The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride: A Fantasy Holiday Romance Read online

  “No, your majesty! Even for water and broth, we used a cup and helped her sip, and the female soldiers attended to her sleeping form. We would not betray her in that way!”

  But they had betrayed her. First her mother, then this minister, then the soldiers. “Begone from my kingdoms,” he said softly. “Flee north to Ivermere as if the Butcherer of the Dead Lands rides close behind, because I promise you—if you or your soldiers tarry even a moment, I will be.”

  The minister’s face blanched. “Your majesty—”

  “BEGONE!”

  Kael did not wait to watch them obey. Rage pounding through his veins, he strode across the sitting room with Anja in his arms. To the ladies hovering outside the door, he barked, “See that she is brought something to eat. Now!”

  She had likely not consumed anything substantial in almost three weeks—the length of the carriage journey from Ivermere to his stronghold. The ladies fled, and he looked to Minam, who was flitting about anxiously.

  “Lead me to her bedchamber,” Kael commanded.

  Minam scurried ahead.

  “You were unkind to that toad,” Anja murmured against his neck, her voice heavy with exhaustion—probably the lingering effects of the potion. Her truth-telling had probably been, too.

  Kael needed no potion to tell the truth. “He deserved worse.”

  “He only did what he was ordered to do,” she said.

  “Not what you ordered him to do.”

  This time he heard the smile in her reply. “I cannot blame him. I would also fear my mother more than I would fear me. But he apparently fears you more than either of us. At this moment, his wits are likely staining his short linens. But I cannot blame him for that, either.”

  “Because you are afraid of me?”

  “I am not.” Her quiet answer released a band of tension within his chest, and his heart seemed to beat more easily. “I expect you will kill me for all that I have said today, but there are worse things than death.”

  Kael could not think of any. He had experienced many different kinds of suffering throughout his life, and he preferred all of them to death. Of course, he much preferred the deaths of those who had made him suffer—and that preference had made him a king.

  If she married him, it would make her a queen. “Yet still you came here, believing I would kill you?”

  “Believing you would soon die in battle—or that I would kill you.” She shrugged. “Everything must be in balance. We must endure something we don’t want in order to secure something we do.”

  Spoken like anyone born in Ivermere. Those spellcasters knew nothing of balance. Their magic was always a trade, but never an equal one. “What is it you want?”

  “What you have.”

  His kingdoms. Kael grinned, for he could admire her ambition—and her manner of securing what she wanted. “And what must you endure? Me?”

  “Yes.”

  He laughed. So the princess believed she would have to survive him. She would no doubt be happy to learn that he had no intention of killing her, no matter her intentions toward him.

  Softly she added, “But I’m certain I will learn to tolerate your touch—and I will bear the pain of your bed. A year is not so very long to endure it.”

  His chest filling with hot molten lead, he fell silent and followed Minam until the chamberlain halted at the entrance to a softly lighted bedchamber.

  “Begone,” Kael told him.

  After only a brief hesitation, the other man fled.

  Striding into the chamber, Kael carried Princess Anja directly to her bed—where he dumped her onto the embroidered coverlet. She sprawled onto her back in a tumble of silken limbs and white hair, blinking up at him in confusion and no small measure of uncertainty.

  “Do not fear I’ll join you,” he told her harshly. “The only thing you have to endure is the journey back to Ivermere—where you will remain. I won’t take you as my bride.”

  Her cheeks paled. “But you sent for—”

  “I sent for no one. Though you are welcome to wed the overzealous chamberlain who did.” If Kael did not kill Minam for bringing this woman here. For giving Kael a glimpse of everything he wished to have. But unlike Anja, he would not endure something he didn’t want to gain something he did. He would not endure mere tolerance.

  Folding her arms over her stomach, she whispered, “You will not have me?”

  “I will not.”

  She stared up at him, her dark gaze not seeming so bold now, but lost and uncertain. Abruptly she turned her head, hiding her face in a curtain of white hair. In a thick voice, she asked, “You vowed to help me crush the spider. Will you still do that?”

  “I will.” Whatever she believed, the Conqueror’s word did mean something. “Rest for the remainder of this day. Tomorrow we leave at first light.”

  And he already cursed every moment that she would be in his sight. For the princess’s magic had begun to work on his heart the moment he’d set eyes upon her—and he might be well and truly fucked before they reached Ivermere.

  But not in the manner he wished to be.

  2

  Anja the Rejected

  Grimhold

  By Anja’s reckoning, she had slept for twenty days—and despite the lingering effects of the kissing potion, she did not sleep again that night.

  Instead she cursed the day that the Conqueror’s chamberlain had sent his letter, seeking a bride for his king. She cursed the day she’d read it and believed she could make a place for herself here. She cursed the day she’d seen the spider and every day that no one had believed that it was there. She cursed the day her mother had slipped the kissing potion into her drink. She cursed the day she’d arrived in Grimhold and revealed all of her plans to the one man who shouldn’t have heard them.

  But she cursed this day most of all.

  As ordered, she was ready by first light—dressed to ride, as the Conqueror had sent word to her chambers that they would travel by horseback, not by carriage as she had arrived. The return home would only take fifteen days.

  Only fifteen days until all of Ivermere knew that she had been rejected. No one at home would be surprised. The only surprise her father and mother had shown when she’d announced her intention to marry Kael the Conqueror was that she believed he might have her. That anyone would have her. Even a man so desperate for a bride that he’d had to send for one.

  They wouldn’t be surprised to discover they’d been right. Nor would they be surprised to learn that it was Anja’s unguarded mouth that had ruined everything.

  The only surprise, truly, was that she was still alive. Never had Anja dreamed that the moment she arrived, that she would tell Kael of her intentions. So she had expected the cool reception from the ladies who’d attended her the previous evening—after all, she had just threatened to assassinate their king—yet it had been some hours before she’d understood from their tightly worded replies that they all believed that Anja had changed her mind upon meeting him.

  She did not know if Kael had told them that was what had happened in the sitting chamber, or if that was what they assumed. But it must be the reason she had not been dragged by her hair to an executioner’s table.

  That fear returned when, at dawn, she was escorted to the great hall, where a number of courtiers had gathered. To see her beheaded?

  Upon the throne, Kael wore a thunderous expression as he spoke to the royal chamberlain. You are more handsome than you should be, she had told him last night, but she must have been blinded by the potion. For he was not handsome. That was a description better suited to courtiers who sculpted and shaped their features into perfect balance. But there was no balance to be found in Kael’s appearance. Everything about him was too big, too hard, too volatile—as if a mountain had been chiseled down to its volcanic heart and shaped into a man.

  Suddenly his ferocious blue eyes rose to meet hers. The chamber fell silent and accusing stares turned in her direction.

  “Princess Anj
a!” His deep voice echoed through the large hall. Like a bolt released from a crossbow, he leapt from the throne and swiftly moved across the chamber, arrowing toward her. A sword was sheathed at his back. Did he always carry one, or was that blade meant for her?

  Anja barely stopped herself from reaching for her own sword. She suspected her skill was nothing to his and that her attempt would do nothing but amuse him.

  The fire in his blue gaze darkened as it slid down her form, taking in her heavy winter tunic, her fur-lined leggings, and her long coat of thick gray wolfskin. “You can ride a horse? I did not ask.”

  “I can.” She rode every day…except for the past twenty. “The distance will be no hardship for me.”

  Her answer appeared to please him. The thunderous expression disappeared, but the guttural hardness of his voice didn’t soften. Each word sounded as if it had been bitten off, but remained unswallowed. “We will leave shortly.” He shot an irritated glance over his broad shoulder. “First there are a few matters for my attention.”

  “Of course,” she murmured.

  “Break your fast if you have not— You there.” He pointed to a sleepy-eyed page who was not so sleepy-eyed after being singled out. “Show the princess to the dining hall. I will join you in a few moments.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he strode back to the throne. Never had she seen anyone move as he did, almost prowling as he walked, yet punctuated by bursts of speed that erupted with tension and force. At the dais, he sprang onto the marble platform and dropped into his golden throne, pounding his fist upon the table in front of him.

  “Who is next?” he bellowed. “Hurry, fool! I have a quest to begin.”

  A quest. As if their journey was an adventure for him rather than an irritant caused by a bride he didn’t want. He was so astonishingly different than anything she’d heard described. Oh, he was as huge as the rumors had claimed, and so strong that even his loose tunic could not conceal the sinewy bulge of his muscles. His powerful thighs looked as if they might rip the seams of his leather breeches with every movement. Everything about him was untamed and proud and seething against restraint.

  Or bursting through restraint, when he slammed his seal upon a document and flung it away.

  “Next!”

  At the rate he was going through them, it would not give her much time to eat.

  “Lead the way,” she told the young page.

  When she returned, it seemed the number of officials who waited to see him had grown. Waiting near the doors, Anja listened to a commissioner ask for permission to send more soldiers to Lyngfen in hopes of catching the bandits that plagued the roads, until her attention was taken by a man in red silk hurrying to her side. Lord Minam, the royal chamberlain. Anja had liked the man upon first meeting him. Though he had nervous tendencies, he seemed kind—and she understood where those tendencies might have stemmed from. Geofry had been a monster—and this king…she truly did not know what to think of him. Her every expectation had been shattered.

  Simply because he had spared her life.

  “Your highness,” Minam said as he reached her side. “Our king asks me to assure you that it will only be a moment before you and he begin the journey to Ivermere.”

  Judging by the number of officials, it would be longer than a moment. But there was no response to give except— “That is very kind of him.”

  A smile wreathed his face. “Yes! Not many see that he is. I am very glad you do.”

  And she was glad she had not been executed. Carefully Anja said, “Did he speak of what I told him?”

  The man’s smile faded. “Only that you decided not to wed him, after all.”

  “Oh.”

  Confusion swirled. He had lied to them, and said he had been the one rejected. Why?

  With lowered voice, the chamberlain said, “Forgive me, your highness—but I hope that on this journey you will take time to reconsider.”

  I won’t take you as my bride.

  Her throat ached. “I do not think a change is likely.”

  Disappointment filled the man’s face. “It is true that he is coarse, and loud, and always springing up and moving about as if hunting for something to kill. But he feels great responsibility to those under his protection. No doubt you heard of the bloodied path of destruction he laid through the four kingdoms as he rid our lands of Geofry’s warlords, but those tales of slaughter do not fully describe him. Why…” Suddenly his expression brightened and he waved a serving girl over. “Only yesterday he saved this girl’s life.”

  Still trying to find a bride for his king. Despite herself, Anja was charmed by the attempt. This chamberlain so clearly admired his ruler and cared about his happiness. “Did he?”

  “He did. Tell her, Marna. Go on.”

  The girl peered up at her with wide, guileless eyes. “It’s true, princess! I would have run past a ward. But he stopped me! I might have been ripped to shreds by your magic.”

  Anja could not halt her smile. “Or ended up with hair as white as mine.”

  White beyond a crone’s white, and more like the white of a ghost—or so Anja had been told. She quite liked it. She was one of the few who did.

  Obviously the girl was not part of that small number. Her eyes widened with horror. “Indeed, princess!”

  Anja had great sympathy for the girl’s fear, but Marna had nothing to fear from her. “Soon I will be gone, but you should always heed the wards. They are there for good reason.”

  The girl’s smile widened—and was the only genuine smile turned Anja’s way. Strange that those resentful stares were not because of what she’d done in truth, but because they believed she’d rejected their king.

  Lord Minam had not given up. “If you delayed your journey, you might come to know him better. Is this spider so dangerous?”

  “I believe it is.”

  “Your mother is a great spellcaster, as is your father.”

  “Yes.” So Anja didn’t know why they were blind to the threat. “But it is my duty as their daughter to protect them.”

  Even if they didn’t want her protection.

  “Could you not delay until after the Midwinter celebration? It is only two weeks hence.”

  Will you not have me?

  I will not.

  Thickly she answered, “I think not, my lord.”

  He heaved a great sigh. “I pray then that you will come to see him as I do. He is more patient and even-tempered than you would—”

  “Enough!” The shout echoed through the room. The table in front of the throne upended, sending scrolls aloft like flies from a corpse. “There is nothing here that cannot wait until my return. Begone, all of you! Or stay. I don’t care what you do.”

  “And he is very amicable,” finished the chamberlain weakly.

  Kael stalked toward them. As he crossed the hall attendants ran beside him, handing him a sleeveless chainmail hauberk that he dragged over his head, a quilted tunic to go over the armor, and a black fur cloak to fasten around his shoulders. Next they began to give him weapons, which he sheathed at his back, belt, and boots. By the time he reached her, the king was prepared for both battle and the weather. “Are you ready, Princess?”

  “I am.”

  He held out one massive hand, and after a moment she realized he meant to carry the satchel containing the items she was bringing along. The leather sack was designed to be slung over her shoulder, but she had taken it and her coat off while waiting. “Oh, no. Thank you, but I—”

  Without heeding her protest, he snatched it up. To Minam he said, “If you have anything more for me, you have until we reach the courtyard to say it.”

  Minam had much more, it seemed. His quick steps matched the Conqueror’s long pace. “I beg you to reconsider your decision to travel unaccompanied—”

  “I will not.”

  “If not courtiers, at least soldiers.”

  Anja looked at Kael in surprise. No one to accompany them?

  Her breath c
aught as the brightness of his blue eyes turned on her. Humor curved his firm lips. “Can a sorceress as powerful as an Ivermeren princess not protect me?”

  She tore her gaze away from his eyes, his smile. “I think you need no protection.”

  “You might be the only one a danger to me.” Humor still laced his voice but it was harder now. A warning. “She will bind my heart and ensorcel my soul, Minam.”

  That mockery sliced her open like a blade, for he had made it very clear she could do nothing of the sort. But there was nothing she could say in response.

  He turned to the chamberlain. “Or do you insist upon an escort for her sake? Do you think I cannot protect her?”

  The chamberlain did not dare answer that.

  Clapping his hand over the smaller man’s shoulder, Kael reassured him, “We will have no reason to stray from the King’s Road to the Scalewood passage, so if you have need of me, we will be easy to find. The princess has said the threat is urgent, so we must go quickly—and the more who accompany us, the slower we travel. The trunks full of the belongings she brought will follow in a caravan. Send soldiers with them, and if we meet any trouble, they would not be far behind.”

  “Yes, my liege.” Minam sounded resigned. “But will you not delay another hour? We expect the envoy from Winhelm to arrive, with answers to our query regarding the soldiers who are amassing near the southern pass.”

  Kael’s face became grim. “The message I have for King Frewin does not need to come from me. Tell him that if their army is not dispersed by spring, I will soon be the ruler of five kingdoms.”

  “Yes, my king,” the chamberlain said unhappily.

  They emerged from a large stone hall into a courtyard. The air was sharp and cold, the sun bright. At the center of the yard stood two horses—one a giant nightmare of a steed, and the other its prancing, snorting twin.

  Kael saw her expression and grinned. “They are as kittens.”