Chapter 9
The ruffled collars worn by the human high council reminded him of the feather ruff of a sea bird, the popping eyes in their naked faces like the fish gasping in its beak.
Their pale, nervous leader shoved a female child out in front of him.
She dropped into a curtsy, bending her head so he couldn’t see her face.
“What is this?” Damir demanded.
“Your bride,” the man whined. “She will come of age in a few moons, and you will have her at the next Revel. We have no other eligible females. They are all matched or married. This is the best we could do. It’s a small colony.”
He made a sweeping gesture at the crowd gathered in the circular plaza, humans and their nightmaids all around the border and Damir and his delegates at the center, a long parade of Nightborn warriors at their back.
It was a vulnerable position for him, but there was nothing to be done about it.
In the worst case, if the colony guards attacked, he and his brothers could risk the arrows and fly away to regroup.
Damir scanned the crowd, seeking Aster’s face, her dark braid, anything.
His gaze locked on her in the back of the crowd, as far from him as she could be.
She was wearing blue, a shade that nearly matched his own skin, her lovely hair in intricate plaits around her head.
He didn’t even see those who stood around her, only her.
Everything else disappeared, even the air between them, and she felt so close, it was almost as if he could smell her blood amid the tangle of scents in the colony.
“Will she be…acceptable?” The council lord licked the corners of his lips when Damir’s attention returned to him and the girl.
What had happened to the woman from the city across the sea?
He could not ask or he’d have to reveal how he knew of her.
It didn’t matter, anyway. His choice had been removed when the peace treaty was signed two centuries ago.
“If you will release the nightmaids from their servitude, I will take whatever willing bride you put before me. But a woman cannot be willing if she is not of age. Even a monster such as myself knows that.”
The human council shared looks and circled together to mutter, and the poor, trembling creature before him sank to the stones. Damir offered his hand to help her rise, but she shuddered away. They thought this terrified child should be his wife. His queen. How had it come to this?
Aster’s blood reached him again, stronger this time. It wasn’t his imagination. Fresh blood, too, not leftover from the wound on her heel. Salaan smite the human bastard who hurt her!
His fury over their trickery, compounded with his fury over her pain, overwhelmed him.
His resolve snapped, and Damir pushed off from the stones into the air.
He flew across the plaza before he knew it, barely conscious of the shouts of the colony guards and his own warriors as he landed in front of Aster.
Up close, he could see a dark smudge on her neck the size and shape of man-fingers and the thick richness of her blood intensified. This wasn’t just a recent wound; she bled still, hidden somewhere by her garment.
“Who?“ he hissed. “Him?“ He flicked a claw at the man standing next to her, who had her shoulder in a possessive vise. The man’s face paled under his golden curls, and he quickly released her.
It was him. Damir’s fist landed in the center of the human’s face, and he heard a satisfying crunch and smelled a bouquet of blood, followed by the man’s pitiful howl. He didn’t even try to defend himself.
“Don’t,” Aster cried, clutching the hand of the pretty nightmaid on her other side. “Don’t ruin it all now, not after all we’ve sacrificed.”
Of course, she had married him. She protected her husband, who had harmed her on the same day he’d made vows to her. “You told me pinches. I smell your blood, Aster.”
To his shock, the man, this cousin, sniveled thickly through his already swollen nose, “It’s only her courses. I’d have married her today, otherwise. Wait, how does he know your name?”
“Get back, Nightborn!” thundered one of the council lords who’d finally made it across the plaza. Two guards stepped between Damir and Aster, but he hardly noticed. He’d been lost since the moment the hateful cousin confessed they hadn’t consummated their union, drowning in her eyes.
“My father, Lord Bowen,” she said, motioning to the man stomping around and ordering guards to take their positions.
Damir ignored him, ignored all of them. “You aren’t married?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. Betrothed as of fifteen minutes ago.”
He almost laughed. “Fifteen minutes and you’re already dressed again? It couldn’t have been very enjoyable, then.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Aster agreed, and he held his hand out to her.
“Come to me.” And she did, slipping between the two guards before they reacted and crashing into his arms.
“Back away from the girl,” her father ordered, drawing the rather decorative-looking sword from his belt but keeping a wary distance.
“She’s my choice,” Damir said, his eyes never leaving her face, even as he was conscious of the sword tip waving in his peripheral vision and the many arrows nocked and aimed at his chest. “Aster will be my bride.”
She slipped her hand into his, and the golden man-child who’d brutalized her stamped his foot. “She’s mine! I untied her! Father, can he do this?” He addressed some other lord who was still huffing and puffing after the dash across the plaza.
Aster’s father answered instead. “Herold’s right. By law, Aster’s ineligible to marry any except the man who ruined her. Release her immediately or face the arrows of the colony and the wrath of the Night Mother herself.”
Nightborn warriors’ weapons rattled as they drew them in his defense.
Damir held up his free hand to still their blades.
“Her ruin is mine. I was the first to untie her ribbons,” he said, letting his voice ring out so all could hear.
At the murmurs of disbelief that circulated around them, he added, “She spent a whole night in my arms, not just ten minutes.”
Even Aster gasped.
“Is this true, darling?” a woman in a flowery gown asked, fanning herself vigorously even though the evening was cool. “Did he see them?”
“Yes, Mother.” Aster nodded and pressed closer to him, blushing. “The night of my absence. He can tell you their colors.”
The ribbons were burned in his brain. Crisscrossed and knotted over her enticing flesh, demanding his full attention as he untied them.
Wrapped around her wrists, not to stop her, but to stop him.
He would never forget. Damir leaned to Aster’s mother and whispered in her cupped ear, “Nightborn blue with crescents of silver.”
“Well then, it is so. The betrothal to Herold was invalid,” she said quietly, a line of worry creasing her otherwise smooth forehead as she took in the sight of Aster in Damir’s arms. The match might not be what she dreamed for her daughter, but surely she could see that Aster did not object.
“I will care for her as she deserves,” he promised. “I know her worth and will not squander it.”
The council of lords, including Aster’s father, drew together again, their jaws as tight as their circle as they talked it over in low voices. They finally raised their heads.
“We can see no other way around it. The king has chosen his bride. The treaty is fulfilled.”
The crowd of gathered humans and nightmaids with their children exploded in shouts and cheers. Aster’s mother sobbed her congratulations, and Herold gaped at both of them from over his shoulder as his livid father marched him out of the plaza, shouting to Salaan about wanton women and lying lords.
Aster looked up at him. “Are you sure?” she asked. Her words were drowned out by the crowd, but he could read the shape of her mouth. He kissed her in answer, felt her pulse through the thin skin of her lips.
“As sure as I am of the twins in the sky. I made a promise to use all my power to take you away from harm. I’m fulfilling it sooner than I expected, but this way, I get to keep you for myself, which is all I wanted.”
When he raised his head, her father, Lord Bowen was before him, tight-lipped and grave.
“I suppose this must be done properly. I need your ribbons, child.”
To Damir’s surprise, Aster produced them, wound into a tight ball, from the small bag hanging at her wrist. She handed them to her father, who in turn offered them to Damir.
“Do you bind this woman to you for all time, in sight of the Night Mother?” Lord Bowen asked.
“Yes.”
Aster held out her hands, her eyes deep pools, and he realized what was required.
What he had already done on the night they spent together.
Carefully, he wrapped her wrists in ribbons, around and around and then in figure eights until their lengths were consumed.
He tied the ends tight, tied her to him forever.
“Manna bless you and Corek sustain you,” her father said grimly. “Salaan knows you’ll need it.”
“Kiss me,” Aster begged, and Damir covered them both in his wings.