Chapter 99
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
I t was no surprise to me that Rowan had captured the loyalty of the Besklanovvy , not after my conversation with Andrei.
Their affection, however, was wholly unexpected. Her soldiers' families had arrived shortly after the battle, and all of them approached her casually. The women would reach out to brush her arm or touch her face, inquiring after her welfare or imparting news of a loss.
The children threw their arms around her. The men smiled openly.
Through it all, there was an undercurrent of respect. She had saved them, but not only that, she had also solidified a place amongst them in the handful of weeks they were together.
It was strange, to say the least. Socairans were neither open nor affectionate by nature, and for that matter, neither was my wife. She had forged her relationships with my men through sword-fighting and card games, not gently asking after their families and feelings.
I hung on the outskirts, observing the unlikely interactions while I tried not to react to the way she had relaxed in their presence. Like they were a safe place for her, but I was not.
It made me want to pull her into our rooms to hash this out, wordlessly or otherwise, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think that would be beneficial for either of us. Not this time. And that was not to mention the trifling issue of the war we still had to fight that should probably take priority today.
Besides, my lemmikki’s temper and her impatience had always gotten the best of her in the past, and I had no doubt they would fuel her this time as well. She would no doubt be barreling into my rooms fueled by all her righteous indignation in no time.
When Andrei escorted her to the infirmary, I took my leave, choosing to wait for her in the Great Hall. Though the constant itch between my shoulder blades screaming that she was in danger still hadn’t left me, I also knew how reasonably little danger she was in surrounded by the crowd in the infirmary, behind the estate walls, with the soldier who had looked more than ready to lay down his life for hers.
More than that, I hadn’t missed her sideways glances and the proud tilt of her chin daring me to suggest otherwise from the moment she strode into the estate. She had her swords and her lightning. She was more than a match for anyone who would try to get the better of her.
That didn’t make it any easier to walk away.
While I waited, I sent for some of my men, having them report to me in the Great Hall instead of my study. We needed to resupply our storehouses and check in on the local villagers.
Repairs for both the castle walls and the gates needed to begin as well.
I had just finished ordering Henrick to check on the few nearby villages that hadn’t been evacuated when Rowan finally emerged from the infirmary. Her expression was a little lighter as she approached, some of the fire back in her bright green eyes.
“Noblewomen in the sick bay?” she asked, tone casual.
I nodded. “After they saw what you did, they wanted to help.”
She deserved to know the changes she had brought to life. And perhaps, I also wanted to remind her that, far from quashing her voice—or any woman’s in this estate—I was still actively trying to affect those changes with her.
Though she didn’t respond, her auburn brows crept higher, her lips tilting into a small, proud smile. She turned toward the East Wing when I stopped her, gesturing toward the hall behind us instead.
“We’re meeting in the war room next,” I told her, and she stiffened.
She studied my expression briefly before her own hardened into that mask she’d been wearing earlier this morning.
“Good.” Her tone was now back to the cold efficiency from the morning of the battle. “Consider me the Princess of Lochlann in that room since that’s the only way I’ll have a say.”
Must you always be so difficult, Lemmikki?
I let out an irritable breath, my patience thinning at the loss of whatever small bit of ground we had gained. With an enormous amount of effort, I declined to point out that, had I wanted her to have no say in the war room, I would have simply neglected to mention the meeting, but storms forbid she give my motives a single ounce of grace.
For all of the incredible things she was capable of, her sheer obstinance was still a wonder to behold.
“I’ll consider you my wife in that room.” My tone held far more patience than I felt, though I was unable to resist reminding her that she belonged to me. “And the Clan Wife of Bear. And you will have a say.”
“Oh?” She let out a bitter laugh, her icy facade cracking like the surface of a frozen river, revealing the treacherous waters beneath. “Like you did when you left me, naked, in an inn room with my former betrothed? Tell me, is that standard practice for wives these days?”
Verdant flames flashed in her eyes, twin beacons of all the moral high ground she was sure she possessed. My precarious patience with her unending reproach snapped as I blinked away images of her perfect body in pieces, nailed to stakes like their own banner of death and decay.
She hadn’t seen the villagers. Aside from a passing hint here and there, she remained blissfully unaware of the extent of Iiro’s sadism when the mood struck him, but she was as ready as ever to forge ahead into a battle where she was armed with more indignation than information.
I could have told her, I supposed. Could have regaled her with tales of mouths frozen in the scream on which Iiro and his men had ended their lives, but the nightmares that had ripped her from sleep since her flogging had finally abated these past months, even in the midst of the war.
I couldn’t bring myself to add to them now, or, if I was being entirely honest with myself, to rip apart the links of the armor I would need to get through the day when she was standing ready with her arms full of sharply honed blades.
“I believe standard practice for wives is doing everything you can to ensure they don’t get captured and tortured and killed.”
Her lips parted and she took a step closer, energy crackling in the air around her like a portent of the lightning she looked liable to summon again at any moment.
“Right, because they couldn’t possibly do that for themselves.” She ground out each word. “Tell me, were you planning on handing me over to Theo when you traipsed back here to die? Did you have a pact for him to take over our marriage so he could take care of my delicate person once you were gone?”
My hands fisted at my sides, my jaw clenching at the notion of anyone taking care of my wife whether I was cold and in the ground or not.
“Lemmikki,” I cautioned her with every vestige of calm I could muster. “Kindly refrain from referencing marrying another man. Ever again.”
Lest I kill every man that ever so much as looks at you again.
Something flashed in her gaze, distinct from her anger but no less potent. We stood there, taking furious breaths of the same air while I imagined every single way I would remind her that she belonged to me.
That she wanted me, craved me, like I did her.
My mouth watered as I thought of the taste of her skin and the press of her body against the wall, the sounds she would make as I claimed every inch of her so thoroughly that she would be ruined for every other man that ever lived for long after I was gone.
Her chest rose and fell, a blush creeping up her neck that told me her thoughts were not far from my own. Then her head shook side to side ever so slightly before she spun to take off in the direction of the war room.
The energy hadn’t faded, though. It thrummed through the air between us with each step to the massive mahogany door.
I opened the door, waiting for her to enter before leading her to the head of the table.
“Lady Stenvall,” I said casually, gesturing to the chairs at the head of the table.
Her gaze flitted between me and the newly arranged chairs, her features morphing for a fraction of a second into something more surprised than furious before she donned an indifferent mask that belied neither. A few sounds of disbelief rang out around the room as she finally took her seat.
My attention snapped up to meet the offended lords’ gazes. I let them see the full weight of my intention, my authority as Duke of Clan Bear.
Whatever mixed feelings I had about the risks she had taken, there was no denying that she was every inch the warrior of every man here, and twice the leader of most of them.
“Surely, no one is objecting to your Clan Wife being here,” I said bluntly. “The woman who raised her own army in less than two weeks and used it to take down the forces who, I might remind you, had breached our walls. What she did was nothing short of a miracle, and if you don’t think that’s earned her a seat at this table, now would be the time to leave.”
My tone on the word leave left no room for interpretation. Anyone who left would forfeit their place in this room from that moment onward.
Silence descended like an invisible mist, filling the spaces where their words, their arguments, had just been. When no one challenged it, I continued.
“Excellent,” I said, returning to business as usual and ordering them to report.
Lord Ristova spoke up first, carefully clearing his throat before commenting on the status of the second wave of armies. Ram and the Obsidian forces had been slowly making their way here but had turned back when news of the defeat reached them.
Elk and Wolf’s remaining soldiers had begun retreating to their territories as well.
It was more than I had been willing to hope for, though I didn’t imagine our reprieve would last for long. It would at least give us time to regroup and come up with a new strategy.
“And our men?” I asked, glancing around the table until my gaze landed on my cousin.
His mouth was set in a grim line, and I knew before he said the words that the news wouldn’t be good.
“We lost nearly half of the men stationed here,” he said with a small shake of his head. “A fifth of those on the southern line, and a couple hundred men from the western forces.”
I kept my expression neutral, choosing to focus on what this news meant for our strategy going forward instead of the sheer number of casualties. Instead of the never-ending pile of bodies we were still adding to the pyres.
Instead of Pavel’s corpse sailing through the air like one of the stones for their trebuchets.
Rowan’s delicate hand slid over mine, chasing away the memory with the warmth of her touch. She gently squeezed my hand in that same silent offer of comfort she had given me so many times before.
It was a sharp contrast to her blazing eyes in the hallway, an unexpected reassurance that we had more than our recent enmity between us.
I squeezed back after a moment, before focusing once again on our strategy going forward.
“We can assume they’re regrouping for now.” I gave voice to my thoughts from earlier. “What we don’t know is for how long.”
“They’ll have wounded as well,” Taras offered. “They will need time to recover.”
That was true enough. Especially with the aid of the Unclanned shooting arrows into the retreating armies.
“And Mikhail is a coward,” Rowan added, eliciting several gasps from men who were too ignorant to understand that the woman who had charged into battle on their behalf might know enough to have opinions on war. “He was beaten once and retreated. Now that Lynx and Crane aren’t tied up with Iiro, I doubt he’ll risk joining the assault again.”
I nodded, the motion slow and deliberate for the sake of the lords who might want to pretend her points didn’t have merit.
“My wife ,” I stressed the title—that time for her sake—“is correct. That should grant us a reprieve in every direction, but we would be fools to let our guard down. I’ll reallocate our soldiers into new contingents, taking the casualties into consideration, and we’ll send those men to fortify our borders. Lord Taras is overseeing the repairs here.”
My cousin nodded.
“In the meantime, I expect the remaining lords to focus on provisioning your keeps and the villages in your purview, as well as beginning the necessary disbursements to the war widows. I won’t have the families of the men who sacrificed their lives starve for our distraction. Dismissed.”
The list was far from comprehensive, but once those priorities were seen to, I could begin to address the rest.
I got to my feet, pulling out Rowan’s chair for her to do the same. I didn’t hold my arm out for her when there was every chance she would refuse it, and appearances still mattered in front of our people. She wordlessly preceded me out of the room, but the speculative glances she cast all the way back to our wing were enough for me to prepare myself for the storm to come.