Chapter Nineteen
The sounds of conversation and cutlery against dishes came from the dining hall as Kathryn made her way to the kitchen.
She thought to grab something to eat quietly in the rooms she had appropriated for herself, but once in the kitchen, she realized it had become a major hub of activity. It was filled with the roar of heat, the scent of cooking food, and a crew of busy people working on a variety of tasks. She looked around for Brielle but didn’t see her.
“Dr. Shaw!” Isla rushed up, beaming.
“How are you doing, Isla?” She took the other woman’s outstretched hands for a brief squeeze.
“Very well, and it’s all because of you. I have some aches, but they’re easy to manage now that I know they aren’t an injury that would get worse if I ignored it. Thank you for everything you did.”
“You are quite welcome.” She backed out of the way as a male pushed by carrying a large tray of filled dishes. “I just came to grab a quick bite of something—I don’t mean to get in the way.”
Isla wiped her hands on a cloth. “Go find a seat in the dining hall. I’ll bring you a nice hot plate of food.”
“If you’re sure you don’t mind….”
The other woman snorted. “It’s the least I can do! Go on with you now.”
“Thank you.” With an inward shrug, she went with the change in plan and walked into the dining hall.
As soon as she stepped inside, Brielle and Owen, who were sitting together and talking over empty plates, saw her. Immediately they stood. At first she thought they meant to walk over or to make some other welcoming gesture.
Instead, they began to clap. Kathryn watched a wave wash over the hall as other people turned, noticed what was happening, and stood to join in with their own applause.
Well, goodness. That wasn’t awkward or embarrassing at all. Stopping in her tracks, she felt an uncharacteristic blush heat her face.
Brielle hurried over. “Your grace, if you would be so kind, would you care to sit with Owen and me?”
Your grace? Word had begun to spread of her and Oberon’s decision. That wasn’t awkward either, was it?
“Thank you,” Kathryn told her. “That would be delightful. Only, please stop clapping at me.”
“We are all so grateful for what you’ve accomplished,” Brielle told her. “You saved his majesty’s life. We owe you everything.” She lowered her voice. “And I went with Owen into that cave. It’s cleaned up now, but we saw what was down there. You must allow us our excess of sentimentality on this subject.”
She exhaled a quiet laugh. “Put like that, I suppose I’ll survive.”
“Do you need breakfast?”
“Isla’s bringing me something.”
“Very good.”
Sitting with Owen and Brielle, she visited with them as if imminent doom wasn’t hanging over all their heads. Isla brought her a cup of hot tea, a bowl of porridge, and a plate with cheese and dried fruit.
She would have much preferred meat or fish, but what with the impending food crisis, she wasn’t sure she would be getting any without hunting for it herself. By far, most of a peregrine falcon’s prey was made up of other birds, but she could also eat other small prey like reptiles and mice.
She could hunt rabbit and squirrel, but they were a little large for her and weren’t her preferred prey, and none of those would go very far to helping stretch the kitchen’s resources. The most powerful way she could help was by buying food to transport in… and that would take precious time they didn’t have. Stifling an inward sigh, she thanked the other woman and dug in.
Soon Owen and Brielle left to resume their work, and she enjoyed a few moments of solitude while she drank her tea.
Then Rowan slid onto the bench opposite her, leaned one elbow on the table, put his chin in his hand, and smiled at her. As immune as she was to his charms, getting hit point-blank with those wicked eyes and that smile was quite an experience.
“Tell me,” he said, “what’s it like to fall in love so quickly?”
She shook her head. “That’s a common misconception about Wyr mating. We don’t have to fall in love to mate, and we can fall in love without mating. They are two separate things—although when we’re very lucky, we can sometimes get the complete package. Not every Wyr who mates gets that.”
He frowned. “All right…. What is it like to mate so quickly?”
She shrugged, at a loss. After a moment of searching for the right words, she replied, “It’s meeting a stranger and then getting shocked by how quickly you can grow to need someone you barely know and don’t know if you can trust. Oberon and I are discovering that we need each other in our lives. We need each other sexually. It’s a driving, overwhelming force that is possessive, intensely uncomfortable, irrational, and quite often dangerous.”
Her frank reply had shocked him, she saw, as his eyes widened. Quietly, he asked, “Should we be worried about him?”
She had to pause again as she considered how to answer that. “You should adjust your expectations of him,” she said finally. “At some point I will become more important to him than Lyonesse. He may hate it, and he may struggle against it, and it may poison him with resentment toward me if we’re not careful—but if we don’t change our minds and break things off, it’s still going to happen.”
In that moment, even though Rowan’s expression never flickered, a sudden flash of intuition told her she was in danger. She knew that behind his charming, handsome façade, he was weighing the potential advantages to killing her.
She could see the reasoning perfectly. The opportunity to mate was a rare, precious thing, and it would be the cruelest thing he could ever do to Oberon, but from his point of view it might possibly be the best thing he could do for Lyonesse.
Killing her would also destroy a centuries-long relationship that must matter to him very much, and she had no doubt it would cost him his life.
She admired that. It took a special kind of dedication to his country to face all that unflinchingly. Rowan had a lot more going for him than a pair of sinful rock-star eyes.
Pushing her empty teacup to one side, she leaned her elbows on the table. Thankfully, she said telepathically, I have no intention of doing anything that would poison my relationship with my new mate. Mates are unbelievable treasures to the Wyr. Not everyone gets the chance to have such a blessing—which is why I’ve chosen to give up a full, enjoyable life in New York to stay here and why I’m risking my own life to do so, because you guys are in really bad shape right now. Luckily for you, I have a lot of money and some useful skills to bring to the table.
Slowly he replied, You have courage too, I’ll give you that. He gave her a sudden grin. Have you and Dragos really gone head-to-head?
With that, she knew the danger had passed. Throwing up her hands, she exclaimed out loud, “YES! He makes me crazy!”
Rowan’s face creased with vivid amusement.
In that moment, she sensed Oberon striding into the hall and turned to look for him. He didn’t bother trying to thread his way toward her. Instead, he held up a hand. “Kathryn, I need a word with you.”
“Of course.” She double-tapped the table in front of Rowan as she stood. “Good talk.”
“Catch you later.” He gave her a warm smile.
In the ninety or so seconds it took her to cross the hall, five people approached Oberon. She watched as he dealt with each of them patiently, and it was so unlike the cold asshole she had met she had to smile to herself.
“Ah, there you are,” he said as she joined him. He curled a hand under her elbow and told the others, “You must excuse us now. Talk to Owen or Annwyn if you need anything.”
Turning, he strode rapidly down the halls. His stride was much longer than hers, so she had to trot to keep up. She didn’t mind—it got them to a private space quicker.
He took her outside and along a garden path to a good-sized clearing, out of sight from any of the palace windows. Then he turned to face her. His face was set.
Uh-oh, she thought. She braced herself.
“I want your word that you will keep this confidential until it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said.
“Ouch,” she muttered with a wince. “But I deserve that. You have my word.”
He relaxed slightly. “Thank you.”
“You’ve made a decision about what to do, haven’t you?” Even as she said it, she realized she didn’t know how to brace herself for what came next. Nothing short of drastic measures was going to turn the tide of that invading army.
“I have. Robin and I will be leaving in a few minutes.” He took a breath. “We’re going by ourselves. I plan on departing without talking to any of the others, but I wouldn’t do that to you. I had to tell you.”
For a moment she couldn’t believe what she had heard. Then the detonation that went off inside was so nuclear she was surprised it didn’t flatten everything in the clearing.
There wasn’t anything she could say, shout, or scream that would properly communicate the immensity of that internal explosion. Shaking her head, she said in a flat voice, “No.”
Then it was Oberon’s turn to look like he couldn’t quite believe what he had just heard. Cocking his head, he repeated incredulously, “No? Are you trying to forbid me?”
“Correct,” she bit out. “I assume you have some sort of plan or intention. It doesn’t matter. I forbid you to do this.”
He barked out an angry laugh. “I never gave you that right. Nobody has the right to forbid me anything.”
“Well, you selfish bastard, I never gave you the right to make unilateral decisions while you’re mating with me,” she whispered. “I’m giving up everything for you. Everything. I did not ask you to do the same, and I did not do it, just so I could watch you ride off on some lone, heroic mission without decent backup. At the very least you should be taking Annwyn, Rowan, and Gawain with you. And there is no way in hell you’re doing it without me.”
He sliced a hand through the air. “They’re all exhausted, damn it! If I asked them to go, they would—of course they would—but more likely than not they would get themselves killed. And Robin is exhausted too! The less he has to transport, the faster and farther he can go.”
The major muscles in her thighs tightened as she remembered the wild ride that was faster than she could fly. Tapping a foot, she raised her eyebrows and pointed at herself. “I’m not exhausted, and I’m standing right here.”
“Kathryn.” Striding over rapidly, he grabbed her shoulders. “No.”
“Why not?” she snapped, knocking his hands away. “Do you think you get to have it all your way? You don’t want to have to give anything up—and you’re the one who gets to take all the risks?” She watched his face tighten as if he was holding in his own inner explosion. She forced out the next words. “If that’s who you really are, I am not your kind of mate. You gave me an ultimatum. I had to stay or go, because you weren’t going to leave here. Fine, but now here’s your ultimatum—you adapt right now and accept me as your full fucking partner in every fucking thing, or I’m leaving without a second look back. Don’t think I won’t this time, and I promise you it won’t even be hard.”
It would, of course. It would be wrenching and awful, and many other kinds of hell, but she knew she could do it, because she couldn’t live with the alternative, and she made sure he could see that in her hard stare.
“Goddammit,” he swore, running his hands through his hair. “You have so many gifts, but you are not suited for this battle!”
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” she snapped. “As a trauma surgeon, I am uniquely suited for this or any other kind of battle situation. I’m also fast, small, capable of attaining great heights, and I have exceptional vision. My hearing is pretty awesome too, by the way. Need an aerial scout? You’re looking at one. You’re just resisting because you don’t want me to go. You want me waiting here in safety until you get back. That is a reality I will not accept, do you hear me? I cannot do it—I cannot watch you go off and know that you might get yourself killed without me. That’s never going to be livable. I’m never going agree to that kind of mate, and I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU IF YOU GO WITHOUT ME ANYWAY.”
By the time she reached the end of her rant, she was screaming at him. A part of her stood back and watched in astonishment. She had never lost her shit so badly before. She sounded like a crazy woman.
His face had whitened, his eyes stark. “Stop. Kathryn, stop.” When he tried to reach for her again, she slapped his hands away, but then he snatched at her anyway and wrapped her in a tight clench. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“You can go fuck yourself with all your sorries,” she snarled. She was shaking again as badly as she had in the council room.
“All right, damn it,” he said, gripping her by the back of the neck. He stared down into her eyes, fierce gaze golden hot. “I’ll adapt. Do you hear me? I’ll hate it passionately, but I will still do it.”
“There’s no room for misunderstanding right now.” Digging the heels of her hands into her eyes, she gritted, “I need to you spell it out.”
He swore again, then said more quietly, “I will never willingly take on a risk without either your presence or your approval. I promise you, this will be a complete and full partnership in every way. I don’t know how to do that—I’ve been a ruler for a long time, but I’ve never had a life partner, and neither of us have had any time to adjust to this—so I’m going to make mistakes, and I’m sure you will too. But I promise you it will happen. All right?”
She looked down and to one side as she listened. Nodding, she whispered, “I’m sorry I screamed at you like that.” Then she paused to think about that. “That’s not true. I’m not sorry I screamed at you. I’m just shocked I did. I’ve been in some righteous shouting matches before, but I’ve never lost it so completely.”
His arms tightened. “I apologize for pushing you to it. Kathryn, I do not want you to come with us. I really, really don’t. I ask most urgently that you reconsider and stay home.”
She took in a shaky breath. “Complaining is acceptable.”
“You’re still coming, aren’t you?”
“Do you still want me for your mate?”
“Yes.” His eyes burned. There wasn’t a hint of hesitation.
She told him, “Then from here on out, if you ever feel the need to ask that question again, you can henceforth answer it yourself with oh hell yeah.”
“Henceforth?” His expression was bleak with resignation, but at that he raised one eyebrow.
“Yes.” She tried to remember when henceforth was in common use, but her mind was still a little fried from her meltdown. “Did I use that word correctly?”
He burst out laughing. “Who cares?”
She watched him laugh. She couldn’t bring herself to smile yet. “We’re both paying a steep personal price for this, you know.”
He framed her face in his hands. The lion looked out of his eyes. “I’ve seen a strength and a fineness in you that sets you apart from any other woman I’ve ever known. You are worth any price. You are worth more than my kingdom or my pride. You are worth my life.”
So what she had described to Rowan had already happened. Closing her eyes, she felt something deep and essential settle into place. It felt good, like coming home.
Like that red silk cloak settling around her, bringing softness, comfort, and warmth.
She told him, “You are worth my life too. When do we leave?”
“Any moment now. As soon as Robin arrives.”
“Then I’d better hurry.” She pulled out of his arms.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to grab my physician’s kit.” She met his gaze. “Hopefully we won’t need it, but I don’t make travel plans like this based on hope. I’ll be right back.”
He nodded. “I’ll wait here.”
She hesitated. For one awful moment she wondered, will he still be in the garden when I return?
He saw it, and his expression gentled. “I made you a promise, and I will always keep it. I will be here when you get back. Or would you feel better if I came with you?”
She could hear the truth in his voice, and that helped. She gave him a small smile. “No, it’s okay.”
Leaving him, she slipped inside and jogged through the palace. Decades of working in a large hospital had taught her the fine art of moving through a place filled with a lot of inhabitants. If she bolted, others would assume there was an emergency and follow. If she walked too slowly, people would try to talk to her. But a brisk, steady jog not only meant business. It also kept everybody else at arm’s length.
Back in the room, she tore through her pack of essentials. She discarded most of the clothes, only keeping a clean set of underwear and her toiletries kit. She needed lightness for speed, but this suicidal mission, scouting expedition, magical showdown, last-ditch stand, whatever you wanted to call this… whatever it ended up being… might take days.
Physician’s kit. Underwear. Toothbrush and tooth powder. What else?
The last things she grabbed were the bag of nuts and the bag of dried fruit she had stashed in her room for late-night snacks. Personally, if she never saw another pecan or dried peach slice again, it would be too soon for her, but in an emergency, calories were calories.
Her pack was much lighter and smaller by the time she was through. She slung it onto her back, then took off jogging through the palace again. Slipping out the first door she found, she wound her way around to the clearing.
Oberon stood talking to Robin. The puck’s nut-brown hair spiked even more than ever, as if he had run his many fingers through it repeatedly, and the adoration in his body language was palpable as he looked up at Oberon’s much larger frame.
Oberon clearly meant the world to him. How would Robin accept her, now that she and Oberon were mating?
She found out a moment later when they noticed her arrival. Robin gave her a sweet smile, his feral gaze lighting with welcome. She asked gravely, “Robin, will you agree to carry me again?”
A surge of wild magic filled the clearing as Robin changed and expanded rapidly until the massive black stallion appeared.
Stamping one giant hoof, the puck nodded. Lightning flashed in his large dark eyes as he replied, “I consent.”
He was so beautiful. She reached out to touch his soft nose, and he allowed it. “Thank you.”
“We must go.” Oberon started to hold out his hands.
He meant to offer to help her mount, but with a leap, she landed astride on the stallion’s broad back. The trick was much easier to do when she wasn’t wearing layers of winter clothing.
He raised an eyebrow, and she laughed down at him silently. Yes, she was showing off, but she was also making a point.
Full partners.
He sprang from a standstill and landed on the stallion’s back behind her. Okay, that was much more impressive than her own leap. He was over twice her body weight. She laughed harder as he hooked an arm around her waist and settled her firmly back against him, and she remembered to gather a couple of handfuls of the stallion’s mane just in time.
“Go,” Oberon said.
The stallion’s broad, powerful body bunched. He sprang forward, and the rest of the world fell away.
* * *
For Oberon, riding Robin again felt like another homecoming.
He savored the wild rush of wind, Robin’s ability to reach amazing speeds, and the incredible sense of freedom in leaving the city where he had been trapped for so long.
But mostly he savored Kathryn’s lithe body flexing with the rhythm of the stallion’s stride and held her back against him as they rode.
They moved too fast for intelligible speech. She exclaimed telepathically, I love this as much as I did the first time! Riding Robin is the only time I haven’t gotten impatient with being on horseback!
Laughing, he tightened his arm in acknowledgment. He might have known they would have that in common.
As the rolling hills and plains scrolled by, impossibly fast, he began to do some calculations. In a march, cavalry could go roughly thirty to thirty-five miles a day, but infantry could only go for twenty to twenty-five miles, and those estimates were in ideal conditions. After a days-long battle at Tellemaire, they had probably camped just inside the passageway for at least a day to recover.
Gracelyn and her soldiers had met up with Annwyn and her party on their way to the city. Roughly, that would have taken Gracelyn’s party three days of hard riding from Tellemaire. Then Robin had transported them the rest of the way.
That meant Isabeau and the Arkadians had been in Lyonesse for about four days. Give them a day for recovery and for possibly sending their injured back through the passageway, and that whittled their time down to three days, which meant they could be anywhere from sixty to a hundred miles from the Tellemaire passageway, but in which direction?
They would have stationed troops to guard Tellemaire so they would retain control of the passageway. Lyonesse had dozens of townships, settlements, and smaller cities, forests, lakes, and mountains, and an abundance of lush farmland and prairie, but they had only one city of any great size. And Isabeau wasn’t known for great stretches of imagination.
She believed he was in a coma. From her spy network, she probably knew he was not yet dead. Finishing the job and killing Oberon once and for all would absolutely be her first priority. She would want the satisfaction of crushing the city once and for all, and then she could take her time destroying the rest of the demesne.
Sire, where do you want to go? Robin asked.
Head straight for Tellemaire, Oberon told him. We’re going to run right into them.
The rest of the day melted away. Late in the evening, they stopped to drink at a quick-moving stream that was swollen from the mountain runoff. The icy water was refreshing. When they first stopped, Robin was blowing hard, his gleaming black flanks flecked with white foam. He had to walk awhile before he was able to drink.
When the puck finally joined Kathryn and Oberon at the stream, Oberon laid a hand on his burly shoulder and gave him more strength. The stallion’s dark gaze rolled to him in brief thanks. While they waited for Robin to refresh himself, Kathryn pulled out bags of nuts and fruit and offered them to Oberon.
Oberon ate two handfuls quickly. She didn’t eat any, he noticed, but she offered handfuls of the food to Robin, who inhaled everything she stuck under his nose. She looked at Oberon with a frown.
“What do you think about camping for the night?” she suggested. “We could move on in the morning after we’ve slept?”
“No.” Oberon and Robin spoke at once.
They looked at each other. Oberon could see that the puck was in complete accord with him. Stopping for the night would certainly be the rational thing to do but knowing Isabeau was in his land was simply intolerable.
“We’ll press on,” Oberon said. “Once we’ve had a chance to scout their army and gather some intelligence, we’ll decide what to do then.” A thought struck him. “Unless you need to stop?”
“Nope. I’m good for days of this,” Kathryn said with a grin. She crooned at the stallion, “I would let you take me just about anywhere, you beautiful thing.”
The stallion’s eyes went very wide. Then he snorted, and with a toss of his mane, he nudged Kathryn so hard he almost knocked her to the ground. Laughing, she recovered her balance and kissed his nose. It was very good to see them being playful with each other.
You were right, Oberon said to her telepathically. When she turned to look at him inquiringly, he told her, He is still very hurt. We need to find ways to help him.
She looked saddened but unsurprised. He’s probably suffering from something called post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s when someone has difficulty recovering from a traumatic event, or series of events. It can cause terrible problems for the victim.
He said he’s still in the cage.
Her gaze darkened with compassion. His captivity ended only a short time ago. Surgery is my forte, but I know quite a bit about dealing with other forms of trauma since they often go together. With your permission, I’d like to try talking to him.
His concern eased somewhat. I was hoping you might have some idea on how we can help.
She nodded and gave him an encouraging smile as she leaned against Robin’s shoulder and stroked his mane. Lipping at the trailing ties of her hiking boots, the puck allowed the petting. She told Oberon, I’ll know better what we can do after I’ve had a chance to evaluate him.
Listen to them, planning for a normal life as if the three of them confronting an army of thousands wasn’t the height of insanity.
He gave them a hard, quick grin. “Ready to move on?”
“Absolutely,” Kathryn said.
Mounting, they continued their breakneck ride.
In the early hours of the morning, when the air had turned damp and chill and the moon lay wreathed in a film of white, Oberon caught the scent of horses, Fae, and campfires, and he signaled for Robin to slow.
He knew this area very well, and he could picture exactly where the Arkadian army had camped. They were in a wide, shallow basin of land, taking advantage of a river that ribboned through it. The basin was bordered on the north and east by higher ground.
He nudged the stallion to the north, and without further instruction, Robin carried them up a steep incline to a broad bluff. Once there, Oberon dismounted, and Kathryn followed suit. With a moonlit shimmer, the stallion disappeared, and Robin’s human form took its place.
Moving very quietly, Oberon led the way to the bluff’s edge. When he came close, he crouched down, and the other two followed and did the same.
From that vantage point, they looked out over the lower land. The Arkadian army spread out in front of them, filling the entire basin.
Now what? Kathryn asked telepathically.
Now we need to find where Isabeau is in all that, Oberon told her. Along with whoever their commander is.
She cocked her head. In the moon’s shadowed glow, her eyes looked bright and as alert as they had that morning. I think this might be where I come in.
He clenched his fists. I hate you getting involved in this. Absolutely fucking hate it.
But it must also be said, even if it was only to himself, that he loved having her with him.
Duly noted and complaint accepted. She touched his hand. Relax a little.
Kathryn, there is no relaxing, he snapped. She’s an accomplished sorceress in her own right. The Light Fae’s hearing is very acute, and who knows how many other magic users they have in camp—possibly its commander is one as well.
Well, she replied, just as they don’t know that you’re awake, they also don’t know about me, and there’s nothing more natural-feeling than a Wyr in her animal form.
He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close so that he could kiss her forehead. Your Power is light and strong, like tempered steel, and feels nothing like a mundane peregrine falcon.
I’ll cloak myself, she assured him. Dragos has always insisted the avian Wyr in his court learn how to cloak themselves well. It will be all right.
Gritting his teeth, he said the hardest single word he had ever said in his life. Okay.
Shrugging off her pack, she handed it to Robin and whispered, “Don’t lose track of that. My physician’s kit is in there.”
Oberon noticed for the first time that Robin looked pale and a little sick. Swallowing hard, Robin whispered back, “I won’t.”
Giving them a grin, Kathryn shapeshifted, and a sleek falcon perched on the ground in front of them. Then with a beat of her wings, she lifted into the air and arrowed overhead.
She was completely fearless. She didn’t have nerves of steel, Oberon decided. She didn’t have any nerves at all.
Thoughtfully he noticed that talons had sprung out on both his hands.
Robin noticed and touched his arm. Then, with a simple economy that Oberon wished he could emulate, the puck curled into a tight ball around Kathryn’s pack on the ground at his feet and fell fast asleep.
Left to watch out for Kathryn on his own, Oberon settled down for what would be an undefined period of time filled with the blackest kind of hell.