The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride Read online

  The girl skipped back to her tearful mother. Continuing down the cobblestone street, Anja watched him in open astonishment until they reached the horses. There he glanced down at the flower—clearly at a loss, for he could not throw it away, nor was it feasible to continue clutching the stem while he rode, and stowing it in a satchel would destroy the fragile dried petals.

  Biting her lip against a smile, Anja offered, “Let me help you.”

  Gladly he gave the flower over, then frowned when she crooked her finger.

  “Bend your head.”

  He did, and his eyes seemed like blue fire, intense on hers and very close as she tucked the stem into a link of chain mail at his throat, the backs of her fingers brushing warm skin. “It will not survive long, but it will remain long enough for her to see you wear it—and forever in her memory.”

  “Her mother’s, too,” he said wryly.

  With a smile of agreement, Anja indicated that he could straighten again. “I have also just braved the Raviner,” she said softly. “Will you be kind to me?”

  Gruffly he answered, “Magic is your domain, not mine.”

  Her lips seemed to freeze into their smile. “A spell cannot make anyone kind.”

  Just as it could not make anyone fall in love. Or make them hate.

  His puzzled frown made her realize she had mistaken his meaning. But she could barely fathom his when he said, “Of course it cannot. Kindness is of the purest magic. It cannot be corrupted by a spellcaster’s chantings.”

  She did not know which part of his statement to answer first. Spellcasting was not a corruption. It created beauty, and gave strength, and restored health. But she began with the most absurd part. “Kindness is not magic.”

  Kael drew back from her. “Spoken as any Ivermeren sorceress would. You know only one sort of magic.” Without warning he grasped her waist and effortlessly hefted her astride her horse, then turned toward his own. “But I wield no magic at all, and certainly not kindness. I am Kael the Pitiless.”

  The man who escorted her back to Ivermere, though she had threatened to kill him? The man who had pardoned a woman, though every other king Anja knew would have punished her? “Pitiless?” she echoed. “That is not what I have seen.”

  Dismissing that with a short, harsh laugh, Kael swung into the saddle and gathered up his reins. “Then I am certain I will show you before we journey much longer.”

  3

  Kael the Pitiless

  Grimhold

  Though their leaving had been delayed, the day’s ride upon the King’s Road took them halfway across Grimhold. As the main thoroughfare that connected the kingdoms, the road wound past so many villages and inns that travelers needed to carry few supplies. That day, they rode until full dark. Had he been alone, Kael would have continued on, but he could not as closely watch Anja and see how she fared after darkness fell.

  She had been quiet since leaving the city near the stronghold. Kael did not know if it was the lingering effects of the potion and of almost three weeks of inactivity, or her own uncertainty. He had not mistaken her horror when he had described how he had killed Qul Wrac—and he had been deliberate in that description, so she knew there was no use in attacking him, if that was still her intention. He wasn’t certain it was. He wasn’t certain what she thought about anything. He could make little sense of her. She had been horrified, then touched him and smiled at him.

  Though she probably did the same: tried to make sense of him. He had seen her studying him throughout the day. Perhaps trying to fathom his thoughts.

  He could have told her his thoughts didn’t stray far from her hands. He could still feel the burn of her touch on his throat. The flower she’d placed there had crumbled hours before, but the brush of her fingers lingered on his skin.

  So his two weeks of torment had begun. And it would only worsen while they slept.

  The swiftness with which Kael was accommodated at the public house ought not to have surprised him, yet still it did. In years past, they would have let him in—too fearful not to—but hoped he would remain in the corner, quietly have his supper, and move on without taking a room.

  Here he secured two bedchambers and saw the innkeeper’s confusion that there were not any attendants, particularly as the princess was with him. She had insisted on attending to herself, and had given him a dour look when he’d reminded her to add wards to the walls before using her magic to fix her hair or unlace her tunic.

  Sleep was nowhere near his mind when her yawn sent her from their dining table to bed. Unwilling to leave her unprotected, however, he went up the stairs and into the adjoining room, where he would be near her if any threat arose.

  Though the tavern had been lively while they dined, almost immediately everything within the public house quieted. From below came a clattering, followed by a hissed, “Silence! The king sleeps!”

  The king didn’t sleep. The king fisted his cock and remembered the way Anja’s nightgown had revealed her form, and her firm grip upon her sword. He pumped his aching shaft while in his mind he ripped the silk down the length of her body, baring her fully to his sight. The king groaned and stroked harder when the faint sound of a splash came from the next chamber, because he knew she was bathing, and that her flesh would be clean and wet and fresh, ripe enough to eat. Had that wetness been for him, he would have parted her thighs and feasted for the rest of his life.

  Instead the king allowed himself to imagine plunging into her hot cunt, of burying his fingers in her white hair as he fucked deep. He pictured her pleasure as she writhed beneath him, and his mind echoed with her soft cries when his seed spurted into his hand.

  Leisurely he washed it away, listening to the sounds from the next room, waiting for the creak of the bed. Before long, the sound came. She was ready to sleep, then.

  And with his body satisfied, Kael was ready as well.

  Taking his sword, wearing only his breeches and unlaced tunic, he stopped at the door to her room. “I would enter, Princess.”

  There was a rustle of cloth and the pad of bare feet. The sound of the latch raising.

  A single lamp burned inside the chamber, offering enough light to see her by and casting an orange glow over white hair that had been plaited into a braid that hung over her shoulder. She had put on her long coat as a robe over her heavy winter tunic, which she must have decided to sleep in. Beside her bed leaned her sword, within easy reach. Over the back of a chair draped her leggings.

  He had not realized she’d worn leather stockings of that design—not tied at the waist, as his breeches were, but each one drawn up the length of her legs and secured with ties at the tops of her thighs.

  His sated cock was already stirring again. But no matter how he turned the matter over in his mind, he saw no option but one.

  He strode inside. “We will sleep in the same chamber.”

  Her gaze searched his face. “You fear attack?”

  “From you or from my people?”

  Her cheeks flushed.

  “I do not fear your magics,” he said. “Your sword while I sleep is another matter.”

  “You can latch your door—”

  “A lock is nothing to a child, let along a sorceress.” He moved her sword from the bedside, placing it near the hearth, then picked up the two leather straps she used to secure her leggings.

  He held out one. “Get into the bed and tie this strap around your ankles.”

  Her lips parted and she stared at him in disbelief. But only a moment passed before she realized, “You are serious.”

  “I am. Last eve you spoke of your intentions to kill me. I would be a fool to sleep without tying you.”

  Her gaze slid away from his. Though shaking her head, she obediently slipped off her coat and scrambled into her bed, winding the strap around her ankles. Mouth tightly pursed, she held out her wrists.

  Swiftly he bound her arms together. “Move over.”

  Again she gaped at him. “You intend to share my bed
?”

  “These ties are nothing for a conjurer to loosen. If I left you here alone, you could free yourself and slice open my throat without ever waking me.” And he was not that foolish. “Next to you, I would awaken if you move. I have no intention of taking more. I have no interest having you.”

  No interest in a woman who shook in fear and would not welcome his touch.

  “So you have said.” The lilting cadence of her voice had flattened, and anger burned in her cheeks. “I do not welcome your company.”

  “In my place, what would you do?”

  “I assumed you’d kill me by now.” She sighed. “Perhaps sharing a bed is not so terrible in comparison.”

  Perhaps not for her. When she scooted over and turned onto her side, Kael snuffed the lamp and got beneath the covers. Though she stiffened in protest, he pulled her back against his chest, draped his arm around her waist, and pushed his thigh between hers, just above her knees. Now she could not possibly move without his knowing.

  Her body rigid with tension, she shook helplessly against him.

  “Be at ease,” he commanded.

  “I will try,” she whispered. After a moment, she added softly, “You did not fully escape being a king this day.”

  Because when they had arrived at the public house, slowly and with gathering courage, some of the villagers had approached him with their concerns. But speaking with them had not been tedious. It had not been rituals and reports but the lives of his people. “I do not seek to escape my duty.”

  “I did not think you meant to escape your duty. Only the endless demands upon you.”

  “They are the same.” But at least the number of reports he’d listened to upon his throne had prepared him to answer many of the questions they’d had. “And that is what a king does.”

  He felt her nod, and slowly she relaxed against him, her body pressing more fully against his. Sleepily she said, “Will you remove your sword from between us?”

  Gritting his teeth, he ground out, “I cannot.”

  “I do not wish to impale myself if I turn in my sleep.”

  A choked laugh escaped him. “The only flesh this sword would pierce is between your thighs. But unless those thighs and your mouth first open in invitation, you have no fear of that.”

  She went utterly still again as his meaning sank in. Not shaking, but stiff against him.

  She would sleep soon enough. Kael closed his eyes and willed his own body to drowse.

  Wakefulness found him again at a tug against his arm. Anja. Not trying to get away, only moving her bound arms as if to find a more comfortable position. Then she did it again. Then gave her head a little shake, tickling his throat with her hair, and every single fidgeting movement rubbed her ass in tiny increments against his cock, driving him to madness.

  “Be still,” he said gruffly.

  “I have an itch on my cheek,” she whispered back. “I don’t know if it’s my hair or if there’s something on me, and I can’t use my hands to get it off.”

  Lifting his head, in the dim light he saw the many-legged shadow against her fair skin. On a sharp breath, he blew it from her cheek and rested his head against the pillow again.

  “It was only a brown crawler,” he said. “It’s gone now.”

  He’d thought to reassure her, but that didn’t. Wildly she swiped at her face, her hair. “A crawler?”

  “I blew it across the bed.”

  Immediately she shoved back against him with such force that he almost tumbled over the edge. “Where is it?”

  “If you do not use your magics, you have no reason to fear it.”

  “I have reason to fear it will bite me!”

  That sort of crawler didn’t even have fangs. “It is a harmless—”

  “I just felt it!” With her bound hands, she slapped at the covers, then at her legs. “I think it’s on me. I feel it on me.”

  He couldn’t bear the panic in her voice. “Hold still.” As she lay panting and trembling, he sat up and examined the bedcovers. Against the white linens, it was easy to spot the insect.

  He slipped his hand beneath the crawler and carried it to the window, nudging it from his palm with his forefinger before closing the shutter again.

  Lying on her back, a wide-eyed Anja stared at him as he crossed the chamber toward the bed. “You didn’t kill it?”

  Why would he? “It did us no harm, and I’m not hungry. Slide over again.”

  Though Anja scooted over, instead of turning onto her side, she continued watching him. He felt her gaze through the dark as he slid beneath the covers, and as he pulled her close again. “Sleep now,” he commanded.

  She pillowed her head on his biceps. Several minutes passed before she softened against him. Then she found her sleep.

  He closed his eyes and found his own.

  4

  Anja the Unwanted

  Vale

  On the fourth morning Anja woke to the first snow of the season. Though it stopped falling before dawn and the sun rose, the air remained cold enough that the snow didn’t melt as they set out upon the King’s Road again. For miles, all around them stretched the fields of Vale, lying fallow for the winter and now blanketed in white.

  She glanced over at Kael, and found him watching her intently. Always he seemed to either watch her intently or intently not watch her, but he was watching her now with narrowed eyes. Each time this morning, that look had been followed by his asking whether she was warm enough within her wolfskin coat.

  But now there was different focus.

  “I had thought your hair was white as snow. But now to compare, it is even whiter.”

  Her smile felt tight. “Like a ghost’s?”

  “No. Theirs is white, but it’s a foul and unclean white.”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “You have seen a ghost?”

  He nodded. “As a boy, in the Dead Lands. There is nothing of beauty in their hair. But yours is like winter.”

  “Thin, cold, hungry?”

  He frowned. “Are you hungry?”

  “Not at this moment.”

  “Are you cold?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I did not mean my… I meant that winter often conjures thoughts of being alone outside in the cold.”

  “Your hair conjures thoughts of the fairest part of winter.” He gestured to the snowcapped peaks in the distance. “Like the sun gleaming across the mountains.”

  She had never been called beautiful before. At home, she sometimes thought the trends of fashion and beauty were to look unlike her. No one wanted to resemble Ivermere’s shame.

  Touched by his words, she said, “I think you must be as summer, then.”

  Hot and vibrant with life—but not new life, as in spring, but fully formed and vital.

  “I am winter, too. But a fat, hibernating bear, softened in his den.”

  “You are soft?”

  “Being a king has made me so.”

  She could not halt a peal of laughter. Never had she seen any person built as hard as he was. Even at rest, his muscles felt unyielding as stone, and awake they had as much give as a steel wall.

  “If you are soft now, then before you were king, you must have been as…” She trailed off, at a loss. “If you are steel and stone now, what is harder than that?”

  “I can think of a few things,” was his dry reply. “One you feel each night.”

  Yet again she could not stop her laugh, though her face flamed, and though she could not bear his intent look now and averted her gaze from his.

  Three nights had he lain behind her. If he had been as steel, then she had been the furnace at the making of it.

  Though it had not been true the first night. That night, she had been tense and uncertain. Then he had saved a crawler. That was the moment when she’d realized he truly wasn’t the man she had thought he was. After that, she hadn’t felt nervous in his arms. She’d felt safe.

  But each night, with fear gone, she’d also thought ab
out offering the invitation he’d spoken of. It could do little harm to her if she was not a virgin; no one would have her anyway.

  But Kael had already said he would not, either. And he must have plenty of willing women in his bed. Surely the stronghold had no shortage of them.

  She could not bear to think of those women waiting for his return. And she would try not to think about how it felt to lie against him with her body afire. She would not be a dong-addled maiden, pining for a man who had already rejected her—and not even for the same reason everyone else had.

  She could not blame him for that reason, though. He hadn’t sent for a bride—and surely wouldn’t accept one who announced she intended to kill him.

  “Did your mother bed a man from Glacian?”

  Startled, she looked to him. “Why would you suggest such a thing?”

  He eyed her mouth, then her hair again. “Everyone in Ivermere has dark hair. But in the far north, there are peoples with hair almost as pale as yours.”

  “Oh. No.” Embarrassment heated her face. “I was hiding from my nursemaid, and had concealed myself in my mother’s quarters. She cast a spell to redden her lips and this was the scaling.”

  He frowned. “What of your natural wards?”

  Because everyone who wielded magic could be affected by a spell, but they were resistant to the scaling. Avoiding his eyes, she shrugged. “My mother is a powerful sorceress.”

  “And you are her daughter, and your father’s daughter. Your power would be theirs combined.”

  “No young girl is more powerful than a queen,” she said. “And I ought to have known better than to be in her chambers. Her magic is so strong that there are wards on every wall to keep it from spilling out.”

  Just as walls and shutters kept light from escaping a closed room.

  His mouth twisted. “It spills over into Scalewood. All the corrupted magic in Ivermere does. That is why monsters roam that forest.”