Chapter Seven
Ientered the throne room later that morning, and my brows climbed for another reason.
“What’s this?” I swept the bare, quiet, near-empty room. “Is the heat cycle over?”
“No, Lady Ana.” She tipped her head to Alisdair, secretly smiling. “He saw that they bothered you, and ordered all but the guards on duty away.”
“Oh,” I said simply.
Such a thoughtful thing to do, I thought, gazing upon the whole and handsome Shadowsoul once again. Must mean he’s about to do something I’ll hate even more.
The guards clapped their hands over their noses, pressing their backs harder against the walls. I had a feeling they’d run out of the room if they were able. The night before, Alisdair covered me with so many mating marks, I had breaks all over my skin like the brush marks of the painting.
“What do I smell like?” I asked. “Is it a bad scent?”
“Just the opposite.” Aeris brushed an ant-sized speck of fluff from my shoulder. Meya forbid I look less than perfect on her watch. “You smell like rain, pine, and almond pastries baked with honey.”
Like Alisdair.
The man was a filthy, rabid beast who belonged on a leash... but he didn’t smell like one. He smelled like every free, good, and delicious thing in this world.
Just another quality I hated about him.
It was the trick of the predator. The wolf with the soft, inviting fur. The lion with the cute wet nose and majestic mane. The fierce beauty of the leopard. All of it designed to lure you in, getting you close enough until there’s no chance to scream because they’ve already ripped out your throat.
“It’s having a much different effect on you than it is me.” Bradach marched on my other side—stiff-backed and jaw clenched. “Although it might not be bad, every sense is screaming at me to get as far away from you as possible,” he gritted.
“So listen to them,” Aeris snapped, dropping her sweet tone immediately.
Bradach’s grin couldn’t be killed, not even among his obvious discomfort. “And deprive you ladies the gift of my presence? I wouldn’t dare.”
“I assure you, we’ll survive.”
I smothered a giggle.
Bradach held up his end of the bargain, despite humiliating me in the process, so as promised, I announced that he was to be my personal guard.
Well, to be accurate, he announced it when he blew into my dressing room in the middle of me changing. He and Aeris had been bickering ever since.
I studied them both out of the corner of my eye. It was hard to figure their relationship. Bradach flirted and threw himself at her every chance he got. Aeris rebuffed him every time—hard. But in the short time I’d known her, I got the sense that if she really wanted something to stop, it stopped.
Did she enjoy his attention and making him work for it? Or had I sold my soul to another smirking devil for nothing?
As I climbed the dais, Alisdair’s tail grew from his body, wrapped around my throne, and drew it closer to him. I took one look at the thing and blushed. He took one look at me, and smirked.
Kakka, I mentally spat, though I was too busy staring at the floor to speak it. I did not want to think about the part that tail played in last night’s activities.
Foalan was already posted at his side. Bradach claimed a spot next to me, standing even further away than the day before.
“Let them in.”
Aeris heeded Alisdair’s command, opening the doors to a new wave of villagers. They poured in—a familiar face among them.
I sat up a little straighter, fighting to keep the smile off my lips. Plan B.
I’m coming home, faywens. This promise I will keep.
He maneuvered his way to the front of the line and bowed to Alisdair. “Riordan, my lord. I’ve come to accept the job of royal traveling merchant,” he said, “and thank you for the opportunity.”
“I don’t recall bestowing such a title on you.” Alisdair slid a look to me. “Care to explain, my queen?”
I smiled wide. “We spoke of this yesterday, Alisdair, don’t you remember? Someone who can pass as Lyrican will pose as a merchant, and open trade between our kingdoms.” I produced a scroll from the folds of my skirt. “I have the merchant license right here. He can leave immediately.”
“Can he?” Alisdair gave me a long, measuring look. “Why did you choose him? Do you know him?”
“No,” I said simply. It was the only thing Emiana’s mouth would allow me to say. “I never saw him before the day we rolled past him in the square, but I chose him because he’s unchanged. What other reason would there be?” I asked. “Is there a problem? We did discuss this.”
“So we did.” Amusement laced his tone—both confusing and worrying me.
Why did it always feel like he was seeing right through me?
“Very well.” Alisdair snapped his fingers and the merchant license flew out of my hands and into Riordan’s. “Your cart and horses will be prepared for you to leave tomorrow. Go.”
Riordan claimed the scroll and scurried out, sparing me a single glance on his way out. I kept the grin off my face.
Alisdair was watching me.
“Let go! Let me go!”
A man with a gorilla’s face appeared in the entrance, and disappeared just as quickly. Grunting, he came back dragging an elbow, then the furry-faced boy that came with it.
Furry ears on top of his head; burnished-red fur starting on his forehead, continuing up his head, then down his back; an unnatural lengthening of his nose and mouth. He was obviously a fox faeriken, and even more obviously, he couldn’t be more than ten years of age.
“Get off me!” He launched at the man and sunk his teeth in his arm.
“Argh!” Pain wracked his face, but the man did not let go. “My lord,” he gritted. “I am Jotham. I request... to be seen f-first.”
Alisdair flapped a hand at him. “Proceed.”
Jotham hauled the boy in front of us and kicked the back of his legs, dropping him to his knees.
“Easy,” I cried. “You don’t need to be so rough.”
“There is every need, my queen.” Jotham was a portly man with the face, legs, and feet of a gorilla, but the rest of him was fae. It made him an even odder sight than the rest. “This little demon stole my entire basket of strawberry jam, then in his escape, slipped on the ice and broke them all.”
“Geroff!” The boy pummeled his fist, straining to bite Jotham again.
“I used the last of my strawberries to make that jam,” he continued. “They’re my best sellers. The food and coin he’s cost me— My family was relying on it! Because of him, we’ll starve until the next harvest.”
Jotham shook him. “I demand he be punished in the strictest sense. These thieves don’t care who they hurt, who they ruin. I have a hungry boy too. Why should he starve because this brat refuses to work for a meal?”
Alisdair’s expression hadn’t changed throughout his entire speech. I doubted mine was as cool. I darted between the three of them, nearly tipping off the edge of my seat from wanting to grab that poor boy away from him.
I was once a hungry child who grabbed food off the back of a cart and didn’t pay for it. Someone grabbed my wrist just like that, and hauled me before a man as terrifying as Alisdair. That was the worst day of my life, and I’ve had many.
“Let him go,” Alisdair said. “He won’t run.”
Jotham obeyed, and the first thing the boy did was run.
He didn’t make it a step.
Shouting, he dropped flat on his face—his left foot glued to the floor. His furious glare hit Alisdair right in the face.
“Where are your parents, boy?” Alisdair asked.
For a spell, I thought he wouldn’t answer. “Dead,” he finally snapped. “Brother, too. It’s just me now.”
“I see.” He looked to Foalan. “Cut off his hands.”
“What!”
The boy burst into tears as Foalan stepped off the dais.
“Foalan, don’t move,” I barked, shooting up. “You’re not cutting off anything. You’re not putting hand or magic on that boy!” I whirled on Alisdair. “What is wrong with you! Are you insane?”
Alisdair picked at something under his claw. “Being an orphan doesn’t excuse thievery, little bird. Destroying a man’s livelihood must be punished. The law is unforgiving, but it is the law.”
“What law!”
He looked me straight in the eyes. “Me.”
I clamped down hard on my jaw, penning in a string of obscenities that would’ve made half the room faint.
“No,” I forced out, “being orphaned doesn’t excuse thievery, but it does explain it. He’s alone in the world and he needs our help. We’ll help you,” I said, turning on the little boy. “And, Sir Jotham, we’ll pay you what you would’ve made for the jam.”
I clapped. “Bradach, Aeris, will you see to it that Jotham gets his payment, and that this boy—”
“Sentence denied,” Alisdair sliced in. “Foalan, continue.”
Foalan converged on him, ratcheting the boy’s screams louder.
“I told you not to fucking move!” I jumped between them, and tore Foalan’s sword from its sheath.
I leveled it directly against his heart.
“Why would you reject my solution?” I demanded of Alisdair, but stayed fixed on Foalan.
Commander of Lumenfell’s army, I knew I only disarmed him because he let me.
When he made a move to get his sword back, I had to be ready.
“There’s no reason for you to say no.”
“There’s every reason. This isn’t an orphanage or a charity. Once word gets out that you’re throwing coin at every merchant with a down-on-their-luck story, and taking in every weepy beggar child, we’ll be inundated with pleas—and then despised by everyone rejected.”
My eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t give me that horseshit. When the bird faeriken were stealing, coin and housing are exactly what you gave them!”
“In exchange for work,” he bellowed back, slamming his fist on the chair arm. “They couldn’t fight their instincts. This boy has no such excuse. Foalan!”