Page 60 of Bound By Deception

Her belly swooped then, and she quashed the ridiculous urge to tidy her hair and smooth her tunic.

Instead, she observed her husband. A moment later, her gaze narrowed. The chief-enforcer might have completed his mission, but he didn’t look well. Even from this distance, his skin had an ashen cast, and his face was strained.

At that moment, mac Brochan spied her as well, and his big body stiffened. Across the yard, they stared at each other, and the nervousness that Bree had managed to quell earlier took flight once more. She was suddenly breathless and lightheaded.

“Cailean!” The High King’s deep voice boomed across the yard. “Have you brought me Domnall mac Bridei?”

“Aye,” the chief-enforcer replied, his voice more gravelly than usual.

“Well done.” Talorc moved down the steps, leaving his son looking on behind him, and crossed to where the prisoner struggled between the two enforcers. Like mac Brochan, the other warrior-druids were pale and drawn, and Bree wondered what had befallen them. “I knew you wouldn’t fail me.”

Mac Brochan bowed his head. “I live to serve, Your Highness.”

Bree’s jaw clenched. Of course, he did. He was the High King’s hound.

“However,” Talorc went on. “It does vex me to see you’ve lost enforcers.” There was a harsh edge to his voice now. He wasn’t half as powerful or wise as the Raven Queen, yet Talorc mac Brude had a core of tempered steel. Like Mor, he wasn’t one to accept failure—from anyone.

The chief-enforcer’s features tightened at this reprimand, although he didn’t offer any excuse.

“We will talk in private about your trip to the north,” Talorc said after a pause. “But first, I must know … have you retrieved the coin this wretch stole from me?”

Mac Brochan shook his head. “We could find no trace of it.”

“And you never will!” the prisoner shouted, his voice, rough with defiance, ringing across the yard. “Greedy maggot! That coin belongs to my people … you will not bleed us dry! You will not yoke us to your cause like oxen!”

The High King moved swiftly then, with surprising speed for a man of middling age. An instant later, he reached the prisoner and backhanded him across the face. “You are my subject andwill kneel before me,” he snarled, looming over the chieftain. “Those taxes are mine. Tell me where to find the coin.”

A lesser man would have cowered under such wrath, but mac Bridei spat in the High King’s face. Despite that Bree had no love for mortals, she felt a grudging admiration for him. The man had balls. “Go rut your mother!”

Bree thought Talorc might lose his temper then and attack the chieftain.

But he didn’t.

Instead, the High King drew himself up and wiped the spittle off his face, his expression shuttering. A heavy silence fell over the yard before his gaze shifted to one of his personal guards, who’d stepped up to his side. “Ready a torture chamber in the dungeon.”

“Are you unwell, husband?”

Mac Brochan shook his head. “Just drained.”

Pouring her husband a cup of ale, Bree crossed to where he sat, slumped in a chair by the fire. Skaal lay at his feet, her fur clumped with dirt and what looked like blood.

Bree wrinkled her nose. The beast reeked. “Drained?”

She handed Mac Brochan a cup. Taking it, the chief-enforcer heaved a sigh. “Summoning druidic power comes at a cost,” he replied wearily. “I drew too deeply this time, and I’m paying the price … we all are.”

Bree marked the sheen of sweat that covered his face. She’d noticed it outdoors too but had thought it was the rain. But no, the man had a fever. She’d heard that a druid’s magic wasn’tinexhaustible—and knew they relied on the blood-letting to keep their power strong—but hadn’t realized wielding it could weaken them so in the aftermath.

“Hunting the rebels wasn’t easy then?”

The chief-enforcer shook his head. “They ambushed us.” He lifted the cup to his lips and drained it in just a few gulps. “Somehow, they seemed to know we were coming.”

Bree’s skin prickled. She wondered if Mor had interfered in Marav affairs—had somehow gotten word to the rebels about the enforcers’ imminent arrival. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d used them to do her bidding.

“We were in a pass deep within the Goatfell Mountains,” her husband continued, “when a horde of Circine warriors descended upon us.”

“Ahorde?How did twenty enforcers fight off such numbers?”

Mac Brochan grunted. “With difficulty.”

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