Page 12 of The Queen and the Half-blood
Both her chief-enforcer and her captain reluctantly moved back. “We’ll be just outside the entrance, My Queen,” Roth said brusquely, meeting Lara’s gaze squarely for the first time in days. “Call if you need us.”
“I will.”
The two men departed, and Lara glanced over at where her attendants stood at the back of the pavilion. “Florie, Ani, and Lilith … leave us,” she said, even as her pulse continued to race. “Mirren, pour some wine.”
As her attendants did as bid, she settled herself on a wooden stool by the brazier and gestured to the unoccupied one opposite. Her feet felt as if they had millstones chained to them, and her back now ached viciously after working in the healing tent. She wasn’t going to conduct this meeting standing, but she didn’t want him looming over her either. “Please sit.”
Moving with the same fluid grace she’d seen when he’d come to her aid, Alar settled onto the stool.
Mirren brought over two cups of bramble wine before retreating once more. Bree, however, moved closer so she stood at her queen’s shoulder. A silent warning.
“So …” Lara took a sip of wine, feigning a calmness she didn’t feel. “How exactly can you help me?”
He mirrored her action, drinking from his cup. “I lead an army of wulvers … and should you wish it, they’re at your disposal.”
She stilled. Whatever she’d thought he might say, this wasn’t it. So, that was why he bore the wulver sigil?
“You’re theHalf-blood?”
Surprised that Mirren would speak up so boldly, Lara cut her handmaid a sharp look. She was staring at their visitor as if he’d just turned into the botach before her eyes.
For a heartbeat, irritation flickered across Alar’s face before he covered it up with another sly smile. “Aye, that’s what some call me.”
Uneasiness curled up inside Lara.
The Half-blood?
She’d heard of him too. He was supposed to be an exile, of Marav mother and Shee father, who’d taken up with the wulvers. She should have guessed it from his looks. She’d heard the whispers but had dismissed them as fanciful. The Half-blood, who was said to dwell somewhere in the mid-Uplands, wasn’t a threat to her, and wulvers weren’t causing her any problems either. She had far too many other things to worry about.
There hadn’t been any stories about him being a military commander though.
“Anarmyof wulvers,” she said finally, even as her mind raced. “How many exactly?”
“Close to a thousand at hand.”
Her heart kicked hard. By The Warrior’s Blade, his army was bigger thanhers. Her breathing quickened then, the despair that had been nipping at her heels all evening drawing back. Such a force could turn the tide against the Shee. With his help, she could take back Rothie, and Strath too. She’d be near Cannich then and—
Don’t get ahead of yourself.
This man had saved her life, but she didn’t know him at all. He was bold and cunning. She needed to handle him carefully. “And they’d fight for me … after all the years of persecution they suffered at my father’s hands?” she asked warily.
Alar’s grey eyes fixed upon her. “You aren’t your father.”
Once again, the gravelly timbre to his voice made a strange, unsettling sensation shiver through her.
She swallowed. No, she didn’t hold many of her father’s views. He’d persecuted wulvers, as he had many of the faerie creatures who lived in Albia. “And what do you want in return?”
Alar gave a low laugh before raising his cup to her in a vaguely mocking toast. He then lifted the cup to his lips and drained it. “You understand how the world works then?”
Yet again, the sensation that he was the one in control of this meeting, not her, washed over Lara. Was her predicament a game to him?
“Aye,” she replied, her tone cooling. “What’s your price?”
Alar leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. He then captured her gaze boldly with his. “Your hand in marriage.”
Lara stared back at him.
Your hand in marriage.
