HALLA

I stare out the window of my room, down at the courtyard below, and think about sixteen years that have passed. Sixteen years ago, I was young and arrogant and thought nothing in the world could change for me. I knew my father had gone to war with the Cyclopae, but I lived inside a sheltered cocoon and thought it would truly not affect us. Even when the cyclops warriors camped outside our walls, I did not think it would end badly. Up until the very end, I knew with certainty that my father would win.

And then they brought me news of his death and everything changed.

I am not that same Halla, but I wonder if perhaps I have still been too cocooned. That I have been so sheltered from the world—first by court, and then by the peacekeepers of Riekki—that I cannot see a lie when it is in front of my face.

I am terrified of making the wrong decision, because this is final. Once I choose, I cannot un-crack that egg, as the saying goes. I will be Mathior’s Yshremi bride, and I will either be the betrayer of my kingdom or a beloved bride.

I do not trust my own judgment to determine which one I will be. Ever since Mathior returned to my life, I have been completely besotted with him as any young woman would be. I am thirty-three and yet I find myself giggling over the thought of him when I am alone. He haunts my dreams. He is the first thing on my mind when I open my eyes and the last thing when I go to bed at night. When I touch myself in my bath, I think of him and his hot eyes and the confidence in his grin.

Sixteen years and I am not any wiser than that foolish princess who held a crown for an hour. I could not see my future then, and I cannot see it now.

I still have time to back out of this marriage, if it is the wrong thing to do. I am too taken by Mathior to think clearly. I don’t know if he is playing me for a fool or if he truly cares for me. Because oh, I want him. I want him so badly I ache with it, and I worry I will destroy what is left of my kingdom if I pursue my heart.

What if those bewitching grins are lies? What if when he calls me “love” he’s simply saying it because it dazzles me and because it’s what I wish to hear? That I am so desperate and needy for affection that I can run to the arms of my enemy and not think about what it means?

I want him. I want him so badly I ache with it—not just between my thighs but deep in my soul. But this is the first decision I’ve had to make in sixteen years and I worry I’ll make the wrong one just because I’m a lonely spinster who’s seeing all of her dreams come true.

Mathior could be a great pretender. This could all be a game for him, some sort of devious ploy to grind Yshrem under his thumb once more, and I’m walking into it with a gleeful heart. I’m trying to be objective, but I don’t know if I can.

Because all I can think about is Mathior’s smile, his mouth between my thighs and the sounds of pleasure he made as he touched me, the fall of his hair over my legs, and the way he looked at me when I caressed him. The way he makes me feel like I’m the only thing that matters.

I press my hands to my face, fighting back the scream that wants to erupt.

I don’t know what to do. Please, Father, help me. I want Mathior, but I don’t know if it’s wrong. Give me a sign. I open my eyes and gaze out the window, but the only sight that greets me is the sight of the Cyclopae tents on the far side of the wall and the banner of our joined house symbols. Am I supposed to read something from that? Or am I seeing answers where there are none? With a frustrated sigh, I turn away.

There’s an urgent knock at my door.

I ignore it, as I have ignored all of them thus far. I know it’s the ladies assigned to wait on me. They need to bathe me and dress me for the wedding, and I have no answer yet. If I am cautious and wary, I will back out of this marriage until I know for sure if Mathior speaks truly. My fear is that if I back out, I humiliate him and make matters worse instead of better. That he will change his mind and not want to marry me at all, and then I will return to Riekki’s temple, broken-hearted and filled with regret.

The knock comes again, and then a third time. Muffled male voices call on the other side, but I move back to the window and lean over the edge, drinking in the fresh air. This was the view I had sixteen years ago, but it was a different wall around the keep itself, and back then it was spring and the air was not crisp with fall. Back then, I waited in this room with my ladies as the world wrecked itself below. I sat and sewed while my father died on a battlefield and took half his army with him and all the hopes of Yshrem. Saddest of all, I can’t even remember why my father fought with Cyclopae and its king. Was it over a land dispute? Unlikely, because the Cyclopae borders are ever-changing and their people mostly nomadic. Their cities are tent cities, not stone like ours. Over a woman? Also unlikely—my father was ever-devoted to my mother’s memory, and she died in childbirth. I suspect it was a war fought over egos, arrogance and perceived insults.

Such a shame.

The pounding at the door is more insistent, and then stops entirely. Good. Maybe they’ll leave me in peace for a time and I can concentrate. I rub a hand at my temples, thinking.

In the next moment, there’s a heavy thunk in the door that makes me jump. I turn, frowning, and it thunks again. Again. Again. Quick and relentless, it doesn’t sound like knocking at all, but the brittle sound that wood makes when an axe hits it…

A moment later, the next slam is even louder, and an axe head pokes through the wood. I stare, wide-eyed and in shock as a hole gapes in the heavy slats of my door. The hole is widened with a few more chops, and then a familiar face peers through the hole. It’s Mathior, his scar covered with bright red paint. He gazes inside, and then his mouth thins at the sight of me. With a muffled curse, he slams his fist through the hole, enlarging it until he can reach an arm through, and then pulls the heavy bar off my door and flips the latch. A moment later, he storms into my room.

I back up against the cool stone of the wall, my heart racing. His face is hard with an unreadable expression, and my throat goes dry. Is he angry that I’m stalling? Has he come to tell me that he’s changed his mind? The thought stabs me with pain, but I lift my chin and don’t move from my spot near the window.

Mathior comes to my side, and as he does, I see he’s covered in even more paint, red symbols on his chest and arms. He pulls me against him, his gaze roaming over my body and then resting on my face. “Are you unwell? Hurt?” He puts a hand to my brow. “Fevered?”

“No,” I say, startled by his intensity. I feel a little foolish because I have been worrying like mad, and yet this is not the expression of a man who cares nothing for his bride. This is a man worried for my well-being, and love and happiness bloom in my breast.

He takes in my words and then notices the wide-open shutters of the large window in my room, and how close I’m standing to it. A look of pure agony flickers across his face, then disappears.

I realize he thinks I meant to kill myself and I shake my head quickly. “Not that. I was just…thinking.”

“Thinking,” he echoes. “Of what?”

I try to smile. “My father, oddly enough.”

It only makes his expression more intense. His hands grip my shoulders tightly, and then someone clears a throat behind us.

“Leave us,” Mathior says, and his voice is flat and devoid of emotion.

A robed, bearded man steps forward. “But First Warrior, it is against custom to leave a groom alone with his bride before the weddi—”

Mathior turns and gives the man such a fierce look that the interloper visibly flinches. He bows and hurries back out, ushering the others along with him. A second later, the door is shut and I am alone in the room with my soon-to-be husband. He turns back to me and his mouth thins into a line.

“Are you this unhappy, Halla? I would not force you into marriage.”

“You’re not forcing me,” I say quickly. “I simply had to think for a while and clear my head. Make sure that this was the right thing to do.”

He leans in, searching my face as if looking for lies. “I did not please you last night?”

My face flames hot immediately. “That wasn’t it.”

“So you were pleased?”

Gods, he’s really going to make me answer that. I give a jerky nod, mortified, and before I can say more, he sags to his knees before me, arms wrapped around my waist as he holds me close. “Halla,” he murmurs, voice husky. “I have aged a hundred years in the last handful of minutes.”

I want to stroke the glossy black head that is so close, and I hesitate…then decide that he’s going to be mine, is he not? I can touch him. So I put a hand on his head and caress him, sliding my fingers through his thick hair. “I’m sorry if I worried you. I needed time to think and make sure that I was making the right decision and not being led astray by my heart.”

His head presses against my belly and he takes in a deep breath. “Someone spoke to you. Made you doubt me.”

“Mmm,” I say noncommittally, because I don’t want the old woman to die. No matter that she was not my favorite person, she meant well enough. “I needed to think anyhow. But yes, I worried if I was letting my girlish fancies run away with my common sense.”

“Why do you always doubt that I want you?” Mathior looks up at me, his heart in his singular dark eye. The paint on his face is smudged and likely decorating the front of my dress, but I find that I do not care. “Have I not shown you my love?”

I reach down and brush my fingers over his jaw. “Mathior, I’m sorry if I doubted. It’s just…I’m so much older than you…”

He growls low in his throat, like an animal, and in the next moment, he lifts me into his arms and carries me as if I weigh nothing. A second later, I’m tossed down onto the bed on my back, and he pushes my skirts up.

I let out a yelp of surprise, pushing them back down. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to show you just how desirable you are.” The look on his face is fierce, as if I’ve somehow offended him with my worries. “If it means I have to lick that sweet cunt of yours until you come on my face six times, then I will.”

“Mathior!” I let out a scandalized gasp even as heat pulses low in my belly.

“You’re not old,” he tells me as he moves my skirts aside and tugs on my pantaloons. “You are the most beautiful, desirable woman in three kingdoms and I mean to marry you and make you mine. I’m going to keep you in my bed for an entire fortnight until you realize just how perfect you are. And then you’re going to tell me that you were wrong.”

“I just don’t understand why a handsome young king would marry an old spinster with no money,” I say, smoothing his hair back from his face as he nuzzles at the inside of my thigh. Riekki have mercy, I should be pushing him away. There’s an entire castle full of Yshremi nobility and Cyclopae warriors waiting for our wedding, and here we are in bed. Worse, there’s a hole in the door where someone is sure to overhear what we are doing…and yet I find I don’t want him to move his head away from that very spot.

“Not old,” he says between kisses on my thigh.

“Aventine has a princess,” I tell him, fretting. “It would be a good alliance with a port city-state and bring wealth to the kingdoms.”

He pushes my thighs farther apart, until I’m sprawled beneath him. “Aventine is a cesspit,” he mutters. “Why do you throw other women before me on the brink of our wedding?” His tongue moves over the seam of my pussy, stealing my breath away. “Aventine’s princess surely cannot taste nearly as good as the one in my arms right now.”

Oh, gods. Mathior says such scandalous things that I feel as if I’m melting into a puddle of heat. “Then…you’re marrying me because you want me in your bed?”

He growls again, and I feel it against my core. It sends shivers through my body and I cry out softly. “I’m marrying you because you’ve been mine from the day you saved my life. I’ve loved you for sixteen years, Halla. I’ve fought countless battles and worked my way through the ranks of cyclops warriors to become First Warrior, because I knew that when I was king, I could have you. I’ve never wanted anything but you.” His tongue drags over my folds and then he slides a finger up and down them, teasing them apart. “Do you think I haven’t been advised to make political marriages? To quell Yshrem’s mutterings in some other way than a wedding?”

Guilt surges through me. “Oh, but—”

“No buts,” Mathior says. “I will never give you up. You are mine. Tell me that you’ll marry me.” He looks up from the cradle of my thighs, his lips hidden by the curls covering my pussy. I can feel his breath there, hot and ticklish, but the look in his gaze is anything but playful.

“I love you,” I whisper to him. It seems impossible to be in love this quickly, but he’s dazzled me at every moment and keeps right on doing so. “I just want you to do what’s best for Cyclopae and Yshrem.”

“I am not marrying for Cyclopae,” he tells me with a fierce lick that makes me whimper. “I am not marrying for Yshrem.” Another lick. “I am marrying you because I want you and I want you to want me.”

“I want you.”

The look he gives me is ferocious with pleasure. “Then say you’ll be my bride and there will be no more of this ‘spinster’ foolishness.”

“I’m yours,” I tell him, giving in completely. I’ve always been his, it seems. I let my head be swayed by the bitter words of an old woman and doubted, but the moment I saw the worry on his face, I knew that he loved me. It’s the most amazing feeling. “Oh, Mathior. I’m so afraid to be happy.”

“Don’t be afraid,” he tells me between kisses on my pussy. “I’ve got you.”

“Should…” I gasp, forgetting my thoughts as he flicks his tongue against my clit. “I…oh…wait, Mathior. Shouldn’t we get ready for our wedding…oh, gods have mercy.” He begins to lick me with light, teasing circles of his tongue against my clit, and it makes me want to roll my hips along with those movements.

“Not yet,” he tells me, possessive and sexy all at once. “I want you and I can’t wait until the wedding. I’m going to claim my bride now, before she can change her mind again.” A thick finger presses against the entrance to my core, then begins to tease at the entrance, and I feel hollow and achy and so wild that I writhe in the bed, lifting my hips up against his vexing mouth. “Right now.”

“But your customs…”

He presses his mouth against me, like a hot brand. “Damn the customs. Let them snicker at how their king couldn’t wait to bed his bride. It doesn’t matter. They will laugh and tease me, but in the end, I will have you. What do I care of what they think?”

I gasp, clutching at his head as he swipes his tongue over my folds. It feels so good and yet… “No.”

He lifts his head at that. “What?”

“You said yourself that the customs matter. That your people are proud of who they are. Why would we not honor all of them? We can wait a few hours.” I lightly run my fingers over his face, touching his scar, the paint that covers it, everything. “I would have you honored.”

Mathior thinks for a moment. He nips at the inside of my thigh, and it’s clear he does not want to leave just yet. “Halla…”

I add primly, “I would also have you remember that you stripped me naked before your entire court.”

Mathior buries his head between my thighs and laughs, shoulders shaking. “So I did. Very well. We shall complete the wedding as it should be done, and let no one say that my will is not as steel.” He gives my pussy one last kiss, sighs heavily, and then gets off the bed. “Shall we go and get married, then?”

When he extends his hand to me, I clasp it and stand, then straighten my clothing. There is red paint all over my skirts and hands, and the symbols on his body are smeared. “I think we should probably clean up first.”

“More delays,” he mutters, and gives a shake of his head. “Then I need one more kiss before I can let you go.” He pulls me close and kisses me until I’m breathless, and then finally releases me and studies my face, then wipes a smear of red off of it. “I see now why warriors cover themselves with paint before a wedding—it’s so everyone knows the bride is untouched by his hands.”

I blush at that.

He caresses my cheek. “Bathe fast. I know I shall.”

“I will,” I promise him. And I mean it. My doubts are gone and I want nothing more than to marry this man and see what life will hold for us. I grab his hand as he turns away and press a kiss to his knuckles. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“If I touch you again, we will not be leaving this room,” he warns, but doesn’t pull his hand from my grip.

I chuckle and let my tongue flick over his skin before I release him.