Chapter
Twenty-One
Sebian Present day, Deepmarsh Castle, Malyr’s personal library
ead pounding and ears buzzing, I lifted my gaze to Galantia, putting such a nauseating sway into my surroundings, the bitterness of ale rose in my throat. It flooded the back of my tongue,H rancid and sour, making me gag before I swallowed it back down into the depth of my roiling stomach. What the fuck just happened?
Galantia slipped off Malyr’s lap, brushed her skirts down, and crossed the library slowly, as if she’d seen this coming all along, with not a wrinkle on her dulled features. If anything, she looked resolved.
When she disappeared behind the door, I looked over at Malyr; the shadows lifting from his face revealing his blank stare. Not what he’d hoped for, huh? No screams. No sobs. No tears.
Fucking hot-headed bastard.
I could get behind him having her wet and moaning against the edge of a blade, the slap of a hand, or in the binds of shadows. But violently finger-fucking through Galantia’s maidenhead in front of her father’s envoy? That shit wasn’t right.
I shifted and flew out the library, only to crash straight into a wall. Feathers tangled, claws scratched over stone. By the time we finally reached the crooked-looking stairs, I wanted to fucking
throw up.
“Galantia,” I said as I emerged from my shadows at the bottom landing, one hand clinging to the stone banister to control my sway.
She kept trudging up the steps, her posture slightly hunched, one trembling hand pressed against her lower belly. “I just… I just want to go to my chamber.”
Fuck, she looked so helpless, the way she all but heaved herself up along the stone-carved rail. It had been difficult to watch, the way Malyr had jabbed his fingers into her, and in the end, I’d looked
away.
My chest tightened painfully.
Why had I looked away?
Without much thinking, I hurried up the steps. I scooped her up in my arms and carried her the rest of the way over the shifting ground. Why did she have to tell him about Harlen? It had taken Malyr years to get over his brother’s death. The shame. The guilt.
“I got you,” I said, suddenly aware of the sour stench that drifted between us, and it sure as fuck wasn’t coming from her. “You’ll be fine.”
“No, I won’t.” She stared into the space between us, her eyes void of tears—and everything else.
No anger, shame, or sadness. Just… nothing. “Now he has two more reasons to torment me, and not a single one to let me go. What will become of me now in this place?”
Good question, but not one I could answer with how my brain throbbed. That captain of hers had made a damn strong case for this betrothal. Strong enough for Malyr to put his hate aside? I wasn’t
sure… “I don’t know.”
Didn’t understand how this could have gone so bad so quickly, my skull such a loud place of crowded memories. Chances were there had been signs that this exchange had been doomed from the start. All of which I’d mostly ignored, too damn focused on rubbing my cock all over her.
“Maybe I deserve him as a husband for how foolish I was. How blind.” When we reached the end of the corridor that held our chambers, her voice came out, rusty and meek. “I deserve all of his hate.
Maybe I even deserve all of your hate, too.”
“I don’t hate you, Galantia.” Didn’t hate her at all… “You just need to lie down in your bed and rest. I’m not going to say that things will look better tomorrow, but perhaps not quite so grim.”
“Could I… maybe lie down in your bed instead?” Her little fingers curled into the side of my neck. “Only for a while?”
Against the frailty in her voice—or perhaps because of it—my cock twitched in my breeches. In her state, all vulnerable and broken, a little kindness and care might get me places—especially since all concerns about her purity were currently drying on Malyr’s knuckles.
Unfortunately, I was equipped with a set of morals only moderately low, which left me half-hard and fully torn. She was hurt—undoubtedly cramping and sore—which turned her question all sorts of complicated. Women came to my bed to lick my balls, not their damn wounds.
So why was it that I carried her into my chamber, kicked the door shut, and lowered her into my bed? “This good, sweetheart? This where you want to be? My bed?”
Nodding, she lay down on her side, pulling her knees against her chest as she grimaced in pain. “I think… I think I’ll just feel safer here. With you.”
She feels safer with me… That tightness in my chest, an ache in a place too familiar, clenched even tighter, turning into a raw, searing knot. Had she thought herself safe beside me in the library? Had hoped I would protect
her from Malyr?
I turned toward the hearth, trying to dislodge that unwanted sensation, and put a pan filled with chestnuts into the ashes. When the scent of roasted nuts filled my chamber, I pulled the pan from the heat by its handle. I poured the steaming chestnuts into a leather satchel, and once tied, I lay it against Galantia’s belly.
“This will help with the cramps,” I said. “My mother used to do this for pains during her time of bleeding.”
She clasped it tightly and continued to stare at a dark corner in my room. “Thank you.”
“There was nothing I could’ve done, Galantia.” There hadn’t been; she had to understand that. “I don’t always agree with how Malyr handles certain things but… he’s my prince.”
Silence.
The uncomfortable kind that needled beneath the marred skin along my burnt arm, rousing a ghostly tingle that no amount of rubbing or scratching would control. For fuck’s sake, why was I feeling like this?
“Malyr is also my friend,” I added, supplying more explanations—or were they excuses?—where she’d asked for none. “He and I went through a lot together.”
More silence.
Perhaps it would’ve been a good moment to get up and leave. Give her some time alone. But I stayed, watching her, running my fingers through her hair one slow stroke at a time as if… as if I was waiting for something. What was it? For her to confirm that I couldn’t have done anything? That I hadn’t failed to keep her safe? That I hadn’t failed to protect her?
“There was a moment when I hoped you would interfere,” she finally said, amplifying that ache behind my ribs. “It’s silly, I know. But then again, we already established that I’m a foolish girl.
Today made that quite clear. It was stupid to expect that Father would bother to get me back. It was even more stupid to hope that you would… somehow protect me.”
A pierce through my chest.
Ouch.
I stared down at myself, half expecting to find a dagger protruding where she’d somehow stabbed me. It certainly felt like it. Hurt me in a place where I’d been numb for so long, right beneath my
fucking ribs.
I didn’t like it.
Numb was better.
On instinct, my hand wandered to the leather pouch on my belt. Gray devil’s bark wasn’t easy to harvest this close to the first snow, but I was in no mood to— Ah… fuck. My pouch was gone, if lost in days of drunken stupor or a poorly-placed bet, I couldn’t even remember.
“I’ll see what I can find out about this mess.” I rose and headed for the door, eager to leave this suffocating tightness. “Stay here. Don’t leave this chamber.”
The moment I stepped into the corridor, I shifted into my ravens. We left through one of the hundreds of flight holes we’d cut into the stone and rounded the castle until we managed to slip into Malyr’s private rooms. Wine. Where was the damn wine?
Somehow, my anoa was still staggering behind me a few steps until he finally merged with my human form. Dozens of voices and ten times as many scents crashed down on my senses, hurting my head, turning me nauseous all over again. I grabbed the golden carafe that stood on the desk and the goblet beside it, pouring as I strode toward Malyr’s library. Empty. Aside from a thick swath of shadows that led me to the door to his private gardens.
Carafe abandoned on a side table, I took a sip of last night’s stale wine, and stepped into the green space. Goddess help me, I needed to recover my pouch.
Malyr paced the length of the moss-covered stone bench that stood in front of a small pond where red maple leafs floated on the surface. Shadowy offshoots still danced around his boots, telling me he was far from calm. Good. Neither was I.
“Malyr…” Leaning with his back against the trunk of the maple tree, Asker sighed. The fact that he’d dropped the ‘my prince’ in favor of Malyr’s name told me everything I needed to know about how this conversation was going. “A marriage with Lady Galantia will gain you a bannerman more powerful than any of the other human lords who have sworn you allegiance. It will give us Marla back!”
“If you believe that, then you’re a fool,” Malyr scoffed. “There are two things I swore on my family that I would do: destroy House Brisden, and take Dranada for our new home. I will not renounce one oath to see the other fulfilled.”
Asker propped his elbow against his other arm, letting his face fall into the palm of his gloved hand. “Malyr, conquering the kingdom of Dranada is difficult. More daunting is the task of uniting the human and Raven lords, so you may bring peace and unity to the realm after an eternity of war.
Marrying the girl would send a powerful message about both.”
“I will not… marry… Galantia.” Malyr bit out each word, and even suspended his pacing. “Her father is an honorless bastard who doesn’t hesitate to abandon his oath and stab his king in the back, which makes him an unreliable ally, and I will see him answer for the things he did to me. That girl is worthless.”
Asker threw his hands up. “The goddess showed her to me. She is essential.”
“How can she be?” When Asker’s silence gave way to doubt, and the wind rushing into the garden, swaying the branches on the maple and the hundreds of colorful ribbons and threads dangling from them, Malyr shook his head. “I will not marry her. End of discussion.”
Another sip of wine. I couldn’t even tell if that was good or bad news for Galantia… Asker pushed himself off the trunk, nodding solemnly, bunching his big brows together before he stared into the pond. “Without Marla, without your bonded mate, you will have to marry someone.
Someone who comes with a substantial army. It is the only way to ensure absolute loyalty and avoid betrayal when we march on Tidestone.”
“Yes, I will have to, will I not?” Malyr exhaled a long breath. “The worst day in the history of our kind was the one where some Raven queen decided that we should love humans, marry them, breed with them. My parents fought for their fated bond. And look at me, forced to take a human wife.”
When their argument faded into the howl of the wind cutting along the upper edges of the walls, I deemed it safe enough to step closer. “Maybe if you’d announced a drif like I told you a dozen times, you wouldn’t be in the position of having to marry a human.”
“Sebian’s suggestion is sound—favorable, even—if we hurry so you may find your mate.”
Asker’s jaws shifted as his gaze settled on the cup in my hand. “It is the morning.”
“Not everywhere.” I took another sip just to piss him off. “Besides, you shouldn’t act quite so surprised.”
Huffing, he returned his attention to Malyr. “Send out pathfinders in all directions so they may spread word of the festival.”
Malyr arched a brow at me. “For just a moment, it was blessedly silent. Then you showed up, putting that idea in his head all over again.”
Asker turned to face me. “The girl?”
I gave him a curt nod. “I took care of her.”
“Of course you did.” A shadow hushed across Malyr’s sneer. “Always so eager to comfort Brisden’s daughter.”
“You can kiss me where my tail feathers grow, Malyr,” I snapped, my mood about as foul as his over that damn ache in my chest… “What happened to the envoy?”
“Temporarily situated in the castle under guard,” Asker said. “The rest of them made camp some five miles northeast. I already sent out a pathfinder with a message carrying Captain Theolif’s writing, informing them of the delay. A few days of calm contemplation will do us all some good.”
Asker bowed before Malyr. “Please think of Marla. I need my mate back.”
I waited until Asker’s footsteps indicated he was out of earshot before I spoke again. “You’ve gone too far.”
A sarcastic laugh rolled from Malyr’s chest. “At least it provided you with an opportunity to fly behind her for another… heroic rescue, I presume.”
“Heroic rescue!?” The cup trembled in my hand, then against my lips for another sip. “I just…
stood there, doing absolutely nothing!”
I had done nothing.
Just like five years ago.
“As you ought to!” he shouted. “Because she’s a fucking Brisden!”
“She’s an innocent woman!” That shout ripped from my throat, along with a swell of sour bubbles. “One who placed her trust in me, hoping I would—” My stomach contracted as sourness swished over my gums. I heaved, quickly bending over for a spray of red vomit to speckle the grass.
When the last slimy string dislodged from my lip, I shook my head, my posture still slightly hunched.
“Do you have any idea what it felt like for me in there, Malyr? It felt like that night all over again, because I did absolutely… fucking… nothing.”
I should have.
Malyr shifted in my periphery before his hand appeared near my face with a black cloth clasped between his fingers. “It’s my fault you spent the last three days wasting away in that… filthy tavern. I shouldn’t have said what I said that morning. I am sorry.”
Well, so was I.
For Galantia.
I pressed the cloth to my mouth and straightened, staring at the cup in my hand. That morning? I’d left her behind to wake alone. What if I hadn’t? What if I hadn’t spent the last three days in some tavern? Hadn’t been in that library earlier, barely able to stand straight?
I might have looked.
I might have done… something.
The cup dropped to the ground with a clank as I shook my head. “I fucking hate you for how you
put me in that situation.”
“She killed… my… brother.”
“Are you truly so blinded by hate that you believe that?” I didn’t bother to wait for an answer.
“Malyr, that was what? Ten years ago? How old was she then? Eight? Nine?”
“She confessed,” he ground out. “Crushed his skull with a rock.”
“So what exactly are you picturing, hmm? Whenever little Galantia got tired of her needlework, she skipped about Tidestone, grabbed rocks, and crushed Raven skulls? Can you—for just a moment —listen to how ridiculous that sounds?”
Seconds ticked into a minute where he just stared at the ground, finally thinking instead of acting
on that stupid infestation of rage at his core. “How then? How did he die?”
“She tilted a basket of apples to slow his escape. He stepped on one, fell, and hit his head on a rock. She told me right before the meeting.”
He turned and opened his mouth, sucking in a breath as if to challenge it, but then luckily, swallowed it down in favor of more quiet thinking. Minutes of it. Until he strode to the edge of the pond, staring blankly into the water.
He clenched and unclenched his hands by his sides, and I only now noticed the bloody cuts on his knuckles. “Apples.”
“Bold choice of weapon, even for a killer as vicious as your little dove, isn’t it?” I walked up beside him and jutted my chin at his wounds. “What’s with your hand?”
He lifted it to his face, staring at the cuts before he shook his head. “I locked my anoa in a cage before I went to her. And a good thing I did, or she would definitely be dead by now. My anoa, however, was not pleased when I returned.”
Which explained his earlier outburst of shadows. “What will you do now?”
He folded his arms in front of his chest, jaws shifting, then he turned his head to look at me. “Take
a wife, I presume.”
“I meant with Galantia.”
He gave a faint chuckle, which quickly fizzled into a drawn-out sigh. “I want to break her. You want to protect her. How utterly amusing, don’t you agree?”
That tightness in my chest slowly eased. So what; maybe I wanted to protect her. Maybe I enjoyed saving her, indulging in the feeling of being a hero—and maybe forgetting that I was anything but.
Just for a little while.
I shrugged. “I fail to find any humor in this.”
“How do we fix it?” His hand settled on my shoulder, the stiffness I sensed in his slightly trembling fingers making it clear that it cost him a great deal to sustain the touch. But he did, his urgency to put our quarrel to rest palpable. Up to this point, Malyr hadn’t denied her to me. Who was I to deny her to him?
“You won’t hurt her in any way that isn’t sensual in nature,” I said. “And for fuck’s sake, Malyr, give her time to heal before you do.”
Where I expected him to lift a brow in challenge, he only gave a curt nod. “Fine.”
“Fine.” I turned away from the pond with my primal spreading its wings at my core, sensing that we wanted to shift. “Oh, and also, you’ll never seek her out alone, without me.”
“Why?” His question came behind me.
“Because she feels safer with me.”
