Page 43 of A Crown of Lies

Ewan just grunted and folded his arms over his broad chest. “You’d have more luck with romance if you tried flowers instead of nipple clamps, lad.”

“Flowers are forgettable,” Rowan said with a restrained grin. “I promise you; nobody forgets nipple clamps. Not when I use them.”

“You’re two sheep short of a herd, lad. You know that?”

“Thank the Divine for that, because if I wasn’t, none of this would ever work.”

The door creaked open, and two more men entered, this time Gregory and Connor.

Gregory carried a large satchel over his shoulder that he brought to the middle of the shrine and put down, disturbing the dust. “Is it true we’re to ride for Dagh Cairn?”

“Aye,” Rowan said, opening the bag and sifting through its contents in search of a rolled-up robe.

Gregory exchanged a look with his mute brother. “You know there’re only eight of us, right? We can’t take on forty bandits ourselves, even with Peter’s magic.”

Rowan shook out the robe. “We don’t have to kill them all. We’ll hit their leaders and the rest will scatter.”

“And if they don’t? Then what?” Gregory pressed.

Ewan’s hand came down on his son’s shoulder and he moved him aside. “Then we kill as many as we can and ride away safely. No lives lost tonight.” He gave Rowan a heavy look.

“Agreed,” Rowan said. “If the tide turns against us, we ride for the hills and regroup. Better to live to fight another day.”

Connor sighed. “I just don’t see why we can’t stick to the plan involving the Crows.”

Ewan tapped Connor on top of the head hard enough the sound echoed through the shrine. “Your sister’s bones are out there, edjit.”

Connor frowned and shrugged. “They’re just bones. What do they care?”

The door opened and two more of Ewan’s boys wandered in, clad head to toe in black. They brought a large potato sack between them and dropped it on the floor. The armor inside clanked loudly.

This time, it was Gregory who slapped the back of Connor’s head. “Have a little fuckin’ sympathy, you tit.” He gave Rowan an apologetic glance on his brother’s behalf.

Connor gave his brother a push, prompting a shoving match that Ewan quickly broke up.

“Both of you shut it and get dressed,” Ewan demanded as the last pair of his boys came into the shrine.

“The Wild Hunt rides again.” Connor’s sparkling eyes disappeared beneath a helm shaped to resemble the head of a hedgehog.

Rowan tugged his cloak up and stared down into the empty eyes of the copper fox mask. Ewan would wear the head of a bear, and Peter the hare, while Gregory became the wolf. Each creature had a name in myth and his own story associated with the Hunt. Rowan knew them all by heart and cherished every tale.

For him, this ride was about far more than breathing life into a legend and striking fear in the hearts of would-be bandits. These hunts were in memoriam to his late father, who had recited all the tales for him when he was a boy. If his da were alive, and saw the way the bandits had overrun his beloved land, terrorizing his people, he would have given the Wild Hunt his full blessing to ride out in his name.

As he readied, it was impossible not to remember his last journey out to Dagh Cairn to lay Ambra’s bones to rest. It had been a dark and solemn day, early in the fall. When they took her out there and built up the stones around her body to mark her final resting place, Rowan had buried a piece of himself with her.

Or thought he had.

What he’d had with Ambra was special. Her obedience had never come from a sense of duty to her lord, but because she loved him, the real him. He had let her know the man he truly was, let her see how terrible and selfish and demanding he could be, and she had loved him for it. She had brought out the darkness in him and reveled in it. He thought he’d never feel that again.

And then Ieduin had knelt at his feet and looked up at him with those same needy eyes. The thick walls of ice he’d built up around his heart had melted in an instant. When he’d tried to back out of it, to reset and recover from the damage he’d done, Rixxis knocked over those fortifications all over again.

Ewan’s hand came down on Rowan’s shoulder and squeezed. “All right, lad?”

Rowan swallowed the threatening tightness in his throat. “I haven’t moved on, Ewan. I still miss her. I feel like she’s still here, haunting me.”

“Sheishere.” Ewan tapped a finger on Rowan’s forehead and then to his chest. “And she’s here.”

“I know. It’s just…” He sighed, shoulders heaving as he searched for the right words.

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