Page 128 of Sweetling
Twins take him, that didn’t take much of the sting out of his shame, though. Life had been too good, too easy. The signs had been there. The earthquakes were strange, and he should have inquired in Mullon sooner. Too enraptured with Molly and his transformation, Allarion had let his defenses slip.
But he’d be damned if anyone other than him faced the consequences.
Placing his hand over the wound to add pressure, he took a little heart in knowing that Molly and Bellarand were safe. Much as he’d underestimated Amaranthe’s reach and spite, even she wouldn’t dare attack a large human stronghold.
She didn’t want war—or Molly. She wanted Ravenna.
“She won’t have her.”Maxim’s words rang in Allarion’s ears.“Promise me.”
“I swear it.”
Anger, hotter than the blood that pooled at his wound, scorched through him. How dare Amaranthe destroy everything that was good? How dare she abuse what she was meant to protect? To corrupt her own people, slay her own family, desecrate her own line—all for what? Power? A few more centuries of debauchery? It all seemed so…cheap.
There would be no forgiveness for what she’d done to Maxim and Aine. For what she took away from Ravenna. And now, for her attack on his home.
No provocation, no justification. Her rotten fingers reached across the land searching for him like a plague—no wonder the native magic shuddered in horror to feel her putrid touch.
And yet, angry as this attack made him, that the triad was even here, that Amaranthe even bothered to search for him did offer a bit of relief. She hadn’t discovered Ravenna. Coming after him, after years of nothing, boded ill for her efforts to find Ravenna herself. Knowing that Maxim’s wards and plan had worked so well gave Allarion a spiteful kind of pleasure.
The twang of a bowstring pierced his ears, and a moment later, splinters burst across his thigh, an arrow glancing off the thick branch he sat upon.
Ah, there they were.
“Yield, sworn-sword!” called up one of the triad. “We know you are wounded.”
“It will take more than pinpricks to bring me back to that hoary hag.”
“You dare insult the Queen?”
Allarion laughed without mirth. “She is no Queen of mine.” And she was nothing compared to the woman he worshipped. “You know in your hearts as well as I that she is nothing more than a usurper. She poisons our people with her rot.”
“You defile her name and your own honor!”
“I assure you, my honor is hale and hearty.” His pride a little less so, but that was for another day—one when he reunited with his mate and made his apologies through kisses and caresses. He knew that wicked mouth of hers would heal him more than any magic or tincture.
“Yield,” they called again, “there is no honor in this.”
“I agree, there is no honor in chasing a man and his mate and threatening his home.”
“You are a fugitive, convicted in the rule of our law, by order of our Queen.”
“Without trial, I suppose. And we aren’t in the faelands; your Queen’s laws mean nothing here.” Leaning to his left, Allarion spied down to the forest floor below.
The knight he spoke with sat mounted near the base of his tree; the other two had fanned further afield. They were trying to box him in, a clever if uninspired tactic. Time to move.
Still, Allarion did try one last time to reason with them.
“You’ve seen my face, sworn-sword,” he declared loudly, for all of them to hear. “You’ve seen the red of my blood. Do you not wonder at it? I have escaped the curse of our people. Amaranthe is killing us all with her corrosion.”
“Being away from the faelands has clouded your mind, Meringor. You are sick.”
A solitary bark of laughter escaped Allarion as he heaved himself back up onto his feet.
“I amright,sworn-sword. And you shall know it by your end. Now, shall we continue?”
Another arrow whizzed past where he’d just stood, but Allarion leapt to the next tree.
A great cracking filled the forest, and he turned to watch the branch he’d sat on go crashing down to the ground. The dread-mounts screamed and scattered as Allarion pushed on, his sights set on Scarborough.
