Chapter Eight
Mikhail had been rebuking himself ever since that moment by the brook where he’d lost his bloody mind. He’d only barely reeled himself in before tumbling her to the ground and hiking up her skirts.
His goal for this mission had been to save the princess and then to show her the path to claim her throne. With the support of the southern kingdom, she’d have strong, powerful allies and the best equestrian army in all the land to go up against Queen Morgrid and King Dominik’s vampire army. His goal had not been to attach himself to her in any way, shape, or form that was this intimate. Protect her, yes. Maul her by a stream, suckle her perfect breast, make her come on his fingers—an emphatic NO.
It was the blood kiss. Since he’d tasted her, he’d yearned for more. He wasn’t prepared for her reaction to him at the stream. The desire shining in those eyes. He should’ve had someone else awaken her. Dmitri, perhaps.
Fuck. He knew he wouldn’t have. The thought of his brother or any man’s mouth or hands on her lit an inferno of fury inside him. It made him even more eager to put quick distance between them and King Dominik’s guards. He’d not let that monster get ahold of her. He’d die before he let any harm come to her.
They walked down the last incline leading into the southern edge of the Silvane Forest. It wasn’t wise to move at vampire speed into hart-wolf territory. Even if they had allies, not all the hart wolves liked the fact that the Bloodguard had set up camp on the northeastern border by Hiddleston, near Sienna’s home. Before they’d left on their mission, he’d learned that the Fire Witch, as some were calling her now, had befriended the princess once before. Arabelle counted Mina as a friend as well, even though she had been betrothed to Marius at the time. Mikhail was glad to know she’d have friends among the Black Lily. It would put his mind at ease so that he could distance himself. The thought struck physical pain in his chest, and yet he knew he must do it.
He had to remain focused. The very reason the Bloodguard took a blood oath to forfeit marriage and family and any attachments to lovers was to maintain their lethal edge. A lack of focus could mean death—for his men, for the Black Lily, for civilians. For Mina.
“Will you tell me about your family?” she asked beside him, jarring him back to the present.
The other men walked ahead and behind, still guarding her from every side. No rogues would wander into Silvane Forest without meeting a quick death by the hart wolves, but they weren’t taking any chances.
Mikhail glanced her way. He didn’t want to let her in any more than she already was.
That was a lie.
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.
“This is my brother, Dane Godric.”
Mikhail bowed his head and smiled as well at the mountainous man who equaled Gregoravich in size. But whereas Gregory looked dangerous, Dane had a fierce, wild edge that never left his hazel-gold gaze. His dark-brown hair hung long past his shoulders. He wore rough-hewn leather pants like the others. His tattoos wrapped down his arms beyond his sleeves to his wrists and cut up in harsher lines around his neck. Mikhail had seen his fighting in action back in King Dominik’s palace in Izeling when he and a war party of the Black Lily had come to save the day. Before their arrival that terrifying night, Mikhail wasn’t sure they’d all make it out alive. Unfortunately, the king had made his escape alive as well.
Mina addressed Dane. “You were the one Sienna called Hugo, weren’t you?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the hard man said with a respectful bow of the head.
Thankfully, she did not question where his younger brother was. The one who’d died in battle against an army of Queen Morgrid’s vampires. It was the deciding factor for Dane to join the Black Lily against the evil queen.
“Your Highness,” said Allora. “I would like to introduce you to our four chieftains. This is Bain of the Fingal clan, Kiel of the Lochlan, Niall of the Rodan clan, and finally, my father, Hagan of the Godric clan.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said, as if it were every day she met the elusive chieftains of the hart wolves.
They all bore varying shades of golden eyes, distinct to the hart wolf. While the chieftains observed Mina shrewdly, Allora’s father stepped forward and lifted his hand.
“May I, Your Highness?”
Mikhail tightened every muscle in his body. His protectiveness of her was an instinctual reaction. He tightened his fists, reigning in an emotion he shouldn’t be feeling. As her personal guard, of course he’d feel protective. But not to this degree.
“Be not afraid, Captain,” said Allora. “He means her no harm.”
Mikhail eased his stance but kept close to Mina, who lifted her hand to the chieftain.
When he took her hand in his, he closed his eyes. His hard face broke into a smile. When he opened his eyes, they burned bright gold. Mina inhaled a small gasp but didn’t pull her hand away until he released it.
He turned back to the other chieftains and simply nodded. The tension stiffening the three remaining suddenly evaporated like mist in the wind.
“You’ve tasted magic once before, Your Highness,” whispered the chieftain. “You are welcome within the safety of Silvane Forest. As long as you should need it.”
“I told you, Father,” said Allora behind him.
“Yes, you did, Daughter.” He and the other three chieftains marched off into the woods.
Mikhail noted the heavy presence of hart wolves melting away as they wandered off. He smelled their scent growing fainter. Dane and Allora remained, then they marched on together deeper into the Silvane Forest.
“You could’ve warned me.” Mina’s arm brushed against his as she whispered close.
“I was trying to.”
“Allora,” she called to the woman walking just ahead. “What did your father mean? That I’ve tasted magic before?”
“He means exactly that. You’ve been touched by magic before.”
“But how? What kind of magic?”
Allora laughed, a sort of tinkling sound that echoed up into the empty boughs. She glanced over her shoulder. “The magic of the hartstone.”
“But I’d never been to the Silvane Forest before Arabelle brought me here. I’ve never even seen the hartstone.”
“Few people ever have,” she said with another enigmatic smile. “Nevertheless. It has seen you. Somewhere.” She leaped toward the path when a flash of black wolf slipped between the trees. “Dane, you’ll watch them to the encampment, I need to—” She nodded toward her mate.
“Go, Allora. I’ll watch them.”
Allora ran, pulling her tunic over her head, laughing when Bron caught up to her. Mikhail watched Mina, who had stopped, unable to keep her eyes from the scene, her pretty mouth ajar. Mikhail glanced back just in time to see a naked Allora blur in place, much like when a vampire speeds, then a cracking sound and flare of light. A white hart wolf sprang up, bounding after the black one.
“Come on, Mina,” he pressed a light hand to her back to keep her moving.
“Did you just see that?”
“Yes.” He chuckled.
“Oh, don’t let him fool you,” said Dmitri. “He was just as enthralled the first time he saw them do it.”
Dane had said nothing, a stalwart tower beside them.
“Dane, why must you watch us?” Mikhail asked.
He exhaled a sigh, glancing to the left and right of the wooded path. “There’s a faction of the hart wolves who are angry that vampires are here in the sacred forest. The natural enemy of the hart wolves. We naturally sense when vampires cross into the shades of Silvane. But now that the chieftains have offered sanctuary to the Bloodguard, it chafes those who would rather not have you here. And there are some who definitely don’t approve of the princess being here.”
The princess was a powerful figure in the vampire world. And would be more powerful if Mikhail had anything to do with it. He drew closer to her, keeping a hand at the small of her back, as if contact would keep her safer. In reality, it simply calmed his nerves.
“There’s nothing to fear,” assured Dane.
“Then why did your sister seem to think so?”
“The rebellious ones won’t go against the chieftains. But there are one or two who might be stupid enough to try something on their own, in an effort to show their worth. If I’m here, they’ll cower away.” He grinned, making him look more feral than civilized. “Do not worry.”
Mikhail had never worried. He had complete confidence in his men, and he never entered a fight he knew he couldn’t win. And yet, tendrils of fear had been creeping into his gut ever since he’d pressed his bloody lips to Mina’s. A restlessness he couldn’t seem to tamp down kept growing. Part of it dealt with the woman walking at his side, but there was more he couldn’t quite put his finger on. An ominous tendril circled and hovered. Like a storm rumbling in the distance, he knew danger was coming. He just didn’t know when. But he’d be ready.