Page 58 of The Queen and the Half-blood
Alar pulled a face. “At the start maybe … but then I got carried away.”
Her belly fluttered. Aye, he had. And curse her, she’d enjoyed seeing his mask slip.
“Thank you,” she said, averting her gaze then. “I was dreading that more than you know.”
He huffed. “I won’t take that personally.”
“Please don’t.”
Her hand slid across his smooth chest, tracing the lines of the wolf’s head tattoo. Once again, those eyes seemed to stare directly at her. Unnerved, she slid her fingertips up, across his collarbone, to the silvered scar upon his throat. She shouldn’t be touching him so boldly, but in the aftermath of their coupling, she couldn’t help herself. The memory of his tale about being strung up on that pine and left to die made something deep in her chest tighten.
Her fingers continued their leisurely progress, up, to the second scar. This one slashed down from his forehead to almost parallel with his mouth. “Will you tell me how you got this?” she asked softly.
He didn’t answer, and her gaze lifted to meet his.
He pulled a face, and she braced herself for his refusal.
However, a moment later, he surprised her by answering. “When I was a bairn, my mother and I lived amongst others … in a village near Dorne Forest. We shared a bothy with my grandparents. My grandfather was a woodcutter … a big man with a soft heart.” Something flickered in the depths of his iron eyes then. “He suspected that his grandson wasn’tright. My mother refused to speak about my father … but my grandparents had an idea of what had happened. They never shunned us though.”
He paused then, his jaw tightening. “As I grew from an infant to a child, the villagers grew suspicious. They whispered that I was strange and sly … that the woodcutter’s wild daughter had fucked someone she shouldn’t have.”
Lara winced. His expression had hardened now. Suddenly, she wished she hadn’t asked about the scar.
“One day, my grandfather took me to the village market,” he went on. “I was no older than four … and excited by all the sights and sounds. But then, one of the villagers … the ironsmith … came at me with a blade, shouting that a half-blood couldn’t be allowed to live. He slashed my face … but when he tried to stab me through the chest, my grandfather stopped the blade. It severed a large vein in his neck … and he bled out then and there.”
Lara stiffened, her skin prickling at the brutality of his tale.
“The local chieftain had the ironsmith hanged for what he did … but things were never the same between our family and the villagers after that.” Reaching up, Alar traced that silvered scar with his thumb. “And there you have it.”
Lara swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Irritation flickered over his face. “Why? It wasn’t your doing.”
“No, but I shouldn’t have asked.”
His lips quirked then. “You’re curious about the man you married,” he replied, his voice softening. “It’s understandable.”
21: A FORMIDABLE ALLY
STIRRING AWAKE, LARA found herself face down, sprawled amongst the furs in her sleeping nook. For a moment, she lay there, enjoying the sensation of languid wellbeing, before memories from the night before crept in.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut then, heat rolling over her as she recalled every lewd thing Alar had done to her. How would she be able to look his way without turning the color of a plum?
Eventually, she opened her eyes and rolled onto her side.
The cressets had all gone out, yet the glow of the embers in the hearth cast a soft, ruddy light over the alcove. She was naked in the sleeping nook—as was the man who lay beside her. Like her, Alar slept on his belly, and Lara found herself studying him.
Mirren had told her once that folk who slept on their stomachs did so to seek comfort. It was a defensive position, revealing someone who didn’t trust easily.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. They had something in common, after all, it seemed.
Images crept back in then, of their coupling. Gods, the pleasure he’d given her. Brutally, she shoved the torrid memories aside.The handfasting night is done with now, she reminded herself firmly.It’s time to get to work.
The furs had slipped off Alar in the night, and her gaze traveled along the length of his body. His buttocks were tightand muscular, his limbs long and finely muscled. And the long hair that spilled over his shoulders and down his back was the color of a raven’s wing.
When he was awake, Alar had a coiled tension to him, but asleep, he looked different.
Younger.
