Page 26 of The Queen's Huntsman
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Gwendolyn awoketo the scent of cony turning over a flame.
Warm and cozy beneath Málik’s cloak, last night’s inexorable heaviness weighted her limbs, and she couldn’t move. Eventually lifting one lid, she found Málik sitting opposite her with no coat at all, his bottom resting atop a rotten log, one elbow lifted over his knee, only staring into the flames.
This was how she remembered him best… all those nights they’d spent in Chysauster, huddled together beside a cozy fire whilst her family celebrated… how her heart ached for this past.
But her uncle and cousins were gone and no amount of regret could bring them back.
Nor could it soften the awful truth that Gwendolyn had unwittingly been the catalyst to their end. It was she who’d led those men to their village, simply because she’d had a stupid yen to investigate Bryok’s death—a matter that, in truth, should have been left to her father’skonsel. She’d been a stupid little halfwit, merely playing at being a sleuth.
Spoilt, Málik had once said, and looking back on it now, Gwendolyn realized he’d spoken true. She’d called him arrogant, when in truth, the arrogance was hers, thinking she was good enough to best a mester at arms. She had fought him at every turn, even defying her father when he’d told her to train with Málik daily. And, after all was said and done, whatever she’d learned was all due to him.
For a moment, she lay there, belly grumbling, saying nothing, daring to enjoy the moment, because too soon, everything would change.
Resting beside him, catching a glint from the flame, lay his beautiful bastard sword. Still snug in its harness, neglected for the moment, but she knew from experience that he was ever ready to wield it. Never in her life had she met a man with keener senses than his… but then, he was not a man, was he?
Her gaze returned to the muscles in his thighs, so easily discernible when he lurched forward to test the make-do spit.
“Good morning,” he said, catching her awake.
Gwendolyn’s cheeks burned, but she did not turn away.
She had endured too much to be embarrassed by this brief moment of pleasure, unseemly though it might be. She didn’t feel wedded, and she was a virgin still, her body untried, and her mind filling with wonder over the differences between their bodies—even more perceptible now because of the desire she no longer felt compelled to deny.
As vexed as she was with him for having left her so long at Loc’s mercy, she was equally relieved to have him so close. Particularly since she knew it wasn’t his fault. He’d only done what she’d asked. Gwendolyn was the one who’d sent him away.
Rubbing her eyes, she stretched, the smell of breakfast rousing her completely. “Morning,” she said sleepily. “Did you hunt?”
“Hunt?” he asked, with some acerbity. “Alas, for this poor beast, he had the ill fortune to encounter me.” There was a note of regret in his tone, and for all Gwendolyn knew, he’d ensorcelled the poor creature. More and more, she was coming to understand how little she knew of Málik’srás—his people, his breed. There was so much about him she didn’t understand, and she mustn’t forget he wasn’t Bryn. Indeed, he might kiss like a man, flirt like a man, but he was not a man. He was a child of the gods, a creature not of this world.
And if ever she needed a reminder of this, she needn’t look too hard—only peer into the maelstrom of his eyes or note the whetted fangs.
Fae,Sidhe, Danann, whatever his pleasure, Málik was nothing like her, and still she seemed so intent upon forgetting this. From the very first, she had needled him relentlessly, and notably so when she’d believed he’d stolen her best friend.
Now she had neither Bryn nor Málik—or rather, she had him here in form, but his demeanor was colder than he’d ever been. Colder yet because they had once been so close.
“I’ve some hob cake as well,” Málik said. “Though we’ll save that for later. At the moment, you need something more.” A lock of his pale hair fell into his face, and he pushed it away. “I took a chance to roast the cony, knowing Loc’s men would be slow to rise.”
“How would you know such a thing?”
He grinned. “Let us say… I made certain to give them a reason for it.”
“Oh?” Gwendolyn returned. “Did you somehow find them and poison them?”
In her darkest of hearts, she hoped the answer would be yes. As terrible as that would seem to wish for a man’s death, she’d like to see Loc choke till the little veins burst in his eyes.
Málik’s answering chuckle was dark. “Something of that sort,” he confessed. “Though not precisely.Hewasn’t there, else my answer would be different.”
There was no need to explain whohewas. Gwendolyn knew. That was the way she thought ofhimherself—a nameless, heartless, soulless fiend.
Málik blew out a weary sigh. “As it was, I encountered only a few men whose worst crime as yet is to be born under a dark star. Though it might seem judicious to slay them and be done without offering a chance for defense, that would be a crime against my people’s laws.”
“Your people?” Gwendolyn frowned. She had never considered that they, too, might have laws of their own. She had rather thought of them as she did the gods, or ghosts, or fables—whimsical, supernatural, romantic… but not subject to… laws.
He looked at her now with brows lifted, and the gesture wrested a blush from Gwendolyn. “We are not really so different,” he apprised.
“I must disagree. I have not yet met a man or woman who could turn people into trees,” she said, and sat, wincing as she reached up to pluck a leaf from her hair.Gods.It was one thing for Málik to run his fingers through this tangle by night, yet another for him to see it by day.
