Chapter 33
33
Roark
The hall was packed with tall headdresses and doublets the color of hummingbird wings. Lyra’s fingers dug into my arm, the only hint she was unsettled. Her face was a mask of unbothered indifference.
Darkwin caught her in his sights and winked. He was seated at one of the tables with the Stav Guard and more than one noble daughter.
We took our places on the dais beside the king and queen, a position of honor.
I handed Lyra into one of the high-backed chairs. Hundur and his harsh eyes watched her every move, and he wasn’t alone. Beady gazes devoured her, a sea of serpents waiting to strike. Melder craft always brought with it fascination and awe, but also fear and suspicion.
A dangerous combination.
One I disregarded in the seasons I knew Fadey. He was a boor, snobbish and cruel.
Lyra was both timid and bold, mild and fierce. I took in the gawkers while she settled into her chair. Something cold, almost dark, drove through me like a lash. A possessive sort of need to tear her away from their scrutiny.
“Roark. Are you all right?” Her eyes, dyed dark as black cherries, grew wider.
I’d not realized how stiff I was, how much pinched disdain tightened my face. I took my place beside her, tossing back a long gulp of sour mead.
The feast opened with a winded speech from Damir about the rescue of his son. Lyra’s name was spoken like a reverent secret. Mine was chanted by the Stav. I kept my gaze trained on the stone floor, wishing to be anywhere but there. Then Damir began to boast about his army and Thane’s utter devotion to the safety of his future wife as though the king hadn’t chastised his son viciously for his stupidity days before.
Part of me wondered if Damir would have us speak. The king always took a bit of twisted amusement watching me finger speak and needing another to translate. More than my hope I would not be urged to stand, I hoped Damir would stay his amusement for humiliation for Lyra’s sake.
Blood had long ago drained from her cheeks. The woman could hardly sit still as the king droned on. Beneath the table her knee bounced, and she’d wrenched the linen cloth in her hand so fiercely it looked like she was twisting the head off a pigeon.
The desire to touch her had not left since the moment we’d stepped close on the bridge, since I’d pressed her skin to my lips in Thane’s chambers. No good came from a Draven and a melder. Certainly not a match.
But when King Damir drew gazes our way once again, Lyra’s breath stuttered, and I placed a grounding palm on her thigh beneath the table. She stiffened at once.
I was a fool, thinking she’d want my touch. After a moment, I began to pull my palm away until Lyra’s grip took hold of my fingers.
She squeezed once, then lifted her chin. “Stay,” she whispered. “Please.”
I swallowed, then slowly maneuvered my hand so her fingers laced through mine, and kept hold of her until Damir ceased his speech and demanded the feast truly begin.
Rawhide drums boomed and tagelharpa strings plucked. Folk danced, drank sweet ale and dewberry wine. Partners kissed and rocked against walls and posts. The king and queen sat on the dais with Hundur and his frail wife, like scavengers in the treetops looking at the weak below.
Baldur had long since moved to seduce one of Hundur’s servant girls. The daughter of the Skalfirth jarl tried to draw the same attention Baldur had given her in Skalfirth, but the captain shoved her away, forcing her hips to strike the table’s edge.
From across the hall, Darkwin stood, a rage in his eyes. Edvin had to tug on Kael’s arm, murmuring what I hoped was a call to stay his temper.
If he could not, I would need to pull him away.
Baldur was an ass, but he was Kael’s superior.
I signaled to Emi to keep watch on the servant woman should the captain try to take her from the hall.
When plates were cleared and more wine and ale served, I was called to intervene more than once with drunken Stav, leaving Lyra to endure King Hundur. The Myrdan king was brisk and foul with his words when he took too much ale.
From my position across the great hall, I could make out the steady, practiced expressions she kept in place. Polite nods of her head, the occasional taunting smile, she kept the king engaged, while never needing to speak in return.
“She’s always been unique.” The bone crafter woman—Hilda, I thought—stepped to my side. She followed my gaze, grinning. “Lyra, I mean. I can’t tell if you are about to attack her, or the Myrdan king for looking at her.”
I frowned, but didn’t attempt to reply. No doubt, the woman had not learned many of my gestures.
“But I think you know that,” Hilda went on. “She was a quiet girl. A simple servant, but even as girls I told my mother it felt like Lyra was stronger than she let on, like she was bound for something more than the shores of Skalfirth. I always thought Lyra was a hidden princess, running from her enemies. I suppose, in a way, I was right.”
I heaved a sigh, hoping the woman could hear my question of what she wanted to truly say rather than attempting to finger speak and storming away in frustration when she couldn’t understand.
Hilda chuckled. “I think you’ve fallen into the pull of Lyra Bien.”
I looked away with what I hoped was a fierce expression of annoyance. Hilda was undeterred.
“I can’t blame you. But let me say this—I wouldn’t care if you were the king,” she said through a dainty sip of ale. “Should you choose to hurt her, I will manipulate that spine of yours until it snaps.”
She was… threatening me?
I spun into her. Most might cower, maybe back against the wall, but not Hilda. She took another sip, pinning me in her gaze over the rim of her horn.
“I wouldn’t be alone,” she whispered. “Kael admires you and all the Stav, but Lyra is his sister in every way that matters. She is like a beloved niece to Edvin. We are watching you closely, Sentry Ashwood. Do not hurt her heart, or yours will stop beating.”
For speaking in such a way, I could have the woman’s flesh flayed from her bones, her naked body strung up in the square for townsfolk to mock and bruise with rotted pomes.
Hilda was no fool; she knew the risks and spoke her words anyway.
I should’ve penned a response—I always carried charcoal sticks and parchment for such an occasion—I ought to remind her of her place, of my interest in the melder being nothing more than obligation.
I did none of it, merely lowered my chin in a subtle nod.
Hilda grinned and patted my arm. “Good. Enjoy the revel. It is in your honor, after all. Threats aside, I have no words to convey my gratitude for your part in restoring our family.”
My lips parted in a bit of stun when she sauntered away. A heartfelt thanks and soul-deep vow of death and gore in one conversation.
Hundur’s barking laughter drew my attention back to the high table. The Myrdan king was chortling at one of the jesters tossing platters atop a long spinning rod, but Lyra was gone.
A touch of frenzy took hold as I scanned the hall until I caught sight of her intricate braids and the pale skin of her thigh showing through the dangerously high slit in her skirt.
I’d be certain to send Súlka Margun a basket of the finest silk threads for her contribution to Lyra’s attire by week’s end.
Lyra shifted, giving up that the sod, Tomas Grisen, had trapped her in conversation near the back doorway. The man was a bastard who thought himself equal to a prince in Myrda.
As though she could sense my glare, Lyra looked over her shoulder. Those warm eyes locked with mine.
Just a duty, a purpose.
That was all she would be.
The thought was potent enough, I tasted the lie on my tongue.
Have you seen Lyra? I patted Kael’s shoulder when the crowd in the hall had thinned. Damn Baldur tried to drag me to a room with him and a Myrdan man and woman. His drunken request drew my frustration long enough that when I looked back to the hall, Lyra was gone.
Darkwin’s eyes were rimmed in red from too much ale. A Myrdan courtier had her slender arm around his waist, keeping him steady.
“Say again?” He squinted at my hands.
I let out a rough sort of growl. Lyra?
Kael blew out a breath. “Ah. I think I saw her…”
His voice trailed off when the courtier nuzzled his neck. I smacked his shoulder, hands moving in sharp gestures. Darkwin!
“Apologies.” Kael cleared his throat. “I, uh, saw her leaving with that Myrdan nobleman. The one with a nose like a beak.”
Dammit. Tomas. Cold stacked heavy in my gut. A lone nobleman had no business tearing the melder out of sight from the court.
“Ashwood. She was tired, I’m certain she went to her chamber.” Kael’s rasp was slow and slurred when I shoved past him and his courtier.
A panic, unseen and vicious, took me from behind after I found the first corridor empty. The next was filled only with lovers sneaking away for the night, and the vise around my throat tightened.
One hand on the hilt of my seax, I quickened my step and rounded the corner.
“You refuse so swiftly, Súlka Bien. Why? You are revered as near royalty, as am I.”
My blood chilled when her firm response followed. “I would not care if you were a king, ser. A match with you, after your behavior, would be the last thing I would ever do.”
There was a harrowing pause, then…
“You little bitch.” Boots scuffed over stone. “You hold no power unless a bone is in your hand.”
“Care to test that?” Lyra’s biting retort shot back.
“I could take you here, ruin your pretty little body, maybe fill you with my heir, so your king would have no choice. Call it dues owed from the raids that killed my father.”
I moved at a near run until I skidded in front of a staircase. Panic dissolved to rage, the sort that blinded the mind, that brought the darkest edges of a soul to the surface.
Tomas, drunk and red with desire, curled his hand around Lyra’s throat. The back of her head struck the stone of the wall. She shoved against him, but he pinned her with his hips.
I took the stairs two at a time, a haze darkening my sight. A rush of cruel violence heated my blood, crackled along the scar on my throat. I could snap his neck, open his chest; I could cut him in all the places that would force him to bleed out slowly, painfully.
Lost to bloodlust and gore, I did not notice the way Lyra bent one knee, the way she tugged something free of the top of her boot. Not until she sliced the small knife over Tomas’s cheek.
He cried out, scrambling backward, and held the gash on his face.
Lyra did not let up. In his distraction, she shoved him backward, so he stumbled against the rail of the staircase. She pressed two fingers against the wound on his face.
I came to a halt, from surprise, but more to admire this moment properly.
There was a pulse of power, the same ripple that struck against my chest whenever she used her craft, like it called to a deeper piece of me. I felt the pulse to my soul, a slow roll from my head to my heart.
Tomas cried out, loud at first, but it soon muffled, like he was screaming into a thick quilt.
His teeth clamped. He mumbled and shouted through a taut jaw.
My mouth quirked. She was melding his mouth shut, the same threat I’d leveled at the disrespectful Stav Guard weeks earlier. I wanted her to crush his skull, but when I looked at her eyes, the silver scars widened, glazing over the brown of her eyes until they were milky white.
I hurried to her side, taking hold of her wrist, and pulling her away before she could not undo her actions. I trapped her face in my palms, stroking the bridges of her cheeks with my thumbs. Slowly, Lyra blinked into focus.
“Roark.” Her voice was low, almost frightening.
I did not know what drew me to do it—the fear in her eyes—but I pressed a quick kiss to her brow, then faced Tomas.
The wretch had crumpled to the stairs, moaning and holding his melded face. He could hardly even separate his teeth.
I gripped his hair, holding him steady, and used my other hand to speak to Lyra. He needs to know what happens when he touches you.
With the same knife she used, I pressed the edge against one of Tomas’s little fingers. The sick sound of steel cutting through flesh and bone was buried beneath his roars of pain. I palmed the severed fingertip and sneered at the sobbing man.
Without pause, I slammed my palm over his mutilated mouth, shoving the bloodied tip onto his tongue.
Lyra covered her mouth with her palm, eyes wide, when I looked back at her. In a swift gesture, I said, Finish what you began.
After I stepped aside, it took Lyra a few heartbeats to return to Tomas. The man kept choking and spitting, desperate to remove the bit of his own finger from his mouth. A stunningly vicious heat blazed in the silver of Lyra’s eyes. She pressed her fingertips to the front of his mouth, ignoring Tomas’s screams, until his teeth cracked and shifted, melded shut.
I brushed my knuckles down her arm, drawing her from the haze of the melder’s trance. I will end him. You need only ask .
Shouts from guards echoed in the corridor, answering Tomas’s first cries.
Lyra’s breath came rough and heavy. She shook her head. “No. Gods, what did I do? No, leave him. You can’t be here. Myrda only sees you as a Draven. They’ll place all blame on you. He…he told me Hundur wants to find a reason to turn Damir against you.”
I wanted to spill his blood at her feet, and she feared for me.
Footsteps approached. Lyra took hold of my arm, leaving Tomas moaning on the staircase, and ran until we came to the upper corridors. She wrenched open an arched door tucked in an alcove and dragged us inside. It was a small sitting room with only enough room for a single chair, a narrow lancet window, a shelf of parchment and old books, and a bench against the other wall.
Lyra slammed the door at our backs and slumped against it.
There was little room, but I paced, anger and bloodlust hot in my veins.
“Roark.” Her breathless sob slowed my pace.
A tear fell onto her cheek. With hesitation, I reached out to wipe it away. She didn’t pull back, didn’t whimper under my touch.
Lyra took my palm and held it to her face, and whispered, “I don’t…I don’t know what came over me. I-I-I wanted to…” She studied her hands, still splotchy with Tomas’s blood.
I spoke with one hand against the warmth of her face. He deserves his crushed skull piked on the wall.
Lyra covered one of my hands with hers, leaving the other free to speak. Her chin quivered. “I’ve heard melders become monsters.”
I have seen my share of monsters, and you are not one.
Another tear, another swipe of my thumb.
“You wanted to kill him. You could lose everything for doing something like that. Don’t you dare think to risk your life for my stupidity.”
Your stupidity is endearing .
Lyra frowned.
I drifted closer. The swell of her breasts brushed against my chest. I tightened my body against hers, caging her to the wall, and moved my hands in sharp, angry gestures. He should never have put a hand on you .
“And you should not put yourself at risk.” Heat flooded the bridges of her cheeks. “Do you go around ending everyone who looks at Emi improperly? Or anyone who speaks poorly of Thane?”
I slammed a palm against the wall. Lyra stopped speaking, but looked at me with a touch of defiance.
“Do you?”
I tipped my head, drawing my nose along her cheek. She drew in a sharp breath. I mouthed the word no against her skin, shaking my head and watching the heat of the word lift gooseflesh over her neck and cheeks.
One of Lyra’s hands skirted up my waist, her fingers curling into my side, holding me closer. “Then why do it for me?”
I lifted one hand, making certain she would see. Thane and Emi have not infected my soul like you .
Lyra’s lips parted, as though she might respond, I did not give her the chance before I kissed her. Hard.
For a moment, she was stiff with surprise, but in the next breath Lyra dug her fingertips deeper into my waist, slamming my body to hers.
Those sweet lips parted and my tongue slipped through her teeth, meeting hers in a frenzy of need and lust.
There was no easing into the kiss, nothing gentle. I demanded her mouth and took it. She tasted like rain in the forest, fresh and wild. This, I shouldn’t want it. Her taste, her body, her skin, I should not be such a weak thing and crave it, but a spark in the blood settled in my chest. Heat that drew me closer, keeping me ensnared by her touch.
It was a feeling like coming home, like I’d been here before.
A craving took hold deep inside, a bit of madness unraveled at the edges, and left me needing more of her softness, her kiss, her touch. More of her.
I wasn’t alone.
Unease faded from her features into something darker, almost feral. One hand held my waist, keeping my hips aligned with hers, and the other dug into my hair, tugging at the roots. She arched against me and a soft moan glided from her throat.
One kiss slid to the next, rough, desperate. All teeth and desire. I tasted her jaw, her throat.
“Roark.” My name spoken in such a cry of want snapped something inside, something greedy. Something dangerous.
One palm flattened next to her head, the other dragged along the length of her thigh, up the divots of her ribs, to the underside of her breast.
I paused and Lyra cracked one eye. She took hold of my wrist, a beautiful bloom of pink flushed her skin. The silver scars flashed with heat when she guided my hand over her breast.
A groan escaped my chest. I crashed my mouth back on her, working the shape of her, rubbing my thumb over the peak of her nipple under her bodice.
Lyra reached between us and palmed the bulge in my trousers. Blood abandoned my head. Couldn’t be helped. With every touch, this woman had my body raging for more, like a boy who couldn’t control his own damn cock.
She would be wise to turn from me, and I’d be wise to let her. But I was a selfish bastard and could hardly stomach the thought of anything but Lyra’s body wrapped around mine, the slap of our skin, her eyes looking at me like I was more than the Death Bringer of the kingdom. Like I was more than a silent Stav who was only here because a boy prince had taken pity on the enemy at the gates.
I tugged at the neckline of her gown, desperate for a taste of her skin, but went still when voices rose from beyond our hidden sanctuary.
“Sentry Ashwood! Melder Bien.”
Thane’s voice followed. “Keep looking. Find them.”
The prince’s voice was next to the door. My chest tightened. Thane would lead the guards away, but he had to know exactly where I was. He’d never used the bone shard from my fingertip, but it gave the prince the ability to sense my whereabouts.
He knew I was tucked away like a coward.
If he knew that, he would suspect the fallen Myrdan noble had something to do with me.
Lyra’s breaths were hot against my lips, but the poisonous fear filled her gaze again. I dragged my fingertips across the line of her lower lip, pressed a soft kiss there, then stepped back.
I will say this was my doing .
She clutched my tunic. “Don’t you dare. You did not want his hands on me, I do not want their hands on you.”
Wicked, beautiful woman. I pressed a kiss to her palm. Thane will know.
I stepped for the door, and Lyra tried to protest, but stopped when I unlocked the latch. As expected, Thane leaned against the wall, picking his fingernails with a small knife, a look of annoyance in his eyes.
“Normally this disheveled state of you might bring me joy.” Thane used the knife to point at a moaning Tomas. “Alas, tonight feels a little different. Care to explain, my friend?”