Page 86 of Unrivaled
La’Angi Keep
Knocks on the door after the night’s meal rarely boded well.I eased my grumpy, tired Beatie into Rose’s arms.The transition sparked new energy in the girl’s overtired body.She wiggled insistently.
“Papa,” she moaned.“Papa.”
Knowing it would change to cries for her mother the moment I scooped her up, I scowled and pointed, silently, in the direction of her bed.She sniffed, but at least fell silent, better to avoid waking her siblings.
My bones ached as I shouldered the shield I’d left beside the door, holding the protection with one hand as I opened it up to see who’d summoned me so late.
It was just Kaelson, torch in hand.
“I need to go,” I told Rose, pitching my words to minimize disruption.
“But—” she cut off the protest, burying her face in Beatie’s hair.
“Say goodnight, you bastard,” muttered Kaelson.“There’s no rush.”
I closed the door and returned to the girls who hadn’t got to the bed stage of the bedtime routine.“I’m sorry,” I told them, ignoring the way my knee ground against itself and the pain that speared up my leg.I was lucky to have lived long enough to wear it out.
It was that knee that always hit the stone first when I knelt to my girls.
“It’s okay,” Rose said, glancing toward the door.“You can?—”
“It’s Kaelson,” I sighed.She’d know what that meant.Long hours, important work, something he’d trust to me over everyone else.Pressure.But also, that I’d have someone good by my side.
Like I had today.
“Oh.”Her lips wobbled and pressed together.“We’d better go curl up, Beatie.Papa might be a little while.”
“No,” she whined.
“I’ll come and tuck you in, soon as I’m back,” I promised her, then smoothed away her hair to press a kiss to her crown, the way she’d always demanded.“You be a good girl, now, and rest so you can come with me tomorrow to find a fancy milliner.You need new hats.”
“I don’twantnew hats.”
“What if they have ribbons?”I asked.
“No.”
“Just go, Tom,” Rose said, and, seeing the girl start to wail, I withdrew.Sometimes less was more.
Beatie’s wails were in my head as I grabbed my cloak and my spear—my new spear—and juggled my shield.I eased out of the door as quickly as I could, finding Kaelson leaning against the wall, staring off into the distance.
“Bad night?”he asked, sympathetically.
“Got Beatie too tired,” I explained, juggling my gear to get the cloak on against the bite of cold that crept off the bay and lingered in the quiet passages this late in the day.“She’ll be fine.”If he’d been a half-hour later…but it was what it was.“What’s happening?”
“Let’s walk.”
I fell in beside him, grateful that his pace wasn’t as brisk as usual.He led us away from the lady’s tower, toward the garden.
Following Kaelson was something I’d done without thinking for a long time.I was glad I’d had the privilege.
“I’m glad it was you, today,” I told him, in case he needed to hear it.“Sorry for you, but glad for me and mine.”
“Yoursaremine,” he told me.“I was just following the lady’s bidding.She’s lucky.And clever.”
“A good combination.”
