Page 94 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

Turn them into wargen, the order went unspoken, but it remained there, hovering in the air between us.

“You look good, lass,” Nordred said, stepping forward. “Much better than the last time I saw you.”

Back when you were by my side, I thought furiously. When you could’ve told me so much more, taught me about what the hell was coming. I just inclined my head respectfully, not trusting myself to speak.

“Well, I will leave the two of you to it,” Ulfric said, his eyes narrowing at the awkwardness in the air. But whatever suspicions he nursed, they weren’t so pressing that he refused to go. Aide de camps strode forward, divesting the king of his armour and cloak, then leading him away to a golden tent that was being raised as we spoke.

“I brought you an army, Darcy,” Nordred started to say and any other time in my life, I would’ve treasured those words. But right now, my eyes narrowed down, looking him over more closely. Did I see the veteran warrior, the horse master or the young wizard right now? It felt like the many different Nordreds were shuffled like cards in a deck, but they didn’t lie comfortably beside each other.

“I’d much rather some answers if that’s alright with you,” I replied finally.

He let out a sigh, then nodded, turning on his heel then gesturing for me to follow him. I did, of course I did, just as I had so often before, walking deeper into his camp.

Men called out to him as we passed, seeking his attention in a way I was well familiar with. A weird accident of birth had made him the perfect material for a king, and yet somehow he’d never worn a crown. Right now, he looked as he had at my father’s estate. Worn but clean clothes, dusty well broken in boots. I stopped once we were far enough away from the king’s troops, because even my loyalties had their limits.

Why, I wanted to ask, then who, then what. I wanted all of the answers, coupled with a sense that none of them would be sufficient. The dichotomy had me shifting where I stood, not sure which way to step.

“I’m sorry.”

His open salvo was impressive in its simplicity. Devastating with it as well. How many men had apologised to me? Few enough that I was struck by his words, my eyes widening.

“For what?” I forced out.

“For all of it.” His hands dug into his greying hair. Greyer than it had been, I noted idly. “For what has happened. For what will.”

“You know?” I glanced out past the tents to the field before us, the rippling heads of wheat not allowing us to see all that far ahead.

“Parts of it. Always fragments. Usually the painful bits.” His hands hung loosely by his side now, as he faced me down. “Just enough to know what step to take next.” He moved closer then, my mates ranging themselves around me, letting out small warning growls, but Nordred paid them no mind. “They always brought me to you.”

And it was then he did the one thing I’d always wanted. He put his hands to my face, lifted my chin so that I might look up into his face and see it. A love burned there in his eyes, of the strength and intensity that he shared with Eleanor, but of a nature quite different. When he rubbed his thumb across my cheek, it was only then I registered that there were tears there. He brushed them away, only for more to form in my eyes and in his.

“I had to trust, keep lurching forward, from one fucking disaster to the next, staying true to the glimpses I saw. Of you, Darcy girl. Of you. My perfect, beautiful girl. My daughter.”

I jerked away at first, shaking my head with a violence that made the world swim, but I could only do so for so long.

“No, Nordred!” I barked, my words echoing all across the camp, a thousand heads turning our way at the sound of them. “No!”

“The goddess is a cruel fucking mistress, I learned that early on,” he shot back. “Cursing me to love the queen, then to care for our daughter, then her daughter after her. To follow our whole blasted line down as our world and the human one was torn in two. As people died and struggled and starved and ached. To watch your mother get sold off to that fucking bastard cur that was your father, only to witness him brutalise her, then you. And to watch you grow, hardy as a weed, even as your mother faded.”

This was what I always hated about Granian religion. Listening to the priests piously opining that everything happened for a reason had ever curdled something in my gut. So the laundress’s pretty daughter deserved to be raped by those boys, then have her face cut up for the sin of it? That the babies of poor women deserved to die in their cribs from lack of food or clean water? The soldiers talked about battle being all blood and shit, but sometimes it felt like life was too. Without purpose, without reason.

Bad things happened to good people and that wasn’t good for religion.

But Nordred moved in then, opening his arms wide, giving me the choice this time to come to him. My feet moved of their own accord. How could they not? I wanted his embrace with every breath in my body. Not like Eleanor, I realised as I threw myself at him, as I clawed at the cotton of his shirt, wanting, needing some of the ache out of me. Because just like Del turned to me for that bone deep animal comfort that comes from caregivers, I needed it from him.

“Nordred…” I gasped out, the ache growing harder, bigger, a pain that had been held back for so fucking long rising inside me.

“I know, lass. I’m sorry for it. Goddess knows I am. I’ll be sorry for it for the rest of my days, the pain you’ve been through.”

Then, for several long breaths, there was nothing but the rapid thud of his heartbeat and mine, the drip of my tears in the dirt and silence.

“Before we go about transforming your men into wolf warriors,” Dane said when I finally pulled away. “Perhaps we should sit down for a bit and talk.”

48

“You’ve been getting visions of Eleanor?” Nordred said as we sat down on the logs outside his camp. His brow creased at that, then he flushed. “So you know…?”

“I’ve been trying really hard not to see those parts, but yes…” I scratched at my nose. “I saw how much she loved you, that she felt that you were her true mate.”

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