Chapter 27
A Bargain with the Rivertoad King
Eloise
Rivertoads are travelers. My understanding from my personal experience and everything I learned from Jaqual and Damien is that they traditionally travel up to thirty miles per day, crisscrossing Tenebris without exception for weather or season.
I’m surprised, then, to find the camp not far from where we left them last. A few conversations over ale at Maggie’s and I learn why.
As we suspected, New Stygarde and Willowgulch are severely restricting where Rivertoads can move freely.
Maggie tells me that the caravan had to double back before any of them could “pay homage to the sea,” which, I learn, is an incredibly important part of Rivertoad culture.
“Has the goddess sent me a beautiful hallucination, or has the dragon returned?” Jaqual asks as he enters the tent. I haven’t bothered with a disguise. Why would I? This meeting is all about being open and honest with each other.
I raise my glass, smiling brightly. “I have returned, and not only for Maggie’s stew and ale.”
“It’s for my sense of humor, isn’t it? You’re hungry for more of my irresistible charm and jovial exuberance?”
I snort. “Well, it certainly isn’t for your dancing.”
The table beside me falls into raucous laughter. He moves closer to me and whispers, “You know, the soldiers of New Stygarde would make me a rich man for bringing you in. They’ve been here almost daily, asking for information.”
“And yet none of them is here breaking bread with your people.” I glance around the tent and raise an eyebrow.
“They’re not welcome,” he confirms.
“All the riches in the kingdom aren’t worth the price of your freedom,” I say.
“No.” He smooths the arm of his patchwork velvet jacket. “And still, they take that from me.”
“Can we talk?”
He nods slowly, then gestures toward the exit. I follow him down a row to an impressive wagon, but he stops me before I can enter.
“Aren’t you afraid of being alone with a man in his wagon?” he asks. “I might try to take advantage of you. If your mate knew, he’d likely melt down into a swirl of shadows.”
I laugh. “Have I ever told you the story of how I posed as a blood whore to take down a vampire queen?”
He jolts, his eyes narrowing as if he’s waiting for the punch line.
“Here’s the CliffsNotes. Oh hell, you don’t have those here, do you?
Here’s the short summary—they all ended up bowing down to me or meeting the business end of my blade, as will you if you try anything.
And as for Damien, he knows I’m here. Besides, you won him over the last time he visited you.
He thinks of you as a friend now. Poor schmuck. ”
“Is that true?” His eyes narrow.
“The friend part? Absolutely. I don’t know what went down between you two, but he’s turned into one of your biggest fans. Honestly weird for me.”
“No. That you were a blood whore?” Jaqual seems completely disgusted by the idea.
I nod. “I used to be human. Um, that’s like the witches here. People fed off me for money.”
He curls his lip. “How did you become a shade?”
“Faced the goddess in the Darklands.”
Our eyes lock and hold. The amulet around his neck winks at me. He knows I’m not lying.
“Nevertheless, we will stay outside the wagon,” he states clearly. “Unmarried men and women do not inhabit the same wagon.”
“Never?” I ask. I remember Maggie saying it wasn’t done, but a meeting is far different from an overnight.
“Never,” he says with a quirk of a brow. “So, what did you come all this way to talk to me about? If it’s about my men, I think Damien and I said all there is to say.”
“You said you’d lend us the men in exchange for me, and that he could have me back once there was a fair election to determine the next leader of Stygarde.”
He folds his arms. “That’s right. And I also told him, I don’t trust him to keep his word. It’s a moot point. Damien suggested you can’t stay with me because they’ll need you to fight. You can’t comply—therefore, my men remain off the table.”
“What if I could guarantee that all parties would be held to our agreement?”
He rocks back on his heels. “How?”
“Magically.” I lift my chin another inch. “I can cast a spell binding myself to you until the promise is fulfilled.”
He studies me for a few long seconds. “What does that mean, specifically? You’d give me power over you?”
I sigh. “Not exactly. Damien and I promise to hold an election within ninety days of the end of winning the war. If we don’t do that, it triggers the spell, and you can call me to your side. I will be forced to serve your will until Damien relents. If he breaks his promise, you get me.”
“You’d do that? Does he know?”
“He knows. He’s agreed to this plan because he has no interest in breaking his promise to you. He will hold the election if you agree to help us.”
The eye in his amulet winks, and I can see hunger in Jaqual’s eyes like a fish ready to snatch the bait.
He wants this election and believes that it will be him sitting on the throne when all is said and done.
I can’t guarantee he won’t be. It’s a possible future that both Damien and I have to be willing to face.
The prophecy says that the one who tames the dragon will rule.
Logically, that would be Damien, because, as my mate, he has tamed my heart.
But prophecies are vague and slippery. This agreement could be seen as a sort of taming of me.
“What happens if New Stygarde wins the war?”
“The agreement dissolves.”
“What happens if you die in battle?” he asks.
“The magic dissolves, but Damien will follow through.”
“And if Damien dies with you?”
“If we both die but win, you’re on your own, Jaqual. You’ll have to elect a leader anyway. Raise your gods-damned hand.”
“What if I die?”
“The magical agreement dissolves.”
“Unacceptable,” he says, and I’m truly surprised by the passion he places behind the words.
“I’m a powerful witch, but I can’t resurrect you from the dead just so you can be elected king.”
He bats away my words with a flick of his narrow fingers. “I don’t care if it’s me, Eloise. I care that there’s an election. I will not be party to an agreement that dissolves upon my death. Should I die, you must be compelled to have the election anyway.”
I reach out to Phantom and have a mental conversation with my great-great-great-aunt Sara.
“It can be done,” I say. “Instead of binding myself to you, I can bind myself to the promise. If you provide the men, and I mean all of the men, Jaqual—you must compel your mercenaries to fight for us as a requirement of this agreement, or it’s null and void. ”
“If I say so, they will fight to the death.”
I nod. “Then the spell will drain my life-force and eventually kill me if Damien does not comply with the specifications we set out for holding the election.”
His amulet blinks, and I can almost feel his magic scanning me for lies. But I’m not lying. I can do the spell. We need his army. The only thing we have to lose is Damien being named King of Stygarde, and that is a possibility he said he was willing to live with if it saved his people.
“Well?” I prompt when the silence seems to go on and on.
Jaqual rolls his eyes toward the starry sky above us.
“I need to talk with the heads of each of the Rivertoad families. Unlike Stygarde, we believe in consent around here. My position and my biology bless me with the magical ability to force my assassins to fight, but I won’t do it against their will. They have to agree. I need a few days.”
“You have twenty-four hours,” I say, turning away from him. “I can’t be away from our camp for any longer than that.”
He groans. “I don’t know if it’s possible.”
“How many are there?”
“Sixteen. One for every spoke on the wheel.”
It comes together for me like the pieces of a puzzle. “Are the heads of the families the head of the spoke and all the wagons in line behind them their descendants?”
He tips his head back and forth. “Being biologically related isn’t a requirement to be part of a family, but otherwise, you have it. Each family head speaks for every wagon in their spoke.”
“So sixteen conversations and sixteen yeses between us and this agreement. I have faith in you.”
He rubs his temples, lips flattening. “Fine. You can use the same wagon you did before for the night. I’ll come and get you when I have an answer. We can get the key from Maggie.”
I follow Jaqual back toward Maggie’s tent but psychically ask Phantom to deliver a message to Damien.
Our conversation was well received, we’re close to an agreement, and I’ll be staying the night at the Rivertoad camp while Jaqual thinks it through.
I sense the dragon launch into the air, and then they’re gone.
By the time Maggie provides me with the butterfly key, Jaqual has excused himself to follow through on what I presume will be a long night of conversations.
I head to the violet wagon for some much-needed rest. I’m still recharging my batteries from bringing the vampires through the portal.
Even though I slept well the last two nights, I’m wiped.
Since I’ve been here before, I find it easy to locate the wagon and haul myself inside, wondering for the first time what family’s protection I’m officially under in this spoke.
I undress completely, carefully stacking my weapons on the small counter.
It feels incredible to be free of the weight.
As before, the space is small but cozy, and I crawl under the red velvet blanket naked, snuggling into a surprisingly comfortable mattress.
I drift off quickly but jolt awake when a cool shadow wraps around my waist.
“Shh. Eloise, it’s just me.” Damien forms, his vast size seeming to fill the wagon.
“What are you doing here?”
“I said it was okay with me for you to negotiate the election, not for you to spend the night alone. I came to stay with my wife.”
I chuckle. “Okay, but good luck fitting into this tiny bed with me.”
“Oh, I’ll fit, little bird, even if I need to slide inside you to do so.
” He removes Dawnbreaker and then the rest of his clothing.
Cool shadows wrap around my body, and my inner darkness seems to respond, my shadows fitting inside his.
Somehow, we both end up in the small space, me mostly on top of him and propped up by the wall. It’s tight but not uncomfortable.
He trails his hand down my spine and cups my ass. I throw one sleepy leg over his hips and straddle him, feeling the hard length of him pressed against my center. Lazily, he squeezes my upper thigh. “Are you tired, little bird?”
“Not tired enough to say no to this.” I kiss along the underside of his jaw, feeling warm and loose and as if nothing exists in the world other than the heat of his body beneath me.
He lifts me, and with a swift angle of his hips, slides into me, drawing a deep breath as we join.
I interlace my fingers with his on either side of his head as we start to move.
Our lips brush. Deeper. He sweeps his tongue into my mouth, the rhythm of our bodies moving against each other in the way of well-practiced lovers.
This lovemaking is soft, gentle, a tangling of souls in the night, a pinpoint of light in an otherwise eternal darkness.
The wagon rocks with us as we crescendo, coming together, climaxing in unison as if everything we are is one and this mating is an orchestrated dance for the gods. Holy. Sacred. Soul-bound.
When it’s finished, we curl onto our sides, his bigger body wrapped around mine. “The future King and Queen of Stygarde make cracking use of dog-sized bed,” I say in my best news reporter voice.
“We don’t know that,” he whispers. “Depending on how this all goes down, we may have no titles at all. We may become renegades very happy to make use of any bed that’s above ground.”
He means, we’ll be lucky to be alive. “Well, you did once say you’d be happy to build a home for us in the wilds of Dimhollow. I’m sure the witches would be amenable to that plan if we survive.”
He burrows his face into my hair and whispers, “I don’t care where it is. Wherever you are is home.”
I drift off, feeling exactly the same way.