Page 66 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

“One and the same.” Pep looked down the line, staring at Nordred through narrowed eyes. “He can’t be that Nordred, can he? That’d make him over three hundred years old…”

“Apparently, we’ll only find out when we’re ready…” I said, doing an imitation of Nordred’s pronouncement.

“Well, if finding out your teacher’s mysterious past is off the table, let’s drop back and have a chat to some of the wives,” Pep suggested, looking over her shoulder at the women who were riding behind us.

“Alright. Why would we do that?” I asked, glancing back a little nervously.

“We’ll be on the road for at least two days,” Pep said. “That’s a bunch of time spent riding in each other’s company, cooking around the same fire, shitting in the same hole and washing in the same creek. Best to get the awkwardness out of the way early on, I find. That way if you forgot to grab a handful of leaves on the way to the latrines, someone comes when you call out.”

I spluttered at that, but as she pulled her horse out of line, I did the same, the horses behind us surging up to take our place.

“Hello ladies,” Pep said with a bright smile, “I’m Pepin and this is Darcy.”

“The princes’ mate?” one woman said, perking up and then taking another look at me. “I heard we were riding with a future queen but I could scarce believe it.”

“That you, love?” another woman asked, peering over her horse. “Oh, you’re a pretty thing, so you are.”

“Isn’t she just!” Our focus was jerked over our shoulders where another woman joined the conversation. “Let's make some space, ladies, let the princess and young Pepin in.”

“Ah, not a princess…” I said, but the line of horses separated, and space was made for us to take a place within it.

“What’s going on here, ladies?” a gruff masculine voice asked as a stout older man rode abreast of us.

“Hello, darling.” The woman at the front left to us leaned over in the saddle and pecked a kiss on the man’s cheek, his skin flushing in response. “The princess has come to mix with the likes of us. Can you believe it?”

“Still not a princess,” I said weakly, focussing on keeping in line with the horse in front of us. Arden was feeling his oats, thinking he’d like to stretch his legs, but he needed to save that energy.

“Well, don’t let this become a mother’s meeting,” the man said, then nodded to the widening gap in the line. We women were slowing things down apparently. Those in front corrected their horses, trotting up to take their place behind some of the men, all of us shuffling up to regain formation. “We don’t expect any trouble on the road, but it pays to be careful. Keeping pace is important.”

“Of course, love.” The woman patted his cheek, and I bit back a smile, and I think her mate did the same. He nodded sharply to Pep and I and then pushed his horse into a trot, going further up the line.

“You’ll need to master the art of that, marrying those princes,” one of the women in front of us said. She turned in her saddle to offer me her hand, her horse plodding on without direction from her. “I’m Aila and this is Janis.”

“How do you do, Your Highness?” the other, much more circumspect, woman said.

I shook both of their hands before I went about correcting them.

“I’m not a princess. The princes signed an agreement with my father for me, but they haven’t made any formal offer to me personally,” I explained. “We… had quite a lot to deal with when we left Grania, so any thought of forming a permanent attachment has gone out the window.”

“For you, maybe.” A larger woman sitting on the horse behind me shot me a wide smile when I turned to stare. “I’m Lannie, love.” But her focus quickly shifted past us to the top of the train of horses. “Those princes are fairly smitten, that’s plain to see. My Patrick and Aila’s Jaylin have been coming home complaining about how distracted your men have been. Should’ve left a day ago, we should’ve, but they wouldn’t attend any meetings when you were still unconscious and then when you were awake, all they could think of is you.”

“It’s lovely to see the younger generation still understands the power of finding your true mate,” Aila said, but then her nose wrinkled. “It’s become quite unfashionable in the capital, what with that queen.”

“Don’t go talking about her,” another woman said. “I’m Nessa, love. And you might have had things on your mind other than being mated, but not those princes. They’re tracking your every move.”

She nodded to the head of the line of horses where we managed to catch Weyland turning around and looking over his shoulder to us. He quickly turned back to talk to Dane. Then she jerked her head over her shoulder, and I looked behind us to see Axe towards the back, a slow smile spreading across his face when he caught us at it. Gael however looked anywhere else but.

“But not Gael though,” I said.

“Oh, don’t be fooled by that one,” Lannie said. “He’s had a hard life, has Prince Gael.”

“Doesn’t go by his title in the capital, though as son of the king, he deserves it as much as anyone,” Aila said. “Perhaps more. Doesn’t matter that his mother was human. She was his father’s true mate, the one who should be sitting on that throne, not that bloody Aurora.”

“The current queen,” Janis explained. “Queen Aurora is the mother of the other three princes.”

“The son of the king and his true mate, stripped of his title?” Nessa’s disgust was plain. “It’s a testament to the man that he just grins and bears it all. He could raise an army without a second thought, could Prince Gael. Plenty see him as the real heir to the throne, as much as Dane, Weyland and Axe are good men. Not their fault they were born to the wrong woman. But her…”

“Passed herself off as the king’s true mate, right up until a skinny little boy was brought across the border to Bayard,” Aila said. “I was on the brink of womanhood when my father brought him in. He was but a child of five, but he was a death knell to her ambitions, wasn’t he? Her boys were born, were accepted by the people as potential candidates for the ruling pack when the time comes for the king to step down, but at the appearance of Gael? My father, he brought Prince Gael to be cared for by Mother and me, right up until word could be sent to the palace. And then she came.”

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