Chapter 12 Stark
STARK
Riding hard on my direwolf is the only place I find peace. Cratos sprints almost as fast as a blizzard, and I’m able to clear my mind. All that exist are the giant black wolf underneath me and the movement of our bodies together, the wind rushing against our skin and fur.
It’s a reprieve from everything. The responsibility of my station. The spike of worry I felt earlier this afternoon when Killian reached out to the packs.
And thoughts of… her.
Like how she tasted when I licked her tattoo last night, as sweet as spun sugar. It took all of my decades of well-honed self-control to not hold her down and keep going until we were both sated.
I shake my head, trying to dislodge the image so I don’t grow half hard again.
Clearly, it’s been too fucking long since I was with a woman.
Remember where you were, I tell myself. Kneeling down on a pile of her dirty, discarded laundry.
There, that helps.
Meryn Sturmfrost is a bad idea, regardless of how she tastes. Especially now that Siegrid is aware of our wolves’ mate bond and wants to use it against Meryn.
The beautiful woman at my side stares at me from atop her lithe brown direwolf, Ephyse. Noemi’s pale skin is as white as the snowy landscape around us, but her hair is a fiery slash against the quickly passing scenery.
Thankfully, we’re riding too hard and fast to talk out loud. Since Noemi is a Phylax, our wolves can’t speak to each other mind to mind.
I’m glad for the silence. Noemi has always been fucking nosy.
By the time we stop for the night to make camp, Noemi is clearly bursting with held-in conversation. I make her wait, scouting with Cratos up the road just to be certain we won’t have any unwelcome company. Noemi pitches our simple tents and gets the fire going.
Back at the site, she hands me a stick of cured meat and sets a rabbit Ephyse killed over the fire. My ass barely hits the ground before Noemi turns around, emerald eyes blazing with mischief, and sets right in.
“So Cratos has a mate,” she says delicately, but her glance at me is sharp and amused.
“He does,” I say shortly, ending the conversation.
“How’s that all been for you?” Noemi is intent on pushing this, it seems. Typical. “With, you know, the rider.”
“Complicated.”
Noemi’s full lips tilt upward in a playful smile, and she nudges my boot with hers. “Complicated, huh? You and I certainly know something about that.”
I knock my foot back against hers hard, and she almost topples over, laughing.
“Fine,” she says. “I’ll stop asking about it. For now.”
Ominous.
I sigh, guilt setting in. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, and I’m conscious that I’m being a sullen asshole. She doesn’t deserve that.
“Look, there’s not much to tell,” I say, relenting. “There’s nothing going on between me and the queen, if that’s what you’re dancing around.”
My tongue on her soft skin. Her hazel eyes meeting mine, wide and glazed over with an expression I wanted to read into too much. Her hands, weaving into my hair, tugging me toward her…
Her messy. Fucking. Rooms.
There’s nothing going on, and there never will be.
My mind darts back to the power she showcased, the shadows whipping around her like a violent, glorious whirlwind. The terror she inflicted in others and the fascination it unfurled in me. Even now the memory makes my blood run hot.
My vicious instincts meeting her total lack of control… it’s a spark meeting the match that could burn down the kingdom.
“Mm-hmm.” Noemi’s brows are raised, her expression disbelieving. She turns and pokes at the fire again.
She knows me too well.
We grew up together in my great-aunt’s household. Siegrid dumped me with her Aunt Gertrude the moment her body was healed enough from birth to head back to the front. The Phylax soldier who sired me was dead before I was born.
Gertie collected wards, and Noemi was one of several who came in and out of the house over the years—but she was the only one who stayed for good. Her father didn’t want her, and her mother was a wartime casualty by the time she was six.
She was lost and fragile, and so beautiful, even then. The kind of child that can attract the wrong sort of attention. From the first moment I saw her, I assigned myself as her protector.
Although, of course, I failed her in the end.
Noemi sits down next to me, the firelight flickering against her pale skin and creating deep shadows. Worry lines crease her face.
“When’s the last time you saw them?” I ask, and I see a reflected flash of annoyance—I can read her just as easily as she can read me; she’s always hated that.
Her gaze goes pensive as she plucks the rabbit from the fire, slicing off some meat for each of us and then sitting back down.
“Probably…” She worries at her bottom lip, a bad habit she’s mostly broken over the years. “Bonded graduation ceremony, it must be. I mean, I’ve basically been at the front ever since.”
Her expression shutters then, and I wish I could execute every last member of the House of Eisenfall, Meryn’s campaign of noble support be damned.
“I’ll be right there the whole time,” I say, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. “Nobody’s going to do anything to you.”
Noemi looks up and meets my eyes, a rare moment of vulnerability for her. Then a log in the fire pops, and we both turn to look into the flames.
The shutter comes back down over her gaze. “I’m not that little girl anymore, Valstark. I can protect myself.”
“I know you can. But you’re not facing it alone. Just remember that.”
“Give me five minutes with any of them if they try something,” Cratos growls in my mind. “I beg you.”
I laugh darkly and relay his message to Noemi, who gives a weak chuckle.
“They’d probably taste rotten, Cratos,” she says to him.
I finish my meal, then lie back, propping myself up on my elbow, looking at the sky. It’s a cloudy night, and I can’t see a single star.
“Go get your aggression out on a deer or something,” I say to Cratos, speaking aloud for Noemi’s benefit. “Bring back a snack for Ephyse while you’re at it.”
“I’ll make it extra bloody,” comes his sardonic reply.
I hear Noemi shift and then feel her warmth as she settles down next to me. She takes my hand and squeezes it, but there’s no heat there, only friendship.
“Thank you,” she says, sounding more like herself. We sit in comfortable silence for another few minutes, until she sighs and stands, stretching, hands on her lower back.
“I’m going to sleep,” she says. “Cleanup’s on you; I cooked.”
“Please, Ephyse did all the work,” I say, poking fun more out of habit than anything else. I stand to gather up our things, and the familiar, welcome movements of cleaning calm me down until I almost—almost—no longer want to murder every member of Noemi’s family.
When I finally set out my bedroll, my mind continues to drift to a certain hazel-eyed queen and what might have happened last night if both of us had decided to think a little bit less.
It’s deeply fucking annoying that my mind keeps returning to her, over and over, like a hawk returning to its master’s hand.
There’s only one clear explanation.
“Stop that,” I snap at Cratos, who is still out in the forest.
“Stop what?” he replies. “Hunting? I thought the point was to get some aggression out.”
I let out a hiss of irritation. “You know what I’m talking about. Put your fucking shields back up on your mate bond. I know you hate being away from Anassa, but we’ve been over this a thousand damned times—I don’t want to feel it.”
“Shields are as strong as ever, mighty Alpha.” I can imagine his lupine grin. “Thinking about her, huh?”
Shutting out his amusement, I try to refocus on falling asleep. Clearing my mind. Breathing in the cold air.
Anything other than this frustrating tightness in my chest and the frustrating woman who is apparently the cause.
The town of Eisenfall looks like one from a storybook—houses in brightly painted colors, manicured rows of pine trees, broad paved avenues. It’s handsome and idyllic. Hardly the place of nightmares I imagined when Noemi would talk about it.
But I know as well as anyone that beauty can help evil hide in plain sight.
Noemi catches me looking around and smiles wanly. “Father likes things to look nice,” she says by way of explanation.
She is saved from hearing my rude retort by our arrival at the castle gates, where we’re greeted by two harried-looking servants. We sent word ahead by graydove for them to expect us, and the servants have the wolves’ lodging prepared.
“Raw steaks are being sent down straight away, Alpha Stark,” says one of the servants, bowing. Neither of them looks at Noemi for direction or approval. My mood darkens.
Eisenfall Castle is grossly ostentatious: Tapestries line every inch of the walls in garish colors; thick carpets overlap beneath our feet, leaving no cold stone gaps; even the wall sconces are ornate.
Our guest rooms, however, are bare bones. I raise my eyebrows at Noemi after we’re deposited at them. “Do they not keep a dedicated room for you as a daughter of the lord?”
She scoffs. “Please. We’re lucky they didn’t place us in the servants’ quarters. You know the Eisenfall clan doesn’t think of me as family.” She turns sharply and heads to her own room to wash up.
Finally, after a long, dull wait, a servant informs us we are summoned to attend a minstrels’ performance in the great hall.
Noemi explains that these musical performances are common at her father’s court.
“He doesn’t have much to take up his time, since he delegates all the duties of overseeing the fief to various cousins who want to curry favor,” she explains.
“So entertainment like this and elaborate hunting parties are his two favorite pursuits. But his taste in music… let’s just say, it isn’t what I would choose. ”
It doesn’t surprise me that her sniveling wretch of a father has shit taste. The decor in his home could tell you that.