Chapter 106

Roan

Gods, it was so good to finally be doing something.

I admit, I woke up the others the next morning with a cheery tune. Right as Silas went to throw a pillow in my direction, I handed him a steaming mug of coffee, which went some way towards mollifying him.

"Black like your soul," I informed him.

"Your eye will be the same colour…" Arik groaned, rolling over and stretching, but as he did so his hand slid against the greatest incentive for him to wake up. Sure enough, his eyes flicked open as soon as he touched Jessalyn. He stole a secret look at her, moving closer until her eyelids started to flicker, then he was up and taking the other coffee from me with a warning look.

"Sleep well, my mate?"

Creed was awake the moment Jessalyn was, smiling down at her, an expression she quickly reciprocated, though not for long.

"We are ready to ride?" She shot up from the bedroll. "It's time to get going? Is everyone waiting on us?"

"Settle down, Princess." Arik shot her a look over his shoulder then focused on his coffee. "They can't exactly march forth without us. If we're lucky enough to win the day, they'll need someone to sit his arse down on the throne and start giving the kinds of orders needed to save the country." He nodded slowly. "They'll wait for us."

In the end, we had to wait for them. A camp this size? It'd been a long time since we'd ridden with a force so large, but that came with its downfalls. Trying to organise thousands of people at the same time was like herding cats, but when the sun was well above us, we rode off. I'd persuaded Jessalyn to ride up the front of my saddle.

"For security," I told my brothers.

"You'll be hard pressed to reach for your sword with our mate in your arms," Silas grumbled.

"You'll just have to work hard to keep us safe then, won't you?" Jessalyn replied. I kicked my horse forward with a smirk, then I placed a kiss on the back of her neck as we started off.

The ride was long, tiring, flies buzzing around our head, people poking their heads up from the fields they were working as we passed. All of my body ached, especially one specific part that rubbed against Jessalyn's pretty little arse with every rock of the saddle. I was about to discuss how we might introduce those two parts to each other when we stopped. That was when I looked up and saw the changes made to the capital.

The gates were never closed. I was willing to bet engineers had to be found to oil the mechanisms that wheeled them shut and kept them that way when the order went out, but it wasn't technological feats that caught my attention.

"What do you think, Prince Arik?" James asked as he and some of the lords loyal to him brought their horses to stand beside ours. "Do we send up a raven to deliver our terms?"

"I'd prefer to plaster it on the face of a boulder and lob it over the gates," one of the lords said with a toothy grin. "Make clear we mean business."

"You'd just hit Cheapside," I said with a frown, "milord." The honorific felt like it had to be extracted from me forcibly, but I managed to get it out.

"Well, that would be an improvement, wouldn't it?" the lord continued blithely. "Clean out the riff raff."

I sucked in a breath, and when I spoke, there'd be no more recognition of rank, but Arik spoke over me.

"Considering how many good, loyal soldiers come from areas like Cheapside, I would suggest any action that results in the death of innocents is to be avoided." His tone was as cool as I'd ever heard it. "We are supposed to be entering the city as liberators, not slayers."

"Just so, Highness." James bowed his head slowly. "Let's proceed carefully…"

They had more to say, I was sure of it, but while I heard the low murmur of their voices arguing, my focus narrowed down on the gate. I didn't know what it was supposed to look like before because it was always open, admitting a steady stream of visitors, merchants, anyone drawn to the shining lights of the capital, but I was willing to bet this splash of bright red was not part of the design.

"Hold on, lass," I urged Jessalyn, the sound of her hands slapping down on the saddle horn allowing me to kick our horse into a gallop.

I shouldn't have brought her with me. There could be archers posted at the gates, arrows trained on us as we got closer, but while the space between my shoulders itched, no projectile thudded home there.

Instead, it felt like a knife was thrust into my chest.

Each one of us kids had bright red hair, but Desi's was the most fiery. Da always said it was because she was the most hot headed. Not now, it appeared, because the bright colour of her locks was what wavered in the breeze. Tied off at the neck it would've been, as she often kept it, to keep from getting in her food, it'd been cut from her scalp just above it. The old leather strip kept the ponytail bound tight so it could be pinned to the wood of the gate, the meaning obvious. The strands glowed so very brightly, because beneath them a long black robe had been attached with several knives.

"Desi…"

Silas appeared beside me, slipping from his horse and then reaching out with shaking hands. His fingers did what mine longed to, inspecting for blood or any other signs of harm. He didn't find evidence of that, but that was no cause for relief. No one and I mean no one would cut the hair from my sister's head, not without forcibly holding her down as she screamed blue murder and…

"Roan."

Jessalyn's choked off voice brought me back to the here and now, and I realised I was holding her far too tight.

"I'm sorry, lass. Gods, did I hurt you?"

"No." Her hand smoothed over mine. "But they have Desiree."

"And Selene." Silas barked that out then shook his head, an incredulous laugh forming. I just stared at him, wondering what the hell was going through his mind.

"What's happened?" Arik asked as he and Creed rode up.

"Magnus has taken some hostages," Silas replied. "To try and ensure our compliance. He's taken at least one of Roan's sisters and…" He shook his head again. "The daughter of the Raven of Khean."

"Taking women as hostages?" the lords spluttered as we all stood sometime later in the newly erected tent war room. "What kind of craven uses a member of the weaker sex as a shield from justice?"

"The weaker sex?" Silas' eyebrow jerked up. "My sister can garrotte a man with just the twist of her wrist, throw a knife that will bury itself in your eye socket and kill you dead from a hundred paces. Father always said that if she was born a boy, she would've been his heir. If Magnus has Selene…"

His eyes swung to meet Arik's.

"Then she's exactly where the Raven wants her," the commander said before jerking his eyes sideways to look at me and Jess. "Roan, I need you to stay here and protect the princess."

"What? No!" she snapped, seeming to swell twice her size in response to a direct order. "If that bastard has Selene and Desiree, he's taken them as substitutes for me." Her hands smoothed down her dress. "I can't allow them to pay a price destined for me."

"I need to get Desi out of that madman's hands," I said. "Creed, you can stand guard over the princess."

"I'll protect her with my life." My brother's fist slammed down on his chest. "You know that."

"With an entire camp of soldiers and wolf shifters around her, she'd have to be safe," I said before glancing down at Jessalyn. "I don't want to leave you—"

"Go." Jess waved her hands at me for emphasis. "Rescue Desiree from whatever that madman wants. Selene at least has family connections to protect her, but…"

We had none of that, I knew she was about to say. She frowned, ready to apologise, but I couldn't allow it. Jess was right. We were just pawns in this gods awful game and now we were being moved by much more powerful forces. Our only way out of this was to cluster around an equal and opposite force and that's why I turned to Arik.

"Identify ten shifters you trust with your life," Arik said, stabbing a finger in Creed's direction. "No, make that twenty. You'll form an honour guard around our…" He swallowed hard, his skin far too pale right now. "Our mate and keep her safe. She can't go into the palace, she can't."

"Jessalyn is not Ariel," James said in a low voice. "No woman will be stolen from this camp and used as a means to force us to submit. My father should've raised his army the moment Ariel's body was returned to us…." He paused, eyes wide, but he shook his head to dislodge that memory. "Battered beyond all recognition. Her death bought Magnus just enough time to gain him the support he needed, but not this time. Not this time, Your Highness."

That title seemed to break whatever spell Arik was under, the prince shaking his head, then advancing on Jessalyn before grabbing her by the arm and dragging her from my saddle.

"You will not go anywhere without Creed, do you hear me?" I half expected her to start arguing, that dangerous light flaring to life in her eyes. "Not even to the latrine. Creed will watch you piss and shit until we return to camp with our family in tow."

"You need me to be safe." Her hand went to his arm, and I noted the slight softening of the prince's stance. "You need to know I will be fine while you go on this important mission. I'm not the same girl that jumped out of the window of the inn. I know I don't stand a chance against the king or his minions. I'll stay right here, within arm's reach of Creed the entire time, until you return." She squeezed his arm. "I am not Ariel."

"No…" That sound seemed to claw its way out of the prince's throat, his hands going to her jaw and then tilting her mouth his way. "You are far, far more. What I felt for her was just calf love. Her death beat me down, but yours…" He ghosted his lips across hers, forcing her to strain for more. "I won't come back from it, I can't. If something happens to you, all of Khean will burn to form your pyre, this I swear."

"So ensure that it doesn't." Her hands went to his wrists, stroking the skin there. "Rescue those who don't deserve to be used as pawns in this fight and bring that monster to the battlefield so this can be resolved once and for all. Give me that and I promise to stay safe."

"Knives." Arik clicked his fingers and several weapons still in their sheaths were produced, making me narrow my eyes, wondering where Silas hid them all because the ones he usually carried were still in place. "Strap them to your thighs, your arms, everywhere until—"

Jessalyn went up on tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips.

"Everywhere. I will be armed, safe, surrounded by wolf shifters that will tear any intruders limb from limb. Go, because who knows what's happening to Selene and Desiree right now."

That's what broke up this little moment. It felt wrong to be snatching small intimacies when my sister was in the clutches of a madman. I saw them then, all of the women's faces I tried so hard to shut out, each princess blue and still.

Dead.

Not Desi, I repeated in my head, as I drew my sword. Not Selene, not my sister, not Genny. No more fucking women. I couldn't stand by and allow another death, I just couldn't.

"I'm assuming you know a way into the capital that won't draw notice?" I barked at Silas.

"Of course." He shook his head slowly. "I'm sure my father will be waiting there for us. This has his fingerprints all over it."

"They cut the hands off thieves, don't they?" I snapped. "Maybe it's time to do the same to the bloody Raven."

We'd arrived at the capital late in the day, so waiting for the sun to fall did not take long. Under the cover of darkness, we crept up to a perfectly uniform part of the wall, Silas running his hands over the bricks, then stopping when he felt something. A small click and then the trick was revealed. A doorway had been hewn into the wall, a facade of bricks stuck to the door front to perfectly mesh with the wall.

"Hello, lads…" Weasel appeared in the doorway, a picture of insouciance as he looked us over. "The Raven told us to expect you. Heading up to the palace, are you?"

"You got it," I replied, shouldering forward, "and you wouldn't want to get in our way."

"Get in your way?" He reached over to flick some lint from my armour, but I caught his arm by the wrist. "Wouldn't dream of it."

"Enough of the foreplay, Weasel." Silas sighed. "If my father sent you, then he's expecting us."

"At the palace of all things. Has some friends in high places does the Raven." Weasel winked. "Well, come along then."