Page 16 of The Flame and the Forsaken

Erran craned his neck, rising onto his toes, but he still couldn’t see her.

“You’re telling half-truths, Lord Warwick!” Mariel cried, emerging breathless from one of the vestibule arches as she pushed through the crowd. “For I’m better with a sword too. Or should a lady keep such particulars to herself?”

The guests laughed even harder, roaring and clapping as she made her way to the front.

Erran’s whole body sighed in relief, only to draw tight again.

“I detect a pattern with you and capable women,” Samuel teased.

“Didnae choosethisone,” Erran said before finishing his ale and setting it on a table.

“Sometimes choice follows decision.”

Erran scrunched his nose at Samuel’s unwelcome wisdom on the matter.

Hamish nudged him. “Better get on wit’ it then. Willnae end if ye cannae begin.”

“Remember, you’re supposed to say something nice!” Samuel called after him, chuckling.

Erran made his way through the crowd in a daze, trying to smile as hands from all over clapped him on the shoulders and squeezed his arms. It was meant to be a joyous occasion, and he should feel what they all felt for him. But all he could think about, surrounded by the people who had shaped his twenty-one years, was that it should be Yesenia Warwick standing behind his parents, not the feral tomcat who would just as soon watch him get mauled by wulves as share his bed.

Sessaly winked at him in an especially theatrical fashion, her lips pursed as though she was privy to some great secret they all shared. He wished someone would clue him in on it.

“Behave,” he warned his younger sister as he passed her. She made a little indignant chirp. Their father had indulged her ill-mannered behavior for far too long, and she was irrecoverably incorrigible.

Khallum and Rylahn both clapped, while his mother smiled tolerantly. Erran nodded at all three, forgetting everything he’d planned to say by the time he stepped in beside Mariel. He flung a quick glance her direction, noticing that while she was beaming at everyone, her eyes glowed with cool wrath, amplified by the soft brushes of candlelight.

“It is tradition,” Hestia said, “that our couple, who were denied a proper party after their handfast, share something they’ve come to adore about their spouse. It can be anything.” She grinned impishly, to more laughter. “Now remember, before you speak,Erran and Mariel, you have to dance with one another when you’re done. Choose your words prudently, for youalsohave to sleep beside each other when night falls.”

“Lassies go first,” Rylahn said with a light nod at Mariel.

Khallum bit back a grin and looped his hands behind his back, his eyes directed at the stones.

“Aye?” Mariel nodded, whistling through her teeth. Her cheeks were two splotched balls of blooming anger. He couldn’t fathom where it had come from, when she’d seemed perfectly fine earlier—fine for an untamed banshee anyway. “Well, all right. How hard can this be? Just one thing is all I have to come up with?”

Erran braced through the subsequent chuckles her gibe had earned. But though everyone else was laughing, Mariel was obviously not.

She glanced his way before stepping forward. “One thing I adore...” She tapped her hands on her crossed arms, sighing. Her face pulled into an exaggerated wince, her eyes squinting upward. “Ah! Idohave one. Before I met Errandil, I was blissfully unaware that men, or anyone for that matter, could have freckles on their feet. But he has the mostadorableones, would you not say, Stewardess? And so many more on his knees, his calves, his shoulders... elsewhere...”

“Adore hisfeet, do ye?” Khallum asked, just loud enough for those at the front of the room to hear over the laughter.

Erran’s face was on fire. He couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even react without making it worse. Was that the real reason she’d been so eager to see the marks on his body? To make him think they were allies so she could weaken and humiliate him? And implying he had freckles on a cock she had utterly no interest in toying with was untenable. He’d have preferred she just slap him on the face and be done with it.

“Mariel, dear, you’ve surely not seen many Southerland feet then,” Hestia said, gentle warning in her tone.

Rylahn cut in. “Is there nothing else you’d prefer to say?”

Mariel’s eyes skirted the crowd. Sheappearedin perfect command of herself, of the moment, except Erran could see the light twitch in her pinky, resting against her leg... the tension turning her jaw into a razor’s edge. “I ken I could speak of how much he loves his mates.”

Everyone nodded in approval.

“Somuch so that he puts on a poor salt-and-sand affectation when they’re around, and speaks like a proper tree-dweller when they’re not. And we all know our Errandil has aspecialrelationship with tree-dwellers, don’t we?”

Erran’s belly seized in fury. Shewastrying to humiliate him, and from the few looks he dared catch from his friends, family, and peers, it was working. They were amused, perhaps confused, but it was the pity... Ahh, he could almost read the precision of their thoughts. A man who couldn’t even keep his own wife from emasculating him was no man at all. He’d rather be known as a cuckold.

Mariel stepped back, having done more than enough damage. She still hadn’t bothered to look at him.

“Erran, it seems your wife has chosen to go to war with her words,” Rylahn called. He sounded playful, but Erran knew better. “Will you do the same with yours?”

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