Chapter 11 Alarik #2
Alarik stared at the princess as she reached for a sliver of salmon rolled with cream cheese and chives.
They were seated across from each other in the cedar lounge in the south wing, a decadent tea room warmly lit by two fireplaces and decorated with rich furs and accents of forest green.
The candles here all smelled like pine, and the draped furniture was made of pale oak.
‘Now that we’ve got your revulsion for me out of the way, what else do I need to know about you?’ said Alarik, refilling his coffee cup. ‘Are you interested in this marriage?’
She swallowed her mouthful. ‘Are you?’
‘Not remotely,’ he said, matching her candour with his own. He sat back in his chair, kicking one leg over the other. ‘Does that offend you?’
‘Mortally. Consider my ego sufficiently dented.’ Her smile curled. ‘I don’t care for marriage one way or another. It’s the alliance my father favours.’
‘And you?’ said Alarik. ‘What do you favour?’
She leaned forward, brown eyes wide with wonder.
‘I favour adventure,’ she whispered, as though telling him a secret.
‘And Gevra is a great adventure. Your mountains. Your glaciers. Your beasts. Your endless snow.’ She spoke with such awe, it softened Alarik’s mood.
At least Elva recognized the worth of his country, if not its king.
‘So, I intend to stay a while and try it out. We can endure each other.’
‘Endure?’ Alarik arched a brow. ‘For all you know, I might be great company.’
She canted her head. ‘Is any king on the verge of war great company?’
‘So, you know about that.’
‘Everyone on the northern continent knows of Queen Regna’s ambitions,’ she said, with a snort. ‘Secrecy is a foreign concept to her.’
‘And you are not frightened?’
‘Why would I be frightened of your war? We may lend you our soldiers, but I certainly do not plan to fight in it. If I wanted to get my head lopped off, I’d think of something more original.’
‘If you like, I can have my ice bear eat you once he comes out of hibernation,’ offered Alarik.
Her eyes danced. ‘I cannot wait to meet your beasts.’
As though she had willed it with her excitement, the door to the cedar lounge swung open and Captain Vine appeared in a swell of panic. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, eyes darting between them and lingering for a moment on the princess. ‘There’s been an, uh, incident out back.’
Alarik set his cup down. ‘What kind of incident?’
A ragged scream rang out.
‘That kind,’ said Vine, grimly. ‘One of the beasts has turned.’
Alarik shot to his feet. ‘Where’s the wrangler?’
‘I have no idea.’
Alarik was already stalking to the door. ‘Wait here, Princess. You’ll be—’
‘Right behind you,’ said Elva, scurrying after him, and batting his hand away firmly when he tried to stop her. ‘I’m not missing this.’
Vine raised her brows, looking impressed. Another desperate cry echoed through the palace. There was no time to argue. Alarik turned to his war captain. ‘Stick with the princess. Don’t let her out of your sight.’
Alarik bolted through the palace and tore out into the courtyard. Chaos had descended there, soldiers screaming as they scattered, most too frightened to even notice the king standing in their midst.
Alarik tracked the terror all the way around the back of the arena, where the stone courtyard bled into a grassy field, and beyond it, the forest where the beasts were kept.
Up ahead, two soldiers were tending to another who had passed out in the dirt.
Not far from them, another soldier wailed as she clutched her bloodied leg, the man beside her whimpering as he cradled his dislocated shoulder.
Alarik did not have to search long for the source of their distress. Right on the treeline, a large snow leopard was stalking back and forth, attacking anyone who came near it. There was blood around its maw, on its underbelly and dripping from its fangs.
Alarik crept towards the beast, craning his neck for a glimpse of his wayward wrangler.
Where in freezing hell was she? Panic stirred, tightening like a vice around his chest. His eyes darted, his blood chilling.
There was no sign of the Iversen girl anywhere.
Just this rabid creature, who was making mincemeat of his soldiers.
He pushed on, desperately scanning the trees.
The leopard stilled as he approached, its hackles rising.
He pointed his sword at the beast and roared, ‘HEEL!’
The leopard released a rasping cry. A warning. Alarik drew a steadying breath, his father’s words ringing in his head. A king who bows to his beasts is no king at all.
He walked on, hissing through his teeth, ‘Heel.’
The leopard began to circle him as he approached. It was then that he saw the blood trailing from its holding pen. No. No. He tried not to picture his wrangler’s body inside it, but he couldn’t unsee her glazed blue-grey eyes, that slight frame curled in on itself, pale hands turned stiff and blue.
It was his own terrible mistake. Reckless, desperate fool that he was.
To throw her to his beasts without proper assessment, without training.
It was her blood on his hands. Her loss gutting his chest. Tor would never forgive him.
He would storm the palace and tear Alarik limb from limb, kill the thoughtless king who had carelessly thrown his sister to his beasts without bothering to check in on her for days.
Shame flooded Alarik, a tidal wave of self-hatred coming on the heels of his fear.
‘HEEL!’ he roared again.
The beast roared back.
The leopard was beyond training. Beyond repair. Alarik raised his sword as it sprung towards him. He struck, bringing his sword down just as another cry rang out.
‘DON’T HURT HER!’
Alarik didn’t see his wrangler until she was leaping in front of him. She crashed right into the leopard, throwing her arms around its neck and knocking it to the ground, just as his sword came down and skewered the dirt.
Alarik froze, his blade embedded less than a foot from his wrangler’s neck.
His hands trembled as he unstuck it from the earth, staring down at her like she was some kind of an apparition.
Not his wrangler but a ghost who, for some incomprehensible reason, had just thrown her body between a rabid beast and the point of his sword.
He blinked, but the spectre remained. She was scrabbling now, not to get away from the beast but to cling tighter to it, crawling over its torso, through blood and fur and dirt, until she was covering it with her own body.
She turned then, blinking up at Alarik through blood-streaked strands of copper hair.
At the sight of her rasping for breath below him, relief swept through Alarik like a cold breeze. A fleeting breath of calm before his anger exploded from him. ‘WHAT IN FREEZING HELL ARE YOU DOING?’
She swiped her hair from her face so he could see the same rage reflected in her eyes. ‘Saving this poor animal from your temper tantrum!’
Alarik’s eyes widened, his blood pounding so hard, he almost raised his sword again. He leashed his temper, all too aware of his soldiers gathering at his back, feasting their eyes on the spectacle. ‘Get up, Iversen,’ he growled. ‘Let me put this beast down.’
‘No.’ She cut her eyes at him. ‘If you wish to kill Saga, you’ll have to kill me first.’
Alarik jerked, like he had been struck. He stared hard at her and knew by the crack of lightning in her eyes that she was deadly serious.
Not only would she die for this feral leopard, but she would also likely fight him for her.
And something about that made his blood roar even louder, until the rest of the world fell away entirely – the soldiers and the blood and the trees and the wind – until it was just the king and his wrangler, locked in a seething glare that suddenly felt far more dangerous than the beast trapped between them.