began searching for her trail. She had not continued up the northern track; there were no new hoofprints to follow.

Strax raced for the east road. There was sign of Mara here…but not only of Mara. She had been ambushed by three men. And she’d fought—Strax found her bloodied sword wedged into a clump of grass—but lost. Then she’d been taken down the east road.

Attacked. Abducted. And he had not been here to help her.

His blood obligation demanded that he not help her now. Yet he did not even hesitate before leaping into his saddle and galloping down the east road.

Strax had already lost his brother. He would not lose Mara, too.

* * *

He tracked Mara to Wintermere, and amid the busy streets he lost her trail. But in a city, there were always open eyes to see everything that occurred. The difficulty lay in opening mouths.

Strax had been in kingdoms like Wintermere before. Realms where the citizens looked at him with wary, fearful gazes. Not only because of his size or the sword he carried, but because their courage had been starved and beaten out of them. Aremond, where the tournament had begun and where Mara was from, was such a realm. And in such places, Strax’s coins did more to open mouths than the threat of his sword would…but he was willing to use both if necessary.

It didn’t prove to be. By the end of the day, he learned of an auction house where a foreign noblewoman was rumored to have been taken. With his last gold coin, Strax bribed the captain of the auction house’s guard, claiming he wished to view the merchandise before making his bid. The ease of the transaction told Strax the captain often accepted such bribes. And indeed, they had barely entered the holding pens before the captain slyly suggested that, for the price of another coin, Strax might do more to the caged men and women than view them.

Despite the rage burning in his veins, Strax did not yet draw his sword. Instead his heart thundered as they passed every cage, until he reached the final holding pen. Relief poured through him. Mara was here. Curled on a pallet against the far wall, naked but for the covering of her long hair. Even with her back to them, he knew at a glance it was she. His throat knotted with sheer emotion. Lifting his chin, he indicated to the captain that this was the woman he wished to examine more closely.

“Eyes open and on your feet, wench!” The clang of a brass cudgel against the iron bars followed the captain’s command. “A suitor is here to admire you.”

Mara didn’t stir, but replied in the melodic accent common to the realms south of the Illwind Sea. “Then he can admire my ass, because I have no intention of posing for two-legged swine.”

“She believes herself too good to follow orders, which is why she’s got Thadus’s collar around her throat,” the captain said to Strax before raising his voice. “Wench! On your feet, or you’ll be slopped with a bucket of piss.”

That was hardly a threat to a woman such as Mara. In the months since the Great Tournament had begun, she had suffered worse while overcoming the obstacles along the route. She had dived into a lake of putrid troll slime. She had crawled through a dragon’s rotting corpse. She had swallowed a baleworm’s fiery spend. Through countless challenges, she had suffered indignities greater than a bucket could ever hold.

And through it all, she had endured. She had fought. And she had prevailed. Even now, she likely plotted her escape from this cage.

Strax had no doubt that she would succeed. But he’d help her succeed more quickly. “Does she enjoy lying abed, then?” Strax asked softly and watched her spine stiffen at the sound of his voice.

The captain laughed. “Better if she does. After the auction, she’ll be on her back often enough.”

No. But Strax didn’t say it aloud, because Mara was getting to her feet, and her sheer beauty stole his every word, his every thought. From her small toes to the lean strength of her thighs, from the silky curls guarding her cunt to the soft handfuls of her breasts. From her full, unsmiling mouth to her dark eyes—

Which did not burn with anger or distrust now. Which did not burn at all. Instead Mara regarded him with a dull, hopeless gaze…as if she were utterly defeated.

Pain ripped through his chest, a hot blade of agonizing grief. Because he’d lost her after all. He’d tarried this morning to stroke his cock, and whatever had happened to her between then and now had doused the fire in her that he loved so desperately. The weight of that loss drowned him, crushing his heart.

“I can’t take extra coin for this one.” The captain’s words sounded muffled, as if Strax heard them underwater. “A virgin fetches a higher price, so she must remain untouched until the auction.”

Strax’s agony narrowed to a sharp, burning edge. “How are you certain she’s untouched?”

“Thadus himself examined her,” the other man said, then added with a leer, “’Tis a pity, because me and my guards would have made good use of a beauty like her until—”

Strax slammed the captain’s head into the iron bars. The crack of the man’s skull and plop of his brains to the ground barely registered over the sound of Mara’s indrawn breath. The surprise lighting her gaze was not a fire. But it was a spark, and gladdened Strax so fiercely that he bared his teeth in a grin at the guards rushing him with their swords drawn.

Strax didn’t draw his own sword, preferring the satisfaction of his fists. His hands dripped with the blood of a dozen guards when he finally collected the keys from the captain’s corpse.

He unlocked Mara’s cage and tossed the keys into the next holding pen, where a man stood at the bars staring at him with widened eyes. “Free the others,” Strax commanded.

The man rushed to comply. Strax glanced back at Mara. She hadn’t made a move toward the open door of her cage. Because of her nudity? He didn’t believe that would stop her for even a moment.

Yet he stripped off his own bloodstained tunic and entered her pen. As he pulled the tunic over her bowed head, Mara said in a thick voice, “You needn’t have gone to these lengths to overtake me today, warrior.”

Frowning, he tipped up her chin. Dull hopelessness still filled her eyes. “Why have you not already freed yourself? You escaped the soul-flayers in Blackpine, yet cannot escape a cage?”

She lifted her chin higher, and his gaze fell to the delicate wire twisted around her throat. “Because the ruler of this realm is just like Solegius, and has bound me with this collar.”

Solegius, the tyrant sorcerer of Aremond. Here in Wintermere, a sorcerer named Thadus sat on the throne.

The same sorcerer who’d examined Mara to see whether she was a virgin. Strax had already planned to kill the man. Now he would kill him much, much more slowly. “What does the collar do?”

“It forces me to obey the orders of any man with a claim on me. For now that man is Thadus, and he ordered me not to leave this cage until I am auctioned. Then the man who buys me will claim me however he wishes to.”

Not while Strax lived. And although he knew it would be impossible, he attempted to break the wire. The fragile strand proved stronger than steel.

“I have tried that, warrior,” Mara said softly, and he could see that she had. Livid red marked her skin where she had scratched and pulled at the wire. “Only someone with power over the collar can remove it.”

Only a man who’d claimed her. Jaw clenched, Strax nodded—and then tossed her slight form up over his shoulder. She couldn’t voluntarily leave. So he would carry her out.

Yet the moment he stepped through the door, she began thrashing and choking. Immediately he returned her to the cage, where she gasped for air. A new red mark around her throat showed where the collar had constricted and strangled her.

His own throat feeling as if he’d been garroted, Strax set her down. Voice hoarse, he told her, “I’ll return for you.”

He didn’t know which hurt worse—having to leave Mara alone, or how she clearly didn’t believe that he would come back for her.

A sad smile curved her mouth. “Thank you for trying, warrior.”

He’d do more than try. Yet saying so would mean nothing to her, because she trusted his words not at all. Only actions mattered now. Silently, Strax pressed a dagger into her hand, so that she could defend herself while he was gone. When he returned, she would never need to protect herself again.

But the dagger was not all Strax gave her. Because Mara might not know it, but his torn and bloodied heart also lay in her hands. And he would never again be free unless she was.

Which meant Strax must kill a king.

Chapter 2

Mara the Defeated

Wintermere

I cannot give up now. I cannot give up now. I cannot give up now.

The five words were a chant in Mara’s head, echoed by the silent movement of her lips. If she had been a sorcerer, those words might have had more power. But she was only a woman with no power except for her courage and her will.

Courage and will had gotten her this far, however. So they would also get her out of this cage. She only needed to imagine a way to escape.

In the past six months, Mara had overcome every obstacle in her path. She could now, too, though her current imprisonment was not part of the tournament. At the crossroads, when she’d heard her mother calling for help, then her younger brothers and sisters screaming, Mara had believed it was yet another danger for the contestants to battle. But it was only a trap, set by a sorcerer tyrant who filled his treasury by trading in human flesh.

The collar circling her neck was cold to the touch, yet still seemed to burn her skin. Had it been a shackle around her wrist, she would have used Strax’s dagger to cut off her hand. But cutting off her own head wasn’t so easy.

More likely, she’d need to cut off someone else’s head. Because the more she considered her options, it seemed only one remained. The collar would force her to submit to an auction and to endure whatever horrors befell her afterward. So her only choice was to bide her time, wait for an opportunity to kill the man who bought her, and then escape.

But time was the one thing Mara did not have. If another contestant returned to Aremond with the gauntlet and won the tournament, everyone Mara had ever known and loved would die.

So she could not give up now. No matter how tired and lonely she was. No matter how her heart ached with despair and fear.

It ached more fiercely since Strax had left her. She had no hope he would return. In truth, she wasn’t certain he’d really come.

When Mara first heard his voice speaking to the captain of the guard, she’d believed she was dreaming—or was in a nightmare. For six months, Strax had been the bane of her existence. The barbarian rarely opened his mouth, yet whenever he did, it was only to insult her. To say that she was not clever enough or strong enough to win the tournament. That she was not fast enough.

And he was not wrong. Every other warrior competing in this tournament was far ahead. All but one. Almost from the beginning, Strax had trailed her. Sometimes within sight, sometimes a day or two behind. But always following. And despite his insults, Mara had comforted herself with the knowledge that she wasn’t in last place.

But that was no longer true. When she’d been captured, the misery of being caged and collared had been enough to bear. That the barbarian wasn’t here to witness her humiliation and defeat had been her only consolation.

Then he’d come. Yet to her astonishment, the barbarian hadn’t humiliated her or insulted her further. And if she hadn’t been clutching his dagger in her hand, she’d have believed his appearance was yet another sorcerer’s illusion—a spell designed to show her the Strax that she’d always wished he would be. A warrior who helped her. A warrior who so gently touched her face. A warrior who looked at her with concern and warmth instead of doubt and disdain.

If his presence had been a spell, it would have been a cruel illusion, indeed. To have Strax suddenly be everything she wished he was…and then watch him leave.

But Mara could not blame Strax for going. Only powerful magic could defeat this collar. Why would he risk everything—the tournament or his life—to save a woman he always mocked?

Of course he would not. So Strax had abandoned Mara here with a confusing mix of gratitude and despair roiling within her heart…and a dagger that she might soon need to use.

All of the other prisoners had fled the auction house. For almost an hour, Mara’s only company had been the bloodied corpses outside her cell. Yet she could hear someone approaching now—and her cage door was unlocked, offering her no protection.

Her grip tightened on the dagger. Heart pounding, she debated whether to hide, curling herself out of sight in the corner of her cage.

But Mara had never been one to run and hide. So she stood in the middle of her cell, eyes narrowed down the length of the dim passageway.

For a moment, she didn’t recognize the enormous figure who came out of the shadows. And when she did recognize him, it took another moment to believe he was there.

Strax.

As she’d never seen him before, nearly every inch of his skin painted crimson with blood. He’d always been a huge, barbaric figure, his black hair carelessly tied back in a strip of leather. Now the strands hung around his face, dripping with gore. And she’d seen him many times without a tunic—he hadn’t even begun wearing one until the weather grew so cold that ice covered the puddles in the road each morning—yet he’d never appeared so terrifyingly strong, his sinewy muscles like sculpted granite and his stride the smooth prowl of a panther’s, gripping his sword in one hand and a man’s head in the other.

With dropped jaw, she watched him toss the head into her piss bucket…but not before she saw the death-slackened face. That head belonged to the ruler of Wintermere—Thadus the sorcerer, whose collar circled her neck, and who’d forced her legs open to confirm her virginity.

She’d wished Thadus dead then. But he’d been surrounded by guards and resided in the fortress at the center of the city—and with a few words, his magic could have killed her.

Now his head was in her bucket, and Mara was only sorry that she hadn’t yet shit in it.

And she was astonished. That head meant Strax must have fought his way into the fortress. He must have defeated Thadus’s guards, before defeating the sorcerer himself…and he must have done it alone. She could hardly comprehend the skill and power the barbarian must have. Never had he shown it before. Such a warrior shouldn’t have been in last place in any tournament. He should have been leading the pack.

Yet he’d trailed behind them all. Why?

She tipped her head back, keeping her gaze on Strax’s face as he came nearer. Never had he seemed so big…yet he was also never so close. His bloodied fingers tipped her chin higher.

A frown darkened his features when he still could not break the collar’s thin wire. “The sorcerer would not remove the spell or give me claim over you,” he said in the deep, guttural accent of the Dead Lands. How a barren wasteland grew such powerful warriors, Mara didn’t know. Yet both he and his twin brother were larger and stronger than any other warriors who had joined the tournament.

“So you killed him?” Because a spell often died with a sorcerer. But this spell had not.

“This magic resides in the collar. So I must claim you before I can break it.”

“Do you have enough gold to buy me at the auction, warrior?” Mara might have had enough, but her purse had been taken by the villains who’d ambushed her, along with her horse. She had nothing now but her tunic and dagger—both of which Strax had given her.

“There is not enough gold in the world to buy a woman of your worth.” His jaw hardened and his fingers slipped from her neck, yet she could still feel the sticky warmth of the bloodied marks he left. “I will return again.”

She stared after him. This must be an illusion of some sort. Or a trick. A woman of her worth? Mara could not count the number of times he’d implied she was worthless.

So this time she believed he would return…yet she was also wary. Because she didn’t understand him at all—or this attempt to free her. What purpose could it have? Not to help her. Because in six months, he hadn’t helped her. He’d only said over and over again that she was bound to fail. So she couldn’t trust that he truly meant to help her now.

At midnight, Strax returned—no longer covered in blood, and no longer alone. Accompanying him was a thin, bald man in dark robes and with wide, terrified eyes.

Strax shoved the trembling man into the cage. “This magistrate can marry us.”

Had the barbarian gone completely mad? Strax’s eyes seemed to burn with an unholy, feverish fire as they settled on Mara, and that look sent shivers racing over her skin.

Certain she’d misunderstood, Mara shook her head. “You want him to marry us?”

“A husband has a claim on his wife. No magic can deny that.”

Mara couldn’t refute that truth, yet still…why would he do this? It made no sense at all. Her chest tight, she told him, “You understand, warrior, that I am from Aremond. I am not from a kingdom such as Savadon or Galoth, where they marry on a whim and untie their wedding ribbon when marriage no longer suits them. You’ll always be bound to me.”

That fire in his eyes flared brighter. “And I am from the Dead Lands. A warrior will let nothing separate him from his wife. So you will always be bound to me.”

Heart pounding so hard she was almost dizzy with it, she looked to the magistrate. “You have the red ribbon?”

The man held up a length of crimson silk in his shaking fingers. So they had all that was needed.

Except an explanation. With emotion clogging her throat, Mara met Strax’s gaze again. “I will do anything to be free—so I will marry you,” she told him, but held up her hand when he stepped forward with a fierce light on his expression. “But I need to know why you are marrying me.”

“Because I love you,” he said gruffly and Mara wished that she hadn’t asked. She would rather be given no answer than be given a lie.

Yet she had not lied. She’d do anything to continue her quest to win the gauntlet. Even marry a man she could not trust to tell the truth. Who thought she was weak and stupid and who insulted her at every turn.

With a sickly pain in her heart, Mara stepped closer to Strax and nodded to the magistrate. She raised her hand, and as Strax placed his huge palm against hers, she could hardly bear to look at him.

And she wondered what else he’d lied about. As the magistrate weaved the ribbon between their fingers, she asked, “Do you swear you’ll free me from this collar the moment we are married?”

Because as soon as he had a claim on her, Strax’s power over her would be absolute. He could order her to do anything and Mara would have to obey. Perhaps his declaration of love was a ruse so that he could control her. Or humiliate her. Or worse.

“I will,” he vowed, and the pain in Mara’s heart grew. Because she still couldn’t trust his word, though she wanted nothing more than to trust it. She wanted to believe in the devotion deepening his voice and the steady darkness of his eyes.

So as the magistrate finished winding the ribbon between their fingers, with her other hand Mara raised her dagger to Strax’s muscled throat and pressed the sharpened point into the only soft spot he seemed to have, where a pulse drummed visibly in the thick column of his neck. “After our vows are spoken, if any command issues from your lips except the words to free me, they will be the last you ever utter.”

“You think I will order you onto your back and your thighs to spread? Command you to come with every thrust of my cock?” Eyes narrowed, Strax slowly shook his head—not seeming to care that the movement drew drops of blood from where she held the blade against his skin. “I need no magic to make my woman come, Mara. The pleasure I’ll give you will be no illusion.”

Heat flared beneath her skin at the thought of it. Yet she still couldn’t trust that he meant a word. “I want nothing from you except my freedom,” she declared hotly—and because Strax had made her a liar now, too, she snapped at the magistrate, “Begin.”

The magistrate stammered, “But…we…we…have no witnesses—”

Strax’s foot lashed out. The bucket flew, and Thadus’s head bounced against the iron bars before rolling to a stop with empty eyes staring at them and dripping yellow tears. “Your king himself bears witness. Begin.”

Fear blanched the magistrate’s face. With shaking hands, he lifted the two ends of the ribbon. “Ah, the bride…you are called…?”

“Lady Maraserit ik Terin of Aremond.”

After repeating her name, the magistrate asked, “Do you pledge yourself to this man and swear to be his faithful wife?”

“I will,” she promised, holding her dagger ready to slit Strax’s throat.

“And you…?”

“Strax,” he said in a thick voice, “Keeper of the Sacred Oath, son of the Fang Clan of the Dead Lands. I pledge myself to this woman and vow to be her faithful husband.”

“Then you are now bound together,” the magistrate said, knotting the ends of the ribbon. “Upon a kiss that seals your vows, you will be wife and husband.”

Mara didn’t move, her right hand tied to his and her left hand holding the blade at his throat. Slowly she relaxed her wrist, allowing Strax to bend his head toward hers—yet never letting even a hair’s breadth of space between her dagger and his skin. Her breath trembled wildly as he gently tilted up her chin. His gaze smoldered, dark and hot, and seemed to ignite an answering fire within her.

She shut her eyes but couldn’t shut out the pulse thundering in her ears, the gentle pressure of his strong fingers, the warmth of his breath whispering over her lips. Then his firm mouth claimed hers, and that was enough, it should have been enough—even a touch of lips was a kiss, so they were married now. But instead of backing away, Strax pushed closer. His big hand cradled the nape of her neck as he tasted and teased, and when her lips parted it was only to remind him that he would die if he betrayed her. Yet she couldn’t speak, because his tongue slicked over hers, and an emotion wild and sweet swept into her with that lick. A hunger for more of this. Not just a kiss but the way Strax made her feel, the way he touched her now. As if he truly did love her.

But how could she believe that? How?

With burning eyes and racing heart, she turned her face from his. But she couldn’t pull away. His hand still clasped her nape and the wedding ribbon had to remain tied until dawn. “Free me now,” she whispered. “Or I will kill you.”

His reply was a harsh rasp against her ear. “You are already free…wife.”

In astonishment Mara brought her beribboned fingers to her neck—bringing his bound hand with hers. The collar was gone. She hadn’t even felt him remove it during the kiss. Now the horrid thing lay at her feet, nothing but a useless, twisted wire.

Her wondering gaze flew to Strax’s face and only encountered his strong profile as he looked to the magistrate. “You’ll find your payment of a gold coin in that dead captain’s purse,” he said, then Mara gave a startled gasp when the barbarian abruptly spun her around and swept her up to cradle her against his broad chest. “Let us attempt this again.”

Leaving the cage. Mara held her breath as he carried her through. But of course the collar could not strangle her…because he’d freed her.

Now her new husband held her while he strode out of the auction house, one steely arm supporting her knees and the other behind her back. Because of their bound hands, there was no point in demanding that he put her down. One of them would have to walk backward; yet he could carry her as long as she held her arm crossed over her chest.

Mara didn’t glance at any of the carnage they passed, the bodies of the guards littering the floor. She only looked at Strax. Such a strange, warm hope filled her chest that she couldn’t have spoken even if she wished to. He’d come to Wintermere to help her. He’d killed a sorcerer king to save her. And then he’d freed her.

Perhaps he might help her win this tournament, too. And perhaps she could truly trust him.

Never had she wanted anything so much.

Outside, the entire city seemed in uproar. From every direction came the sound of citizens in riot. Because Strax had killed a tyrant. And he’d freed more than Mara in doing so.

Yet he seemed utterly unaffected by the fighting around them. He carried her as if through a spring meadow. And another astonishment awaited Mara when they reached his horse, because tied next to his mount was her mare.

“Where did you find her?” she asked in wonder as he lifted her onto his gelding—which she didn’t protest, because they couldn’t ride different horses with their hands tied.

“When I tracked down the men who ambushed you.” Easily he leapt up behind her, the fingers of their beribboned hand entwined, his arm around her waist. He pulled her back snug against his hard chest, holding her securely. “But aside from your saddle and horse, your belongings were already gone. Do you wish to look for them now?”

For her furs and clothes and gold. “No,” Mara said. They would waste valuable time searching—and she hardly needed those things now. Her legs were bare from mid-thigh to toes, yet never had she felt so safe, so warm as with Strax holding her. And it was becoming harder to tell herself that his actions tonight had been a trick of some sort.

Yet nothing about him made sense. Not after what he’d done here. As they rode toward the city gate, one clear answer occurred to her. “You never intended to win the tournament, did you?”

“No,” he replied gruffly.

“Are you…a final obstacle? Something the contestants must overcome after they’ve retrieved the gauntlet?”

Which would explain why he was in last place. Anyone returning to Aremond would have to pass him—and would have to defeat him.

Would he allow her to pass him? He was her husband now. And he’d risked so much to save her. Perhaps he’d help her save everyone else she loved, too.

“I am not an obstacle.” His voice deepened. “I am bound by a blood oath to never let a sorcerer such as Solegius of Aremond possess the gauntlet—and I will destroy anyone who attempts to give it to him.”

The hope growing in Mara’s chest withered into a painful, poisoned lump. A blood oath. If Strax betrayed it, not only would he die…but so would all of his clan.

So she didn’t respond. As they rode out of the city, she stared blindly ahead—and all that lived inside her now was misery and despair. Her husband held her in his arms, his warm breath stirred her hair, yet she felt utterly alone again.

Strax must have been more wary in the city than he’d appeared, because once they were away from the chaos, tension eased from the warrior’s muscles. Quietly he asked her, “Did you join the tournament to win the prize? If it is gold you seek, my wife, I will find riches for you elsewhere.”

“I have riches,” she told him, her voice thick with unshed tears. “Solegius imprisoned my family and enslaved everyone under our protection. If I do not return with the gauntlet, he’ll kill them all.”

Strax stiffened behind her. For an endless time, the barbarian didn’t speak. When he finally did, his accent was so deep it sounded as if he choked on every word. “I cannot let you give the gauntlet to him.”

His declaration pierced Mara’s heart like a dagger. “We must be enemies, then.”

“No,” Strax denied roughly, his arm tightening and holding her closer. “You are my wife.”

“And if you try to stop me from winning, I’ll soon be a widow.”

“You cannot win—”

“So you return to insults again? I will win.” No longer unshed, hot tears spilled silently down her cheeks. “Perhaps you don’t believe I am capable, warrior, but I’ve proven you wrong over and over again. I will prove you wrong this time, too. And if you stand in my way, I will kill you.”

“I know you are capable,” he snarled. “But I cannot let… I cannot…” His voice seemed to strangle itself and his hand rose to her face. She tried to turn away, to conceal this from him, yet he found the evidence of her pain.

“Shed more tears, Mara,” he said bleakly. “And you will kill me easily.”

So he claimed. Yet Strax seemed strong enough as her tears continued to fall, holding her so tightly that she could almost believe he was a warrior who would help her, protect her…love her.

It was only another illusion. A dream that would disappear at dawn. But for a little while, Mara allowed herself to dream that he was everything she’d ever wanted him to be. And she dreamt it until she fell asleep in his arms.

Chapter 3

Strax the Vowkeeper

The Road

Strax had married Mara at midnight. By dawn, his bride was already trying to run away.

And she was trying to do it quietly. She’d fallen asleep in his arms while they rode away from Wintermere, then briefly awakened again when he made camp. Custom demanded their hands remain tied with the red ribbon until morning, so she hadn’t protested when he’d made a single bed, nor when he’d determined that the easiest position for them to sleep was with Strax on his back and Mara lying atop his chest. There she’d fallen quickly asleep again, her head pillowed on his shoulder and her legs straddling his waist, while Strax had lain beneath her with his cock hard and his heart full.

So very full—because Mara was his wife. And despite her anger and distrust, she must feel safe with him to fall asleep in his arms so easily. And his heart was full because she had wept upon discovering that he must stop her from returning the gauntlet to her tyrant king. Her every tear had pierced Strax’s chest…yet his wife had shed those tears because she believed they must be enemies. If the thought disappointed and hurt her, Mara must want more from Strax than she had ever said.

Strax didn’t know the solution to the chasm that yawned between them. He would discover a way to bridge it, though. Because he would never be separated from his wife.

But she was already putting distance between them. Ever so slowly, only moving her fingers, she began to work her hand free of the ribbon. Not a sound she made, as if she feared waking him. Her warm breath trembled softly against his neck. The softness of her breasts pressed into his chest, with only her tunic to prevent her skin from touching his. Yet nothing lay between her inner thighs clasping his sides or the sultry warmth of her womanhood from his stomach. She’d been naked in that cell when he’d given her his tunic to wear and she was still bare beneath it.

The ribbon’s knot loosened, freeing her hand from his—yet Strax could not let her go. When his fingers clasped hers, telling her that he was awake, her body went utterly still.

Utterly still and waiting…because although Mara felt safe enough to sleep in his arms, she also didn’t trust him. His heart ached with the knowing of it—and knowing that he’d done nothing to earn her trust in all these months.

But Strax would begin to earn it on this day. He would earn her trust and anything else she’d be willing to give him.

“Forgive me, Mara,” he said to her softly.

Silence reigned for a breath, as if she couldn’t think of a reason why he needed to be forgiven. Finally she whispered, “What for?”

“Because I didn’t wake you in the manner a husband should wake his wife.”

“What manner is that?”

Strax would have preferred to show her. Instead he told her, “With my head between your thighs and my mouth upon your cunt.”

Her breath stopped against his throat. Convulsively her fingers tightened on his. Yet she said not a word.

Hunger roughened his voice. “Do you wish me to wake you properly, my wife?”

Her hesitation made his heart soar. The abrupt “No!” that followed mattered not at all, because that brief hesitation exposed the temptation she must feel—as did her body when, in the rush of getting away from him, she rocked back to sit up and her femininity encountered the turgid cockstand that jutted up over his lower abdomen.

She froze, and in the dim light, Strax saw the way her gaze widened and her lips parted. But all he could feel was her feminine flesh—so hot and wet against his bare shaft—and groan when she bit her lower lip and hitched her hips down, then up and up and up, as if measuring the rigid length of him with the slick heat of her cunt. Her body shuddered when she reached the tip and the blunt head of his cock rolled over her clitoris. A soft moan escaped her throat and her eyes rolled back, then all at once she was on her feet, the furs thrown aside and frigid air kissing the trail of wetness she’d left behind on his erection.

Even as Strax clenched his jaw against the agonizing arousal that she’d mercilessly abandoned, joy burst through him. So blessed he was, to have a wife as hot as the sun and as wet as the ocean. All such a woman needed was a man as solid as the earth itself—and that was he. Strax would be the firm ground beneath her feet and the hard stone that filled her cunt.

He rolled onto his side, gripping his cock to stroke her honeyed wetness into his skin. Mara was already preparing to leave, carrying her saddle to her horse. A frown pulled at his mouth as he watched her cross the harsh, cold ground in her bare feet.

“Take my boots, wife. And my leather leggings, too.” They would be far too big for her, just as his tunic was, but she could lace them tight enough to stay on. In the chill spring air, he could make do by tying a fur around his waist.

“Stuff your boots up your ass,” she snapped and Strax grinned. “And lie abed all morning as you usually do, husband.”

The word was a sneer. In a lithe movement, she mounted her mare—then abruptly stopped when her gaze fell upon him, her mouth open as if she’d meant to say something else but the sight of Strax running his big fist the length of his cock knocked the words from her tongue.

“This is why I always lie abed, Mara,” he told her gruffly while his fingers squeezed and stroked his throbbing erection. “I remain in my furs and dream of having you.”

Her startled gaze flew from his cock to his face, and doubt filled her voice. “You dreamt of me? But you always said…you would say that I was…”

She trailed off, her throat working. Almost reluctantly it seemed, she glanced at his thick length again. A deep breath lifted her breasts within his tunic, her stiffened nipples showing faintly through the heavy weave. The tip of her tongue darted out to touch the upper bow of her lip as a pearled drop of seed spilled from the crown.

Then without another word, she reined her horse around and started off—not along the road west, but striking out to the north.

Before this day, Strax would have lingered in his furs until his seed spurted into his hand. But yesterday he’d done so and she’d been captured. Imprisoned. And the fire that burned inside her had almost been doused.

Now it flamed brightly again…and Strax would follow that flame, wherever she went. He had two vows to keep—one a blood oath to never allow the gauntlet’s power to be abused, and the other a promise to be her devoted husband.

Somehow, he would fulfill both vows. But he could not do that abed.

So with his cock still throbbing, Strax leapt to his feet and followed her.

Chapter 4

Mara the Thirsty

Lonewood

Though she heard the barbarian’s horse approaching, Mara refused to look back. Instead she kept her gaze focused ahead. In the distance, the black eye sockets of the Skull Cliffs stared out over the plains. Legend was that the skulls belonged to the cruel gods who’d once roamed this land, before the goddess Khides had slain them and put their giant rotting heads on display as a warning to any other being who might abuse others with his power.

If the legend had any truth to it, Mara didn’t know. She only knew that the cliffs were the final obstacle before she reached Khides’ keep. All that lay between her and those cliffs was several days’ journey across the Lonewood plain…and a husband who intended to stop her from winning the tournament.

The only pain greater than knowing Strax was bound by a blood oath to stop her was the pain of imagining what would happen to her family if she failed. Her brothers and sisters—the youngest of whom was only five years of age. Her parents, who’d only shown love and kindness to all who’d sought help from them during Solegius’s cruel reign. Their only crime had been standing firm against the sorcerer king’s tyranny…and for refusing to send Mara to his bed.

She’d gone anyway when Solegius threatened to retaliate against her family for their defiance. Then she’d committed the unforgivable crime that sealed everyone’s fate.

When Solegius had lowered his handsome face to kiss her, she’d gagged.

Her punishment for that insult to his vanity was to make her join a tournament no one believed she could survive, let alone win. But sending her on a route that should kill her was not enough for Solegius, so he’d added the burden of thousands of lives upon her shoulders.

Mara would be carrying that burden up those cliffs, just as she’d carried it across thousands of miles. That weight hadn’t broken her as everyone expected; instead it had strengthened her.

Yet no matter how strong she’d become, Mara still struggled to shrug off Strax’s insults and doubts. Nor could she easily shrug away the hurt of knowing he could never help her win the tournament. But even if he wasn’t obligated by a blood vow to stop her, she couldn’t depend on him. So their marriage had changed nothing.

Except now she knew why he’d always followed in last place. He didn’t stay behind her this day, however, instead riding up alongside her mare and matching her pace.

“Fill your belly, wife,” he commanded, holding out a thick slice of bread topped with soft white cheese and golden honey.

Her stomach rumbled at the sight—and since everything she owned had been stolen except for her sword and a few items in her saddlebags, Mara accepted the meal. Her soft thanks was met with a look of such fierce satisfaction that she didn’t glance at him again while she ate. Nonetheless, Mara was acutely aware of his huge presence beside her. Her husband wore the leathers and boots she’d refused, yet despite the cold drizzle that fell from gray skies, he didn’t drape his furs over his shoulders and chest. Instead Strax faced the rain as a mountain did, with water running in rivulets over the stony ridges of his muscles, silently inviting her to quench her thirst by sipping from the streams that flowed over his bronze skin.

Oh, and she was so very thirsty.

She licked her sticky lips and looked over to find Strax staring at her mouth, his eyes hot enough to catch her blood afire.

“I will see you well fed, Mara,” he said in a voice thick with desire, a voice that promised to fill her up with more than bread.

A voice that touched every yearning need inside her. Not just the thirst of her tongue, or even of the hunger of her body, but the painful longing within her heart. Because she was tired and lonely, and this journey had been so very hard. The only pleasure she’d known since leaving home had been the pleasure Strax had given since freeing her from that cage. His slow, thorough kiss when he’d married her. The warmth and strength of his arms holding her so tight. The fierce, burning sensation of his bare skin against hers, and the sheer ecstasy of feeling his rigid length against her most intimate flesh.

Strax had killed a tyrant to save her. And she hated the hope that rose within her now, like a foolish rabbit leaving the safety of its underground burrow, despite knowing that disappointment waited to pounce and tear it to shreds. “You destroyed Thadus. Could you not do the same to Solegius?”

Jaw clenching, Strax shook his head. “Thadus was unprepared for the likes of me. Solegius is not.”

“The likes of you?”

He indicated his side, where runes carved over his ribs glowed faintly gold and protected him against enchantments and spells. Mara only knew what purpose the runes served because his brother Aruk had once told her. Everyone in the Dead Lands was born with more power than any sorcerer in the west—yet they almost all voluntarily bound their magic to their own flesh with those runes, rendering themselves incapable of casting spells except for the protective wards written into their skin. Aruk had called a sorcerer’s spells corrupted magic that slowly pushed the world out of balance. And he’d claimed that love and kindness were pure, uncorrupted magic—and the most powerful of all magics—followed by courage and trust, and rage and hate.

The love Mara felt for her family seemed enough to fill an ocean. So did her hate for Solegius. Yet neither her love nor hate could save them and defeat Aremond’s king, no matter what the barbarians in the Dead Lands believed.

“Thadus attacked me with spells,” Strax continued. “But he’d have been better served to enchant a weapon and use it against me. Solegius knows that. If he hadn’t protected himself so well, Aruk and I would have killed him when we were in Aremond.”

Impervious to spells, but not against items enchanted by spells. “Would Thadus’s collar have bound you as it did me?”

“It would.”

Strax hadn’t been able to break the collar, either. As she recalled what else Strax told her before he’d removed it, the sweet honey on her tongue turned bitter. “I suppose your love is what broke the enchantment on the collar.”

“It is,” he agreed easily.

Her throat tightened. “Why do you lie? You claimed me. That gave you power over the collar. That is all.”

His steady gaze met hers. “And what led me to claim you? Why did I follow you, if not because I love you?”

The pain of hearing it again was like a knife in her chest. “Stop,” she begged him, hating both the plea and how the thickness of her voice betrayed her hurt. “I cannot bear you saying that to me.”

Not when she knew it to be untrue. Perhaps he lusted after her or pitied her. She could accept that those reasons drove him to Wintermere. But love? No.

She might wish it, but wishing had no more magic than love or trust did. No matter what he said.

Torment darkened his eyes—a torment she’d seen in him before, on the night his brother had been swept overboard into an unforgiving sea. Unable to bear the pain in that look, Mara glanced away from him, but his hoarse reply followed her. “Until you trust my word, I will not say it again. Never would I hurt you, Mara.”

That she damn well knew for a lie. These past six months, he’d hurt her with his words again and again. Every time he’d told her to give up. Every time he hadn’t believed in her.

Her husband didn’t think she could win. So she didn’t understand why he rode at her side now.

“If someone has already claimed the gauntlet,” she told him tightly, “then you are on the wrong road to intercept them.”

They were not on a road at all, but striking a new path north from Wintermere to the cliffs. But her observation seemed not to concern Strax.

With a shrug, he told her, “If the gauntlet is gone when we reach the keep, I’ll pursue whoever took it and stop him before he reaches Aremond. But the gauntlet will still be there.”

How could he be so certain? “More than thirty warriors are ahead of me.”

“And in the countless generations since the gauntlet was locked inside the keep, thousands more have attempted to take it—and they all failed. Do you believe such a powerful weapon would be left undefended?”

“Weapon?” She looked to him in confusion. “It is but a useless artifact.”

Strax shook his head. “That is a lie spread by my clan to prevent others from seeking its power. Yet Solegius must have learned the truth.”

Sending warriors to fetch the gauntlet for him and calling it a tournament? “Why would he not seek it himself?”

“Because a sorcerer’s corrupted magic is useless within Khides’ keep. And Solegius is nothing without his spells and enchantments.”

That was truth. Yet Mara could hardly grasp the rest…though it also made sense. Why would any warrior swear a blood oath over a useless artifact? No one would. “What kind of weapon is it?”

“It’s one of two gauntlets that the goddess Khides forged from the hearts of the gods she killed.” He gestured ahead at the Skull Cliffs. His tone deepened and became more rhythmic, as if this was a story often heard or often told. “When her own life began to fade, Khides passed the gauntlets to a queen she trusted, who in turn passed them on to her twin sons. Together the brothers ruled, until one of the gauntlets was destroyed while they battled the demon hordes, and they began to fight for possession of the remaining one. Because despite the love they had for each other, neither brother trusted that the other would wield the gauntlet’s power as it should be wielded.”

The demon hordes? That was a time not simply ancient, but so far in the past that all Mara knew of that age were legends of legends. “You are speaking of the wolf brothers who broke the world. That is only a tale parents tell their children to make them stop arguing.”

“It is not a tale,” Strax said. “And they were not wolves, but kings who broke the world. But with the last of her strength, Khides joined the pieces together, and built her stone keep—and made the brothers’ descendants vow that they would stop anyone from misusing the gauntlet’s power again.”

“Those descendants became your clan?”

Face grim, he nodded. “And my brother and I are the last.”

Are the last. Because he still believed that his brother lived. “Why does your clan not reside at the keep?”

“The gauntlet’s guardians do. The blood oath only demands that we do not allow anyone to misuse the weapon—and who could be trusted to wield so much power? Not Solegius.” His dark eyes met hers. “If you put the gauntlet into that sorcerer’s hands, not only your family or your people will be killed and enslaved. Solegius would enslave the world. So even if I were not bound by a blood oath, I’d do everything I could to prevent him from possessing it. Would you not do the same if you were me?”

A deep ache opened up in her heart. Because she would do the same. But she was not him. In a painful whisper, Mara said, “If you wish to fulfill your oath, you should ride the other road. Perhaps no one else has retrieved the gauntlet, but you can’t be certain. Yet you are certain I have not.”

“I will not leave your side, wife. Nor will you want me to.”

Something in his voice stopped her automatic denial. She glanced over with a frown.

Strax gestured ahead. “That is Lonewood’s tree.”

The cursed tree that sucked the surrounding land dry, leaving only a barren wasteland. Its crooked trunk was clearly visible in the distance, and although they were still passing through the grasslands north of Wintermere, the vegetation around them had been steadily thinning, as if they approached Lonewood’s border.

“I had thought it farther from the city,” Mara said. And she’d thought it would be taller, too. It had always been described as such.

“The tree is two day’s ride from here, and the wasteland stretches two days beyond that.”

Her eyes widened. Two days away? Then it must truly be enormous. She could not begin to fathom its height…yet she began to fathom why Strax had said she wouldn’t want him to leave her side.

He spoke the reason succinctly. “That is four days of no game to hunt, no water to drink, and no feed for the horses.”

Except for the supplies he carried with him, Mara realized. All that remained in her saddlebags were a few packets of dried herbs and a single gold coin that had been wedged into a loose seam.

That coin could buy all the supplies Mara needed…if she returned to Wintermere. Yet no amount of gold could buy what she needed more than anything else: time. She would lose at least a full day in Wintermere, if not more.

She couldn’t afford to waste that time. “You asked what I would do if I were you. But what if your family could only be saved by putting the gauntlet into his hands?”

“I would do the same as you are, Mara,” he said softly.

She wished that answer eased the ache in her heart but it only made her want to weep. “Instead you will prevent me from saving them.”

“I will only prevent you from taking the gauntlet to Aremond. But I would help you save them another way.”

“What way?” she cried in frustration. “Do you think we in Aremond have not tried to defeat Solegius? He destroys every army that marches against him. So how will we save my family?”

Her husband had no answer to that. And the only way that Mara could see…Strax would try to stop her.

So she would stop him first.

Chapter 5

Strax the Hungry

Lonewood

His wife was up to something.

The quiet that fell over Mara as she traveled was not so unusual, though the looks she gave him now were different. No longer were they filled with so much anger or distrust. Strax might have rejoiced over that, except the sadness darkening her gaze when it lingered on him and the depth of the silence between them seemed like a yawning chasm that he could not cross. He stayed closer to her side than he had in six months of journeying, yet she seemed further from him than ever before…and Strax sensed that she was moving even further away with every step forward.

Yet when night fell, she didn’t insist on sleeping apart, as Strax expected. Perhaps it was her sensible mind recognizing they only had furs enough for one bed. She also said nothing when, as he always did, Strax stripped to his skin before settling under the covers. Yet she didn’t encourage him, either, offering him neither touches nor kisses; wearing her tunic, she meekly lay down beside him. When he rolled onto his side and pulled her back against his chest, she went compliantly. Then she pillowed her head on his biceps and slept.

Strax did not. Instead he wondered what she planned. Because Mara was never compliant or meek. So every moment he expected her to slip from his arms. Or bash his head with a rock. She had wanted Strax to take another road and to be away from him. He doubted that she’d given up on her wish.

His Mara never gave up on anything.

In the darkest hours, slumber finally pulled at him. It seemed he’d only closed his eyes when dawn’s golden light opened them again, and he found Mara had turned in his arms and was looking up at him with an expression of sheer determination.

So now she would bash his head, Strax thought. And he would let her. Then he would find her again.

Instead she whispered, “Will you wake me as a husband should wake his wife?”

Raw lust ripped through his senses. His morning erection hardened into burning steel in the space of the breath it took to roll Mara onto her back and cover her mouth with his. She stiffened for the barest moment, as if not expecting a kiss—he’d only said that a husband woke his wife with his mouth between her legs—then she melted beneath him, her fingers diving into his hair, her tongue hungrily seeking his. Her thighs parted to make room for him, her tunic riding up over her hips, and they both groaned when the thick ridge of his cock wedged against her feminine center.

Scorching wetness burned the length of his shaft and slicked the insides of her thighs. So aroused was she, his wife was drowning in her need. Almost in pain she seemed, writhing helplessly against him, seeking more pleasure and her release.

Strax would give her both, then return to her mouth to give her more. Never had a journey been so beautiful nor as sweet as the path from her lush lips to her curving hips. This time he flew over it, yet the next time, he vowed that his mouth and hands would worship her body as she deserved. But first he would wake her as a husband should.

Ravenous with hunger, Strax pushed her thighs wide and bowed his head, breathing in the heady scent of her arousal.

And now he knew her plan. The faintest perfume of cherries mingled with her own luscious fragrance. Barely detectable, yet distinct. She had bathed her cunt in bellewood blossom.

When the blossoms were steeped, they became a powerful sleeping potion. Yet if the stems were also steeped, a fatal poison was made. And it was impossible to know by scent which it was.

What would she give him? Potion or poison?

Strax didn’t think it would be poison. She’d threatened to kill him if he stopped her from retrieving the gauntlet—and he’d told her over and over again that he intended to. But if his Mara meant to kill him, he didn’t think it would be in this sly way. No, she would come directly at him with a blade.

From between her thighs, he glanced up. Mara had risen onto her elbows, her lips swollen and reddened by his kisses, her skin flushed with desire, her hair in a wild tangle as she watched him. Her request had been a trick so that she could drug him, yet the passion he saw now wasn’t false. Nor was the honeyed arousal that glistened so near to his mouth.

She was so clever, his wife. And so beautiful. Her breath hitched when he parted her with his thumbs. “Will it be death, Mara?” he asked her, his voice harsh with need. “Or only sleep?”

Her body stilled. Her eyes widened, and he recognized the sudden fear there—as if she thought he might punish her for this attempt.

He gripped her hip to prevent her from fleeing, pressed a soothing kiss to the soft skin above her curls. “Do you not know that I would risk death for a taste of you? That I would happily die if it brought you pleasure?”

And he did, with a long slow lick that tasted of cherries and of Mara’s own sweet honey. Her strangled gasp of surprise deepened into a moan when he licked away the remainder of the bellewood blossom from the lips of her cunt, then delved between her folds to find the flavor that was hers alone. He only wanted Mara upon his tongue as he made her come.

But he would not have long to do it. Already a foreign heaviness was settling into his limbs. He knew not whether it was sleep or death that approached, and only cared that he pleased her before it took him.

With a swirl of his tongue, he circled her clit before closing his lips around that sensitive bud. She cried out when he began to suck, her hands fisting in his hair, her back arching. The sound of his name from her panting lips was even sweeter than her cunt. Unable to resist, he abandoned her clitoris for a deep thrusting lick past her virgin entrance, yet she wordlessly begged for more, lifting her hips as if seeking what he hadn’t yet given.

Strax would give her all he could. His mouth returned to her clit even as he filled her cunt with the blunt thickness of his longest finger, working it slowly into her snug channel. So tight and hot was his wife that every inch he gained became a victory, and his head swam with the ecstasy of her taste. Then abruptly her voluptuous inner walls clamped down, squeezing his finger so hard that seed spilled from his cock in response.

Her soft flesh muffled his tortured groan. Slowly he began to fuck her with the gentle pumping of his hand as he feasted on her clit. Sobbing gasps of pleasure began to wrack her body. Her thighs shook, her virgin sheath clenching ever tighter around his thrusting finger.

She screamed Strax’s name when she came, nearly yanking the hair from his scalp—but that was a blessing, because darkness was encroaching and the pain was a bright flare against it. After a final lick, Strax slowly moved upward, where she clasped his face and kissed him with wild heat and ravenous greed.

His wife still needed. And he was not done. Chest heaving with effort, he rasped against her mouth, “Shall I take you now, Mara, as a man takes his woman?”

“Yes,” she all but sobbed, wrapping her legs around his hips. “Now.”

His rigid cock pressed against her entrance and he thrust forward. But the weakness overtaking his muscles defeated his attempt. Her tightness didn’t admit him, and his shaft rode over the wetness of her cunt to lay throbbing against her stomach.

Strax could do no more—nothing except roll to the side so she wouldn’t be crushed beneath his massive bulk. With the last of his strength, he told her, “Ease your need upon me, my wife.”

Because whether sleep took him or death did, Strax had no doubt his cock would remain as steel for her use.

He had but one last moment to look at Mara, to witness her burning flame. To feel her soft lips against his, her gentle hand upon his cheek, and see the tears filling her eyes.

Then the darkness swept in.

* * *

She had not killed him. Strax discovered that truth when he awoke, though his parched tongue and the hunger grasping at his stomach told him that at least two days had passed. His furs covered him from head to toe, and when he tossed them aside, he discovered that she’d taken his horse, his supplies—even his boots and leathers.

All she had left behind were the furs, and that pleased him not at all. Even though Mara had taken his clothes and the horses’ saddle blankets, each night she would have been cold. She ought to have left him exposed; Strax would have survived it, and preferred freezing to knowing she had been chilled.

He sat up and something tumbled from his chest to his bare lap. A gold coin. He only glanced at it a moment before examining his cock. The seed he’d spilled while feasting upon her cunt had dried on his shaft. If she’d used him, that seed wouldn’t have remained. And there might have been virgin’s blood instead. But there was none. So his wife was two days ahead of him, alone and unsatisfied, and shivering through the nights. A poor husband he’d proven to be.

A clever wife she’d proven to be.

Strax could not stop his laugh as he palmed the gold coin and rose to his feet. No doubt she believed he’d be forced to return to Wintermere for another horse and supplies. His wife was clever, indeed.

But she didn’t know everything. She didn’t know that everyone who’d grown up in the Dead Lands scratched their living from wastelands even more barren than Lonewood.

So he rolled up his furs, because tying them around his waist would only slow him down. Instead he propped the bedroll onto his shoulder.

And wearing only a grin, Strax began to run.

Chapter 6

Mara the Fallen

The Skull Cliffs

For four days, Mara rode through Lonewood’s wasteland. Within her was an emptiness that seemed as cursed and as lonely as the crooked tree that reigned over the realm, because her heart no longer filled her chest. Instead it had been torn apart, and one piece resided thousands of miles to the southwest, where her family was imprisoned in Solegius’s dungeon. The bloody remainder of her heart was a few days’ ride behind her, in the hands of a barbarian who should have been her enemy.

If Strax knew what she planned now, Mara had no doubt he’d do everything in his power to stop her. His blood oath demanded that he not allow the gauntlet to fall into the hands of anyone unworthy of wielding its power. So Mara had only herself to rely upon.

On either end of the Skull Cliffs, the northern oceans spilled over into the southern seas. Even Lonewood’s cursed tree couldn’t suck all the life from the mists of those waterfalls. A lush forest grew near the base of the Skull Cliffs, and seemed in the midst of summer instead of early spring. Riots of blooming wildflowers perfumed the warm air, their colors more brilliant than Mara had ever seen, and she only had to reach out to pluck ripened fruits from branches as she rode.

But although beauty met her gaze at every turn, horror awaited her. Nearly a dozen warriors lay dead at the bottom of the cliffs. She recognized some from the coliseum when the tournament had begun. Others were impossible to identify, because the fall from the cliffs had shattered their bones and pulped their flesh.

Mara couldn’t afford to delay her quest, but neither could she leave the warriors to rot. So she spent a full day cutting wood for a large funeral pyre before darkness forced her to stop. In the morning she would finish, then begin her climb up the cliffs.

Lying in bed, she tried not to picture those mangled bodies. Tried not to picture herself falling, too. Yet picture it was all she did, and she lay shivering beneath her covers, her body bathed in the cold sweat of terror.

She didn’t know when her shivers eased. It was full dark and she was in a fitful sleep when warmth blanketed her restless form. She roused only a little as firm lips pressed to hers, as Strax’s gruff voice rumbled in her ear. No arms held her tight, but she slept without fear knowing that he was near.

At dawn, she woke beneath heavy furs and to the sight of her husband wearing a saddle blanket tied around his waist and dragging the last of the corpses atop the pyre. Happy tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them away before Strax could see. She shouldn’t be glad he was here.

Yet she was. And his dark gaze held no anger for her, though she’d drugged him with her cunt and stolen all his possessions. Instead the corners of his mouth tilted upward as he pulled Mara to her feet, but that smile didn’t crack the grim stone of his expression.

He gestured a short distance away, where his gelding and her mare had joined a larger herd that grazed the lush meadow. “More than thirty horses.”

Because more than thirty warriors had attempted the cliffs and left their mounts at its base. Apparently few warriors—if any—had returned from the keep and ridden away. “There is no ladder, either,” said Mara. The ancient rope that should have hung down the face of the cliff was braided from the gods’ hair, and was legendary for being as light as a feather and as strong as steel.

“The first warrior to reach the top likely pulled the ladder up with him so the others were forced to climb.” His strong jaw hardened as he looked to the bodies atop the funeral pyre, and Mara did not need to ask what angered him. Any warrior who would draw up the ladder must have intended not only to slow the other contestants, but also to eliminate them.

The missing ladder told her something more, though. Because if a warrior retrieved the gauntlet from Khides’ keep, he would return to the cliff and toss the ladder back down. That no ladder hung down the cliff face meant not a single warrior had succeeded. Most likely, they were all dead.

And Mara was next. A shiver of dread wracked her body, pulling Strax’s warm gaze to her face. Softly he tipped her chin up and kissed her—but only a gentle, sweet kiss that lasted no longer than a breath. Because a dozen warriors lay lifelessly not far away, and this was neither the time nor the place for more.

Perhaps it would never be. Even if she survived the cliffs, after Strax discovered her intentions, he might never kiss her again.

The pain of that filled her heart. “I cannot linger here. It is three days’ climb to the top,” she said, and braced herself for what would come next.

Strax nodded. “You light the pyre. I’ll prepare our supplies.”

That was all he said, but Mara knew more would follow. Her heart aching, she waited for the rest.

Eyebrows pulling together in a frown, he brushed his thumb over her trembling lips. “What troubles you, wife?”

“You do, husband,” she replied in a thick voice. “Because I would rather hear your doubts now than listen to them while I’m dangling from the cliff.”

His frown darkened. “My doubts?”

“When you tell me I ought to give up. When you claim I will fall, or that I am not strong enough or clever enough to reach the top.” Mara meant to spit each word at him, but to her horror, burning tears filled her eyes as she spoke. Desperately she turned her face away, but his strong hands cradled her cheeks and made her look up at him.

“Mara.” Her name was a hoarse rasp, his eyes tormented as he searched her expression. “I know you are strong enough and clever enough. I have no doubt you can succeed.”

“I cannot believe you.” The tears spilled over her lashes. “You have told me so many times that I cannot win. From the first day we met, you doubted me—and told me so. And you never stopped telling me.”

His eyes closed. As if in agony, a harsh groan ripped from his chest, and suddenly he pulled her close, his arms wrapping her tight. Mara wished she were strong enough to tear away from that embrace, but she could only bury her face against his shoulder and helplessly weep.

“No, Mara.” Soothing fingers stroked down her back. “The first day, I doubted. And do you remember what you said to me?”

She did, clearly. Shuddering sobs wracked her reply. “To leave me alone…and to go piss in your own eye.”

“That, too.” A laugh shook through him, then his voice deepened and his fingers threaded through her hair, tipping her tear-stained face back to meet his earnest gaze. “You told me that every doubt I uttered would only make you fight harder. And that every time I said that you would lose, you would only become more determined to win.”

She had said those things. Lips parted, she stared up at him, suddenly afraid to hope what his words might mean. Afraid she might be wrong.

Strax must have read the uncertainty and fear upon her face. “Only a fool would doubt you, Mara. It is true that I did the first day, but every day since you’ve proved me wrong. I have watched you overcome every obstacle in your path these past six months—but even before the first week had passed, your strength and cleverness and determination won my heart.” His thumbs stroked away the new tears that fell upon her cheeks, and his voice roughened. “Yet now I understand why speaking of my love hurt you. I was a fool, to see all that you are and yet not know that every time I meant to encourage you, instead I wounded you.”

Encourage her? Mara couldn’t stop the short, painful laugh that broke from her. Nor could she stop the hope that continued to grow within the lonely, empty wasteland where her heart had been.

“Then you…believe in me?” she whispered hesitantly. “You believe I might win?”

“I do.” His gaze was unwavering. “In truth, when this contest began, I didn’t believe anyone could defeat the guardians at Khides’ keep and take the gauntlet. But I now believe that, of all the warriors who entered the tournament, you are the only one who could win. Because you do not seek riches or glory. Instead love has brought you here, Mara.”

Love for her family. It had brought her here. But she still couldn’t believe that made any difference. “That is not magic.”

“It is, Mara,” Strax said. “Magic is nothing but an invisible force that reshapes the world. Sorcerers use their spells—but love and hate reshape the world, too. You must have seen that is true.”

She had. And yet it was not the same. “But a spell can make the impossible true.”

“Since love is also magic, why can’t it make the impossible true, too?” he asked in maddeningly reasonable tone. “Whether you believe or not, Mara, it is truth that a sorcerer’s corrupted magic has no power within Khides’ keep. But you wield the purest and most powerful kind of magic. And of all the warriors who have attempted to take the gauntlet, Khides is most likely to favor one such as you. The skulls behind us are her warning to anyone who would abuse their power—and you have come to save everyone you love from a tyrant.”

Emotion constricted Mara’s throat even as hope bloomed full and bright inside her chest. Strax genuinely sounded as if he believed in her. Yet after so many months, it was difficult to trust that he meant every word. No matter how she wanted to.

And she desperately wanted to. Because if Strax did…then he might genuinely love her, too.

Strax must have seen the war between hope and doubt that waged within her, because he demanded no answer. He only kissed her softly again before stepping back. “Light the pyre, Mara.”

She did, releasing the warriors to the sky before returning to the base of the cliffs, where Strax rolled several days’ worth of food into his furs.

Mara bent to unlace the boots she’d stolen from him, then stripped his leathers down her legs. His dark eyes burned with hunger when she glanced up again, though he made no move to touch her.

“The mornings are still cold, Mara, so keep wearing them,” he said, but she shook her head.

“My bare feet are better for climbing.” The boots were too thick and heavy. Already she could see how many small cracks and ledges her fingers and toes would have to find. “And no matter how tightly I tie them, your leggings tend to fall down and tangle around my knees. I cannot risk them doing so now.”

His eyes darkened. “I will be directly below you. If you slip, I will catch you.”

That declaration warmed her through, but he might soon regret such a promise. “It is three days’ climb,” she reminded him. “And I have no cock to point into the wind.”

His shout of laughter echoed off the cliffs. “I would catch you even after you piss on me, wife. But if you give me warning, I will move to the side.”

“I will,” Mara said with a grin, then nearly choked on a wave of emotion when she realized this would be the first obstacle she and Strax would face together.

Except for the storm upon the sea, where he’d kept her from washing overboard. And the freezing nights in the mountains, where they’d kept each other warm. Those obstacles weren’t part of the tournament…yet they had faced those together, too, and survived.

Now she helped him strap the bundle of furs and supplies to his back. After it was done, she tilted her head up and up and up, searching for the top of the cliffs, yet from the bottom they seemed to pierce the sky itself. Her stomach coiled into sick knots and clammy terror tightened her skin.

Strax caught her face and brought her gaze back down to his. “Shall I encourage you, Mara?”

Prod her along by telling her that she could not do this? Throat aching, she shook her head.

“Not in that way,” he told her softly. “Never will I hurt you again with such careless words. Instead I will tell you that in these past days, I have thought of nothing but the sweetness of your cunt…and of how you begged for my cock.”

Fire raced through her veins, burning away the clammy fear. Because she had thought of his touch, too. Every night, trying to warm herself with the memory of his mouth and finding release with her fingers, yet still feeling so cold and alone.

His thumb swept across her lower lip, his eyes like smoldering embers. “When we reach the top, Mara—I will finally take you as a husband takes his wife.”

That was fine encouragement, indeed. Heart pounding, she rose onto her toes for a kiss—the first she had sought from him. But she vowed it would not be the last.

He encouraged her again that night, when they found a narrow ledge to share. As Strax spread a healing poultice over her bleeding fingers and toes, he told her in how many places he would kiss her, and how many ways he would have her, and how many times he would make her come.

By the second night, even Strax’s toughened hands needed tending. Winds buffeted the upper rim of the eye socket where they stopped and huddled together, wrapped in his furs. There Strax encouraged her again, describing their return to Aremond together, with her belly already heavy with his child. Telling her that they would discover a way to defeat Solegius and save her family, and together they would forge a life free of that king’s tyranny.

Through it all, Mara held Strax close and dreamed with him—but fearing that she would lose her husband before she ever truly had him, could not admit she had already discovered a way to defeat Solegius.

On the third day, storm clouds thundered overhead and rain lashed the face of the cliff. Each crack and ledge became treacherously slick. Soaked to her skin and trembling with exhaustion, Mara slowly crawled upward, terrified that if she looked down, Strax would no longer be there. He was each time, but she couldn’t stop glancing down to be certain, though the endless distance to the bottom made her dizzy.

So often did Mara glance down that she almost never looked up, except to find the next handhold. When her fingers dug into wet dirt instead of ancient bone, she almost didn’t understand what it meant. Then realization struck her all at once.

They’d nearly reached the top. Almost crying with relief, she carefully made her way upward to the cliff’s edge. Here the climb was more treacherous than the rest, the soil from above muddy and crumbling. The sun had set, and the oncoming night made each handhold harder to see. Flashes of lightning threw confusing shadows, creating illusions of cracks and ledges where there were none. Forever it took Mara to climb the remaining distance, but at last she pulled herself up over the edge and onto her stomach.

Immediately she looked for the rope ladder and found it heaped into a giant pile a short distance away. Still on her belly, Mara turned to glance over the edge. Strax was only a few feet below.

She laughed down at him. “You are last again!”

He grinned and gripped a small bone ledge. “I am exactly where I wish to be. Three days I have spent looking up at your sweet cunt, awaiting the moment I sheathe my cock deep.”

Anticipation quivered over her skin. “Then wait there a moment longer, and I’ll bring the ladder to you,” she told him, her heart jumping when a thick river of mud spilled from the loosening soil below her head. “These last handholds are—”

Treacherous. With a scream, Mara lurched for Strax’s hand as the small ledge he held disintegrated before her eyes. Her fingers locked around his wrist and she desperately pulled him back against the face of the cliff. His biceps bulged as he found a tiny ledge to grip with the fingers of his left hand. Mud slicked the rocks near his feet and she watched him attempt to find purchase, but every foothold crumbled the instant he put weight on it.

“Reach for the root,” Mara cried out. A tree root coiled like a rope through the soil above his left hand, thick enough to hold him—and she didn’t think the narrow ledge he gripped would support him much longer. Both of her hands were wrapped around his wrist but she was only steadying him; he bore his entire weight on three fingers, his massive body dangling thousands of feet above the ground.

Suddenly he went still, and when his gaze met hers, she choked out a denial of what she saw there before he spoke a word.

“Let go, wife.”

She would die first. “Grab the root,” she begged him.

His gaze was calm, his voice resolute. “If I do, you’ll bear all of my weight and I’ll pull you over the edge. Let go.”

“Grab the root!” she snapped. “That ledge won’t hold you much longer.”

“And when it breaks, you’ll fall with me. So let go.”

“I’m strong enough to hold you.”

“I know, Mara.” His eyes seemed to be memorizing her face. Emotion thickened his voice. “You are so very strong. But I am heavy.”

“Because your head is stuffed with rocks.” A panicked, sobbing breath escaped her when he adjusted his grip—because the ledge was cracking beneath his fingers. “You said love was the most powerful magic. Do you truly believe that?”

“I do.” His gaze locked on hers and agony ripped through her heart, because she knew he didn’t intend to look away again, so her face would be the last thing he saw. “But loving you cannot stop a rock from breaking. It can only give me the strength to save you.”

By sacrificing himself? She would never let him. “Then you must believe love can give me the strength to save you.” Desperately she gripped his wrist tighter. “Believe that I can do this, Strax. Please. Because if loving you means that I wield strong magics, then I must be the most powerful sorcerer in the world.”

She must be. Because only minutes before, her arms had been shaking with fatigue and she’d barely had the strength to climb. Yet when heart-stopping emotion suddenly blazed in Strax’s eyes and he let go of the crumbling ledge, his muscular bulk weighed nothing at all. For an endless moment she held him suspended, then his fingers gripped the root. With a mighty heave, Strax launched his upper body over the edge.

In the next instant she was in his arms. Strax surged to his feet, carrying her up with him and striding away from the cliff. Mara’s body shook uncontrollably as she clung to his broad shoulders. With her legs wrapped tightly around his waist, she frantically kissed his cheeks and jaw and forehead and nose, sobbing and laughing at once.

So close she had come to losing him. So very close.

Remembered terror clawed at her heart. With sudden ferocity, Mara twisted her fingers in Strax’s thick hair. Her warrior came to an abrupt halt, and she shoved her face close to his so he couldn’t mistake her next words. “I will never let you go,” she vowed through clenched teeth. “Never.”

Savage pleasure burned in his dark eyes. His big hands squeezed her bare ass, grinding her against the steely length bulging beneath his leathers. “Then you’d best hold on tight, wife. Because I do not intend to stop until you have no strength left at all.”

“I would like to see you try, warrior,” Mara said in both truth and challenge, eager for her husband to fuck her until she was quivering and boneless, but also knowing he could never take all her strength, because it had never resided in her limbs.

Instead her strength lay in her heart, which was full to bursting with joy and love, and which raced at a head-spinning pace as his mouth claimed hers. Scorching need heightened with every possessive stroke of his tongue past her lips, and it seemed that the three days of peril against the cliff had only been preparation for this moment, clinging to Strax as if her very life depended upon it while his kiss pushed her higher and higher.

With a groan, Strax tore his mouth from hers. “You shiver with cold.” His gaze searched through the sheets of falling rain as he pivoted, frustration hardening his features. “You need shelter from this storm.”

A white flash of lightning illuminated their surroundings. Only bare earth stretched as far as could be seen, except for a few trees behind them, nearer to the cliff. Though their branches might provide protection from the rain, she knew he would not take her there, not so close to the edge.

But it was not the rain that made her shiver, anyway. Instead it had been the terror of nearly losing him. Now she only trembled with desire.

Mara caught his face and brought his gaze back to hers. “Your body covering mine is all the shelter I need.”

Raw lust ignited the look Strax gave Mara then, and he set her on her feet. “I will cover you,” he said in a voice harsh with need. “But I will not fuck you in the mud.”

Mara wouldn’t care if he did. But she stepped aside as he tore loose the straps fastening the bedroll to his back. The contents of the bundle scattered when he roughly shook out the furs, readying their bed while Mara readied herself. Gripping the hem of her tunic, she pulled it over her head. Rain pelted her bare skin, yet the chill couldn’t touch her when Strax glanced over and his heated gaze fell upon her nakedness. He went utterly still, except for his eyes that slowly looked their fill.

Boldly she stood before him with hot lust coursing through her blood and rain streaming from her hair. Even while following her across the Faren desert, Strax hadn’t appeared as thirsty to her as he did now, as water sluiced over her shoulders and down the slopes of her breasts to drip from their hardened pink tips.

“Never have I seen beauty such as yours, Mara.” His voice was hoarse, as if simply looking upon her an agonizing pleasure.

Just as the sight of Strax was such an acute pleasure to Mara. The storm raging overhead could never match the elemental power that her husband possessed. Like a mountain he was, so tall and strong, his fists like boulders. Lightning split the sky, revealing in stark contrast the steely ropes of muscles in his arms, the planes and ridges of his torso. Yet that electric flash was a dim candle next to the fire of his eyes when he stared at her.

Hunger replaced the thirst in his gaze when her fingers drifted down her belly, sifting through her rain-wet curls to find the part of her that was truly drenched.

“I am ready for you, husband,” she told him huskily.

“If you are not, soon you will be.” Tearing open the laces tying his leathers, he strode toward her. Through the dizzying anticipation of his approach, she glimpsed the ferocious rise of his cock, as massive and as primal as the barbarian who wielded it.

He was a fearsome size, yet Mara could never fear any part of this man she loved. Not his strength when he dragged her hand away from her cunt. Not his ravenous growl as he licked her arousal from her fingers. Not the possessive fire in his eyes when his own fingers delved between her thighs.

A groan tore from his chest. “A treasure of a wife you are, Mara. Not just hot and wet, but eager.”

So eager. And Strax was already stealing her strength as he’d promised, for when he speared two thick fingers inside her, Mara trembled. When his thumb circled her clit, her knees buckled—yet he caught her before she fell, as she knew he always would.

With his left arm wrapped around her waist, Strax carried her to the furs, and with every step the fingers of his right hand stoked her hotter. Her cunt was a blazing furnace of heat and need as he laid her back and then followed her down, pushing her thighs wide.

Braced above her on one arm, Strax fisted his engorged length and lowered his hips between her parted thighs. A greedy moan erupted from her throat as he slicked the thick tip of his shaft through her folds, wetting himself with her arousal before fitting that broad head to her entrance.

Her fingernails digging into his biceps, Mara whimpered with anticipation. There her husband abruptly stilled, as if the sound she’d made was of pain. He made a soothing noise, but to Mara, Strax was the one who required soothing. His big body shook as he hovered over her, his every muscle corded from the effort of his restraint, his gaze frenzied with need even as he gently touched her face.

Through gritted teeth he said, “This will only hurt but once, wife.”

She didn’t care if it hurt a thousand times. Mara would always lift her body toward his as she did now, preparing to sheathe his turgid length. Yet he still hesitated, his broad crown demanding entry but not accepting her invitation.

With a short laugh, she arched toward him again. “You have overcome so many obstacles on this journey, husband—dangerous seas and freezing mountains and treacherous cliffs. Will you let a maidenhead defeat you now?”

His jaw tightened, his face a harsh mask of hunger. She gasped as his hips flexed and he pressed forward—yet too gently.

Immediately he eased back, a groan wracking his rigid form. “Your cunt is tighter than a fist.”

So it was. “And if you do not push harder than that, your fist is all you will ever fuck.”

A laugh shook his big body against hers. “Do not tease me, wife. I cannot bear to hurt you, and I have little control left.”

“Then you have too much.” Raising her head, she gently bit his bottom lip before sliding her tongue across his teeth. Her fingers raked down his straining back, her thighs squeezing his hips. “A little pain I can bear. What I cannot bear is how you hold yourself back from me now. Not after I almost lost you.”

As if remembering, a shudder tore through his massive body. His fierce gaze locked on hers. “Say it again.”

No question what he meant. “I love you, Strax,” she told him softly. “So take me as a warrior takes a woman as strong as I am.”

The sky flashed white, separating his features into stark shadows and laying bare his tormented need as, with one savage thrust, he buried his cock deep. Mara’s scream was lost in the crack of thunder. Taking Strax was no easier than any of this journey had been. But this time she didn’t have to bear her pain alone and in misery. Instead it was accompanied by sheer joy—and by pleasure, the greatest she’d ever known, because Strax was in her arms, and so the pain of his possession was nothing at all.

“Mara?” His rigid frame shook with the strain of remaining motionless as her inner muscles struggled to adjust to his thick girth.

“I am here,” she reassured him, panting, then kissed him fiercely as he withdrew and shoved deep again, spearing her with pleasure. Crying out, she arched her hips, loving the burning stretch each time her body yielded to his. “More.”

As if her ragged plea stole the last of his control, he claimed her mouth in a devastating kiss and relentlessly stroked his swollen length into her welcoming heat. Lightning flashed again, but this time it came from within her, a storm of ecstasy that was twisting higher and higher.

Strax seized her ass in his brutish grip when she began to writhe. Ruthlessly he held her in place for every powerful thrust, and the pace he set was like the pounding of a war drum. Had he still been her enemy, this brutal rhythm might have demanded her surrender, her submission. But an answering beat thrummed through Mara’s veins, hot and thick. Because no war remained between them, and this night he had almost lost her, but a warrior will never be separated from his wife—so the untamed ferocity of their mating was not a fight, but a declaration that nothing could rend them asunder. The pounding of his cock, her hands clawing his shoulders, the ravenous hunger of their kiss were a battle cry announcing that they were one, and a warning to anything that might try to stand against them.

Lightning sizzled through her again as Strax wedged his hand between their bodies, his teeth gritted and his eyes feral. Mara cried out as his rough fingers stroked her clit, arching beneath him in electric pleasure. When his hips jolted forward and buried his cock to the hilt, the orgasm rolled though her like thunder, drenching his length in a carnal rush. Head thrown back, Strax groaned and thrust into her clenching sheath once, twice before roaring his climax into the storm above, his shaft pulsating within her. So hot. So deep.

Almost endlessly it seemed, Strax filled her with his seed. Each scorching pulse renewed the shudders of ecstasy tearing through Mara’s senses, until she lay boneless and quivering in his arms.

He kissed her then, hot and slow, his strong hands cupping her face. And when her warrior lifted his head, his gaze locked on hers, she knew the truth of his every word even before he said, “I love you, Mara.”

Every time before, that declaration had hurt. This time Mara only knew joy, because she believed. So she kissed him, and held him close, and knew for certain that not only did he love her—but that love would make the impossible true.

And that it was magic, too.

Chapter 7

Strax the Believer

The Skull Cliffs

While the storm raged above, three times did Strax take his wife. Her pleasured cries still rang in his ears and her sweet cunt still clutched his cock when the rain abruptly stopped and he no longer needed to serve as her shelter, but her bed. He rolled onto his back and loved the feel of her slight weight atop his chest, her head pillowed on his shoulder.

His cock stirred within her sultry heat, but he wouldn’t fuck her again. Not until morning. His Mara was strong, but for three days she had exhausted herself against the face of the cliff—and the most dangerous task was yet to come.

He expected her to sleep now, yet the absent play of her fingers in his hair told him that her mind was too occupied for slumber. So with a soft grunt, he told her, “Speak to me, Mara.”

One day, she might without prompting. But for so long on this journey she’d been alone—it was his own fault that she was unaccustomed to relying on anyone but herself.

Now she lifted her head to look down at him. Beneath the nighttime sky, her beautiful face was but a play of shadows and darkness, yet he could still see the soft gleam of her teeth as she hesitantly bit her bottom lip before saying, “I won’t give the gauntlet to Solegius.”

Relief slipped through his heart, because Strax knew not what he’d have done if she’d insisted upon giving that weapon to the tyrant. Yet his heart ached, too, because he knew what the cost of her decision might be.

Still he tried to reassure her. “We will free your family,” he vowed. “We will discover a way.”

“I have,” she said softly, her fingers tracing his jaw. “I intend to wear the gauntlet and destroy him.”

Tension locked his muscles. “You intend to wear it?”

Biting her lip again, she nodded. “After you told me of your clan’s blood oath to prevent anyone who would misuse the gauntlet’s power from wielding it, I thought…you did not believe in me, so you would never trust me with that power. I drugged you so that you wouldn’t be forced to stop me.”

The sweetest poisoning he’d ever known. “So that you could race ahead to Khides’ keep.”

“Yes,” she whispered now. “I must free my family, and you must prevent anyone unworthy from wielding the gauntlet. I thought it would be impossible for us to both have what we needed. But you love me and believe in me, so perhaps the impossible can be true. If I were to win the gauntlet, I could take it back to Aremond and destroy Solegius and his warlords. And you could remain with me, and make certain that I never misuse its power.”

That was truth. And it wasn’t the thought of Mara wielding the gauntlet that made Strax pause, but what might happen if it ever fell into another’s hands. A powerful queen was the first woman Khides had given the gauntlet to, and she’d used it fairly and wisely. Then the queen had given it to her twin sons, who’d broken the world.

So that must be Strax’s duty now—to see that the gauntlet never left Mara’s possession.

He had been quiet too long. Painful doubt shadowed her gaze, and she averted her face.

“Perhaps it will not matter,” she said in a raw voice. “I might die trying to retrieve the gauntlet from Khides’ keep.”

Strax caught her chin, made her look at him again as he vowed, “Then I will die helping you, wife.”

Chapter 8

Mara the Champion

Khides’ Keep

In the morning, Mara was awakened by Strax in the manner a husband should wake his wife, then he sheathed his cock deep while she was still shuddering from the pleasure of his tongue. Her lips were swollen and hot from his kisses, her nipples sensitive to the barest touch, and the muscles of her inner thighs ached in the same way they had during the first week of the tournament, before she’d become accustomed to riding all day.

For the first time since the tournament had begun, Mara allowed herself to linger in bed. But her duty could not be denied, nor the danger that lay ahead.

Mara’s heart filled with both anticipation and dread when they began to walk toward Khides’ keep. Strax had vowed to help her retrieve the gauntlet. Now she quelled the impulse to drug him again so that he could not risk himself, knowing that nothing she said or did would stop her husband from entering the keep at her side.

The sun was high overhead when the structure appeared in the distance, yet it was nothing as she had expected. Time had worn away the tower’s thick walls, leaving only ring of stone rubble…and a mountainous pile of skulls in front of the entrance.

Fear trembled through Mara at the sight, yet her steps didn’t waver as she and Strax continued their approach. He had told her that, through the ages, thousands of warriors had tried and failed to retrieve the gauntlet from the keep. Now their skulls served as a warning to anyone foolish enough to attempt the same.

With trepidation shaking through her veins, she asked Strax, “Have you been here before?”

Expression grim, he shook his head and took her hand. “I’ll try for the gauntlet first.”

“No,” she said softly, squeezing his fingers. “We’ll try together. And we will succeed.”

Strax nodded, but his face was a mask of indecision and torment as they reached the pile of skulls. At the bottom lay a fine dust of ancient crumbling bone, the skulls bleached white. Nearer the top were skulls with dried flesh and hair still clinging—and the bloodied heads of warriors who’d entered the tournament.

Yet one contestant still lived. Mara’s mouth dropped open as she reached the top of the skulls and looked down at the bottom of the pile, where a warrior paced outside the ring of stone rubble that marked the ancient walls of the keep. Within the circular keep was only bare earth, perhaps thirty paces across. At its center was an obsidian altar, upon which the gauntlet lay.

Standing near the ruins on either side of the ring were two stone statues—the guardians Strax had mentioned. Unlike the keep walls, the marble warriors showed no signs of decay. Twice the height of any man, the guardians each wore sculpted armor and a helmet carved to resemble a wolf’s head.

The wolf brothers of legend, Mara realized. The twins who’d broken the world while fighting over the gauntlet. Strax had said they were kings, not wolves…yet she saw why legend knew them as both. Now the stone brothers watched over the gauntlet—as punishment or penance, Mara couldn’t guess.

She took a step and a skull tumbled down the pile, alerting the warrior below. He whirled around. Surprise filled his expression, and he drew his sword as if warding her away.

“Stop there!”

She did, but only waiting for Strax to catch up. Faintly she recognized the warrior. Ferinit, she thought his name was.

Below, the warrior shook his head in disbelief. “You made it so far? I believed you dead—and thought I was the last!”

“No,” Mara replied with a laugh. “Strax is always last.”

Her husband appeared over the top of the mountain of skulls as she said so. Ferinit’s gaze flicked to the barbarian and the surprise on the warrior’s face became dismay. Likely because the sword he pointed at her seemed not so threatening now, not with a man like Strax at her side.

Mara carefully began to make her way down the shifting pile of skulls. “You have not attempted to reach the gauntlet?”

“No. I was hoping to discover a way…I have seen the others—I have seen…” Ferinit trailed off as a haunted expression emptied his face. Then his jaw hardened with determination and he glanced toward the altar. “You won’t steal the prize from me!”

The tournament prize? “Trust me, warrior, it is not gold that I seek—”

Mara broke off, her breath catching when Ferinit suddenly leapt over the ruined wall and into the keep’s inner circle. Heart thundering, she looked at the marble guardians. Neither statue moved.

Whether Mara and Strax pursued him seemed to concern Ferinit more than the guardians did. He raced toward the altar, throwing glances over his shoulder to where she and Strax were descending the mountain of skulls.

Strax caught Mara’s hand, steadying her through the final layer of ancient bone that crushed to dust beneath her feet. His gaze, too, was on the stone guardians. “He saw what happened to the others, yet doesn’t fear the statues?”

Apparently not. Yet even as Mara opened her mouth to respond, Ferinit reached the altar and his behavior changed. Where he’d been rushing, now he hesitated—looking to each of the guardians before glancing wildly back at Strax and Mara.

“The guardians must delay their attack until after the gauntlet is taken,” she realized. And whatever form that attack took, Ferinit was visibly preparing himself to grab the gauntlet and run—and he was also visibly terrified, tearing his fingers through his dark hair, then reaching for the gauntlet before snatching his hands back.

Her own hands clammy with dread, Mara called out, “Tell us how, warrior, and we will help you!”

Ferinit made no response, except to square his shoulders—as if the sound of Mara’s voice only hurried him to claim the prize before they could. He swept the gauntlet up against his chest and turned to run.

“Mara,” Strax’s deep voice was urgent with warning. The statues at either side of the bare circle of earth began to move. Yet slowly, so slowly. Surely too slowly to reach Ferinit before he cleared the keep’s wall.

Mara’s gaze flicked back to the warrior and horror gripped her throat. Ferinit should have been halfway across the clearing by now, but he’d only made it a single pace away from the altar. Now he seemed to be crawling across the dirt, the gauntlet clutched to his chest, desperation reddening his face. But he wasn’t crawling—instead he struggled against the multitude of hands and arms that had erupted out of the ground and were pulling him down into the parting earth, as if dragging him into a grave. Some hands were nothing but skeletal bones, some rotting, some newly dead. As if the skulls of everyone who’d tried to claim the gauntlet were piled in a mountain…and the remainder of their bodies now guarded the weapon they’d tried to take.

Frantically she looked to Strax. The barbarian stood atop the ring of rubble. Before she could scream at him to stop, he leapt down into the keep’s circle.

Nothing erupted from the ground to grab him. Casting her a triumphant glance, Strax drew his sword and raced toward Ferinit. Mara scrambled after him. The stone guardians steadily approached, each footstep a heavy thud that amplified the pounding within her chest. Ahead, Strax struck his blade through the macabre forest of arms pulling at Ferinit’s legs.

As if he’d cut through shadows, Strax’s sword harmlessly swept through the grasping arms. Futilely he tried again, then fell to his knees and attempted to grip one of the rotting hands wrapped around Ferinit’s calf. Strax’s fingers passed through the gory flesh as if it were nothing more than an illusion.

An illusion that Ferinit couldn’t break away from. They’d dragged him waist-deep into the earth. The warrior grunted with the strain of trying to break their grip, clawing at the dirt in front of him.

As one, Mara and Strax took hold of Ferenit—Strax wrapping an arm around his chest and Mara grabbing his wrist—and tried to haul him away from the grasping hands.

The moment they touched him, more arms erupted out of the ground to capture their ankles in bony shackles. The soil sank beneath Mara’s feet. With a scream, she desperately hauled on Ferinit’s wrist again—then Strax’s big body tackled hers. They rolled away from the warrior, whose own hoarse scream of despair rang in her ears.

“If we are touching the gauntlet,” Strax said on heaving breaths, “or touching someone who is, the keep will stop us.”

Frantically Mara looked to the stone guardians. The wolf brothers were but a few paces away, their marble swords drawn. “We have to help him.”

Strax nodded, his face a hard mask of determination as he stood and faced one of the statues. Like a bull he charged the massive legs, not attempting to strike the stone guardian with a blade but simply to slow it down or push it over—yet Mara was not surprised when even a man of Strax’s might seemed no more to the guardian than a buzzing fly. It did not even swat him away but simply continued toward Ferinit as if the massive barbarian was not grunting and shoving against his marble waist, Strax’s thick muscles bulging with effort.

Yet muscle was not the only strength a person could have, Mara knew. And her husband believed that only pure magics had any effect within the keep.

She couldn’t claim to love Ferinit, but love wasn’t the only strong magic she could wield. Kindness was, too.

Crouching before the struggling warrior, she urged him, “Let go of the gauntlet. You’ll be free and we will try again together.”

Another hoarse scream emerged from between Ferinit’s gritted teeth as the hands dragged him farther down, so only his shoulders remained above the ground, the gauntlet wedged protectively under his neck.

Still he shook his head. “I can’t let it go. You’ll take it and leave me to die.”

“No,” she swore. “I vow that we will not.”

Booted feet digging furrows out of the earth as he was pushed inexorably forward by the stone guardian, Strax barked a harsh warning. “Mara! Step back from him!”

Because the statues were almost upon them. Mara didn’t move but steadily held Ferinit’s frantic gaze. “Trust that I will not betray you. I have no need for the gold; instead my family is imprisoned in Solegius’s dungeon and I intend to free them. I don’t know why you entered the tournament—for riches or glory…or perhaps Solegius has threatened someone you love, too—but whatever it is you seek, we will make certain that you get it. But you must let us help you first. I swear we will not betray your trust.”

Everything seemed to still. Focused on Ferinit, Mara didn’t realize the hands no longer dragged him down until she heard Strax’s disbelieving “They’ve halted!” Their deadly fingers simply held Ferinit now—and on either side of him, the statues had frozen in place.

Had kindness done that? Truly?

On a shaky laugh, Mara held out her hand for Ferinit to take, so she could pull him to his feet. “See? We’ll help you.”

“No.” The warrior shook his head. “You’ll steal—”

Ferinit’s scream cut off the rest. Mara shouted a denial as the hands dragged him deeper. Strax’s steely arm snagged around her waist and pulled her back, kicking and fighting but knowing there was no help for the warrior now. Neck deep, only his head and his arms were above the ground, his hands still holding onto the gauntlet—until a stone guardian plucked the gauntlet out of his grip. The other sliced his sword through Ferinit’s neck, sending his head flying.

The warrior’s body disappeared into his grave. Her breath coming in ragged gasps, Mara stared at the spot where Ferinit had been…and didn’t look back at the skull mountain to search for his head. Strax’s powerful arms held her tight. His fingers shook as he turned her around, cupped her face in his big hands, searching her eyes as if to reassure himself that she was still there, still alive.

Movement drew their gazes to the stone guardian carrying the gauntlet. He placed it atop the altar, then he and his brother began their slow trek back to the edge of the keep’s circle.

On a shaky breath, Mara whispered, “They stopped for a moment.”

“Yes.” Strax’s answer was gruff. “For a moment.”

“We should try now, since we are already in the keep.” And while she still had the courage.

Tension whitened Strax’s mouth. “Let me do it alone, Mara. If love is magic enough to stop them, then I have enough love for you to see me through this.”

“I believe that, but I won’t let you do it alone,” she said firmly. “We’ll try together.”

Jaw tight, Strax pressed his forehead to hers. Torment roughened his voice. “Then I will carry you. When you take the gauntlet from the altar, the hands will drag me down. But I’ll be strong enough to break free of them, Mara, and carry you to the edge of the keep. Just as you were strong enough to hold me at the cliff.”

Mara hated that plan. But she knew her stubborn husband would accept no other. “If you cannot break free, I’ll toss the gauntlet away and we’ll try again another day.”

Strax nodded, then kissed her fiercely, so fiercely, before sweeping her up into his arms. Cradling her against his chest, he strode toward the altar.

When he’d told her the gauntlet was forged from the hearts of gods, Mara had imagined a finely wrought piece of armor made of precious metals and stones. But the weapon on the obsidian block instead resembled a large leather glove, better suited to a blacksmith than a warrior.

Yet it held enough power to break the world…or to stop a tyrant sorcerer.

Mara couldn’t take her eyes from the gauntlet as Strax halted in front of the altar. Her pulse raced at a sickly fast pace, and her husband cradled her so closely that she could feel the hammering of his heart through his thickly muscled chest. “Should I try to wear it right away?”

“It matters not if you do.” His response was hoarse, as if forced through an obstruction in his throat. “Its power cannot be used within the keep.”

Only pure magic could be wielded. Magic such as love and kindness.

Mara prayed theirs would be enough. With Strax’s arms holding her tight, she reached out and claimed the gauntlet.

Instantly the world shifted—or the earth beneath her husband’s feet did. Mara cried out as Strax began to stride forward, his teeth clenched with effort. One step. Two. Each one a mighty battle against the iron grip of the ghostly hands trying to drag him down. Three. Already he’d made more progress than Ferinit had, yet each step such a struggle that his pace was no faster than the stone guardians’ in their direction, all of them locked in a slow race.

Her terrified gaze on the statues, Mara frantically chanted, “I love you, I love you,” trying to give Strax any strength he needed, then shouted at the guardians, “I only want to free my family! I only want to free all of Aremond from Solegius’s rule, to help them!”

Just as she’d tried to help Ferinit. Yet this time, the statues did not halt, and the horrifying pull of the hands below never ceased.

And Strax was slowing. Teeth gritted, sweat streaming over his skin, he continued striding forward—but he was not carrying her so high above the ground now, Mara realized with horror. The hands had not stopped his forward movement but they’d been dragging him deeper, deeper, and the soil was up to his knees, forcing him not only to fight their grip but also to plow through the earth ahead. Now the stone guardians were closer to Strax and Mara than Strax and Mara were to the edge of the keep—and this was a race they could not win.

“I’ll let the gauntlet go,” Mara whispered brokenly and Strax nodded, his chest heaving, still straining too much to speak. “Tomorrow we’ll try again.”

However long it took. Throat tight, she hurled the gauntlet at the nearest statue—and the leather didn’t leave her grip. No. She tried again. It stuck to her hand as if soldered. Wildly she tried to shake it off and then raised terrified eyes to Strax’s face. “Ferinit said he couldn’t let it go. I thought he meant he wouldn’t, because he didn’t trust us to help him. But he couldn’t!”

Desperate fire lit Strax’s gaze. Grunting, he surged forward, yet he was almost buried to his waist now, fighting for every inch.

No no no no. With sobbing breaths, Mara ripped at her hand, trying to tear away the gauntlet—but although she could adjust her grip on the leather, she couldn’t release it. The stone guardians were almost upon them, huge, unstoppable.

“Drop me,” Mara begged Strax. “Leave me here and save yourself.”

“As you did…upon the cliff?” Each word was a grunt from between clenched teeth and a grimace of effort that transformed his expression into a mad grin. “Never.”

“Then know I love you,” she whispered fiercely, clinging to him. “I love you…but love isn’t enough.”

That realization slammed into Mara even as the nearest guardian raised his sword, lupine helmet gleaming beneath the sun.

“It is enough, Mara,” Strax denied, his arms holding her tighter, tucking her closer to his chest as if his heart could guard her from the blade about to descend upon her head. “I will carry you the distance.”

And she believed he could. Never had Mara known anything as mighty as her husband’s heart. But love was not all they needed now.

“Trust me, Strax,” she implored softly, lifting her hand to his clenched jaw. “Trust me.”

Abruptly he stopped…as did the guardians. The statues stood frozen with arms reaching for the gauntlet and swords swinging for their necks—and their blades halted only inches from Strax and Mara’s heads. But the guardians didn’t retreat. Instead they remained, as if waiting.

A sob of relief tore from Mara’s throat. “Have the hands stopped pulling?”

Strax confirmed her hope with a short nod, amazement flaring through his expression. “They only hold me in place. What did you do?”

“I remembered the story you told me of the wolf brothers.” Shaking in his arms, she tried not to look at how close the guardian’s sword was to the back of Strax’s neck, tried not to remember how quickly Ferinit had been killed and pulled under. “It wasn’t kindness that stopped them before. I asked Ferinit to trust me. And that is the magic needed here. Because the brothers loved each other, but they didn’t trust each other to wield the gauntlet’s power wisely and fairly. And love is always weakened without trust.”

“Yes,” Strax agreed, but his gaze was on the guardian behind her. Carefully he turned her in his arms, shifting her weight to the opposite side. Putting himself in the path of the guardian’s sword, Mara realized—so if the statue continued to swing, the blade would hit Strax instead of her.

She caught his face, made him meet her eyes. With her heart in her throat, she whispered thickly, “Do you truly trust me to wield this gauntlet?”

“I do,” Strax replied, and the same fire that lit his gaze as he’d spoken his wedding vows burned brightly behind his eyes again. “I have watched you for months, Mara. I know the woman you are. And I trust that you will only use the weapon for reasons that are good and right.”

Joy swept through Mara, because her husband so clearly believed every word he spoke—so clearly believed in her. But dread followed when the guardians still didn’t retreat.

Heart thundering, she frantically looked between the statues. “You trust me to wield the gauntlet. Why isn’t that enough?”

“Because the brothers needed to trust each other. Not just one trusting the other, but both.” Strax’s gruff reply swung her gaze back to his face, where bleak agony darkened his expression. “Forgive me, Mara. Forgive me.”

Fear clutched her chest. “Forgive what? I trust you with the gauntlet.”

She didn’t believe Strax would ever wear it, unless he had no other choice—but even then, he’d never misuse its power. She believed that with all of her heart.

“Forgive me for not being a man you could believe in or trust.” His voice roughened, his self-torment bare upon his face. “These past months, I have betrayed my heart again and again, rarely helping you though I could have eased your journey, hurting you with the words I spoke. Only a week past, you didn’t even trust me to remove the enchanted collar without abusing my power over you, but held a knife to my throat until it was done. A few days of marriage cannot make up for six months, but I swear to you, Mara—you can trust that I will never betray my heart or you again.”

Breath catching, Mara stared at him. Because he spoke truth. A week past, she hadn’t trusted him. Not his words, not his actions.

Yet since that day, her feelings had utterly changed. Before their marriage, she’d wished that Strax was a man who would comfort and help her, who would love her and believe in her.

Now she no longer wished, because Strax had proved over and over again he was that man.

“I do,” she said boldly, gazing into his eyes—and realized this was what the guardians waited for. Because wearing the gauntlet wouldn’t be the only way to wield it. “You have more power over me now than an enchanted collar could ever give, Strax, because I love you. But I trust that you will never abuse that power over me and make me misuse the gauntlet.”

Strax’s eyes closed. Mara’s heart stopped. Then she saw his naked relief, and realized the hands had released him. The statues began to withdraw, and in the next moment she was laughing and crying as Strax carried her out of the keep. Once beyond the ruined wall, she threw the gauntlet onto the ground. His lust rose fiercely between them, and Mara kissed him with all the love bursting within her heart even as her body slickened with need.

Gently Strax lowered her to the sun-warmed grass, but there was no gentleness in his kiss or his hands as he shoved her tunic to her waist and ripped open his leathers.

“Say it,” he demanded, releasing his massive length.

“I love you, Strax.” She fisted her hands in his hair and dragged his mouth back to hers. “I love you.”

With a powerful thrust, he drove deep. Mara welcomed him with a glad cry against his mouth, her inner muscles clutching his thick cock as Strax fucked her in a frenzy of love and relief that soon turned to pure pleasure. She came, writhing and screaming beneath him, and he groaned her name as his pulsating length pumped her full of his seed.

His kiss gentled then, and he rolled until she lay atop him, grinning up at her. “You are a champion now, my wife.”

Mara laughed, for indeed she had won the tournament. “I could not have done it without your help,” she said truthfully, still in awe of the strength that had allowed him to carry her so far across the keep, and of his belief and trust that had allowed her this victory. Because she could never have claimed the gauntlet alone. Love only needed one, but trust took two.

Yet her journey was not over—and they could not linger here. Her family was still imprisoned in Solegius’s dungeon and even if they traveled at a faster pace than they’d come, it was still a long distance back to Aremond.

On a sigh, she rose to her feet and picked up the gauntlet from where she’d thrown it down. So far she’d come for this. And there was still so far to go.

She felt Strax’s gaze upon her as, her heart pounding, she slipped the weapon onto her hand. Though the leather made from the gods’ hearts appeared stiff, the fit of the glove was supple around her fingers…and she felt no different. “It is many months’ journey back to Aremond,” she said. “I must learn to wield this in that time. But I don’t even know where to begin.”

“The gauntlet uses the magic of its wearer. So learn to focus yours,” Strax suggested. “Think of your love for your family, your desire to free them.”

So much love. For her brothers and sisters, her mother and father. Closing her eyes, she pictured their faces, and pure emotion surged through her chest.

She opened her eyes within a dark, dank cell. In front of Mara, her mother sat on the floor with her youngest siblings, scratching figures into the dirt. Teaching them to calculate sums. Her mother’s dark hair was shorn close to her scalp, and Mara had a clear vision of her mother picking lice from tangled and greasy clumps, and felt her mother’s despair and frustration and determination as she sliced through the long strands….and heard her father’s warm voice telling her mother that she was as beautiful as ever to him.

I cannot give up now. I cannot give up now. I cannot give up now.

That was also her father’s voice, not a memory but happening now—though not spoken aloud. Instead her father only thought it. Mara turned toward the sound and pain ripped through her heart when she saw his emaciated form. His eyes were on the door as he carefully, secretly sharpened a bit of stone, his mind filled with thoughts of using the blade to kill the cruel guards and to free his family, and at the same time Mara knew his fevered imaginings she also saw every bite that he’d given to his children, how many times he’d insisted he wasn’t hungry even while his stomach seemed to gnaw holes in him from within.

“Mara?”

That was her eldest brother’s voice, who looked at her now in confusion and uncertainty. But a pained cry pulled Mara’s gaze to where her mother was staring at her, a trembling hand over her mouth and tears filling her eyes, her mind screaming denials and her heart already grieving—as if she believed Mara’s appearance in this cell must mean her daughter was dead.

Then Mara’s second sister whispered, “Are you a ghost?” and Mara shook her head.

Turning, she waved her gauntleted hand and the dungeon door exploded outward. With a flicker of her eyelashes, she slaughtered the guards who came running.

Mara wasn’t a ghost. She was a champion…with the power of a god.

She went in search of Solegius.

Chapter 9

Strax the Guardian

Khides’ Keep

Mara left him, yet she also remained. For three hours she hovered upright, her feet dangling above the ground. She was motionless except for her hair, which blew around her as if she were caught in a storm. Yet if there was a storm, Mara was the sun at the center, for her eyes and skin glowed brightly gold.

When she came back to him, it was sudden. The glow dimmed and Strax caught her as she fell out of the air. When she sank to her knees, he sank with her.

“It is done,” she said in a thick voice, pulling the gauntlet from her hand. “Solegius and his warlords, his slavers…I killed them all.”

Strax could hardly comprehend it. “All?”

She nodded, her chin wobbling. “I looked into their hearts and their minds, and if I saw nothing but cruelty, then I…” Her haunted gaze rose to meet his. “You trusted that I would always use the gauntlet for right and good. I think what I did was right. I don’t know if it was good.”

“That you wonder only makes me more certain of you,” Strax said, his heart aching for her. Strax had fought in wars before, had seen many battles. He knew what nightmares tore at her now and would have done anything to spare her from them. But his Mara had not asked to be spared.

“I need to put it back,” she whispered.

He frowned. “The gauntlet?”

She nodded. “I finished what I needed to do. And it terrifies me to know this much power is in one person’s hands. Even if that person is me.”

That she thought so was another reason Strax would never be afraid of that gauntlet in her possession. “Solegius will not be the only tyrant or sorcerer to ever threaten Aremond.”

“No. But we will try to defeat any others through usual means.” Wryly she smiled at him. “And if we cannot, we know where to find the gauntlet.”

That was truth. So Strax kissed her, then walked with her back to the keep, stunned by the realization that his wife had held the gods’ hearts in her hands and was willing to let them go. Yet she’d never let go of his heart, even to save herself.

Never had he loved her so much. Never had he felt so humbled by her love.

They faced no danger within the keep. When she placed the gauntlet onto the altar, the marble guardians knelt and bowed their heads in her direction. Mara blushed and appeared uncertain, but Strax thought they didn’t show enough respect. The stone kings ought to have been crawling at her feet.

Outside the keep again, it seemed that a burden dropped from her shoulders. Never had he seen her smile so bright, her laugh so sunny. She told him how she had flown as a bird, and how after killing Solegius and his warlords, she had returned to her family’s side to restore her father’s strength and tell them she would be bringing a husband home with her. And all the while she spoke, such happiness shined from her, as if she still glowed…because she did.

Mara saw his fierce gaze upon her and slowly stopped, biting her lip. “I have just realized—before I gave up the gauntlet, I should have looked for your brother. To see…where he was.”

Which she clearly believed was at the bottom of the Illwind Sea. Yet Strax knew Aruk had survived. He shrugged. “We will find one another again.”

“You are so certain?”

Strax nodded, then caught her hand and drew it to his side, where the runes softly glowed with the power locked inside him. “These runes contain my magic beneath my skin, but I still can sense enchantments—just as I can always sense my twin, no matter how far he is. So I do not know where Aruk is, but I know that he lives.”

“Oh.” A laughing smile curved her soft mouth. “All this time, I thought you were too mule-brained to admit that he’d drowned.”

Strax grinned. “I am that, too.”

“Perhaps we’ll find him on our journey back, then. He’s bound by the same blood oath as you, so he might have continued following the tournament route…he might have…”

She fell silent, staring ahead, and Strax was not wholly surprised when her eyes filled with a golden light and power softly glowed from her skin.

Yet this time she did not leave him or hover above the ground. Instead she whispered, “I see him. He is…with a woman.”

Strax snorted out a laugh. Yes, that was very much like Aruk.

A frown creased Mara’s brow. “A red ribbon is wrapped around their hands. They’re being married.”

Strax’s eyebrows shot upward. That was very much not like Aruk.

“He’s in chains,” Mara said, her voice full of sudden worry. “It appears he is being forced to marry.”

At that, Strax shook his head. “Aruk has never been forced to do anything he did not wish to.”

The glow faded from Mara’s skin and she looked to him, blinking and confused. “I wasn’t wearing the gauntlet,” she said shakily.

She wasn’t. But no one could wield so much power without it touching her in return. And perhaps she was not the only one the power had touched. Before she’d worn the gauntlet, Strax had spent his seed within her many times.

He drew her close, spreading his hand protectively over her belly. He’d sworn a blood oath to prevent anyone from misusing the gauntlet’s power—the same power she still carried within her. Perhaps that power wasn’t as strong as while wearing the glove, but it mattered little to him.

“Then you are well and truly caught, my wife,” he said against her lips. “Even if you wish to rid yourself of me, always will I be your guardian. Protecting you will forever be my duty.”

“I am your duty?” Eyes narrowed, she pushed playfully at his chest. “Then I say that you are my prize for winning this tournament.”

Strax would never argue with that, though it was he who’d won the greatest treasure on this journey. And he suspected the journey ahead would be much slower and longer, with many mornings when they lingered in bed.

But there was no lingering now. Only urgent need as Mara pushed him down onto the grass, straddling him with the intention of claiming her prize.

Then claim him she did, embracing his swollen length in a heaven of wondrous heat. Groaning, Strax thrust upward. Never had any man been so blessed as he was, to have such a wife, with a mind so clever and a cunt so tight. His heart pounded in his chest as his cock pounded inside her. Blunt fingers sifting through her curls, he stroked her clit to the same carnal rhythm, his enraptured gaze locked upon the exquisite beauty of her face. Like a summer storm his wife moved over him, hot and wet and fast.

When her eyes closed and her spine arched, her rose-tipped breasts lifting toward the sun, his love for her struck him so powerfully that only through sheer will did Strax halt the spurt of his seed. His treasure of a wife glowed fiercely with the strength of her pleasure, her convulsing sheath tightly clutching his shaft. Lost to the ecstasy of that passionate grip, he held back his release until her shudders passed.

Then Strax ended this journey exactly as he’d begun—believing that Mara was the most beautiful woman he’d ever beheld.

And by coming last.

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Mara the Queen

Aremond

More than a full year passed before Mara and Strax rode into the city at the heart of Aremond. The journey home had taken even longer than Mara had anticipated, and not only because she and Strax lingered in bed almost every morning. She ached to embrace each member of her family again, and to introduce them to her husband, but the desperate urgency that had driven her from the kingdom had been replaced by utter contentment.

Riding beside her, Strax cradled their daughter against his broad chest. The baby slept peacefully in a small bundle of furs, and every time Mara glanced over at them, her husband was gazing down at Arella’s tiny face with an expression of enchantment.

Mara didn’t yet know if the gauntlet’s powers had also touched their child—but for certain, Arella had already put a powerful spell upon her father.

And upon her uncle, too. Soon after Strax and Mara reached the southern shore of the Illwind Sea, they had found Aruk again, and heard all that had befallen him since he’d been swept from their ship. Neither Mara nor Strax had been surprised to meet his pretty bride, Jalisa, or to learn that she was the ruler of Savadon—because from time to time, through the gauntlet’s lingering power Mara had seen Aruk and his queen.

For the same reason, Mara had been happy to remain in Savadon during the final month of her pregnancy rather than continue on the road, or to travel with an infant during the heart of winter. Because although she missed her family terribly, Mara had seen them and knew they were well. So she had sent a message ahead, instead, to let them know she would return in the spring.

And when the first flowers bloomed, she and Strax had left for Aremond.

Mara had not expected the fierce clutch upon her heart when they’d crossed the river that served as the kingdom’s eastern border. Her family’s home was still two days’ ride away—yet after risking so much to destroy Solegius, to simply step foot inside Aremond and to know that tyrant king no longer ruled and terrorized the people here…it was such a feeling, one she could not describe. Not pride or joy, and yet both of those. Not relief and happiness, and yet both of those. And it seemed as if everything around her was new. The old crofters’ huts. The plowed earth in the fields. The green hills in the distance. The city gates—and the city itself, too. Buildings now stood with windows unshuttered and doors opened in welcome.

But the people were newest of all. No matter how young or old. They all seemed completely changed, with faces that smiled now, and eyes that looked forward instead of always down, down. Riding through the streets, Mara heard singing that was happy, and laughter that wasn’t cruel, and wondered if she had ever truly been here before because the Aremond she knew had been utterly transformed.

In sheer wonder, she studied everything around her—and was aware of how many people were looking back, of all wide-eyed glances aimed in her direction. Or more likely, in Strax’s direction. Her fearsome husband always drew stares.

“Mara.”

The skin at the back of her neck tightened. Strax only used that very calm, quiet tone when a threat approached. Several times he’d used it on their journey home, when they’d run across bandits and trolls and baleworms—encounters that began with him saying her name in that way, and ended with a slaughter by his sword or by her magic. Now a dozen soldiers rode toward them, hoofbeats rolling like thunder upon the cobblestones, ornate helms gleaming beneath the sun.

The royal guard.

Oh, but she should have expected this. After all, she had killed a king—and had not hidden her face as she’d done it.

Tension coiled through her gut. Perhaps they meant to arrest her, to make her stand trial…if whoever ruled Aremond now permitted a trial at all.

But she had done what was right. If necessary, she would stand and defend her actions. Not yet, though.

First, she was going home.

Holding Arella securely in one arm, Strax drew his sword with the other and urged his horse closer to hers. “Take the baby, Mara.”

Heart pounding, she shook her head. The air around her seemed to sharpen. She heard the cries of wonder and alarm from the people who’d been looking in their direction. Though she didn’t glance down at her hands, she knew her skin was glowing—as her eyes were.

She would not harm these men. But she would not let them stop her, either.

“We are going home,” she told Strax softly.

The soldiers slowed, as if recognizing the danger they suddenly faced. They came to a halt a stone’s throw away, the captain of the guard calling out, “Maraserit ik Terin?”

“That is I.” Though she was new, too. The Mara who had left this kingdom a year and a half before was not the same Mara who’d returned. “What reason do you seek me out?”

The captain smiled—an expression that seemed of relief and joy, all at once. Then he abruptly dismounted, dropping to one knee and bowing his head. “To escort you to the palace…Your Majesty.”

Mara stared at him. Then at the soldiers behind him, who followed suit. Dismounting, kneeling, bowing. Through the streets, spreading through the city, she heard a single echoing cry.

“The queen has finally come! The queen has come home!”

Had everyone gone mad? In disbelief, she looked to Strax. “I cannot be named queen simply because I killed Solegius,” she whispered fiercely to him.

Still cradling Arella against his chest, Strax merely shrugged his powerful shoulders and sheathed his sword. “Your people do not seem to agree.”

Her people…everyone around them. Because they had been staring at her. Not him. Now they cried out her name, cheering and regarding her with so much hope—as if she had done more than use a magical weapon to free them from a tyrant.

A queen should be so much more than that.

Uncertainty shivered through her heart. “I know nothing about how to rule a kingdom.”

“And before you entered the tournament, you knew nothing about slaying trolls or climbing giant skulls,” he said softly, and the fire of admiration burning in his gaze heated her through. “But you knew that whatever power you wield, you should only use it for what is right and good. So you will be the finest queen who ever sat upon a throne, Mara.”

Emotion clogged her throat. Never did Strax’s belief in her waver. “And you will be a king.”

Again he shrugged. “I have been a king since Wintermere.”

Her lips parted in realization. What she had done to gain Aremond’s throne was exactly the same as Strax had. “Because you killed Thadus?”

“No, Mara.” Taking her hand, he brought it to his mouth and pressed a kiss into her palm, filling her heart with a warmth that smothered the shivering uncertainty. “Because I married you.”

Had any woman ever been as blessed as she? For she had a husband who loved her with all of his heart, a beautiful daughter and a wonderful family—and now an entire kingdom believed in her, too.

Yet would Strax be as happy as she was? He had liberated a kingdom with barely any effort. A kingdom he could have ruled—along with many others. Because it had not been the first time he’d freed a realm or killed a king. While in Savadon, she had heard Strax and his brother share tales of the adventures they’d known before the tournament had begun. Surely, even though Strax and Mara were now a king and queen, they could still travel…yet his life would be nothing like what it had been before he’d married her.

So amid all the joy and celebration of that day and of the days that followed, doubt plagued her heart. She could see no discontent in her husband, no restlessness—but perhaps it would come. And if it did…

If it did, then Mara would give up the throne to someone she trusted, and leave with him.

* * *

“That is a face wise men would fear.”

From her seat in front of the mirror, Mara glanced up to see Strax entering the royal bedchamber from the adjoining nursery. Each recent evening had been finished in this sweet manner—retiring to the queen’s quarters after dinner, where Mara would feed the baby and then take her bath while Strax put Arella to bed. Often Mara was already beneath the covers before he reappeared—not because the baby took so long to fall asleep, for she often began slumbering at Mara’s breast—but because their days had become so busy and their time together so precious, that Strax would tread the nursery floor with Arella cradled in his arms before finally laying her in the cot.

But this eve, he had not lingered in the nursery very long. Braiding her damp hair, Mara glanced into the mirror. Her skin did not glow and her eyes did not shine.

“Mine is a face to fear?”

“It is.” Strax crossed the bedchamber toward her, his gaze fixed upon her features. “For that is a face you wear after coming to a decision, and says that only a fool would stand in your way…or you will poison him with the sweetness between your legs.”

Mara laughed. “Did I wear such a face that day?”

“You did.” He crouched before her chair, and although a smile tilted the corners of his mouth, his dark eyes were solemn when he took her hands in his. “And on that day, your heart ached because you believed that you would have to seek the gauntlet alone. Does it ache now, too? If so, my wife, my queen, tell me what must done to ease your troubles, and I will do it.”

So different she was now from that Mara, too. She had never easily shared her worries with anyone—not even her family—and certainly not with Strax in those first months. Yet everything had begun to change between them the first time she had, when she’d confessed that Solegius held her family captive. Then again when she’d told him how his careless words had hurt her for so long. Then again when she had admitted her intention to use the gauntlet. Over the past year, she had gotten better at confiding in him—and although this was a worry she would rather hide, by now she knew it was better to have it out in the open.

With her heart in her throat, she cupped his jaw in her palm. “If ever you become discontented here—if ever you feel caged or trapped—know that I will go with you.”

A frown darkened his face. “Caged?”

“Or bored. Or…dissatisfied.” Her breath trembled. “You have seen so much of the world and had so many adventures, Strax. And you are not a man who will be happy with only the duties of a king. So if ever you wish to pursue those adventures again, do not hesitate to say so.”

His expression lightened and he brought her hand to his mouth, kissed her fingers. “I do not need to pursue adventures.”

“That cannot be true. You are—”

“Up to my neck in danger.” His teeth nipped at her fingertips. “Did we not receive reports that Solegius’s magics had scaled and tainted the forests around Aremond, along with the creatures who live there? Do you think that I would send your armies to die while I am safe within these castle walls—or do you know that I will fight with them?”

“I know you will.” As she would, too. “But that is only—”

“Monsters, demons, and slavering beasts. Hardly a challenge,” he said, nodding as if in agreement. “Yet there is also the danger your father warned me of—one that I will face all too soon.”

Mara sat up straighter. “My father? What danger?”

“A daughter who will soon begin walking.” His deep voice was utterly grave. “I have heard how many times I will turn my back for only a moment and find Arella missing. I have heard the terrors every father must face—and that those terrors never lessen, for Arella will grow older, and no longer listen to us, then she might join a tournament and travel away from home, and every moment until she returns will be a torment. And that is only one child. I think we will likely have more, so I’ll not have a moment’s peace or a chance to become discontented.”

Smiling now, Mara said, “Perhaps a few more children.”

“Even if we have no more, I would be content to never leave this bedchamber, for the greatest danger I know is here.”

So it was. “Because of the magic the gauntlet left in me.”

“No. That I do not fear. But with a mere touch of your fingers, Mara…” He pressed her palm over his heart, flattening her hand over steely muscle. “You make me so weak.”

Her pulse began to race. “You do not feel weak.”

“Do I not?” Gaze molten, he lifted her from the chair and carried her to the bed. “Then we will see if I have strength enough for this adventure. And here is where I will start.” Gently laying her atop the covers, Strax came down over her trembling body, his thumb sweeping over her lips. “At the Honeyed Cavern, which might be most dangerous of all.”

“How so?” she whispered against his skin.

“Because if from this cavern ever came the words that you do not love me, you would kill me instantly.”

An ache slipped down her throat. “Never would I say such words. Always, I will love you.”

“Those words kill me, too. But it is the sweetest death, Mara,” he said gruffly, before bending his head. “And never will I tire of exploring your Honeyed Cavern.”

With kisses, hot and slow—before journeying onward, to her jaw and her neck, where he bestowed more names while tasting and teasing her sensitive skin. Her husband proved to be a poor poet. She shook with laughter as his tongue climbed her Milky Mountains, then gasped in pleasure as he sucked her Rosy Peaks to throbbing points. He stopped to worship at the altar of her belly, then pretended to become lost in the lush forest that guarded the Wondrous Heaven between her thighs.

There he made her come on his tongue, and her shudders of ecstasy were still quaking through her body as he turned her over. He kissed the slopes of her shoulders, explored the shallow valley of her spine—then set her to giggling again when he slipped his fingers along the cleft of her ass, and teased the entrance to her Well of Mystery with the pad of his thumb.

“Perhaps when you are feeling more adventurous,” he said against her ear—then her giggles dissolved into pure pleasure as he parted her thighs and sank his cock into her wondrous heaven.

This, too, was new. Many times Mara had taken him, yet always she loved him more than the time before. Never had she loved him as much as now. She could not see Strax behind her, but he was all that she could feel—his skin hot and slick, his heavy muscles bunching and releasing, his ragged breaths into her hair.

And he was all that she could feel inside her, too. His steely length filled her sheath, but he was deeper than that. So much deeper. He filled her heart and her thoughts, so there was only him—her husband, leading her to a place that he’d taken her to before, yet never did the journey become old.

Now she pushed back against him, trying to rise onto her knees, crying out with every deep thrust. Driving harder into her sultry heat, he wedged his hand beneath her stomach and his long fingers found her clit—her Magic Pebble, Strax grunted the name as he began to rub, and Mara was laughing again when the orgasm crashed into her, knocking the breath from her lungs, her inner muscles cinching tight as her entire body shook from the force of her release.

His hot seed soon joined the river of need that glistened on her inner thighs, then Strax gathered her close—holding her as he had so many times since she’d become his midnight bride.

Again he kissed her, so sweet and slow, before telling her softly, “Never would I wish for anything other than this, Mara. You are everything I could have ever wished for.”

Just as Strax was all that she had wished he would be—and so much more. Not a doubt remained as she kissed him, or as she began journeying her way south, licking and tasting.

Because Mara, too, enjoyed an adventure—and her king had a Throbbing Tower to explore.

* * *

So here we are again, at the close of a tale and deciding what more to tell. Did Strax and Mara have more children? Of course they did. Did those children grow up to have adventures of their own? Of course they did. They encountered many obstacles and dangers, had many heartaches and many joys. And they faced them all as their parents had—trusting in the magic of love, but knowing that love is not always enough (and during such times, they usually used a sword).

But those are tales for anotherwhere and anotherwhen. This tale is over, except for the most important question at a story’s end. Did Strax and Mara live happily ever after?

Of course they did.

END

* * *

Looking for Aruk’s story? Pretty Bride is available in Kindle Unlimited! Or simply turn the page to learn more about Kati’s upcoming releases (and to see a bonus map).

The Dead Lands by Kati Wilde

(All ebooks are in Kindle Unlimited. Discreet print versions are also available.)

The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride

The Midnight Bride

Pretty Bride

The Stoneheart Bride

Coming Soon

The Midsummer Bride

Set in the same world as the Dead Lands

Evil Twin

A Note from the Author

Hi, everyone! Kati here. I hope you enjoyed The Midnight Bride! I had been itching to return to the same world as The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride, and have had The Midsummer Bride waiting forever for me to write it, but I hadn’t had time yet (it’ll be a long one.) But when Mel and Lea asked me to write a novella for their Read Me Romance podcast, I knew immediately which world I wanted to visit.

Then the ladies of the Club decided to write a Rags-to-Riches series, and since the podcast book and the other story would come out at essentially the same time, of course I had to write about brothers!

Aruk’s story, Pretty Bride, is available now! It’s a completely over-the-top fantasy romance novella, with shark-punching and squid-fighting, and a spoiled princess who washes up on a deserted island…and finds the island isn’t so deserted, after all.

What’s up next for the Dead Lands? The Midsummer Bride, of course! That story will definitely be a full-length novel, so I’m not certain of the release date yet, but I can’t freaking wait to finally get to that story—it’s got a queen in exile, a barbarian who sees ghosts, and a curse that might end up destroying them both.

Also look for the next novel in my Hellfire Riders motorcycle club series, Losing It All—that’s available for pre-order and will be out at the end of this month. And if you love shapeshifters, keep an eye out for Sheriff’s Bad Bear, which features Samantha and Brandon from my most recent release, Teacher’s Pet Wolf. So there’s a lot to look forward to!

Happy reading!

Kati

Also by Kati Wilde

(Except for Going Nowhere Fast, all ebooks are in Kindle Unlimited. An asterisk (*) indicates that a discreet print version is available. Visit katiwilde.com for more links and info.)

Contemporary Romance

Going Nowhere Fast

(new adult, enemies-to-lovers, road trip)

Secret Santa*

(holiday romance, office romance, down-on-her-luck heroine, dirty-talking-hero who is good with his hands)

All He Wants For Christmas*

(holiday romance, grumpy detective living next door, rich girl who works in a morgue)

The King’s Horrible Bride

(a modern royal romance)

The Wedding Night (Before Christmas)*

(lady billionaire, blue-collar hero, marriage of convenience, and a bit of holiday flavor)

The Hellfire Riders Motorcycle Club

The Hellfire Riders: Saxon & Jenny *

(includes: Wanting It All, Taking It All, Having It All)

The Hellfire Riders: Jack & Lily *

(includes: Betting It All, Risking It All, Burning It All)

Breaking It All*

(Gunner & Anna)

Giving It All*

(Saxon & Jenny)

Craving It All*

(Bull & Sara)

Faking It All*

(Duke & Olivia)

Losing It All*

(Stone & “Cherry”)

The Dead Lands

Barbarian Fantasy Romance

The Midwinter (Mail-Order) Bride*

The Midnight Bride*

Pretty Bride*

The Stoneheart Bride*

Fantasy Romance

Evil Twin

Wolfkin and Berserker Romance

Beauty In Spring

(a short Beauty & the Beast romance)

High Moon

(a werewolf romance)

Teacher’s Pet Wolf

(a werewolf romance)

Upcoming Romances

The Midsummer Bride

(a Dead Lands novel)

Sheriff’s Bad Bear

(a berserker romance)

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