She nods wearily, finally too tired to argue.
Some of her curls are still damp with spilled ale from a drunken group of men who tried to grope her in the last town, before I knocked the biggest one on his ass. The smell of it—sour brew mixed with the men’s pungent sweat—turns my stomach as much as the thought that their grasping hands were almost on her. Not that I’m looking—you know you are, Wolf—but Sabine’s skin is flawless, and something inside me will do anything to keep it unspoiled. Only my master’s hands belong on her.
In another half hour, we reach the outskirts of Mag Na Tir Forest, where the road winds among beech and oak trees. I lead us along a side path to a gently sloping clearing.
“Here?” Sabine looks around in bewilderment. “There’s no stream.”
I point deeper into the forest. “It’s fifty paces that way.”
At first, confusion pinches her pretty face, but then her eyebrows slowly rise. “Ah. You can hear it, can’t you?”
My gaze drops from her face to her upper chest, where her godkiss birthmark rides above her breastbone.
Do I tell her I can hear the blood in her veins?
That I can hear her little sighs, her exhales?
That the small slip of her fingers caressing that cockleshell is as loud as the crash of ocean waves to my ears?
“Yeah. I can hear it.” I toss down my rucksack and start clearing fallen limbs.
She gracefully dismounts and leads Myst in the direction of the stream, but I shake my head and point to the base of an elm tree. “No. I’ll water the horse. You stay there and don’t move.”
“I can—”
“Sit and stay there. I told you to obey.”
Her little hands fist, but she’s too tired to put up a fight. Letting out a huff, she drops to her pretty ass at the tree’s base. Good girl.
The routine of making camp is second nature to me. Clearing a space, collecting wood for a fire, checking the perimeter for any signs of wild animals nearby or, more dangerously, other people. Since Lord Rian pulled me out of the combat ring when we were both still boys, and years later put a bow in my hand, my life has been the hunt, the woods, the crackle and sighs of nature.
But this time, making camp is different. She makes it different. I find myself second guessing where to build the fire so the smoke won’t drift in her face, how to make a berth soft enough for a noblewoman. I spend so much time thinking about Sabine’s comfort that the moon is already up by the time I have the fire going and have led her horse to water.
Her stomach rumbles.
I stand up from stoking the fire, dusting off my hands. “I’ll hunt us something to eat. Stay here.”
She touches a hand to her stomach, eyes widening as it dawns on her that I heard her body’s hunger signals. She glances toward the darkness beyond the campfire’s glow, biting her bottom lip.
“I won’t be gone long enough for any danger to reach you.”
She swallows. “Okay.”
She hugs her knees. She’s shivering—fuck. Balled up like that, with her honeyed hair loose over her bare skin, she looks about as helpless as a fawn left alone by its mother.
Immortals help me.
I unbuckle my breastplate, tug my shirt free from my trousers, then drag it up over my head.
I toss her the shirt in a messy ball. “Put it on.”
Her hands knead the fabric as she looks at me with utter bewilderment. For a second, neither of us speaks. Finally, she says, “No dress. No chemise. No—”
“I know the fucking rules, Lady Sabine.”
She still looks baffled as her attention darts between me and the shirt. “But . . . ”
“Who is going to tell Lord Rian? The trees? Look, little violet, if you want to spend all night shivering without a stitch on you, be my guest. But it’s only you and me here. I don’t give a shit about honoring Immortal Solene’s ride—the gods have earned none of my favor. Tomorrow, you’ll continue the ride unclothed, as my master has declared. Tonight, in the privacy of our camp, if it brings you peace to cover yourself, then do so. It’s all the same to me.”
In the firelight, her round eyes look especially large. My heightened vision lets me see all the flecks of gold in her blue-green irises, like the sparks rising into the night have found a home in her eyes.
“You don’t honor any of the gods?”
I snort. “People are idiots to hope for their awakening. Yeah, I know the legends are thrilling to read, but in reality, the gods would be the same as any rulers with unchecked power—fucking tyrants. In a year after their return, it would be war and enslavement. We’re fortunate they went to sleep. I hope they never fucking wake.”
Her eyes stretch even wider.
“Why, does that offend you, little violet?” I snap.
She gives a laugh, surprising me. “Not in the slightest.”
Without another word, she shimmies into my oversized shirt, so big it hangs past her hips. Her heartbeat slowly calms as her hands smooth over the rough fabric. Undyed linen stinking of a man’s long day is no prize for a girl surely used to taffeta and silk, but she acts like it’s damask from the far isles.
“Why do you call me that?” she asks.
“Call you what?”
Her eyes skip to the godkiss visible on my bare chest. “Little violet.”
I grunt, not about to tell her a story of how a ruthless hunter once swooned over candied violets on a cake.
Because you smell like them.
“You’re soft,” I snap. “Fragile, like a violet. Now stay there.”
I snatch up my bow and tromp into the woods. It’s a relief to be here, where the space between trees feels like a homecoming. The smell of wild tartberries, the tiny snores of a chipmunk.
Immediately, I spot prints in the dirt and ready my bow.
As I stalk the rabbit’s trail, my mind drifts to my current charge. It’s easy to see why Lord Rian wants her. She’s a beauty by any man’s standards, and her hair might as well be a godkiss in itself. It’s no surprise Rian wanted a bride favored by the Immortals. His family might possess wealth and influence, but not a single one of them is godkissed. It’s the one thing they don’t have, so they’re drawn to it.
Will he be pleased with her? By the Immortals, he’s going to be fucking obsessed. I’ve collected him from enough brothels on the morning after a rager to know the kind of woman he likes, and Sabine will not disappoint. A body built for carnal pleasure with the grace of a lady.
For a moment, my mind drifts to the possibility of taking a bride for myself one day. It isn’t a thought I’ve ever entertained, if I’m being honest. I swore my life to serving the Valveres. My work takes me into the forest for weeks at a time, and there’s always the chance I’ll be finished off by a wild animal, like the stag that speared my shoulder with its antler the summer before last.