Page 13 of The Duke and the Disciple

It was a mess, all of it. And he hadn’t come to see her at all, which only confirmed he was drowning in the same discomfort.

“You meanotherthan Val sending me hurtling into a tree?” She shook her head. “Ra—the duke clambered up like a squirrel and waited with me for help to arrive. Humiliating and painful. The end.”

Val leaned in close, his eyes narrowing. “You almost called him by his given name, didn’t you?”

Aesylt groaned. “I’m exhausted.”

“That’s not what you told your frata,” Nik said from across the room.

“Because Draz is insufferable.”

Val craned forward and kissed her cheek. “Your mysterious scholar won’t stand a chance as long as I’m here.”

Something foreign and strange stirred between her legs. Their long-standing friendship had come with few boundaries. She’d seen both Val and Nik without their clothing and had swum with them in the ahen vodah—the warm springs—in the nude, enough that it was nothing special. Other than the relatively innocent barn kiss with Val, after a bit too much mulled wine, she’d never felt more than familial love for either of them.

But the idea of Val and Rahn facing off for her was unexpectedly arousing.

And wrong.

Very wrong.

“Course, he may get his chance when I don’t come home.”

“V.” The air left Aesylt’s lungs. “Don’t say that. Youarecoming home.” She reached for his hands under the covers and gripped them in hers. “Youarecoming home.”

Val snorted, his eyes fluttering dramatically. “Be realistic. No one comes home. Your brother has more wulf than man in him, and no one has come home since his victory. Not once.”

Nik watched them both with a dark look. He turned back toward the wall but didn’t resume his phantom swordplay.

“Don’t tell me what to say, or to think, you rapscallion,” Aesylt spat. “If I say you’re coming back, Valerian Barynov, then you are.”

“Only if you’ll marry me when I do.” His grin didn’t quite reach his amber eyes.

“That is far from up to me.” Aesylt snapped a finger at Nik. “And I can see you glowering in the window’s reflection, like you have any deep thoughts about marriage. You’re going to join the kyschun under the mountain and forget all about us common village folks.”

“Not by choice,” Nik muttered. “I should just do what Onkel Anton did and refuse. Everything turned out fine for him.”

Val snorted. “I’d come back just to see that.Niklaus Petrovash, growing a pair? Wonder of wonders.”

“You want to see this pair, Val? Feel them in your mouth?”

“Foul creatures, the both of you,” Aesylt protested.

“And you love it,” Val teased.

Aesylt smiled. It did little to soften the crippling ache in her heart that had started the day Val’s name had been read in the village. The chosen son could refuse, of course, just as Nik could refuse his destiny as a history keeper. But no son ever turned their back on the Vuk od Varem. No son could muster the damning courage to commit the village to another hard year without hunting, despite knowing their odds of victory were slimmer than a thread.

“I love you both,” she said softly. A rare wave of nostalgia passed over her. The Nok Mora, the massacre of their village and families by a vengeful, tyrant crown, was a decade past, but the wounds still ran deep. Her armor rarely cracked, but the past days had been unusually taxing. “You’re like fratas to me. I should remind you more.”

Val’s brows shot upward. “Brothers? Really?”

Nik smirked. “We love you too. But Iverymuch dislike my actual sister.”

Aesylt laughed. “Neriah’s only ten.”

A knock drew their attention. Maia, Aesylt’s personal vedhma, opened the door and peered in. “Scholar Tindahl would like an audience with you, but only if you’re well enough.”

Val threw a shoulder into Aesylt with a teasing scoff. “Your hero has arrived, princess. Shall we leave you two alone?”

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