She blurred, stepping fast down the path through the woods. One, two, three, four…
Hugh walked on the cobbled path. He was out of uniform. His jeans were scuffed and worn, just like his black boots. His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of a white T-shirt, which hung loose around his waist. Cedric, the big dog he’d healed, ran along his side, tongue lolling. From this angle, Hugh almost looked like a normal guy out for a stroll with his adoring pooch.
It was so strange, Elara thought. By all rights, Hugh d’Ambray was a despicable human being, but for some reason dogs instantly liked him. Horses too. Bucky was practically overcome with joy every morning when Hugh came to brush him and pick his hooves.
She supposed some women liked him too.
Cedric looked at her over his shoulder. She hurried to catch up, making no effort to move quietly. Cedric trotted over to her. She petted him.
“You’re insane if you think he will make good war dogs. His puppies will be just like him, goofballs.”
Hugh ignored her.
Elara walked next to him. Tall trees spread their canopy above them, just far enough apart to let some isolated rays of sun through. The brush at their roots was gone. Instead carefully planted patches of herbs colored the ground on both sides of the path. The plants were both native and introduced: sage, mugwort, plantain, ginseng, goldenseal, black cohosh, and more. Being here soothed raw nerves, and she often walked this path. More often since Hugh arrived. She needed a lot of soothing these days.
“How can I get rid of you?” Hugh asked.
“Divorce me.”
“As soon as I can,” he swore.
Elara let him have a minute of silence. “Tell me.”
He gave her a brooding look.
“Tell me about Lennart and why you hate him.”
Exasperation stretched his face. He looked up, as if searching for the heavens.
“Our marriage is a sham. Our alliance isn’t,” she said. “We need each other. When people look at you, they see a murdering butcher who betrayed his allies. When they look at me, they see an abomination who leads a cult and feeds on human sacrifice. But now we’re married and suddenly they see us as newlyweds. They assume that there must be something I see in you, some redeeming quality that made me love you and marry you. When they look at me, they see a wife. Surely, I couldn’t be that abominable.”
“Or I wouldn’t have married you,” he finished.
“Yes. Doors that were previously closed are beginning to open. The Red Guard guy is coming after ignoring us for months. The county sheriffs think that we are a lovely couple. Explain the problem with the Pack, so I’ll understand.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking for your thoughts and secrets. Just for facts. I’ll learn them anyway. Normally I’d pounce on a chance to explore your weaknesses, but right now I just want the Pack thing to go smoothly. I worked too damn hard for it. A three month-long bidding war, four trips to the Pack to woo them, almost ten thousand in extra herbs planted.”
“Did you go yourself to woo the Pack?”
She laughed. “Because I am so sweet and charming?”
He gave her a dark look. “Your people are eating out of your hand.”
“They are my people and I love them. They’ve proved their loyalty beyond anything I had a right to ask. There is no limit to how low I will sink to keep them safe.”
“Interesting choice of words.”
She faced him. “Accurate. I will do anything for them.”
“Good.” His smile was like the flash of a knife. “I’ll use it against you later.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m so scared. I’ll have to go and find someone to sex me up right away just to keep my composure. Tell me, how did all this start?”
He didn’t answer. She strolled next to him.
“Roland found out he had a daughter,” Hugh said.
“I know the story,” she said. “The immortal wizard woke up after hibernating through the centuries of technology just before the Shift. He set about rebuilding his empire from the ruins of our modern world. He gathered necromancers and made them into the People. He hired an army and set a warlord to lead them. And he swore off having children, not sure why.”
“They always turn on him,” Hugh said.
Just like you? Maybe he had turned on Roland. Maybe not. There was something wistful in the way he said Roland’s name.
“He fell in love in spite of himself,” Elara continued. “And he had a daughter, but his wife ran away.”
“He tried to kill the child in the womb,” Hugh said.
She stopped and glanced at him. “What?”
“It didn’t work. Daniels is hard to kill.”
Elara recovered. “And then her mother took her and ran away with Roland’s Warlord.”
“He raised me,” Hugh said.
“The Warlord?”
“Yes. His name was Voron. He’d trained me since they found me in France. Then Kalina, Daniels’s mother, decided she needed his help, and it was all over. One day he was simply gone. That was her power. If she wanted to, she could make you love her.”
So his surrogate father had abandoned him to be with his boss’s wife and their child. That had to hurt.
“It didn’t last,” Hugh said. “Roland tracked them down eventually and killed Kalina. Voron escaped with the child. I thought Voron would come back, after her magic wore off, but he never did.”
“After Voron left, what happened to you?”
“I became the Warlord. Later Roland found out that his daughter survived.”
“How?”
Hugh shrugged. “She started using her magic. Daniels isn’t a subtle type. I could’ve brought her to him, but he wanted her to come to him, voluntarily, which was a lot more complicated. By that point, she had decided that Curran Lennart was her one and only. As long as they were together, inside the Pack’s Keep, I wouldn’t have made any progress. I had to get them to turn on each other.”
He was describing it matter-of-fact, in a detached voice.
“You lured them out of the Keep?” she guessed.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Panacea. I wanted a lot of distance, so I went to Europe, to the Black Sea. I had a castle there, a quiet base for Middle Eastern operations. There are a lot of potent old powers in Arabia. Best to stay out of their way, on the outskirts.”
“Did Lennart and Daniels come?”
Hugh nodded.
“What was it like meeting her?” Elara asked. “What was Daniels like?”
“You wanted just the facts, remember?”
“Did she like your proposal?”
“No. We danced around for a while. Sparred once.”
“Is she good?”
“Yes.”
“Better than you?”
“Faster. Voron taught us both. It was like fighting myself. She’s a killer. If you take away her sword, she’ll pick up a rock. If you take away the rock, she’ll kill you with her hands. She zeroes in and doesn’t let go.”
Suppressed admiration slipped into his words. Elara felt an uncomfortable pinch.
“Aside from fighting Voron, it was probably my best fight,” he said.
“You fought Voron?”
“I killed him.”
She stared at him. “Why?”
“Roland wanted him dead.”
So his second surrogate father ordered him to kill his first surrogate father. And he obeyed. Either he was truly a monster or…
“Did it hurt when you killed him?”
“He wasn’t exactly in his prime.” Hugh smiled, but his eyes didn’t. It hurt, she realized. It hurt, and it haunted him still.
“Voron was bound to Roland the same way I was bound,” he said.
“How?”
“Roland pulled the blood out of my body, mixed it with his, and put it back.”
She stared at him. “How is that possible?”
“Roland’s magic is ancient. He is capable of wonders. The blood brings with it certain powers. Blood weapons. Blood wards. Long lifespan. Healing is mine alone. I was born with it. Some things I learned like any other mage can learn. But blood powers come from Roland. When Roland killed his wife, he expected Voron to come back. We all did. When he didn’t Roland purged him the way he purged me.”