Page 25 of Lera of Lunos
Keeping my eyes closed, I let fatigue and the frigid mountain night battle each other in silence. Eventually, somehow, I drift off into a warm sleep that smells very much of a tiger’s thick fur cocooning my body.
17
Lera
For just under two weeks, we trek through the mountains and plains of the neutral lands, and then the rolling, forested hills of Slait, the days long and increasingly tense. River alternates between outlining and re-outlining our plans—all of which boil down to luring Griorgi to the palace—and long, stony silences that not even Tye’s improved humor can shatter. Tye has been shifting form more often since our coupling—since sharing the truth of his past with me and giving me leave to brief the rest of the quint on what happened. The glimpses of true humor returning slowly to Tye’s eyes, especially when they meet my own, are the best part of the cold journey. The only good part of the damn journey.
The nights are so cold that I have to lie next to the fire (when we’re allowed one), under my bedroll, and pressed between two males just to fall asleep. River and Shade. Shade and Tye. Tye and River. Never Coal. As if lying beside me will only kindle inevitable disaster.
Though Coal trains me in swordplay still—pulling me from my saddle at lunch break or before dawn or whatever other terrible time he can seize upon to make me miserable—the shield he’s locked around himself, around the strange magic connecting us, grows more impenetrable each day. As if the male is training himself to shut me out. The only times I can feel Coal’s purple strands of power are when River oversees my echo practice. In a clearing, on a rippling hilltop over a bustling Slait town, on a vast rocky slope—that last one nearly resulting in an avalanche.
“Can you tell Coal that you take back that reprimand over our kiss?” I finally ask Shade, after we’ve cleared up breakfast on what River promises to be the last day of the trek. The other males are already mounted and ready to ride, Sprite prancing unhappily at the wolf shifter’s proximity. I pat the mare’s neck soothingly. “Tell him that one unwise choice of when to share his magic isn’t cause for two weeks of brooding.”
Shade rocks back on his heels, his voice low enough for my ears alone. “Why would I wish to do that?”
I frown at him, my mind scrambling through my memories for something I might have missed. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“I rarely give orders, cub,” Shade says, his yellow eyes piercing mine. Not the impertinent lupine or kind male I’m used to, but River’s second-in-command. Steel beneath velvet. “When I do, I expect them to be followed. And when it comes to safety—your safety most of all—I’ve little desire to toy about.”
“Shade—”
He shakes his head, cutting off my words. “I’m aware that Coal fears his magic hurting you. He miscalculated pushing you in the arena. Failed to consider what would happen in the bedchamber, which left you with broken ribs—”
“That was my fault. I pushed him—”
“And ignored the consequences of offering magic against a healer’s orders. I’m all right with him feeling a bit of the sting from it.” Shade’s finger catches my chin before I can turn away, the power of his presence rolling over me in a great wave. His tone turns gentle, but not weak. “And I’m all right with you feeling the sting too, cub. There were two of you sharing that kiss, sharing the bed before that. I don’t imagine you like seeing Coal in pain any more than he enjoys seeing you in it. But if you want to mend what’s broken, you’ll need to do it yourselves. I stand by my earlier decision.”
Shade kisses the top of my head and shifts into wolf form, leaving me nothing to do but climb onto Sprite’s back.
The phantom touch of his lips and words stays with me well into the afternoon, when the sight of Slait Palace’s soaring marble towers rising majestically over the horizon sends a wave of relief through me. A sentiment that is not shared by all, if Coal pulling his stallion further and further toward the back of our procession is any indication.
“Is there any destination at which you actually enjoy arriving?” I ask, maneuvering Sprite beside the male.
“A battlefield,” he says, his voice as dark as his clothes. With his hair pulled back into a tight bun and a sword hilt rising above each shoulder, Coal certainly looks more prepared to walk onto a killing ground than the palace’s plush carpeting. “What are you so bloody happy about?”
“Bed. Bath. Vegetables.” I count the amenities on my fingers.
Coal’s face remains impassive.
When I reach out to touch his forearm, he shifts his weight, nudging the horse away.
My jaw tightens. “Coal—”
“Leralynn!” River calls from the front of the column, his hand held out to me, gray eyes unreadable.
“Go.” Coal jerks his chin forward before circling Czar around to put even more distance between us.
Suppressing a frown, I nudge Sprite into a slow canter to see what River is about. Sitting comfortably atop his stallion, River looks every inch the commander and prince. His rich blue coat is somehow both clean and unrumpled, his knee-high leather boots shining in the sun. If the cold wind ruffling his short brown hair nips at him the way it does me, River lets none of the discomfort show. When I rein up beside him and reach for his outstretched hand, he leans down from his horse and shamelessly plucks me from my saddle.
Ignoring sounds of protest from both Sprite and me, River settles me in front of him, his powerful thighs and torso bracketing me on three sides. “The last time we came to Slait, someone stole you away. This time, I’m taking precautions.”
“Aye, except those precautions are going to start aching any moment now,” Tye says, grabbing hold of my mare’s dropped reins as I register that River’s hardness does, in fact, press against my backside.
My face heats but River just wraps his arms around my waist and kicks his stallion into a canter that has me gripping the saddle horn for dear life. “Don’t let Coal see you doing that.” River’s voice is barely audible over the wind, his horse taking the wide dirt road in a smooth run. “Holding the saddle throws off your balance.”
“Riding double at a neck-breaking gait throws offme.”
River snorts but his arms tighten further around me as we ride into the outskirts of the clean, sprawling capital city, with its ordered white buildings and gaudy fountains, surrounded by rippling lawns and winter flowers. Rich curtains drape nearly every window, the bursting flowerpots hung outside coordinated by color. Townspeople bow formally as we pass, and River, even in his haste, lifts a friendly hand in return salute, drawing out warm smiles from the otherwise reserved fae.
