“I’m going to cry,” Bale announced from somewhere down the line. “Does anybody have a hankie?”
People ran up to take their horses. Hugh turned in the saddle. Elara was still on the battlements. They looked at each other for a long moment. Then June came to take Bucky’s reins and Hugh dismounted.
Hugh stepped out of the shower, toweled dry, pulled on a pair of pants, and dropped into the chair by his desk. He’d stayed in the bailey long enough to make sure everyone would be settled, but it was quickly clear he wasn’t needed, so he’d climbed the stairs to his bedroom, took off his armor, cleaned it, then went into the shower.
He’d stood there for a good quarter of an hour, letting hot water run over his face. Alas, he couldn’t stay in the shower forever. Tomorrow he would need to review their losses. Three of his Iron Dogs had died. Twenty-one of the villagers. Twenty-four was better than two thousand, but math didn’t make the weight of the dead any lighter.
His whole body ached, but his brain was awake.
He’d made a blood ward and used a blood weapon. How? The purge hadn’t failed. He couldn’t feel Roland. He shouldn’t have been able to do it, but he did. And he could do it again. He stared at the cut on his arm. He could feel the magic humming in his blood. That was one hell of a mystery.
He needed sleep, but he knew the moment he closed his eyes, he would see fire and blood and death. If he managed to fall asleep, he would dream tonight. It was inevitable. He would relive the battle. It would cycle through his head until the morning. The void gnawed at him, taking long bites with its sharp teeth, and the void was never satiated.
Tattered memories slid across his mind, death groans, blood spray, the screech of a sword forcing its way through metal into the flesh underneath… Right now Roland would be reaching through the distance for reassurance and absolution. The voice of reason, the parental voice of God, who would tell him he had done what was necessary and what he had done was just and right and would make everything better.
He had lost the soothing certainty of Roland’s connection, but he’d traded it for a grim clarity. He had done what was necessary. It was bloody and it tore him up, but he had done it, not because Roland deemed it right, but because Hugh himself decided it was right.
The fight still simmered under his skin, a hot spattering mix of adrenaline, bloodlust, and sheer endurance.
Hugh glanced up and saw her through the open door of his bedroom. She wore white and she was walking toward him.
Elara stopped in the doorway. She was holding a thick envelope in her hands.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“That’s for later.”
She walked into his bedroom, shut the door, and slid the latch, locking them in. He raised his eyebrows at her.
“We had a deal,” she said.
“Ah.” Wee lamb come to the slaughter.
A year ago, he would’ve stayed downstairs. He’d wash the blood off, eat, drink, and when a woman came his way, he’d fuck her until he couldn’t think straight. But it was no longer simple. He didn’t want to be her Aberdine.
“Leave.”
She put the envelope on the chair by the door.
“Did you not hear me?”
“I heard,” she said.
“Maybe I wasn’t clear. I don’t want your noble sacrifice.”
She raised her hands to her hair. Her braid fell from her head. “Oh please. I gave you three gorgeous naked women, and you practically dislocated your knees chasing me around the pool instead.”
She ran her hands through her braid and it fell apart, her long white hair spilling over her shoulders, soft and silky. It framed her face, bringing something new to it, some unspoken intimate promise. He almost never saw her with her hair down. He wanted to think it was for him alone.
Elara shook her head. He watched her, because he was a raging idiot, and he noticed everything: the bend of her neck as she leaned forward to take off her sandals, the way her hair fell, the way the dress hugged the curve of her ass…
He didn’t want payment. He didn’t want obligatory sex. He wanted her to want him. To scream for him. He wouldn’t get what he wanted, and right now, he wanted her gone.
“Last chance, Elara. Leave.”
Her light eyes laughed at him. “I’m staying.”
They stared at each other across the room.
“Well?” she asked. “Or should I get an apron?”
The remnants of the fight drove him on. He would make her run from this room screaming and then he would rest.
There was something irritatingly erotic about the way he sat.
He sprawled in a chair, huge and golden, his muscular body draped over it. His shirt was nowhere to be found. Strong powerful muscle corded his shoulders. His carved chest was clean-shaven, his body slimming down to a narrow waist and flat, hard stomach. His dark hair, still wet from the shower, fell on his face. His blue eyes were cold and dark.
“Fine,” Hugh said. “Rules are simple: while you’re here, you do as I say. Any time it gets too much for you, say ‘stop,’ and everything will stop, and you can walk out that door.”
“Fine by me.”
He tilted his head and looked her over. She could almost feel his gaze sliding over her face, down, lingering over her breasts, and moving down, to her hips. He looked at her as if he were buying her and was trying to decide if she was worth his money.
Oh, it’s like that now, is it?
Elara raised her arms to the sides and turned, rolling her hips as she did. There you go, get the whole picture.
She completed her turn and winked at him. He didn’t move.
“Take off your clothes.”
She pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders, and let it fall off her chest. She wore a lacy white bra underneath. She had picked it especially for today. It cradled her breasts, lifting them up, the outline of darker nipples barely visible through the lace. It wasn’t the kind of bra a woman would wear for comfort, and she’d been stuck in it for several hours, waiting for him to come back.
He stared at her. He still hadn’t moved.
The thin fabric of the dress snagged on her hips and Elara pushed it down, revealing a pair of lacy panties, so small they were barely there. The dress fell and pooled around her feet. She stepped out of it and kicked it aside.
He looked almost bored. Arrogant prick.
Her hands went back, and she unhooked her bra. The pale straps came loose, and she pulled it off her left arm, peeled it from her breasts, and held it out to the side with her right hand.
She opened her fingers. The bra fluttered to the floor.
Elara slid hands along her hips, hooking the panties with her thumbs, pulled them down, and kicked the tiny piece of fabric aside.
Something sparked in his eyes, a dangerous blue fire.
He wanted her naked. Fine. She would be naked for him.
Her stomach sloped, gently rounded, to the vee between her legs, dusted with white curls. Her breasts were full and heavy, and he wanted to crush her to him and brush his fingers over her nipples. In his mind he lunged from the chair, grabbed her, and dragged her to the bed.
His erection hurt.
The Ice Harpy stood naked in front of him. The Queen of the Castle.
It was a contest now. He didn’t think he had another fight in him tonight, but she goaded him, and he would not lose.
She smirked at him.
Hugh opened his mouth. “Crawl to me.”
He waited for her to grab her clothes, bolt, and slam the door.
A slow witchy smile bent her lips. She laughed softly. Her knees bent, and she went into a crouch, her hair brushing the floor.
An instinctual alarm pricked his spine with icy claws. Whatever was looking at him from the floor was not human. It looked like a human woman, it was shaped like one, but it was something else. Something ancient and cold, a thing of ice and sharp fangs, woven from eldritch magic. It looked at him through Elara’s eyes and it laughed.