The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride Read online

  How could he be so certain? But Kael did not wait to explain. Instead he threw the sides of his cloak back from his shoulders—to free his arms, she realized. If he drew his sword, the heavy material would not hamper his swing.

  As he disappeared into the village and the sound of the hoof beats retreated, all was quiet. Then a raven cawed, the hoarse sound rubbing prickles over her unease-tightened skin. She shivered despite the heavy comfort of her coat. Beneath her, the big mare moved restlessly. She tossed her head and snorted, sending plumes of steam into the air.

  And there were eyes upon her.

  Anja stilled, her gaze searching. There was no one in sight. Yet whatever she had sensed—that Kael had sensed earlier—she knew with absolute certainty that it was close…and coming closer.

  Sudden fear knocked her heart against her ribs. She dug her heels in and the horse sprang forward—

  Then whipped around, the mare rearing and her hindquarters pivoting as if her reins had suddenly been yanked to the side. Unseated by the abrupt movement, Anja couldn’t regain her balance. Her cry cut short as she crashed to the ground on a clump of frozen grass. Stunned, she lay on her side, coughing and trying to regain her breath.

  “Whoa, there! Easy, girl.” The deep voice was joined by another man’s cackling laugh. “Easy.”

  Gasping air into her pained chest, Anja scrambled back toward the wall, regaining her feet and drawing her sword with hands that shook wildly.

  The “easy, girl” had not been for her. A full-bearded giant of a man held her horse’s reins, trying to soothe the startled animal. Four other men were with him, watching Anja with expressions that ranged from cruelly amused to darkly irritated to hotly eager. A spell, she realized. A cloaking spell of some sort had allowed these bandits to come upon her unseen.

  Were there more? Had they done the same to— “Kael!” she screamed his name. “Kael!”

  That drew more cackling laughter from a wiry figure standing behind a man who watched her with an amused expression. Long blond hair framed a face reddened by the wind. The bandits’ leader, she thought. A leather cuirass armored his chest, a heavy cloak fell around his shoulders, and he stood with the point of his sword buried in the ground between his booted feet, hands resting lightly on the hilt in a careless pose.

  His blond eyebrows arched. “Kael?” Laughing, he shook his head. “Your companion was a giant, for certain, but no bigger than my shaggy friend there—and no king. Did you see a golden crown upon his head? Perhaps there was a spell upon his crown, to disguise it as we were disguised.”

  He addressed the last to the dark-haired man who stood a few paces away, and who did not wait as carelessly as his leader. With crossbow braced at his shoulder, he faced the broken gate—where Kael would come through.

  He cast an irritated glance back at them before resuming his watch. “Crown or not, he must still be dealt with. Hogtie his slattern and come back to her when we’ve finished him. It’s cursed cold out here.”

  “You are the greatest bowman in all of the fen, Erac,” the leader said. “Fly a bolt through his throat when he comes for her. Then his woman can keep you warm.”

  So they had not ambushed Kael while concealed by the spell. He was alive. “You are all fools,” Anja said coldly. “Dead fools, now. For that warrior is Kael the Conqueror.”

  Smiling, the blond tugged his sword from the ground. “And who are you?” he asked mockingly. “His fair queen?”

  She only wished it so. “I am Princess Anja of Ivermere.”

  “Ivermere?” His grin flashed white teeth. “Here is your princess, Ulber! Perhaps she will give your poor father pardon for his magical crimes, burn that rune from his arm, and you will all return home!”

  Holding her sword in front of her, Anja spared the quickest glance to the sullen figure behind him, wearing a ragged cloak with hood drawn up.

  “Ulber is not much of a spellcaster,” the blond confided to her in a lower voice, slow steps carrying him closer. “He only knows a trick or two, and his mother’s got no more magic in her than I do. But a princess, eh? You could crack our necks with a single word.”

  “That spell is five words,” Anja told him, “but I have no need of it.”

  Not when she had firm ground beneath her feet and a wall at her back. With easy grace, Anja slipped her arms out of her coat sleeves and let the heavy wolfskin fall to the ground. Immediately the wind gnawed through her tunic, lifting the hair at her nape and slithering down her collar, but with hot blood racing through her veins, she did not feel the cold.

  Without taking her eyes from the blond bandit, she kicked the fur aside so it would not tangle her feet. She arched a brow—challenging him to attack.

  Behind him came another cackle. “I like this one, Nahk! I will have her after you are done.”

  “I’d best go last,” said the bearded giant holding her horse. “You’ll not get much use out of her after.”

  “Take my place,” the spellcaster beside him said. “I would rather have her coat than fuck a ghost.”

  “And I want to know whether her muff’s as white as her hair,” Nahk said, inching closer.

  Another cackling laugh. “After that old woman this summer, you’ve gotten a taste for gray twat.”

  “Then spread her thighs and get on with it!” Erac snapped at them. “He ought to have returned to her by now, and with her screaming his name we have lost the surprise.”

  “We need no surprise,” Nahk said. “Because unless he can fly upon the wind over that stone wall, he cannot come upon us here without first exposing himself to our arrows.”

  So far as Anja knew, Kael could not fly. According to legend, however, after breaking his chains he had climbed an unscalable shaft within the Blackworm mines. If he had done that, then a village wall would be nothing.

  But like the head upon a saddlehorn, not every detail within the stories was true. So she would not depend upon Kael to save her.

  “I hear his horse,” the giant said, cocking his head. “He returns through the gate.”

  “Well, then,” Nahk said, suddenly advancing with speed. “Erac’s crossbow will end him. Let the last thing he witnesses be his woman beneath us.”

  With cheers and laughter urging him on, Nahk aimed a heavy two-handed blow at the base of Anja’s blade—clearly meaning to disarm her by knocking the sword from her grip. On light feet, she danced to the right, and as his swing carried his arms downward, leaving his neck unguarded, she sliced in an upward arc toward his throat.

  His head jerked back at the last moment. A stripe opened up the side of his face, from the corner of his mouth to his ear. The cheers from the others fell silent.

  Eyes wide and disbelieving, Nahk touched fingers to his bleeding cheek. No longer did he care about the color of her muff, Anja saw. Her death lay in his furious gaze when he looked to her again.

  But she had no intention of dying.

  He struck. Anja parried with a ring of steel on steel, the force of his blow shivering through the blade and into her arms. Swiftly she pivoted and swung low, needing to wound and slow him, for his chest was armored from shoulder to hip and a fatal strike would not be easily found there. He evaded her thrust and there was no letting up after that, only the crunch of frozen grasses beneath her feet and the crash of steel, as she parried and returned blow after blow.

  Then her boot slipped on a film of ice. In a heartstopping moment, Anja’s knee slammed into the ground and he came at her, swinging his blade high, preparing to bring the sharpened edge down upon her head.

  With an upward thrust, she drove her sword into his abdomen, into the softness exposed beneath the waist of his cuirass. His blade made its downward swing, but with no direction and no force. His bloodied mouth opened wide in a soundless scream. He stared at her with bulging eyes, his face turning red and the veins in his temples throbbing. Anja ruthlessly shoved the blade deeper as she stood, and his sword fell harmlessly from his weakened hands. Quickly she pulled her
weapon free and spun to face the others.

  Hoofbeats approached, and she dared a hopeful glance—but it was only Kael’s horse, no rider. The other bandits must have already seen and dismissed the riderless animal as no threat, and now stared at her with expressions of dismay, shock…anger.

  “Murdering whore!” Face contorted with rage, Erac pivoted, leveling his crossbow at her heart. “You’ll pray that we finish—”

  A flash of steel spun through the air—Kael’s battle-axe. With a wet, terrible thunk, Erac’s head split open.

  A deafening roar thundered across the mire. The ravens took to startled wing, bursting from the tree in a raucous black cloud even as Kael sprang from the high wall, slamming to the ground in a pantherish crouch. Fury lighted his eyes with deadly blue fire. His gaze swept Anja’s length, lingering on the blood staining her blade, before touching upon the dying man at her feet. As if satisfied she was unharmed, he rose from his crouch on tightly coiled muscles—and drew his sword.

  “There’s only one of him.” The bearded giant stepped forward, weapon at ready. “We’ll take him together—”

  Kael charged the giant.

  Anja had heard stories of the Butcherer. Some from his own lips. And she had seen death before, both monstrous and gentle, and had just killed a man with her sword. But that painful death was a bloodless mercy compared to the violence of Kael’s blade, and the legends had not prepared Anja for the man. Every blow rent limbs, not simply stopping the giant but destroying him in great gouts of spurting blood. No longer did his companion laugh and cackle but spilled guts onto the reddened snow, and his horrendous screams were abruptly silenced. Shouting a cloaking spell, clutching a dagger in his raised fist, the spellcaster rushed forward and vanished. Without a break in his stride, Kael jerked his axe free of Erac’s skull and hurled the weapon. The spellcaster appeared again, bloodied fingers clawing at the heavy blade embedded in his chest. Staggering, he fell to his knees, and Kael ended him with a swing of his sword that cleaved head from neck.

  Chest heaving, he ripped his axe free and turned toward Anja. His voice had a thick and guttural bite as he asked, “Are you hurt?”

  Mutely she shook her head.

  Jaw tightening, he crouched and wiped the blade of his sword on the spellcaster’s cloak. “Why did you not use your magic?”

  Still stunned by the carnage before her, she was unprepared to answer. She stumbled over her tongue a few times before finally giving an explanation. “I wished to test my skill with a sword.”

  “You are no fool, Anja,” he said harshly. “But you are a liar. And—”

  Abruptly he stopped, looking at her. His face darkened. Rising to his feet, he stalked toward her. Pulse racing, Anja held her ground. She had lied to him. And whatever he meant to do now, she didn’t believe he would hurt—

  He dropped to his knees before her. “This is your blood.” With rough hands, he shoved the hem of her tunic upward, exposing the straps that secured her leggings to the tops of her thighs. With a single tug, that strap untied, and the heavy stocking slipped down. She sucked in a hissing breath. A slash cut across the outside of her thigh—a thrust of Nakh’s blade that she had parried, but had still found a mark. But she had not even felt it until this moment.

  At that hiss of breath, Kael’s gaze flew to hers. So stricken was his expression that for a moment, she felt a rush of fear that the wound was far worse than it looked.

  But it wasn’t. If anything, it looked worse than it truly was.

  “It is only a shallow cut,” she whispered.

  Returning his gaze to her injury and bent his head for a better look. “It still bleeds. And it needs cleaning.”

  As he spoke, Kael gently cupped the column of her thigh, callused fingers sliding over the sensitive inner skin. Anja went rigid, her body responding to that touch, her senses a wild riot of stinging pain and pleasure.

  Face bleak, Kael immediately withdrew his hand—leaving the bloodied mark his fingers had left on her skin. Spitting a foul curse, he stood and glowered down at her.

  “Heal it,” he commanded.

  Pleasure vanished, replaced by pure pain—and dread. Silently Anja shook her head.

  He bent closer and growled, “Heal it.”

  In a desperate whisper, she hissed, “It will scale.”

  “And injure a raven? Then we will roast it and eat it.” Kael’s mouth twisted. “Or it might finish off that dying bastard.”

  The bandit leader, who had not yet succumbed to Anja’s blade. Instead he had been trying to escape, crawling upon the ground toward the gate, leaving a bloodied trail through the snow. He had not gotten more than a few paces.

  Her heart aching, Anja yielded. “I can’t heal it.”

  Kael stared at her with burning eyes—and abruptly left her, sweeping up the bandit’s fallen sword and shoving it through the back of his leather armor and into his heart. Immediately the bandit’s crawling ceased.

  Trying to breathe past the ragged pain in her chest, Anja watched him continue to his horse, where he loosened the wineskin from the saddle and poured water over his hands, washing them.

  With tears clogging her throat, she tugged up the stocking, feeling every painful edge of the injury as it was covered.

  “Leave it,” Kael barked. He was returning to her, a small ceramic jar cupped in his hand, and a wetted strip of cloth in the other. He scooped up her coat and swung it over her shoulders, for a brief moment surrounding her in his scent and warmth.

  He sank to his knees again. Intending to tend her wound, she realized.

  She tried to take the wet cloth from him. “I can do this—”

  “With magic?” He slashed her an angry glance. “Be still.”

  Tears filled her eyes and she looked upward, blinking them away. It was several moments before her raw throat felt capable of passing words through it without ripping her flesh apart.

  “I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely.

  He flashed her another hard, sharp glance. “For what?”

  “For lying.” Her breath shuddered. “I’ve made you angry.”

  “I am angry,” he ground through gritted teeth, “because I left you unprotected, with only a sword to defend yourself. And because I did not see it before. I had noted that you never used magic, and thought there might be reasons for it, but a reason I never was considered that you couldn’t.”

  Angry…at himself. “But I lied. I let you believe that I was a spellcaster.”

  “What of it?” He gently began cleaning the blood from her skin. “What better protection for a woman than everyone believing she can burst their eyes with a spell? I do not tell my enemies all of my weaknesses or strengths. Letting them believe what they like has saved me trouble and given me an advantage many times.”

  An advantage such as an affinity for climbing walls. With heart pounding, she asked, “Are we enemies?”

  A wry glance answered her. “I do not often share them with my allies, either.”

  A tremulous smile touched her mouth. An ally. She wished for far more. But she would take what he gave.

  He opened the small pot. “This ointment not only has a foul smell, it will feel like fire in your wound and numb the joints in that limb—but it will keep an injury from festering.”

  She nodded and steeled her nerves. His blunt fingers slicked the ointment the length of the cut—and he had not been jesting. It felt as if a hot poker had been jabbed into her leg. She made a small sound, and had to brace her hand against his broad shoulder when the strength in that knee seemed to give out.

  “Only a few moments,” he murmured soothingly, spreading more.

  “I know how long your moments are,” she gritted.

  He grinned. “Why do you have no magic?”

  Speaking of it was more agonizing than the ointment. Yet he deserved to hear. “I was born this way.”

  “Are the king and queen not your parents, then?”

  “They are.” With a thick voice, she
said, “My father could not bear my mother’s pain in childbirth, so cast a spell to take it away. If I ever had any magic, the scaling of that spell stole it. It took her pain and gave it to me.”

  Frowning, he looked up at her. “You are always in pain?”

  Bitterly she said, “What do you think my life has been? I am the only one in Ivermere without magic. Me, the princess. I am a disappointment and a shameful stain upon the realm.”

  “Your father is the shame.”

  Was he? “He did it out of love. To help her. Is that not a kindness?”

  “It was selfishness, because he could not bear her pain. She was not dying. Instead of casting a spell to take her pain, he should have asked her if she could bear it.”

  “You did not ask me if I could bear this scratch.”

  His frown deepened as he looked up at her. “When I asked, I knew you had no magic. But if I had been wrong, I risked harming nothing but a dying bandit and a dinner. I would not risk a child. And I would not punish that child afterwards for what my spell did.”

  And this was why she feared him. How quickly he had taken hold of her heart. Less than a week of their journey remained. By the last day, he would have it all.

  Then take it with him when he left her in Ivermere.

  She could not hide her despair. But he mistook the reason for it.

  “Even if you cannot cast spells, you still have great magic, Anja,” he said softly. “Today I saw your courage.”

  She laughed, a harsh and painful sound. “Was it courage or desperation?”

  He frowned. “Why do you think desperation makes it less admirable?”

  “Because I had no choice. That is not courage.”

  “There is always a choice. You could have chosen to do nothing.”

  “My choice was the pain they planned for me, or the pain I might know if my sword failed. That is no choice.”

  “You decided which pain was more acceptable to your heart.” His voice roughened. “You decided how you would live—or die. You did not let them decide for you. That is courage, too.” He used strong teeth to rip a length of cloth, then said, “If people were never desperate, if there was no fear or danger, we would not need courage. Do you think I fought so much because I was content and the choice was easy? My courage has always come from desperation. That does not lessen it. Just as yours is not lessened.”