Chapter 9 #2
When she broke the surface again, my decision was made.
I would wait no longer.
I took a step towards her. She froze, her shoulders bunching. My lips curved. So my little moondove wasn’t as fearless as she made out. I turned my back on her before I forgot what control felt like.
“Get out,” I growled. “It’s time to go back.”
My voice came out rough, half command, half warning.
For her and me.
She climbed out of the water. Fabric rustled behind me while I scanned the trees.
There was enough cover to stop me from burning eyes when we got back.
My men had been too long without a fight.
Too long without a woman. Even after the brothel, they were restless.
And so was I. My control was starting to crack.
The next man to test me would learn how quickly I could peel a soul from flesh.
"I’m ready.”
I faced her, glaring at her clothes. If I took her back wearing nothing but a wet shift and a towel around her, I’d have several men to kill.
“Where are your clothes?”
She lowered her gaze. I caught the flicker of shame in it. Her home had been humble enough, but the farm she lived on appeared more than functional. The thought of her struggling boiled my blood. I just managed to keep my rage from showing on my face.
"I brought all I had,” she stated quietly.
I would make sure she’d want for nothing once I got her home.
I removed my cloak and draped it over her shoulders.
“Use this for now. I don’t feel like killing any of my men tonight.”
Her cheeks flushed again, and the edge of her mouth twitched.
She caught me looking at her—noticed that I caught the smile too—and her features quickly hardened.
Then she stalked off, her feet squelching inside her boots.
I chuckled as I followed. She had many walls up, my little mate, but there were moments when there was a crack in them, and she was so easy to read once that crack appeared.
Her fight was going to be a delicious one.
The victory, sweeter than blood.
I followed her through the trees, the beast pacing behind my ribs, marking the distance between desire and conquest. Every king waits for the right war. I'd claim her once I knew she was ready.
***
The scent of seared meat cloyed the air, thick with salt, grease, and spices from home.
Fire roared in the centre of the camp like claws of light gnawing at the dark.
Dinner was served once I arrived. Roasted game charred on blackened skewers, with bowls of salted vegetables and buttered bread passed around my men.
They ate with the same efficiency they fought with: no cutlery or ceremony, just torn flesh, sharp laughter, and mouths full of hunger. It was a familiar chaos. A comfort I hadn’t realised I’d missed until I was ankle-deep in it again. A comfort that existed nowhere else for me.
Until Narya.
I sat near the central stone ring and spread out my legs, my hands braced on my knees.
A warrior handed a bowl my way, and I took it with a curt nod.
Across the camp, Narya hovered at the edge, still damp from the river, my cloak drowning her small frame.
Her silver hair had darkened to pewter in the firelight, loose now and clinging to her arms in streaks.
She paused when she saw the way my men were eating.
All the mess and ferality that came with it. She’d better get used to that quickly.
I gestured to the space next to me. “Come eat.”
She hesitated, pride twitching in her jaw, but obeyed.
Reluctantly. She sat next to me while Emerias, my third in command, handed her a skewer.
She took it with two fingers and peeled off a section of meat with her teeth.
Her shoulders were stiff. Her eyes never left the ground as she ate.
I watched her from the corner of my eye.
We were barely halfway through the journey and still had a long way to go until we reached my border. I needed her to stay strong if she was to survive the rest of the journey and become my queen.
Once she finished and reached for another skewer, I began to eat mine. It was bland but still better than the dried meats we ate on the road.
Hooves thundering on the road cut through the chatter of my men. They all fell silent and looked to me, waiting for the command. There was only one rider.
I gave the nod. “Drop them.”
Izyák stood and lifted his bow from where it rested against a rock.
Narya watched him leave with a horrified look on her face. I pretended not to notice. Be it peasant or messenger, whoever was headed to the Gate wasn’t worth the risk of letting them through.
So far, we hadn’t been ambushed, which meant word hadn’t reached the Gate yet of our little detour. I planned to keep it that way.
Izyák returned, boots heavy with the silence that always follows a kill.
He threw the remains of a Moonstone priest into the fire. My men cheered and laughed. Narya dropped her food.
“How could you?” She rose to her feet and directed her fury openly at me. “He was a priest!”
The heat under my skin wasn’t rage. It was the fight to keep from standing, from reminding her that no one raised their voice at me in front of my men.
I liked her fire when we were alone, but out here, in front of my warriors? It was better to snuff those flames out sooner rather than later. I tore off another piece of meat and ate it slowly.
“When last I checked, priests still have tongues, don’t they?”
Laughter burst around the fire again. I didn’t need to see the tears of rage in Narya’s eyes to hear them breaking her voice.
“You murdered an unarmed man. A priest! How could you?” she repeated.
I bit down hard enough on the skewer that the wood cracked. “I silenced a risk.”
“But he was a priest,” she emphasised further, hatred clear in her voice. “He wasn’t going to raise an alarm. They’re neutral to conflicts.”
I looked at her with cold amusement and removed my teeth from a particularly tough bit of meat long enough to point my skewer in her direction.
“You think I need a reason?” I returned to working on my meal, a task that I was quickly coming to believe served mainly to strengthen my jaw muscles.
I tore off a more tender section with my teeth.
“He breathed the same air as my enemies. That was reason enough.”
She stared at me like she did at the alleyway, like I disgusted and terrified her. I clenched the skewer tighter, wishing the priest were still alive so I could drive it through his skull for putting that look back in her eyes.
“Don’t tell me you’re secretly a priestess?” I asked her, grinning.
The men barked their approval, the sound coarse and sharp. Her hands shook at her sides. She looked ready to strike. It was cruel to mock her in front of my men, but I couldn’t let her defiance slide. I wasn’t a Bloodstone warrior. I was their king.
"Finish your meal,” I said, nodding to the space beside me again. "Before it gets cold.”
For a long moment, she glared at me, then she threw her skewer into the flames.
"I have lost my appetite.”
I tossed my own naked skewer onto the coals with it, and licked my fingers clean.
"Then I’ll eat enough for the both of us. You may retire.”
She didn’t move. She just stood there, her arms folded tight across her chest and her chin lifted like her pride could keep away her fear. It wouldn’t. I was the Bloodstone King, and if my mate wanted to think of me as a savage, then I’d let her taste it. She’d soon learn who the real savages were.
"Where do I sleep?” she asked, the words echoing flat, like she knew already the answer and meant to refuse it.
My lips tugged into a smile meant to conceal my ire.
"With me,” I told her, not a request or a choice. A command.
Her eyes widened as she looked up at me. I knew that look—like she was searching for a knife she could bury between my ribs. I smirked at the thought of her using the one I gave her, which she kept strapped to her hip. It made the blood in me pound and my loins burn for her.
"No,” she gritted out.
One word. Flat, hard, the sound of a challenge thrown at my feet. I should not have liked the way she defied me. I especially shouldn’t have liked the thought of punishing her for it.
“You will sleep where I tell you,” I warned, my voice sharpening.
“I would rather sleep with the horses.”
A hush swept over my men. Only the crackle of the fire dared to fill the silence.
I stared at her, every muscle locked to keep from moving. Something darker than anger slid under my ribs—hurt, maybe, or the echo of it—but I buried it quickly. Kings didn't bleed in front of their men. Especially not in front of their mate.
"The horses?” My laughter cracked, half threat, half disbelief. "You’d rather sleep with the horses than your king?”
She didn’t know how her rejection cut deeper than a blade ever had. Didn’t know it made me want to rage and tear the camp to pieces.
Given her upbringing and prejudices against my people, I knew my thoughts were irrational. But it cut all the same.
I should be understanding. But understanding was a word I seldom associated with.
"Absolutely,” she said, removing my cloak and throwing it to the ground before storming off.
Laughter rippled between my men again. I let it go for a moment before I turned my head, enough for them to see my eyes, and the sound cut immediately.
I watched her go, pulse hammering against my teeth.
Brave little fool. She thought walking away was victory.
It was only distance, but distance could be closed.
She was braver than she knew, however, to defy me in my own camp, in front of my men. Did she really expect me to spare my enemy just because of the robes they wore?
All Moonstone priests were the same. Liars and ingrates. They’d poisoned minds against my people for generations, turned us into monsters while they blessed their genocide. Every priest I killed was one less lie being spread.
It was practically charity work.
I watched Narya stop next to my bedroll, pick it up, and drag it over to Shadowmane.
There, she unrolled it beside him and curled up on it, her back turned to the fire.
To me. A slow smirk curled its way across my mouth as I rubbed at my jaw.
She didn’t see the way my other fist curled at my side, or how my throat burned with answers I wasn’t ready to give her.
I had killed the priest because I wouldn’t risk harm to her again. I’d drown kingdoms before I let another hand hurt her.
Let her hate me. Hate so far had kept her breathing.
For a long while, I sat by the fire watching her, letting the crackle and smoke crawl into my thoughts.
I thought of the alley and the first night we met.
Her knees in the gutter, the wounded dove clutched to her chest like she could will it back to life.
Her back was trembling beneath the weight of a shame no one should have to carry.
And then her eyes locked onto mine, not with fear, but with hatred. That was when everything shifted.
When my fate stopped belonging to me.
It wasn’t Narya’s crystal that called to me.
It wasn’t even her aelith lying dormant within it.
It was the storm that lived in her eyes, the one that promised she’d never kneel easily to me. She looked at me like she’d already known who and what I was, yet hadn’t been afraid. I didn’t want to break that out of her. I wanted to harness it.
Merge her fire with mine until the whole realm burned with it.
I picked up my cloak and walked over to her, past the warriors spread out on their bedrolls.
Narya lay peacefully, barely a breath beneath the stars.
Her body curled small, arms tucked tight against her chest, lashes fanning across her ashen cheeks.
She was not shivering yet, but the night would bite soon.
Her tunic was too thin, her pride too thick to ask for what she needed.
Shadowmane watched as I crouched beside her sleeping form.
The sight of her so small, curled up and unguarded beneath the endless dark, clawed something awake inside me that battle never reached.
A need to protect her. Her lips were parted slightly, her silver lashes casting shadows on cheeks pale as moonlight.
Even in sleep, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. And the gods had made her mine.
The mate bond thrummed between us, making my chest tighten with longing and my jaw with restraint.
Every instinct screamed to claim her now, but I forced the beast back into its chains.
I draped my cloak over her instead, smoothing it over her hip, her shoulder.
My fingers hovered above the curve of her spine—close enough to feel her warmth, that one slip would have me taking what I’d sworn to wait for.
That restraint cost me in the end. More than battle. More than blood.
She stirred, and I pulled back, not because I feared her waking, but because I feared she’d see the truth in my eyes. That beneath the crown and the scars and blood, I was a man who would burn the realm down to keep her. Protect her.
A strand of silver hair fell across her face. Without thinking, I brushed it away, my fingertips grazing her cheek. So soft. Too soft for a world like ours.
It felt like touching starlight I never meant for me to hold.
But now that I had, I’d make the gods bleed before I ever gave her back.