Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
HORNHALL
K atarra rubbed the back of her neck. Maintaining this appearance was draining. Usually, she reclaimed her own skin once she retired to her chambers–elevated now to the wing that hosted the High-fae contestants. But tonight, she had taken a victory token back with her.
A small grin tugged at her lips as she looked past her own image in the vanity mirror, to the naked beauty sprawled across the bed.
Revenge had never tasted so good. Katarra dropped her brush on the vanity.
The plump little ass in the middle of the sheets lifted and rolled to one side. “My champion,” Katarra’s reward mewed, delicate fingers lifting into the air and curling to beckon. “Come back to bed.”
Katarra walked over, smiling. “You dare command me?” She took hold of one of Lady Erinned’s ankles and flipped her onto her back.
The pretty brunette giggled as Katarra crawled onto the bed and parted her legs. Then she traced her tongue up Lady Erinned’s calf muscle. “Tell me.” Katarra nipped her inner thigh. “Which way should I have you now?”
“Anyway you wish. ”
Katarra placed her hands on either side of Lady Erinned’s waist and yanked her closer. “I dare say, you are going to make me late for the tourney.” She smirked as she lowered herself and–
The knock on her door was unapologetic and demanding.
“Go away.” Katarra snarled.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Katarra swore in three languages, none of which were spoken in Ventus, and pushed off the bed.
“Wait there!” She pinned Lady Erinned to the spot. “Just like that.”
She didn’t bother with a robe as she marched to the door and swung it open. “What in the four realms is it?”
Archer’s eyes widened ever so slightly, then narrowed. “We have a hunt to attend,” he said.
“No, we don't. I have a melee. In an hour.” She moved to push the door closed, but the commander’s foot stopped it.
“ We have a hunt ,” he repeated, in a tone that likely made his men piss themselves. “Now.”
Katarra leaned in and hissed, “I’m not one of your lackeys. So, unless this hunt is part of the tourney, you can kiss my–”
“A rebel boy from the dungeons has escaped. The Queen Regent wants you involved in his capture,” Archer growled, lips curling over his canines. “Fucking Lord Durrant’s intended for the umpteenth time, will have to wait.”
Katarra weighed her desires. Killing or sex. He really wasn’t offering her a bad option. As much as she hated the idea of abiding him.
She glanced at the vixen on her bed and sighed. “Fine.” She looked back at the silver-haired, muscled male standing in her doorway. “But this better end in death.”
A rcher shouldn’t be surprised by anything the female strutting beside him did. Yet she continued to shock him at every turn. No one had ever been able to do that. Or get under his skin so fast, so deep, within the span of a few words.
She’d opened the chamber door stark naked without a care in the world who saw her, or the betrothed courtier on her bed. That should be enough to keep him focused; her utter disregard for anything save her own desires.
Still, he couldn’t help wondering, as he had stood in her doorway arguing…what wasn’t she able to alter when she shifted. She hadn’t been able to change her petite stature or those unique gold eyes. He was fairly certain the jagged scar marring her perfect left breast was not a creative flourish she’d chosen for her fae form.
His curiosity was strictly research-based, Archer reminded himself and took the reins from the groom, mounting his gray stallion. If only his body could distinguish between science and the type of primal investigation it really wanted to conduct.
Katarra waved off the offered mounting block and swung up onto her beast’s back. The black stallion immediately pinned his ears and snaked his head around to one of the dogs.
“Best let your hounds lead off on that side.” She jerked her chin at the kennel master. “If you want all of them returning.”
The male muttered something, hot breath visible in the cold morning air, but then he pulled the dogs to the far side of the riding party.
“Your steed does not like a hunt?” Lord Durrant asked from Katarra’s left. “Or perhaps he is simply irritable. From getting all worked up yesterday and having nothing to sate his need.”
Katarra laughed, the sound brittle and cold, before she nonchalantly turned her head to Durrant in a way that Archer had seen make men throw the first punch. “You like to talk an awful lot. Does it keep you warm at night?”
“I have no issue keeping my bed...”
Durrant’s words trailed off when Katarra pulled a blue sash from her coat. “Go on,” she encouraged as she tied Lady Erinned's favor into Anarchy's mane. “No issues keeping your bed… warm ?”
Katarra grinned wide.
“Except for last night. Last night you had to settle for the pockmarked kitchen girl’s straw cot.” She clucked at Anarchy. “Sorry about that.”
“I’ll have your–”
Lord Ulrich walked between them, effectively silencing whatever ill-advised threat Durrant was about to utter. “As champion of yesterday’s games, Talon will be first in command. Bring the boy back alive.”
“A lesser fae!” Lord Durrant protested.
“Best hurry.” The king’s advisor ignored him. “That brat is fast.”
With a downward slice of Ulrich’s arm, the kennel masters released the dogs.
T hey raced headlong into the mist, Archer’s war horse in the lead. Jumping an uprooted tree and then a small creek, Katarra stayed hot on his heels.
The hounds were ravenous, undeterred by any competing scents the breaking dawn threw at them. When they crested a hill, they howled, a chorus of approaching death. Close now, Archer wagered. The rebel boy should be just in that thicket of trees.
Katarra must have sensed it, too, for she held up a hand, bringing her horse to a trot. “Hold,” she called out.
Sure enough, a scrap of gray spun wool stood out in the dense grove. The riding party drew up close, the dogs barking out their accomplishment.
“I will go in and bring him out,” Katarra said.
Just as an arrow whizzed by, inches from her head.
The boy fell like a sack of flour from the tree he had been attempting to climb .
Immediately, the dogs were on him, snarling and circling, ready to finish their chase.
“I said hold!” Katarra spurred her mount into the thicket.
Archer followed her in. The rebel boy, wide-eyed and clutching his leg with an arrow clean through it, was trying to scramble into a notched out hole in the side of an embankment.
“Easy…” Katarra said, with a coaxing calm Archer didn’t think possible. She dismounted and approached slowly. “I only want to assess the damage and call back the hounds.”
The terrified lad began crying. She whistled. Obediently, the dogs fell back, growls turning to whimpers. Katarra continued to approach the boy, moving steadily.
“Let them at him.” Lord Durrant ducked under a low hanging limb. “I want to watch something die today.”
Katarra’s gaze sliced up to him. "Did you release that arrow against my order?”
“Nay.” A male Archer had seen during yesterday’s tourney trotted up beside Durrant. “It was me.”
“The King’s Advisor gave you an order,” Archer reminded them. “To follow the champion’s commands.”
“Aye, he did.” The smug male nocked a second arrow.
Archer narrowed his eyes, but Katarra said, “You loose that arrow and–”
The bastard released it.
Right into the rebel boy’s chest.
Archer’s gaze darted from the dying boy, to the fae who had ended his life. The male lowered his bow. “I don't take orders from lesser fae.”
“Drag him down,” Katarra ordered from behind Archer.
Archer’s head snapped to her. Her golden eyes flickered–with what emotion, he couldn’t tell. But it wasn’t going to bode well for Durrant’s friend.
“You have no rights in this land,” Durrant snapped .
Archer nodded to one of the guards awaiting his command. The male dismounted and marched to the High-fae’s horse.
“He is an anointed knight!” Durrant continued to argue as his friend was yanked down from his horse.
Archer swung off his stallion, and pointed to a felled tree. The guard threw the male over the trunk and yanked back his cloak to expose his neck.
“You can’t,” Durrant’s friend protested, his bravado slipping with each word, panic rising up in its place. “An error… I made an error.”
“And in doing so, created treason.” Archer drew his sword from its scabbard and handed it to Katarra.
She looked it over before walking to the fallen tree. Moving with resolve, she had not an ounce of her typical swagger. Only death.
“Mercy.” The fae’s pleas turned to sobs. “I didn’t mean… Please.”
She laid the cold steel against his neck. “You didn’t mean what, exactly? The disrespect? Or the insubordination?”
“Either. Both!” he blurted.
Katarra looked at Lord Durrant, sitting still as death in his saddle, eyes wide, mouth agape. “I believe you said you wished to watch someone die today,” she said simply. “How about two?”
The High-fae at her feet pissed himself, his expensive riding pants turning from a pastel blue to navy.
“The king will hear of this.” Durrant glared at her. “Everyone will know you are a monster.”
A slow smile spread across her face. “They already do.”
In one fluid motion she swung the sword. The clean blow separated the male’s head from his body. It rolled once, coming to rest staring up at the azure sky, mouth set in the appeal he never got to voice.
Katarra wiped the blade across the dead fae’s back. Once. Twice. Then she shrugged, as if that was the best she could do for the weapon’s cleanliness, and handed it to Archer.
He didn’t take his eyes off her as he sheathed it. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up and back to the castle grounds. ”
Two of the guardsmen hoisted the headless body onto his horse. A third fit the head into a sack. “Commander?” a fourth guard, near the rebel boy, called out, “you might want to see this.”
Archer pinned Katarra with a look. “Stay here.”
He walked over to the slain rebel. “The boy was after this.” The guard reached a hand into the hole the lad had been frantically trying to get to. His fist emerged holding a hissing, emerald-green wyvern pup. “Must have been tending to it before he was captured.”
Archer stared at the tiny growling creature. He hadn’t seen one in over fifty years. Its size didn’t stop the mini-dragon from coughing out a spark of flame that singed the guard’s tunic and set him to cursing.
“Could it have survived without assistance?” Katarra, who he hadn’t heard approach, asked from beside him.
Archer shook his head and took the wyvern from the guard, eager to hand it over. “It’s too young.” He surveyed the area. “Something must have happened to its mother.”
“The boy escaped to tend to the beast?” she stated, more than asked.
“Should I dispatch of it?” the guard queried.
“Should I dispatch of you?” Katarra took a menacing step toward the guard, who flinched.
“No,” Archer said to the guard. Then he handed the wyvern to Katarra. “You want it to live. Keep it alive.”