CHAPTER ONE

Because I’m busy feeling sorry for myself, I ignore the approaching horse hooves.

Squealing animals surround me just after dawn, one hopeful suckup bumping against my shin as I finish changing out the slop buckets. They rub their snouts affectionally on my calf like I’m their mother rather than their butcher.

The irony of that isn’t lost on me. It says something about our self-sabotaging natures that we love things destined to destroy us.

But really, they just want to stay on the side of the person with the feed. I don’t blame them. Every hen for henself.

I shove tears off my cheeks, ignoring mud and worse things the swipe slathers across my skin. It joins the streaks of ink because I’d spent another sleepless night writing Rolyn letters that vanish into the war.

He hasn’t written back once.

I take a quick, inhaled breath, stopping the spiral of those thoughts. If only I could bottle the scent of my favorite paper—it’s the only pacifier that soothes me. Not that there’s time for spirals, or crying, or cursing his name—the Realms damned chores never end.

When Rolyn lived here, he was a lazy bastard. He called his daydreaming strategizing. Or meditating—my cousin never could get his story straight, and while he was busy strategizing I was busy with farmwork. But he never left me, not until the war, so we called it even.

Grief and longing are slow poisons. I miss him. I ache with missing him and I go around and around in my mind.

Too many times I’ve been on the verge of walking away from the enforced silence, only to be stopped by my own fear. What would I do in Casakraine city? It’s dangerous, and I’d be just as alone. I don’t do well alone—I’m going through motions and each day those motions weaken, unravel to expose my soft-bellied core.

I’ve never been someone strong enough to stand on their own. I don’t want to. Why should I? If he doesn’t return. . .no. He will. But if I leave, how will he find me?

He will return.

He’ll be greeted by the pointy end of my pen. How could he not write me, not a single letter. 

A pig bumps its nose on my shin and rubs its body a little too enthusiastically against my leg. I stagger a half step before I catch myself, and hiss down at it.

“Bad! Don’t make me sell you for bacon. It’ll be your fault.”

I want to wallow uninterrupted, and then maybe indulge in some poorly executed epistolary.

I swipe more tears from my cheek and turn my attention back to my sweet misery. The thought of Rolyn coming home to a wrecked, silent farm leaves me anguished. He loathes stillness the way I loathe aloneness. War must be a perfect outlet. In the meantime, I still haven’t found mine.

Unless someone comes and drags me away from here, I’m stuck. If Rolyn dies. . .I don’t know what I’ll do. Seek freedom in the city, or in death.

All my anger focuses on Lord Khallan. Rolyn was conscripted on his orders.

Frowning, I shift my attention to the unwanted irritant of approaching horse hooves pounding on the dusty main road that doesn’t see much use, their steady thud unhurried. Lord Khallan killed most of the bandits in this area when he returned six years ago on furlough but in the time since, their activity has increased.

I drop the bucket, cursing. “Realms break. I don’t have energy for this horseshit.”

Or the five minute sprint to hide in the surrounding forest. My great-great somethings carved the now eleven acre farm out centuries ago, each generation clearing a bit more, but we’re still hunters and foragers. I’m no fighter, but I can survive if I’m pushed into the woods. 

Neither of my Skills are defensive. I can kill through touch but it takes months of writing letters. The slow build up of power in the tips of my fingers, atrophying into a poisonous, rotting shadow that bursts like a puss filled wound. 

We’d learned the hard way my touch kills when that happens. I can control it enough to focus it before it releases, but not enough to prevent the burst of magical puss.

I can’t force myself to stop writing at all.

But it’s still useless. Even if prepared, my opponent can stab me, shoot me with an arrow, or a bolt of raw power first.

A small squad of warriors pulls up, the rising sun at their backs, a male in well-cared for deep purple leather armor at their head. A few of the horses whinny, restless hooves stamping against the ground, kicking up more dust before they’re reined in. 

The lead warrior urges his horse forward a few prancing steps. Eyes rimmed in dark natural shadow, with irises that can’t decide if they’re pale gray or weak purple punch me, growing heat behind the intent stare. His slow once over is prickling needles along my skin before it shifts to take in the state of the farm—as dusty as the road. I keep it up as well as I can, but I’m one person. I focus on keeping the gardens and the animals, not on chipping whitewash or broken fences.

When he focuses on me again, a slight frown on his face, generations of instincts bred into the blood and bone of all Adalessikai Fae tell me nothing good is coming from those eyes—including the internal warning telling me not to move.

Loose eggplant black waves drape down broad shoulders, the hair tucked behind ears to better display all the metal dangling on them—must be a High caste fashion. He halted, and now he leans forward, leather armor creaking.

Then he meets my gaze, and I’m caught, seconds slowing in a brief vacuum of time. Those eyes are wild, Dark, brimming over with the lust to live.

I used to have those eyes. Before my cousin was taken.

“Farm girl,” he drawls. “I seek Maralyn Rashkaran.”

Knowing better, I hold my position against every urge to retreat. More worrying, the urge to step forward when something signals an end to solitude. But I never move forward. One heartbreak is a lesson, two is a plea to be abused.

“Have the pigs caught your tongue?” His deep tenor voice is lazy, as if he hates being bothered to use it to form sentences. He’s too pretty, with hollows under curving cheekbones, and full pouty lips. “Or perhaps you’d like me to whisper my question in your ear.”

A tingle sweeps through me at the bodily memory, Rolyn’s teeth nipping at my lobe as his fingers play between my thighs. Another reason he was terrible at chores—he’d rather be inside me, and wasn’t above using orgasms as currency to avoid washing dishes. 

Lord Khallan isn’t my Rolyn, and a High Lord’s words should do nothing for me, especially not when the natural ambient pulse of his power reminds me I’m levels outclassed if he means harm. 

The horse trots closer as pretty doom in male flesh looks down his fine nose at me, gaze traveling over the wine and sable curls, the dirty dress I’ve been wearing for three days—there’s no one here to care—and my smeared face.

When I still don’t answer, he dismounts and steps forward, eyes slit with calculation.

The movement loosens my tongue. “Who are you?” 

He stops moving as I scramble out of arm reach and. . .relaxes. Which feels wrong—feels like he’s about to leap, because his jaw tightens, a micro expression banished in a second.

Knowing males and High Lords—what I’ve heard, anyway—neither likes to be denied or challenged. Not by a creature as lowly as me. 

“Someone stronger than you,” he says, “who dislikes both boredom and wasted time.“

I suppress the urge again to run, anxiety a pain in my chest because I don’t always follow my own advice. That’s usually when disaster strikes. 

The lazy tenor shades to a sharp baritone. “Don’t run. I chase. You don’t want to be my quarry today, farm girl. I’m fresh off a battlefield. My reactions will be far from what you’d consider civilized.”

Which explains why the warriors watching us look dusty, irritated, and impatient. One of them looks none of those things, which is worse, since his full attention is split between us.

“I intend no harm,” he adds.

I snort. He doesn’t say who or what he means no harm to. He certainly doesn’t add a time qualifier. Loophole, that. He can mean no harm the moment he says the words, and they’d be true.

But minutes later the farm girl is dead.

“Now,” he says, sooo pleasant, “be polite and tell me who you are.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I give an exaggerated look around the area to hide my fear—no, still no one but me and the pigs.

“I’m Maralyn.”

“Maralyn indeed. We meet.” Wild eyes, soft, lazy voice, predator’s gait. A long, penetrating look with the weight of a quietly dug grave behind it. “I wanted to see if you would try to lie.”

There’s an odd quality to his words, as if “see” is factually correct, but not completely what he means. He’s the one lying. I don’t know what about.

“How would you know who I am if you’ve never seen me?”

“I’ve stared at the living likeness of your face for a half decade. You’re familiar enough, and the spirit of the poorly considered words that tumble from your mouth.” His voice is a warm, delighted purr. “It’s almost like we’re old friends, farm girl.” 

The words arrest me when I should be hiding. A delighted House Lord is trouble—I know who this male must be, and he takes an overlarge tithe of animals yearly, so he can shove it.

“Don’t come closer.” My voice trembles a second before I control myself. I step back again.

Arms loose at his side, he pursues, circling me like a fox around the henhouse. All predator, no warning. 

“We have a problem then. It was a different problem at first—I confess a strong objection to sharing, even with pretty farm girls.” He tilts his head, narrowed eyes relaxing closer to a smirk. “But now. . .hmm.”

Khallan of House Dantaran, High Lord over all he sees in this territory, classifies me as a problem.

“I have problems too. Do you know what helps? Distance from them.” I flap my hands, because that will definitely protect me from a prowling six-foot-four honeytrap—I meant, deathtrap. “Many distances.”

His arm flashes out. He snatches my fingers, pressing them as he lifts my hand to his lips, our gazes as tangled as my hair, and brushes a light kiss over the knuckles.

I shudder, jerking back the next second because the shudder isn’t fear. He steps into me as I retreat.

“A—an abundance of distance and. . .reflection. Away.” I’m babbling. “From me, I mean here. But gone. You can’t stay. There’s only one bed.”

An inner part of my wincing soul reaches around and slaps me upside the head.

“Away indeed. Your bed will grow lonely, for you come with me.” His smile grows, matching the lazy drawl. Both have teeth. “You were given to me, and I don’t think I’ll refuse the gift—even though it comes with Rashkaran strings. I suppose I’ll have to wrap you in them, hmm?”

The right question finally occurs to my adrenaline addled mind. “Why are you looking for me?”

“Khallan,” a warrior calls out, the familial inflection of his tone that of a younger brother. “Play when we’re home. I’m sick of this saddle.”

Lord Khallan’s answer is to swoop an arm under my knees and around my back, lifting me as I squeal, in a move so smooth it reminds me I’m grossly outclassed. He holds my weight like I’m a squirming cat. To be fair, I am at least one of those.

My throat tenses from atavistic fear. A High Lord has me in his arms. The butterflies in my middle morph into shrieking little harpies clawing to get away, but they’re trapped in the cage of my breakable body the way I’m trapped in his arms. His hold tightens a split-second after I process the danger I’m in and try to lunge away.

“There was once a warrior who liked to tell stories at the most inappropriate times,” the High Lord says.

I stop struggling long enough to cringe.

Stories. Those.

Then my heart leaps into my throat. 

“Almost a Skill. He weaves words and make reality from imagination, love from an empty cup.”

Stories talk their way out of chores too. My eyes fill. Stories, or my cousin to be precise.

“Curiously enough—as this is at their most manipulative behest and I resent being made a puppet, or I certainly should, they—“

Inappropriate is a huge clue too. I cling to his words, waiting for the one I need to hear.

“—undersold both your beauty, and your stench. Underpromise and overdeliver, on both accounts. Just like him.”

Close enough.

“Let me go!” I can’t be gone when Rolyn comes home. Not now that I know he’s alive.  

His laugh is abrupt but merry, and the hovering threat of that grave begins to slink away. “Up you go, you come with me and it’s a good thing too. No wonder he worried. You have no survival sense, do you?”

I squawk a protest, not only because that’s not true—I have selective survival sense—but my stomach is dropping as Lord Khallan tosses me up onto the horse with the sickening ease of a High caste warrior.

“No no no! Bad. I don’t want to go.” Rolyn must be on his way. Hope surges.

Also, I need to not talk to High Fae like I talk to pigs. It's just been a while.

He mounts behind me, muscled arm hard around my middle, my back pressing against the evidence of an equally strong chest. I wriggle in his hold anyway. His body tenses as I squirm, muscles going taut against my back—then I freeze.

Warrior. Fresh off battlefield. 

Squirmy snack. Trapped on horse.

It’s probably in my best interest to be still.

But why am I being confiscated? I panic. “Lord Khallan, there’s been a mistake. I’m not behind on the taxes.”

Not the illegal ones. The legal dues should be paid up too. I let worrying about that go when I realized I could save myself some effort and let the tax collector come to me. Especially once I learned serving a good meal, leftovers to take home to her wife, and a little. . .extra. . .causes a mysterious clerical error to appear on my quarterly tally. Interestingly enough, the clerical error usually manifests as a ten percent overpayment.

Nature provides.

And High Lords take away.

This one speaks into my ear. “Oh good, introductions are unnecessary. I find them tedious. Darkness, you stink, but fortunately my honor is stronger than your aroma. Stop wriggling, or I’ll take it as an invitation. I haven’t had a bedmate in long enough I might forget my manners. After you’ve been dunked in a deep lake.”

“Why are you taking me? Where?” My heart races; I’m leaving, and controlled panic chases astonishment. “Is the—the other Rashkaran coming?”

“I have come.” The statement is soft, final. 

He turns the horse and it trots forward as the blow and mystery of those words lodge in my throat. The other warriors fall in at Lord Khallan’s flanks and rear. The moments of hope make familiar grief ten times bitter.

“B—but he. . .who sent you?” I almost don’t want the answer. I don’t know how I’ll avoid a breakdown if I hear my cousin’s name out loud.

He’s silent a few beats. “Hmm. I hadn’t decided until now if I would allow us to keep you, little encroacher. But I think I shall, and so I can’t leave you alone on a farm this close to the forest boundaries. Not all the bandits have been killed.”

“Swineshit.” That's a long answer to avoid a simple question.“

“And plenty of it. I see we’ll be needing to work on your manners.”

I grind my teeth, sullenly accepting the warning while I process that Rolyn isn’t coming—and this male is the closest to Rolyn it’s possible to get. Even if he won't directly say so.

“Good girl.” His breath caresses my ear before he presses a light kiss on my temple, and I shiver. He chuckles. “You know, the best presents come in threes. One Rashkaran, two. . .wherever will we find the third.”

Will he kill me if I rammed my head into his jaw?

“Death is off the table,” he says, a flicker in those purple-gray eyes when I twist to look at him—like he knows what I was thinking. “Though I confess I was reaching for any excuse not to choose that option. There’s plenty of it where I’ve come from, after all. No need to dine on seconds here. Variety, and all that.”

“Kidnapping is dishonorable.” I’m desperate enough to speak those stupid words out loud. There’s no morality, there’s barely law when dealing with High Fae and especially the Lords of the High Fae. In the demesnes, we don’t have Courts, not like in Casakraine. Khallan is the Court.

Which is why he laughs.

Right.

“I don’t know if I want to go with you,” I insist, bottom lip trembling with fury.

The familial warrior snorts. “You don’t want to go with a beautiful, rich, powerful male offering protection? Then you’re stupid. Toss her back to the pigs, Khallan.”

Twisting in Lord Khallan’s arms, I hiss in the busybody’s direction. It hisses back.

I turn back to my captor, glaring into his gaze. The purple deepens, as does his smile. “You know, I didn’t expect to have this much fun watching you squirm and attempt to bite your tongue. It’s only been ten minutes and I’m already better entertained than I’ve been in. . .” he trails off. “Do you know, it’s been the entire journey home? Pathetic.”

“There are several pathetic things here, and the lack of amusement in your life isn’t—“

“Didn’t I warn you already about manners?” He rubs his cheek on my head. Almost like the pigs nuzzling me. Then he pinches my thigh.

Hard.

I yelp. “I have a farm, a life.” One I’m reassessing with this dangling carrot of information, but the principle still applies.

“Does she shut up? Battlefield vultures are sweeter sounding than she is.”

I turn and glare, this time giving Busybody my full attention. He’s browner than Lord Khallan, but with lighter hair. Still, their faces are similar. 

Lord Khallan chuckles. “We did—what is the quaint word she used—kidnap her. A little patience, Calauren.”

Busybody is a better fit. Calauren mutters something under his breath, his voice a touch deeper and more gravelly than Khallan’s. “Of all the ways you could have handled the problem, and you choose this. Don’t throw her at me when you’re tired of her. I’ll stick her in the dungeon.”

“The old shed—does it even lock?”

He gives Lord Khallan a look. “Not the shed. The oubliette.”

“Ah, that. I’m throwing her at Housekeeper. Did you think I was going to put a leash on her and walk around with it tethered to my wrist? No, brother.”

“Try the leash,” I say. So I can strangle you with it. This male is as annoying as hands stained with wet ink.

“She’s not civilized, Khallan. The way she speaks to you. . .has she been taught nothing?”

“You know what he was like at first. Remember we thought he was insane? I suppose this is what happens when we let our Low Fae run wild in the countryside.”

This is driving me insane. 

“You can stay on your farm,” Lord Khallan says in my ear, “laboring alone and undefended. Or you can come with me willingly. I offer you more than drudgery and an undignified death at the hands of bandits.”

“And in return?” Since we're negotiating, and isn't that shocking. High Lords don't negotiate with Low Fae. . .what is it I have that he wants? “What are you going to do with me?”

Busybody snorts. “No one has the time, energy, or inclination to hurt you, farm girl.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But it won’t be that bad. We have baths in my home.” Khallan’s arm tightens around me. “I order you to take a long one.”

“I hate you.”

“That’s what all the beautiful ones say when I’m done with them,” he purrs.

The busybody gags.