The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride

Kati Wilde

To Ella, Ruby, Mel and Lea, the amazing ladies who inspire me every day (and inspire me to write faster).

Contents

The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride

Stepback Cover

Map

1. Kael the Butcherer

2. Anja the Rejected

3. Kael the Pitiless

4. Anja the Unwanted

5. Kael the Raviner

6. Anja the Liar

7. Kael the Wolfkiller

8. Anja the Unkissed

9. Kael the Thorough

10. Anja the Witch

11. Kael the Conqueror

Epilogue

The Mail-Order Bride Series

Also by Kati Wilde

Secret Santa

Chapter 1

Going Nowhere Fast

Newsletter

The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride

A Holiday Fantasy Romance

Some might call Princess Anja of Ivermere brave for offering herself up as a bride to Kael the Conqueror, a barbarian warlord who’d won his crown by the bloodied edge of his sword. It was not courage that drove Anja from her magic-wielding family’s enchanted palace, however, but a desperate attempt to secure a kingdom of her own—even if she has to kill the Conqueror to do it. She expects pain beneath his brutal touch as she awaits her chance. She expects death if he discovers the truth of her intentions.

She didn’t expect Kael to reject her and send her back to Ivermere.

Raised in the ashes of the Dead Lands, Kael fears nothing—certainly not the beautiful sorceress who arrives at his mountain stronghold. But no matter how painful his need for her, Kael has no use for a bride who would only tolerate his kiss. Yet the more of Anja’s secrets he uncovers during their journey to return her home, the more determined he becomes to win the princess’s wary heart.

And Kael the Conqueror has never been defeated…

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1

Kael the Butcherer

Grimhold

Here we are, at the last of four tales about brides who travel great distances drawn by hope, or driven by fear, and who find happiness in the arms of an alien, and a wolf, and a billionaire.

Now comes the warlord king.

The time is anotherwhen, a date unknown but in the midst of winter; the place is anotherwhere, a world unnamed but to the west of the Illwind Sea. And this story begins, as many stories do, with a lonely warrior wandering through a fortress guarded by mighty walls that are as thick and as hard as the walls around his heart. Surely only a brave bride—or a very desperate one—could scale those stone battlements…or any of the other thick and hard parts of him.

So we settle in for a midwinter’s spell—for that is all a tale is, words woven together in hopes of making magic. It matters not if you believe in such things. You must only believe this—

Love is magic, too.

* * *

Kael strode into the chamber that ought to have been filled with shackled prisoners and the beseeching cries of the penitent—and found it disappointingly empty. Frowning, he turned to the sentry posted beside the chamber doors. “Is this not the petition hall?”

The young guard’s only response was the metallic shivering of chainmail and a panicked hiss of breath.

If Kael asked the simple question again the boy might piss himself in fear. Frustration gritted his teeth. A flash of blue farther down the corridor caught his eye—one of the royal underministers, a woman he’d seen cowering in the great hall during his endless meetings with his advisors. “You there!”

The figure froze. A timid, “Yes, your majesty?” floated toward him.

“Is this not the petition hall?”

Though the underminister had the courage to approach him, she was trembling as hard as the sentry—but silently trembling, for her woolen robes didn’t jingle. “It is, sir.”

Just as Kael had thought. “Then is it not Petition Day?”

In each of his four kingdoms, anyone sentenced by local magistrates or whose complaints were unresolved had a right to petition the king for a hearing. Kael had only recently learned that a high magistrate had been overseeing the hearings in the petition hall each month, as had been established during Geofry’s reign.

Kael enjoyed few royal duties. It seemed that his every hour was filled with tedious meetings and pointless rituals. But he had looked forward to this day, when he might hear how his kingdoms’ laws were applied—and learned which of Geofry’s still needed to be struck down.

“It is,” she answered.

“Why is no one here, then?”

Her cheeks paled and she bit her lip. Her gaze darted to the sentry, as if searching for help, but the boy could hardly breathe let alone give Kael an explanation.

The underminister attempted it. “Because…I have heard…that is…” In a sudden rush, she got it out— “There are no petitioners.”

Kael’s frown deepened. “No petitioners?” He had seen previous dockets. Each month brought dozens of petitions. “Why?”

Mutely she stared at him.

Curse every breath that Geofry ever took. So frightened was she, Kael would have to pull her tongue from her mouth to get an answer from it—as Geofry had done in truth to those who’d said words he hadn’t wanted to hear. Too many silent servants roamed these stone corridors to wonder at her fear now.

If Kael wanted an answer, he would have to seek it elsewhere.

It finally came, however, from an unexpected direction. “The prisoners learned that you would deliver the new rulings, sir,” the sentry told him, voice little more than a squeak. “And decided to accept the sentences they’d received.”

Rather than risk worse from him? More fools they. Kael had been in a fine mood this day. Had been.

What his mood looked like now, Kael could not say, except that after braving another glance at his face, the underminister’s fingers shook ever harder as she pointed down the stone corridor in the direction from which she’d come. “I believe you are expected in the great hall instead, your majesty.”

Where a large number of people had gathered, Kael concluded by the noise coming from that chamber as he approached. And this was what becoming a king had made him—for many years he had been called Kael the Conqueror, yet at this moment he dreamt of finding a cupboard to hide in. Anything to avoid more royal pageantry.

His sour mood worsened when he stepped into the great hall and saw the cushion of woven flowers blanketing the golden seat of his throne. Over a year ago, he’d told the ladies of the court not to waste time on such frivolities.

He would not tell them again. Without a word, Kael drew his sword. The courtiers and servants within the opulent marble chamber abruptly fell silent. Some trembled and stumbled out of his path, but he paid them no mind. His grim gaze was fixed on the white roses as he stalked toward the dais.

From his left approached a scurrying figure in red silken robes and cap. Lord Minam, his royal chamberlain, scurried everywhere—as a mouse did. Or as a thief did.

Kael admired both thieves and mice. More than any other class of man or animal, they were likely to survive a calamity. Which was probably why Minam had so well survived the eighteen months since Kael had taken the throne.

And it was probably why Minam had survived the king who’d sat on it before him. Kael had never dreamed of ruling one kingdom, let alone four. But if ever there was a man who’d begged for a length of sharpened steel down his gullet, Geofry the Child-Eater was he—and Kael had always been generous with his blade. His steel had given Geofry’s gullet, balls, and brains a skewering before he was done.

Kael hadn’t intended to win Geofry’s crown in the killing. Yet win it, he had.

“My king,” the chamberlain came up alongside him, scurrying even faster now to keep up with Kael’s longer stride, and the lilting rhythm of all the four kingdoms in his voice. Even after so many years among them, to Kael’s ears their speech still sounded like a song. “With my own eyes, I inspected your cushion. This time it is free of thorns.”

“I care nothing of thorns.” Of all the things that had ever poked Kael’s ass, the least painful was a flower. “I care that anyone in this castle wastes time weaving unwanted cushions.”

“It is only because Geofry—”

“Wanted his ass perfumed?” With a sneer, Kael slipped the flat of his blade beneath the woven flowers and tossed the cushion to the marble floor. “More pleasant for you all to kiss it.”

Rare steel replaced the placating cadence of the chamberlain’s voice. “When Geofry ordered us to kiss it, my king, he would first sit in the blood of our wives and children.”

For that—and worse—Kael had destroyed him. So he replied with steel of his own, but his was hotter than the chamberlain’s. “I am not Geofry.” Yet still he was treated as Geofry had been. “I have no need to be coddled and flattered, or to sit upon a perfumed cushion.”

Minam sighed. “But that is what a king does, my liege.”

That is what a king does. In the past year and a half, Kael had learned to hate those words. For a king spent every day upholding the laws of the kingdom and protecting his people—not by his own sword, but by sitting on a pillow and consulting a parade of advisors, ministers, and officials. From the moment he woke until his despairing fall into sleep, it seemed Kael spent every day petted and led and fed, living more like a cow being fatted for slaughter than a king.

When Kael gave no reply, the chamberlain sighed again and bent to lift the blanket of flowers. “It took great effort to cultivate roses so near to Midwinter. The ladies only wish to please you.”

No. They only wished to appease him. As he sheathed his sword, Kael could see the women’s frightened gazes shifting from the cushion to his face. As if they expected Kael to behead them for growing and weaving the flowers.

He wouldn’t behead anyone. Not for such a paltry offense as that.

Still, seeing their fear fanned the frustration that had smoldered in his heart for the better part of his rule. He snatched the cushion from Minam’s grip and flung it into the center of the chamber.

“If you wish to please me, then spend your days weaving blankets for the children maimed by your putrid king! Waste them not with this foolishness!” Petals fluttered through the air as he bellowed, “And if you do not have business here, begone from my sight!”

A rush of sandals and silks followed. Heavily Kael sat upon the gold throne and immediately wished himself anywhere else. Geofry had been a tall man, a strong warrior, and this seat had been made for the Child-Eater.

It had not been made for a man of Kael the Conqueror’s great size, and he felt confined—imprisoned—in its golden clasp.

Yet he had not yet decided what to do with it. Gladly would he melt it into coins and distribute them throughout the kingdoms, but even a team of oxen could not drag the heavy gold throne from atop the marble dais where it stood. And the people of the four kingdoms—his people—seemed reassured by Kael inhabiting Geofry’s seat.

Hanging Geofry’s eviscerated and headless carcass from the fortress wall ought to have reassured them well enough, so that was the first thing Kael had done. Except not a day had passed before a mob had torn what was left of Geofry down, carried the corpse across the bridge to the center of the city, and burned it atop a bonfire. When the pyre finally cooled, they pissed in the ashes.

Kael had known they were truly his people then—but he still could not fathom why they had made him their king.

He still could not fathom why he had accepted.

“Your crown, my liege.” With a flourish, Minam presented the bejeweled circlet of gold nestled on a purple velvet pillow.

Gritting his teeth, Kael took the crown. This bauble fit no better than the throne did. Perched atop his head, it threatened to slide off with every nod. But his people were also reassured by seeing it—and Minam claimed that for official tasks it conveyed the proper authority.

Kael thought that any king who could not convey authority without a crown was not much of a king at all. But whatever reason they were gathered here, he must be needed to—

What reason were they gathered? Only the more fainthearted courtiers had fled at his command. At least fifty remained—which meant they believed they had business here.

Scowling, he looked to Minam. “What foolishness is…”

He was speaking to himself. The chamberlain stood a few steps away, engaged in a hectic, whispered conversation with the Minister of Wards. Their heads were bent together, the chamberlain’s red silk cap against the minister’s white, and Minam’s pale hands moved in short, agitated gestures as he spoke to the conjurer.

The Minister of Wards was the only spellcaster within the stronghold, and his single duty was to maintain the wards that shielded those living in the fortress from corrupt magic. Twice every day he solemnly reported to Kael that all of his runes were intact. As he had made that morning’s report only two hours ago, Kael doubted any magical disaster had occurred in that time.

Abruptly both men seemed to sense the weight of their king’s gaze upon them. They fell silent and turned to face him—Minam’s expression as innocent as any thief who had been caught with his hand in a sack of gold, and the minister’s eyes anxiously rounded, mouth pulled into a taut, pained smile.

Kael knew scheming when he saw it, and his fine mood returned. “Have you gathered to kill me, then?” With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the crowd. “Are you all carrying daggers to plunge into my heart?”

Such an attempt would surely be more entertaining than whatever Minam had been truly whispering about.

Expression aghast, Minam scurried back to Kael’s side. “You are our liberator, my liege! Never would we—”

“Then what perverted plot sends Lord Apel slinking away like a guilty jackal?” He indicated the minister, who was darting through the crowd. “Does he intend to use his magics to shrink me to the size of a flea? I warn you now, he will fail. I will be the size of a pig, at least.”

As if finally recognizing Kael’s teasing, the chamberlain’s tension eased. “Nothing of the sort. We have a guest, sir, and Lord Apel was uncertain whether the wards in her quarters would be strong enough.”

Kael frowned, his amusement gone. “A spellcaster visits?”

One more powerful than the minister? Lord Apel hailed from one of the high families of Ivermere, and few people possessed stronger magic than that realm’s nobility did.

“Yes, my king.”

Kael’s eyes narrowed. “An unexpected guest?”

He had hoped for a distraction in his royal routine, but a threat would not offer much of one. If this sorceress had foul intentions, he would destroy her before she could harm anyone under his protection.

“We expected her,” the chamberlain assured him, only to add, “though we did not expect her this day. And we did not know who she would be, or even if she would ever be—”

Kael’s deep frown brought the chamberlain’s confused ramblings to an abrupt halt. “Who is she?”

Was she a danger to his people?

The chamberlain lifted his chin. “Your bride, sir.”

“My bride?” Kael echoed.

“Your bride,” said Minam again, as if the problem lay in Kael’s ears and not in the sparse sense coming from his own mouth. “She arrived only an hour past.”

“My bride did.”

“Yes, my king.”

Bemused, Kael asked, “How long have I had a bride, Minam?”

A wry smile pulled at the chamberlain’s mouth. “For an hour, sir.”

Kael’s shout of laughter turned every head within the chamber, fifty pairs of wary eyes settling on him. That was not a sound they often heard from their king—nor was his wide grin a sight familiar to them.

By the gods, Kael had wanted a distraction and he had surely been granted one. “So you are not here to kill me, but to chain some unfortunate woman to my side?”

Smile vanishing, Minam insisted indignantly, “It is no misfortune to marry you, my king.”

That was probably how Minam had enticed her to agree—promising great fortune. Still, she must be brave. Or a madwoman. Or both.

Now he was intrigued. “Who is she?”

Proudly Minam announced, “She is Anja of Ivermere, eldest daughter of King Palin and Queen Dena. We have gathered here so that she might be presented to you…but there has been a complication.”

Kael was unsurprised to hear it. “She has decided not to sacrifice herself on the dark altar of my bed?”

The color in Minam’s face deepened until it matched the red silk of his cap. For Kael referred to the nights—and days—after he had killed Geofry and been named king, when the ladies of the court had shown him so much appreciation and rewarded him so well that he had not left his bedchamber for a full week.

Until he had overheard whispers that the ladies disguised their fear and faked their pleasure—and had only attended to him in hopes of keeping their new king so sated that he would not drag the young and innocent girls of his kingdoms into his bed.

Kael had not touched a woman since. He wanted no one who only kissed him out of duty or in fear—whether that terror was for herself or for someone else—or who felt she had no choice but to please her king. He was not Geofry…or any of the other tyrants in his past whom he had known and slaughtered.

“Princess Anja is willing, my liege, but currently—”

Willing. In an instant, Kael leapt from the prison of his throne, striding purposefully through the crowd. “Where is she?”

Scurrying after him, Minam replied, “Perhaps you should first visit your chambers to choose finer raiment, your majesty.”

Kael didn’t bother with an answer to that. They would truss him up like a roasted goose, then paste on the feathers. He preferred the easy movement of his loose tunic and leather breeches.

The chamberlain sighed. “Perhaps the princess will think you were too eager to meet her to dress properly.”

Then the princess would think rightly. “Where is she?” Kael asked again, this time not so patiently.

“In the warded quarters, but—”

“Where are the warded quarters?” The ancient king who built this mountain stronghold had included so many chambers, corridors, and stairs that any invader who managed to breach the battlements would be fated to wander, lost and despairing, until they succumbed to slow starvation. Only now it was Kael who might become lost within the maze of his fortress. Knowing a thousand unimportant words would precede the chamberlain’s answer, however, Kael pointed to a serving girl who was waiting on the courtiers, tray in hand. “You there! Show me the way to my bride!”

The tray clattered to the floor. The girl moved with such haste that even Kael was forced to quicken his long strides to keep her in sight.

The chamberlain puffed along beside him. “Your majesty—”

“From Ivermere, you said?” And a powerful sorceress if she hailed from the royal family, but she would soon learn the four kingdoms had little use for her corrupt magics. “Did you intend to strengthen the ties between our kingdoms? That is well done.”

“I cannot take such credit, my king,” Minam huffed as they raced up a stairwell, “for I didn’t know who would come in answer to our royal missives proclaiming that we had a king in need of a queen.”

“Whose royal missives?” Kael had not put his seal to any such missives.

“Letters were sent under my seal to every kingdom in every direction, my liege.”

“And this princess arrived first because she is nearest?” Only a forest separated Ivermere from Dryloch, his northernmost kingdom.

“No, my liege. We sent the first letters last summer, shortly after your abstinence began.” The red still had not left Minam’s face, but whether it was the effort of keeping up with the servant girl or the effort of conveying this information, Kael didn’t know. “I feared for your health, for a man with a constitution as, er…a constitution as…”

“Primitive?”

“With a constitution as passionate as yours to go so long without, er—”

“Fucking?”

“—without companionship, my king. But when our inquiries within the four kingdoms received no response, we posted to the four winds and to all the outward kingdoms.”

“You never thought to inform me that a bride might arrive?”

“I feared raising your hopes, sir. In truth, I despaired there would never be an answer, for many are frightened by your reputation—”

“As a ruthless butcherer?” A well-earned reputation.

The chamberlain appeared offended. “People within the other kingdoms do not know your heart as I do. And, as I know you have no great love for spellcasters, I initially sent no message to Ivermere at all. But when there was no answer from the rest of the world…”

He had been desperate enough to risk his king’s wrath.

But Kael felt no anger. The chamberlain clearly believed that Kael’s sullen frustration stemmed from his abstinence, not his irritation with the duties of a king. Or perhaps Minam well knew the truth of the matter, and of Kael’s ill-content. Whether to serve Kael or serve the people, Minam meant to ease his king’s unhappiness.

And taking a bride was not such a terrible thought. A princess would be familiar with Kael’s royal duties and share in them—and Kael might have warm arms and a warmer cunt to look forward to at the end of the tedious parade of meetings each day.

Ahead, the girl was still running down the stone corridor, passing beneath an archway marked by a faintly glowing rune—

“Halt!” Kael bellowed and the girl skidded to a stop, looking fearfully back. He reached her side and said, “If a spellcaster resides within, do not pass the wards without first announcing yourself. Just as in a healer’s square. You understand?”

Eyes wide, the girl nodded.

“Begone, then,” he told her gently, and as she raced away, he said to Minam, “Every servant and courtier within the fortress will need to be reminded of this. Put a sentry at this spot to warn everyone who passes this way.”

“It will be done.”

Kael frowned as the chamberlain continued with him. “You should also remain behind.”

“If you will risk her magic, sir, then so will I,” Minam replied bravely, then added, “Each of the chambers and walls within this wing are also warded.”

Providing layers of shielding until they reached the same room as the princess—or any other of her party. Everyone born in Ivermere was a spellcaster, though of varying talents. Kael thought it better that they didn’t use magic at all while in his kingdoms, but he had never known anyone from Ivermere who did not resort to a spell for the most trivial of matters. In all likelihood, his bride could not even get undressed without magic.

It didn’t matter if she couldn’t. He would undress her, instead.

The warded quarters were similar to the king’s private quarters, though not as great in scope. There were dining chambers and sitting rooms and parlors aplenty—all of which he expected to be filled with courtiers and attendants, as surely befitted a princess’s wedding party.

But perhaps he was mistaken. For certain he had never seen a princess’s wedding party. But as he could not even visit the nearby city without half the fortress’s residents accompanying him—for that was what a king did—Kael assumed the same was true of a princess. He frowned as they passed through yet another empty chamber. “How many from the Ivermere court accompanied her?”

“Only Lord Eafen, who is their Minister of Foreign Concerns, and three dozen soldiers.” Minam cleared his throat. “Lord Eafen has requested that we provide ladies-in-waiting to attend to the princess, which we have.”

So that she could ready herself? “Is that the complication? Her hair is undone?”

Minam hesitated before answering, “Not precisely, my king.”

Not precisely, because as they entered the next chamber and discovered a cluster of ladies hovering outside the entrance to a sitting chamber, it was apparent that they had not ventured beyond the next ward to help the princess fix her hair. It was not the princess’s magic they feared, however.

It was her sword.

Kael’s steps slowed as the ladies barring his path scrambled out of the way, allowing him a full view into the next chamber.

For the barest moment he thought the figure standing atop the lounging sofa could not be the princess, for her hair was not only undone, but as white as a crone’s—not a pale blonde, for there wasn’t a hint of gold, but a snowy white that tumbled down her back in thick waves. She faced away from Kael, her sword gripped in both hands and the blade angled out in front of her. Slowly she turned—following the slow path of a tall, dark-haired man wearing a finely embroidered tunic and a cajoling expression that matched the voice he was using to urge her down. Surrounding them in a wide circle were soldiers—though none of them with weapons drawn, and all of them looking helpless.

She was keeping the Ivermeren minister and soldiers at bay, Kael realized. Not attacking them, but defending herself—like a cat that had climbed atop a safe perch and swiped at anything that came too near.

Abruptly she shook her head and shouted at the minister, “Listen to me, you dogbrained fool! You will return me home now!”

Grimly, Kael said to Minam, “Willing, you say?”

“I swear it, my king! She has told me herself that she wishes to marry you. This is regarding another matter—she believes her mother is in danger.” The chamberlain barely paused for a breath before adding, “See how fierce she is? Does she not suit you? A man of your past cannot be content with a woman who easily submits. You surely long for a woman who must be conquered.”

A man of his past knew that a body could be conquered—but that a heart must be won.

But winning that fiery heart would be a challenge. And winning the body would be a pleasure, Kael decided, particularly now that he could see more of it.

Everyone could see more of it. Not only was her hair unbound, but she was clad in a white sleeping robe, its belt hanging open and the collar sliding down one pale shoulder. Beneath the robe was a silken red nightgown that clung to the swell of her breasts and the curve of her waist. As the princess turned, she weaved unsteadily, and when she suddenly shook her head again, it was not in denial as he’d thought before—but as if attempting to clear her mind.

Had she just risen from bed, though the sun was high overhead? And was she drunk?

Already Kael liked this bride. Very much.

His gaze never leaving the princess, he told Minam, “If any other brides answer the summons, send them away. I will take this one.”

In a voice faint with relief, Minam answered, “Yes, my king.”

“Stay behind the ward,” he warned the chamberlain before striding forward into the sitting chamber. Some of the soldiers were gesturing uncertainly at each other, as if half-heartedly developing some idiotic plan to knock the princess from her perch and take her sword—and cover her mouth to prevent her from chanting any spells, which would make her far more dangerous than her blade, even against these other spellcasters.

Strange that she wielded a sword at all. Sorcerers rarely did, preferring instead to attack with spells.

Let her. Kael did not fear magic. “Princess Anja.”

Her robe flared around her legs as she spun to face him.

He ought not be surprised that she was beautiful. Every spellcaster he’d ever met used their magic to reshape their appearance. Yet the current trend among sorcerers was a high forehead and large, rounded eyes set amidst thin and delicate features. But he was surprised, because she had not adhered to the current fashion, and her beauty was not only in her features but the way she looked upon him, proud and fearless. It seemed that every aspect of her face was designed to strike at his senses, to please and defy and arouse him—from the wide fullness of her lips to the imperious lift of her chin and the dark eyebrows arched above her narrowed, challenging stare.

Entranced by her bold beauty, Kael did not halt until the point of her blade met his chest—and then pressed closer. Immediately she relaxed her wrists, as he’d assumed she would, because if she had wished to harm anyone she would have been chanting a spell. But she had already told the minister what she wanted.

Listen to me.

She abruptly frowned, then wavered again on her feet before steadying herself, blade held between them. “It is you!”

“It is me,” Kael agreed, carefully watching her swaying frame. “Though you have come to marry me, you seem unhappy to see me. What upsets you, princess? Am I not handsome enough?”

“You are more handsome than you should be, brute. But I do not like that you are even bigger than is rumored,” she told him, and the waft of her breath was not laden with mead or wine, but another scent that reminded him of a mulled cider—cinnamon and cloves and apple. Yet whatever she’d imbibed must have been potent, for he could see the flush in her cheeks and hear the slurring of her tongue. She drew the blade away, keeping hold of the hilt with one hand and reaching toward him with the other. Her assessing gaze ran down his length, and her fingers gripped his biceps, squeezing the thick muscle through his linen sleeve. “Stronger, too, I think.”

By the gods, he prayed that she would be willing tonight. Such fire spread from her touch that he was instantly aflame.

“You are tall enough to take me,” he rasped softly. Standing atop the lounging sofa gave her additional height, yet she would have been tall without it. Her long legs would wrap around his waist and hold him tight as he pumped between her thighs. “Strong enough, too.”

For although she was slender, her arms were finely muscled—and she had no difficulty holding a heavy longsword one-handed. Again, unusual for a sorceress. Some of the Ivermeren soldiers appeared softer than she did.

“Perhaps I am.” She tilted her head, her full lower lip jutting out. Disappointment filled her voice as she said, “But you will not be easy to kill.”

He grinned. “Did you hope I would be?”

“I did,” she said, swaying toward him before catching herself. Gaze drawn to the luscious pout of her mouth, Kael ignored the agitated denials bursting from the Ivermeren minister. Her forefinger jabbed into his chest. “You are a ravening monster. Your sword hungers for blood and you rapaciously seek new kingdoms to conquer. Such a man cannot be long for this life. So I was certain that within a year you would be dead.”

Laughing now, Kael asked, “You would give me a year of marriage, though?”

He would take it.

She fisted her hand in his tunic and dragged him close enough to kiss. Instead of touching her lips to his, she said fiercely, “After a year, surely you would torture and kill me when I do not use sorcery to further your bloody campaigns.”

He would cherish her all the more for her refusal. And she was a powerful sorceress, indeed. No enchantment could bind a heart to another, yet she was already weaving a spell around his. Laughter fading, he told her softly, “I have no thought of killing you.”

Torturing her was another matter. But it would be sweet torture, he could promise her that.

“Because I will kill you first,” she vowed and pushed away, lifting her chin. “Perhaps while we are in bed and your throat vulnerable to a knife.”

Kael would welcome her attempt. Her blood clearly burned as hot as his. They would battle between the furs and find their pleasure at the same time. “Will this attack come on our wedding night?”

Her brow creased as she contemplated her answer. Finally she decided, “After we have made an heir, so I never have to marry again.” She swayed and this time the sword fell from her grip. For balance she clutched at his shoulders and leaned closer, her dark eyes locked with his. “But before I marry at all, I must return to Ivermere.”

Kael could hardly tear his mind away from a vision of his bride with swollen belly, carrying their heir. So much seed would he spill within her, it would not be long before her knife was at this throat. A delay seemed intolerable. “Why must you return?”

“To kill a spider in the queen’s bedchamber.”

“A spider?”

“A big spider,” she told him, and the mulled spices upon her breath heated every remaining inch of his skin that was not already burning. “As big as a cat. It has woven a web in the corner of the ceiling, high above her bed.”

An exasperated sigh came from his right. “Your majesty, please understand that we have already found an errant spider in the queen’s quarters and smashed—”

A single quelling glance from Kael halted the minister’s words. “Your princess believes otherwise.”

She drew his gaze again. “Because they do not see it. Only I do. Yet they thought it was only a virgin’s nerves and sent me here. But I had no doubts. I have every intention of marrying you and killing you.”

So he could see. But even the boldest sorceress would not announce her plans as she had. He might have thought it a joke…but for that spiced fragrance upon her breath. A grim suspicion of what it was began to enter Kael’s mind.

Her imploring gaze searched his face. “Will you help me return to Ivermere and save my mother?”

With another sharp glance, Kael silenced the minister’s protestations that started in response to her plea. To her, he vowed, “I will.”

Her eyes narrowed again. “Should I trust Kael the Conqueror’s word? Do you swear it?”

“I do.” He caught her waist when she swayed again. “Now tell me what it was you most recently drank.”

She blinked. “Only water. I was so very thirsty when I awoke.”

And hungry. Her stomach gave a low growl that rumbled against the fingers spanning her waist.

Immediately he swept her into his arms and swung to face Ivermere’s minister. As if dizzied by the movement, Anja clung to his neck, resting her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes.

Unlike his princess, Lord Eafen had reshaped his face. He wore a nose so thin and a mouth so small that it appeared as if they were sinking into his skull and pushing out his rounded eyes to make room for themselves.

But there must be plenty of room in that head, because for certain there was no brain in it.

“You gave her the kissing potion,” Kael said flatly.

Which had earned its name because the potion caused such a deep sleep that, for days or weeks, the sleeper did not eat or drink. So another person would give them sustenance by placing their lips together, filling the sleeper’s mouth with water or broth, and coaxing them to swallow. But there were darker reasons for the name—that sometimes when women awoke, they were with a child they had no memory of conceiving.

“The queen gave it to her,” the minister explained. “The princess announced that she was leaving to marry you, and almost immediately began making claims about this spider. Our queen believed her delay betrayed a bride’s doubts and gave Princess Anja the potion, so that she might undergo the journey in a calm manner.”

Kael thought Queen Dena deserved whatever the spider in her room might do to her. “Was the princess touched while sleeping?”

Nervously the minister wrung his thin hands. “She is still a virgin—”

“I don’t care if she is!” Kael roared. If he had not been cradling his bride against his chest, then his sword would have been cleaving through the minister’s and soldiers’ necks. “Was she touched without her knowing?”

“No, your majesty! Even for water and broth, we used a cup and helped her sip, and the female soldiers attended to her sleeping form. We would not betray her in that way!”

But they had betrayed her. First her mother, then this minister, then the soldiers. “Begone from my kingdoms,” he said softly. “Flee north to Ivermere as if the Butcherer of the Dead Lands rides close behind, because I promise you—if you or your soldiers tarry even a moment, I will be.”

The minister’s face blanched. “Your majesty—”

“BEGONE!”

Kael did not wait to watch them obey. Rage pounding through his veins, he strode across the sitting room with Anja in his arms. To the ladies hovering outside the door, he barked, “See that she is brought something to eat. Now!”

She had likely not consumed anything substantial in almost three weeks—the length of the carriage journey from Ivermere to his stronghold. The ladies fled, and he looked to Minam, who was flitting about anxiously.

“Lead me to her bedchamber,” Kael commanded.

Minam scurried ahead.

“You were unkind to that toad,” Anja murmured against his neck, her voice heavy with exhaustion—probably the lingering effects of the potion. Her truth-telling had probably been, too.

Kael needed no potion to tell the truth. “He deserved worse.”

“He only did what he was ordered to do,” she said.

“Not what you ordered him to do.”

This time he heard the smile in her reply. “I cannot blame him. I would also fear my mother more than I would fear me. But he apparently fears you more than either of us. At this moment, his wits are likely staining his short linens. But I cannot blame him for that, either.”

“Because you are afraid of me?”

“I am not.” Her quiet answer released a band of tension within his chest, and his heart seemed to beat more easily. “I expect you will kill me for all that I have said today, but there are worse things than death.”

Kael could not think of any. He had experienced many different kinds of suffering throughout his life, and he preferred all of them to death. Of course, he much preferred the deaths of those who had made him suffer—and that preference had made him a king.

If she married him, it would make her a queen. “Yet still you came here, believing I would kill you?”

“Believing you would soon die in battle—or that I would kill you.” She shrugged. “Everything must be in balance. We must endure something we don’t want in order to secure something we do.”

Spoken like anyone born in Ivermere. Those spellcasters knew nothing of balance. Their magic was always a trade, but never an equal one. “What is it you want?”

“What you have.”

His kingdoms. Kael grinned, for he could admire her ambition—and her manner of securing what she wanted. “And what must you endure? Me?”

“Yes.”

He laughed. So the princess believed she would have to survive him. She would no doubt be happy to learn that he had no intention of killing her, no matter her intentions toward him.

Softly she added, “But I’m certain I will learn to tolerate your touch—and I will bear the pain of your bed. A year is not so very long to endure it.”

His chest filling with hot molten lead, he fell silent and followed Minam until the chamberlain halted at the entrance to a softly lighted bedchamber.

“Begone,” Kael told him.

After only a brief hesitation, the other man fled.

Striding into the chamber, Kael carried Princess Anja directly to her bed—where he dumped her onto the embroidered coverlet. She sprawled onto her back in a tumble of silken limbs and white hair, blinking up at him in confusion and no small measure of uncertainty.

“Do not fear I’ll join you,” he told her harshly. “The only thing you have to endure is the journey back to Ivermere—where you will remain. I won’t take you as my bride.”

Her cheeks paled. “But you sent for—”

“I sent for no one. Though you are welcome to wed the overzealous chamberlain who did.” If Kael did not kill Minam for bringing this woman here. For giving Kael a glimpse of everything he wished to have. But unlike Anja, he would not endure something he didn’t want to gain something he did. He would not endure mere tolerance.

Folding her arms over her stomach, she whispered, “You will not have me?”

“I will not.”

She stared up at him, her dark gaze not seeming so bold now, but lost and uncertain. Abruptly she turned her head, hiding her face in a curtain of white hair. In a thick voice, she asked, “You vowed to help me crush the spider. Will you still do that?”

“I will.” Whatever she believed, the Conqueror’s word did mean something. “Rest for the remainder of this day. Tomorrow we leave at first light.”

And he already cursed every moment that she would be in his sight. For the princess’s magic had begun to work on his heart the moment he’d set eyes upon her—and he might be well and truly fucked before they reached Ivermere.

But not in the manner he wished to be.

2

Anja the Rejected

Grimhold

By Anja’s reckoning, she had slept for twenty days—and despite the lingering effects of the kissing potion, she did not sleep again that night.

Instead she cursed the day that the Conqueror’s chamberlain had sent his letter, seeking a bride for his king. She cursed the day she’d read it and believed she could make a place for herself here. She cursed the day she’d seen the spider and every day that no one had believed that it was there. She cursed the day her mother had slipped the kissing potion into her drink. She cursed the day she’d arrived in Grimhold and revealed all of her plans to the one man who shouldn’t have heard them.

But she cursed this day most of all.

As ordered, she was ready by first light—dressed to ride, as the Conqueror had sent word to her chambers that they would travel by horseback, not by carriage as she had arrived. The return home would only take fifteen days.

Only fifteen days until all of Ivermere knew that she had been rejected. No one at home would be surprised. The only surprise her father and mother had shown when she’d announced her intention to marry Kael the Conqueror was that she believed he might have her. That anyone would have her. Even a man so desperate for a bride that he’d had to send for one.

They wouldn’t be surprised to discover they’d been right. Nor would they be surprised to learn that it was Anja’s unguarded mouth that had ruined everything.

The only surprise, truly, was that she was still alive. Never had Anja dreamed that the moment she arrived, that she would tell Kael of her intentions. So she had expected the cool reception from the ladies who’d attended her the previous evening—after all, she had just threatened to assassinate their king—yet it had been some hours before she’d understood from their tightly worded replies that they all believed that Anja had changed her mind upon meeting him.

She did not know if Kael had told them that was what had happened in the sitting chamber, or if that was what they assumed. But it must be the reason she had not been dragged by her hair to an executioner’s table.

That fear returned when, at dawn, she was escorted to the great hall, where a number of courtiers had gathered. To see her beheaded?

Upon the throne, Kael wore a thunderous expression as he spoke to the royal chamberlain. You are more handsome than you should be, she had told him last night, but she must have been blinded by the potion. For he was not handsome. That was a description better suited to courtiers who sculpted and shaped their features into perfect balance. But there was no balance to be found in Kael’s appearance. Everything about him was too big, too hard, too volatile—as if a mountain had been chiseled down to its volcanic heart and shaped into a man.

Suddenly his ferocious blue eyes rose to meet hers. The chamber fell silent and accusing stares turned in her direction.

“Princess Anja!” His deep voice echoed through the large hall. Like a bolt released from a crossbow, he leapt from the throne and swiftly moved across the chamber, arrowing toward her. A sword was sheathed at his back. Did he always carry one, or was that blade meant for her?

Anja barely stopped herself from reaching for her own sword. She suspected her skill was nothing to his and that her attempt would do nothing but amuse him.

The fire in his blue gaze darkened as it slid down her form, taking in her heavy winter tunic, her fur-lined leggings, and her long coat of thick gray wolfskin. “You can ride a horse? I did not ask.”

“I can.” She rode every day…except for the past twenty. “The distance will be no hardship for me.”

Her answer appeared to please him. The thunderous expression disappeared, but the guttural hardness of his voice didn’t soften. Each word sounded as if it had been bitten off, but remained unswallowed. “We will leave shortly.” He shot an irritated glance over his broad shoulder. “First there are a few matters for my attention.”

“Of course,” she murmured.

“Break your fast if you have not— You there.” He pointed to a sleepy-eyed page who was not so sleepy-eyed after being singled out. “Show the princess to the dining hall. I will join you in a few moments.”

Without waiting for an answer, he strode back to the throne. Never had she seen anyone move as he did, almost prowling as he walked, yet punctuated by bursts of speed that erupted with tension and force. At the dais, he sprang onto the marble platform and dropped into his golden throne, pounding his fist upon the table in front of him.

“Who is next?” he bellowed. “Hurry, fool! I have a quest to begin.”

A quest. As if their journey was an adventure for him rather than an irritant caused by a bride he didn’t want. He was so astonishingly different than anything she’d heard described. Oh, he was as huge as the rumors had claimed, and so strong that even his loose tunic could not conceal the sinewy bulge of his muscles. His powerful thighs looked as if they might rip the seams of his leather breeches with every movement. Everything about him was untamed and proud and seething against restraint.

Or bursting through restraint, when he slammed his seal upon a document and flung it away.

“Next!”

At the rate he was going through them, it would not give her much time to eat.

“Lead the way,” she told the young page.

* * *

When she returned, it seemed the number of officials who waited to see him had grown. Waiting near the doors, Anja listened to a commissioner ask for permission to send more soldiers to Lyngfen in hopes of catching the bandits that plagued the roads, until her attention was taken by a man in red silk hurrying to her side. Lord Minam, the royal chamberlain. Anja had liked the man upon first meeting him. Though he had nervous tendencies, he seemed kind—and she understood where those tendencies might have stemmed from. Geofry had been a monster—and this king…she truly did not know what to think of him. Her every expectation had been shattered.

Simply because he had spared her life.

“Your highness,” Minam said as he reached her side. “Our king asks me to assure you that it will only be a moment before you and he begin the journey to Ivermere.”

Judging by the number of officials, it would be longer than a moment. But there was no response to give except— “That is very kind of him.”

A smile wreathed his face. “Yes! Not many see that he is. I am very glad you do.”

And she was glad she had not been executed. Carefully Anja said, “Did he speak of what I told him?”

The man’s smile faded. “Only that you decided not to wed him, after all.”

“Oh.”

Confusion swirled. He had lied to them, and said he had been the one rejected. Why?

With lowered voice, the chamberlain said, “Forgive me, your highness—but I hope that on this journey you will take time to reconsider.”

I won’t take you as my bride.

Her throat ached. “I do not think a change is likely.”

Disappointment filled the man’s face. “It is true that he is coarse, and loud, and always springing up and moving about as if hunting for something to kill. But he feels great responsibility to those under his protection. No doubt you heard of the bloodied path of destruction he laid through the four kingdoms as he rid our lands of Geofry’s warlords, but those tales of slaughter do not fully describe him. Why…” Suddenly his expression brightened and he waved a serving girl over. “Only yesterday he saved this girl’s life.”

Still trying to find a bride for his king. Despite herself, Anja was charmed by the attempt. This chamberlain so clearly admired his ruler and cared about his happiness. “Did he?”

“He did. Tell her, Marna. Go on.”

The girl peered up at her with wide, guileless eyes. “It’s true, princess! I would have run past a ward. But he stopped me! I might have been ripped to shreds by your magic.”

Anja could not halt her smile. “Or ended up with hair as white as mine.”

White beyond a crone’s white, and more like the white of a ghost—or so Anja had been told. She quite liked it. She was one of the few who did.

Obviously the girl was not part of that small number. Her eyes widened with horror. “Indeed, princess!”

Anja had great sympathy for the girl’s fear, but Marna had nothing to fear from her. “Soon I will be gone, but you should always heed the wards. They are there for good reason.”

The girl’s smile widened—and was the only genuine smile turned Anja’s way. Strange that those resentful stares were not because of what she’d done in truth, but because they believed she’d rejected their king.

Lord Minam had not given up. “If you delayed your journey, you might come to know him better. Is this spider so dangerous?”

“I believe it is.”

“Your mother is a great spellcaster, as is your father.”

“Yes.” So Anja didn’t know why they were blind to the threat. “But it is my duty as their daughter to protect them.”

Even if they didn’t want her protection.

“Could you not delay until after the Midwinter celebration? It is only two weeks hence.”

Will you not have me?

I will not.

Thickly she answered, “I think not, my lord.”

He heaved a great sigh. “I pray then that you will come to see him as I do. He is more patient and even-tempered than you would—”

“Enough!” The shout echoed through the room. The table in front of the throne upended, sending scrolls aloft like flies from a corpse. “There is nothing here that cannot wait until my return. Begone, all of you! Or stay. I don’t care what you do.”

“And he is very amicable,” finished the chamberlain weakly.

Kael stalked toward them. As he crossed the hall attendants ran beside him, handing him a sleeveless chainmail hauberk that he dragged over his head, a quilted tunic to go over the armor, and a black fur cloak to fasten around his shoulders. Next they began to give him weapons, which he sheathed at his back, belt, and boots. By the time he reached her, the king was prepared for both battle and the weather. “Are you ready, Princess?”

“I am.”

He held out one massive hand, and after a moment she realized he meant to carry the satchel containing the items she was bringing along. The leather sack was designed to be slung over her shoulder, but she had taken it and her coat off while waiting. “Oh, no. Thank you, but I—”

Without heeding her protest, he snatched it up. To Minam he said, “If you have anything more for me, you have until we reach the courtyard to say it.”

Minam had much more, it seemed. His quick steps matched the Conqueror’s long pace. “I beg you to reconsider your decision to travel unaccompanied—”

“I will not.”

“If not courtiers, at least soldiers.”

Anja looked at Kael in surprise. No one to accompany them?

Her breath caught as the brightness of his blue eyes turned on her. Humor curved his firm lips. “Can a sorceress as powerful as an Ivermeren princess not protect me?”

She tore her gaze away from his eyes, his smile. “I think you need no protection.”

“You might be the only one a danger to me.” Humor still laced his voice but it was harder now. A warning. “She will bind my heart and ensorcel my soul, Minam.”

That mockery sliced her open like a blade, for he had made it very clear she could do nothing of the sort. But there was nothing she could say in response.

He turned to the chamberlain. “Or do you insist upon an escort for her sake? Do you think I cannot protect her?”

The chamberlain did not dare answer that.

Clapping his hand over the smaller man’s shoulder, Kael reassured him, “We will have no reason to stray from the King’s Road to the Scalewood passage, so if you have need of me, we will be easy to find. The princess has said the threat is urgent, so we must go quickly—and the more who accompany us, the slower we travel. The trunks full of the belongings she brought will follow in a caravan. Send soldiers with them, and if we meet any trouble, they would not be far behind.”

“Yes, my liege.” Minam sounded resigned. “But will you not delay another hour? We expect the envoy from Winhelm to arrive, with answers to our query regarding the soldiers who are amassing near the southern pass.”

Kael’s face became grim. “The message I have for King Frewin does not need to come from me. Tell him that if their army is not dispersed by spring, I will soon be the ruler of five kingdoms.”

“Yes, my king,” the chamberlain said unhappily.

They emerged from a large stone hall into a courtyard. The air was sharp and cold, the sun bright. At the center of the yard stood two horses—one a giant nightmare of a steed, and the other its prancing, snorting twin.

Kael saw her expression and grinned. “They are as kittens.”

“I would not call you a liar to your face.”

Laughing, he lifted her astride the nightmare before she could protest. “They are both strong enough to carry me.”

“That is sensible.” A palfrey would tire under the burden of his giant frame, and on such a journey, they could not be certain one of the horses wouldn’t be injured or fall lame. Finding another horse for Anja would be easy. Not so for him.

He held up her satchel. “Shall I tie this to the saddle or do you wish to carry it?”

“I’ll carry it.” Anja slung the strap over her shoulder and across her breasts, then adjusted her sword sheathed at her back so that the satchel wouldn’t interfere with drawing her weapon.

Kael looked her over, then nodded before leaping up into his saddle.

“You have my seal,” Kael said to Minam. “Use it well. But do not send for more brides.”

The chamberlain flushed. “Yes, my king.”

The Conqueror swung his horse around. Anja nudged hers forward, and they started off at a brisk pace—too brisk for conversation. Yet she had little to say, anyway. All the amusement she’d felt earlier had fled, and a sick knot lodged in her chest as they began this trek home. If not for the urgent reason to return to Ivermere, she would have slipped out of the fortress in the night and ridden south, left this humiliation behind, until she reached a land with no expectations of her, and there was no shame in being herself.

Then they passed through the outer gate, and her breath was taken away. For she had known that the mountain fortress in Grimhold was a truly astonishing feat, but she had been sleeping through their arrival. Never had she seen anything so imposing—or so beautiful. Carved from the mountain itself, it soared upwards in heaven-piercing spires, and spread outward, overlooking a deep chasm crossed by a wide stone bridge.

They slowed the horses to a walk as they approached the bridge, allowing her the opportunity to say, “The stronghold is so very impressive. All the more so because no magic made it.”

Kael cast a glance over his shoulder at the fortress. A grunt was his response before he looked forward again. “With enough slaves, a king needs no magic. He needs instead a sword stabbed through his head.”

She could not argue with that. Looking over the side of the bridge to the chasm below dizzied her, so she studied him as they rode forward. He seemed so eager to leave—yet was his kingdom under threat of war? Never had she seen so many demands upon a king’s time, except when there was a looming danger. Yet surely he would not abandon his fortress for a month if there was?

“Do you truly intend to conquer Winhelm?”

His mouth tightened. “Only if Frewin leaves me no choice.”

“By sending his army over the pass?”

“Yes.”

“What argument does he have with you?”

“None that I have started. He fears I will not be satisfied with four kingdoms and intends to stop me before I can take his.”

Given all that she had heard of Kael, she would have believed the same as Frewin. Yet now she was not so certain. “Are you satisfied with four?”

“I have not time enough in a day for five.” With a suggestive arch of his brow, he looked to her again. “You wished to have your own kingdom. Shall we ride in that direction instead? You can conquer it with your magics and I will assist with my sword.”

She smiled despite the hurt in her heart. She would like to ride south, and rule her own kingdom. Yet it was impossible. She tried to keep that pain out of her voice as she said, “I have heard their king has a sorcerer of his own.”

“One so unskilled that he cannot even spy on me and see that I have no intention of invading their lands. He will be easily defeated.”

She eyed him, trying to decide if he was jesting, or genuinely offering to help her conquer Winhelm. But it didn’t matter. With a sigh, she said, “We must ride north.”

He regarded her with curious amusement. “Is there truly a spider in her bedchamber, or was the potion giving you waking dreams?”

“There is truly a spider. But you are free to believe everything else I said was a potion dream.”

His mouth hardened, the humor leaving his face. “I wish I could believe that.”

So he would not forget her threats. Though he must not take them seriously if he meant to travel with her alone. Even last night, when she’d stood with a sword in her hand, he had not taken them seriously. Instead he had laughed when she had spoken of killing him.

There was no reason to kill him now. She would gain nothing. And she was no longer certain Kael was the man he was rumored to be—a monster who had deserved such killing.

Silence fell between them again.

A city lay at the opposite end of the bridge, the stone buildings appearing almost as old as the fortress. Either Kael did not often ride through the city or he did not often ride alone, for he received astonished looks at every turn. Many people simply stopped and stared, others turned to run—though not in fear, because those who fled returned with others at their side to silently watch him pass.

And then follow him silently through the streets. It was the strangest royal procession that Anja had ever taken part in.

Abruptly it ended, as Kael reined his horse to a stop, frowning at something ahead. He looked to a woman standing at entrance of a home, holding her daughter’s hand. The young girl gaped up at them.

“What is happening there?”

The woman darted a glance at the square farther down the street, where a handful of people stood milling about a stone platform. “A sentencing today, your majesty. There were two found guilty this week.”

Unexpectedly Kael dismounted, then looked up at Anja. “I will only delay a moment.”

“Yes,” she said dryly. “I have seen how short your moments are.”

A faint smile crossed his mouth, and a moment later he was at her mare’s side to help her down though she did not need the assistance. He asked the woman to look after their mounts and received tearfully happy reassurances that their horses would be cared for as she would her own children.

Such a strange man he was. Anja felt like one of the crowd following him, though not with the same awe that they showed, but sheer curiosity. A sentencing was a common occurrence, so it was strange that he would stop now to watch—especially after tossing a table and abandoning a room full of officials who had delayed his journey.

A magistrate in black robes sat beneath an awning, scrolls spread out on a table in front of him. Those being sentenced had already been found guilty; now they would hear the punishment that the magistrate had chosen. A woman in chains stood before him, but there was not a word said as Kael approached. He joined the small circle of observers—though that circle almost immediately grew to overfill the square, bodies packed close, except that an arm’s length of empty space remained around Kael and Anja. The magistrate stood, looking out over the crowd, clearly overwhelmed and uncertain.

“My king,” the man said unsteadily. “May I help you?”

“I am here to observe,” he told the magistrate. “Continue.”

“Of course, my liege,” he said, sitting again. Nervously he shuffled papers, cleared his throat and began, “Shalen of Stonebrook, you have been found guilty of…” The magistrate hesitated, stumbling uneasily again before continuing, “of the crimes you committed, I sentence you to a silencing, wherein your tongue will be cut from your—”

“What was the crime?” Kael demanded.

“Crimes of slander, your majesty.”

“She is to lose her tongue for that? What did she say?”

“I— That is, she—” The official mopped his sweating brow. “I do not wish to repeat them.”

“But you will repeat them.”

With shaking hands, the older man lifted the scroll and read, “For speaking slanderous words against the king, including calling him a violent, foul murderer; a barbaric, foreign usurper undeserving of the throne; and a rapist, I sentence you to—”

“You will sentence her for this?” Kael shook his head. “All but one of those are true.”

“Shall I sentence her for the one that is a lie?” The magistrate hesitated. “Which is untrue?”

“I have never forced a woman,” Kael said.

“But the rest are also monstrous accusations—”

Kael gave a harsh, short laugh. “And I have done monstrous things. After I broke the chains that held me in the mines, I fought my way into Qul Wrac’s great hall. His magics shattered my hammer, so I ripped his jaw away before he could chant more spells. That was the moment he lost, but still my rage was such that I ripped out his tongue and used his own jawbone to rip him from gut to gullet. When I was finished, he lay in pieces around my bare feet and his blood painted every inch of my skin. Tell me, am I a violent murderer? Say truth.”

Anja stared at him in horror. She had known what that slaver’s fate had been. But never had such a picture been painted of it.

So she had heard the truth of him. Perhaps not the worst of it.

Stubbornly the magistrate said, “If I must say you are a murderer, then I will also say he deserved that bloody death, my king.”

“You would say that of him, but not of me?” He gestured to the woman awaiting her sentence. “She has most of it right. Only the details are amiss, and she is hardly to blame for mistaking them. Will you sentence her for repeating what she has heard? I have been called the Raviner.”

The magistrate squirmed. “That does not only mean that you have forced women. It also means your hunger is unceasing. That could be hunger for destruction or violence, not only for women.”

Kael looked to Anja. “What did you take it for?”

She might as well be truthful; she had admitted to worse the past night. “I thought you ravished women against their will.”

He appeared unsurprised by that confession. “And what did Shalen of Stonebrook think?”

To the guard, the magistrate said, “Allow her to speak.”

The woman turned angry eyes upon Kael. “It means exactly what he has done. Any man with such violence in him, any man who needs such power—he will take it any way he can. That is a man who will force a woman.”

The tension in the crowd swelled, with shouts rising in anger against the woman’s words. Until Kael held up his hand. He looked to the magistrate again. “I have known too many men of whom that is true. I think she has also known such men and I cannot blame her for assuming that what is true of them is also true of me. Give her a full pardon and strike the law from the books. A citizen may say whatever she likes about the king.”

Reeling with surprise, Anja stared at his profile, trying to reconcile that generous decision with the unyielding power standing before her. Around them, murmurs of disbelief and uncertainty joined the crackling shuffle of parchment as the magistrate rifled through his scrolls.

“That particular law does not only concern the king. Do you give all citizens leave to make monstrous claims about another’s character?”

“If they say truth, they can say whatever they like. But if they speak ill, and are not certain whether it is true—or if they know it not to be true—they ought to be more careful with their words, for others might be harmed by them.”

“And if someone is harmed by a lie?”

“That is a matter for the magistrates.” He looked to the guards. “Release her now and provide protection for her until she reaches her home.”

They hurriedly obeyed, opening the woman’s chains—who turned and spat in Kael’s direction before stalking out of the courtyard.

Anja looked to Kael, expecting him to respond to that insult, but he merely said to the magistrate, “Who is next?”

“Only one more, my king.” He mopped his brow again while a short, thin man with soft eyes and fidgeting fingers was led out before the platform. The prisoner’s hands twisted together as the magistrate announced his name, then read out the sentence. “For the crimes of thievery and murder, you have been found guilty, and I have considered both your attempt to undo what was done, as well as your refusal to show remorse or accept responsibility for your actions. Therefore I sentence you to—”

The prisoner didn’t wait to hear what it was. “I wish to petition the king!”

“That is your right,” the magistrate said. “The next Petition Day is—”

“Now,” Kael interrupted. “I will hear your petition. Are you guilty?”

“I’ll admit to the theft, and that I stole a coin because I was hungry. But I don’t admit to killing anyone.”

His face impassive, the magistrate offered, “There were witnesses who saw the stabbing, my king. Should I call for them?”

“I confess to using my blade, but it was not murder.” Arguing earnestly, he continued, “His death wasn’t my fault.”

Anja frowned. “If you stabbed him, how can that be?”

A murmuring came from the crowd and all eyes turned to her as Kael spoke, “This is Princess Anja of Ivermere. Treat a question from her as if it were a question from me.”

“Ivermere!” The thief’s face lit. “You will surely agree that the fault was not mine, Princess. For we were at the Crowing Cock, you see? Mere steps from the healer’s square. And I didn’t mean to hurt him so bad, truly I didn’t. But I lifted his coin, and he came after me, and I was in fear of my life. But once I got my knife into him, it was too deep, so I offered to carry him to the healer. And—”

“Your majesty, your highness,” the magistrate interjected, “I am compelled to add that the prisoner only offered to carry him to the healer after he was confronted by witnesses to the stabbing. They stated that, prior to his offer to help, he attempted to run out of the tavern.”

And would have left the man to die. But if the thief stayed, why had the man died? “Why was he not saved if the healer’s square was so near?”

“He refused the healing,” the prisoner claimed. “He said he was an abjurer.”

Anja blinked in surprise and looked to the magistrate. “Truly?”

The older man nodded. “Witnesses confirmed his statement.”

An abjurer. Anja had heard of those who refused to use magic of any sort, because the scale of the world must remain in balance—and so for every healing, there was a wounding. But it was not always equal. Sometimes the injury was small. Sometimes it was many times worse. It always changed in the scaling—and it always sought something living, which was why healers allowed only the person who needed help behind their wards, and kept cages of mice and insects for the magic to act upon. She had heard of people who refused to use magic for small injuries. But never had she heard of abjuring in such a case as mortal wounds.

“Truly.” The thief nodded solemnly, his soft eyes gently imploring. “It was my knife that cut him, but he’d have lived. Except for that choice. He chose to die because he feared the scaling would kill another living thing, even if it was only one of the healer’s mice. But the scaling might have done no more than pinch the mouse’s belly.”

Anja shook her head. Perhaps the man had refused the healing, but the fault here was clear. “That is not true. Only one choice here killed him, and that was when you chose to stab him.”

“I could not know he was an abjurer, and we were so near to the healer’s square. I believed no harm would be done.”

She was unmoved by that argument. “Then it is your fault for not asking him about his beliefs before you stuck him with your blade.”

Seeing she would not be the ally he’d hoped for, the prisoner turned his soft eyes toward the king and met the grave hardness of Kael’s features.

His voice as rough and sharp-edged as gravel, Kael said, “You ought to withdraw your petition. Whatever the magistrate’s sentence is, it is likely more lenient than mine.”

“But it was not my fault!”

“No?” With a hard smile, Kael drew his sword. “When I sliced Eathe of Vale open, he held in his guts as he fled. He made it almost four hundred paces before dropping dead. How far away is the healer’s square?”

“Only fifty paces, my king,” the magistrate answered.

“Tell me,” Kael asked the thief, “whose fault is your death if you cannot reach the healer’s square after I open you up?”

Desperate, he tried again. “That is not the same. His refusal—”

“Was a refusal he would not have had to make if you hadn’t stuck him with a blade!” Kael roared. “It was your knife that killed him. If you disagree, we will test how far you can run—and make no mistake, I will have killed you. Do you wish to receive my sentence?”

The thief wildly shook his head.

Kael looked to the magistrate. “I leave you to it.”

Taking Anja’s hand, he pulled her with him—perhaps so she would not be lost as he pushed his way through the crowd. Except there was no pushing. From the square to the street where their horses stood waiting, the crowd fell back at his approach. Fearing the sword he still carried—or the thunder on his face.

A young girl with curly brown hair darted out into the street and into his path, bringing them to an abrupt halt. Anja judged her only three or four years of age.

“Bela!” A woman rushed out after her, only to freeze at the sight of the king towering over her daughter, sword in his hand. A cry broke from her lips, terror paling her face.

Smiling up at him, her eyes bright, the child held up a small, dried flower, with petals so brown that Anja barely recognized it as a daisy.

Kael looked down at her. “What is this?”

“He hates flowers,” came a hiss from the crowd. “He forbade them in the fortress.”

Moaning in abject fear, the mother pressed forward and lifted her hand beseechingly. “My king, please forgive her.”

“What is to be forgiven?” Sheathing his sword, he knelt. “You are only showing this to me, young one, or giving it to me?”

“Giving.” She thrust the flower at him. “You will be happy?”

She pointed to his frowning mouth, which slowly curved upward.

“Indeed it does.” With his huge, battle-scarred hand, Kael carefully lifted the dried daisy from her tiny fingers. “Now be kind to your mama, little one, and run back to her arms. And always remember she braved the Raviner himself to keep you safe.”

The girl skipped back to her tearful mother. Continuing down the cobblestone street, Anja watched him in open astonishment until they reached the horses. There he glanced down at the flower—clearly at a loss, for he could not throw it away, nor was it feasible to continue clutching the stem while he rode, and stowing it in a satchel would destroy the fragile dried petals.

Biting her lip against a smile, Anja offered, “Let me help you.”

Gladly he gave the flower over, then frowned when she crooked her finger.

“Bend your head.”

He did, and his eyes seemed like blue fire, intense on hers and very close as she tucked the stem into a link of chain mail at his throat, the backs of her fingers brushing warm skin. “It will not survive long, but it will remain long enough for her to see you wear it—and forever in her memory.”

“Her mother’s, too,” he said wryly.

With a smile of agreement, Anja indicated that he could straighten again. “I have also just braved the Raviner,” she said softly. “Will you be kind to me?”

Gruffly he answered, “Magic is your domain, not mine.”

Her lips seemed to freeze into their smile. “A spell cannot make anyone kind.”

Just as it could not make anyone fall in love. Or make them hate.

His puzzled frown made her realize she had mistaken his meaning. But she could barely fathom his when he said, “Of course it cannot. Kindness is of the purest magic. It cannot be corrupted by a spellcaster’s chantings.”

She did not know which part of his statement to answer first. Spellcasting was not a corruption. It created beauty, and gave strength, and restored health. But she began with the most absurd part. “Kindness is not magic.”

Kael drew back from her. “Spoken as any Ivermeren sorceress would. You know only one sort of magic.” Without warning he grasped her waist and effortlessly hefted her astride her horse, then turned toward his own. “But I wield no magic at all, and certainly not kindness. I am Kael the Pitiless.”

The man who escorted her back to Ivermere, though she had threatened to kill him? The man who had pardoned a woman, though every other king Anja knew would have punished her? “Pitiless?” she echoed. “That is not what I have seen.”

Dismissing that with a short, harsh laugh, Kael swung into the saddle and gathered up his reins. “Then I am certain I will show you before we journey much longer.”

3

Kael the Pitiless

Grimhold

Though their leaving had been delayed, the day’s ride upon the King’s Road took them halfway across Grimhold. As the main thoroughfare that connected the kingdoms, the road wound past so many villages and inns that travelers needed to carry few supplies. That day, they rode until full dark. Had he been alone, Kael would have continued on, but he could not as closely watch Anja and see how she fared after darkness fell.

She had been quiet since leaving the city near the stronghold. Kael did not know if it was the lingering effects of the potion and of almost three weeks of inactivity, or her own uncertainty. He had not mistaken her horror when he had described how he had killed Qul Wrac—and he had been deliberate in that description, so she knew there was no use in attacking him, if that was still her intention. He wasn’t certain it was. He wasn’t certain what she thought about anything. He could make little sense of her. She had been horrified, then touched him and smiled at him.

Though she probably did the same: tried to make sense of him. He had seen her studying him throughout the day. Perhaps trying to fathom his thoughts.

He could have told her his thoughts didn’t stray far from her hands. He could still feel the burn of her touch on his throat. The flower she’d placed there had crumbled hours before, but the brush of her fingers lingered on his skin.

So his two weeks of torment had begun. And it would only worsen while they slept.

The swiftness with which Kael was accommodated at the public house ought not to have surprised him, yet still it did. In years past, they would have let him in—too fearful not to—but hoped he would remain in the corner, quietly have his supper, and move on without taking a room.

Here he secured two bedchambers and saw the innkeeper’s confusion that there were not any attendants, particularly as the princess was with him. She had insisted on attending to herself, and had given him a dour look when he’d reminded her to add wards to the walls before using her magic to fix her hair or unlace her tunic.

Sleep was nowhere near his mind when her yawn sent her from their dining table to bed. Unwilling to leave her unprotected, however, he went up the stairs and into the adjoining room, where he would be near her if any threat arose.

Though the tavern had been lively while they dined, almost immediately everything within the public house quieted. From below came a clattering, followed by a hissed, “Silence! The king sleeps!”

The king didn’t sleep. The king fisted his cock and remembered the way Anja’s nightgown had revealed her form, and her firm grip upon her sword. He pumped his aching shaft while in his mind he ripped the silk down the length of her body, baring her fully to his sight. The king groaned and stroked harder when the faint sound of a splash came from the next chamber, because he knew she was bathing, and that her flesh would be clean and wet and fresh, ripe enough to eat. Had that wetness been for him, he would have parted her thighs and feasted for the rest of his life.

Instead the king allowed himself to imagine plunging into her hot cunt, of burying his fingers in her white hair as he fucked deep. He pictured her pleasure as she writhed beneath him, and his mind echoed with her soft cries when his seed spurted into his hand.

Leisurely he washed it away, listening to the sounds from the next room, waiting for the creak of the bed. Before long, the sound came. She was ready to sleep, then.

And with his body satisfied, Kael was ready as well.

Taking his sword, wearing only his breeches and unlaced tunic, he stopped at the door to her room. “I would enter, Princess.”

There was a rustle of cloth and the pad of bare feet. The sound of the latch raising.

A single lamp burned inside the chamber, offering enough light to see her by and casting an orange glow over white hair that had been plaited into a braid that hung over her shoulder. She had put on her long coat as a robe over her heavy winter tunic, which she must have decided to sleep in. Beside her bed leaned her sword, within easy reach. Over the back of a chair draped her leggings.

He had not realized she’d worn leather stockings of that design—not tied at the waist, as his breeches were, but each one drawn up the length of her legs and secured with ties at the tops of her thighs.

His sated cock was already stirring again. But no matter how he turned the matter over in his mind, he saw no option but one.

He strode inside. “We will sleep in the same chamber.”

Her gaze searched his face. “You fear attack?”

“From you or from my people?”

Her cheeks flushed.

“I do not fear your magics,” he said. “Your sword while I sleep is another matter.”

“You can latch your door—”

“A lock is nothing to a child, let along a sorceress.” He moved her sword from the bedside, placing it near the hearth, then picked up the two leather straps she used to secure her leggings.

He held out one. “Get into the bed and tie this strap around your ankles.”

Her lips parted and she stared at him in disbelief. But only a moment passed before she realized, “You are serious.”

“I am. Last eve you spoke of your intentions to kill me. I would be a fool to sleep without tying you.”

Her gaze slid away from his. Though shaking her head, she obediently slipped off her coat and scrambled into her bed, winding the strap around her ankles. Mouth tightly pursed, she held out her wrists.

Swiftly he bound her arms together. “Move over.”

Again she gaped at him. “You intend to share my bed?”

“These ties are nothing for a conjurer to loosen. If I left you here alone, you could free yourself and slice open my throat without ever waking me.” And he was not that foolish. “Next to you, I would awaken if you move. I have no intention of taking more. I have no interest having you.”

No interest in a woman who shook in fear and would not welcome his touch.

“So you have said.” The lilting cadence of her voice had flattened, and anger burned in her cheeks. “I do not welcome your company.”

“In my place, what would you do?”

“I assumed you’d kill me by now.” She sighed. “Perhaps sharing a bed is not so terrible in comparison.”

Perhaps not for her. When she scooted over and turned onto her side, Kael snuffed the lamp and got beneath the covers. Though she stiffened in protest, he pulled her back against his chest, draped his arm around her waist, and pushed his thigh between hers, just above her knees. Now she could not possibly move without his knowing.

Her body rigid with tension, she shook helplessly against him.

“Be at ease,” he commanded.

“I will try,” she whispered. After a moment, she added softly, “You did not fully escape being a king this day.”

Because when they had arrived at the public house, slowly and with gathering courage, some of the villagers had approached him with their concerns. But speaking with them had not been tedious. It had not been rituals and reports but the lives of his people. “I do not seek to escape my duty.”

“I did not think you meant to escape your duty. Only the endless demands upon you.”

“They are the same.” But at least the number of reports he’d listened to upon his throne had prepared him to answer many of the questions they’d had. “And that is what a king does.”

He felt her nod, and slowly she relaxed against him, her body pressing more fully against his. Sleepily she said, “Will you remove your sword from between us?”

Gritting his teeth, he ground out, “I cannot.”

“I do not wish to impale myself if I turn in my sleep.”

A choked laugh escaped him. “The only flesh this sword would pierce is between your thighs. But unless those thighs and your mouth first open in invitation, you have no fear of that.”

She went utterly still again as his meaning sank in. Not shaking, but stiff against him.

She would sleep soon enough. Kael closed his eyes and willed his own body to drowse.

Wakefulness found him again at a tug against his arm. Anja. Not trying to get away, only moving her bound arms as if to find a more comfortable position. Then she did it again. Then gave her head a little shake, tickling his throat with her hair, and every single fidgeting movement rubbed her ass in tiny increments against his cock, driving him to madness.

“Be still,” he said gruffly.

“I have an itch on my cheek,” she whispered back. “I don’t know if it’s my hair or if there’s something on me, and I can’t use my hands to get it off.”

Lifting his head, in the dim light he saw the many-legged shadow against her fair skin. On a sharp breath, he blew it from her cheek and rested his head against the pillow again.

“It was only a brown crawler,” he said. “It’s gone now.”

He’d thought to reassure her, but that didn’t. Wildly she swiped at her face, her hair. “A crawler?”

“I blew it across the bed.”

Immediately she shoved back against him with such force that he almost tumbled over the edge. “Where is it?”

“If you do not use your magics, you have no reason to fear it.”

“I have reason to fear it will bite me!”

That sort of crawler didn’t even have fangs. “It is a harmless—”

“I just felt it!” With her bound hands, she slapped at the covers, then at her legs. “I think it’s on me. I feel it on me.”

He couldn’t bear the panic in her voice. “Hold still.” As she lay panting and trembling, he sat up and examined the bedcovers. Against the white linens, it was easy to spot the insect.

He slipped his hand beneath the crawler and carried it to the window, nudging it from his palm with his forefinger before closing the shutter again.

Lying on her back, a wide-eyed Anja stared at him as he crossed the chamber toward the bed. “You didn’t kill it?”

Why would he? “It did us no harm, and I’m not hungry. Slide over again.”

Though Anja scooted over, instead of turning onto her side, she continued watching him. He felt her gaze through the dark as he slid beneath the covers, and as he pulled her close again. “Sleep now,” he commanded.

She pillowed her head on his biceps. Several minutes passed before she softened against him. Then she found her sleep.

He closed his eyes and found his own.

4

Anja the Unwanted

Vale

On the fourth morning Anja woke to the first snow of the season. Though it stopped falling before dawn and the sun rose, the air remained cold enough that the snow didn’t melt as they set out upon the King’s Road again. For miles, all around them stretched the fields of Vale, lying fallow for the winter and now blanketed in white.

She glanced over at Kael, and found him watching her intently. Always he seemed to either watch her intently or intently not watch her, but he was watching her now with narrowed eyes. Each time this morning, that look had been followed by his asking whether she was warm enough within her wolfskin coat.

But now there was different focus.

“I had thought your hair was white as snow. But now to compare, it is even whiter.”

Her smile felt tight. “Like a ghost’s?”

“No. Theirs is white, but it’s a foul and unclean white.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “You have seen a ghost?”

He nodded. “As a boy, in the Dead Lands. There is nothing of beauty in their hair. But yours is like winter.”

“Thin, cold, hungry?”

He frowned. “Are you hungry?”

“Not at this moment.”

“Are you cold?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I did not mean my… I meant that winter often conjures thoughts of being alone outside in the cold.”

“Your hair conjures thoughts of the fairest part of winter.” He gestured to the snowcapped peaks in the distance. “Like the sun gleaming across the mountains.”

She had never been called beautiful before. At home, she sometimes thought the trends of fashion and beauty were to look unlike her. No one wanted to resemble Ivermere’s shame.

Touched by his words, she said, “I think you must be as summer, then.”

Hot and vibrant with life—but not new life, as in spring, but fully formed and vital.

“I am winter, too. But a fat, hibernating bear, softened in his den.”

“You are soft?”

“Being a king has made me so.”

She could not halt a peal of laughter. Never had she seen any person built as hard as he was. Even at rest, his muscles felt unyielding as stone, and awake they had as much give as a steel wall.

“If you are soft now, then before you were king, you must have been as…” She trailed off, at a loss. “If you are steel and stone now, what is harder than that?”

“I can think of a few things,” was his dry reply. “One you feel each night.”

Yet again she could not stop her laugh, though her face flamed, and though she could not bear his intent look now and averted her gaze from his.

Three nights had he lain behind her. If he had been as steel, then she had been the furnace at the making of it.

Though it had not been true the first night. That night, she had been tense and uncertain. Then he had saved a crawler. That was the moment when she’d realized he truly wasn’t the man she had thought he was. After that, she hadn’t felt nervous in his arms. She’d felt safe.

But each night, with fear gone, she’d also thought about offering the invitation he’d spoken of. It could do little harm to her if she was not a virgin; no one would have her anyway.

But Kael had already said he would not, either. And he must have plenty of willing women in his bed. Surely the stronghold had no shortage of them.

She could not bear to think of those women waiting for his return. And she would try not to think about how it felt to lie against him with her body afire. She would not be a dong-addled maiden, pining for a man who had already rejected her—and not even for the same reason everyone else had.

She could not blame him for that reason, though. He hadn’t sent for a bride—and surely wouldn’t accept one who announced she intended to kill him.

“Did your mother bed a man from Glacian?”

Startled, she looked to him. “Why would you suggest such a thing?”

He eyed her mouth, then her hair again. “Everyone in Ivermere has dark hair. But in the far north, there are peoples with hair almost as pale as yours.”

“Oh. No.” Embarrassment heated her face. “I was hiding from my nursemaid, and had concealed myself in my mother’s quarters. She cast a spell to redden her lips and this was the scaling.”

He frowned. “What of your natural wards?”

Because everyone who wielded magic could be affected by a spell, but they were resistant to the scaling. Avoiding his eyes, she shrugged. “My mother is a powerful sorceress.”

“And you are her daughter, and your father’s daughter. Your power would be theirs combined.”

“No young girl is more powerful than a queen,” she said. “And I ought to have known better than to be in her chambers. Her magic is so strong that there are wards on every wall to keep it from spilling out.”

Just as walls and shutters kept light from escaping a closed room.

His mouth twisted. “It spills over into Scalewood. All the corrupted magic in Ivermere does. That is why monsters roam that forest.”

She shook her head. He had it backward. “My people developed their magic to protect themselves from the monsters in Scalewood.”

“Is that what is said in Ivermere?” He narrowed his eyes. “Your sort of magic is deliberate. Spells must be cast. Do you think the trees and deer were chanting spells and corrupting their own home?”

Perhaps he was right. But it was long ago and no one could know. “Even if that is true, you cannot deny that terrible magic lies within the forest now.”

“So the magic of Scalewood spills back into Ivermere, and each generation is more powerful than before, and the forest more dangerous. Is that not true?”

“It is said,” she agreed. Everything had to be in balance, so the civilized, purposeful magic scaled into something wild and chaotic. And the wild and chaotic magic of Scalewood scaled back.

“The Dead Lands used to be a green, bountiful realm. More fertile and abundant than Vale.” He indicated the land around them.

“As Ivermere is,” she said.

He nodded. “And there were sorcerers so powerful, even death was not an end. Then one spell scaled so mightily, there was a great Reckoning, and the realm and its peoples were all but destroyed.”

She had heard that story before, but not with the gravity that he told it. “I thought the Reckoning was only a legend? A warning to spellcasters not to try to raise the dead.”

“It is truth. In Ivermere, they might comfort themselves by calling it only legend.” He shrugged. “But in time, Ivermere and Scalewood will be as the Dead Lands.”

A horrifying thought, yet although he had been born in the Dead Lands, he only shrugged to think about it happening again? Or perhaps he believed it was what they deserved? He had no care for Ivermere.

“Do you dislike magic?” Another thought occurred to her. “You have called it corrupt. Are you an abjurer?”

She could hardly fathom that anyone was, whether they could cast spells or not. Not when magic did so much good and helped so many. But it was true that the scaling did seek out a balance. So often, that was harmless. But there was reason why healers kept cages of mice within their wards—so that if the scaling was harmful, it would have a target not human.

“I’m not an abjurer.” Kael seemed amused at the thought. “I mislike the spellcasters’ use of magic. For it is not the scaling that is corrupted, but the use.”

Healing was a corrupt use? “Would you not risk a mouse to save a human life?”

“I would,” was his immediate answer. “But I do not lie to myself as spellcasters do to comfort themselves. That sort of healing is rarely needed. More likely, a scrape would be healed. Most of a spellcaster’s magic is nothing but impatience and laziness.”

“Laziness?” She stared at him in amazement. “It requires years of study and constant mindfulness.”

As her parents reminded her constantly.

“Healing can be done without magic, too. That requires true study—and patience, for healing naturally is never quick. It also harms no one. That is the spellcasters’ lie, that there is little harm done, because it cannot be known how a spell will scale. I would not injure a mouse for a scrape—or to redden my lips.”

That she could understand well. Even in Ivermere, there was argument about when it was appropriate to use magic. “Nor would I.”

The arch of his eyebrow was faintly mocking. “So you learned a lesson from your hair? You are rare for an Ivermeren.”

Rarer than he suspected. “I could not have failed to learn a lesson from it. My mother made certain I knew it was my own fault for walking into her chambers uninvited.”

“Your fault?” He frowned. “How old were you?”

“Three years of age.”

A foul oath spat from his tongue, followed by— “Only a shit-witted slopmouth would have done so.”

A pang struck her chest even as a flush heated her cheeks. Being the daughter of a king and queen, never had she been called a slopmouth to her face—but it had likely been said many times behind her back. And she had been told that worthless swill fell from her lips when she spoke, which was the same. “I know. I was old enough to know better.”

“You mistake me,” he said grimly. “I was speaking of your mother for blaming you. Your mother was old enough to know better than to be so careless. What of the kissing potion? Will she blame you for that, as well?”

The flush rose to an embarrassed burn through her entire face. Anja could imagine what her mother would say—and her father. They would not see the irony that her mother had given Anja the potion to make certain she would marry Kael, yet it was the potion that had loosened her lips and made certain she would not. And they would be unsurprised that she had been felled by her unguarded tongue. Spellcasters believed nothing was more shameful or dangerous than uncareful words—and Anja had spoken many in her life. They would only say that it was more of the same, that there was justice and balance in being defeated by her own words, especially if she had simply stopped insisting that a spider was in her mother’s bedchamber, if she had simply shut her mouth, the potion wouldn’t have been necessary.

Perhaps they were right. And Anja did not know who to blame. She didn’t know if blame mattered at all now. Blaming would not change the past, or make Kael take her to wife. It would not change that she would be returned to Ivermere, even more unwanted than when she’d left.

But she couldn’t bear to think of what her welcome home would be, and instead thought back to something else he’d said. “You speak of Ivermere’s magic as corrupt magic.”

“Because it is.”

“But you claim kindness is pure magic?”

He smiled faintly. “Because it is.”

“I have never heard of such a thing. I do not think anyone in Ivermere has.”

He shrugged, unbothered by her doubt. “That does not make it untrue. What is magic but an unseen force that works change upon the world? That is what kindness does. I have not known much of it myself but I have seen its power many times.”

She could only stare at him, something within her filling up as he spoke, but still unable to comprehend his words. Never had she heard anyone speak of kindness so matter-of-factly, as if this was a subject well known to him. Yet he’d said he’d not known it himself.

Perhaps that was why he knew of it. Everyone had heard of his past—how he had seen his clan and family slaughtered in the Dead Lands, then had been chained and sent across the Illwind Sea to the Four Kingdoms. There he was enslaved in the Blackworm mines until he’d broken his chains and killed the warlord who’d served Geofry in that region.

Who would value kindness more than someone who’d been treated cruelly? Just as no one valued freedom more than someone who’d been enslaved.

Yet this was still not something she’d heard spoken of before in any of the nearby kingdoms. “Were you taught this in the Dead Lands?”

“It is well known there,” he confirmed. “Kindness, courage, love—they are the most powerful of all magic.”

How could he say that so indifferently? He rode along, telling her of powerful magics as if what he imparted was no great secret, though every one of her senses felt alive with the learning of it.

“You truly think they are magic?”

“I know it to be true.” He looked to her, and she saw that he was not as indifferent as he appeared, for his eyes burned with absolute conviction. “I would sooner face a thousand soldiers strengthened by a sorcerer’s spell than a dozen men filled with true courage or who are fighting for those they love.”

That claim was not mere conjecture—for Anja had heard stories of how he had faced and defeated a thousand soldiers. He’d slaughtered his way toward Toatin Zan, and after slaying the sorcerer, the remaining army had fled.

But it was the manner of his speech that struck her so powerfully. Courage was always celebrated, and kindness and love were often spoken of as something good—yet also sweetly cloying, embarrassing to acknowledge with any real earnestness, and better suited to lessons learned in children’s tales than to adult conversation. Certainly she’d never heard love spoken of with the reverence that Kael did, or heard the suggestion that it might win battles. And never had she been so drawn to an idea as she was drawn to the concept of magic as he described it…yet still she struggled to fully grasp the implications.

Kael had said he hadn’t known much kindness and didn’t wield that magic but… “Have you known love?” she asked.

His mouth firmed. For a long moment he only looked down the road ahead, then finally answered, “Not in many years. Not since my family was killed.”

The undisguised grief in his reply tugged at her heart. But at least he had known some love. Anja had family living and could not say with truth whether she had ever known love at all.

“Then it was courage that helped you prevail against Toatin Zan.” And against Geofry, and all of the others Kael had butchered in his campaign to free the four kingdoms.

“Courage, hate.” His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he was peering into his memory. “Rage.”

And each was its own magic? But it made sense. “So they each are balanced by the scale, too. Love and hate, fear and courage—”

“No. These magics have no scale.”

“Of course they have a scale.” Balance was the fundamental element of all magic. Letting her reins go, she lifted her hands, holding her right lower than her left. “If a spell is cast and magic heals on this side, then magic also injures on the opposite side.” She brought her hands even. “The scale of the world must be in balance.”

“No,” he said.

Anja laughed. “No? Even the Conqueror cannot simply deny truth and make it so.”

But he could draw his sword more swiftly than any swordmaster she’d seen. Yet even as she caught her breath and her gaze darted around the empty fields, searching for the threat, he merely tilted the shining steel this way and that.

“The world is not on a scale, just as this sword is not. It simply is. The corrupt magics create the scale—they force the world onto a fulcrum, and spells are the levers that move things within the world from one side to the other.” Carefully he balanced the sword lengthwise on the horn of his saddle, the hilt toward her and the blade pointed toward the opposite side of the road. Lightly he pressed down on the hilt and the point rose higher into the air. “You say that when a healing spell is cast, magic of opposite weight is added to balance it.”

“Yes,” she said. “That is right.”

He shook his head. “Corrupt magic creates nothing. It only moves what already exists from one place to another. You say it adds health, but it steals health from somewhere else, so that one side has more and the other less. If it was true balance, it would add health to both sides, not health on one and injury to the other.” The handle tipped down farther. “But you say that a spell to redden lips adds color on one side, and adds a lack of color to the other side, so it would balance.”

“Yes.” Though she was not so certain now.

“No. Magic stole color from your hair and put it upon your mother’s lips.” He tipped the handle farther. “Corrupt magic does not find balance. Instead it forces everything that exists onto a scale and skews the world farther and farther out of balance with each spell, until—”

The sword slipped from the saddlehorn and dropped. Swiftly Kael leaned over, caught the weapon by the blade before it touched the ground, and sheathed it again. The lesson was finished—and Anja had never been a poor student.

“Until there is a Reckoning,” she concluded softly.

His short nod confirmed her reply.

She shook her head—not in denial, but in disbelief. “My entire life, I have been surrounded by magic and studied it.” Everyone in Ivermere did, no matter their natural talent. “Yet no one has ever explained magic as you have explained it.”

“What reason would they?” His powerful shoulders lifted in another shrug. “It suits them to believe otherwise.”

Anja could not see how. “How could it suit anyone?”

“Magic is a tool. But its use comes at a cost, and spellcasters are not the ones who pay it, because they have resistance to the scaling. Instead the price is paid by those who don’t wield the corrupt magic.”

“You speak as if you believe spellcasters care nothing of the effect of their magics on others.”

A short laugh preceded his, “How are those who don’t wield magic spoken of in Ivermere?”

Such shameful memories flooded Anja’s mind that she could not even meet his eyes. “Not very well.”

“The mines taught me what value a life has to someone who believes themselves superior. That value is not much.”

Anja knew that was true, too. Her chest hurting, her throat thick, she watched the road unwind beneath her horse’s hooves until she could easily speak again. “If what you say is true, then everyone can wield magic. Love and hate, kindness and—”

She broke off, because that wasn’t quite correct. And even as she realized why it was not, a strange and wonderful giddiness rose through her that she could not contain. But it was Kael who spoke what she had only just understood.

“Everybody already does,” he said gruffly, his blue gaze searing hers.

Tears filled her eyes. Quickly she tore her gaze from his, so overwhelmed by the wonder of it that she couldn’t speak.

Into the quiet between them, he said, “Pure magics don’t steal. They create, and add into the world something that wasn’t there before—and the result is not the opposite. Kindness does not beget cruelty. Instead it begets hope and comfort.”

Anja had not thought she could be any more astonished. Yet understanding slipped through her on another wave of wonder. She stared at him wide-eyed, and when he suddenly grinned at her, the giddiness that had been building within her burst into a laugh. “This is true!”

“It is.”

“And love does not beget hate—but hate must beget that which is similar. Pain, fear.”

Kael nodded. “Which in turn beget more of the same.”

Sobering, she frowned thoughtfully. “I think one must be very careful with such magics, then—be careful not to let them loose.”

“That is true. The world is full of hate and fear enough.”

“Probably because people are too careful with the others—with love and kindness,” Anja mused. “They are afraid it won’t be returned in equal measure. Or afraid they will be the only one giving. Or afraid it will be unwanted. For it is not kindness to force your heart upon someone who doesn’t want it, just as it is cruel to force a touch upon someone who doesn’t desire it.”

His short, harsh laugh startled her. “Yes,” he agreed abruptly.

She bit her lip, studying his face. “It must take a lot of courage to love. But kindness doesn’t need courage. So it should be easiest. Yet I do not see it as often as one would think…and am probably not kind as often as I should be.”

Gruffly he said, “You journey now to slay a spider in your mother’s bedchamber, with no benefit to yourself—and despite the hardship of the journey. What is that but kindness?”

Anja laughed. “And that is very kind of you to say.”

His grin flashed again and he teased her, “And very easy for me to say.”

True. But not all that he did was easy. “You, too, are undertaking this journey,” she pointed out. “Is that not also kind?”

His humor vanished. “I could have sent soldiers with you as escort and ordered them to kill your spider. I do not make this journey for your mother or for you, but for myself.”

Puzzled by his reply, she wondered, “What do you get out of it, then?”

His grim silence was the only answer.

5

Kael the Raviner

Vale

Unceasing hunger. That was what Kael had gotten from this. Twice he stroked his cock to completion before making his way to Anja’s chamber. No longer did she latch the door when she retired for the evening; instead she left it unlocked in anticipation of his coming.

But no. Not in anticipation. He could not allow himself to mistake her actions and give them a meaning he would prefer.

She did not leave the door open in anticipation. She left it open because she knew there was no other option but to let him in, and letting him in when he arrived forced her from bed.

She did not stir when he let himself in now. The chamber was stiflingly hot. A fire smoldered in the hearth. Anja already slept, the covers barely covering her hips, as if she had kicked them away in her sleep.

Her bare legs were not an invitation.

His spent cock already stirring again, Kael gritted his teeth and stalked to the alcove at the opposite side of the chamber, which opened up to a small balcony that barely allowed for a single person upon the outcropping. This night they had not stopped in a public house as they had during every other night in their journey, but had reached the city at the far north of Vale, just before the great river that marked the border between that kingdom and Lyngfen. Word of Kael’s journey had reached the city before he and Anja had, and they had been met and welcomed at the city’s gates by Vale’s administrator. Her residence was theirs for the night, a stone keep richly appointed.

Those appointments included a decanter of wine upon a sideboard. Though he misliked the sweetness of it, Kael helped himself to the drink before opening the balcony doors, letting the cold air sweep in.

Standing beneath the open archway and looking out into the winter’s night did nothing to cool the flames within, but the wine might dull his senses enough to allow him to sleep against her.

A rustling from the bed tightened his skin. Her footsteps were light, almost imperceptible, but he was so attuned to her that she might as well have stomped her way to his side.

“This is a fine idea,” she said at his shoulder. “It is unreasonably hot within.”

He glanced down. She had closed her eyes. Fine perspiration glistened over her pale skin as the cold air wafted past her face. She had not donned her wolfskin before coming to his side, and her tunic was not the heavy winter covering that she normally wore, but a fine linen that skimmed her every curve—and exposed almost the full length of her legs.

“You will catch cold,” he told her gruffly.

Opening her eyes, she smiled up at him. “I think not.”

He could not think at all. At first sight, her beauty had pierced him like a spear though his chest. But these past days there had been new light in her face, and it shone so bright that simply looking at Anja burned her image into his eyes and his heart.

But he could not look away. And he had to remind himself that when she softly bit her bottom lip and looked shyly up at him through her lashes, it was not an attempt to allure him. So unceasing was his hunger for her, so desperate was he, Kael wanted to believe every small gesture she made was invitation to carry her to bed and sink between her thighs.

But he had told her what that invitation must be, that it must come from her mouth, not a flirtatious look.

Perhaps she didn’t even know what she did.

But she likely didn’t mistake the hunger in his gaze when he looked back at her. Her smile faded slightly and her gaze averted from his.

She stroked her fingers down the lattice work of the door, a gesture that tormented him so badly that he barely heard her say, “I rarely think to open shutters or doors.”

Because the wards would not work. He forced himself to stop imagining those fingers tracing the length of his cock. “It is not allowed?”

“Only rarely. And everyone within the palace must be warned first. May I?” she asked and without waiting for answer, reached for him. His heart thundered, but when she only lifted the cup from his grip he laughed at himself.

She would not knowingly touch him. But now the sweetness of the wine seemed not so unappealing, now knowing it would be the flavor upon her lips.

Lips that he would have given up a kingdom to kiss. Four kingdoms. And sought new kingdoms to conquer and give away, so he might always have another taste.

She sipped, looking out over the city. “What mountains are those in the distance? I am so turned around within this keep, I don’t know the direction I’m looking in.”

And in the four kingdoms, there were mountains in every direction but east. “That is south.”

Grimhold and his fortress lay before them, though he could not see it at this distance and in the dark.

A faint smile touched her lips. “You seemed to be brooding mightily when I came. Do you wish yourself back at your stronghold?”

He had no response but a short laugh.

Tilting her head, she looked up at him. Curiosity tinged her voice. “Do you feel imprisoned there?”

“No.” Confined, yes. “Not as I was imprisoned before, in the mines. Now I could easily break free if I wished to.”

“‘Break free’?” she echoed. “You are not free now?”

“Is any king?”

“I suppose if you see duty as a chain, then you are not. Do you?”

“No. But it is not the same freedom.”

Her lips pursed as she considered that. They were not an invitation, either, but he needed a taste. Taking the wine back from her, he did not sip but downed half the remaining amount.

“You are still free,” she said. “But the difference is, I think, that you have never been a leader. Alone you destroyed Geofry and his warlords—you led no army, were responsible for no one else. Now you are responsible for four kingdoms.”

“That is not the only difference. I go hunting and I am surrounded by courtiers, and a huntmaster who flushes out game for me. I practice my blade against a swordmaster who will not parry in return, no matter how I goad him. I command armies I never see and lead soldiers I never fight beside.”

She tilted her head, studying him. “So you are bored—need more challenge?”

“No.” Nothing so paltry. “I am slowly dying. I feel I am being smothered and coddled until I cannot move or breathe within the stronghold’s walls.”

“Then name a successor and leave.”

He clenched his jaw and shook his head.

Her brow furrowed with concern, she asked, “Why did you accept the crown? For riches?”

“Because the people asked me to take it.”

“You could have instead asked for a reward and ridden away. Is that what you wish to do now?”

“No.” He wished to fuck her against the wall.

She leaned back against the frame of the archway, her breasts sweetly rounded against her tunic. Her nipples stood like berries beneath.

Those were not an invitation. They did not mean she was as aroused by his nearness as he was by hers.

Abruptly he strode back into the heated chamber, snatching a blanket. He returned and thrust it at her.

“You are cold,” he said gruffly.

“I’m not.”

“You are. Cover yourself.”

Biting her lip, she took the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. He refilled his cup from the decanter, and would have filled another cup for her, but he wanted his mouth where hers had been.

He returned to the balcony and found her watching him, studying him, considering him. Trying to make sense of him.

“Why take the throne? It cannot only be because you were asked.”

“I thought I might be needed—to defend them. So they might continue to be free instead of fall under another Geofry.” On a heavy sigh, he shook his head. “But I have not needed my sword. Only my seal at meetings.”

“So you want to take the lazy way of ruling a kingdom.”

He could not mistake the teasing note in her lilting voice but he sensed she was not entirely joking. Narrowing his eyes, he echoed, “Lazy?”

“You think that swinging a sword is a magical cure for a kingdom’s ills?” Smiling, she took the cup from him again. “Ruling a kingdom is making certain the grain in the fields ends up in the bellies of your people. It is maintaining relations with other kingdoms that can affect the safety of your people and the trade that enriches their lives. It is deciding how many taxes can provide for everyone but won’t take so much that they can’t provide for themselves.”

Grim resignation filled him. “I am better suited to a sword than deciding those things. Perhaps better suited as a conqueror than king.”

“I would not agree. I have seen how you are with your people. You don’t need to hammer out the details yourself but tell your ministers and advisors what you want to accomplish.” She frowned slightly and raised her gaze to his. “Why do they not already handle the details? I have never seen anyone as besieged as you were the morning at your stronghold.”

Besieged. Not by an enemy, but by his own advisors. “I am told that is how it is done.”

“Not in Ivermere or any other kingdom I have visited. More likely it was how Geofry did it—never relinquishing control, never letting anyone make decisions for his kingdoms.”

“Better for the advisors, if that was true,” Kael said. “They would have been less likely killed if they were not directly responsible for a failure.”

“Fortunate, then, that your advisors do not have to fear the same from you.” Thoughtfully, she sipped more wine, then said, “You can relinquish that control to others who are capable—but it is best to first learn exactly what they are in control of, so that you will know if they are handling it well.”

“I think they would.”

She nodded in agreement. “But the rest cannot be wholly learned from sitting on your throne and listening to reports. Better to travel through your kingdoms and see for yourself.”

“Do you think they wish me to? They are afraid of me.”

She looked at him in surprise, frowning. “They love you.”

“Everywhere we go, they are terrified.”

“At first they are,” she conceded. “But by the time you leave each place, they are less afraid, because their fear is only born of uncertainty. Because they don’t know what to make of you. There are so many stories of your bloodlust—”

“All true.”

She tilted her head. “But you have not killed anyone on this journey.”

“I have not killed anyone since taking the throne and ridding this land of Geofry’s supporters.”

Her brows rose. “That long?”

No one was more surprised than he. “None have deserved it. But I have also not traveled outside the stronghold much. Perhaps I will kill more soon.”

Pursing her lips again, she nodded. For a long moment silence fell between them, then she said, “I have always thought of kings and queens as parents. Perhaps because they were my parents—”

He laughed. “That would perhaps explain it.”

She bumped her hip against his leg, companionably chiding him for his teasing. “I only mean to say that Geofry was a particularly cruel father. Any child—no matter how old—would be wary of anyone in that role now. The only thing to do is to carry on and let them see you for who you are. That you are a king who will not punish anyone unless that punishment is deserved—and you should make very clear what is deserved and not.”

Was it so easy to win over people? Simply to let them see who he was.

More often than not, who he was terrified people. But Minam, who knew him best, was not afraid of him. Anja was not…he didn’t think.

Never had he spoken with anyone as he had with her tonight. Never had he revealed so much. Yet he didn’t know if it meant anything. Anja possessed a natural grace and kindness that he had witnessed everywhere they went, had seen her listening to troubles and treating them with care no matter how trivial or how weighty.

And after they had spoken of pure magic, he knew she had made more effort to use hers—not her corrupt magics, for as far as he was aware, she hadn’t cast a spell since they had left the stronghold. But he knew she had determined to be more kind.

He wondered what she would say if he told her that he had seen no difference in her. Before and after, she was as caring with those she met. She had been bursting with magic before she’d ever known what it was.

She looked up at him curiously again. “Why haven’t you left the stronghold before? You clearly enjoy traveling and seeing how your people get along. And if a threat came and you were needed to defend them, there is nowhere within your kingdoms that you cannot be reached within a fortnight.”

Bitterly he shook his head. “I am told that is what a king does. He waits for his people to come to him; he does not go to them.”

“Nonsense. What you do is what a king does. So tour your kingdoms once a year—or once a season. Demand that you hunt alone and give your swordmaster leave to do his worst. Visit your armies and, if you go to war, ride at their head. And that will be what a king does.”

Could it be so simple? He did not know. But what she suggested sounded more suited to him. Never had he been a man to be led and coddled.

She was not done trying to persuade him. “Your advisors have good hearts and they have done their best. But they know how to help the king; they do not know how to be king.”

He offered her a wry smile. “I’m not certain I do either.”

“I think that whatever you do, you will make a fine ruler.” She grinned. “Just do not take Geofry as a model.”

“I will not. It would only give you more reason to kill me.”

“If I thought you deserved it.” Again she bumped her hip against his leg. “But I do not think you do.”

If Kael took what he wanted now, he would. But had her mind truly changed so much? Could he win her, too? Would she want his touch as he wanted hers? Not dread his cruelty or merely tolerate a kiss?

Heart pounding, he cupped her face. With the soft brush of his thumb, he touched the lips stained red with wine. She went utterly still, her gaze locked upon his.

“Do you fear me, Anja?”

“No,” she whispered.

But her answer trembled over his skin on a shaky breath. A shiver ran through her form, a quiver on her lips. Uncertainty flashed through her eyes.

“I think you lie,” he said harshly and dropped his hand away, turning to look blindly out over the balcony. “Begone from me and return to bed.”

She hesitated. “Shall I wait for you to tie me?”

Unless she also lied about what he deserved, Anja would not attempt to kill him. Though at this moment, he would not care if she did. Better death than to feel her shake with fear at his touch.

With a raw voice, he said, “No. And from this night forward, I will not share your bed.”

He did not turn to see her reaction. He could not bear to see her relief. But she must have been stunned by his decision, because for a long moment he heard nothing from her at all.

Then, with a quiet sigh, she left him alone.

6

Anja the Liar

Lyngfen

She had lied.

Anja had said she didn’t fear him. But she did. Not that he would harm her—or harm anyone undeserving—but she feared that her heart would be sliced open when they parted.

Every time he touched her, she craved more. Every time he spoke, she wished never to stop talking with him. Every hour she spent with him, she wanted another. But not merely hours. Days. Years.

But only a week remained until she would be home.

And her lie had put distance between them. Since that night, he had not left her alone in her bedchamber—had not left her unprotected—but he slept on the floor, no matter that she implored him to take comfort beside her.

She missed his strength. She missed his warmth. She did not miss being tied—but she missed the tying, that breathless moment when he bound her. When he seemed to loom over her, dark and ravenous. When the silence between them seemed full of anticipation and the tension coiled so tight.

The tension was still there, but little silence remained. So many times she’d been reprimanded for her unguarded tongue, but now she was a slopmouth in truth, talking on and on, yet saying nothing of importance.

Because she had not the courage to say what she most wanted to. To tell him how much she wanted a kiss or a touch. Any would do. But she dared not speak when everything she told him without words was ignored. Every alluring glance she’d made, every flirtatious gesture, had been made as if to a wall. Or worse, made him turn away.

But on the road, he did not ignore her or turn away. And although the better she knew him, the more danger her heart was in, she could not stop trying to discover more.

He probably thought it was only boredom. The landscape offered little to engage the attention. Snow had fallen over the mire, then frozen hard, crusting the long, dried grasses in brittle ice. A bitter wind drove into their backs, and every time she turned her head it bit into her cheeks. This day they had met few other travelers, and their horses’ tracks were the first to mark the road. Though she had traveled through this kingdom on her journey to the stronghold, she had no memory of it while sleeping. Never before had she been anywhere so bleak and desolate.

Perhaps Kael had.

“Are the Dead Lands much like this?”

He shook his head. “Too many trees grow here.”

A laugh burst from her on a puff of frozen air. For there were trees—but only a few, their bare and gnarled limbs burdened with hundreds of ravens that watched them pass in eerie silence.

His smile answered her laugh but it did not last. With a lift of his chin, he gestured ahead. “That is similar.”

The ruins of a walled village. They had passed through many such ruins, but unlike in the Dead Lands, it had not been a scaling that had destroyed so many homes along this road. Instead it had been Qul Wrac, who had served Geofry in Lyngfen.

It was said when Kael had first cut his corpse-strewn path from Lyngfen to Vale, that he’d carried Qul Wrac’s head on the horn of his saddle. But when Anja had asked him whether it was true, he’d denied it—and said he’d carried Qul Wrac’s head upon a pike, instead.

She could not see him as that bloody conqueror, though she had no doubt of its truth. Even now, he was surrounded by the tools of battle. His sword, an axe, daggers in his boot. Yet more and more, she could not imagine him in a butcherer’s rage. Always he had such restraint.

Ahead, the wooden gate that had once guarded the entrance to the village lay in splinters between the stone walls. Beyond the broken gate, the road continued through what remained of mud homes, the thatched roofs caved in.

A few hundred paces from the gate, Kael halted his horse, gaze fixed intently ahead. Immediately Anja did the same. Silently she waited—this was something he often did when they approached a point in the road where the view ahead was obstructed, or where someone might lay in wait to ambush. She didn’t know exactly what he looked for—the only movement Anja could see was a scrap of cloth fluttering at the broken edge of the gate, the only sound she heard was the rustle of wind through the frozen grasses. Yet he must have heard or seen or perhaps smelled something.

“I feel eyes upon us,” he said.

She did not. With pounding heart, she looked and listened—then gestured subtly to a twisted tree near the village wall. “Perhaps the ravens?” she whispered.

A faint smile touched his lips. “No. Come.”

He nudged his horse forward, but did not go far. Instead he led her off the road, pausing near the tree she’d indicated, within a stone’s throw of the old gate. “I’ll ride ahead and return for you. If anyone lies in wait, it will be within the village.”

Because there was nowhere else to plan an ambush. Behind them, the mire was an empty waste; not a single traveler could be seen in the distance. The only concealment was offered by these ruins.

At her nod, he asked grimly, “You know spells of defense—the ones that kill?”

“I know many spells. Even one that could burst a man’s eyes within his head.” Anja’s mother had seen that she was educated well, for all the good it did her.

“If anyone but me comes through that gate, use it. Do not fear the scaling. Your spells will not touch me.”

How could he be so certain? But Kael did not wait to explain. Instead he threw the sides of his cloak back from his shoulders—to free his arms, she realized. If he drew his sword, the heavy material would not hamper his swing.

As he disappeared into the village and the sound of the hoof beats retreated, all was quiet. Then a raven cawed, the hoarse sound rubbing prickles over her unease-tightened skin. She shivered despite the heavy comfort of her coat. Beneath her, the big mare moved restlessly. She tossed her head and snorted, sending plumes of steam into the air.

And there were eyes upon her.

Anja stilled, her gaze searching. There was no one in sight. Yet whatever she had sensed—that Kael had sensed earlier—she knew with absolute certainty that it was close…and coming closer.

Sudden fear knocked her heart against her ribs. She dug her heels in and the horse sprang forward—

Then whipped around, the mare rearing and her hindquarters pivoting as if her reins had suddenly been yanked to the side. Unseated by the abrupt movement, Anja couldn’t regain her balance. Her cry cut short as she crashed to the ground on a clump of frozen grass. Stunned, she lay on her side, coughing and trying to regain her breath.

“Whoa, there! Easy, girl.” The deep voice was joined by another man’s cackling laugh. “Easy.”

Gasping air into her pained chest, Anja scrambled back toward the wall, regaining her feet and drawing her sword with hands that shook wildly.

The “easy, girl” had not been for her. A full-bearded giant of a man held her horse’s reins, trying to soothe the startled animal. Four other men were with him, watching Anja with expressions that ranged from cruelly amused to darkly irritated to hotly eager. A spell, she realized. A cloaking spell of some sort had allowed these bandits to come upon her unseen.

Were there more? Had they done the same to— “Kael!” she screamed his name. “Kael!”

That drew more cackling laughter from a wiry figure standing behind a man who watched her with an amused expression. Long blond hair framed a face reddened by the wind. The bandits’ leader, she thought. A leather cuirass armored his chest, a heavy cloak fell around his shoulders, and he stood with the point of his sword buried in the ground between his booted feet, hands resting lightly on the hilt in a careless pose.

His blond eyebrows arched. “Kael?” Laughing, he shook his head. “Your companion was a giant, for certain, but no bigger than my shaggy friend there—and no king. Did you see a golden crown upon his head? Perhaps there was a spell upon his crown, to disguise it as we were disguised.”

He addressed the last to the dark-haired man who stood a few paces away, and who did not wait as carelessly as his leader. With crossbow braced at his shoulder, he faced the broken gate—where Kael would come through.

He cast an irritated glance back at them before resuming his watch. “Crown or not, he must still be dealt with. Hogtie his slattern and come back to her when we’ve finished him. It’s cursed cold out here.”

“You are the greatest bowman in all of the fen, Erac,” the leader said. “Fly a bolt through his throat when he comes for her. Then his woman can keep you warm.”

So they had not ambushed Kael while concealed by the spell. He was alive. “You are all fools,” Anja said coldly. “Dead fools, now. For that warrior is Kael the Conqueror.”

Smiling, the blond tugged his sword from the ground. “And who are you?” he asked mockingly. “His fair queen?”

She only wished it so. “I am Princess Anja of Ivermere.”

“Ivermere?” His grin flashed white teeth. “Here is your princess, Ulber! Perhaps she will give your poor father pardon for his magical crimes, burn that rune from his arm, and you will all return home!”

Holding her sword in front of her, Anja spared the quickest glance to the sullen figure behind him, wearing a ragged cloak with hood drawn up.

“Ulber is not much of a spellcaster,” the blond confided to her in a lower voice, slow steps carrying him closer. “He only knows a trick or two, and his mother’s got no more magic in her than I do. But a princess, eh? You could crack our necks with a single word.”

“That spell is five words,” Anja told him, “but I have no need of it.”

Not when she had firm ground beneath her feet and a wall at her back. With easy grace, Anja slipped her arms out of her coat sleeves and let the heavy wolfskin fall to the ground. Immediately the wind gnawed through her tunic, lifting the hair at her nape and slithering down her collar, but with hot blood racing through her veins, she did not feel the cold.

Without taking her eyes from the blond bandit, she kicked the fur aside so it would not tangle her feet. She arched a brow—challenging him to attack.

Behind him came another cackle. “I like this one, Nahk! I will have her after you are done.”

“I’d best go last,” said the bearded giant holding her horse. “You’ll not get much use out of her after.”

“Take my place,” the spellcaster beside him said. “I would rather have her coat than fuck a ghost.”

“And I want to know whether her muff’s as white as her hair,” Nahk said, inching closer.

Another cackling laugh. “After that old woman this summer, you’ve gotten a taste for gray twat.”

“Then spread her thighs and get on with it!” Erac snapped at them. “He ought to have returned to her by now, and with her screaming his name we have lost the surprise.”

“We need no surprise,” Nahk said. “Because unless he can fly upon the wind over that stone wall, he cannot come upon us here without first exposing himself to our arrows.”

So far as Anja knew, Kael could not fly. According to legend, however, after breaking his chains he had climbed an unscalable shaft within the Blackworm mines. If he had done that, then a village wall would be nothing.

But like the head upon a saddlehorn, not every detail within the stories was true. So she would not depend upon Kael to save her.

“I hear his horse,” the giant said, cocking his head. “He returns through the gate.”

“Well, then,” Nahk said, suddenly advancing with speed. “Erac’s crossbow will end him. Let the last thing he witnesses be his woman beneath us.”

With cheers and laughter urging him on, Nahk aimed a heavy two-handed blow at the base of Anja’s blade—clearly meaning to disarm her by knocking the sword from her grip. On light feet, she danced to the right, and as his swing carried his arms downward, leaving his neck unguarded, she sliced in an upward arc toward his throat.

His head jerked back at the last moment. A stripe opened up the side of his face, from the corner of his mouth to his ear. The cheers from the others fell silent.

Eyes wide and disbelieving, Nahk touched fingers to his bleeding cheek. No longer did he care about the color of her muff, Anja saw. Her death lay in his furious gaze when he looked to her again.

But she had no intention of dying.

He struck. Anja parried with a ring of steel on steel, the force of his blow shivering through the blade and into her arms. Swiftly she pivoted and swung low, needing to wound and slow him, for his chest was armored from shoulder to hip and a fatal strike would not be easily found there. He evaded her thrust and there was no letting up after that, only the crunch of frozen grasses beneath her feet and the crash of steel, as she parried and returned blow after blow.

Then her boot slipped on a film of ice. In a heartstopping moment, Anja’s knee slammed into the ground and he came at her, swinging his blade high, preparing to bring the sharpened edge down upon her head.

With an upward thrust, she drove her sword into his abdomen, into the softness exposed beneath the waist of his cuirass. His blade made its downward swing, but with no direction and no force. His bloodied mouth opened wide in a soundless scream. He stared at her with bulging eyes, his face turning red and the veins in his temples throbbing. Anja ruthlessly shoved the blade deeper as she stood, and his sword fell harmlessly from his weakened hands. Quickly she pulled her weapon free and spun to face the others.

Hoofbeats approached, and she dared a hopeful glance—but it was only Kael’s horse, no rider. The other bandits must have already seen and dismissed the riderless animal as no threat, and now stared at her with expressions of dismay, shock…anger.

“Murdering whore!” Face contorted with rage, Erac pivoted, leveling his crossbow at her heart. “You’ll pray that we finish—”

A flash of steel spun through the air—Kael’s battle-axe. With a wet, terrible thunk, Erac’s head split open.

A deafening roar thundered across the mire. The ravens took to startled wing, bursting from the tree in a raucous black cloud even as Kael sprang from the high wall, slamming to the ground in a pantherish crouch. Fury lighted his eyes with deadly blue fire. His gaze swept Anja’s length, lingering on the blood staining her blade, before touching upon the dying man at her feet. As if satisfied she was unharmed, he rose from his crouch on tightly coiled muscles—and drew his sword.

“There’s only one of him.” The bearded giant stepped forward, weapon at ready. “We’ll take him together—”

Kael charged the giant.

Anja had heard stories of the Butcherer. Some from his own lips. And she had seen death before, both monstrous and gentle, and had just killed a man with her sword. But that painful death was a bloodless mercy compared to the violence of Kael’s blade, and the legends had not prepared Anja for the man. Every blow rent limbs, not simply stopping the giant but destroying him in great gouts of spurting blood. No longer did his companion laugh and cackle but spilled guts onto the reddened snow, and his horrendous screams were abruptly silenced. Shouting a cloaking spell, clutching a dagger in his raised fist, the spellcaster rushed forward and vanished. Without a break in his stride, Kael jerked his axe free of Erac’s skull and hurled the weapon. The spellcaster appeared again, bloodied fingers clawing at the heavy blade embedded in his chest. Staggering, he fell to his knees, and Kael ended him with a swing of his sword that cleaved head from neck.

Chest heaving, he ripped his axe free and turned toward Anja. His voice had a thick and guttural bite as he asked, “Are you hurt?”

Mutely she shook her head.

Jaw tightening, he crouched and wiped the blade of his sword on the spellcaster’s cloak. “Why did you not use your magic?”

Still stunned by the carnage before her, she was unprepared to answer. She stumbled over her tongue a few times before finally giving an explanation. “I wished to test my skill with a sword.”

“You are no fool, Anja,” he said harshly. “But you are a liar. And—”

Abruptly he stopped, looking at her. His face darkened. Rising to his feet, he stalked toward her. Pulse racing, Anja held her ground. She had lied to him. And whatever he meant to do now, she didn’t believe he would hurt—

He dropped to his knees before her. “This is your blood.” With rough hands, he shoved the hem of her tunic upward, exposing the straps that secured her leggings to the tops of her thighs. With a single tug, that strap untied, and the heavy stocking slipped down. She sucked in a hissing breath. A slash cut across the outside of her thigh—a thrust of Nakh’s blade that she had parried, but had still found a mark. But she had not even felt it until this moment.

At that hiss of breath, Kael’s gaze flew to hers. So stricken was his expression that for a moment, she felt a rush of fear that the wound was far worse than it looked.

But it wasn’t. If anything, it looked worse than it truly was.

“It is only a shallow cut,” she whispered.

Returning his gaze to her injury, he bent his head for a better look. “It still bleeds. And it needs cleaning.”

As he spoke, Kael gently cupped the column of her thigh, callused fingers sliding over the sensitive inner skin. Anja went rigid, her body responding to that touch, her senses a wild riot of stinging pain and pleasure.

Face bleak, Kael immediately withdrew his hand, his fingers leaving a bloodied mark on her skin. Spitting a foul curse, he stood and glowered down at her.

“Heal it,” he commanded.

Pleasure vanished, replaced by pure pain—and dread. Silently Anja shook her head.

He bent closer and growled, “Heal it.”

In a desperate whisper, she hissed, “It will scale.”

“And injure a raven? Then we will roast it and eat it.” Kael’s mouth twisted. “Or it might finish off that dying bastard.”

The bandit leader, who had not yet succumbed to Anja’s blade. Instead he had been trying to escape, crawling upon the ground toward the gate, leaving a bloodied trail through the snow. He had not gotten more than a few paces.

Her heart aching, Anja yielded. “I can’t heal it.”

Kael stared at her with burning eyes—and abruptly left her, sweeping up the bandit’s fallen sword and shoving it through the back of his leather armor and into his heart. Immediately the bandit’s crawling ceased.

Trying to breathe past the ragged pain in her chest, Anja watched him continue to his horse, where he loosened the wineskin from the saddle and poured water over his hands, washing them.

With tears clogging her throat, she tugged up the stocking, feeling every painful edge of the injury as it was covered.

“Leave it,” Kael barked. He was returning to her, a small ceramic jar cupped in his hand, and a wetted strip of cloth in the other. He scooped up her coat and swung it over her shoulders, for a brief moment surrounding her in his scent and warmth.

He sank to his knees again. Intending to tend her wound, she realized.

She tried to take the wet cloth from him. “I can do this—”

“With magic?” He slashed her an angry glance. “Be still.”

Tears filled her eyes and she looked upward, blinking them away. It was several moments before her raw throat felt capable of passing words through it without ripping her flesh apart.

“I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely.

He flashed her another hard, sharp glance. “For what?”

“For lying.” Her breath shuddered. “I’ve made you angry.”

“I am angry,” he ground through gritted teeth, “because I left you unprotected, with only a sword to defend yourself. And because I did not see it before. I had noted that you never used magic, and thought there might be reasons for it, but a reason I never was considered that you couldn’t.”

Angry…at himself. “But I lied. I let you believe that I was a spellcaster.”

“What of it?” He gently began cleaning the blood from her skin. “What better protection for a woman than everyone believing she can burst their eyes with a spell? I do not tell my enemies all of my weaknesses or strengths. Letting them believe what they like has saved me trouble and given me an advantage many times.”

An advantage such as an affinity for climbing walls. With heart pounding, she asked, “Are we enemies?”

A wry glance answered her. “I do not often share them with my allies, either.”

A tremulous smile touched her mouth. An ally. She wished for far more. But she would take what he gave.

He opened the small pot. “This ointment not only has a foul smell, it will feel like fire in your wound and numb the joints in that limb—but it will keep an injury from festering.”

She nodded and steeled her nerves. His blunt fingers slicked the ointment the length of the cut—and he had not been jesting. It felt as if a hot poker had been jabbed into her leg. She made a small sound, and had to brace her hand against his broad shoulder when the strength in that knee seemed to give out.

“Only a few moments,” he murmured soothingly, spreading more.

“I know how long your moments are,” she gritted.

He grinned. “Why do you have no magic?”

Speaking of it was more agonizing than the ointment. Yet he deserved to hear. “I was born this way.”

“Are the king and queen not your parents, then?”

“They are.” With a thick voice, she said, “My father could not bear my mother’s pain in childbirth, so cast a spell to take it away. If I ever had any magic, the scaling of that spell stole it. It took her pain and gave it to me.”

Frowning, he looked up at her. “You are always in pain?”

Bitterly she said, “What do you think my life has been? I am the only one in Ivermere without magic. Me, the princess. I am a disappointment and a shameful stain upon the realm.”

“Your father is the shame.”

Was he? “He did it out of love. To help her. Is that not a kindness?”

“It was selfishness, because he could not bear her pain. She was not dying. Instead of casting a spell to take her pain, he should have asked her if she could bear it.”

“You did not ask me if I could bear this scratch.”

His frown deepened as he looked up at her. “When I asked, I knew you had no magic. But if I had been wrong, I risked harming nothing but a dying bandit and a dinner. I would not risk a child. And I would not punish that child afterwards for what my spell did.”

And this was why she feared him. How quickly he had taken hold of her heart. Less than a week of their journey remained. By the last day, he would have it all.

Then take it with him when he left her in Ivermere.

She could not hide her despair. But he mistook the reason for it.

“Even if you cannot cast spells, you still have great magic, Anja,” he said softly. “Today I saw your courage.”

She laughed, a harsh and painful sound. “Was it courage or desperation?”

He frowned. “Why do you think desperation makes it less admirable?”

“Because I had no choice. That is not courage.”

“There is always a choice. You could have chosen to do nothing.”

“My choice was the pain they planned for me, or the pain I might know if my sword failed. That is no choice.”

“You decided which pain was more acceptable to your heart.” His voice roughened. “You decided how you would live—or die. You did not let them decide for you. That is courage, too.” He used strong teeth to rip a length of cloth, then said, “If people were never desperate, if there was no fear or danger, we would not need courage. Do you think I fought so much because I was content and the choice was easy? My courage has always come from desperation. That does not lessen it. Just as yours is not lessened.”

Her gaze searched his face. “You are kind to me.”

“Kindness is easy. Courage is not.” He eyed her solemnly. “Neither is living without magic in Ivermere. I think you have more courage than I knew, Anja.”

Her heart full, she could not speak. As if sensing how overwhelmed she was, he lowered his gaze to offer her privacy and slowly began wrapping the clean strip of linen around her thigh.

And it was not only her heart that was overwhelmed. Her exposed leg ought to have been freezing, yet she felt so hot—and he was so close. His fingers slipped over her skin, so carefully, almost reverently. He had said the ointment had a foul smell yet he seemed to be leaning in toward the juncture of her thighs, breathing deep, and she felt a great strain within the muscles beneath her hands.

By the gods, and what she imagined then—of lifting the hem of her tunic and exposing bare flesh beneath. Of urging him closer, until his mouth met the part of her that burned hotter than any wound. The part of her that was so wet, her inner thighs felt the icy kiss of the wind more sharply than the rest of her skin, and she was uncertain whether the ointment was all that slicked his fingers. But she could pull him forward, and know the kiss and the touch she so desperately craved.

Unless he turned away again.

He suddenly stilled, and looked up to her with eyes that seemed to burn with hunger.

Anja trembled as a war waged within her. She had not enough courage to pull him closer, not enough courage to face his rejection again. This gentle touch as he tended to her might be all she would ever know of him. But from now until they reached Ivermere, perhaps she could have the small joy of touching him.

Her fingers slipped over his upturned face, tracing the sharp lines of his cheekbones. “There is blood here. Do you wish me to wash it for you?”

Catching her fingers, he shook his head. “I have blood everywhere upon me,” he said gruffly. “And it doesn’t wash.”

He did not mean the crimson staining his skin. “Will mine?”

“This was no stain upon you. It is their stain.”

The bandits’. “Then this blood on your face and hands is their stain, too. You wear the stains of many villains.”

Smiling, he pressed a kiss to her fingers. She caught her breath, in pleasure and hope, but he only rose to his feet.

“You are cold,” he said, folding her hands between his. “Let us ride to find a warm inn and a hot meal.”

“What of them?” She glanced at the bandits’ bloodied remains.

“The ravens will make use of them.”

With that, he swept her up and lifted her astride the mare. And as she gathered up her reins, Anja knew her heart would not be merely sliced open when this was done. Instead it would be rended into bloodied pieces, left as carrion.

That was what the Conqueror did.

7

Kael the Wolfkiller

Lyngfen

From almost every corner of his kingdoms, Blackworm Mountain loomed visible in the distance. As they’d traveled north on this journey, it had always lain in front of them. Now it no longer lay ahead, but rose to the west as they passed through the upper part of Lyngfen.

Fifteen years he had spent in the belly of that mountain, in the mines and tunnels that seemed a sunless world of their own. A world that Kael had destroyed almost the very moment after he’d freed those who’d been enslaved there.

Yet it was not those fifteen years that loomed in his mind when the mountain was no longer a peak in the distance but a glowering hell nearby. Instead it was the cursed road ahead and the next four days that gnawed with vicious teeth upon his heart.

In four days, they would be in Ivermere.

“Kael.”

Immediately his gaze went to Anja’s face, searching for the source of the worry that sharpened her tone. She was frowning, but not looking at him. Instead she leaned over in the saddle and watched the horse’s long and even stride.

“Is she favoring a leg? Her head bobs more than usual but I can’t feel it in her gait.”

He studied the mare’s walk. “Not one leg over the other.”

“Perhaps she’s favoring two.” Anja drew on her reins and swiftly dismounted.

Kael halted his own mount and joined her, taking Anja’s reins and remaining at the mare’s head while she ran her hands down the horse’s forelegs.

“It’s hot and swollen here.” Gently she prodded the horse’s leg below the knee. Nickering, the mare shifted her weight away from Anja’s touch. “And the other side, too. Splints, I think.”

Which would heal, given time. But they did not have much of that.

Anja let out a relieved breath, then smiled up at him. “I feared worse. Especially after that bearded bandit caught hold of her so roughly.”

“That might have helped the splints along, but it was more likely the road.” They had been traveling long distances each day.

Gnawing her lip, Anja rose to her feet. “I should not ride her. It is only more weight for her to carry.”

“Ride with me, then.” His own horse was sound and he traveled light. If he and the horse had been dressed in full armor, the chainmail and metal plating would have weighed more than she did. “The next village isn’t far. We’ll stable her there and leave word for the caravan that follows. By the time your trunks are delivered to Ivermere and the caravan returns this way, she’ll be sound enough for the journey home.”

Anja nodded, though unhappiness passed through her eyes—and he wasn’t certain whether it was mention of her going home or the idea of riding with him. But he only had four days left and would not pass this opportunity to hold her again.

After tethering the mare’s lead to his saddle, he moved to lift her onto his horse but she hesitated, moving back.

“If I am to ride behind you, I should mount second,” she said.

“You will be in front.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That is not the usual way of riding double.”

“No.” But he would do it no other way. If she sat ahead of him in the saddle, he would see any threat approaching. His body would shield her from any unseen threat from behind. “It is how a king rides double.”

Her soft lips smashed together as if fighting a smile—a battle she quickly lost. Laughing, she shook her head.

“I should never have told you that whatever you do is what a king does. Will you use it to get your way every time?”

“If I must.”

“All right, then.” But she didn’t step forward to mount the horse; instead she took off her coat and turned it backward, pushing her arms back through the sleeves and covering her front in fur. At his curious look, she explained, “It is too thick and would bunch between us.”

So it would. He hefted her up into the saddle, clenching his teeth against a tortured groan when she swung her leg over and he glimpsed the barest bit of skin at her inner thigh. Then she settled and straightened her tunic beneath her, so that bare skin would not chafe against leather. His cock stiff as a sword, he swung into the saddle.

She could not mistake the hardness behind her, for with both of them in the cradle of the saddle, the seat was a snug fit. His cock was a rigid pole pressing against her ass, yet she gave no indication—neither pressing against him or moving away. Though perhaps she didn’t feel it through her thick tunic and his straining breeches. Or perhaps she believed he was always in this state, for his cock was always hard when he held her close.

By the gods, he had missed this. He had not held her since he’d stopped sharing her bed. The sweet pleasure of binding her leg had been dulled by the shame of wanting to fuck her even while she bled from an injury he ought to have prevented. And she touched him so often of late, but that was more torment, because they were innocent touches to his hands or his face.

But never did she open her mouth and ask for more.

He would have given anything she asked for. At her command, he would have razed Blackworm Mountain itself. But for now she only leaned back against his chest, her head resting on his shoulder. The coat draped like a blanket down her front and was long enough to cover their legs.

Her soft laugh shook gently through his chest. “This is quite comfortable, in truth. I could nap here.”

“I will not let you fall if you do.” Already he held her securely, the reins in his right hand and his left arm wrapped around her waist.

“I am not tired.”

He heard the smile in her voice when she answered, yet despite how often she’d talked these past days, she seemed content with silence now.

As was Kael, though it was all he was content with. To have her against him, to know the soft feel of her, to breathe the sweet smell of her—never had he been so overwhelmed with need.

And this journey would be all that he ever had of her. He ought to have spent every moment like this, holding her close.

She reached up, and the soft touch of her fingers against his jaw thundered through his veins. Gently she turned his gaze to the west. “That is Blackworm Mountain, is it not?”

“It is.”

She said nothing after that, but let her palm curl back around his nape—as if in comfort.

A comfort he didn’t need, but would take. “Ask me,” he told her. “I know you have wanted to all day.”

She sighed, and he was sorry he’d spoken when she slid her hand from his neck and let if fall back to her lap. “I don’t want to dredge up painful memories.”

“It does not.” There had been pain, but he had survived. That was all that truly mattered. “But there is little to say. It was as bad as you likely imagine.”

“Probably worse than I can imagine.”

Kael could imagine worse than he had suffered. He had seen worse. “I was enslaved as a boy and became a man within the mountain—and if the Dead Lands were the fire that created me, the mines hammered me into sharpened steel. Others were not so fortunate. When stories of the mines are told, it should be theirs. For they still suffer and I do not, and it’s too easy to believe there were no other consequences when the story most frequently told ends in victory.”

“With you killing Toatin Zan and Geofry losing his head?”

And his guts. And everything else. “Yes.”

Nodding, she fell quiet for a moment, then said, “Have you ever returned to the Dead Lands?”

“There is nothing for me to return to.”

She made a soft noise and her hand found his at her waist, lacing their fingers together. Another comfort he didn’t need but would take. “You had a story before that, though, didn’t you? You have been called the Wolfkiller—were called that even before you began your campaign against Geofry. It is said that you killed five wolves with your bare hands when you were only four years of age. That the pack had bedeviled your clan for a full winter before attacking. And while the adults were fighting them off, more cunning wolves stole into the village from the opposite direction, slinked into your hut and dragged you off to be eaten, but you killed them and escaped.”

Kael grinned against her hair. “It was not my bare hands. I used a rock.”

“Oh, come now!”

“Truthfully.” Partially.

She scoffed.

Laughing, Kael said, “I will show you the scars on my arm from where I was dragged. They are clearly from a wolf’s teeth.”

“Then I will believe you killed one.”

That would be closer to truth. So was this. “I spread the tale and the name—along with the name of the Butcherer. It is always an advantage when enemies fear you long before you arrive to kill them.” Wryly he added, “Perhaps I did it too well.”

“You speak of how the people fear you?”

“I do.”

Emphatically she shook her head, her white braid whipping against his shoulder. Her fingers tightened on his as if not to allow him escape from what she said next. “As someone whose life has been saved by your butchery, I will tell you that it puts the savagery in a different light. To only hear of it…in truth, you sound like a monster. But upon the road, as horrible as it was, I only felt gratitude when I saw what you did to those bandits. Your people feel the same. Whether you freed them from the yoke of slavery or from Geofry’s reign of terror, they know they have been saved and are grateful.”

Her fingers might as well have taken hold of his throat, his tongue. Kael knew not what to say.

“Let me ask you,” she said now, “why do you always remind them of your savagery? Such as at the sentencing—you made certain to describe what you did to Qul Wrac. But you do not revel in the memory, like hunters sharing stories around a fire. And with me, you do the same. Often because I ask, but you do not spare the gory detail.”

Grimly he replied, “I do it so there is no mistaking who I am.”

“But you only give one part of who you are. The bloodiest part. You almost never speak of courage and strength. Never the part that the people want to celebrate: of freeing them, of inspiring them, of giving them hope.”

He frowned—but again, he could not answer. This was not a view he had of himself.

Turning her head, she leaned sideways so she could look up into his face. Her own expression was one of wonder. “You do not even realize that is how they see you? Or you don’t accept it,” she said thoughtfully. “Or think you do not deserve it.”

That he could answer. “I’m not certain I do.”

“Your people have decided you do. Trust them.” Her eyes brightened with amusement. “How strange to think that you doubt yourself. The more powerful someone is, the more certain they usually are of their worth—and their estimate usually inflated. Do you think because of the blood on your hands, the savagery that put it there, that you are some kind of monster who deserves to be ousted and alone?” She shook her head and answered her own question before he could. “I have seen monsters. You are not one.”

She said it with sheer conviction that allowed no argument, but Kael did not care to argue about himself, anyway. “What monsters have you seen?”

Her cheeks colored slightly and she pulled back against his chest again. He could not see her face but she snuggled in so sweetly from hips to shoulders that it was a fair exchange.

Every step the horse took stroked his cock against her ass, a rhythm that was pleasure and torment in equal measure. Mostly likely he would spill his seed before this ride was finished.

His only regret would be that it wasn’t inside her.

“In Scalewood.” She leaned her head back against his shoulder again, turned her face so that every breath was a white cloud past his jaw. “Even though I had no magic, I still wished to be useful. And there are threats that are impervious to spells and must be fought with weapons, instead. So I believed that, as a future queen, I should know how to protect my people—from the creatures within Scalewood or from monsters abroad. Like Geofry.”

“Or me.”

He caught the curve of her smile. “Yes. At one time, I thought Ivermere would be your next conquest.”

“So you dreamed of killing me even before you decided to become my bride.”

She laughed. “Yes.” Her hand squeezed his again. “But this was before you began making your names across the four kingdoms. My parents wished me only to study magic and learn the workings of our kingdom. But I begged the Mistress of the Hunt to teach me the sword and more.”

The hunters who destroyed the magical beasts that broke through Scalewood’s wards. Just as spellcasters did, the monsters had a natural protection against magic—but instead of being resistant to the scaling, they were resistant to spells cast.

“And she agreed?” Then taught her well, by what Kael had seen.

“Yes. And that training was not secretly done, but my parents never liked to hear of what I did—and of course studying always came first. So it always seemed very…private.”

She seemed unhappy with that word, yet Kael understood well enough. Learning the sword and hunting was something that she’d loved and was hers.

And there was a wistful note in her voice as she continued, “So I rode with the hunters when I could—and that was almost always at night, when my other duties were finished. Usually we patrolled the borders of Scalewood and I saw many monsters then, but they never passed the wards. All of Ivermere holds them, did you know?”

Kael nodded. Every ward had to be maintained by a spellcaster or its power faded over several days—and that ward was only as strong as the sorcerer who cast it. But it could be cast by more than one. So it did not surprise him that all of Ivermere held the wards; it would be suicide not to.

“Yet something escaped?”

“Yes. There began attacks on villages near the wood. Just…slaughter. And the bodies partially eaten. But we didn’t know at first that it was one of the Scalewood beasts. No one saw anything of the like, and others reported seeing a man during the attacks.”

“The human sort of monster.” In his experience, more common than the magical sort.

“So we believed. But it wasn’t. It was a wolf who could cast a transformation spell and shed his skin, then pass through the wards—because they allow humans through.” Her fingers tightened on his. “When we came upon him the first time, he’d butchered a family—and though his skin was still off, we could see he wasn’t a man. Not with those claws and teeth. And we chased him. But he passed back through the wards and put on his wolfskin, and we didn’t dare pursue him into the wood.”

“But you knew what he was, then.”

She nodded. “So we waited for him to come out again. Every hunter in Ivermere was there—and he was so fast and strong. Not like a man at all. We used spelled arrows that never missed their mark, yet they barely slowed him. And when hunters came close with their swords…” She let out a long sigh. “There were many killed that night. We feared that he would reach his skin and we would have to do it all over again, but the Mistress of the Hunt finally got close and beheaded him. He did not heal from that.”

“Because a severed head can’t cast a healing spell.”

A soft breath of laughter escaped her. “No,” she agreed, then lifted her arm and indicated her sleeve. “This is him. We dared the forest long enough to collect his skin, and divided it equally between the hunters who’d chased him that night. There were thirty of us in all.”

Yet her coat was as long and generous as a giant’s cloak. Truly a monster. “You deserve that name,” he said. “Anja the Wolfkiller.”

By the turn of her head, he could see the barest hint of a sad smile as she ruffled her fingers through the thick gray fur. “It was my last hunt. I was forbidden by my parents after that. It was too dangerous for a princess, the heir to the crown.” Her voice caught thickly. “But not very long ago, the council took my crown anyway.”

Tension gripped him. “Who took your crown? And…you are Ivermere’s heir?”

“No longer. Did you not wonder why the only daughter of a king and queen would leave her realm to marry elsewhere?”

In truth, he had not. “None of my kingdoms came by inheritance. So I did not even think that yours might.”

She laughed. “No. I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“Who took yours?”

“The High Council of Ivermere.” She tipped her head back against his shoulder again, and her throat worked before she continued, “My parents fought the decision. They had seen to my education; I knew all there was to know about spells and potions and ruling Ivermere. But the council determined that anyone without magic could not claim the throne—and neither can anyone in my line, though it’s entirely possible that this curse would not afflict any children I have. So the crown will pass to a cousin instead. And my parents were…so shamed. Devastated that their line would end.”

He could not bear the pain he heard in her voice, the tears that were unshed but that dripped from every word. “I will take Ivermere’s crown for you.”

She gave a watery laugh, shaking her head. “There is no one in Ivermere who wants to see me wear it. Even my parents, it was only a matter of pride—if they’d ever had another child I’d have been shunted aside. And I see no point in fighting so hard for a place there, when they will never want me. Especially not after I have seen the people of your kingdoms, and how they love you. I would be forever yearning for that, instead.”

Yearning to be wanted, but not yearning for him. “I would give to you Lyngfen,” he said, gesturing around them, “but it is a worthless swamp.”

She laughed again, and this time there was a true, merry note within the sadness. Then she drew another breath and said, “But now I recall why I told that story—and it was about your people fearing you or loving you, and whether you deserve the second.”

By the gods, his Anja was tenacious. “You do not have to—”

She ran roughshod over his protest. “And I have seen a monster, Kael. I have seen his glee as he killed innocents, how uncaring he was of the pain left behind. I have seen how he reveled in his cruelty, and in their agony and fear. And I have seen you butcher men, but there was no glee. No revelry. Rage, for certain, but they had earned it. You are not a monster; you are a man who makes certain that what needs to be done is done. You are simply very…thorough.”

Undisputedly so. “I will place that on my seal beside my other names,” he said dryly. “‘Kael the Thorough.’ Not a gut left intact, not a limb left unhacked.”

She nodded primly. “Not a skull left uncracked.”

A breath passed, then she giggled, and Kael’s own laughter roared out across the fen, shaking him so hard that he had to grasp the saddlehorn and wrap his arm tighter around Anja so they didn’t tumble to the ground. Her fingers clasped his wrist as she bent forward, her body quaking and her ribs expanding as she gasped for air, then lost every breath to another bout of laughter.

Then she sat up again, and the movement was a long stroke down the length of his cock. Kael’s laughter was silenced, choked by a stifled groan. Anja abruptly went still, her fingers clenched around his forearm, her entire body trembling and tense.

Imagining what Kael did? That his hands would slide into the open back of her coat and cup her breasts, find her nipples hard and ripe. Or that his fingers would slip between her legs and tease her clit until she was wet and ready to take him. That he might grip her hips, and lift her, and fill her sultry sheath with his length, and they would rock together, slowly, until she found her release and he filled her with his seed.

Though he could not do that. A virgin was she, and he would not take her upon a horse. Not the first time.

And a virgin was she, so the same thoughts were not likely what held her so still. For certain she gave no indication that she wanted anything more. She only trembled and waited. For his cock to subside?

She would have to wait forever.

His forearm an iron band around her waist, he dragged her against his chest again, as snug as they had been. She made a small sound—of dismay or disappointment—and when she tipped her head back against his shoulder, her cheeks were flushed and her breath came in soft pants.

Yet although he wished it with all of his being, she didn’t turn her head and place those panting lips against his throat. Didn’t look up at him with want in her gaze. Didn’t give an invitation, and he could not know if this was arousal or if she was simply overheated beneath her coat.

Instead she closed her eyes and trapped her lower lip between her teeth, and remained that way for what seemed an endless time. A village was visible in the distance when she finally let go a shuddering breath and asked softly, “What name would you take, if you had only one?”

He did not even have to think. “Kael the Free.”

A soft smile curved her mouth and she looked down the road, her dark eyes contemplative. “Do you think I might be happy here in your kingdoms, if I leave Ivermere?”

Sudden hope filled his chest. “Why would you return here?”

For him?

“Because there is nothing for me in Ivermere.”

Not for him. “Is that why you answered the call for a bride?”

“Yes. It seemed suitable. I was raised to be a queen. But I can be useful in other ways. As a hunter, perhaps.”

He frowned. Being a queen was only suitable? Had it not been what she wanted?

“You said that you wanted what I had,” he reminded her. “You did not mean my kingdoms?”

“I suppose it is more precise to say that I wanted to do what you had done—and you made a place for yourself.” The curve of her sad smile was like a scythe slicing through his chest. “I meant to carve out a place for myself, too. Even if I had to carve out your heart first.”

She had made a good start. That organ was no longer his own. She had already taken it. “I carved out my place with my sword,” he told her. “It was a fine plan to use your blade to kill me to gain the same.”

She turned her head against his shoulder, hiding her face from him. “But you do not want a bride.”

No. He did not want a bride. He wanted Anja. And if she ever showed a hint of desire, a sign of wanting him in return—a desire not seduced or forced from her, but freely given—then he would marry her in an instant.

But she gave no indication, no invitation. She didn’t want him. She wanted a place where she fit.

He could give that to her. Again that hope rose. He could give her a place close to him—and slowly win her heart as she had so quickly won his.

And he would rather any torment than never seeing her again. Even the torment of having her near, knowing she would never want him in return.

“After we have killed the spider, return to Grimhold with me. There is room for you in the stronghold and plenty to do.”

With a startled gaze, she glanced up at him. “I am not a sorceress. So I wouldn’t be of much use to you in your court.”

“Just as well, for I have no use for a sorceress. Only a ward-keeper, and I have one already.” And he cared not at all what she did, except that she obviously wanted to have purpose. “You should come as my…royal advisor. Already you have served me better in these past ten days than they have in over a year. So I would rather have you than the fools around me now.”

A smile tugged at her lips and a hopeful light brightened her dark eyes. Her gaze moved down the road again, but he didn’t think she looked at anything—instead she chewed her lip in quiet contemplation.

After a long moment, she asked quietly, “Do you think you will ever marry?”

Only if she would ever have him. “I don’t know.”

“I suppose…” She hesitated, and her breath stuttered before she finished, “I suppose you have no need for a wife. There must be many women in the stronghold who would see to your…needs.”

“There are.” Though he had no interest in touching them. Only her. Never again would he want anyone as he did Anja.

“Oh.” That small reply was followed by a long silence in which she did not look back at him. She let go of his forearm and hugged her middle, as if cold beneath that long coat. Finally she continued in a thick voice, “It is very kind of you to offer. But I do not believe there is a place for me there.”

No place with him.

She had once said there were things worse than death. Kael had not believed it then, for despite all that he had suffered, death seemed far worse. But now he understood. For he had only thought of physical suffering. He hadn’t known the depths of pain a heart could feel—and whatever torments were worse than death, he would know them all when he let her go.

If he let her go. And if he did not, may the gods forgive him for not heeding her choice, because after he chained her to his side, Kael didn’t think Anja ever would.

But better to have her hate him than not to have her at all.

8

Anja the Unkissed

Dryloch

When Anja had seen the public inn where they would stay the night, she had wanted to keep riding. For it was Midwinter’s Eve, and the music and sounds of revelry from inside struck painful discordant notes across her shattered heart. But there was nowhere else to go. This was the last village before the Scalewood passage.

Tomorrow they would ride through that dark forest and arrive in Ivermere.

Anja sensed the celebratory mood suited Kael no better than it did her, though he didn’t say so. These past days, they had spoken little. She had felt too battered inside to risk a conversation that might hurt her more than she could survive, and Kael had lapsed into a brooding silence. Every day, he held her close, for they still rode double. He had not seen another horse that he thought was worth purchasing. Anja had seen many suitable horses, but had not spent her gold on them or argued in favor of one. Instead she’d hoarded every last moment she had with him.

Even though his mood was so dark, and his body always taut with frustration. She thought the cause might be the eternally swollen size of his manhood—but never did he suggest that she might ease his arousal. He never mentioned his arousal at all. Perhaps because she was not the reason for it. He hadn’t wanted her for a bride, so he likely didn’t want her as a bedpartner, either.

And perhaps because he might find that partner here.

As they had been at every place they’d stopped, immediately they were offered bedchambers—but were apologetically told that the chambers were not ready for immediate occupation. So Anja could not hide as she wanted to, but found a table where she could sit and wait, her mood as dark and heavy as Kael’s had been.

Had been, because upon entering the tavern, he’d recognized men—also former slaves—he’d once known in the Blackworm mines. Now he sat with them at a table across the room, and laughed with them, and drew appreciative female looks from every direction—appreciation that was mixed with the fear and apprehension that Kael initially inspired everywhere he went. But here were also people who knew him, and because he was trusted and liked by them, the women’s fears would not likely last long. No doubt they would work up the courage to approach him, to offer their invitations, and extend that appreciation to his bed.

Anja had more to offer than gratitude. Because unlike these women, she knew him. Not just the stories, but knew his rage and his worries and his kindness. So why did she never offer an invitation?

But she knew why. He’d rejected her once. She couldn’t survive his rejection again.

And she couldn’t survive seeing him with another woman.

A hand settled on her shoulder and an unfamiliar voice said, “Here you have been hiding— Oh!”

Startled, Anja looked up into a wrinkled face surrounded by hair almost as white as her own.

The older woman chuckled, and returned her gnarled hand to her cane. “Forgive me. I mistook you for my sister, but I was only partly wrong. You are not Tessa. A sister, however, you might be.”

Anja smiled warmly. “Sit with me, then. If your sister searches for you, she cannot miss two white heads together. I am Anja.”

The woman grinned and carefully eased her thin form into the seat beside Anja’s. “Thank you.”

“The company will do me well, and so the gratitude is mine.” A conversation would hopefully bring her out of this sour, hurtful mood—and she could not mistake the woman’s guttural accent, even thicker than Kael’s. “You are from the Dead Lands?”

The other woman nodded, her keen eyes studying Anja’s face. “And you are from Ivermere,” she said. “But clearly you do not belong to them.”

Her quick blue gaze cast a significant glance across the room at Kael.

The woman was mistaken. Anja didn’t belong to him, either. But it would hurt too much to confirm it out loud.

But there was no reason to say anything. A loud cheer from across the room drew their attention, and a group of villagers burst into a bawdy song about a maiden’s Midwinter wish.

A song Kael knew well, she saw, when he joined in.

Beside her, the old woman sighed happily. “It warms my heart to see so many come together for Midwinter. Much has changed over the years, but that has not.”

“Did you also celebrate Midwinter in the Dead Lands?” Anja could not imagine it. Midwinter was a time of cheer, and everything she’d ever heard of that land said that no happiness lived there.

But then, much had been said of Kael, too—and not all of it was true.

“We do, though since the Reckoning, not in the same way as our people once did. It is said that the Midwinter celebrations used to be as they are here. In these days, however, all the clans come together, and those who do not have enough to live through the cold bare season say what is most needed—and if the other clans have it, it is shared among all. Those clans with plenty do not ask for anything, but only make their Midwinter wishes. And if all of the clans lack the same thing, then they share that burden and fear, and none are alone in their suffering.”

“So ‘they shared their plenty and they shared their sparsity,’” Anja quoted softly. “That is part of a Midwinter song. The stories of ancient Midwinter celebrations sound similar to those in the Dead Lands now.”

“Well, it was not the first Reckoning the world has known. Nor will it be the last.”

Perhaps the next would be closer to home than Anja liked to imagine. “In Ivermere, everyone has plenty, yet still asks for gifts, as well as making their Midwinter wishes.”

“If there is plenty, there is no harm in asking. And there is never harm in giving…or wishing.” Her eyes twinkled merrily. “Though I wonder how often Midwinter wishes come true in Ivermere, when it is only through pure magic that they are granted.”

Pure magic. Struck by a sudden realization, Anja laughed aloud.

The old woman smiled at her. “Now you must share in the thought that made you laugh. And that will be the Midwinter gift you give to me.”

It was probably what this woman already knew. “That is why wishes can’t be said out loud, isn’t it? Because when they are spoken aloud, they become a spell, and a spell is corrupt magic.”

Pleasure wreathed her wrinkled face. “So that one has taught you something of real magic.”

“Yes.” Grinning, she glanced at Kael, then her heart seemed to rend in two when she saw the pretty maid who had sidled up to him during the song. He did not seem to pay her any attention, but soon the song would end and she might speak to him.

And she would likely be the first of many who tried.

Throat burning, she tore her gaze from the painful scene and hoarsely asked the woman, “Do you know much about true magic, then?”

“I would think so.” She eyed Kael, then Anja’s stricken face, but said nothing of what she concluded of the situation between them. “I am the witch of our clan.”

Shock cut through Anja’s misery and she stared at the woman with jaw dropped. She had heard that term before, but only said in the most derogatory way.

As if amused by Anja’s reaction, the woman chuckled. “In the Dead Lands, that is no insult. It only means that I am a…” She lifted a gnarled hand as if searching for the word. “Not a priestess, because I do not commune with gods. But I oversee births and conduct ceremonies—and heal when I must.”

Heal? “You are a spellcaster?”

Her grimace deepened the wrinkles around her mouth. “When I must,” she said again. “Better to heal without spells, if it can be done.”

“Yes,” Anja agreed softly. Just as Kael had said, too. And the maid had gone away from him but already another woman had slipped closer. “Do you know much about love?”

“I do. I know how it burns so strong and bright that it can seem to give off its own light. And you shine like the sun, Anja of Ivermere,” the old woman said. “But I see shadows, too.”

Eyes burning, Anja shook her head. “I don’t think it can be love. It doesn’t feel bright and pure. It feels like poison inside me.”

“Ah.” Smiling, the woman said, “Because that is not love. It is jealousy.”

That could not be the only reason. “But it is not only the women. When I think that I might not see him again, I feel such pain.”

“That is also not love. Love begets no pain.”

“Then what is it? Because it feels like a knife in my chest.”

“It is longing. Dread. Perhaps fear.” The older woman’s gaze burned into Anja’s. “Love and kindness are the most powerful of all magics—and not only for the one who gives, but also for whom the magic is bestowed upon. So love is nothing to dread or fear.”

Excruciating pressure built within her chest. On a strained whisper, she asked, “What if it’s not returned?”

“Do you give a gift expecting one in return? Or do you give it for the happiness it gives?”

“What if it doesn’t make him happy? What if it means nothing at all?”

“Then hope he knows kindness, too,” the old woman said, her voice warm with sympathy. “Love gives the most. But it also takes the most.”

“I fear it will leave me with nothing.”

The woman patted Anja’s hand. “Fear is also a strong magic. As is courage. So tell me, Anja of Ivermere—which magic will you wield?”

Eyes filled with tears, Anja shook her head. “I don’t know.” A watery laugh escaped her. “Perhaps when I’m desperate enough, I’ll find my courage.”

“You seem desperate enough now,” the old woman said dryly, but did not wait for a response. Instead she braced her cane against the floor and rose to her feet. “And there is my sister, waving at me to come to her. Merry Midwinter, Anja.”

“Merry Midwinter…” She had not asked the woman’s name. But the opportunity passed, because when she raised her head her gaze caught Kael’s—and she realized belatedly that her eyes still shimmered with tears. Hastily she wiped them away, but his face had already darkened and he was striding toward her, and the old woman was moving away.

“What happened?” he demanded. “You’re crying.”

“I’m well. I was only talking to…that woman there.” Anja spotted her in the crowd and pointed in her direction.

Kael’s eyes narrowed after her. “Is that a witch?”

She almost flinched at the term. But to him, or anyone from the Dead Lands, it apparently was not a curse but a title of honor. “It is.”

Kael abruptly grinned. “We are all fortunate, then. When anyone of such powerful magic is near, Midwinter wishes are more likely to be granted.”

He sounded truly elated by the prospect. And when he didn’t return to his friends but took the seat the old woman had vacated, Anja’s heart filled at his very nearness.

“What have you wished for?” she asked him.

But of course he would not say. Instead he laughed and shook his head.

“What gift would you ask for, then?” she wondered. “You are the ruler of four kingdoms, and a man of plenty. Yet there must be something you need. So what would you ask of me for your Midwinter gift?”

His intense gaze caught hers. His voice was gruff as he said, “Forgiveness.”

Brow creasing, she searched his face, and tried to think of anything he’d said that required it. “For what?”

“For something I haven’t done yet.”

She huffed out a laughing breath. “Consult me when you do, then, and I will consider it.” Abruptly she bit her lip. “But you had best do it by tomorrow. After that I will be in Ivermere.”

“Don’t be so certain,” he said before sprawling back in his seat and extending his powerful legs. “And what gift would you like from me? Dryloch, Vale? My stronghold?”

Nothing so big…nothing so small.

Heart pounding in her throat, she recalled how he had described magic: an unseen force that changed the world. Anja wanted a different world than the one she had. She only needed a bit of courage.

But when she reached for that courage, she found more than she’d known. It was waiting, bold and full, for her to use.

“A kiss,” she told him. “I want a kiss.”

And although he was a man of sudden and volatile action, Kael did not move at all. Instead he stared at her, as if not entirely certain he’d heard. “A kiss from me?”

“Yes.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why want something you would only tolerate?”

She had said that once. “That was when I didn’t know you. But now it is something I desire.” Her courage faltered slightly when still he didn’t move, and she added on a whisper, “Very much.”

Slowly, he straightened up from his sprawl, bracing his feet on the floor and leaning forward in his chair with his eyes locked on hers. “And the touch of my hands, you want that?”

Her breath shuddered. “So very much.”

A fire seemed to light behind his eyes. “My mouth upon your tits? My tongue on your clit?”

At his shocking words, sheer need gripped her inner muscles achingly tight, and she gasped her reply. “Yes.”

His scarred knuckles whitened, fingers wrapping around the arms of his chair as if preparing to push out of it—or trying to keep himself in. “And my cock deep inside you?” His voice was a growl. “You want that, too, Anja? You want me to fuck your virgin cunt and fill you with my seed?”

So badly she couldn’t speak. Only nod, her face flaming, her most intimate flesh so wet that she could feel the moisture pooling at the juncture of her thighs.

All at once he bounded out of his seat, those tightly coiled muscles releasing their tension—and carrying him past her chair in long, powerful strides. In disbelief, she whipped around. He had already reached the door leading outside, his path clearly marked by the startled villagers who were staggering in his wake.

Then he was gone. Leaving her alone.

Leaving a great emptiness where her heart had been.

Because she’d mistaken everything. She’d thought he’d only said those things because he wanted them, too. But he must have been asking the extent of the Midwinter gift she wanted from him. And he must not have wanted to give them in return…because he hadn’t been able to escape fast enough.

Anja the Unwanted.

Blinded by tears, she turned away, unable to bear seeing that empty doorway. Unable to bear any of this. Being unwanted had always hurt, but never had it destroyed her. And destroyed she had been. Every breath seemed like a knife stabbing into the gaping wound that was left in her chest, the remains of a heart that had been butchered.

A commotion slowly filtered through the haze of devastation. Then Kael’s irritated bellow ripped the haze away.

“Cease your struggles, witch! And put away that stick, crone, or by the gods, I will—”

A solid thwack cut him off and his shouted curse echoed through the inn. Through Anja’s tear-blurred vision, a mountain seemed to be coming her way—a mountain with a crow flapping wildly around his head. In his arms he carried the old woman. Another white-haired woman, who must have been her sister, chased after him, hitting his head and shoulders with her cane.

With lips pursed sourly, the witch told him, “I would have come. No need to carry me as a child.”

“You did not move fast enough.” His burning gaze shot across the room and met Anja’s. “Only you can give me a wife this night—and I need to bed my bride.”

His bride. His bride.

The tears Anja had been trying to hold back began pouring down her cheeks.

“You do not even have a red ribbon!” the sister crowed, whacking his shoulder. “There can be no binding without one.”

Shouting again, Kael spun to address the gathering crowd. “I need a red ribbon! Does anyone have a ribbon—”

Someone called that they had one, but Anja didn’t see who it was. Suddenly Kael was standing before her and he was all that she saw.

Carefully, he set down the old woman. The next moment Anja’s cheeks were cupped in his rough palms, his thumbs wiping away her tears.

“Are you not happy?” he asked softly. “It is more than you asked for, but if you wish for me to give your gift, then you must first give this to me.”

“I cry because I am happy.” A watery laugh escaped her. “And a Midwinter gift should not be offered with a condition attached.”

“It is how a king gives a Midwinter gift.”

Giggling, she shook her head. From somewhere a red ribbon was waved in their direction. Kael took the length of crimson and handed it over to the witch.

“Asking for ribbons and wives,” Anja teased him. “Is that what a king also does? The man with the most plenty, also asking for the most gifts.”

“The most plenty?” His gaze caught hers, shining with intense blue fire. “Without you, Anja, I have nothing.”

The response took her breath away. She could only stare at him, her heart whole again—and so very full.

His gaze never leaving her face, he told the witch, “Marry us. Right here. Right now.”

Her eyes sparkling, the witch said, “Put your hands together for the binding.”

They both towered over the older woman, though Kael far more than Anja. Facing him, Anja held up her hand. His palm met hers, so much larger, yet still their fingers aligned and the witch slowly wove the ribbon between them.

Over her gray head, Kael asked, “Do you still intend to kill me in our wedding bed?”

Anja grinned. “No.”

“I do not care if you do,” he said, “as long as I have you first. I will kiss you this night, Anja. No inch of your skin will be left unkissed.”

The old woman clucked her tongue. “You should not make promises you cannot keep, especially as you make your pledge. The binding must remain intact until dawn, so there will be many things you cannot do with your bride this night.”

Kael’s brows drew together and he frowned at her darkly. “What can’t we do?”

“You must avoid the wren,” the witch added, “for that position would strain her shoulder too much. The centaur, too. And the wolf—”

“No,” Kael said flatly. “I will have her that way.”

“It cannot be done.”

His fiery gaze caught Anja’s again. “We will see about that.”

The old woman gave him another warning look, which went unheeded. Clucking her tongue again, she lifted the two ends of the red ribbon, which had been wound through their fingers and around their wrists but was still untied.

In a raised voice, she announced to the now-silent crowd, “These two are not yet bound together. So we gather to witness their joining, as two become one.”

Her heart thundering, Anja smiled happily up at Kael—who did not smile back, but watched her with all-consuming hunger smoldering in his eyes. His palm was like a hot stone against hers. His body seemed preternaturally still, as if simply waiting for this binding to finish before exploding into motion.

With a quick glance at Anja, the witch said, “Princess Anja of Ivermere, do you—”

“Anja the Wolfkiller,” Kael added. “And the Huntress.”

She began again. “Princess Anja of Ivermere, the Wolfkiller, the Huntress, do you pledge yourself to this man and vow to be his faithful wife?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly.

“Wife,” Kael echoed on a growl, then threw his head back and roared, “Is that bedchamber ready?”

From the corner of her vision, Anja saw the innkeeper and his wife turn deathly pale, then rush away.

“I don’t care if it isn’t,” Kael said, his eyes hot on hers. “I will take you upon this floor if I must.”

“You will not take her yet,” the witch said. “We have first your pledge to finish, and you have names to last all night.”

“Then begin saying them, woman!”

The witch took her time before starting, mumbling his names to herself and counting upon her fingers. Then she lifted her voice and said, “Kael of the Skull Clan of the Dead Lands, the Butcherer, the Pitiless, the Conqueror, the Raviner, also the Wolfkiller, but only a small wolf, and with a rock—”

That was said with a sly smirk and twinkling eyes, but Kael gave no reaction, his gaze only for Anja. Only when she giggled did he respond with the barest twitch of his lips.

“—Disemboweler of Eathe, Silencer of Qul Wrac, Destroyer of Toatin Zan—”

A hearty cheer rose from those Kael had known from the mines.

“—Slaughterer of Geofry the Child-Eater—”

That drew a roar of approval from everyone, with clapping hands and stomping feet that was so loud and went on for so long that Kael bellowed for silence so she could continue.

“—Ruler of the Four Kingdoms of Grimhold, Vale, Lyngfen, and Dryloch.” A frown creased her wrinkled forehead. “Is that all of them?”

“Kael the Free,” Anja said. “That is the most important.”

“No,” he returned, his voice so guttural that each word seemed to emerge from deep within his broad chest, and his fingers shook against hers. “There is one more important that I do not have yet—Kael, Husband to Anja.”

“Then do you pledge yourself to this woman?” the witch asked solemnly. “Do you vow to be her faithful husband?”

“I do,” he said hoarsely, bringing their bound hands to his heart. “Forever.”

The old woman tied the ends of the ribbon together. “Then you are now wife and husband—”

It was Anja who moved first, leaping forward and catching his hair with her free hand and dragging him down for a kiss. Though there was not much dragging, for he met her halfway, capturing her parted lips beneath his own, then delving past them with a penetrating lick that pierced her to the hot, liquid core between her thighs. The villagers’ cheers and stomping began again as Kael’s mouth ravished hers. Then the villagers might as well have vanished, because he was her husband now, and kissing her as if she was his next breath, the next beat of his heart—and for the very first time in her life, Anja felt completely and deliciously wanted. And beyond that, needed.

With a rough groan, Kael locked his forearm behind the small of her back and lifted her up against his chest, their bound hands trapped between them. His mouth never relinquished hers as he strode through the crowd, each step bumping her knees against his thighs until she instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips.

And by the gods—how incredible it felt to have his rigid length between her legs instead of against her bottom. That had been thrilling, too, simply having him so close. But now with every step there was pressure against that spot he’d promised to lick, and she only had to rock her hips to increase the pressure, increase the friction, creating a wild storm of pleasure deep inside.

His mouth tore from hers as he began to the navigate the stairs that would take them to their bed, and where he would give her all the things he’d said. With his mouth, with his tongue. Until he was deep inside her.

Inside her, inside her, inside her. Exactly where she needed him to be, to quiet this raging storm building within.

Panting, Anja wildly kissed his neck, his throat. “Hurry, Kael,” she urged him faster. “I’ve waited so long already.”

Not even knowing what she was waiting for. Pleasure, yes. But she’d never imagined something so frantic, so sweet as this.

His groan reverberated through his chest. “Then why did you not invite me to kiss you before this?”

“You sent me home,” she reminded him, and through all the sweetness, a fresh pang struck her heart. Closing her eyes, she held him tighter, buried her face against his neck. “It is good you asked for forgiveness this Midwinter. So I’ll forgive you for leaving me alone this eve, believing you’d rejected me again.”

Abruptly he stopped, which was not what she’d intended for him to do. With their bound hands, he used the backs of his fingers to urge her chin up, for her eyes to meet his. Remorse carved sharp lines through his features. “I only wanted to bind you to me as quickly as I could.”

“I realized…after,” she said thickly.

Gently, his mouth brushed hers. “I will do better, wife.”

It was already better. Tightening her fingers in his thick hair, she lifted against his erect length, deepening the kiss. But something had changed. Where he had been so impatient before, promising to take her on the floor if their bed wasn’t ready and roaring at any delay, now his tongue leisurely stroked over hers as if there was no hurry at all.

Oh, but there was. Yet no matter how she moaned and rocked desperately against him, Kael kissed her in the same way that he walked—a steady prowl, as if he were searching out all the pleasure that could be found between her lips. But she needed his volatile burst of action, instead.

Yet even passing into the bedchamber didn’t speed him. Slowly he lowered her to the bed. Slowly he came down over her, pinning their bound hands beside her head and bracing his weight upon his knees. When he broke the kiss, she whimpered and arched beneath him, yet he didn’t push apart her thighs and shove his cock deep inside her as he’d promised.

Instead he started at the first promise, softly pressing his lips to her cheeks, her nose, her chin. Kissing every inch of her skin. Steadily prowling again.

She was far beyond that. “Kael,” she begged. “Please.”

His response was to tilt her chin back and kiss the length of her neck. Anja shivered with pleasure for every touch of his lips, yet still it wasn’t enough. She used his own words, too desperate to even blush, hoping to prod him into that explosive rush. “I need you to fuck my…fuck my…”

Oh she could not.

“Virgin cunt?” His voice was a deep growl against her throat.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He only kissed the hollow beneath her ear, then sucked on her lobe. She moaned and her fingers clenched in his hair as she felt that erotic pull through every womanly part of her. By the gods, her ear. How did that feel so good?

But not as good as the pinch of his teeth. She gasped, her entire body afire, and he said hotly into her ear, “You have another name that we did not use in the pledging: Anja the Virgin. And while you are still she, my wife, I will be Kael the Gentle and Slow.”

She laughed breathlessly. “I just want you to be Kael the Thorough, and rend my maidenhead with your sword.”

His amusement joined hers, and he shook against her. “I promise you I will do that.”

“Oh, yes. Please,” she sighed. “Please.”

His smiling lips returned to hers again. “And the witch was right,” he murmured. “I cannot kiss every inch tonight. With our hands tied together, we cannot even remove our tunics.”

Anja stilled beneath him. It was true. They could remove their shirts partially, but not the sleeves on their bound arms. “I would suggest we tear it. But I have no other warm tunics. So what will we do?”

“We will do nothing.” With sharp teeth, he nipped her bottom lip. “There is a reason why brides wear gowns.”

Because it didn’t matter if the gown could be removed, as long as it could be lifted. Now Anja shook as she felt the fingers of Kael’s free hand journey up the length of her leggings from knee to upper thigh, then gently tug at the strap.

Eyes burning into hers, he rasped, “These have driven me mad, wife. Every day within the saddle. Knowing you were so bare. Your warm cunt so near to my cock. Every step the horse took, I dreamed of taking you.”

Something inside her clenched tight. “I dreamed it, too,” she whispered.

Her confession seemed to rip through him. He didn’t move, but suddenly his muscles seemed coiled tighter, his face dark with hunger.

“Tell me what else you dreamed.”

So much. But the one she could not stop imagining— “When you tended to my leg, I thought I might, I thought…” This needed courage, too, but she found it. “I thought I might grab your hair and force your mouth against my…virgin cunt.”

She barely breathed the last. And she recognized the man before her now, had seen him splattered with blood and wielding an axe. No longer prowling.

His strong hand gripped her thigh and shoved it wide. Abruptly he moved down, pushing her tunic above her hips, baring her most intimate flesh. His eyes feasted hungrily upon the sight, and he drew in a deep breath. Ecstasy shined from his face when he filled himself with her scent. But he didn’t kiss her there.

Instead he growled softly, “You are drenched in your sweet honey.”

She knew it. Could feel it. So hot and wet and aching.

His beribboned fingers tightened on hers. He looked up at her face from his vantage between her spread and trembling thighs. Voice hoarse with need, he commanded, “Do not make me wait any longer, Anja.”

She did not realize what he meant at first—then suddenly did, and was unsure until the moment she pushed her fingers into his thick hair. Everything within her shook with unbearable tension as she forced his head down to her mound.

Softly he kissed the white curls. Then his fingers exposed her sultry flesh and his broad tongue licked upward from her entrance, before circling the throbbing spot at the apex of her slit. Sheer ecstasy ripped across her nerves. She cried out, her fingers losing their grip in his hair, but he clearly needed no guidance or encouragement anyway.

His ravenous groan filled the chamber. “You taste even sweeter than I dreamed, Anja.”

Hungrily he buried his face between her thighs and feasted, his tongue an unbearable torment and the most pleasurable heaven. But there was something more coming, she could feel it approaching, terrifying and exhilarating, but too much to bear, far too much. Yet when she tried to writhe away, Kael pinned her hips and sucked on that spot, the spot that would kill her, because she couldn’t survive this. She begged, but he was relentless, and she screamed as it descended upon her and ripped her apart.

Then she was brought back to glorious, incredible life, where all the world was sharper and brighter and sweeter, with Kael kneeling between her thighs and softly kissing her mouth.

His head lifted, his gaze searching her flushed features. “You are well?”

Dazedly, she nodded.

“Then wrap your legs around me, Anja.” His voice roughened. “You will feel pain this one time. Bite me if you must to stop your screams. Or if you wish to hurt me in return.”

She didn’t ever want to. No matter how much pain there was. And all of the torment and pleasure he’d given with his tongue had made her wetter, so much wetter, so the blunt pressure seemed not like pain when Kael’s swollen manhood breached her entrance, but an almost unbearable stretching as he made a place for himself inside her.

Then a deeper place when he gritted out against her lips, “Your cunt is flooded with your hot welcome, yet it still fights me for every inch,” before withdrawing and leaving behind a burning sting. Only a moment passed before he gripped her bottom in his big hand and pushed into her again, tilting her higher as he did, and instead of one long stroke he filled her in short, hard thrusts. Her fingers squeezed his ever tighter as she bore the endless intrusion. Tears leaked from her eyes though his invasion didn’t hurt, it was just too full and too tight—and the pleasure she had hoped for was only found in his nearness and his warmth and the weight of him above her, in the soft press of his lips to the corner of her mouth, and in the blessed relief that he had apparently finished so quickly. Though his manhood was still swollen and enormous inside her, he didn’t move now, but brushed her hair back from her face and wiped away her tears.

Shakily, she smiled at him. “It only hurts this one time?”

Expression taut, he gave a short nod.

She raised trembling fingers to his mouth. “Is this what you would have had me forgive? The thing you hadn’t yet done?”

“No.” His voice was gruff. “I intended to steal you from Ivermere tomorrow and take you back to my stronghold—whether you wished to or not.”

“I would have wished to.” Trying to ease the depth of the thickness still lodged within her, she unwound a leg from around his back and braced her foot upon the mattress. A tremor moved through Kael’s big body, held straining and motionless above her. Did it take so long to finish? Or had he forgotten he was there? She could not forget. All she could feel was him, and the tight stretch of her sheath.

“You are still inside me,” she reminded him gently.

He laughed and groaned at once, his head hanging down like a man at the end of his strength. “Are you still hurting?”

“No.” But not enjoying it, either. “You are just…so deep.”

Immediately Kael eased back, but not to withdraw. Instead his arm tightened around her and he drew her up with him, until he was sitting on the bed and she straddled his hips, face to face. They were both still fully dressed, though her tunic was pushed up to her waist and he had unlaced his breeches. Her leather-covered knees sank into the mattress. Her inner walls still felt so tight and full, but the deep discomfort was gone, because now she could rise higher on his manhood.

Curious, she glanced down and stilled, mouth parting as she saw his erection, only partially inside her now. He was fully swollen, the thick shaft glistening with her wetness and streaked with her virgin’s blood—but no seed. There ought to be seed.

Her gaze flew to his. “You have not spent?”

His answer was a kiss, hot and deep and slow. Another followed, then another, and those were pure pleasure, as were the kisses he bestowed to her cheeks, her jaw, her throat.

He unlaced her heavy tunic and exposed more skin. Supporting her with his forearm, he eased her back slightly. The movement forced him deeper inside again, but even that was not so uncomfortable now—and obviously pleasurable for him. With a deep groan, he used his teeth to tug the open neck of her tunic down, revealing the pouting tip of her breast. He latched on, drawing hard upon her nipple. Gasping, Anja arched her back, the motion pushing him even deeper. But there was no discomfort. Only the sudden, taut clench of her inner muscles.

“Kael,” she breathed, clutching at his shoulder. “Kael.”

But he only continued sucking on the turgid peak of her breast, and she could not bear it, because he was so deep inside her yet she needed more. So much more.

Tentatively, she lifted her hips, was rewarded with the delicious slide of his erection within the tight clasp of her inner walls. Her breath shuddered at the unexpected pleasure, and she raised her hips again, a sharper movement that took him deeper.

“Oh,” she whispered and saw Kael gazing at her with heavy-lidded hunger.

Using their bound hands, Kael slowly drew her upright over his lap again. In a voice taut with strain, he asked, “Are you ready for the rest?”

—to fuck your virgin cunt and fill you with my seed—

In answer, she fisted her hand in his hair and kissed him. For he had not only made a place for himself by pressing inside her—she had made a place for him, and she saw his pleasure and his torment while he was within her, and these gifts weren’t just his to give to her, but hers to give to him. So she did, rising up and loving his deep groan. Sinking down and feeling him shake in ecstasy. Then shaking, too, when he pushed their bound hands between them, and began stroking his fingers over that terrible, wonderful spot. Slick with her arousal, their fingers teased together, until she couldn’t bear it anymore, couldn’t stop riding him, or kissing him, and she cried out against his mouth when she shattered apart again.

With a savage growl, he shoved her over onto her back, his cock deep inside her, fucking her with fast, brutal strokes. She urged him on with her mouth, with her hips, with her fingers tightening on his—until he abruptly stilled, his eyes locked on hers.

And as she felt the deep, hot pulse of his release inside her, Kael the Conqueror didn’t bellow or roar. Instead he breathed her name reverently, as if it were a prayer…or as if she was an answer to one.

9

Kael the Thorough

Dryloch

On Midwinter morning, Kael’s bride awakened him with a kiss. Then she whispered into his ear, “You were sleeping so soundly, I could have put a dagger to your throat.”

Without opening his eyes, he grinned and reached for her—not catching her bare limbs, but the sleeve of her tunic. Already dressed again?

Neither he nor his wife had slept that night, and the moment that dawn had arrived, he’d unbound the red ribbon, stripped Anja naked, and truly kissed every inch. Only afterward had they finally found their rest, though it could not be a long one. If they didn’t leave by midmorning, then they couldn’t reach Ivermere and return to the village without being caught in Scalewood when night fell—which meant delaying for another day. The wards kept the forest safe after dark, but it was harrowing enough when the sun was high, and Anja had already told him she preferred not to stay overnight in Ivermere.

Kael would have gladly stayed in bed here for another day. But he was even more eager to finish their journey to Ivermere and kill the cursed spider, so his bride would have no worries preying upon her mind. Then he would take her to bed for a week. Before they left, Kael would tell the innkeeper to keep the chamber ready for their return and a longer stay. They had no reason to rush the journey home. They could wait for the caravan with her trunks to arrive, and make use of the benches in the carriage all the way back to the stronghold.

It was a fine and wonderful thing, being king.

Easing open one eye, he judged the light in the room. Too bright for early winter morning. “Did we sleep too late?”

“Almost. But there is time enough for you to break your fast before we go.” With her white hair braided into a pretty crown, she smiled down at him—and Kael had never seen such a beautiful sight in all his life. “Tarry in bed another moment, though, or else you will give the villagers an eyeful. They have asked to bring us a small Midwinter feast, since we will miss the midday feast in Ivermere.”

“I would rather feast upon my wife.”

A blush stained her cheeks, but there was promise and heat in her dark eyes when he brought her down for a lingering kiss…then reluctantly let her go.

The innkeeper had made up the adjoining chamber to be a parlor for them, and by the time Kael had relieved himself and dragged his breeches on, the villagers had come and gone. Their small feast had a trestle table groaning beneath its weight, and no doubt included the roasts and pies that the villagers had intended for their own Midwinter celebrations. Which meant that he would need to sample a small amount of everything on that table, so that no one was slighted by the king—or left with nothing.

Fortunately he had a strong appetite, and a wife with an appetite of her own. With a laughing smile, she gestured to one end of the table.

“I can manage these dishes,” she said, tossing to him a pewter spoon. “But you will have to see to the remainder.”

It would be no challenge at all. A flavorful roast was first, then a bite of pork pie, then a sausage with crackling. He glanced up at Anja when she made a soft exclamation, her mouth stuffed with a pear tart. Her widened eyes met his, but as he could see the laughter in them, so he continued on to a slice of venison until she could speak.

“I have just remembered that my mother asked me to bring winter pears back from one of my rides,” she said while dipping her spoon into a cherry pudding. She had taken the end of the table that held the sweets, he suddenly realized, and felt a swell of pride at his wife’s cunning. “She doesn’t like pears for herself, but they are common Midwinter gifts and we were nearing that season, so I thought nothing of it since. But it was later the same day when she and my father told me that your letter had arrived. So they had already intended to send me to you as a bride, because she planned to give me the kissing potion even then—so that I could be sent away without any resistance. They must have been astonished that I agreed so easily, instead!”

She was laughing but Kael couldn’t join in. Just mention of that potion darkened his mood—and he didn’t follow the rest. “What do pears have to do with it?”

“Winter pear seeds are part of the potion, and it’s more effective if they are gathered by the person whom the potion is intended for. Otherwise the potion will only last a few days. But if tailored to one person…weeks. Months, if the body is cared for properly. They can only be awakened with another sip of the potion.” Suddenly her amusement faded. Her face clouded, and she pressed her bottom lip between her teeth before turning to cut free a piece of cake. “But they didn’t need to use it after I agreed to go. Not until I saw the spider a day or two later. Then they believed I’d changed my mind, yet sent me anyway.”

Into the arms of a man that everyone believed would be cruel to her. “Did they know you intended to kill me and take my throne?”

Silently she shook her head.

He contained the rage boiling through his veins. “You never need to see them again. I will continue to Ivermere today and kill the spider. Or not, if you wish us to be done with them completely.”

“I am already here,” she said in a quiet voice, and resolutely dipped her spoon into another pudding. “I will see it finished.”

He could not bear her hurt. Swiftly he strode around the table and caught her chin, tilting her face up to claim a kiss. Warm honey and tart cherry flavored her lips, and she softly sighed and melted against him.

When he lifted his head, there was still a touch of melancholy and pain in her smile, but also steely resolution. “After today, I will not think of them again,” she said.

She would not be able to help it, but Kael would do his best to keep her distracted, so she would not think of them too often. He swiftly kissed her again, then looked over the sweet dishes, looking for apple pastries to take back to his end of the table.

Her spoon digging into a nearby bowl, Anja made a small sound of surprise. He glanced at her and found her tilting her head, to better see the faintly glowing rune etched into his side. With her fingers she traced the shape that curved along his ribs, her brow furrowing.

Her puzzled gaze lifted to his. “Why is a ward marked into your skin?”

“To protect me from sorcerers’ spells.” He could not have defeated any of Geofry’s warlords without it. They’d have burst his eyes or broken his neck with a few words. But the ward made him impervious to their magic.

Not impervious to other things affected by their magic, though. If they had cast a spell to fill a room with water and locked the doors, Kael might have drowned. But in all cases, Kael had destroyed them before they’d figured out that they needed to kill him with indirect spells.

“Yes, but…in your skin? And it’s active and glowing,” she said in wonder. “Does your Minister of Wards do this for you? Where did he hear of such a thing? Not in Ivermere. And how did he maintain its power in the two weeks since you left the stronghold? It should have faded within days.”

Should have. Except it was nothing like she assumed. And suddenly Kael realized that, of all people, Anja might be most hurt by the truth of this. Because he had never lied to her. But she had believed he would be angry when he discovered the truth about her magic. She’d thought such omissions of truth were something to be angry about. Now it was the same situation…but reversed.

With tension gripping his throat, Kael shook his head. “I made it.”

She fell silent. For the longest moments of his life, she simply regarded him with solemn, dark eyes.

When she spoke, her tone was flat. “You are a spellcaster?”

“No.” He knew no spells, and wouldn’t have used them if he did. “But I was born in the Dead Lands—and the Reckoning did not destroy the ability to use corrupt magic, only everything that had been changed by it before. So my people are still born with the ability, just as everyone in Ivermere is. But aside from the witches and a few healers, none use corrupted magics. And there is this.”

He showed her the small mark at the inside of his elbow. As if he’d shown her a crawler, Anja gasped in horror and fell back a step. Her hand flew to her lips and her eyes shot to his, outrage and astonishment combining into— “Who did that to you?”

She looked as if she might strike down the culprit with her sword. She would not have to go far.

“I did.” Because it bound his magic to his skin. He could not even inadvertently cast a spell, because he couldn’t draw on anything from outside himself, stealing it from elsewhere. His natural ability could power the ward embedded in his skin, but that was only a shield that prevented corrupted magics from touching him, not a spell that stole safety from one place and gave it to another.

His answer had not lessened her horror. “In Ivermere,” she said, “this is the worst punishment. A mark of shame, even worse than death.”

Did she think he had been punished? “And in the Dead Lands, it is a choice.” Because she was still shaking her head, with tears standing in her eyes, he added, “There’s no shame in it. Instead it declares the kind of man I choose to be. If I harm anyone, it will be because I mean to harm them, not because a spell has scaled and stolen something from someone else.”

Drawing in a shuddering breath, she finally nodded, as if accepting that view of it. She smoothed her fingers over the small mark—as if she meant to comfort him, to ease his pain, though there was no pain to ease.

No pain that was his. Because her voice was thick as she told him, “It’s not chosen in Ivermere. It’s a punishment given to criminals. It means exclusion and exile from the realm. And if you delay in going, they will hunt you down and cast you out.”

Ragged emotion opened a hole in his chest as understanding speared through him. In many ways, she had been wearing that mark all of her life, though invisibly. A mark that was a punishment, a mark of shame.

And she had said so many times that she was her parents’ shame. As if her inability to cast spells was a punishment. Then this very morning, she’d realized that her king and queen had essentially cast her out.

He’d understood that she’d been hurt. But he hadn’t understood how deep the hurt must have gone…or how deeply he must have hurt her last night, too. When she’d asked for a kiss, everything Kael wanted was suddenly placed in his hands, and he’d rushed to secure it before she slipped away. Yet to Anja, it must have seemed another part of her lifelong pain. She had once again been unwanted, rejected. Cast away.

Never again would he allow her to feel that way.

Catching her face in his hands, he looked into her eyes. “You are not a punishment, my Anja. You are the greatest gift.”

Her lips parted in surprise, her brow furrowing. She stared at him with a chaotic storm of emotions sweeping across her face, chief among them confusion. As if she couldn’t understand what he was saying—or why he would say it.

Then he would make certain she knew. “Never could I imagine a woman who has added so much light to my life. I was smothered and dying, and now every breath is free. When we return to Grimhold, no matter how many meetings I sit through, with you at my side every moment will be a joy.”

He knew from last night what her happy tears looked like, and they were the same as the ones now shimmering in her eyes. In a trembling voice, she said, “We will still make certain there are not so many meetings.”

If that was her response, then she didn’t understand what he was trying to say. “I won’t care if there are. Everything else might remain the same, but everything for me will be changed,” he told her gruffly. “That is what loving you has done to me. It has changed everything.”

She went still, her dark gaze searching his, her face alight with wonder and hope. “You love me?”

“I do.” His voice deepened. “I know you do not yet feel the same, but I will win your heart—”

“I do! I do feel the same.” Those happy tears filled her eyes again. “Did I not tell you last night?”

Anja loved him. Him. The Conqueror, the Butcherer, the Raviner. He had more blood on his hands than an ocean could wash away. Yet she loved him.

The emotions swelling and rising in his chest threatened to choke him. “You only said that you wanted me.”

A blush stained her cheeks. “Maybe I was too distracted by the rest.”

“Too distracted by a kiss to say you love me? You will have to do better than that, my wife.” With his heart in his throat, he lowered his head and brushed his lips to hers. “Tell me.”

Breathlessly she whispered, “I love you.”

He kissed her throat and waited.

Hoarsely now, she said, “I love you.”

He went to his knees. Her breath caught. Then her fingers slid into his hair as he lifted the hem of her tunic, revealing the sleek skin at the tops of her thighs, the soft tangle of white curls, the glistening pink flesh peeking out. “Now I will show you how a king eats his Midwinter feast.”

She laughed, a sound lightened by amusement and roughened by her need. “By the gods, how I love you!”

And he could taste it, the sweetness of her love and need bursting across his tongue when he teased her with a single lick. She gasped another “I love you,” her thighs trembling, the magic she possessed shining from her skin.

Powerful magic. It had to be. Because every one of his Midwinter wishes had come true. Anja the Kind would be at his side every day and in his bed every night. Anja the Courageous had pledged herself as his wife. And now Anja the Beloved had given her love in return.

And with every kiss, every lick, she would tell him again.

So Kael claimed her cunt and feasted like a king did—on his knees before the queen who owned every part of his heart.

10

Anja the Witch

Scalewood

It was always dark in Scalewood. The forest grew so tall and thick that the sun never touched the ground, except upon the narrow swath of road that passed from Dryloch to Ivermere. The path had been cut in ancient times, when the magic within the forest hadn’t been so powerful and the creatures residing there not so dangerous.

If not for the wards placed at either side of the road, the forest would have consumed the path long ago. But every few paces stood a heavy column of granite marked with a rune, and the faint golden glow of the active wards were a constant, reassuring sight.

Yet still Anja’s heart raced every time the thundering steps of an unseen terror echoed through the trees. When limbs cracked and trees swayed beneath monstrous weights. When glowing eyes shone through the darkness and ravenous howls joined unearthly screams.

She clutched Kael’s forearm as a giant creature emerged into the half-shadows beside the road, easily three times taller than their own height upon Kael’s warhorse. Covered in shaggy fur the color of rust, it walked upright, yet there was no mistaking the monster for anything humanlike. A thick hump sat atop massive shoulders hunched over like an old man’s. Beady black eyes peered down at them over a long and pointed snout lined with sharp yellow teeth and long, thick tusks. Overlong arms roped with muscle dangled at its sides. From one taloned hand dangled the remains of a half-eaten stag. The other held a bloodied club that dragged on the ground with every giant step, leaving a shallow furrow through the soft earth.

Though she felt his own tension, Kael softly kissed the side of her neck and said, “We are safe.”

She knew. On a shuddering breath, she tore her gaze away from the hideous beast and focused on the path ahead. The thing kept pace with them, as they sometimes did with travelers on the road—but they rarely stepped fully out of the shadows. Some in Ivermere believed that the sun burned them, but Anja thought it more likely that they simply weren’t stupid. The wards had been up for far longer than living memory, so any creature within this forest knew the futility of trying to attack humans passing through. And when the Mistress of the Hunt and her hunters rode this path, from the safety of the road they would use spears and arrows to kill any creatures that strayed near enough to target.

A shriek sounded from the western side of the forest. The beast screamed an answer, a ululating howl that rose to a painful pitch. Prancing uneasily, Kael’s horse tossed his head, snorting.

With a soothing murmur, Anja leaned forward and patted its thick neck, then coughed and gagged as a putrid odor washed over them. She glanced over and wished she could unsee the sight of the beast defecating on a fallen tree.

Cursing, Kael nudged the horse into an easy canter. Anja began giggling as soon as she could draw a breath of fresh air, then fell abruptly silent when crashing footfalls sounded behind them—the monster catching up to them, then easily keeping pace with the running horse.

Kael slowed and the beast did, too.

She rubbed her palm over his tense forearm. “It will be well.”

“Yes,” he agreed. Then asked, “Are they known to throw anything at the road?”

“Are you worried about its club or what it left back there on the tree?”

His laugh rumbled against her back. “The club.”

“Rarely. I think they know there would be no point to it. If it killed us, it couldn’t come for our bodies to eat. And it would lose its club. It would be like throwing your sword into a river hoping to hit a fish. You might succeed, but you’ll have neither fish nor sword at the end.” She glanced toward the shadows again, saw something squirming beneath the fur covering the beast’s hump, and quickly looked away again. “I can tell this place unsettles you.”

Amusement deepened his voice. “Can you?”

“It is the first time your manhood isn’t swollen behind me.”

He gave a shout of laughter—but didn’t deny it, she noted. Instead he lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm. “You are clever, my wife.” A deep breath lifted his chest. “Are you angry?”

Frowning, she glanced back. “At what?”

“That I did not tell you about the ward, or the mark that binds the magic to my skin.”

She shook her head. “Not angry. Afraid, at first—”

Hard fingers caught her chin, tipped her face up to meet the bleakness of his. “Afraid of me?”

“No. Only afraid that if you had magic, then you wouldn’t want me. But only for a moment,” she reassured him and watched the fire return to his gaze. “And that was not because of you. Just…what I expect from magic-wielders, because it is the reaction I have known from them all of my life. Then the feeling was gone.” Burned away when he’d showed her the mark. “Then I was angry, but only because I thought you might have had the magic taken from you, and I was sickened to think that you might have been treated the way I have been. But now that I know you did it yourself, and why, I am only left with…awe.”

He frowned. “Awe?”

“Wards are only as strong as the magic that maintains them. Yet Toatin Zan’s spells didn’t touch you, and he was by far the most powerful sorcerer in living memory. How long has it been since the Reckoning?”

“Countless generations.”

“With each generation stronger than the last?” She laughed and settled against his chest again, her head resting back against his broad shoulder. “Yet so very few spellcasting now, and instead taught purer magics. I think the world should be glad of—”

Sour fear shot up through her throat like bile, choking her.

Immediately Kael held her tighter. “Anja?”

“The wards,” she breathed, her terrified gaze on the nearest granite column. “They’re not glowing.”

The sudden tension in his arm squeezed the breath from her chest. As one, they both looked to the beast, but the creature had not seemed to notice any change. He walked through the shadows, gnawing on the stag’s carcass, sharp teeth tearing into the flesh and ripping it free.

“It can’t see the runes from that side of the column,” Anja whispered. Yet that was hardly a relief. “But if it looks across the road, it might see that the western wards have failed, too.”

“Perhaps not easily,” Kael said. “The sun is bright. It can be hard to see the runes glow when there is so much light.”

“Yes.” A violent shiver wracked her body, then another. “We are still an hour from the edge of the forest.”

“It will be but twenty minutes,” was his grim reply and nudged the horse toward a gallop.

“No no no.” Her already-pounding heart racing faster, Anja caught his hand holding the reins. “Slow him again.”

Kael pulled back on the reins, though she could feel the tremors that ran through his every muscle when he did, as if fighting to make himself to do it. She glanced over at the beast. It had increased its speed for a few strides but now matched walking their pace again.

“No running,” she said. “If we run, it might not just be one monster’s attention that we catch. And the others might be more observant. We need to keep riding at this slow pace—and not give it any reason to look this way more than it would otherwise. So don’t draw your sword or ready your axe, as the sunlight shining on the metal might draw interest.”

The faint grinding behind her could only be his teeth. A moment later he gritted, “I mislike this plan.”

“I know,” she said unhappily. “There is nothing of any of this to like.”

His big hand tangled in her hair and he tugged her head back, kissing her hard upon the lips before releasing her.

“You will be safe,” he swore.

Though cold sweat slithered down her spine, she nodded. “We will be.”

She settled back again—not at ease, for that was impossible, but needing to have as much of Kael against her as she could. He pulled her in tight, his muscles like coiled steel springs.

“If more come,” he said starkly, “We will not wait for them to see the wards are gone. I will take to the road on foot and draw them to me, while you ride for Ivermere at speed.”

“No,” she said, and lay her hand against his, just as they had been when woven together with the ribbon. “We are bound together.”

His voice hoarsened. “Anja—”

“It will be well. We have powerful magic on our side.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “We do, and it is called fear. It tells me to let you run—and perhaps will save your life, because no matter how kind or courageous you are, bones crunch the same between a monster’s teeth. But I love you so desperately that I would fight all of Scalewood to keep you alive and to see you safely away. I love you so mightily, I might even survive it.”

Tears stinging her eyes at the emotion in his voice, she shook her head. “I do not refer to fear or love or courage. I refer to knowledge. I am familiar with these woods, and I truly believe that we shall be unharmed if we continue at this pace, even if more creatures come near to the road. And if this one beast sees the wards are broken, better to fight him together.”

“Knowledge isn’t magic,” he said flatly. “It is a tool. Like a sword. Or medicine.”

“Truly?” She pursed her lips. “I think it should be magic. Then what of trust? It seems as if it should be a powerful magic, particularly if shared between two people.”

“It is.”

“Then trust me, Kael,” she said quietly. “Trust me now, and follow my lead. And if that beast crosses the wards, I will trust that you know how best to fight him, and follow your lead.”

His lips brushed against her temple, a soft and swift kiss. He could not stop holding her and touching her, it seemed—and she felt the same, clinging to his hand, her fingers numb from the tightness of their grip.

From that point forward, every howl and crash from within the darkness of the forest seemed like a harbinger of their death. Horrible tension chained them for an endless minute when, on the eastern side of the forest, another giant creature emerged into the half-shadows beside the road, a stick-limbed demon with blue skin hanging from its skeletal frame in ragged sheets, bloodied claws as long as Kael’s sword, and teeth like sharpened knives. But it only gave them one disinterest look before skittering back into the trees.

Finally she could see the tall granite pillars marking the entrance to Scalewood’s passage, and the road stretching ahead through sunlight and snow-covered fields. It seemed those last few hundred paces took years to travel. Even after the humpbacked beast ambled back into the forest, she kept expecting every monster within the wood to realize the wards had disappeared and devour them.

Simply passing through the pillars did not make them safe—with the wards inactive, there was nowhere safe now—yet still it seemed a great weight slipped away. From Kael, too, as he began kissing the side of her neck, her face, then simply tangling his hand in her hair and pressing his hard jaw against her temple and holding her tight. And, for the first time since they’d entered Scalewood, his big shaft was swollen again.

“How did you know?” His voice was hoarse, as hers was, though they had spoken little in the hour. But her throat was so raw from the unceasing tension it seemed as if she’d spent that hour screaming.

“It’s difficult to unlearn something that you’ve believed is true all your life. Especially if you don’t have reason to look and see if it’s still true. The monsters didn’t have reason to look at the wards.” A shuddering breath escaped her. “But we were also lucky.”

He shook his head. “You are the only person to have ever ridden through Scalewood without the protection of the wards or spells and emerged alive. That was your courage and knowledge, not luck.”

“You made it through, too.”

“And without you to guide me, I would have been dead,” he said. “It is I who am lucky, that I have such a wife. Do you know what a woman of great magic and wisdom is called in the Dead Lands?”

She did know. And her reaction to the word was something she would have to unlearn, too. “A witch,” Anja said.

“Yes. But I call this one my queen.” His chest lifted against her on a deep, impatient breath. “How long must we ride at this slow pace?”

Because what lay ahead might be more terrifying than what lay behind them. The wards were not linked to any one magic-wielder’s power, but to everyone in Ivermere. Replenishing the Scalewood wards was the single most important ritual of a spellcaster’s day. Yet it must have been two or three days since anyone in Ivermere had done it.

“Until the crest of that hill, I think,” she said. “We would not be easily seen from Scalewood past that point.”

Then they would finally run. Because Kael was right. Fear was a powerful magic.

Hopefully it would help them reach Ivermere in time to save the people there—if there was still anyone left. And if there wasn’t anyone to replenish the wards before all the creatures within Scalewood realized they were free, then all the world would soon know the same fear she and Kael had just lived through…beginning with the people in his four kingdoms. Beginning with the village where they had pledged their lives together and passed the night, where they had been given a fine meal from the villagers’ own tables. But if the monsters escaped, their people would not spend the day celebrating a Midwinter feast.

They would be the feast.

11

Kael the Conqueror

Ivermere

Built by spellcasters who revered balance, Ivermere was often called the most beautiful of all kingdoms, but Kael misliked the sight of it. Despite the kingdom’s abundance and bounty, to him it seemed a cold and barren place, for he had never known life to be contained within symmetrical lines and perfect curves. Life as he knew it was coarse and unfinished, full of sharp edges and unexpected beauty, and so he could see little of it within this place.

But now he truly saw no life. Ahead lay the gate of the city. It was Midwinter’s Day, yet no one passed through it.

He dismounted and reached up for Anja, whose pale face and wide eyes were like knives across his heart. So much fear she’d known today. And it was not done yet.

Steam rose from the horse’s sweat-lathered coat. The warhorse’s sides bellowed, and he snorted great clouds of frozen air with each labored breath.

Kael gave the reins to Anja. “Stay here and walk with him until he cools. I will go ahead through the gate and look.”

She tore her frightened gaze from the city ahead. “You don’t see already?”

“I see that no one comes through the gate, and that it is oddly quiet,” he said.

Her breath trembled. “Then you don’t see the webs that stretch between the palace spires?”

Unease skittered down his neck. He saw nothing of the sort. Only stillness.

He shook his head.

Her lips quivered and her throat worked as she stared at him. In a strained voice, she said, “But…you do believe that I see it?”

Because no one else had. Instead they had ignored her warnings and sent her away.

“I believe in many things I cannot see, Anja. I believe anything you tell me.” And he had meant to make her stay outside the city gates, where she might be safe from whatever waited within, but clearly he needed her with him. “So let us go ahead.”

Drawing his sword, he waited until she’d drawn her own. Though he’d rather have held her against him, better to have both hands free. Quietly he approached the gate, Anja a silent shadow in wolfskin behind him.

“Careful,” she whispered and slashed her blade through the air. He could not see the strands of webbing that she cut, but felt the eerie brush against his tunic’s sleeve as they fell.

“Did it cling to your sword?”

She shook her head.

“I have heard that spiders make different silks. Some like glue. Some not. So take care and try not to touch them.” His eyes would not serve him as they should, so he listened at the gate for any movement within. There was nothing but the whisper of a breeze through Anja’s hair and ruffling the hem of his fur cloak.

He tossed it from his shoulders and continued through. Behind him, Anja softly gasped in horror at the scene ahead—though he could not be certain what she was seeing. To him, it was clear enough. Men lay motionless upon the ground, all of them strangely rigid with arms tightly against their sides and legs together.

“Is that Lord Eafen and the soldiers?”

It was. By reports from the village in Dryloch, Lord Eafen had been a day ahead of Kael and Anja. So yesterday they’d passed through Scalewood while the wards were still intact. But it appeared as if they had been almost immediately ambushed after entering the city gates.

Grimly Kael moved forward to examine the bodies—and found a soldier staring back at him, eyes wide open. The frightened depths pleaded with Kael for help.

Kael didn’t know how to help him. “Anja?”

She was bending over another. “They’re wrapped up in the webbing. Maybe I can—”

“Don’t touch it!” he said sharply when she reached for the soldier’s face, as if to tear the silk covering it away. “Not with bare skin.”

She jerked her fingers away, then drew a dagger with a shaking hand. “What do you think it is?”

“A spell,” he said grimly. “They are not simply wrapped in webbing. They are ensorcelled. This one cannot speak or fight against what binds him.”

And Anja was not impervious to spells. Kael, however—

He dragged his fingers down the soldier’s face, felt the resistance as the invisible webbing stretched, then ripped. When the man’s head was free, he looked for any other exposed skin, and ripped the webbing from the soldier’s hands.

A great shudder wracked the soldier’s body. He began to struggle, wriggling like a fish.

“He’s still wrapped in it,” Anja said. She was kneeling and still carefully cutting the webbing from the other soldier.

This would take too long to free them all. Kael grabbed the soldier’s shoulder to stop his flailing. “Be still!” he ordered. “And speak the words to replenish the Scalewood wards.”

One soldier’s magic would not create wards strong enough to hold even one creature, but the glow would return. The beasts of Scalewood would surely attempt to break free if they saw the runes were dark…but if even one magic-wielder powered the runes, they would have to test the boundary to know that it was so weak.

The soldier babbled a few words and Kael looked to Anja, whose relief shone from her eyes.

But this would not be enough. “We cannot free these others now. If everyone in the kingdom is bound in the same spell, it would take an eternity for the two of us to tear the webbing from each.” Because no one else could help do it. Anja was the only one to see the webbing. Anyone else who tried to walk through these streets and homes searching for others to free would surely only be caught and ensorcelled again. “But they will all be free if the spider is slain.”

Lips pressed tight, she nodded. She hated leaving these men here as much as Kael did. But the remedy here was clear, and the same purpose they’d had since the beginning—to kill the spider.

“We will return for you,” he vowed to the soldier, who was not much comforted by it, but that could not be helped. He stood from his crouch and looked to the others. Dread filled his chest. They were not all ensorcelled.

Lord Eafen was dead. A withered husk remained within his fine embroidered clothes, as if he’d been drained dry—and the puncture wounds in his torso could not have come from a spider the size of a cat.

“What is it?” Anja had stopped beside him, her gaze searching his face, then turning to look in the direction he was. “Do you hear something approach?”

She could not see the husk, he realized. The webbing wrapping the body concealed the damage from her eyes.

“It is Lord Eafen,” he said grimly. “He’s dead.”

Her lips parted in dismay, then firmed. “I will lead the way. It will not still be in my mother’s bedchamber, but we can start—”

She broke off, eyes widening and her gaze shooting higher. Muscles coiled, Kael spun to face the same direction…saw nothing.

“Anja?”

A wheezing breath left her, and she stepped back, her gaze still fixed ahead. “We need to run.”

“What?” Again he searched the empty city ahead. “Why?”

She made a low, moaning sound of sheer terror. “It is not the size of a cat. Or a horse. It is bigger than…”

Words failed her. But it didn’t matter.

“We can’t run,” he told her. “That soldier’s magic will not hold Scalewood. And it is eating them. Lord Eafen, already. Probably others. Perhaps children.”

Tears filling her eyes, she still didn’t look away from the horror that held her motionless. “You can’t be healed,” she whispered. “You are warded against spells, so if you are hurt—”

“I will heal slowly.” As he’d done before.

She shook her head. “I am the only one who can see it. I will find a way to kill it. And I can be healed. You should run.”

Run? Leave her to face this alone? Stifling a shout of laughter, Kael grabbed the edges of her wolfskin coat and pulled her close. Startled, she tore her gaze from the spider to meet his.

“We’re bound together,” he reminded her softly. “Now you will trust me.”

Though her breath shuddered through her pale lips, she nodded.

“How near is it?”

Her gaze darted past him. “Five hundred paces.”

Still a fair distance away. “On the ground or above?”

“The ground.” Her gaze flickered, and Kael saw the courage and cleverness he knew so well return like a light to her eyes, which narrowed. “I think it’s too big to easily crawl on the walls and roofs.”

Which didn’t mean that it couldn’t—but that it might prefer the ground, as it offered more stable footing. If retreating, it might flee upwards. But if defending against an attack, would likely remain in the environment where it had the advantage of familiarity.

That suited Kael. In a battle, he preferred the ground, too. “What weaknesses do you see?”

“The eyes. There are eight, and all at the front.”

So it could be approached from behind. He nodded and waited for more.

She shook her head. “That is all.”

That was never all. “What is the skin?”

“It looks as hard as armor.”

Even armor would split beneath the blade of an axe. “When you chased the wolf whose skin you wear, you had spelled arrows that never missed their mark. Do you still?”

Hope lit her face. “In the hunters’ armory. Its eyes—”

“You can blind it from a distance,” he agreed. “And I will finish it.”

She grinned and pulled him down for a quick, hard kiss before turning toward an alley. “Follow me.”

They moved swiftly across the city, keeping to the narrow alleys that the spider couldn’t follow them into, with unease scraping the back of his neck with every step. Frequently Anja’s sword swept through invisible strands in their path, and his unease dug deeper each time she did, until it wrapped around the length of his spine with a cold, clawed hand. If the spider didn’t move along the webs, why weave so many strands through the city? Why weren’t the strands covered in glue to trap them like flies until the spider arrived to eat them?

Sudden realization stopped him in his tracks. “Anja!”

At the opposite end of the alley, she glanced back—then up, but even before her cry of warning rang out, he swung about and hurled the axe upward, roaring with the effort. The sharp crack as his blade bit deep was like the sweetest music, the sight of his axe embedded in the air itself a triumphant one.

A substance warm and sticky splattered his face. Anja screamed and he whipped around to see her charge toward him with sword at ready—then falter slightly, her head tipping back. In the air above the alley, his axe floated toward her.

“Run for the nearest open square and wait at the center!” he bellowed at her. “I will be right behind.”

She hesitated, her frantic gaze moving over his face. “The web—”

“Was spelled.” And the spider probably believed him paralyzed now, no doubt intended to return to wrap him up after it did the same to Anja. “Run!”

She fled.

Grimly he watched his axe as the spider continued after her. She would be slicing through any web strands in her path…and that would lead the creature straight to her. But with the path already cleared, and with no strands to break, Kael could follow without alerting the spider to his presence.

His blood thundering, he started after her. His bride raced ahead, clever and strong, but unprotected, and his heart could hardly bear the moments she was out of his sight.

Never did he allow the axe to leave his sight. He still could not determine the size of the spider, but by the shiver of marble and the faint dusting of snow that fell from the roofs as it crawled along their tops, the span of its legs was at least fifty paces. The belly—where Kael assumed his axe was embedded—seemed to skim just above the roofs, and so would be low and well-protected on the ground. How tall the back was, Kael couldn’t know.

Ahead, the alley opened into a marble courtyard where Anja stood, her back against a stone statue at the center of a fountain, watching the monster’s approach with a terrified face almost as white as her hair. Kael wiped his hands down his cheeks, coating his palms in the sticky substance. Then he took a running start at the side of a building, and launched himself at the wall. His powerful grip assisted by the gluey strands covering his palms, he began climbing, hauling himself up the sheer face of the building.

At the top, he sprinted along the roof’s edge toward the square. His axe was skimming down the side of a building toward the ground. Kael drew his sword and adjusted the grip in his sticky hands. He would not be letting this blade go until this was done.

With a mighty roar, he sprang from the roof with sword raised high, gaze fixed on the axe below.

He didn’t fall far, only a body’s length before slamming into a hardened surface, his muscles absorbing the impact as he landed and dropped into a crouch. With all his strength, he drove the point of his blade straight downward, into the rounded back of the monster. The fragrance of cinnamon and cloves belched into his face. An unseen gush of warm, thick liquid coated his hands, but the glue on his palms prevented the sword from slipping in his grip. Gritting his teeth, he yanked the sword free and stabbed the creature again. But still the axe below him moved steadily toward the center of the courtyard.

The same direction that the head would be in.

Grunting with each thrust of his blade, he steadily made his way forward, a red haze of violence and rage dropping over his vision, until all he could see was Anja, still standing unharmed by the statue—and by the gods, he was going to make certain she stayed unharmed. The spider’s armor became slick with the viscous gore, his boots slipping, but soon he was not standing on the armor but was knee-deep in the carnage, his own sweat dripping onto the spider’s unseen body like rain falling on glass.

The haze lifted with Anja was shouting his name, and he glance up to see her pointing to a spot just ahead. He waded forward through the invisible pulpy mess he’d made, and when he saw her nod, drove his sword downward. Instantly the surface beneath him lurched, but he grimly held on, twisting the sword, digging it deeper.

Slowly, as if he were standing upon a leaf floating on the wind, the spider swayed and sank to the ground, carrying him down with it. When it came to a rest, he was still two body lengths above the courtyard’s marble pavers. He wrenched his sword free and looked to Anja, who stared at him wide eyes, her hands cupped over her mouth.

Chest heaving, he asked her, “Do you think it is defeated?”

Wordlessly she nodded.

But he shook his head. “But not yet dead. There is a spell that still disguises it. I need my axe.”

Dropping to the ground, he headed for the belly and wrenched the heavy weapon free. Then he returned to Anja and said, “Point me at the head.”

When she did, Kael strode forward and began hacking, working his way deeper with each powerful blow, and began to believe the spider was not the source of the disguising spell at all when abruptly he was surrounded by a cavern of dripping gore. With a triumphant shout, he gave the cursed thing one more whack, then emerged from the head and strode straight for Anja.

With a broad grin, he told her, “It is done.”

She nodded, her gaze sweeping the buildings around them. “The webs are gone.”

Because they were spells, not webs, and so they’d vanished with the spider’s death. Fortunate, because it meant they wouldn’t have to cut free each person in Ivermere. Even now, they should be stirring free of the magic that had bound them. So Anja’s and his work here was finished.

Gaze fixed on her lips, Kael stalked forward.

She backed up.

His grin widened. “Will you not kiss your king?”

A choking laugh burst from her. “I love you, but… No.”

Laughing, he strode to the fountain—where his reflection was a dripping red mask with white teeth. Without hesitation, he dove into the waist-high water. Shocking cold enveloped him, but it was a sweet agony on his overheated and sweating skin. He emerged and scraped his hair back from his eyes. For the first time, he saw the full size of the spider laid out before him.

What was left of it.

Sitting on the edge of the fountain, Anja observed, “You were thorough.”

So he had been. He stripped off his soaked tunic, his chainmail, and flung them to the marble pavers in a slop of wet fabric and the ring of metal. His fingers yanked at the laces holding his breeches up, and he had to thank the freezing water for dousing the hot steel he’d sported since Anja had pointed him toward the spider’s head. For already he heard the city stirring, heard the confused shouts and running steps, and they would not be alone for long.

He stripped the leather breeches down his legs, then saw the shy glance Anja gave his cock from beneath her lashes. Even freezing water could not overpower that innocently erotic look. Naked, he scrubbed the gore from his skin, and with his eyes invited her in.

Laughing, she shook her head. “If it were summer, perhaps.”

“In the Dead Lands, this is summer.”

She scoffed. “And you lived there only five years!”

“In the Dead Lands, five years is an eternity.” While she laughed again, he slid his hand beneath the surface of the water and leisurely began to stroke his cock. She fell silent, biting her lip, her gaze glued to the pumping of his fist. “Your cunt is hot enough to warm us both, my wife.”

Her face colored prettily. Unable to resist, he caught her chin and claimed a kiss, her lips like a fire beneath his. She leaned into him, bracing her hand against his chest, her fingers a burning brand upon his icy skin. With a lick, he tasted the sweetness of her mouth, and her soft moan in response lay her arousal as naked as his. Satisfied for the moment, he drew back. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks flushed.

Then, with a heavy sigh, she turned her head and cast her gaze up to the palace spires. “I suppose I should go and find out if my parents survived.”

“No.” His hard reply brought her gaze swinging back to his. “You are Anja, Queen of the Four Kingdoms. You do not go to them. They come to you.”

Her brows arched. She tilted her head, studying his face. Then she shrugged. “Very well. Though they probably won’t bother to come.”

If they did not, this spider would not be the last thing Kael destroyed today. Bracing his hand on the edge of the fountain, he surged from the pool in a cascade of bloodied water, then caught a glimpse of purple from the corner of his eye. At the edge of the courtyard, a tall man gaped at the massacred spider.

“You there!” Kael called. “Send word to the palace! It is Midwinter’s Day and the Scalewood wards have failed. The call throughout the city for the replenishing ritual must be made now.”

Now the man gaped at him.

“Also tell your king and queen that Queen Anja awaits them here, upon her throne.”

The man gaped at Anja.

“And I left a black horse and cloak near the city gate. See they are brought to me.”

The man gaped at Kael’s cock.

“Run!” Kael bellowed. “Or the next sword you see will be the blade that felled the Child-Eater!”

The man fled.

Bemused, Anja asked, “My throne?”

“Anywhere you sit will be your throne.” He swept up his bloodied sword and the wet tunic, began cleaning his blade. “I pray my cock will be your favorite.”

Her giggle left a smile that lasted only a few moments, and her gaze rose to the spires again. Kael forced himself to patience, for a king and queen just released from an ensorcellment that had taken over their realm could not immediately attend to anyone without first knowing what damage had been done. As there had been, judging by the grieving wails that found their way to the courtyard. Anja closed her eyes at each one, as if she felt that grief, too. But there was more than grief that he saw rising beneath her skin. Rage. It filled her as rage had once filled him, and he thought that the king and queen of Ivermere would be very smart to come before the fire of it built too much higher in their daughter.

The courtyard had filled with gawkers. Some ventured close to Anja and Kael, and he gladly shared the tale of how Anja had demanded Kael the Conqueror’s help at the point of her sword and insisted upon returning to Ivermere to slay the spider. How Anja had fought and defeated the bandit who’d tried to stop her from her quest. How Anja had boldly won the Butcherer’s heart and had been named Queen of the Four Kingdoms upon Midwinter’s Eve. How Anja had bravely guided him through the wardless forest. How Anja had been the only person with clear eyes to see the horror that had lain waste to Ivermere, how she had pointed him toward the killing blow. By the time he had told it several times over, the tall man in purple finally returned with his horse, his cloak, and a blanket.

Kael tied the blanket around his waist, though he was still too overheated for a cloak. He looked to Anja and decided they had waited long enough. He reached for his sword and axe.

A clatter of hooves drew his gaze. A procession of riders wearing gray wolfskin coats followed a golden carriage.

At his side, Anja gracefully rose to her feet. Blood streaked her cheek. Her braids had come partially undone, strands falling in a loose array around her face. The grime of two weeks of travel had collected on her boots and the hem of her coat. From the first time he’d seen her to now, there had been a hardening within her, like steel heated and cooled and tested. Yet she also burned brighter, so much brighter.

Her mother alighted from the carriage in golden crown and sleek gown. She wrinkled a delicately thin nose at the spider, then turned rounded eyes on Anja. The smile she had pasted onto her spell-reddened lips faltered.

Because she could not help but see what Kael did. What anyone with eyes must see. Even disheveled and dirty, wearing only her white hair as a crown, Anja was many times greater the queen that her mother was.

And this only her first day.

Her father emerged from the carriage after the queen. With features similar to his wife’s, he looked nothing like Anja. Neither of them did. He turned a broad smile on Kael, gaze flickering only briefly to his bare chest. “We heard the King of the Four Kingdoms had arrived and slayed a monster in our midst. That is a fine introduction. Welcome to Ivermere, your majesty.”

Still holding his axe, Kael commanded flatly, “Welcome my queen, first. It was she who demanded we travel here to kill this spider—and in doing so, saved all of our kingdoms.”

The queen’s smile returned in full and she looked in wonder at Anja. “This is the spider you spoke of before? I wonder how it passed through the wards—”

“It didn’t, Mother,” Anja said tightly. “It didn’t come from Scalewood. You created it when you made the kissing potion.”

Genuine disbelief crossed the queen’s face. “That can’t be—”

“It is. The spell you used to create the potion scaled, and it did this to a common spider. The potion was intended to make my body helpless in sleep. The spider’s webs did the same but kept everyone in a nightmare of unmoving wakefulness. You tailored the potion to me, the magic was intended for me. And the spider’s concealment was intended for everyone but me.” Her voice hardened. “You have done this. Ivermere helpless. The wards gone. All the world at risk from the creatures in Scalewood. Because of your potion.”

“I…” Her mother swallowed. “I only meant well. And you and your husband”—her gaze flickered to Kael’s glowering face; she paled with fear and looked away—“seem to be getting on well. The spider is dead, and the wards are replenished. All is well again. There is no need for this anger or this unguarded speech.”

“All is well?” Openly seething, Anja stalked closer to the queen. “People are dead, Mother. Your potion killed them. Your decision not to believe me when I said a spider lurked in your bedchamber killed them. Drugging me with the potion and sending me away killed them. All of these choices you made, you killed them, simply because you wanted to cast me out in the manner most convenient for you and for Father. Do you not see this?”

Bewildered, hurt, angry, the queen’s cheeks stained with color as she looked to her husband, who was sighing and shaking his head. She looked back at Anja. “The scaling corrupted the spider, Anja—and it killed them. Do you not see that?”

Her mouth in a flat line, Anja simply regarded her for a long moment. Then she quietly turned to Kael and said, “Nothing I say will make a difference. Let us go.”

He lifted her into the saddle, swung up behind her. A courtyard full of round-eyed, thin-nosed spellcasters stared back at them—some looking uncomfortable, others outraged, others ashamed.

His gaze settled on the king and queen, and he thought that only kindness could have brought Anja here, braving the Butcherer and bandits and Scalewood, simply in hopes of saving her mother. It must have been kindness, because surely there was nothing here to love. “I will tell you what else has been affected by the scaling of that spell. You have lost a daughter, whose worth you were blind to. I have won a wife, whose value is all I see. She wields powerful magic, pure magic, though she is only just beginning to know the extent of her power. You would do well to send some of your people to Grimhold to learn with her, and learn from her.”

Her parents exchanged a weary glance. Her father said, “Forgive me, your majesty. Anja has an unguarded tongue. If she has lied to you and said—”

“Do not disparage my queen!” His thundering roar echoed through the courtyard. “I have told you what she is. And if I ever hear word that you do not speak of Anja with the respect she deserves, then all of Ivermere will soon afterward discover exactly why I am called Kael the Conqueror.”

And that was all that needed to be said. Kael touched his heels to the warhorse’s sides and pushed him into a quick pace out of the courtyard and onto one of the main streets, ready to see no more of Ivermere.

Just beyond the city gate, a rumble of hoof beats came up behind them. The hunters, in their gray wolfskins. A tall, wiry woman with gray-streaked hair drew up beside Kael’s horse—though careful to remain at a position lower than his.

“Princess Anja,” she said.

Kael growled, and the hunter hastily amended it.

“Queen Anja.”

Her gaze wary, Anja leaned forward to regard the other woman. “Mistress.”

“We are riding ahead to make certain that no monsters breached the wards, so you will have safe passage through Scalewood.” The Mistress of the Hunt’s steady gaze didn’t waver as she added, “Would you like to ride with us again?”

Anja’s lips trembled before firming. “Not this day. Perhaps in the spring, however, you can journey to Grimhold, and we can speak about training hunters there. Scalewood does not hold the only dangers to our peoples, and the Four Kingdoms might need a Mistress of the Hunt.”

“I think it already has a fine candidate.” The woman grinned. “Queen Anja, who passed through the Scalewood unharmed. You will be a legend.” She glanced at Kael, tipped her chin. “Your majesty.”

He nodded in return, and taking the gesture for the dismissal it was, she whistled and the hunters rode forward, cheering for Anja the Unharmed as they galloped past.

Though she hadn’t been completely unharmed. She had raged at her parents, but also been disappointed in their utter unwillingness to listen to her.

“You are well?” he asked her softly.

“Yes.” There was a hitch in her breath, but he recognized her happy tears. “It is just…there is truly a place for me. Here with you. And in our kingdoms.”

Emotion tightened his throat. “There is.”

Reaching back, she angled her head for his kiss—then huffed out a laugh. “My coat is bunched between us.”

“That is not your coat,” he said against her neck.

Her giggle shook her sweetly against him. “Yes, it is. Lift me up. I will show you how a queen rides double.”

The gentle demand shot fire through his blood. With his hands spanning her waist, he raised her straight up. Her coat fell between them, curtaining her from his sight.

“Now turn me to face you,” she said huskily.

Slowly he lowered her back to his lap, her legs spreading wide to straddle him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled in close.

“The blanket.” It was a breathless command. “Untie it.”

He ripped open the knot at his hip and his cock sprang up between them. With a soft groan, Anja reached down and gripped his length, fitting him to her sultry entrance. Kael gritted his teeth against a shout as she pushed down, her luscious hot sheath clasping his shaft in the sweetest embrace.

“Now,” she panted against his lips. “I’ve claimed my favorite throne. Now ride.”

He would always obey his queen. So after a kiss, Kael the Conqueror claimed his bride.

Epilogue

The Midwinter Bride

Grimhold

Here we are again at Kael the Conqueror’s mountain stronghold. A year has passed, and on this day, another Midwinter has come around. Within the great hall, trestle tables are laden with roasted meats and sweet pastries, and benches are filled with celebrants from all corners of the four kingdoms. But the merry conversation between them abruptly falls silent when, from the dais, a great crash and clattering sounds as the king sweeps platters to the floor—then lifts his queen from her golden throne and seats her on the table before him.

A sigh rises from many of those who sup, for this has happened before: the king will roar for them all to begone, because he has a royal feast to eat. But this time, no roar comes. The king is silent, staring up at his wife’s face in awe and adoration, his great palm flattened over her belly…which is very slightly rounder than it was the year before. And suddenly, everyone within the room understands.

The queen has just given the king his Midwinter gift.

But such a gift from a queen is not only for the king, but also for a kingdom—or even four kingdoms. Cheers fill the great hall, along with the knowing nods from the maids who had not had to clean the queen’s monthly rags since the harvest moon, and from the ladies of the court who had whispered behind their hands about how many naps the queen was taking of late. And amidst the noise the king’s eyes grow hotter and hotter, and he opens his mouth—but before he can roar for them all to begone, the queen leans forward and puts her soft lips against his ear, perhaps suggesting that, on this day, the guests might be allowed to finish their meals. Without a word he rises and sweeps her into his arms—and the last sound that is heard from the king and queen that eve is her merry laugh as he carries her from the hall.

After they depart, a toast is raised to the man sitting beside the king’s giant wooden throne—a toast that is raised every night after the king and queen retire to sleep (every night they are not tossed out of the great hall, that is.) There, all of the representatives of the four kingdoms salute Lord Minam, the royal chamberlain, for the wisdom and courage of posting messages to every kingdom near and far, searching for a bride—for he had brought to them the perfect one.

None knew that, among them, supped another who had answered those missives. Desperation had given her courage, but her journey had gone astray, and she had arrived far too late—but thought it was for the best, because never could she imagine being loved by Kael as he so clearly loved his Anja. So tomorrow she would continue on, whilst she still had the courage to go, and eventually find magic of her own.

But that is a tale of anotherwhere and anotherwhen…and, sadly, this Midwinter tale must come to an end.

The Alien’s Mail-Order Bride

by Ruby Dixon

The Wolf’s Mail-Order Bride

by Ella Goode

The Runaway Mail-Order Bride

by Alexa Riley

The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride

by Kati Wilde

Also by Kati Wilde

Contemporary Romance

Going Nowhere Fast

(a new adult romance)

Secret Santa

(a holiday novella)

Beauty In Spring

(a short Beauty & the Beast romance)

The Hellfire Riders Motorcycle Club

The Hellfire Riders, Volumes 1-3: Saxon & Jenny

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

The Hellfire Riders, Volumes 4-6: 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)

Coming Soon

Losing It All

(Stone’s book)

She’s always been on the outside of love, looking in…

After years of struggling to make ends meet, Emma Williams finally lands a job that suits her perfectly—she enjoys her work, likes her new boss, and especially loves knowing her first paycheck is coming just after Christmas. That is, if she lasts that long. Because Logan Crenshaw, the creative force behind the company, doesn’t seem to want her there.

Not being wanted is nothing new for Emma…but she doesn’t know what she’s done to make Logan stalk around the office, growling every command as if her very presence infuriates him. She can’t afford to lose this job, so her plan is to keep her head down and try to avoid any contact with him—no matter how big and sexy and unavoidable he is.

But a Santa hat full of names, an office gift exchange, and one unexpected knock at her door are about to shake up all of her plans…

Warning: This super-hot holiday romance contains Santa hats, red satin blindfolds, and an obsessed alpha male who knows exactly what to do with his big hands. Lots of swearing. No cheating, no cliffhangers.

1

Emma

“Well, look at that.” My new boss’s bemused voice pulls my attention from the spreadsheet laid out on my computer screen. He’s standing by the Christmas tree in front of the big window overlooking the office parking lot, his ever-present World’s #1 Dad mug in hand. “It’s snowing.”

Dread tightens my stomach as I look out into the dark. It’s the middle of December, so night comes early, and huge flakes are swirling through the halos of the streetlights. The pavement in the lot is already covered in white.

“Isn’t that lovely!” Her huge belly leading the way, Marianne bustles in carrying a bright red Santa hat. “We might have a white Christmas after all.”

A white, freezing Christmas. Oh joy.

“Maybe you better hold off on hoping for that,” my boss says with a significant glance at her stomach. “You don’t want to be driving to the hospital in a blizzard.”

“And that’s just like him, Emma.” Marianne’s pretty face is wreathed in a smile as she turns in my direction, so I drum up a weak smile in answer. “You’ll say ‘snow,’ and a moment later, Bruce’ll be thinking ‘blizzard.’ Or we’ll run out of coffee pods, and a moment later he’s dying of thirst. So you keep his head out of the doomsday clouds and you’ll get on just fine.”

My smile becomes more genuine then. I’ve only been working for Bruce Crenshaw for two weeks, but I’ve seen the older man’s tendency to leap from the mundane to the dramatic in the space of a breath.

He winks at me, his faded blue eyes twinkling. “You’ll notice that even though she’s leaving me, I’m not crying that the sky is falling.”

Marianne harrumphs. “You should have seen him last month, worrying we weren’t ever going to find someone to fill my shoes. Yet here you are, Emma, and doing just…oooh boy.”

Flattening her hand to her stomach, she purses her lips and draws in a long, slow breath.

Bruce’s face goes pale. “Did your water break?”

“Her tiny feet just gave my lungs a good kick.” Rubbing her belly, Marianne awkwardly lowers into the seat facing my desk. “Maybe I shouldn’t head over to the workshop right away, though. Do you mind running out there before you head to the bank, Emma?”

“Not at all.” Pushing back my chair, I reach for my coat. It’s only a denim jacket, hardly warm enough for the weather, but the dress code at this job runs to jeans and flannel so I’ve got a hoodie layered beneath it. “What do you need me to do?”

I’m being trained to step into Marianne’s position as general office manager for Crenshaw’s Custom Woodworks, which means that I’ll pay the bills, take care of the payroll, and answer the phones. I won’t have much reason to leave the small main office, and in the past two weeks I’ve only been to the workshop once—during the tour of the company on my first day, when the builders were out on a home installation.

Which is fine by me. Because one of the men in the shop unsettles my composure so badly, I’d rather avoid him.

Not that I have to put in much effort, since it seems as if he’d rather do anything than talk to me.

“Secret Santa,” Marianne says, holding up the fuzzy red hat. “The guys each need to pick out a name. We’ll be doing the gift exchange at the Christmas party.”

Which is scheduled for next week—on the day before Christmas Eve, which is also Marianne’s last day of work. I can’t imagine how much of a party it will be, considering that only three people work in the office and four more in the shop, but if free food’s available, I’m all in.

At the window, Bruce says, “Actually, Emma, it looks like my son’s about to save you a trip. He’s probably coming in to look over those new estimates. Marianne, will you sit in with us while we go over them? And when Logan heads back to the shop, he can take the Santa hat with him.”

Nodding, she begins pushing up out of her chair. They start off toward Bruce’s office, and for a long second I’m rooted to the spot, looking out the window at the man coming from the workshop on the opposite side of the parking lot.

Logan Crenshaw doesn’t move like he’s in a hurry, but his long strides are eating up the distance. Snowflakes glitter in his dark hair and dust his wide shoulders. He’s not wearing a coat, just a faded red T-shirt that clings to his thick arms and broad chest, along with black jeans and steel-toed boots, but he doesn’t seem to mind the cold, anyway. His face lifts to the sky as he walks, and through the dark his white grin flashes—as if in sheer pleasure at the sensation of the snowflakes drifting across his skin.

The sight of that grin sears something deep and unnamed inside me. Chest hurting, I turn away from the window and look blindly down at my desk.

I don’t know why Logan Crenshaw affects me like he does. Well, part of it, I know. He’s gorgeous. Rugged and masculine, with cheekbones as sharp as a knife’s edge that could have been honed on the chiseled stone of his jaw. But whenever Logan comes into the office, he barely does more than grunt and growl his responses. And he looks at me as if… as if…

The truth is, I don’t really know what to think of the way he looks at me, because I’ve never seen anything like it before.

He’s got his dad’s light blue eyes, but they’re icier—and more intense. When he turns that glacial stare in my direction, I feel like the smallest, insignificant idiot who ever walked the earth. My tongue tangles up and internally I shrink like a mouse cornered by a snow leopard. A giant, gorgeous snow leopard.

But a mouse is not what I am. Not usually. It’s just that when Logan’s around, I can barely even squeak. And when Logan looks at me, he never grins—with pleasure or otherwise.

I think a part of me would give anything to be the one who made him smile like that.

It won’t be today. Whatever enjoyment he found in the falling snow has darkened into a scowl by the time the office door swings open.

I catch that forbidding expression with a quick glance. And there goes the mouse inside me again, shriveling up into a tiny ball. My gaze immediately drops to the deposit slip on my desk, but I’m aware of Logan’s every step as he comes closer. Neck aching with tension, I wait for him to pass by on the way to his dad’s office.

But he stops in front of my desk. Heart thundering, I look up.

God, he’s so big. The reception area where my desk sits isn’t small, yet he threatens to overwhelm the space simply by standing there. It’s not just his height—his dad is almost as tall—or the strength in his thick muscles, but the sheer presence of him. As if there’s so much more to Logan than what I can see, and the magnitude of that unseen portion takes up all the room.

With snow melting in his dark hair, he stares down at me with that intense, unreadable gaze.

I’m not a mouse. I’m not. Forcing steel into my spine, I tell him, “Mr. Crenshaw is expecting you in his office.”

Beneath straight black brows, those icy blue eyes narrow. His voice is a deep growl as he echoes, “‘Mr. Crenshaw?’”

My cheeks heat. Now I sound like an uptight, mousy idiot. No one in this office is so formal. “Your dad.”

Still scowling, he watches me for another long second, gaze slipping over my face. A muscle works in his jaw. Finally he nods and, without another word, heads for Bruce’s office.

Immediately the tension gripping my body loosens, and I draw in a deep, shuddering breath. Every inch of my skin feels prickly, tight—and covered in gooseflesh as if I’d been running naked out in the snow.

As if I were cold. But I’m not. I’m burning, and my panties are so wet that if there was ever any ice inside me, it’s long since melted.

Which is why Logan Crenshaw unsettles me so badly. Around him, I don’t just transform into a tongue-tied little mouse. I become a tongue-tied little mouse with a drenched pussy.

I’ve never responded to any man this way—which is the reason I’m still a virgin at the age of twenty two. It’s not that I’ve never noticed men, or never found them attractive. But from the moment I graduated high school and left my last foster home, trying to make a living always took priority, and I was too occupied with getting by to give more than a fleeting thought to sex.

I shouldn’t be thinking of sex now, either. My priorities haven’t changed. After being laid off from my last job and months of unemployment, I’m still just getting by. My overdue rent, my electric bill, my dying car—those are what I should be prioritizing. My body just hasn’t gotten the message. Either that, or it’s sending a message of its own.

Time to get laid, girly. Too bad it chose someone who scowls and growls at me instead of smiling and flirting.

Then again, maybe it’s for the best. Screwing around isn’t going to pay the bills. Neither is sitting here in sopping wet panties and staring blankly at a deposit slip, as if the form will fill itself out. With a sigh, I force myself to focus on work, and try to pretend that every cell within my body isn’t attuned to the man sitting in Bruce’s office.

I almost manage to convince myself. Still, when four-thirty rolls around and it’s time to head to the bank, I drag my feet while collecting my coat and car keys. I need to knock on the office door to let them know I’m going. But poking my head in means Logan will probably scowl at me again, and then I’ll be obsessing over his reaction all weekend—wondering what I ever did to deserve that response…and wondering why it hurts so much.

Too late, though. Because I’ve only just picked up my purse when the office door bangs open and Logan strides through, his icy gaze fixed on me.

He’s looking pissed again, as if seeing me standing here irritates the hell out of him.

Why? What did I ever do?

My throat tight, I tear my gaze from his face and scoop up the deposit envelope. Marianne’s right behind him, so even though my chest is aching, I force a chirpy, “I’m heading to the bank, unless there’s anything else I need to do before taking off for the weekend.”

Logan’s deep growl answers me. “Have you picked a name yet?”

“A name?” I echo stupidly, because he’s stopped right beside me. So close, I can smell him—the warm scent of pine and sawdust, deeper and warmer than the fragrance of the office’s Christmas tree.

In response, he shoves the Santa hat under my nose.

For the Secret Santa gift exchange. Oh shit. My gaze darts past him to Marianne. “I’m not part of that this year, am I?”

“Of course you are, honey,” she says brightly. “You’re an employee of Crenshaw Woodworks now, aren’t you?”

“So you already put my name in the hat?”

“I did.”

“But…” I scramble for an excuse, trying not to stare at the steely tendons flexing in Logan’s forearm or his strong fingers crushing the hat’s fuzzy white brim as he continues holding it out to me. “I barely know the other employees. I wouldn’t know what anyone likes.”

“Oh, everyone’s easy. If you pick one of the guys’ names, you just bring them a six pack of beer or make some cupcakes. Just something to celebrate the spirit of the season—and there’s a ten-dollar limit, so no one’s expecting anything fancy.”

Except I don’t have ten dollars to spare. I don’t get my first paycheck until the thirty-first. Ten dollars means choosing between gas money or grocery money the last week of December. It means choosing between driving or eating.

And I need this job, so I’d probably choose driving.

Feeling sick to my stomach, I meet Logan’s icy gaze—and only feel shittier when he grinds out, “I’m not going to bite you.” He gives the hat a shake and the dangling white puffball swings wildly back and forth. “Just pick a fucking name.”

Why is he so angry with me? Sparked by raging frustration, the timid mouse inside me burns to a crisp. I hiss at him, “I’m glad to see the spirit of the season has infused you with so much fucking patience” as I reach into the damn hat.

And oh my god. I thought his stare was intense before? I was wrong. Now the look he gives me pierces straight through my skin and sears me with a promise of…something.

Something that leaves me utterly frozen and helpless, tension riding my every muscle, my nerves on fire.

His gaze holding mine, Logan steps closer. His voice is a low rumble of gravel as he tells me, “You think I’m impatient, Emma? You have no fucking idea how patient I’ve been with you.”

Why? What have I done? I search his face, but don’t find an answer. My hand is buried in the velvet hat between us, and as he steps even closer, my senses are overwhelmed by his woodsy scent, his dominating size. Liquid desire pools deep inside me. If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to dissolve into a puddle of arousal at his big, booted feet…where he would probably just scowl down at me.

I snatch a slip of paper out of the hat and flee.

“I loved this book! Going Nowhere Fast is a modern day, scorching hot yet deeply emotional Pride & Prejudice story that you won’t want to miss.” —Kristen Callihan, New York Times bestselling author of the Game On and VIP series.

Only $2.99 | Now Available!

The brakes are off in this sizzling-hot new adult romance from the author of the Hellfire Riders MC Romance series…

One promise.

Two hearts.

Three rules.

Four weeks to break them all.

When Aspen Phillips’ best friend invites her on a month-long road trip, she has serious mixed feelings. Sharing their tight quarters will be Bramwell Gage, overprotective brother and all-around jerk. Bram may be ridiculously sexy, but he’s made no effort to hide how he feels about Aspen—that she’s trash who’s no good for his sister. But Aspen is determined to get along with the uptight millionaire—and to keep her promise, concealing a secret about his sister that Bram can never know.

But after a scorching kiss reveals that Bram’s feelings toward her run much hotter than she believed, Aspen’s emotions swerve into a complete 180. Suddenly the girl who has nothing has everything—but only as long as the truth about his sister remains hidden. Because when all the secrets and promises unravel, she risks losing it all…

"I freaking loved this book. I wasn’t expecting it to be in my top reads of 2017, yet here I am plonking it in the list. It was so bloody dirty. Like super, sexy, rawr dirty that had Aspen squirming in delight because of Bram, and me fanning my face." —Lou, The Bookpushers

"...a snarkily funny slow burn full of goodness and all kinds of feels. As for the sexy times… all I can say is Wow! Seriously that’s all I can come up with since they brought hate fucking to a level that was so hot my brain short circuited." —Spice, Edgy Reviews

Available Now from Berkley InterMix!

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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 MIDWINTER MAIL-ORDER BRIDE

Copyright © 2017 Kati Wilde

Excerpt from “Secret Santa” © 2016 Kati Wilde

All rights reserved.

First Digital Edition, November 2017

katiwilde.com