Page 12 of White Horse Black Nights

Let’s be real—I’m hardly husband material.

Besides, look at the way she flinches around me, like she can see all the blood on my hands. Even her horse shies away from me. The whore who birthed me couldn’t be bothered to keep me, nor whatever bastard got her pregnant by coin or by force, so why would anyone else? There’s something inside me that’s twisted like tree roots, broken like a faulty arrow. The fae gods made a mistake when they blessed me with my abilities. Only Rian saw the damage but dragged me out of the gutter anyway.

I’m anxious to see this ride through and return to more important ways of serving him. I can’t stop thinking about that bear that dragged off the godkissed girl. It was strange; I should have easily scented her corpse but never found it. Never even scented a drop of blood. Likewise, if she survived and was still alive, I’d have smelled her, too.

I should be there, staking out the bear, I think with a growl of frustration.Not babysitting some scrap of a girl.

When I told Lord Rian about the bear’s unusual fur and size, he only laughed.“What are you suggesting, Wolf? That the goldenclaws are back? There hasn’t been one in a thousand years. They went to sleep along with the gods.”

Ahead, in a grassy thicket, a rabbit blinks its black eye, and I draw my bow.

A few minutes later, I drop a brace of rabbits by the campfire. Sabine has rolled up my borrowed shirt sleeves to fit her shorter arms. She braided her hair, too. Not in the fancy fae style, but a simple rope.

At the sight of the dead rabbits, Sabine’s jaw tightens, the scrape of her teeth striking my ear.

“What, friends of yours?” I ask.

She levels an unamused glare at me that, for some reason, makes me smile. Now that she’s clothed, she’s regained some of the bullheaded attitude she started the ride with.

As I clean the rabbits and roast them on a spit over the fire, I feel the heat of her gaze. It’s like candlelight on my skin, flickering over my scars. Has a lord’s daughter seen a bare-chested man before?

I glance up to catch her interest, and she quickly looks away.

After a moment, she says, “I don’t know any other godkissed.” She points the tip of her finger toward my birthmark. “I was the only one in Bremcote.”

There aren’t many of us godkissed, it’s true. One out of every thousand babies is born with the small, sunburst-like birthmark that designates us as blessed by the ancient ones. What particular gift we’re given is impossible to predict—I’ve seen godkissed with the strength of an ox, godkissed who can sculpt a woman’s beauty like clay, godkissed who can call the rain.

“Well, you’ll meet more,” I say, plucking off a hunk of meat to test it. “There are many in Duren.”

The juices drip down my chin as I relish the rabbit haunch. I tear off another piece.

Sabine shifts on the ground, wiggling closer to the roasting meat as her stomach rumbles. “Is it true the Valvere family collects godkissed?”

“Collects?” I snort. “Hell, we aren’t horses. But, yes, they employ many like us. It makes sense given their businesses.”

“Extraordinarily strong fighters bring a larger audience to the arena?”

I concede with a nod. The legal vices comprise all manner of games of chance and spectator competitions—and brothels, of course. I no longer involve myself in those aspects of Lord Rian’s work. Ever since he named me Duren’s official huntsman, it’s my job to keep meat on the table and wild animals from killing villagers. How he runs his vice houses is of no consequence to me anymore.

Sabine’s fingernails suddenly become very interesting, and she clears her throat. I think she’s about to ask for food, but she says, “I can pay you. To let me go, I mean.”

Her heart claps like thunder in her chest—she’s intensely nervous. As well she should be. It’s no small crime to offer a bribe to a Valvere guard. I could punish her for this, and Lord Rian would back me. I could tie her up. Choke her with a fist around her throat until she recants. Until those big eyes look up at me beseechingly, those rosebud lips beg for forgiveness.

Instead, I only let my gaze hang on her small frame, drowning in my borrowed shirt. “Where exactly are you hiding a pouch of gold coins, my lady?”

Her heartbeat changes, thumps lighter with hope.

“I have a friend who can get you money if you take me to a rendezvous location twenty miles inland from Salensa.”

Inwardly, I groan deep in my bones. As I suspected, this girl has some lovesick scheme with a boy she met somewhere. That damn seashell. The way she caresses it.

Turning the spit buys me time as I consider how to handle this foolish girl’s artless plan. I suspect the boy is the supposed brains behind it, not her. Sabine may be clever, but like any pampered lord’s daughter, she is uneducated on such things as geography and roadways. This is trouble. Not because she’ll escape—she won’t under my watch—but because I don’t know how much this boy might have already spoiled Sabine.

She’s still a virgin—of that, I’m certain. It’s crass, but I can smell it if a girl is untouched. Lord Rian used to use that particular skill of mine when evaluating new whores for the brothels. Since virgins are worth far more, every girl claims to be one, and he needed my nose to suss out the liars.

Unlike most, Sabine has the scent of innocence all over her.

But this lover of hers could have had his mouth on her, his hands in places reserved for her future husband. And that would be unacceptable.

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