Page 62 of Rogue's Pawn (Covenant of Thorns 1)

“Unfamiliar, you mean,” I said, but I scratched Darling’s neck under his collar by way of thanks, obediently moving over a bit when he showed me an itchier spot. “Told you not to sleep in it. You’ll be all over itchy by the end of the day.”

He swatted my hand, nailing me with a claw and drawing blood.

“Ow! You varmint! See?” I said pointedly to Larch, who looked steadfastly ahead but might have been smirking.

The sun blazed over the horizon, the trumpets blared and the group started to move. Larch slid us into the column of nobles, over a dozen riders back from Falcon’s lead group, which suited me just fine. Puck’s antifreeze-green plume towered over the rest. We picked up the pace and Larch released the reins, jogging alongside at my stirrup. Other pages did the same.

“Are you coming along?” I asked.

“I am my lady’s page, am I not?”

We trotted down the hill and around a bend, into the next valley. I caught my breath at the sight of men marching, four abreast. They wore hard leather and steel. Wild hair streamed, sometimes covered by helmets, sometimes not. Weapons bristled. The scene looked likeHighlandermeetsSpartacus.

But what truly caught me, so much so that I could not tear my eyes away, was that these weremen—humans, to all appearances.

“Where did they come from?” I gasped.

Larch looked up, face a deeper violet from jogging along. “My lady?” he questioned politely, not quite implying that I might have lost my mind.

“Darling, where did these men come from?”

The cat replied with an image of various villages and people working in them and me sitting on the floor with an addled look on my face.

“Why, Virginia,” I muttered to myself, “the stork brought them. Now leave mummy alone.” Darling added some drool to the addled-me picture, so I reached back and yanked his tail, which made him have to dig in his claws to hang on. The image vanished.

I watched the men, starved for the sight of someone whose limbs looked in the right proportion. I fancied I could smell them, their honest human sweat—no fruits or exotic spices. Just the sight of them soothed my deep loneliness. The men marched along, not looking back at our colorful party as we passed up to the front.

Now I could see other battalions—if that was the word—converging. Some were composed of men. Others of various types of fae, some I’d seen already, some I hadn’t.

“Lady Gwynn!” Puck came galloping down the line to me, towering ostrich feather streaming with drama. He did look pretty spectacular. “I see you’ve acquired a page—most charming.” He frowned at Larch. “No uniforms for your retinue though?”

“At the cleaner’s.” Apparently the universal sense of “not accessible to anyone without major difficulties” came through my wisecrack loud and clear because Puck looked irritated but resigned. I could see him as a Wall Street exec, in a celadon Armani suit.

“The Great Lord Falcon will be angry if he sees this.” Puck glanced around, as if expecting Falcon to pounce on him at any moment.

“Do you all jump to his every whim?”

Puck tilted his head, the plume listing dangerously to the side. “His punishments can be most…unpleasant. I don’t care to repeat them. I’m surprised you do.”

I looked away, swallowing back my gorge at the thought of Falcon sinking his teeth into my vulnerable breast. Maybe I was lucky he hadn’t torn a chunk off and eaten it in front of me.

“We’re moving out to the Promontory of Magic,” Puck declared, forever resilient and careful to pronounce the capitals. “Follow me!” He angled off to the left, toward a rise of hills, virulent plume waving.

I kicked my horse into a canter—such a relief, as cantering was infinitely more comfortable than endless trotting—and looked to see how Larch kept up. He ran alongside easily, though his blue sheen had deepened to a decided deep purple.

Darling clung like a cocklebur to the saddle behind me, beneath the fluttering canopy of my cloak, and I leaned lower over Felicity’s neck, her white mane lashing my face and flying past to mingle with my dark hair. The sun spilled over the horizon, blazing unnatural gold.

My heart pounded with exhilaration at the ride, the morning, the warming damp air, the smooth cadence of hooves on grass. Perhaps I picked up on the battle ambience, because I felt fierce and excited. Maybe this would be aLord of the Rings/Narnia-type war, full of heroics and flags—we certainly had the costumes for it—rather than a muddy, gruelingPrivate Ryan/Platoonkind of thing. I’d definitely take glorious over gritty. I laughed at myself. Laughed at the wind in my hair and the blood pumping hot in me.

The conversation with Larch had Rogue circling my thoughts again. Fortunately I didn’t have the dream-dregs to contend with, too.

…when he drags you off enthralled, bespelled or enchained…

I fought down the uneasy arousal that image stirred in me. But I could feel my body’s interest, my awakened tissues vibrating with the ride, rubbing deliciously against the hard press of the saddle. Some part of me craved it, even as I knew in my head that I had been in chains and it was no sex party. Had Marquise and Scourge programmed this response, or had I always carried it, deep inside, far from the light of day and equal rights?

I thought back to that sense that Rogue felt responsible for my being here. His determination to possess me. Had he somehow known this about me, even from the other side of the veil? Had he somehow sniffed out that in this land I could be a sorceress, that I had this dark sexual thing inside?

Not pleasant to contemplate, but that might contain the key to getting myself home.

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