Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
T here was little time to see my rooms and dress before the welcome ball, but that was just as well, I didn’t feel like any more time could be wasted as it was. I dismissed the servant who showed me to my rooms, preferring to bathe and dress myself as I always did. Alone.
Yuriy would be acting as only a guard for this stay. I needed someone I trusted implicitly in the barracks when I had brought so few men, and I had no intention of exposing him to whatever vipers lie in wait in the Lochlannian court. This may be a ball in honor of my clan, but politics were the same the world over.
I used the familiar routine of getting dressed to ground myself, to consider all the reasons I couldn’t run Korhonan through with my sword tonight. I wasn’t here to start a war, tempting as it was.
By the time I finished shaving, my heartbeat had slowed to its usual rhythm. I buttoned up the lightweight black uniform I’d brought, straightening out the fabric as I emptied my mind.
Control would be essential tonight.
When I was as prepared as I could be for a court I had never set foot in, I opened the door to where Pavel and Yuriy stood guard, nodding at the latter to summon the servant to escort me. Then I strode with measured steps through the halls of a castle that was nothing at all like my own estate at Bear.
There was something almost homey about the vast space, with ivy that crept up the walls outside and draped across the vast windows, and the potted plants that hung throughout the interior. For all that the outside of the castle was built for defense, the part that faced the courtyard was all sunlight and open spaces, with vibrant tapestries spanning the entirety of the high stone walls.
There was still a strategy to the design, though, clean lines without alcoves to hide in. Rounded corners that were easy to search around.
It eased the itch between my shoulder blades, if not the tension at walking into a room full of my enemies.
And her .
A pair of guards opened the gilded double doors that led to the ballroom, and I strode forward, the facade of calm, confidence fully in place, ready to get this happy reunion over with.
The music was predictably loud, like every part of this kingdom seemed to be. The servant escorting me went ahead to whisper to the herald, and the music slowed to a lull as the man beat his staff three times. I rounded the corner, finally able to take in the glittering ballroom. It was an explosion of color, brightly-colored gowns and coats so at odds with the more muted tones favored by my own people.
I felt her before I saw her, awareness prickling across my skin just before my eyes were helplessly drawn to a figure in the middle of the dance floor.
Though she should have been unrecognizable from the back with her curls swept up and tamed artfully around a sparkling tiara, I was intimately familiar with the way she moved, the way she danced.
The way she leaned closer to Korhonan like he was her last lifeline in a sea of mediocre decisions.
Fury rushed down on me in a wave of hailstones, threatening to shatter the calm I had armored myself with at seeing them together, as if they hadn’t missed a beat since their time apart. While I was following my father’s orders, getting even more blood on my hands and providing even more ammunition for Rowan to hurl accusations about being a child murderer at me, she was cozying up with the man who hadn’t bothered to fight for her when she was a captive of his enemy.
Then I heard the herald announce the delegation from Clan Bear, and I watched as she froze in Korhonan’s arms, almost like she was surprised, though she should have known we were arriving today.
Interesting.
I should’ve been taking the time to survey the room, to assess the points of entry and exits, to count the guards in the room and locate every member of the royal family.
But I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes from her slim form as she turned slowly when the herald announced my name.
Her face was exactly like I remembered it, yet entirely foreign. This woman was composed in a way that the princess I knew wasn’t, except for the full lips that were parted in pure shock. Korhonan tightened his arms around her, around my lemmikki, and my hand twitched toward the single sword I had worn tonight.
Taking a slow breath, I descended the stairs while I forced my features into an impassive mask.
Control .
I drew closer to her, near enough to see that she was wearing an embroidered teal gown that clung to her curves in a way that would have scandalized every last person in Socair. Her silver tiara held gemstones the same blue-green shade, wrestling her mass of hair into a rare semblance of submission.
She looked nothing at all like the feral princess I remembered.
The ballroom faded around me, sharpening at the singular, central point where Rowan stood. I should have greeted her parents first, then her sister, but I couldn’t seem to force myself from the path that led directly to her.
Korhonan said something I ignored, and she finally turned away from him to fully face me.
The surprise on her features had given way to something more guarded the closer I got to her, but her green eyes were as tumultuous as the stormy hillsides we had ridden through for days.
I gave her the requisite bow, greeting her as the princess that she was playing tonight. She sank into a graceful curtsey in response, the very picture of royalty.
Where had all this propriety been when her life was on the line?
It was a jarring contrast to the girl who had stood barefoot in my room with her tousled curls and my rumpled shirt, smirking at me before shoveling in several biscuits for breakfast every morning.
That girl had been familiar. Comfortable. Mine .
Not yours, apparently , an obnoxiously rational voice in the back of my mind corrected. She was Korhonan’s, then…and now.
“Lord Evander,” she said in a polite tone I barely recognized. “Welcome to Castle Chridhe.”
Oh, so it was Lord Evander , now, was it? Not Lord Arseling, or aalio , or whatever-the-hell-else she had taken to calling me from the moment we left the Summit.
Still, there was something brewing in her uncertain gaze, and she hadn’t so much as glanced back at Korhonan. She hadn’t officially accepted Elk’s proposal yet. Because she was waiting on my permission?
I bit back a scoff. Not storms-blasted likely.
Because she wanted to stay in Lochlann? That was certainly possible.
Or was there another reason?
The answer shouldn’t have mattered. It didn’t . But I had a burning, irrational need to know. Like everything surrounding her since the moment we’d met, it stoked at the dying embers of curiosity that dwelled somewhere deep in my soul.
Curiosity. That’s all it was.
And once it was satisfied, I would walk away. For good, this time.
“Thank you, Princess Rowan.” I didn’t bother to hide my feelings about this game of politeness and pretension we were engaging in.
And if she wanted to stand on ceremony...
“I believe as a visiting dignitary, it’s my right to request the next dance.” Which was fortunate, since I might have actually started a war if I had to stand here and watch the two of them cling to one another for another minute.
Rowan’s lips parted in the barest hint of outrage, and I’d never been more glad about having taken the time to study all the Lochlannian customs I could prior to my arrival. Because there she was. A remnant of the savage girl from Socair. She held her hand out, even as she forced the rest of her features into neutrality. Or at least, as close to neutrality as she ever came. It appeared that even here, in her home, she could only hide so much.
Though this had been my idea, I realized my mistake the moment her skin touched mine.
For a fraction of a moment, I forgot how furious I was. I forgot that she was here on the brink of marrying Korhonan after everything I had done to stop her. I forgot the way that she had left me drugged and how she’d conveniently forgotten to mention there was an enemy spy in my midst.
All I could do was drown in amber and citrus and her , in the memory of her body pliant and willing against mine, in the sight of her bare in the moonlight and her challenging gaze boring into mine just as it was doing now.
It took every ounce of self-control I had ever possessed to will my grip to stay light and impersonal, to keep her an arm’s length away from me when all I wanted to do was find the nearest wall and remind her that she was mine in a way that had nothing to do with blood debts or archaic laws.
She averted her eyes, and I couldn’t help but rake my gaze over her, taking in the things I missed in my perusal from the stairs. While the ladies around us wore gowns that fell off their shoulders and dipped low along their bust, I noticed that Rowan’s covered her shoulders and collarbone entirely.
Covered her scars entirely, which I suspected was the point.
She was also leaner than she had been in Bear. Harder. And the hand in mine was covered in small calluses that hadn’t been there before.
She had been training. A lot, by the look and feel of things.
Out of fear? Anger? Boredom?
Something else?
She returned her gaze to mine, taking a breath as she stepped into position.
“We were expecting Lord Taras.” It was surprisingly subtle for her, like being in her kingdom gave her the modicum of decorum she had been so lacking in mine.
And again, there was the formality, like she hadn’t called him by his first name while she declared him arseprint champion only a handful of months ago.
Like she hadn’t nearly died for his brother.
“He had things to take care of in Bear.” Like making excuses to my father so I could come here in his stead.
The music started up and I rested my other hand lightly on her waist, ignoring the pinpricks of lightning that raced across my skin.
“So you came all this way yourself, for mere trade agreements?” Her words were as thoughtless as they were probing, a reminder of her vibrant kingdom and how very much it differed from mine.
Another thing she seemed to have forgotten in the handful of months she had been gone.
I spun her out, and she was closer when she returned. Too close, but I couldn’t very well push her away without ceding ground I was unwilling to relinquish.
“There’s nothing mere about the benefits of trading for my people, as you well know.” Seeing that it will keep many of them from starving to death next winter. “So yes, I came myself. Why else would I be here?”
I hurled the question at her, willing her to stop tiptoeing around what she wanted to know. She wasn’t an idiot, however much she seemed to enjoy playing one. She had to know damned good and well that I had no intention of sitting back while she entered the alliance I had taken her captive to prevent.
She reared back ever so slightly before shooting me a smile that was more a baring of her teeth. “I thought perhaps you had come to offer congratulations on my upcoming betrothal.”
Crimson edged into my vision at her confirmation, though I had seen the evidence as soon as I’d walked into this room.
“Well, that would be wholly unnecessary, seeing as you can’t possibly hope to finalize a marriage in Socair without my permission,” I reminded her, in case that was another thing she had managed to conveniently remove from her memory. “Or did you forget that I own you, Lemmikki?”
Rowan let out an indignant huff, either at the use of her pet name or at the implication.
“Not here, you don’t,” she growled. “You can’t stop me from marrying in my own kingdom.”
“Of course not,” I shrugged one shoulder while using the other arm to lead her into another spin. “If Korhonan is willing to live out the rest of his life here, then you hardly need to worry about it.”
She must have known that as well as I did. Sure enough, she muttered a curse as she returned to me, her eyes sparking with frustration.
“Theo has already said he’s willing to agree to the terms we reached at negotiations,” she bit out. “You haven’t given a single damn about me or our blood debt since I returned, and now you want to step in and be difficult because I’m?—”
Did she actually have the nerve to accuse me of not caring when I had risked my entire clan for her freedom, all so she could traipse back here and marry her darling Theo ? Bile rose in my throat, along with no small amount of rage.
“Doing the very thing I took you to avoid in the first place?” I interrupted her.
“With the caveats you agreed to!” she hissed.
A small—very small—part of me could acknowledge she had a point, but it wasn’t one I was willing to consider. For reasons I also wasn’t willing to consider.
“I would have agreed to anything to get rid of you that day.” Especially after she had risked the negotiations to get off with Korhonan, then called me a child murderer. “Circumstances are different now.”
She shook her head subtly in disbelief.
“Fine. Then name your terms tomorrow at the council, but don’t drag this out, Evander.” Her breath was coming in pants now as she lost her brief battle with her temper.
She wasn’t the only one. The reminder that she was so desperate to shackle herself to a man who compared her to a delicate flower was doing nothing for my own temper.
“In a hurry to marry Korhonan?” I taunted. “Did you decide that two weeks was enough time to fall madly in love after all?”
I shouldn't have been surprised. She had never known what in the storms-damned-hell she wanted.
For some reason, she faltered at my words, falling a half step behind for the first time since the music began.
“Oh, we’ve had much longer than that now,” she said coldly, collecting herself. “Plenty of time to get to know one another, intimately .”
Before I could react to her words, a throat cleared loudly behind her.
Der’mo .
I had been so focused on her, on this infantile squabbling we were engaged in, that I hadn’t noticed the massive king of my enemies sneaking up on us both.
Though, she hadn’t noticed him either. Perhaps that was why I couldn’t help the smirk that tugged at my lips when the familiar crimson flush spread across Rowan’s skin as she realized her father had overheard her talking about her affairs.
He stood next to us, towering over us both and fixing his glare on us.
“I’ll dance with my daughter now.” The second part of his words seemed to be swallowed up by his own irritation, with the same accent I had noticed the only other time I heard him speak.
Even if I hadn’t been overcome with the need to get away from her after that last proclamation and all the mental images that came with it, I wasn’t foolish enough to disagree with a king in the middle of his own court. Especially not this king.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” I agreed easily, like I hadn’t just been telling his daughter about all the ways she belonged to the man who took her against her will.
I fought to control my stance, my tone—things that should have come naturally to me.
But control had never come easily where she was concerned.