Page 17 of The Wolf Queen

“You can wash in the copper downstairs like I used to,” I told him firmly. “We’ll dunk you in, push you under and swirl you around like the laundresses do the sheets.”

Jan giggled at that before pulling at her clothes. I dropped down onto one knee and started to undo the toggles.

“Let’s leave the ladies to their ablutions,” Weyland said, putting a hand on Del’s shoulder. “The bathhouse that the knights use is downstairs. It might be colder, the soap rougher, but you’ll be in the company of warriors who are all glad to wash the stink of the day off them.” He winked at me as they walked out, Del suddenly much more amenable.

Which left Jan with me.

I paused in what I was doing and took a slightly shaky breath. I claimed I was these children’s mother, but my apprenticeship in the craft of childcare had been brief and too fast. Jan had been watching my movements intently, and when she caught me looking at her, she covered my hands with hers.

“I’m glad you came back for us.” She was uncharacteristically serious, though her eyes twinkled with that irrepressible spirit that was never dampened for long. “I’m glad you’re…” Her pause seemed to acknowledge the awkwardness. “I still miss my mummy, but… She always told me to pray to the goddess and everything would be all right. I prayed for you, Darcy, and you came.”

Tears filled my eyes, despite my attempts to hold them back.

“I’ll always come, if I’m able.” I couldn’t promise her anything else, but I would promise this. “Whenever you need me, you just shout and I’ll fight everything on heaven and earth to get to you, every time.”

“That’s how I know the goddess sent you.” She threw her arms around my neck and held me tight and I hugged her back just as hard. “You’re the princess with the swords. You protect us; you always look after us.”

I shut my eyes, not able to say a word as my feelings overwhelmed me. Instead I just treasured the small weight of her as I stroked a hand down her back. I swallowed a couple of times before I got my voice back.

“And right now, looking after you means giving you a bath,” I said. “You smell like horse and that’s not proper for a princess.”

“And you smell like horse and a dog’s bone, kind of bloody,” she shot back, wrinkling her nose, then burst out laughing when I did the same. She stripped down and hopped into the tub and chattered away to me about all her hopes and dreams as I scrubbed her hair.

Had I ever done the same? I looked around the room, hardly able to imagine being able to do so with Linnea. Even Nordred’s gentle but stern presence as he accompanied me around the keep had been wont to silence my childish babble, but I was glad for the sound of Jan’s carefree babble. She required little more from me than just nods and murmurs to keep her going. Then, after her bath, I worked painstakingly to comb her hair smooth, holding the hair close to the scalp to stop the roots from pulling until she turned to me with a smile. Once Jan was dressed in a snowy white nightgown, at which she clapped her hands in delight, turning this way and that to admire it, there was a firm knock at the door to signify that the menfolk of the family had returned.

“Pretty as a princess,” I said, after I’d called out for them to enter.

“And this princess needs to be in bed.” Dane walked in, Gael behind him. Jan stared at Dane with wide eyes, still somewhat intimidated by this particular mate of mine, and I understood why. His tone was gentle, but brooked no argument. She scampered off, throwing herself into Weyland’s arms as he appeared with an equally clean Del.

“I’ll read the children a story,” Weyland offered, and there was a round of good nights. Before he turned to go out with Jan and Del, he looked at me intently. “You need to wash up.” His eyes flicked to Gael. “Both of you.”

And logic dictated that we should do that together while the water was still warm.

If Linnea had still been in charge, she’d have ordered the maids back up to empty the bath and start again, with no regard for the fact that they needed to be up early to begin their day. But I saw how high the moon was in the sky and noted there were some plumes of steam rising from the water’s surface, indicating that there was still enough heat to bathe comfortably without the need to disturb anyone from their rest.

“I can wait—” Gael said. My hand moved without me even thinking about it to grab his wrist and stop him from moving away. My heart thudded in my chest and it felt like the whole world stood still. “Darcy.” The way he said my name—gods, I would beg him to say it like that always: deep and warm and with a rough edge to it. “Darcy, I know—”

I moved closer and pressed my fingers to his lips to silence him. I couldn’t bear him, anyone, talking about it, not now, not yet. I mutely begged him with my eyes and he nodded slowly before pressing a kiss to my fingertips. We moved then as one, unclasping buckles, shedding our physical armour and, with it, the illusions we’d fought so hard to preserve.

When the two of us had shucked off our layers, it was as though more than just our clothes had been removed. As we both stood before each other, we weren’t just exposing our physical bruises and lacerations. I felt as though the deeper pain, the anguish we’d all been covering up, seemed to be closer to the surface than either of us had allowed it to be, particularly as I dealt with the last item I needed to remove before bathing.

Linnea would have expired on the spot when I removed the pad of old rags I’d used to staunch the blood flow between my legs. Women weren’t even supposed to acknowledge something like our moon flow in front of men. But I didn’t flinch away from his gaze, which meant I caught the moment his eyes widened and then grew impossibly sad, and the way they burned brighter and brighter blue as he stepped toward me.

“Lass….”

He yanked me to him, keeping me pressed against him by the arms wrapped around my shoulders, but he needn’t have bothered; I wasn’t about to pull away. I clung to him, despite the fact it showed vulnerability, needing something, anything, to hold onto. Before, it had been my sword, my composure, the illusion that I was queen, but he had to understand that when that was removed, and I was simply Darcy, what was left was this: one sob, then another. His grip tightened to the point of pain, but I leaned into it, needing all the strength that he could give me.

“Darcy… Darcy, love.” His hands moved restlessly through my greasy hair, but he didn’t care. They felt like they shaped me, remade me, cast me anew, right before he pulled back. “Fuck the bastard Reavers,” he swore. “Fuck that wretched prick, Callum. Fuck history, fuck my father, fuck the Granians, all of them.” He held my head in his hands, his eyes burning into mine. “Fuck our people…”

All the heat went out of his voice and I watched a single tear fall, right along with mine: our pain in perfect sync.

“Fuck them for taking everything,” he finished, dropping his forehead to mine.

“Not everything.” My voice was little more than an ugly croak. I lifted my hand to his cheek. “Not everything, promise me that? If we do this, fight this war, tell me itwon’ttake everything.”

Us: that’s what I wanted to preserve, everything that burned between him and me and his brothers. I had to have that to survive, even as my heart quailed away from the idea of latching onto anything or anyone again. But I had never been able to hold out against them before, and I couldn’t now.

“Never.” The certainty with which he said that somehow filled me—the process of believing, of trusting again, hurt at first, then settled. “Never, lass. You’ll always be mine until my last breath. I’ll burn the fucking world down and leave Callum the king of ash before I’ll let anything take you away from me.”

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