The Twelve Kingdoms (37 page)

“Hard to stay behind?”

“Maybe the most difficult thing I've ever done,” he agreed. “And I've faced some harrowing situations.”

“I appreciated it. It meant a lot, knowing that I could count on you to protect Astar, no matter what else happened.”

“I know. I'm glad for your trust in me. If you asked the same of me again, I'd do it, but . . .”

“But?”

“Please don't.” His deep voice had gone so quiet I almost couldn't hear. “Just don't.”

“I'm okay, really.”

He let go of me to receive another fish, adding it to the bright silvered-rainbow pile in the basket. The seal opened its mouth in an oddly human smile, bobbed its head, then popped into one of the younger men, the smile staying in place as he transformed. Very odd.

“Enough?” Harlan held out the basket and the cousin nodded, giving me a little bow. “Come on, then, Essla. Wash off the blood and let me see for myself.”

“That's going to scar,” Ami pronounced, narrowing her eyes at a claw mark on my cheekbone, then delicately nibbling on a piece of hot fish.

“Better mine than your fair face,” I returned equably. I sat in the sand, leaning against Harlan's knees as he worked the remaining strain out of my shoulders. “Or Stella's.”

Ami gazed down at her daughter with lovestruck eyes. “Thank you, yes. Thanks to all of you.” She gazed around the circle with damp eyes, able to look gorgeous weeping as only she could, and took Andi's hand. “I was so afraid this wouldn't end well. I owe all of you everything I am. I feared I'd never see her safe again. I'm so glad it's all over.”

I waited for Andi to say it. She returned my questioning look with consideration, daring me to speak first.

Ami looked between us. “Oh, stop that, both of you, and put it out in the open.”

“Don't play dumb,” I retorted. “You know full well it doesn't end here. You have a decision to make.”

“And you know that I think Stella needs to stay in Annfwn,” Andi added.

“And you, Auntie Essla?” Ami gave me a surprisingly steely look from her pretty violet eyes. “You think I should bring them both to Ordnung. Uorsin's heir, and a spare, and a spare.”

Harlan's hands on my neck stilled, and everyone fell silent, looking to me. “Oh, for Danu's sake, don't all look at me like I eat babies for breakfast.”

“If only because you prefer to roast them for dinner,” Ash said in a sorrowful tone.

“Very funny.”

“Would you force me to bring them, Ursula?” Ami asked softly, pushing me. “The King commanded you to do so, didn't he? I mean, I appreciate you coming to help as you promised, but we also know where your primary loyalties lie and that you won't go against Uorsin's command. Would you take them from me?”

My gut chilled and I sat forward, shaking off Harlan's hands. “Did I take Astar from Windroven? Did I force you to go to Ordnung instead of going after Stella? How in the Twelve do you imagine I could force you—either of you—to do a thrice-damned thing?!”

Ami flinched a little and Andi gave me a hard look. “Don't go self-righteous on her. You know full well that you've always tried to control our lives, pushing us to do what you wanted.”

That hurt. Probably because it was true. Which only made the anger rise. “Not what I wanted,” I snapped. “What's best for you.”

“And you're the one who decides that,” Andi retorted.

“What?
You
were going to at some point?” Remembering the sense of helpless rage when Andi bungled into Rayfe and brought our father's fury down on her head, I flung a hand at him. “You think because things worked out that you weren't in terrible danger? And
you
,” I said to Ami, who looked stricken, “you can sit there and ask whether I'd take your children away? When I've made myself into a traitor to the crown to help you? Everything I've done, I've done to protect you both, all these long years.”

“Well, I don't know what there was to protect us from,” Ami fired back.

“No. You don't. Which was precisely the point.” I felt ill from the anger. Strung out from the battle still, throbbing from the scrapes and bruises, exhausted. “I need some space to breathe.”

My body protested as I got to my feet, bringing my sword with me. The Star's heat diminished as I strode away from them, cooling as I withdrew.

Back to normal.

Sweat poured off me as I ran through the twelve forms. Sometimes doing them helped limber me up, increasing my energy and blood flow, burning away the restless tension. Danu's gift, to lift us up. This time, though, each movement dragged at my limbs, draining me, leaving me hollow and slow, my wounded thigh refusing to cooperate.

Finally I capitulated, stopping halfway through the seventh form to catch my breath. Then had to bend and put my hands on my knees, dropping my head to stop the dizziness that threatened to make me fall over.

“Done punishing yourself?”

I looked under my arm to where Harlan sat in the shade of a scrubby tree. “I'm not in the mood for company.”

“No, you're in the mood to drive yourself into the ground. Doing a fine job of it, too.”

“Leave me alone, mercenary.”

“Never, Your Highness. Want some water?” He held out a canteen and I realized how parched I was. Accounted for the dizziness, no doubt.

“Danu, you're a stubborn man.” But I went to sit in the shade, taking the canteen and guzzling the sweet, cool water gratefully.

“Every time you say that as if you're just discovering it. Kind of charming, really.”

I huffed out a breath, shaking my head at him. “What's the buzz back at the campfire? Sorrow and consternation? More of how awful I am?”

“They don't know how much their accusations hurt you.” He paused. “You need to tell them.”

Envisioning myself telling my sisters they hurt my feelings, I laughed. It came out a little dry and bitter. “It's a temporary insult. Slipped under my guard because I'm tired.”

“At least you admit to that part. No, I meant you need to tell them about your father and what he did to you.”

The cool water turned to ice in my stomach, sharp edges digging in, slicing and drawing blood. “Absolutely not. Need I remind you of your promise not to reveal it?”

“I would not betray your trust.” He said it mildly, but I'd annoyed him. Add him to the list of people pissed off at me. “But you do your sisters a disservice by not sharing this with them.”

I scrubbed my hands over my scalp, my hair soaked with sweat and sticky with seawater. The cuts on my cheek throbbed in time with my leg and my whole body ached with exhaustion. If I'd had a hard time envisioning telling Andi and Ami my feelings were hurt, the prospect of speaking those words about what I'd done with our father . . . Impossible.

“That's never going to happen,” I said. “It has nothing to do with the decisions I've made or have yet to make.”

“Doesn't it?” Harlan kept that same patient tone but made it clear that he disagreed. “Here comes Ash.”

Indeed Ash strode toward us, barefoot in the sand, in his calf-length black trousers and a billowing white shirt that covered his scars.

“I wonder what he wants.”

“He's going to heal you now. Don't you dare protest.” Harlan's pale eyes glittered. “I know you saved his resources in case anyone got seriously injured. Guess what? They're all safe and you're the worst of our injured, so you get the benefit of it. Don't fight me on this.”

Ash stepped into the shade on the last of Harlan's words, green eyes alight with ironic humor. “Perhaps you should tie her to the tree. At least take the sword away.”

“I'm fine, really, and—” I broke off at the set of Harlan's face. “Your Highness.” Ash crouched in front of me. “Your courage and resilience are never in question, but even you cannot heap injury upon injury and not suffer for it. We've already agreed to what you owe me. This will not add to it.”

“Fine. But I'm not taking my clothes off for you.”

He laughed soundlessly under his breath and sat cross-legged in front of me. “Not necessary.”

“Shall I go?”

Ash glanced at Harlan with a sly smile. “You might want to stick around, Captain. You were passed out for your turn, so you didn't experience the rather significant side benefits of magical healing.”

“Why do I not like the sound of that?” I'd wanted to hang on to being annoyed, but Ash's magic already flowed into me, with a tart snap of spring apples, refreshing, vital, and my voice came out softer. Almost immediately the aches ebbed and that core-deep exhaustion that dragged at me lessened. At the same time, a dreamy warmth overtook me, not unlike the kind stirred by Harlan's sweet, drugging kisses.

“You're more beat-up than you let on,” Ash murmured, mostly to himself, looking through me the same way Andi did. “Quite a bit of internal bruising. Some bleeding. The wounded leg is severely strained. I'm amazed you stayed on your feet. You and Ami, both so thrice-damned determined not to show weakness.”

“If you grew up with a father like Uorsin, you'd have learned that also.” The words were out before I knew it, but neither man said anything. Maybe I'd only thought it. I floated on the sheer relief of freedom from both the pain and that sick sense of defeat that the after-battle crash always brings, no matter the outcome for your side. As the drained lethargy eased, a sparkling sense of well-being followed, burgeoning into the heat of arousal I'd felt only at Harlan's touch.

My eyes popped open to find Ash's bright-green ones gazing back with wry acknowledgment and more than a little amusement. Significant side benefits indeed. Cupping my cheek, much as Harlan liked to, he stroked a sizzling touch over the talon scores.

“You will have scars—only so much I can do there—but you'll still be prettier than I am.” He took his hands away and slid them briskly together, his wry smile crooked by scar tissue. “That should take care of it. I'm off to take a nap, as was most everyone else when I left. You two should have an hour or two of privacy before we leave for Annfwn, to take the edge off that itch.” He winked at me, an odd sight in his corrugated face, nodded at Harlan, and sauntered back up the beach.

“W
hat was that all about?” Harlan frowned after Ash.

I wrestled down the surging desire that filled me, remembering now how the other healing that fixed my cracked skull had paved the way to letting Harlan tumble me when we first entered Annfwn. Either the extent of healing made it stronger this time or Ash's particular brand of spring-sap magic had. I wouldn't have put it past him to add some extra zest on purpose, as a little payback for past insults. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted Harlan's hands on me with an urgency I might not be able to forestall.

Something I wasn't at all sure how to handle.

Harlan cupped my cheek, the newly healed skin there tingling at his touch, urging me to look at him. “Are you all right?”

Pressing my lips together against the moan that wanted to emerge, the need to slide myself against his body, feel him inside me, I nodded, carefully not meeting his gaze. His thumb rubbed over my bottom lip, sending a tremor through me I barely managed to squelch. I pulled back but his hand tightened on my chin. “What is it you don't want me to see?”

Knocking his hand away, I glared at him. “Ash and his thrice-damned side effects. The healing makes you hot for sex and he knew it. Don't worry—I'll work it off.”

“Will you?” Face intent, hunger flaring in his gaze, he dragged me onto his lap, big hands roaming over me. “I'd like to be the one to assist with that.”

I braced myself on his chest, stiff armed to hold myself back, though everything else in me longed to devour him whole. “I dislike feeling as if either of us has been manipulated into this.”

His face softened. “Because of what went before?”

“What? No. I just don't like feeling . . . at the mercy of something else.”

Irritation flickered into his eyes, mixing with the rising hunger. “There's nothing wrong with us wanting each other.” He slid a hand up to cup my breast, thumb brushing the peaked nipple. Crumbling the last of my control. “Having each other.”

With a sound of almost painful need that would have embarrassed me under other circumstances, I fell on him, voracious, devouring his hard mouth, my blood bursting into flame much like the dry driftwood of our campfire. He met me with a reflection of the same need, running hot and molten, demanding and giving at once. Hands everywhere on me, he seemed to brush my clothes away, mouth moving to each newly bared patch of skin, murmuring his Dasnarian love words.

I might forever associate the sound of his language with dark intimacy and raging desire.

Arching my back, I rode the glorious wave of sensation as he licked and kissed my bare breasts, lightly biting my nipples so I cried out, digging my nails into the hard bulge of his shoulders. He laid me back in the sand, mouth traveling down my body as he settled himself between my spread thighs.

I lifted my hips, dragging at him, urging him into me. He resisted, pushing my knees wider apart, sliding lower still, and nipping at the tendon where my inner thigh met my pelvis. “Not yet,” he said against my skin. “I want to taste you. Is that all right?”

Gathering my fire-scattered thoughts, I realized what he meant to do. How exposed and open I was already and how I'd barely noticed. How much I wanted that, too. “Yes.” My voice came out hoarse. “Oh, please, yes.”

With a grunt of aroused agreement, he kissed the apex of my mons, then ran his tongue into my slick tissues. The sensation skewered me, so excruciatingly intense, I held still, unable to move. Part of me had still braced for the pain and the flesh memory of the nauseating sense of violation. Instead the voluptuous, deliciously keen pleasure spread through me like a balm.

“Danu,” I breathed, both in prayer and gratitude. Above me, the midday sun shone down like a benediction, dappling through the green leaves, the sky beyond as aquamarine bright as the sea.

“Mmm. You taste like the sea, my Essla
cvan
.” He licked me, then settled on the point of greatest pleasure, nibbling and sucking, holding my thighs wide as his agile lips and tongue worked me, as I began to thrash and writhe under the unbearable intensity.

“Oh, Harlan,” I gasped, feeling helpless against this particular onslaught, on the point of a delicious surrender I couldn't resist, even had I wanted to.

“Oh, yes.” He slid a thick finger inside me and pressed up, bearing down with his mouth at the same time.

And I came apart.

More intense than before, the climax took me brutally, raking me with claws that brought pure delight. My body might have broken into pieces if not held in place by Harlan's great hands, anchoring me to the earth. He didn't stop, driving me through it with mouth and touch and his sharp-edged, insistent Dasnarian words. I whimpered as the tension built again, harder, higher, and I shoved at his shoulders, close to begging.

“More,” he demanded. As if triggered by it, I climaxed again, biting on the back of my hand so as not to scream out and alarm our companions. He gave me no rest, pushing me up again, relentless, fierce, as if starved for me.

“Harlan, please.” I was in fact begging and didn't care, sobbing out his name and plucking at his shoulders to urge him into me. He relented, moving up my body, licking and biting on the way, devouring me bit by bit, then fastening his mouth on mine. Like the sea, indeed. He held his hips back from me, though, his cock hard and heavy against my thigh.

“I need a
lind
. Wait.”

“I don't want to wait.”

He laughed, a deep sound full of desire. “You also don't want me to get you with child.”

“Would it be so bad?” I whispered, holding on to him, thinking of how he'd looked, broadsword in hand, staying behind with tiny Astar strapped to his chest.

Harlan went still, searching my face. “It would be miraculous,” he answered. “But there's time to think of such things later.”

“You said there won't be anyone else for you.”

“True.” He braced himself on an elbow and brushed my cheek, tender from the healing. “But you have more considerations than I do.”

“Who am I kidding? There won't be anyone else for me. If only because you're the only one who'll ever put up with me.”

“Don't say that. The world of men would cast themselves at your feet if they thought they stood a chance.”

“I don't want anyone at my feet.”

“That's where they went wrong.” He kissed me, a sweet brush of his lips. “We don't have to decide now. I don't mind waiting.”

“You never have minded that.” I smiled at him, heart bursting with love. “But I've had a little too much of it myself.”

“What about the line of succession?”

“Ami's covered that twice over. And—” I took a deep breath, let it go. “I'm tired of making decisions based on the throne. I want you, all of you. Your child, too, should we be so blessed.”

“Essla,” he whispered, eyes full of deep emotion, saying my name with that reverence that undid me. “Are you sure?”

“Who knows what tomorrow may bring?” I answered.

“My love.” He kissed me long and deep and shifted back between my thighs. I lifted my hips and he sheathed himself in me, flesh to flesh, and we cried out as one at the sensation of joining. His big body contracted and shuddered, and he dropped his forehead against mine, breathing like a man fighting off a dozen attackers. “I'm not sure I can wait.”

“Don't wait.” I clenched my muscles around him and his hips flexed in reflexive response. His hand next to my head fisted, his body strained, and he broke. Losing all control, he pumped in and out of me, hard, fast, with such intensity that the wave broke over me, sending me into another climax, pummeled nearly insensible by the glorious strength and beauty of my mercenary.

We drifted awhile. Both unable to move. Lying in the dappled shade, our bodies slicked together. Barely able to draw breath under his weight, I nevertheless reveled in it, in the sensation of all his hot male skin touching me everywhere, inside and out.

He turned his head and pressed a kiss into the side of my throat. “I'm crushing you,” he murmured, but he didn't move more than that.

“I like it.”

He laughed. “Only you.” Levering himself up onto an elbow, still joined to me, he studied my face. “Regrets?”

“Not a one. Except that we can't do it again.”

“Can't we?” He smiled, lips curving with smug, so-masculine pride, and moved inside me.

I gasped, my heart shuddering into life, the deep pleasure radiating out. He moved in me slowly this time, almost lazily, watching my face, changing the angle of his thrusts until he found the one that sent me into that helpless state of desire. Beyond worrying about it now, I clung to him, giving myself over to it and to him, until my vision blurred and I fell over the edge yet again.

Andi and Ami were waiting for me when we returned, the same determined look on both their faces.

“Uh-oh,” I muttered to Harlan.

“Maybe one day you'll listen to me,” he replied under his breath. Then, louder: “I'll get the horses ready. Shall I carry one of the babies, Princess Amelia?”

“Thank you. I finished knitting another carryall for Stella, so now we have one for each.”

“Since when do you knit that well?”

Ami widened her pretty violet eyes and fluttered her lashes, but the look in them had an edge. “I have acquired many new skills. I'm not a little girl anymore.”

“Neither of us is,” Andi inserted. “And the three of us are going to talk.”

I scowled at Harlan, a short distance away, the sense of well-being curdling in my gut. “What did the mercenary tell you?”

“What should he have told us?” Andi countered. “You keep your own counsel well, Ursula, but it's time to share some of the burden. I have an idea what you think you were protecting us from.”

“What?” Ami demanded. “Nobody ever tells me anything.”

I folded my arms, daring Andi, who nodded, storm-cloud eyes darkening. “Uorsin brutalized her before all of court.”

“One blow doesn't count as—”

“One that broke your nose and cracked your skull. But it wasn't just once, was it? I've been thinking back over the years, all those times that you sported breaks and bruises. From training, you always claimed,” Andi continued.

“Uorsin?” Ami breathed his name, pure distress on her face. “Our father hurt you all those times?”

“Not all those times, no,” I snapped. I made myself meet Andi's accusing stare. “Many of them were from opponents. That's how you learn. That's how you—”

“Grow strong,” Andi finished. “Learn to get back up. I remember him saying that to you all the time. What else?”

“There is nothing else. Is the interrogation over yet?”

“Not by a long shot,” Andi replied evenly, looking through me in her witchy way. “What else?”

“Isn't that bad enough?” Ami protested, knotting her fingers together. “He never once struck me. As much as he raged and blustered, I never thought he would.”

“He wouldn't have—because
she
made sure of it. Isn't that right, Ursula?”

I stared her down, not answering. Not sure how to answer or to escape this line of questioning intact. The sun beat down, too hot, and sweat ran an icy trail down my spine.

“What else did he do to you?” Andi repeated the insistent question.

“What are you saying, Andi?” Ami had paled.

“Think about it. You heard some of the snide innuendos as well as I did.”

“That was just talk. No one really thought any of it was true.”