22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Valda
I t is a good thing I am not actually affected by the cold, or all these recent soakings would be quite inconvenient. Especially since I cannot take off my heavy, sodden cloak and risk the real pain the sun would cause.
As it is, I have no choice but to look quite perturbed at Konrad as he leads a rented chestnut horse from the inn’s stable. There’s a grimace on Konrad’s face and almost no jingle in his leather pouch after spending so much coin.
I glance his way, still not sure if our last kiss— which he initiated— has finally allowed my gift to work its magic. He seems a lot more compliant, but he is also still mostly himself. Mayhap it is just the fact that he’s finally falling for my beauty that has gotten him to this point.
My beauty that is very sodden right now. I purse my lips and squeeze several water droplets out of my hair.
Konrad bunches his shoulders and grins sheepishly, the price he paid for his new steed forgotten.
I pretend to glare at him, even though I’m terrified inside. What if my scheme actually works and I lure him back to my father’s home? Then what? Just end him like that? Unless I can somehow convince him to become my permanent thrall through something more lasting than kisses . . .
Eloise rolls her eyes and then leans toward me. “Don’t be too mad at him— he’s never had a reason to be charming before, so he’s out of practice.”
Konrad’s sheepish smile twists to a scowl as he turns to his daughter. “What are you doing? Giving away all my secrets?” With that, he hoists her over his shoulder.
She giggles.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Konrad says, spinning with her perched over his shoulder. “I don’t know how to be charming. So, I definitely can’t put a girl on a horse properly!” With that, he situates a still-giggling Eloise on the horse.
I can’t help but smile at the scene before I catch myself. I quickly paste on a perturbed expression.
Sir Pigeon descends from nowhere and perches on Eloise’s shoulder. She pets it happily.
Konrad shakes his head at it before turning to me, a smile still on his face from Eloise. And there’s a twinkle in his eyes I’m pretty sure I put there with my kiss.
Despite him allegedly not being very charming, just his expression coaxes my smile back.
Konrad’s grin stretches, and he steps closer. “May I?”
“I don’t know?” I tuck a half-sodden strand of hair behind my ear. “How charming can you pretend to be?”
He steps closer, the warmth of his body coming as close to affecting my corpse-like shell as anything can. I almost feel alive again. “I can be quite convincing if I wish to be.” Konrad’s hands stretch around my waist. Then he tugs me flush against him .
I lean forward, resting my face against his chest so I can hear his heartbeat. It is such a delightful rhythm. I honestly could listen to it all day.
Except for the part where I’m supposed to be the one to halt it. Because I’m the heartless monster who lost my own rhythm nearly six years ago.
Konrad ducks his head close to mine, his lips on my earlobe. “If you desire, I can even convince you into thinking I am one of the noble rogues from your stories.”
Desire. Will Konrad have any left for me when he discovers what I truly am?
My fingers reach across Konrad’s chest to his coat lapel. I tug it gently. “And you’re not roguish in the least?” Oh, yes, this definitely reminds me of my days as a mere mortal with warmth in my own body.
“The problem is more with my ‘nobility’.” Konrad’s tone cools, and he takes a step back, though his hands remain on my waist. “If I were a noble, I could provide for you the way you deserve, baroness that you are.”
“You’ve always treated me like a lady.”
He grunts. Then Konrad hefts me into the air, setting me sidesaddle behind Eloise, who is sticking her tongue out at both of us.
I quickly situate my skirt so he doesn’t see my garter sheath that once again bears my little black digger. Eloise hasn’t noticed yet that I lifted it from her in her sleep.
“I’ve treated you as well as I can afford,” Konrad mutters, grabbing the horse’s reins and leading it forward. “Which isn’t near as much as you deserve. So, you shall return to your father, who can provide for you the way you deserve and make penance enough that I can provide for Eloise, too.”
I glance down at the little girl as I situate myself better on the horse. And my stomach churns a bit at his guilt. He’s not greedy; he’s just trying to make a life for himself and his daughter in a world where they were both born at a disadvantage.
I’ve tried so hard to hide away from the knowledge that, despite his protests, he is a good man and not the villain he paints himself as. Which is unfortunate and only gives me the strangest sensation of second-hand guilt.
Or maybe it’s firsthand. Because not even a wicked man deserves what I have in store for Konrad of Schwerin.
W e are coming upon my home far too quickly. I can see the silhouette of the formidable keep rising in the distance. My hunt is almost at an end, with my prey willingly walking into his trap.
I glance down at Konrad, who is unknowingly marching to his doom. He has become more than my prey and more than my captor. For all the secrets I’ve had to keep from him, I’ve never been able to speak to someone as easily as I do to him. I think, if we were normal mortals, we would call what we have friendship.
Friendship . . . with a little something more. Because I enjoy kissing him as much as talking.
It’s almost as though my gift has somehow backfired on me.
Eloise yawns and stretches as the horse takes us through the half-dead forest surrounding my childhood home. “Are we almost there yet?”
Konrad gestures forward with the one free, weary arm. “Do you not see the castle right there on top of that hill?”
Thunder cracks through the sky at his words, and a fork of lightning better illuminates it for a moment. The scene is ominous, especially since no rain yet falls .
Dread fills me for what they don’t know yet. What the little chickpea should never have had to know.
Then again, she’s not essential to this. She can continue to live in her ignorance. But I don’t dare give Konrad an express order and discover it isn’t my thrall-like kiss that has him trust me so implicitly.
I’m not sure if I could bear it to know he genuinely trusts me as I lead him to the slaughter.
But not Eloise. She has no part of what is coming. She shouldn’t even be here.
Konrad might forgive me for what I have planned for him. But neither of us would forgive me if something happened to Eloise.
“Actually, chickpea,” I say to the elfling riding in front of me, “I changed my mind.”
Eloise looked up at me, her brows furrowed in confusion. “About what?”
“You can keep it.” Before she can ask what I mean, I hike up my skirt high enough to unsheathe my dagger.
Konrad glances back, sees my leg, and quickly looks forward again. Until he realizes I’m handling a dagger near his daughter and has no choice but to look back.
I hand that dagger to Eloise hilt first. “I can get another one, but this one fits your sheath.”
Eloise grins up at me as thunder rolls ahead. “Thank you, Lady Valda.”
“It’s just a trinket.” I muss her hair before looking back up at the castle we are closing in on. “Actually, we need to pull to the side. Nature beckons me.”
“But your home.” Konrad waves tiredly again. “It’s right there!”
I slide off the horse while it’s still in motion. “A lady doesn’t wait for such things! ”
With that rather unladylike announcement, I dart into the dark woods.
Konrad’s groan is loud enough to be heard over the thunder.
I press myself against a tree and listen more closely.
“I think she’s just scared of storms,” Eloise says. “She keeps running off every time one rolls in.”
The First Heaven opens, and the lightning-charged air gives way as water pours down.
“Son of every werw?lfe!” Konrad growls. “Eloise, don’t repeat that. Also, go back to the village and rent a room. I’ll wait for Valda. If the little Lady has to go in the woods, she has travel by foot, too.”
“But, Abi —”
There’s a clang as the leather pouch with Konrad’s coin is exchanged. “I’m not in the mood, Eloise. Take yourself and Sir Pigeon to shelter. Just make sure I have a hot meal and a dry bed waiting for me once this is taken care of once and for all.”
“But I want to say farewell—”
“Then yell it.”
“Farewell, Lady Valda!” Elosie yells before her voice is carried away in the wind.
I smile at the sweetness of her voice as rain plasters my hair to my face. Will any of that survive when she loses the final member of her family?
My smile washes away with the rain.
“Lady Valda, are you done already? I really don’t want to chase you in the rain again.”
Composing myself like a Baroness ought, I come out from behind my tree and stomp over. “We came this far. We might as well finish this.”
“Exactly,” Konrad says with no idea what he’s agreeing to. He offers me his elbow as my escort .
I take it, and then we trudge up the path together as it turns to mud around us.
He doesn’t know that each slippery step takes him closer to his doom.