Chapter 4
Awareness seeped through the dark cracks of oblivion.
My side was pressed against a glorious heat that smelled of musk and leather.
There was a feeling of gentle rocking and the soft, rhythmic sounds of horses clopping.
The delicious combination was soothing, luring me back toward unconsciousness.
Peace suffused me from the inside out, a welcome change.
I could stay here forever.
“The scouts…no one follows or…over the border.”
A soft voice from far away floated through the air, threatening that wonderful tranquility. Silence returned for a moment, and I burrowed into the warmth.
“We’ll scout again when we reach Carmen. That border is new, which means it’s weak. They have strong motivation now to cross it.” The surface beneath my ear vibrated with each thunderous word, and reality crashed in.
I opened my eyes to see tan leather and black straps across a muscled chest.
The same muscled chest I’d just snuggled like a pillow.
Lax muscles turned rigid, and I snapped away from his body.
Momentum carried me too far, and I tried to fling my hands out for balance, only to realize they were locked together.
This was a damn tall horse to fall from.
Quick as lightning, a hand snaked out and tugged me back.
Seated sideways, my butt slid into his lap without resistance.
“You bastard,” I muttered my words from earlier, remembering his trick with the draught all too well. Considering the sky was now the darker gray that came with late afternoon, he’d put me out for hours.
Someone snorted behind me.
The muscles beneath that leather tightened, as did his grip on my waist. “Rest for a few minutes. Water the horses. This won’t take long,” he instructed above my head. His deep voice easily carried across the group, ringing with innate authority.
Those were the words of some kind of leader, not a henchman. Trepidation sank in as the men halted but we trotted forward.
I’d just called this leader—this terrifying warrior—a “bastard” in front of his men.
Smart, Etarla.
Before, he had promised I wouldn’t be harmed. With the tension riding his body, that promise might no longer apply. Would he use his fists? Or would he unsheathe one of his knives and slice off my ear? He didn’t strike me as the type to use a whip as Koerlyn had.
I stared hard at a row of bare trees, hardly breathing as we came to an abrupt stop.
He didn’t wait to use his words. “If you haven’t figured it out by now, those are my men. I’m not known for tolerating disrespect, particularly in their company.”
The low, unyielding tone sent my heart into my throat. There were no signs of the reassurance or calm I’d witnessed when he’d helped me breathe or when my body had gone limp. It was the voice of the beast who’d cut down Koerlyn’s men.
“I realize you may have spoken without awareness, given you just woke up. You’ve also had a bad day. With Koerlyn, you probably had a few more. So that was your one free chance.” His lips lowered to my ear. “Understand?”
With his intimidating mass and bent head, I was overwhelmed, swallowed, by his presence. Sure, I was of average height and had some strength, but next to him, I felt as breakable as a twig. No doubt he wanted me to feel that way.
I swallowed. He’d said, particularly in their company. Could I speak freely when it was just me and him? Ask him questions? Curse him out?
Probably not.
“Nod or ask,” he said quietly, each word stirring my hair.
I clenched my fists to stop their trembling. I might as well clarify the ground rules while he was laying them out. “What about when it’s just me and you?”
“You’re asking if there’s still a time when you can disrespect me?”
The barbed question reminded me of Koerlyn’s when he’d first found me. Are you calling me a liar? My answer then hadn’t been sufficient. It would probably fail again now.
I held my tongue.
“Go on. Answer.”
Was it a taunt or a genuine request? How could I know? Indecision kept me silent, and he pulled back a hairsbreadth. My lungs filled on a shuddering breath.
“Well, I’d prefer words to this awkward silence from someone who has something to tell me,” he remarked, the edge in his voice replaced by something like mockery.
It shoved at the fear locking my throat. “You twisted my words into a trick question. Answering questions like that doesn’t end well.”
“As I said before, no harm will come to you.”
“A man who asks trick questions is the same man who will strike me and say that harm didn’t come to me, but that I brought it upon myself,” I said, meeting his gaze. This close, I could see that the dark brown of his irises held small flecks of gold.
He was silent for a moment. “Despite what you may have heard of me, I’m not Koerlyn.”
Heard of him?
I’d only known of him for a few hours. He was a leader of some sort, and he was a ferocious fighter—
Realization dawned. “What Territory are we in?” I asked with bated breath.
“Fourth.”
“And you’re a leader.”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
Those lips quirked into a sardonic smile. “You know the answer to that.”
Air shot from my lungs. I forced an inhale as I searched his eyes. Maybe it was the tiny swirls of gold, but there was…there was some humanity there. I’d come to know heartless, cruel eyes over the past several days. They were frigid. These were not those.
Though over the course of his fairly recent reign, he’d earned a reputation that was worse than Koerlyn’s.
If village gossip was correct, he was a mercenary who murdered Fourth’s previous Princeps and took his seat.
In the few years since, he’s invaded Fifth and Third, razing villages and cities to the ground, mercilessly slaying soldiers and commoners alike with his own hands.
And now, I was being held in those very hands.
“Harthon,” I whispered, waiting for denial but only receiving silence.
The confirmation was a slap in the face.
“Princeps Harthon,” I corrected quickly, preparing for retaliation.
His lips dropped into a hard line. “I’m insulted, but only because you think I care so much for titles that I’ll strike you.”
“You don’t?”
“To be sure, you’re asking if I’m positive that I don’t want to strike you, yes?”
“I…no,” I stumbled through my response, floundering for common sense.
The hand that wasn’t on my waist gestured to my hands. “My goal isn’t to bring you more pain.”
I hadn’t been able to move my hands earlier because they were bound, but not the way I assumed. Fabric strapped my forearms together, not my wrists that had been so heavily abused by Koerlyn’s rope. Instead, strips of white were tucked around the raw skin of my arms.
Someone had bandaged my wrists.
Sure, the restraints were firm, but they didn’t eat into my skin, and my shoulders were far more comfortable with my hands in front. But I was still bound, and he expected…what, exactly? “Do you want me to thank you for restraining me nicely?”
“Did you prefer Koerlyn’s methods?”
“Of course not.”
“Then, yes, I expect some gratitude for the amount of care I’ve taken,” he answered seriously, and my jaw dropped.
“Amount of care? You suffocated me back in those woods.”
He shrugged a meaty shoulder. “You didn’t give me a choice. That draught was the safest way to transport you.”
“Really? How so?”
“Without it, you would have kicked and scratched while I brought you back to my men, cared for your wrists, and maneuvered us all out of Third Territory without running into any soldiers.” A brow arched.
“And while I’m not remotely affected by your attempts to fight, my defenses aren’t made to be gentle. ”
His honest words hung in the air.
I didn’t know what to say because he was right. I would have fought with all I had, and I wouldn’t have stopped until he made me. But he was still a terrible, horrible man. He was my captor, stripping me of freedom, binding me like a prisoner as he carted me wherever he wished on his massive horse.
He chose that moment to remind me of this, dipping once more to my ear. “That all being said, remember what I said before. Don’t disrespect me in front of my men, because then I’ll have to do something about it.”
“You said you wouldn’t harm me.”
“I won’t, but my idea of harm is different from yours.”
That was as clear a threat as any. I broke his gaze, clenching my jaw as I drilled holes into the ground with my eyes. He didn’t care about me using his title, but he wasn’t kind.
He was a predator. All Princepes were. That was something I couldn’t afford to forget.
His hand left my side as we returned to his men.
I held myself as upright as I could, wishing my hip wasn’t touching his lap.
We rode in silence for a long time, the terrain blurring into the monotonous scene of trees, rocks, inclines, and hollows I’d seen in Third Territory.
In our conversation, Harthon said he’d maneuvered us out of Third Territory.
But surely, I hadn’t even been close to the border when the ambush occurred.
We’d been traveling across Third for days, but with all of Koerlyn’s stops, little time was spent moving.
I sucked in a breath to ask, then paused. Technically, speaking to a Princeps without invitation was a sign of disrespect. Harthon may not care much for titles in private, but who was to say an uninvited question before his men wouldn’t cause offense?
A soft sigh tickled my hair. “Say what you want to say.”
Could I be read that easily?
“How did you get into and out of Third Territory so quickly?” I asked cautiously.
“We’ve been making successful incursions on Third. Our borders have shifted, and the area you were in was just beyond a more recent acquisition.”
“Why would Koerlyn travel so close to a dangerous border?”
“Because Koerlyn is too arrogant for his own good,” someone said.