Page 16 of Of Blood and Fire
I swore softly and ran after her, lightly grabbing her arm to stop her. She turned and, with surprising strength, peeled my fingers away. “Do not?—”
“What of the guards at the door?” I said softly. Urgently. “Are they free of her influence?”
She glanced past me for a second. “I do not feel her presence in any of those who stand on this level. It is likely they wait until they have you under their control.”
With that, she continued on. I stood there, staring after her for several seconds, then shook my head and turned, making my way back across to my end of this floor. There were a total of fourteen Esan guards in the corridor between my suite and thethermae at the far end of the hall. Two of our guards stood on either side of my suite’s door, staring fixedly at the six Zephrine soldiers who lined the wooden balustrade on the other side. Three Esan guards stood to the left and right of this line. It would have been funny had it not been for the tension so evident in the air.
All the soldiers straightened and saluted as I approached. I crisply replied, then hesitated despite the desperate need to see my husband beating through my veins, and glanced at the guard standing on the left side of my door. Lenny was a bull of a man with thick brown hair tied up in a tail at the back of his head and dark green eyes. He’d been my parents’ door guard for as long as I could remember, and was now mine.
“How did Rodkin fair with his first taste of battle, Lenny?”
Rodkin was his oldest son and a raw recruit who wouldn’t have seen any true action on the wall, as all first- and second-year enrollees were sent to the weapon stores to help with the restocking of quivers and the provision of swords or spears as needed, or assigned to other tasks such as carrying the injured and the dead to the healers or morgues once they were stretchered off the wall. The most recent battle would have been a truly brutal introduction to the realities of war for all of them.
“Ah, he was frightened, as you’d expect, and overwhelmed by the sight and sounds of death, but he did his job, and that’s all a man can ask.”
“It’s all any commander can ask,” I commented. “Sounds like he’s going to be a worthy soldier, Lenny.”
“I’ll tell him that, Lady—Queen—Bryn. He’ll appreciate it.”
He opened the door for me, then stepped aside so I could enter. My hesitation was brief but nevertheless there, and my heart raced so hard in my chest that it actually hurt. Which was yet further confirmation of just how far—howhard—I’d fallen for the man I’d married, despite all of my best intentions.
I forced myself through the doorway, my gaze sweeping the room as the door was closed behind me. The bubble of magic was still active, which surprised me, but it was the group of four people lounging in the seating area that caught my attention.
One was Aric—a tall, ruggedly handsome man in his mid-years with dark skin, blue eyes, and bald head—obviously, and with him was a woman who was indeed a younger version of Gayl, and a stout, dark-skinned man I’d never seen before but who exuded an odd energy and a sense of danger.
Then there was Damon.
And he... well, he was divine.
In the warm light being cast by standing light tubes, a faint shadow of dark hair ghosting his usually closely shaven head. His new-looking leather jacket was undone, and though his undershirt was tightly laced, I knew the body underneath well enough, had played my fingers across his muscular chest and stomach, and followed the happy trail of hair with touch and tongue down his stomach to his impressive crotch multiple times.
I really,really, wanted nothing more than to get rid of our audience and do exactly that right now.
My gaze skimmed upwards to the sharp but pleasing lines of his face, and met the glorious blue of his eyes...
Only to discover a stranger.
CHAPTER
THREE
There wasno warmth in those beautiful depths. No heat. No welcome. No caring or desire.
There was absolutely nothing to be found of the man I’d come to know.
But perhaps worst of all was the inner silence. There was no shared heat, no inner whispers, and absolutely nothing to suggest something as rare and precious as Dhrukita might ever have been a possibility.
I froze mid step.
I had no fucking idea who this man was, but it certainly wasn’tmyDamon.
“Princess Bryn,” Aric said in a smooth voice that scratched at my nerve endings. “So nice of you to finally join us.”
“What the hell is going on here?” I waved sharply at the stranger who resembled the man I’d married. “Who the fuck is this?”
Aric raised an eyebrow, the movement somehow both lazy and condescending. “That is, of course, Damon Velez, your dear husband.”
“He’s not my ‘dear’ anything. What game do you play here, Aric?”
