Page 1 of HeartTorn

1

ILSEVEL

I wake to the awareness of cold waiting for me just on the other side of the cocoon in which I lie. Frost crunches when I stir, and the air creeping through the few small cracks in my defenses bites straight to the bone. But here, wrapped in the cloak of a Licornyn warlord, I am protected from the elements.

It smells strongly of him—Taar. The man who has inexplicably become my husband.

It’s not an unpleasant scent: leather and sweat and mystery, a heady combination. Part of me doesn’t like how safe I feel, how warm and comforted. But I can’t help it. If I could, I would stay here, with my knees curled up to my chest, my head tucked in, this cloak and this scent wrapped over every inch of me, and simply let the world and all its troubles pass me by. Perhaps the grass will grow over me, and I’ll be nothing more than a little mound by the side of this river in a forgotten corner of Gavaria.

I squeeze my eyes shut and curl a little tighter, as though to force myself back to sleep. Last night I was so overcome with sudden exhaustion, I simply collapsed on my side, still staring at the fire, a half-eaten travel cake gripped in one hand. When Taar approached, I didn’t have the energy to flinch away from him. He merely crouched, however, and draped a rough blanket over me, taking care to tuck in my feet and draw the heavy hood of my cloak over my head.

I watched him through cracked eyelids as he returned to his side of our little camp, his broad back to me. Firelight played across battle-scarred, suntanned skin and chiseled muscles,all prominently displayed. How did he expect to pass the night without a covering, his bare torso exposed to the frigid elements? I should have protested and made him take the blanket back; I already had his cloak after all. But before I could shape a single word, sleep claimed me.

Now, waking slowly, my nose filled with his scent, I find myself wishing I might reach for him. Wishing he lay here under this cloak and blanket beside me, that muscled torso warm and solid at my back. The thought, hazy though it is, fills my body with ideas of its own. My loins heat, deliciously uncomfortable. I squeeze my thighs, hips subtly moving, my semi-conscious self desperate for some relief.

I know now who could give me that relief.

My eyes flair wide. There’s nothing but thick fabric before my vision and a glimmer of pale light shining through the crack near the frosted ground. I breathe in a ragged gasp, the warlord’s name trying to form on my tongue. What would happen if I called out to him? If I begged him to go down on his knees here and now? Temptation rises with sudden warmth inside me, a burning need coursing through my veins. I remember the sensation of his hands on my body, the taste of his lips, the dancing delight of his tongue awakening me to sensations I’d never before known.

But memory is not enough. Not when the man himself is so near, and his scent is filling my head.

“Warlord,” I whisper, shifting my hips again, seeking friction against the heat pooling inside me. “Taar . . .”

Before I can utter another sound, an image flashes across my mind’s eye: a swath of flattened tents. Blood-soaked ground. A pyre of mutilated corpses and a charred prayer veil.

Cold floods my limbs, effectively dousing the throbbing furnace in my center. I see once more my sister’s face as it was in the last glimpse I had of her in life. Her terrified eyes so wide, herhands reaching for me even as she was dragged out of the prison cart. Dragged away to that auction block and there sold to a fae monster. Oh, Aurae! My darling, my sister. How frightened she must have been. When that hideous creature carried her into his tent and then, when her gods-gift finally revealed itself in full . . .

A shudder ripples through my soul. The War Gift is the rarest and most coveted of all gods-gifts. Father would be bitterly disappointed if he knew it had fallen on sweet Aurae. Especially now that she has been taken from him. Before he could make use of her.

And it was my fault. Entirely my fault. She would be alive right now if I hadn’t been so desperate to escape my arranged marriage to the Shadow King. If I hadn’t written to Artoris Kelfaren, still believing in the so-called love we once shared. If I hadn’t brought those damned fae straight to the temple gates.

My stomach knots. I don’t know if I want to weep or scream. Neither will give me the relief I need, not from this agony of guilt and rage and hurt and lust all roiling together in my gut. And what about this tightness wrapped around my forearm? I feel it, sharp and present if invisible. Thevelra, or so the warlord called it. Our marriage cord. According to him the bond may only be severed in a month’s time, on the night of the new moon. That is when, by the wedding traditions of his people, a couple decides whether to continue their marriage or part forever. If either party deems the other an unworthy match, thevelramay be safely broken, and the unbound couple may go their separate ways.

As though in resistance to this idea, the cord tightens again, sharper than before. I wince. The pain is bad enough, but worse still is that sense of drawing. That undeniable, nearly irresistible pull towardhim.This husband I never chose. This enemy, who took me captive and threw me in a prison cart, only to buy meat auction a short while later. Not a man with whom I could ever dream of sharing a lifetime.

No, I must be rid of him as soon as possible, mystical bindings be damned. I must survive until the bond can be severed and return to my own world. Then I must do what I should have done from the beginning: marry the Shadow King. Marry him and lie in his bed and let myself be ravaged by him according to law, sealing his contract with my father. When that is done—when I have sacrificed my body on the altar of marital duty—my monstrous husband and his horde will turn on my father’s enemies, slaughtering them in droves on the field of battle.

Thus will I pay penance for Aurae’s death . . . and have my vengeance as well.

A sudden flare and the sound of firewood collapsing is followed by a waft of smoke, which creeps into my nostrils, momentarily driving out the warlord’s scent. I pull back a fold of cloak to watch Taar add fuel to the campfire. He doesn’t seem any the worse for wear after his night of exposure. I watch him secretly for some moments. Indeed it’s almost impossible not to watch him.

For all he claims not to be fae, I don’t know what other explanation there is for such godlike beauty. He moves with a wildcat’s elegance, crouching and arranging the wood he has gathered, performing some sort of incantation to dry it out before adding each piece to the flames. He fetches a small kettle from his saddlebags and fills it from one of his waterskins. He adds to this some dried leaves from a silken pouch, then nestles the kettle in raked coals. All so precise, so graceful. He’s as natural at performing these homely arts as he is brutal on the battlefield. How can one man contain so many contradictions? Every move he makes seems to emphasize the latent power of his musculature. I find my eyes drawn to corded forearms and those strong, long-fingered hands. Brutal hands which I’ve seencovered in blood; tender hands which have molded my body with a fiery touch until I felt, for the first time in my life, fully alive.

My throat is suddenly very dry. Around my wrist, thevelracord tightens almost imperceptibly. I must be careful. There’s no point in denying the attraction I feel, but I cannot let it rule me. Taar has already lost warriors attempting to thwart the Shadow King’s marriage to King Larongar’s daughter. If he ever finds out I am that daughter, my life won’t be worth a snap of my fingers, marriage bond or no marriage bond. I must remain above suspicion. Open, artless, and, most of all, innocent. A tricky business. But if I’ve learned anything in my father’s court, it is how to perform in the charade of life.

Taar uses a stick to lift the lid of his kettle and check the contents. Settling the lid back into place, he sits on his heels and frowns down at his arm and the fresh stitches I gave him while he was unconscious last night.

“How does it feel?”

He startles at the sound of my sleep-thickened voice and shifts his black eyes to look at me. “So. You are awake, Ilsevel.”

He speaks my name with a strange inflection, not quite how I’m used to hearing it. I like the cadence of his rough voice, however. Somehow he makes my name sound, not strange, but . . . sacred.

I sit up, pushing back the hood of my cloak. Gods, I must look an absolute sight! What with all the sobbing and racing through forests in semi-darkness, not to mention sleeping on the ground in the frosty cold. But I won’t let myself care what Taar thinks of my appearance.

A lilt of song carries on the breeze, and I look over my shoulder to glimpse the nearly-invisible form of Elydark, the warlord’s unicorn companion, standing watch a few yards away. My eyes cannot fully discern him, but my spirit feels the songthat makes up his essential essence. He seems to be standing with his head upraised, gazing east toward the as-yet unrisen sun, unaware of my scrutiny or simply uncaring. I watch—or rather,listento—him for some moments. My breaths ease in and out in time to his resonance.

Then, pushing a shock of wild hair back from my face, I turn to Taar again and indicate his arm with a jut of my chin. “Does it bother you?”

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