Araneae Nation: The Complete Collection Page 14

  When he released me, I did my best not to glance back, but morbid curiosity guided my feet.

  Rhys nudged a slender leg with a delicate hoof attached. “They’re some type of pecora.” He lifted a broken antler, flipping it across his hand. “Odd we found them so near the road. Predators must have chased them this way.” He tossed it aside. “The northern woods are crawling with canis.”

  Canis. As I shivered, I wished I’d kept my seat on Marron. A lone canis had no hope of besting a mature ursus, let alone three, but canis were pack animals and numbers favored them.

  During leaner winters, Araneaeans became a food source. It hadn’t felt lean until now.

  “It is odd.” Vaughn wiped gore from his hand on the dirt. “The innards were consumed, little meat eaten and the limbs strewn.” He stood. “Canis aren’t so particular in my experience.”

  Rhys scanned the trees lining the road. “What do you suggest, then?”

  Vaughn’s head fell back on his shoulders, his eyes narrowed and nose lifted.

  “Do you smell that?” he asked Rhys. His voice turned cruel. “No, of course you don’t.”

  “Stop being an ass.” Rhys drew in several deep breaths. “What am I missing?”

  Vaughn’s superior smirk irritated me, but Rhys kept his expression neutral while he waited for his brother to finish enjoying the suspense.

  Annoyed by the delay, I made an attempt. Death soured my first lungful, but beneath that I smelled the faintest perfume. “Flowers.” I inhaled again. “The type is unfamiliar to me, but it is floral.”

  “Well, aren’t you full of surprises.” Vaughn’s smugness melted into a familiar scowl.

  Cloying sweetness shifted on the wind, here, then gone before I located it a second time.

  “Do you know what it is?” No flowers I knew bloomed midwinter. “Perfume perhaps?”

  “It’s possible.” He shrugged as though the source didn’t matter. “It’s impossible to place such a faint trace.” He tapped his nose. “The important thing is, I’ll know it if we cross it again.”

  “We can debate later.” Rhys grasped my elbow and steered me in the opposite direction. “Whatever attacked those pecora passed through not too long ago. If canis are to blame, they’ll likely circle back and finish their meal, or at least guard their kills from the threat of poachers.”

  Stiff-legged, we marched toward the milling ursus, who shied from the pecoras’ smells. Canis might be their natural enemy, but I’d never seen the ursus unnerved by a kill before now.

  Fresh death had a scent, but these corpses smelled rotted. Perhaps they’d been diseased.

  Marron growled at Rhys. He must have handled too much of the remains for her liking.

  “It’s okay, girl.” I patted her flank. “We’re leaving—oomph.” Rhys set me high on her back.

  Brun wrinkled his nose but appeared less offended by the scent clinging to his rider. Hearty swears drew my notice where Noir danced in a half circle as she outmaneuvered Vaughn. Each time he neared her reins, she snapped at him, but he’d poked and prodded the bodies.

  From the corner of my eye, I caught Rhys’s small smile. When he caught me staring, it blossomed into a full-fledged grin that left me dumbstruck. Guiding Brun to my side, he trailed his fingers across my thigh in passing. As if by unspoken agreement, Marron trudged after her mate, and together, they corralled Noir long enough for Vaughn to clamber back into the saddle.

  Once our mounts hit an easy stride, Vaughn urged Noir to regain the lead and Brun fell in beside Marron. Rhys held his mask, and though I’d lost mine, neither male donned theirs. I think we all wanted our lungs clear and faces scrubbed by the chill before resuming our confinement.

  More for conversation than the desire for an answer, I asked, “Where do we go now?”

  He stared into the distance. “Wherever Vaughn’s nose leads us, I suppose.”

  “Henri said you mentioned the Salticidae.” Except when traveling to Siciia, the journey was too far to see them socially. “I wondered if you had plans to make use of their hospitality.”

  “Huh.” He frowned. “He must have overheard me mention the possibility to my brother.”

  In other words, Henri had eavesdropped on their conversation. Thankfully, my cheeks were too raw to hold a blush. What had he been thinking? The male’s curiosity would be his downfall.

  I tried for nonchalance. “The underground stables are their own echo chamber.”

  His lips twitched once before they flattened. “I’m sure they are.”

  You can’t wring blood from a turnip, and this turnip seemed to have larger concerns than whether my obnoxious brother had overheard his private conversation or why he’d imposed. Accepting I was to amuse myself, I turned my attention outward. This area was familiar to me, but already sprang with more life than my native Erania. In a matter of hours, we’d cross the veil into the southlands, a sort of energy curtain falling across the divide between the north and south.

  “I regret you had to see that.”

  Rhys’s voice startled me from my thoughts. He stared ahead, his expression blank.

  “Death is a part of nature.” Though I admitted, “I’ve never seen the likes of those kills.”

  “You’ve seen many kills, then?” He sounded curious, not condescending.

  “I prefer field archery to living targets, but yes. I have.”

  He showed stirrings of interest. “I’ve heard your father was a skilled marksman.”

  “He was.” I scoffed. “Sometimes I think it was the only thing that kept him sane.”

  “I imagine life among the Araneidae was difficult for him.”

  My spine stiffened. “It was.” No mercenary truly left his past behind, and wedding an Araneidae meant putting his skills out to pasture and turning his mind toward the ruthless pursuit of business instead. “Archery was his way of life, and his clan’s. Precision requires a keen mind and quick reflexes, both attributes he prized.” I paused. “He was a strategist, always thinking, always planning moves for those around him several steps ahead of where they expected to be.”

  He gave me a reflective look, one that mirrored thoughts I’d entertained more than once.

  Such as how far ahead had Father planned my actions? Were the steps I took now guided by the hand of his ghost? As clever as he was, had he suspected Pascale and Kellen of more than passing acquaintance? I cast aside the notion. Foretelling death was beyond even Father’s scope.

  After a while, he said, “I’d wondered.”

  I didn’t follow. “What did you wonder?”

  He lifted his hand and rubbed at his fingers. “I wondered if you were an archer as well.”

  “Oh.” My first three fingers were hard and calloused. “I suppose my hands are telling.”

  He made no comment, but eyed my saddlebags. “You’re armed?”

  My hand drifted to the silken roll at my back Henri had packed for me. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He shifted. “Pickings will be lean until we cross the veil, and we’ll need every advantage if we’re to have a hot meal once night falls.” He smiled. “We’ll test your aim then.”

  My smile held an edge. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Vaughn was right about one thing.” His voice turned soft. “You are full of surprises.”

  Foolish organ that it was, my heart leapt at his words. “I could say the same for you.” I got the impression he didn’t believe me. “You may have noticed my tendency to dive into any situation without testing the waters.” I gave a self-directed eye roll. “I’m eager, you understand? It’s as if all my life I had this vague notion once I became maven, I could shuffle the world and deal fortunes as I saw fit. I imagined so many things, but not this, not succession by early death.”

  “You’re young.” He stared ahead. “You’re filled with youthful enthusiasm, fanciful notions.”

  “I’m not a child.” I hadn’t meant the words as harsh as they sounded.

  His head swu
ng my way, his gaze burning as he stared fixedly at my throat, where he’d marked me twice. “You’re no child. I’ve never seen you as one.”

  The heat in his tone left me no doubt of that. Shifting in my saddle, I couldn’t get comfortable. How long had this male been mine? Days blurred during the madness of our circumstances. The smile I wanted to give him refused to form. My mouth refused to bend. My face was left a blank slate as the magnitude of his desire dawned upon me. Unbidden, my gaze swept down his body, where his pants did nothing to restrain the evidence of his arousal. I felt more than saw him grin.

  Promise hung suspended between us. His gift to me had been time to grieve, willingness to bend, understanding while I grasped at straws and made decisions as though I were my parents instead of me. Finally, I was coming into my own, accepting my place. Now he wanted his due.

  Nervous flutters filled my unruly stomach, pleasant this time, yet equally unnerving.

  I wanted him, this partisan I hadn’t imagined having, this male gifted to me by random chance and circumstances I’d manipulated by choice, and he wanted me, of that I had no doubt.

  When I let him have me…or he took me…only that detail remained a mystery.

  My bow sang when I loosed my arrow. Forcing a neutral expression, I glanced at Rhys. “Is one enough?” I toyed with my hip quiver and then nodded toward the small clearing where our dinner lay in a heap of brownish feathers while her brood squawked and scurried for cover.

  He turned toward Vaughn. “What do you think?” He grinned. “Will one suffice?”

  Vaughn scowled at the dead hen as if willing her to rise. “It was a fortunate shot.”

  “Oh?” I was the portrait of innocence as my bow lifted. “Would you like to see it again?”

  Rhys touched my arm. “One is plenty for the night after the day we had.”

  My stomach lurched at the reminder of the pecora. How their sickly yellow-smeared bodies stunk. Scrunching my nose, I lowered my bow. “I think you’re right. I’m not hungry.”

  “You’re going to eat something.” He made it an order, one I doubted I could follow.

  I had strips of meat dried with berries in my saddlebag. It appealed more to me than this.

  “I will,” I hedged. My insincere tone earned me a stern glance.

  “I’ll eat her share if she doesn’t.” Vaughn’s smile turned eager. “Who’s cleaning?”

  Resting a palm against my middle, I hoped my name wasn’t the answer. Hours later my stomach teetered on the edge of upset. The oily stink of the pecoras clung to my skin, my hair. I wished for a tub and enough hot water to fill it, but I settled for a quick braid, then spun a thread to tie the end. With any luck, we’d reach the Salticidae tomorrow and I could wash in their river.

  Perhaps sensing my unease, Rhys settled the issue. “I’ll do it.” He turned to Vaughn. “You start the fire.”

  He set off to claim my kill, and I followed. “Would you like some company?”

  “If you’re up to it.” He seemed pleased I’d asked and offered me his hand.

  Balling my fists, I hesitated a moment. “It might be difficult to navigate the brush if you’re holding my hand.”

  His frown said all manner of things, chief among them that he didn’t buy my excuse for a moment. He dropped the matter as he waded in the dense twist of dead vines.

  Despite my earlier smugness with Vaughn, I’d had trouble landing my shot because of the thick foliage. Around the clearing, briars coiled, and the second I’d struck the hen, the others scattered. There was no way I could have landed a second shot if he had called me on my boast.

  When I tripped over a thorny limb, Rhys balanced me and then captured the hand I’d denied him as though it were his due. “It might be more difficult if you’re not holding my hand.”

  Feeling left my fingers soon after, but his firm grip was the primary reason I made it stumbling into the clearing. He hadn’t treated my hands as if they were coarse, which eased me, though I was ashamed to realize I’d decided I would ask Henri for a skin-softening balm.

  Was this it, then? The fall into femininity I’d avoided thus far? Strange how fast it crept up on me and how one male’s perception mattered enough I reevaluated my hands now when I’d once been content with grimy nail beds. To make matters worse, when I caught a whiff of myself, I recalled Isolde’s bucket of chill water was the closest I’d come to bathing since the night my parents died.

  All of a sudden, I was grateful for Rhys’s less keen sense of smell.

  When we reached the hen, he lifted the body by its slender neck as he appraised my shot.

  An indelicate question came to mind. “How do you, um, plan to eat it?”

  He lowered the hen. “You look as though you expect me to take a bite out of it, feathers and all.” One dark eyebrow lifted. “Is that what you think of me? Do you find me so crude?”

  “I— No, I didn’t mean to imply…” I shut my mouth.

  “You heard me address my clansmen.” He sounded tired. “If you’d paid attention, you’d have heard the part where I emphasized we eat the raw flesh of our enemies in tribute.” He lifted the dead bird. “This is not my enemy. This is dinner. Or it will be after it’s cleaned and roasted.”

  “I meant no offense.” I dared to stroke his cheek. “I wish I understood you better.”

  He turned his face into my palm. “We’ve the whole of our lives to find understanding.”

  “You sound certain.” His stubble prickled my palm. “Are you so determined to win me?”

  “Lourdes, I have won you.” He nipped my wrist, and a foreign part of me thrilled at the danger. “You’re bound to me. Soon you’ll be wed to me. We won’t be parted. I won’t allow it.”

  “Why do you want me?” I searched his face for some clue. “Would anyone have done?”

  “You understand duty, so you must forgive me when I say I would have wed any maven of your line if mine asked me to.” His eyes darkened. “But none of them would have been you.”

  Pleasure burned tight in my chest, filling the empty places with delicious heat until one errant thought snuffed out my bliss. I screwed up my courage. “Have you been bound before?”

  “No.” His utter bewilderment was endearing. “It was never asked of me.”

  I prodded him. “Usually the male does the asking.”

  His frown deepened. “I’ve never been inclined to ask.”

  “Would you have asked me?” I don’t know why the words sprang from my mouth. The instant they registered with Rhys, his lips parted, and I wished I could swipe them from his ears.

  “Yes.” Raw truth rang from his single world, and I believed him.

  Heady relief made my shoulders round until my mouth opened on one last question. If I had a measure of sense, I would have clamped a hand over my mouth. “You say you’ve never been bound.” He tensed. “How do you know your venom isn’t the cause of your regard for me?”

  With his head angled as he stared at the hen in his hand, I almost missed the slow spread of his smile. “No.” He chuckled, the sound dark and rich. “It’s not the venom, I promise you.”

  “How can you be so sure?” My voice cracked. After all, I’d blamed venom for my attraction to him. If he said venom wasn’t to blame, and I believed him…then my desire for him was not some manifestation of our bond but meant that I’d wanted this male from the very start.

  How was such a mutual need born between two strangers during the blink of an eye?

  He rolled his shoulders. “I know myself and own my actions.” His eyebrow arched a second time.

  Was he daring me to do the same? “There is comfort to be had in familiarity with one’s self and actions.” I was hedging again. At this rate, I’d sprout roots and sink my toes into the dirt.

  When I glanced at my boots, my nape prickled in an icy rush of foreboding.

  Leaves crackled and footsteps scuffed behind me. Rhys’s gaze slid past my shoulder, and his eyes narrowed. I turned, expecting Vau
ghn had come to search for his dinner. Instead, a bloated pecora stumbled on unsteady legs, weaving through the dormant forest as it crashed against trees.

  I stepped back as its nostrils flared in a flagging trumpet. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It must be sick.” He tucked me behind him and drew his sword.

  The wisp of sound from his blade as it left his scabbard brought the awkward animal’s attention our way. Its head lowered at a wrong angle. Weaving on its feet, it prepared to charge.

  The wind changed, and I smelled it, the same oily wrongness that had drenched the others.

  “Do you smell that?” We spoke over one another. “Do you see that?”

  “It smells the same as the others.” He pointed, and I answered by grasping my bow.

  Gold fabric hung from the lowest point on its rack. I’d recognize the color anywhere.

  “My mask.” The sun had kept us warm, so the masks weren’t necessary and the slight discomfort had been worth the fresh air, but I’d lost mine hours ago. “It can’t have been following us all this time.”

  “Sick animals do all manner of odd things.” He kept his voice low as the animal stamped its hooves. “It’s going to charge.” He shoved me. “Get back. I’ll need room to swing my sword.”

  I did as I was told, but a single arrow could end this standoff without the risk of injury to Rhys. After all, if the animal was sick, I’d rather not risk its blood contacting him. Some forms of illness carried with a touch, and I was unwilling to risk his life by discovering if this was one.

  Stepping back and to his right, I circled until I lined up a broadside shot, sinking an arrow behind the creature’s front shoulder. Rhys’s head snapped toward me, as did the pecora’s. Wobbling, it lunged and failed, then lurched again. Without pause, I drove two more arrows into my mark, but still its buckling legs carried it forward. While its disturbing focus settled on me, Rhys crept up behind the sick beast and ended its struggling with a merciful sweep of his sword.

  When I stepped in for a closer look, he shouted, “Stay back.”

  After another glance at the pecora, and a sweep of the woods, he came to me with his sword in his hand, which worried me.