Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Galantia Present Day, Deepmarsh Castle, a meadow
he smell of roasted meats and sweet ale clung to the evening air, along with the oak smoke coming from the dozens of iron-forged fire baskets that illuminated the kjaer. It took place on aT meadow behind the castle, and right beside a creek that slowly trickled into the surrounding marsh.
I cast my gaze over the occupied benches where I sat beside the Raven prince at our richly decked and decorated table, eyes nervously jumping from one black shroud to the next. Captain Asker. Tjema, who danced with another young Raven girl. Darien. Where was Lorn? Killing puppies? Digging my grave?
“No more for me.” To my other side, Sebian placed his palm over his empty cup until the girl with the wine carafe had passed, the quail before him eaten down to its tiny ribs, the vegetables around it untouched. A bird he might be at times, but his appetite was all man.
Malyr turned his head ever so slowly, staring at Sebian with furrows between his brows. “And here I thought I would certainly find you sleeping in the stables come morning.”
“Why would I? It’s much warmer between your wife’s legs,” Sebian murmured, flashing Malyr a lopsided smirk. “Besides, I have to keep a true aim. Remember? Your jilted lover is seething shadows somewhere nearby.”
“She ought to be plenty distracted for the night,” Malyr said with a shrug, attention drifting to the
shadowy edge of the festivities.
I followed his line of sight.
And I saw her.
Dressed in tight black breeches and an even tighter corset that brought out her shapely figure, Lorn gesticulated wildly to a man in front of her and—oh gods, did she just punch him?
I straightened in my chair, craning my neck to watch her disappear into the crowd before my gaze returned to the man. He raked a hand through his short black hair, grabbing it and yanking it in a display of pure desperation.
I leaned over the armrest of my chair toward Sebian, jutting my chin in the man’s direction. “Who is he?”
“Lord Aros of House Batana,” Sebian said. “He’s Lorn’s fated mate.”
Him.
My molars ground together.
Somehow, the idea of Lorn having a fated mate had not once crossed my mind, especially not with her fixation on Malyr. Why had the Raven prince have him brought here? To distract her? To get her to
bond? To… rid himself of her?
“Why aren’t they bonded?” I asked.
“I’d like to say because he’s smart, but I’m afraid it’s more tragic than that.” Sebian shook his head. “She keeps rejecting him.”
I chewed on that for a moment as a new concern presented itself. What if Malyr came across his fated mate after our wedding? Where would that leave me?
Ugh, now I was getting ahead of myself. First, I needed to ensure that said wedding actually took place. Presume the kjaer was a start… “Enough with the merrymaking!” A man slammed his metal tankard on the table before he shouted from a foam-covered beard, “Court the pale-haired thing!”
“Yes, court her!” Sebian chuckled—his sides freshly-shorn for the occasion, the rest of his hair loosely tied together—and gave me a wink. “Or I might just do it.”
Again that flutter in my belly, whirling around in my chest with concerning intensity. What was he feeling for me? What was I starting to feel for him?
I feared the potential answers.
“You would court my betrothed during a kjaer I paid for? That’s bold, even for you.” Malyr took a swallow of his wine, then gave a pat on his lap. “Come to me, little white dove.”
The familiar gesture rose the fine hairs along my limbs as if my skin were erecting a shield. He would unleash his malice on me tonight, I felt it in that itchy scar on my breastbone.
When I slipped off my chair, Malyr slung one arm around my belly and secured me on his lap before he said, “I am looking forward to dancing with you.”
There we had it, one degradation out of who knew how many awaited. “Tell me, Malyr, what gives you more pleasure? Embarrassing me in front of everyone, or setting me up so I will do it all on my own?”
He didn’t even bother to subdue his bemused snort before he lowered his cup to the table. “What do my people say?” he shouted. “What shall I gift my female?”
“Seashells! Glass shards!” a cacophony of voices yelled, shrieked, and cheered in a turmoil of suggestions. “Coins! Shiny pebbles! Nails!”
I frowned. “Nails?”
“Our anoas have the habit of growing quite obsessed with gathering smooth, shiny, or… otherwise beautiful objects. Males often gift them to a female in courtship.” He grabbed a small package of a folded leaf wrapped with twine where it had been sitting on our table since the start of the feast. “This is my gift to you.”
I took the package, untied the twine, and carefully unwrapped it, only for something black and tangly to slip into my palm. “What… what is this?”
“A bracelet. The chain of aerymel, a local artisan crafted for me, but the trinkets I chose and gathered myself.” He lifted the bracelet from my palm, letting wood and bone clank against metal.
“Show me your wrist. No, the other one.”
I reached my other wrist to him, the one with the ribbon on it, squinting at the dull, flat discs, some of them elongated. “Are those… buttons?”
“Buttons?” Sebian asked, his brows drawing together in a doubting expression.
“Better than chestnuts, no?” When the closure snapped shut, Malyr cupped my cheek. “Yeh ash valtem skalde ya.”
Something deep at my core reveled at his words, or perhaps it was their foreign cadence flaring my curiosity. “What does it mean?”
“I will forever treasure you,” he said. “One of many oaths traditionally spoken during a kjaer.”
“Show everyone that you accepted his gift,” Sebian said. “Lift up your arm, sweetheart. Flaunt it.”
I lifted my arm higher, giving the air a little sweep to let the buttons clink and clank before the clapping crowd as I looked at Malyr. “Thank you.”
Nodding, he grabbed a nearby knife with one hand and clasped my wrist with the other. The moment the cool metal touched my skin, I flinched, but he merely let the blade cut through the blue silk ribbon, letting it fall to drown between carrots and peas in the pot of soup before us.
An unreasonable sense of loss wormed through my belly. I couldn’t say why, but I’d grown quite attached to that ribbon. And perhaps I would have remarked on its loss, wasn’t it for how the memory of words echoed in my head.
Males often gift beautiful objects to a female in courtship, they said. Nothing but Ravens quarreling for power.
Numbness crept up along my neck and spread across my cheeks. Gods be merciful, Malyr’s reaction when he’d found the ribbon on me made so much more sense now! The raven the night of the
storm? It hadn’t attacked me.
It had courted me!
My gaze found Malyr’s. “Do you have traitors or Raven lords with too much ambition at court?”
“It wouldn’t be a true court if I hadn’t, no?” he asked. “The extinction of a royal house is usually followed by the rise of another. Your father’s army could have ensured that.”
It might also have ensured me other options, but that was no longer something to build on. Malyr could have cut off the ribbon the day of the dress fitting. Instead, he’d waited until tonight.
A public warning for my secret suitor.
I ran a finger over the dangling buttons, hoping to find a sense of calm in their clanks, but none came. “Who is he?”
“This must be the first time your innocence pleases me.” He leaned into me, letting his lips press against my temple where they framed a dark whisper. “If I ever find out who dared to court you, little
dove, I shall cut off his balls and feed them to my ravens. And you will watch.”
My breath hitched at his possessive tone, the warning that growled through his voice. He sounded
angry. Enraged.
Jealous?
“Groom your female, my prince,” a woman shouted. “Or by the goddess, you’ll find yourself roosting alone tonight.”
“Quite so,” Malyr said over giggles and bellows of the crowd before he looked at me. “Have you ever watched how birds court in the wild?”
“I can’t say that I have…”
“The male will inch along a branch beneath the spring sun, hoping to get closer to the female without her chasing him off.” With one hand firmly situated on my hip, Malyr slowly lifted the other to my head. “If he succeeds, he will run his beak through her feathers…” his nails parted my open hair, running along my scalp in one long sweep that sent languid warmth down my spine, “like so.”
My shoulder blades pulled together. My bosom rose. I all but shuddered in overwhelming delight when his rhythmic strokes continued to comb through my ends, giving little tug-tug-tugs on my scalp. It was hypnotizing, but not quite so much to not make me see what was going on here. This was nothing but him further discouraging my suitor by feigning affection. His tender touch meant nothing.
But I would still enjoy it.
Just once, now that I could.
Nails ran down along my spine. A palm stroked up along my waist. Knuckles ghosted over the base of my neck. A gentle caress here, a finger twirling around a stray strand there. Gods have mercy, I hadn’t thought the man capable of feigning quite so much tenderness.
“Ravens groom and preen each other for hours,” Malyr continued, twirling my hair around his arm before he lay it over my shoulder, letting cool air lick at my exposed neck.
Fingers drew tight circles up along one side of my spine, making my mind go numb with how they kneaded sore muscles, making my head loll on my shoulders. Oh gods, not allowing myself to succumb to my wits with his false affection was torture. Wonderful, sublime torture.
“For that reason, long open hair is a sign of being untethered, unbonded,” he crooned. “Tell me, my betrothed, will you braid my hair?”
I fought my body’s urge to slump against his. “Certainly not before I can call you my husband.”
“Mmm, such doubt in those words.” He gingerly tucked a falling strand behind my ear before he whispered, “Yeh ash valtem sorg fer’ya.” Lips brushed against the shell of my ear. “I will forever care for you.”
A quiver ran through me at the sound of those words, that unadulterated love I’d longed for all my life. For a moment, no more than a few breaths, I allowed myself to soak in them. Pretend they were neither recited tradition nor lie. How wonderful would that be?
“No suitor could possibly convince a female to bond with him without feeding her first.”
Malyr caressed that shield of fine hairs along my nape by merely hovering his finger over my skin, teasing my nerve endings. Then he reached into an ocean of bowls that carried all sorts of fruits in front of us on the table, only to bring a blackberry, where it sat pinched between his thumb and pointer. He brought the berry to his mouth and clasped it between his lips. Then, he angled his head just so and lifted his chin. Offering.
Sebian leaned into me, running a finger down my thigh behind the privacy of the tablecloth before he whispered, “Take it from his mouth, sweetheart.”
Pulse quickening, I stared at those gorgeous lips that never smiled—the same ones Malyr had
promised I would never get close to. But they beckoned me now, rousing fear and delight in equal measures.
When I shifted forward, his mouth lowered. Mine turned to seek his, parting in search of the black, plump fruit. Our faces drifted together, our breaths mingled.
I tightened my lips around the blackberry, loving the ripe sweetness as its flesh burst and seasoned the tip of my tongue. My eyes fluttered shut. For a second, the fraction of a shared breath, our lips connected. They sought and shifted in an almost-kiss, stirring a craving in me that penetrated deep into my core.
I didn’t realize I’d reached my hand around his neck until my fingers glided into his hair, letting a moan vibrate at the pummel of Malyr’s exhale. I opened my eyes, only to find his closed.
Until people clapped.
Malyr ripped his eyes open. We both jerked back just as the berry tumbled onto my tongue and down my throat from there. Seconds, minutes, maybe eternities had passed as we stared at each other, unblinking, unmoving, unsaying. This hadn’t felt like feigned affection.
Hadn’t felt like feigned affection at all… “Enough with the feeding!” Asker shouted, the captain not at all his stoic self, but red-cheeked and harboring too many empty tankards in front of him at the table. “Speak your promise!”
Taking a deep breath, Malyr brought his thumb to his mouth, wiping up a dark red drop from his bottom lip before he looked at me. “Yeh ash valtem haron fer’ya. I will forever provide for you.”
My lungs stopped mid-inhale, giving room for his words to resonate as the edges of my vision speckled. Why did he sound as if he meant it?
Because I was losing my wits was why.
Hearing things that weren’t truly there.
Malyr took my hand right then and rose, letting me slip off his lap before he guided me around our table and to the grassy area. “Are you ready for our dance?”
Oh gods… the dance. Between the grooming and the almost-kiss, I’d forgotten all about it… including all the damn steps!
I sensed a fine mist of sweat settle on my forehead in preparation for impending disaster. “You know full-well I’m not.”
“Yes, I know,” he said and looked over at the musicians.
At his gesture, the lutes and harps turned as still as the air before a storm, only to flare up again in a different tune. A familiar tune. One that whirled through my chest, stirring up a tangle of shock.
This was not a Raven dance.
