Page 21 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

Ary snickered. He was used to me letting my bloodlust loose and often did the same. Aniella was eying me curiously, no doubt noting how easily I could slip in and out of bloodlust. I didn’t bother looking at Demetri. He would no doubt be horrified.

The red faded from Draven’s eyes as he picked up his own glass. “I was going to say, before you interrupted, that the Rayne bloodline is a powerful ally to have.” He raised his glass. “And that your powerful alliances are just another reason why the marriage between us makes so much sense.”

“Perhaps you should work harder on convincing me what you would bring to the marriage.” I raised my own glass in salute. “Other than your pretty looks.”

Someone, I was pretty sure it was Aniella, choked on a laugh.

“Well, at least you acknowledge that I’m pretty.” He smiled, and fuck me, it was a very nice smile. Too bad the Moroi it was attached to was responsible for so many innocent deaths. Evenif his mother were the mastermind behind all of this, he still went along with it.

“It’s hard for me to picture Rynn hunting spine-backed boars,” Alaric said, and it took me a minute to realize he was steering us back to the original conversation. “She’s so . . .” He furrowed his brows, as if searching for the right word. “She’s just Rynn. Soft-spoken and thoughtful Rynn.”

I laughed. “That she is, but our dear, sweet Rynn shifts into a nearly five-hundred-pound wolf whose bite will give you nightmares. Have you ever seen her lycanthrope form?”

Alaric shook his head. “I haven’t actually been around many Velesians in their shifted forms.”

“It’s impressive. They’re all ridiculously large but can move with absolute silence. As if the wilds favor them over every other creature that wanders the forests.” A small, playful grin tugged at my lips. “Rynn, in particular, is very good at sneaking around. When the three of us were at Drudonia, we’d often sneak out at night and play our own version of hide-and-seek in the forests. Two of us would hide, and the third would hunt. It would drive Cali insane because Rynn always won. We could never find her if she didn’t want to be found, and she’d always find us unless Cali cheated and took to the air where we couldn’t follow.”

“The three of you went into the woods at night on your own?” Draven stared at me in disbelief. Apparently, I’d finally managed to surprise him.

“The wilds surrounding Drudonia are heavily patrolled.” I shrugged. “It’s rare for any of the beasts to get close, and avoiding the rangers only made it more fun.” I glanced at Alaric and then Kieran in panic. “Don’t tell Vail.”

“You’re asking us to lie?” Kieran’s expression was full of mock horror. “To our beloved Marshal?”

“Feels like we should get something for putting ourselves in such potential peril,” Alaric chimed in. “Lying to Vail is arisk. Even a lie of omission. So what would you offer us, Samara?”

My mouth hung open in what I was sure was a very unattractive way, but I couldn’t help it. Alaric was joking. With me. About sex. Maybe there was hope for us after all.

Ary and Aniela were watching the exchange with amused expressions, no doubt filing all this information away in case it was useful later, while Demetri’s gaze kept bouncing between Kieran and Alaric, like he couldn’t decide which one of them he hated more.

“I’ll think of something worth your while.” I finally recovered and winked at Alaric, and the corners of his lips quirked into the barest of smiles.

Maybe whatever conversation he’d had with Kieran this afternoon had helped him come to terms with us. A little bit of hope filled me.

“Sometimes, Rynn would help me avoid Cali while we played this game of hers, so I was used to being around her when she was in her wolf form. I was visiting her in Narchis territory when a hunt was declared, and she invited me along. Well . . . I invited myself along, but she went with it.”

“And you?” Draven looked at Ary. “How did you get involved in this?”

Ary smiled politely. “I like to get a bit of exercise now and then. Since Tepes’ lands border Narchis’ ones, they occasionally invite me on hunts.”

I snorted. Currently, Ary was dressed in a beautiful, deep red tunic with gold threads, and glittering rings lined his fingers. He’d taken the time to shave and clean up before dinner, and now he appeared as nothing more than a handsome and well-kept Heir . . . but I knew he was far more comfortable covered in blood with his claws buried in the gut of a monster.

The Velesians loved to go hunting with Ary. He was insaneand feared nothing. I really hoped he wasn’t mixed up in this wraith business, because he was not someone I wanted to have as an enemy. If I could sway him to our side though . . . he’d be an excellent ally.

“It was invigorating hunting under the moonlight.” I smiled at the memory. “Rynn’s birth pack was hunting that night, so it was mostly lycanthropes with a few ailuranthropes mixed in, but the panthers stuck to the trees, and I rarely saw them.”

“How did they bring the boars down?” Draven rose and grabbed the wine bottle at the center of the table to refill his glass before walking around to refill mine. He glanced at Alaric, who shook his head, sticking with his honey ale. Kieran pointedly ignored Draven, who eventually sighed and returned to his seat.

“Easiest way is to get them on their backs—their bellies are their weak spot,” Ary explained.

“I’m sure that’s not hard at all,” Draven quipped.

I huffed a laugh. A full-grown boar weighed close to eight hundred pounds. They were named for the nearly foot-long spikes they could raise down their spine, but those spikes actually covered most of their body, shorter below the spine but every bit as sharp. Their legs and belly were vulnerable though, and if you got too close, they would basically throw their body at you, relying on both their weight and spines to inflict damage.

Boars might technically be prey animals who preferred to root around for nuts and berries rather than tear flesh from bone, but they were ill-tempered and highly aggressive. Lunaria was a land of monsters. Some of those monsters just happened to be herbivores.

“The pack would split up,” I explained. “Half of them would get the boars into a panic so they would run, then the other half would run at them head-on and slam their bodiesagainst their sides. It takes careful timing, and the angle has to be perfect, but if you hit the boars right, you can flatten the spikes back down against their body to avoid getting impaled and cause them to stumble, ideally falling completely.”

“Exposing their undersides,” Draven mused. “Clever.”

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