Chapter 14 Stark
STARK
From the petulant looks on Lord and Lady Volkenfrost’s faces, you’d think I was dragging them to Sturmfrost for a funeral, not a massive party.
As we reach the edges of the city, Cratos bounds faster to ride up next to Ephyse and Noemi. We’ve been traveling more slowly than the direwolves are comfortable with for the past couple of days, all because the nobles have to ride slow horses.
“Can’t wait to get rid of these sour fucks,” I tell her, inclining my head behind us to the large Volkenfrost party.
She glances behind us, then raises her eyebrows at me, lips pursed.
“What?” I growl. “They’ve been silent all day.”
Noemi stifles a laugh. “It’s probably hard to think of anything to say when the big bad Daemos Alpha and his direwolf are glaring at you all the time.”
I scoff. “This is just the way my face looks. You know that.”
“If you say so, grouchy,” she says. “Look, we’re basically at their dusty and underused Sturmfrost residence. I’ll see them all the way there. Why don’t you head back to the castle?”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice. Cratos and I take off quickly in that direction. Within a few minutes, the castle is on the horizon. I dismount and stalk into it as Cratos peels off to find Anassa.
The first order of business is reporting to Siegrid. As her door swings open, I note that her redecorating project has sped along. Gone are the ridiculous hunting trophies from the walls, along with the spindly, showy furniture favored by the Valtieres.
In its place, Siegrid appears to have fully moved into the regent’s chambers. A tapestry from her house that features our family seal is on one wall, and thick curtains in the Therion colors, scarlet and white, are at each window.
They hold no sentimental meaning to me. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve been in her house in the Bonded City.
“I hear the Volkenfrost delegation is as sizable as we’d hoped,” Siegrid says in lieu of a welcome.
“Yes,” I tell her. “Hand-delivered to you, all body parts still intact, as ordered.”
Human body parts, at least.
Last night at the camp, I overheard Lord Erlyn Volkenfrost discussing coronation traditions with some of his male courtiers.
Apparently, the new monarch typically strips down naked in front of the entire congregation to humble themselves before the Faceless Goddess. While naked, the Mother Priestess anoints them with sacred oils.
“Cyril Valtiere wasn’t a bad-looking man, I can say that,” Erlyn boasted. “But just wait until our firm, young queen is displayed before us, rubbed down in oil for our pleasure. How humiliating and delicious it will be.”
I didn’t have to act; Cratos took care of it.
Before I could stop him, Cratos dragged Lord Volkenfrost’s spare mount into the firelight. Then, as Erlyn’s face paled in shock, Cratos ate the horse.
It was brutal and cruel, but even I can’t stop wolf instincts.
“My direwolf does not appreciate the idea of our new queen being humiliated,” I said lightly as Erlyn retched into the fire. “I recommend you keep that in mind before recounting any other traditions you’d like to see reenacted.”
Now, I look across the room to the Sovereign Alpha. She’s seated at the dining table amid a pile of parchment and a half-eaten breakfast of bread and fruit. Despite the early hour, she’s perfectly coiffed and in her military uniform already.
I wonder if she sleeps in it. Siegrid would never let someone see her dressed casually; she allows for no vulnerabilities. Not even for her son.
“How are the coronation preparations coming along?” I ask, curious if Cratos will try to eat any more noble steeds before this has ended.
Siegrid sighs. “Mostly fine, although the queen has rejected several of the usual traditions. She has agreed to be anointed in oil”—I still, my blood starting to heat—“but she’s refusing to undress for it, and the Mother Priestess is greatly offended. Still, we’ll get through the day.”
Siegrid doesn’t look up, still focused on the papers in front of her. She signs off on the order she was writing out, then pulls up another paper and begins scanning it while she talks.
“Anyone give you trouble in the other fiefdoms?”
“No more than we expected,” I reply, sitting across from her and pouring myself some lukewarm coffee. “Eisenfall’s still a boorish asshole. But he’s coming. Blumenfall’s playing it close to the chest, like usual. The rest of them will all be there. It’ll be a full room, as you wanted.”
“The rest of them,” she muses. “Not Rabenfrost, though. Did you hear their lord’s eldest daughter is personally waiting on Killian? He really has them eating out of his hand. Alpha Tormun is waiting for the right moment to strike, but he’ll be taken care of soon enough.”
Her voice is detached, assessing. She delicately sips her tea, then places the cup back on its saucer.
If she’s disturbed by the idea of Lord Rabenfrost’s twelve-year-old daughter waiting on the new Siphon host of Alistair Brightbane, who’s had a penchant for young girls over the years, she doesn’t show signs of it.
It takes some focus for me to keep my anger off my face, so her next comment catches me off guard.
“Stark, before you go, there’s something else. I’ve decided you will marry the queen.”
For a second, the room is so silent we can hear the slow drip of water as last night’s icicles on her windowsill slowly melt in the sun.
“Excuse me?” My voice comes out low and deadly.
She makes eye contact with me, challenging. “You heard me. You are to marry the queen.”
I barely have to call my strength, it comes so freely. With a swipe of my hand, I unleash an impelling blast—directed toward her but not at her so that it tips over her table. Her breakfast plate smashes across the floor, shards scattering in all directions.
Anyone else would cower in fear at the violence I have living inside me, so close to the surface at any time.
Siegrid merely looks bored.
“I thought I made my position on this perfectly fucking clear the last time you brought this up,” I snarl. “I’m not interested.”
Liar, slithers a dark voice in my mind. You lie.
With a flick of Siegrid’s fingers, shadows descend on the room, righting the table. It’s a clear message: However strong I might be, the Sovereign Alpha is stronger, with a type of magic I won’t know until we’ve performed her funeral rites.
“Yes,” she says mildly. “I was disappointed in your reaction. Now that I’ve had more time to work with the queen myself, I’ve formed my own opinion.
She’s impossibly powerful and entirely unpolished.
She will not rule well without a firm hand guiding her.
If you are her husband, we can proxy-rule the throne. ”
Disgust and horror rise in me so strongly that I’m nearly shaking. She doesn’t want to forcefully shape Meryn into her own image. She wants to take over the queen’s throne entirely.
“You misjudge her,” I say through clenched teeth. She will rule impeccably if I can keep Siegrid’s “firm hand” off her. If I can keep my distance enough that Meryn’s own violence stays at bay.
Siegrid narrows her eyes. “Perhaps. But as the stewards of Nocturna, we cannot take that chance. We can convince her by showing her historical records, pointing out that the ancient Sturmfrost Queens always married the mated rider. She may protest initially, but she will come around.”
“And me?” I growl.
Siegrid might have forgotten this in her hurry to seize Meryn’s throne, but she’s spent nearly thirty years forging me into a waking nightmare.
A villain has no place next to a queen.
“You need to stop being obstinate,” she says crisply. “This isn’t about your feelings on the matter. We’ve been presented with an opportunity we can’t pass up. We’ll organize a fast wedding, and you should get Meryn with child as quickly as possible.”
Her skin under my tongue. Her soft noises of pleasure.
Fuck.
Reeling in my self-control, I remind myself that Meryn is in no place to be married to anyone, least of all to someone she hates.
Someone who enjoys calling forth the darkness in her, who would nudge her toward the worst version of herself.
Siegrid pauses and looks out the window, considering her next words. “A child born with the powers of both the Therion and the Sturmfrost lines…”
The expression on her face turns my stomach. Like she’s starving and has just been presented with an opulent feast.
I know, then, everything she’s planning. Once a child is born—her grandchild, a baby she can have entire control over and mold to her image—she’ll do exactly what she threatened in the first place.
She’ll get rid of the queen.
I’m going to kill her. I have to kill her. It’s the only way I can keep Meryn—and Nocturna—safe.
My hand inches down toward the dagger strapped to my thigh. If Cratos wasn’t currently… engaged… with Anassa, I know he’d be here immediately, ripping out her throat himself.
The Sovereign Alpha turns back toward me and says lightly, “It will help legitimize her claim, you know. With my son by her side, the Bonded will have to accept her.”
Her hunger for power has made her delusional.
With me by her side, the Bonded might accept Meryn, but the common people and the nobles would flee in droves to Killian. They’re wary enough of her as it is. They don’t need the butcher of Nocturna’s army seated on the king consort’s throne, adding fear to their caution.
Still, her words make me pause, cooling the heat that has slid over my vision.
If I kill Siegrid now, the coronation will fall apart. The Sovereign Alpha has more power and influence over the Bonded than anyone else in the entire country.
If things are to have even a chance of going smoothly, she needs to remain in charge of our forces and an ally for Meryn.
For now, at least.
“Let’s discuss this once the coronation is over,” I say, voice flat.
“Yes,” she says, smiling with satisfaction at my apparent acquiescence. “Let’s do just that. I’ll start figuring out a date for a ceremony.”