13. Renard #3
Tell her, Renard. Tell her why Arden really sent you here. Pluck the poisonous thorn from your breast. Do it, and you risk her leaving you here all alone—perhaps more alone than you were before you set foot into the Verge. Gods, forgive me, but I cannot—not yet.
“Yes.”
“What do you think he knows? And why is this dawning on you now?”
“The way Ursula talked about the spread of the famine—the cursed goods being traded across borders without the merchants admitting as much. I know Arden, and I suspect that was deliberate. Valehar has a surfeit of perfect-looking crops when what we need is food that will actually feed people. He has become increasingly desperate, and so I’m certain he isn’t motivated by any goodwill or charity.
” I grunt. “Come to think of it, I don’t think Arden has ever been motivated by goodwill. ”
“You think he sent tainted goods to my people to deliberately spread his misfortune? Or was it simple greed for fae gold?”
“Both, I think. If Hollowmire and its surrounding principalities are also undone by a plague, it makes it much more difficult to point a finger at him. Which means the root of the curse is much closer to Arden than anyone else has considered.”
Vireth makes a thoughtful noise in her throat, and I long to pull her close to my body and inhale the scent of her hair.
“And sending you here to look for an answer was what, a fool’s errand? Why would he send you here when it would be only too easy for you to uncover and expose his treachery?”
“I’m living in exile, Vireth. My word has as much weight now as a lump of rotted frog flesh,” I huff. I cannot see where Nibblebones has chosen to bed down, but I hear her trilling squeaks floating down from the rafters above the hearth.
“Still, if his actions are motivated in the ways that you think they are, surely others close to him will see his duplicity. Gods, you alone cannot be the only human powered by mediocre food and thoughts of honor. There must be others,” she says.
“You underestimate how powerful fear can be when it comes to a man’s sense of self-preservation. Even if others know what he’s doing, or what he plans, it is only too easy for them to remain quiet and hope for the best.”
“Do you truly think so little of your brethren?”
“No. I think my people have been living in fear for too long, and I think men convinced they’re saving kingdoms become exceedingly dangerous.”
For once, she doesn’t answer immediately with sarcasm. Instead she looks away toward the dying fire while we both seem to be lost in thought. The room falls silent after that, though not awkwardly. Exhaustion lies too heavily over both of us for sharp tongues, and sharp edges now.
At some point, Vireth shifts closer without seeming fully aware she’s doing it. Her shoulder brushes lightly against my chest beneath the blankets.
Every thought halts—every fiber of my being pauses like a rabbit before a fox. Of course, she notices instantly.
“You’ve gone tense.”
“Perhaps I’m asleep and having a nightmare.”
One pale brow lifts, the humor in her gaze warming my blood better than fine wine. Gods help me. Tired as she is, she still manages to catch everything. I stare at the ceiling because looking directly at her now feels like baiting the bear that is my remaining self-control.
“I take it this ill-advised sleeping arrangement is not quite as comfortable as you believed it would be. Do you then admit defeat, Farmer Knight? Shall I divvy up the blankets and relocate to the floor as I initially proposed?”
“You’re impossible,” I mutter.
Still, I keep my hand in her hair, massaging gently, while her breathing gradually deepens.
As sleep begins its steady march through our partially entwined limbs, I drift off wondering at what point between Hollowmire and Morsell, this stopped being about duty and started being about something more.
At some point in the small hours of the night, I wake with a sudden start. For the first time in years, no nightmares or mysterious portents have plagued my sleep—simply soft warmth and visions of lying naked in an autumnal forest, ticklish moss and red-gold leaves clinging to my skin.
I’m not certain what it is that’s pulled me from such a pleasurable dream, until I turn and see Vireth sitting straight up in bed, her face tilted toward the window and the round belly of a full moon.
The evening’s fog has dissipated, leaving only a curtain of bright stars set against the velvet night.
“Vireth? Is something the matter? Are you well?”
She does not answer. I prop myself up on one elbow, trying to turn to better see her face, but it is hidden behind the silky fall of her hair. Perhaps it is the hour, or the exhaustion that never seems to fade, but again, I would swear that her antlers have grown even bigger.
A cloud passes over the moon, shrouding our room in darkness once more.
I reach out and place a gentle hand on Vireth’s shoulder, hoping to offer some comfort if this be another night terror for her—and quickly pull my hand back, lest I burn my fingers.
Her skin is so feverish, it might as well be aflame.
“Vireth,” I say. “We must find a healer for you!”
I begin to rise from the bed to fetch a cool cloth, but she slowly turns to face me.
In the dark, I cannot make out much beyond the silhouette of her head and antlers against the backdrop of starlight, but already I sense something is deeply wrong.
Her eyes glow white, but she has no pupil or oxblood iris.
With a strength I find alarming, she gently—but firmly—pushes me back into the straw mattress.
Before I can utter a word of shock or protest, she swings one leg over me, settling on top of my waist in a position of utmost intimacy.
I suck in a breath, desperate to focus on anything but the heat of her sex against my rapidly hardening cock.
“Renard,” she whispers, her voice like a frigid wind through a field of reeds.
I grip her hips, intent on moving her off of me, but she snatches my wrists and pins them above my head in an iron grip.
“Gods,” I swear. “What has gotten into you?”
“Godss. Yessss,” she drawls, the sound halfway between a hiss and a moan. “I can tell you long to be inside this body, too, honorable knight.”
She punctuates this sentence with a slow roll of her hips, the movement coaxing the ever-warm embers of my lust to a full, desperate, destructive inferno.
“By the gods, you must stop—you are not yourself,” I grunt, determined to master my baser instincts that demand I shuck my breeches and sink into her ready heat.
“I’ll not press my advantage when you haven’t the sense to know what you’re doing.
Whatever spirit has ownership of your body, leave her at once! ”
“We cannot and we shall not,” Vireth whispers. “So many things in this realm must be corrected. So many things must be undone. So much of this world yearns for release. Even our Vireth. Do you not long to be undone by her? Do you not wish to release her?”
The thing puppeting Vireth pulls my hand forward and places it on her breast, then slides it down her soft abdomen to her sex.
No amount of strength seems to help me to pull away, and I grimace at how wretchedly excited my body has become.
Every fiber of my being wants this, and the spirit inhabiting Vireth seems to know so.
Vireth leans forward, pressing her breasts against my chest and inhaling at the crook of my neck. My heart thunders in my ribs, determined to beat the rest of my body into submission. Relent, it beats. Relent. Relent. Relent.
“Why do you bind yourself to her fate? What do you want from the rot-tainted one—from this lost princess of Hollowmire?”
Lost princess? Starving ravens. That will almost certainly complicate matters further—I’ve no wish to run afoul of a fae king and queen. She is no idle lady-in-waiting, but of royal blood. My ire rises that she kept such a truth from me, but given all I’ve hidden from her, I am hardly fit to judge.
“I wish to help her,” I rasp. “I owe her a debt of honor, and I want to see this through with her. She deserves that much, at least.”
“Mmm,” she hums. “Is that all you think she deserves? Resolution?”
One of her hands slips beneath my breeches and grips my shaft—I’m helpless to stop the whimper that spills from my lips. Vireth chuckles, the seductive sound curling through my body until I’m dizzy with need.