The harpy at the other end of the hallway acted as if he were some revolting creature that crawled out from under a damp rock. The woman drove him nuts. Hugh alternated between wanting to strangle her and trying not to laugh as she fought off his verbal jabs. Making her snarl in frustration was the only thing that made the situation tolerable.
He was mortal now. Eventually he would age. He would die. The thought turned Hugh’s blood to ice. He couldn’t even remember how old he was. He would die, and soon. His magic would keep him alive for a while, but he wouldn’t last much more than another eighty years. Maybe a hundred.
Voron’s ghost congealed from his memories. When Hugh was a child, Voron was larger than life. Tall, powerful, unstoppable. A different man looked at him now, old, gray, somehow less, as if age leached the color from his hair and skin. The ghost raised his sword.
Go away, old man.
Hugh pushed the memory aside. This hay ride had a definite end. He no longer had forever.
The stones of the bailey turned even more inviting. Instead of thinking about what do to with his meager lifespan, he could just stop both, his life and his thinking.
“Mmm,” came a low feminine noise from the bed.
He turned. Caitlyn from the kitchen was too worried about what “the White Lady” would think, so he’d moved on to Vanessa. A brunette, with big boobs, long legs, a small butt, and lots of enthusiasm, she worked in the castle as a paralegal. She was also low maintenance.
Vanessa turned on her side and rested her head on her bent elbow, popping her chest to offer him a better view. He’d set the ground rules from the start, although he doubted she would stick to them. She was an opportunist.
She measured him with her gaze, pausing on his bare crotch. “Are we gonna keep doing this after you’re married?”
“Scared of Elara?”
She shook her head. “If the Lady didn’t want me here, she would tell me. The Lady knows everything. She knows what I’m saying right now.”
Interesting. Hugh leaned against the windowsill, studying her. “How?”
Vanessa waved her fingers at him. “Magic.”
“The tech is up.”
“It doesn’t matter. She knows.”
“Why do you call her the Lady?”
Vanessa shrugged one shoulder. “That’s just what she is. She isn’t like the rest of us.”
“What makes her special?”
“If you wait long enough, she’ll show you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“She protects us,” Vanessa said.
“From whom?”
“From everyone. The undead. The Remaining.”
He leaned forward. “Who are the Remaining?”
“We started out together, then we split,” Vanessa said. “We call those who stayed behind the Remaining. They call us the Departed.”
“Why did you split?”
Vanessa yawned. “It’s long and complicated.”
“You are afraid of Elara.”
“No, I’m just not stupid.”
Hugh moved toward the bed, leaned over her, and fixed her with his stare. She shrank back. Alarm flared in her eyes.
He glanced at the door, then back at her. She slid off the bed, grabbed her clothes, yanked her dress on, and hurried out, almost at a run, her underwear in her hands.
She would be back. He had her.
Vanessa was a born flunky. She feared Elara but she also felt some contempt for his future bride, or she wouldn’t have climbed into his bed to test her leash. Elara must’ve been kind to her. That was a mistake.
He’d seen Vanessa’s type enough over the years to recognize it instantly. Her kind of people understood strength and overt shows of power. They loudly proclaimed their support for the overzealous cops, local tyrants, and anyone willing to show brute strength. Vanessa respected authority that made her fear. As long as he terrified her, she would obey him and try to please, but she could never be trusted. If Elara scared her enough, Vanessa would spill his secrets. If she ever got a taste of real power, she would be petty and cruel.
Hugh turned to the window. The day was peaceful and quiet. He supposed he should shower and get dressed. He was getting married, after all. And he would buy food and safety for the Dogs with his marriage. And get a castle as a dowry. Once the moat was done…
The moat. The tech was up, it was midafternoon, and he’d ordered the construction to start this morning. Where were the fucking bulldozers?
“It’s a beautiful dress,” Nadia said.
“Very beautiful,” Beth agreed, brushing her hair.
Elara hid a sigh. They were doing their best to make her feel better. This wasn’t the way she imagined the day of her wedding. This was some hellish caricature of it.
She was doing it for the right reasons. She promised to protect her people and d’Ambray’s troops would protect them. The Iron Dogs seemed barely human, but they’d been inside the walls for a week and she couldn’t fault them. They’d taken over patrols. They ran and did endless amounts of push-ups. They were unerringly polite to her people. The castle had come with the barracks, but there weren’t enough spaces for all of them in the building, so she had to relegate them to tents in the bailey while the left wing was renovated. There wasn’t a whisper of complaint.
They had almost no supplies, except for what they could carry and a covered wagon. They brought the wagon in and unloaded two dozen sealed plastic drums, which they dragged inside and locked in a room in the barracks. None of the spying and scrying her people had done had managed to shed any light on what was in the barrels. It wasn’t money. D’Ambray was broke, so broke, that the contract they’d signed specified a week’s worth of clothes for every Iron Dog. They didn’t even have spare underwear.
Tonight she would have to marry that insufferable ass.
Some girls dreamed about getting married and planned their wedding. Elara never had. But when she thought about it occasionally, she always imagined getting married to someone who loved her.
“Have you decided what to do about the hair, my lady?” Eve asked from the back.
She’d given up on trying to get them to stop calling her that. At least when she was in earshot, they’d stopped referring to her as the White Lady. Having people pretend she was some medieval queen was better than the actual worship, Elara reminded herself. Worship had to be avoided at all costs.
“I don’t know.”
Her hair, the mark of her curse, fell around her face in soft waves after being twisted at the nape of her neck for the whole day. If she straightened it, the long white strands would reach past her butt. The hair was a pain. Elara had wanted to cut it for years, but it became a symbol of her magic, and she’d learned long ago that symbols were important.
“We could do a full updo,” Beth offered. “Something with flowers. We could do a very loose braid.”
“Or a waterfall braid,” Nadia said.
Elara bit down on another sigh. She almost told them she didn’t care, but it would hurt their feelings.
“We could leave it down,” Eve suggested. “You almost never wear it down.”
She didn’t wear it down, because she hated it. She still remembered her real hair, the dark, chocolate-brown curls. Three years ago, just after they left West Virginia, she got two bottles of hair dye and soaked the white strands in it. She kept it on until her scalp began to itch. When she walked out of the shower, her hair was still pristine white. Not a single strand took the dye.
“Let me think about it.”
“There are only two hours left,” Eve murmured.
“It’s not like they can have a wedding without me.”
A soft knock echoed through the room. Rook.
Eve opened the door. “She is busy.”
“Let him in.”
Elara drew her thin white robe around herself, hiding the translucent white camisole she wore underneath.
The door swung open. The spy stepped inside, his hair hidden by the hoodie he always wore. She waited for a report, but he just stood there. He’d brought her something private.
“Give us a minute,” she said. “I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
The three women left the room, with Beth closing the door behind her. Rook approached and held out a piece of paper.
Vanessa and Hugh:
V: Are we gonna keep doing this after you’re married?
H: Scared of Elara?