He wanted to bare his soul to the woman. Therein lay danger.
“I am the son of a vampire gentleman and a human commoner. However, my father was especially loved by King Stephanus. So he honored my father’s request to make her vampire when they discovered she was with child—” he glanced at her for emphasis—“with me, of course. And while my father was a favorite of the King of Korinth, he made enemies of the monarchs at Glass Tower.”
He reined in the anger flaming up his chest.
“How did he make enemies?” she asked softly.
“My father had radical ideas. Though our estate is extremely small, we support a few faithful tenants to work the land. But my father disagreed with the overwhelming percentage of the tenants’ wages going to himself and the crown. So one day, he stopped paying the tithe to the Glass Tower, leaving his tenants with a much larger portion of earnings. Since his appeals to the Tower were consistently ignored, he began to ignore them.”
“I don’t imagine that went over well.”
He could feel her eyes on him, but he kept his own forward. “Not well at all, I’m afraid.”
“What happened?”
Flashes of memory. His mother’s cries. His father’s mutilated body.
“While we were all away, except my father tending to the estate, a band of rogue vampires with the blood madness showed up and murdered him.”
The princess gasped, remaining silent for a moment. Then finally, “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s done.”
“How can you be sure the rogues were sent by the Glass Tower?”
He looked down at her, remembering his father’s decapitated head alongside his crumpled body.
“Because after they assassinated him on the doorstep of our home, they wrote the word traitor in his own blood. It could only be the queen who saw him as such.”
She didn’t ask anything more. He wouldn’t elaborate that his father’s radical beliefs stemmed from an age-old wrong done to their bloodline. That this war between his family and the one sitting on the empirical throne was one that began long, long ago. Before he was ever born.
He needed to change the subject before his anger overwhelmed him.
“Arabelle told me you’d met the hart wolves that Sienna kept close to her the last time you were here.”
“I don’t know about meeting them, but yes, I saw them. There was one very gentle wolf, the white female Sienna called Duchess. Do you know the hart wolf even let her ride her? I remember when Kathleen—” She broke off suddenly, the joy in her voice leeching out as if she’d been struck.
Mikhail had been told of her lady-in-waiting’s fate. “I am sorry for your friend.”
She kept her head held high as they drew closer to the woods. “Thank you. It was cruel. She’d done nothing wrong. The queen had her killed to hurt me.”
“Yes. The queen thrives on bringing pain to others.” He cast away that thought, focusing on what was ahead. “The reason I bring up the hart wolves is because there’s something you don’t know. Didn’t know upon your last visit here. And we’ll likely be meeting some of them as we enter the forest.”
“Meeting?” she gave a curious laugh. “What do you mean?”
“The hart wolves aren’t simply wolves.”
“No. I never thought so. They’re big as bears and have a high intelligence. They also feel emotions on a very pure level.”
He slowed and glanced at her quizzically, then remembered. She’d told him she was an empath, right before she said she wasn’t ignoring her own emotions. He’d been stupefied by her declaration at the moment, having forgotten that she could sense the emotions of every person, every being. “That makes sense.” He said his thoughts aloud as he walked on more swiftly, and she stepped in line beside him.
“What makes sense?”
“You are so forthright and honest. Your own emotions are so obvious. That would make sense for an empath.”
She nodded, and they fell silent as they edged into the woods. A thin layer of snow covered the ground, some roots of the thick black oak trees jutting up here and there. No leaves clung to the branches now, where normally they’d be full of silvery leaves.
“I love these woods,” she whispered reverently.
“Interesting. Most vampires fear these woods. The magic here.”
“Not me. That is why I love them. I can feel the magic singing in the boughs. Can’t you?”
He followed her gaze upward, hearing and feeling nothing but a strange chill on the wind. “No. I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Really?” She smiled like a child beholding a wondrous gift. “It feels like…coming home.”
“Perhaps it’s because you’re an empath. You sense what others cannot.”
“Perhaps.”
Dmitri flashed from up ahead and stopped in front of Mikhail, the wind whooshing the air around them. “Dane, Allora, and some other clansmen await up ahead. They want to meet the princess.”
“Tell them we’re coming.”
Dmitri flashed away around the bend.
“Who are Dane and Allora?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The hart wolves aren’t just wolves. They’re a clan—actually, there are four clans from what I’ve been told—of a people touched by the magic of the hartstone. They are guardians in wolf form.”
Mina simply shook her head as they rounded the curve into a small clearing along the path where a row of people stood. The other four of the Bloodguard assumed positions behind Mikhail and Mina, flanking in a defensive mode. Mikhail saw and sensed hart wolves pacing within the woods, watching.
Mikhail recognized Allora first, wearing buckskin pants, a white tunic blouse, and a leather drawstring tie at her waist. Her white-blond hair fell in wispy waves to her thighs. The tips of her tribal tattoo flared with a wispy curl by her collarbone.
Mina slowed her gait but didn’t stop. He sensed no fear from her, only curiosity.
“Oh,” she finally said just as they stopped before Allora. Dane was on her right.
She seemed to realize what he’d been trying to tell her. A line of four clansmen Mikhail didn’t recognize stood on Allora’s left. However, their powerful presence was not to be overlooked nor were the golden torques around their necks, crowns denoting their status as kings of their clans.
With a dip of his head, Mikhail gestured to Mina and said, “May I present Vilhelmina Dragomir, Princess of Arkadia.”
Allora bowed, rather than curtsied, as both men and women bowed in greeting in their culture, Sienna had explained to him. “I am Allora Godric. Sienna once called me Duchess.”
Mina could barely leash the glee shining on her face. “I see.” She curtsied. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” She cast a wondrous glance up at Mikhail. She truly was a remarkable woman, finding such joy in the discovery that the hart wolves were shapeshifters, touched by magic. Most people would frown in confusion or cower in fear. Not Mina. She welcomed this strange news as she would a glorious gift.