Chapter 22

A good friendwill risk his life to defend you in battle; a great friend will hold your secrets even when drunk.

~ Dainbridge III, the playwright

Vlerion’s face was still masked when Kaylina walked outside, his mother coming right behind her. Protectively, Kaylina thought. Did she need protection from Vlerion? Maybe if he thought she’d come up here of her own accord, though Kaylina couldn’t imagine why he would believe she would. Or could. She hadn’t even known his surname.

“Mother.” He’d dismounted and stepped forward to kiss her cheek. “Are you meddling?”

“Certainly. It’s my duty to watch over you.”

“You are not a god.”

“Nor would I wish to be one, unless I could rouse them to return from the moon and walk among us again. We could use their guidance in these trying times.” Isla gazed sadly at her son, probably thinking about the curse rather than the strife in town.

“Indeed.” Vlerion looked between his mother and Kaylina and back, as if he wanted to ask what they’d been talking about. But maybe he already knew? Without questioning his mother, he faced Kaylina. “You did not report to ranger headquarters this morning.”

Kaylina snapped her fingers. “I knew I forgot something.”

His eyelids drooped in disapproval at her sarcasm.

“Try this, Vlerion.” Isla offered him the glass of mead she’d been nursing.

He accepted it without taking his gaze from Kaylina and lifted it to his mouth but frowned down at it before touching it to his lips. “This is alcohol.”

“Mead, yes,” Isla said.

“You know I don’t drink alcohol.” The look he gave her as he handed the glass back said they both knew why.

Now, Kaylina had no trouble guessing the reason either. Alcohol’s effects would make it harder for him to maintain his equanimity.

“A sip won’t get you drunk. Just taste it. Ms. Korbian brought it.”

Vlerion opened his mouth, presumably to refuse, but Crenoch ambled over, his large nostrils twitching.

“My mother was not talking to you,” Vlerion told him. “Don’t you remember passing out the last time you had her mead?”

Crenoch swished his tail and showed his teeth. Or maybe his tongue. He batted it against his upper teeth several times.

“Is that… a threat?” Kaylina couldn’t tell.

“He’s letting me know he doesn’t care about the consequences and wants to imbibe like a lush selling her body for booze in a back-alley tavern.” Vlerion moved the glass away when the taybarri tongue drifted toward it.

“Here.” Kaylina intercepted his mount and dipped her hand into her pocket, withdrawing the bag of honey drops.

Crenoch’s twitching nostrils turned in her direction. Isla watched but didn’t say anything as Kaylina doled out the same sweets she’d shared with her for the taybarri. Crenoch whuffed, clucked, and licked as he slurped them out of Kaylina’s hand. As he savored the treats, he leaned affectionately against her with his great body and almost knocked her over.

Vlerion stepped forward to steady her. “He’s a beast.”

The memories of the conversation with Isla flooded her mind, and Kaylina didn’t come up with a response. Maybe that roused his suspicions because he frowned at both of them.

“Yeah, but he’s nice,” Kaylina said to distract Vlerion.

She patted Crenoch’s neck, which resulted in more agreeable whuffs.

“Exactly what rangers want. Nice mounts to ride into battle against enemies.”

Crenoch bared his fangs at Vlerion and whuffed again.

“If you’re ready to go,” Vlerion told Kaylina, “I’ll give you a ride back to headquarters.”

“I need to help my brother. It’s opening night.”

“Targon wants—”

“Tames will return Ms. Korbian in the carriage to her establishment to prepare her mead,” Isla interrupted her son.

“Mother. The captain—”

“I will speak with him on Ms. Korbian’s behalf.”

“You just met her. Why are you involved in this, Mother?”

“Taste the mead.” Her tone made it an order, a sterner no-nonsense order than Kaylina had heard Targon give to Vlerion. Than she’d heard anyone give him.

He stared mulishly at her for a moment and finally sipped the mead.

“It’s good.” He shrugged.

“It is like the ambrosia the gods enjoy after their great battles over the territories of the moon,” Isla said.

Kaylina blinked at the accolade. She hadn’t thought Isla liked it much.

Vlerion took another sip, letting it linger on his tongue as he considered it further.

“It is her calling,” Isla added. “She has no desire to become a ranger.”

“I’m aware.”

“I will speak with Targon myself,” Isla said. “Do not concern yourself further with Ms. Korbian. Tames will return her to the castle.”

“I can take her.” Vlerion waved to Crenoch. “I need to return to the city, and she’s been eager to ride a taybarri again. There’s no point in two of us making the trip.”

Crenoch whuffed and stepped closer—Kaylina almost lost her foot that time—so she could rub higher on his neck, right under his floppy ear.

“Riding bareback on a taybarri with nothing but you to grab onto isn’t appropriate for a young woman,” Isla said.

Abruptly, Kaylina realized why Isla wanted her to ride back in the carriage. Alone. Isla believed Kaylina wouldn’t be able to resist her attraction to Vlerion. If they were on a shared mount, with her arms wrapped around him, Kaylina might… what? Be so overcome by his masculinity—no, Isla had called it animal magnetism—that she would start rubbing herself all over him until he grew lustful?

Kaylina folded her arms over her chest. That would not happen. She was tempted to assert as much but didn’t want to state aloud what Isla was insinuating but not saying to her son. Besides, if Isla could get Targon off her back, Kaylina didn’t want to risk irritating her.

“She’s not a noblewoman, Mother,” Vlerion said. “I know she doesn’t care about what is considered appropriate.”

“You know less than you think,” Isla said softly, a hint of some past pain creeping into her eyes.

“Isn’t there a rule against mothers insulting their sons in front of women?”

“Absolutely no rule anywhere, no.” Isla waved to someone in the stable.

“Mother.” Vlerion gently but firmly clasped Isla’s arm and pushed it down. “This is silly. She will ride back on Crenoch.”

“Will you walk?”

“What? Four grown men may ride on a taybarri.”

“Were she a man, I would have no concerns.”

Vlerion squinted at her. Catching on?

“Walk with me, Mother,” he said coolly, lifting a hand in a silent command for Kaylina to stay where she was.

As if she planned to rush after them to eavesdrop on their conversation? She wouldn’t do such a thing. Probably.

As Vlerion and Isla walked off together, Kaylina admitted to intense curiosity. Knowing she was the subject of the conversation made it hard to ignore.

Two horses arrived. Had they been let out of their stable? Or had they escaped? Their noses butted Kaylina as they sniffed the dwindling sweets in her bag. She withdrew a few more honey drops. Crenoch’s big tongue came in, ensuring he also got more.

By the time Vlerion returned, another two horses had shown up for the sweets, and it was only between their legs that she saw his boots approaching.

“Sorry, my lord,” a young man called, running to gather the horses.

Only with reluctance and backward glances at her empty bag did they allow themselves to be led away. Crenoch held his head up and swished his tail. Nobody would lead him away.

“My mother may not have as much success talking Targon out of his plan for you as she thinks,” Vlerion said. “The animals are drawn to you. I’m convinced he’s right that you are an anrokk.”

“I’m not. It’s the honey.” Kaylina waved the empty bag.

“Was my mother’s cat also a fan of your honey?”

“I don’t think cats eat honey.”

“So, no.”

“No.”

Vlerion gripped Crenoch’s fur and swung himself onto the taybarri’s back. “I will take you to the castle to assist your brother with the opening of the eating house tonight, but, unless Targon tells me differently, I will expect you at dawn tomorrow for training.” He lowered his hand, offering her assistance.

Kaylina was tempted to refuse, saying she could pull herself up, but nobody had given her a lesson on mounting a taybarri yet—what if there was only a certain spot or certain way they allowed their fur to be grabbed as an aid for rising? She clasped his hand.

She expected him to pull her up behind him, but he lifted her with ease and settled her in front of him, wrapping an arm around her waist. What, did he think she might leap off on the way back and try to escape?

Maybe his grip should have felt like a prison, but her entire body flushed with the awareness of him behind her. This was a more intimate position than she’d imagined.

She looked around for Isla and found her standing in the doorway, watching with a deep frown, as if she was positive nothing good would come of them riding together. But Vlerion had apparently reached the age at which he would no longer obey his mother unconditionally.

Isla tilted her head back and swallowed the rest of the mead. Something told Kaylina she might get drunk today, a way to keep from thinking about losing another son.

But she wouldn’t. At least not because of anything Kaylina did. She hadn’t intended to fling herself at Vlerion, even before his mother had told her everything, and she wouldn’t now. She would be a fool—if not suicidal—to ignore Isla’s warning.

But when Crenoch started walking, and then loping with the ease of a wolf that could cover dozens of miles in a day, the jostling shifted her back until Vlerion’s inner thighs rested against her outer thighs, the heat of his body intense even through his clothing. The muscular arm around her waist kept her in place. Maybe she should have requested the carriage ride.

But Vlerion had to know what he was doing. He hadn’t succumbed to lust when Ghara Saybrook had propositioned him, nor had he let himself gaze salaciously at Kaylina during their training. If he was interested in her at all, which Kaylina wasn’t convinced of, he could control himself.

As Crenoch galloped down the road, his powerful legs carrying them far faster than the carriage would have, Kaylina allowed herself to relax. Vlerion had said he would return her to the castle, and this would get her back sooner. It was logical. There was nothing to worry about.

“My mother thinks I’m drawn to you because you’re an anrokk,” Vlerion stated with disdain. “Like the horses and taybarri and her sloth of a cat.”

“I… She mentioned having concerns like that, but you’re not, right? You haven’t— I mean, you don’t even like me, right?”

“You are exasperating and irreverent.”

“Yup, that’s what I thought.”

“But I am attracted to you.”

Her heart skipped a few beats at the startling admission. What was she supposed to say to that? To do?

He shifted slightly behind her, and she could feel the evidence of his attraction through his trousers.

“Not because I’m a mindless animal drawn by some ancient magic in your blood,” he added.

“I didn’t say that,” Kaylina whispered, the irritation in his tone making her uneasy.

What if it ended up being his mother’s words that made him angry, that roused the beast?

“You don’t even like my mead,” Kaylina added, striving for a lighter tone, but it was hard to think about more than the arm wrapped around her—trapping her—and his hard body behind hers.

“I didn’t dislike it.”

“Such praise. Can I put that on the menu under the tasting notes? Rambunctious Red. Not disliked by rangers.”

“I’ll allow that.”

“Magnanimous.”

“Yes.”

Crenoch crested a hill, and the city came into view. Kaylina breathed a slow breath of relief. The ride wouldn’t take much longer.

“You needn’t be concerned around me,” Vlerion said. “I do not act on the animalistic urges of my body.”

“Meaning you’re not going to make a pass at me?”

“Correct.”

“Good. I’m relieved.”

He snorted softly. “You probably are.”

Something about the way he said that told her that such wasn’t his experience with most women. Kaylina remembered the way Ghara had expressed her longing to be with him again.

Vlerion might not be as handsome as his riding partner, Jankarr, and his scarred face might not bestir a sketcher’s muse, but women were drawn to him. To the beast, as Isla had suggested, sensing it lurking even if they didn’t know of its existence. As Kaylina had been drawn. And… as she still was?

She didn’t want to admit it, but if Vlerion rode off into a forest, pressed her up against a tree, and kissed her, she might not stop him. She should after what Isla had said, but strange urges kept sweeping through her. Animalistic urges, as he’d said. Unwise urges.

They were descending down a long slope toward the city, not more than ten minutes from the outskirts, when Vlerion’s chest pressed against her back, and he whispered in her ear. “What did my mother tell you?”

It was more fear than arousal that shot through her, though there was some of both. Isla hadn’t admitted the topic of their conversation to him? She’d told him to mind his own business? Or did he know but he wanted confirmation? It was a secret—his mother had said as much—and he couldn’t be pleased that someone like Kaylina now knew about it.

“Tell me.” It was an order, not a request.

“Only what I already suspected. After the catacombs.”

“I see.”

Vlerion nudged Crenoch with his knee, and the taybarri veered off into a copse, the trees interspersed with ancient vine-draped statues. They overlooked the city from the top of a cliff, a drop-off of at least twenty yards scant feet from the path.

Kaylina’s fear intensified. What if Vlerion decided that getting rid of her would be an easy way to keep his secret safe?

After he slid off, gazing up at her with a grim expression, she wondered if she could try a knee nudge of her own and convince Crenoch to leave him and take her to the city. Probably not. She was out of honey drops, and the taybarri was busy sniffing a bush.

“Speak with me for a moment.” Vlerion lifted a hand, offering her help down.

Kaylina slid off on her own, but her leg throbbed when she landed on hard rock, and she wobbled. He steadied her.

“About honey?” she asked, nervous. “Or mead? What would you like to know? Mead is believed to be the first alcoholic beverage that humans intentionally fermented. People have long valued honey for medicinal purposes as well as eating it for enjoyment. We’ve even used it to fertilize plants.” An idea struck her as that bit of trivia came out, but she was trying to divert Vlerion from his dark thoughts, so she filed it away to consider more thoroughly later. “Early humans may have learned the craft of mead making from the druids, back before the druids decided people were the bane of their existence and a plague on the land. Over the centuries, all manner of variations have been made. There’s metheglin—spiced mead—and my brother’s favorite, melomel—mead with fruit mixed in—although if you’re talking apples, you call that cyser. Oh, and my absolute favorite is acerglyn, which uses maple syrup. That’s harder to come by on our islands, so we have to trade for it, and acerglyn is something my grandma only made once in a while. I’m planning to do a batch soon. I’ve seen maple trees right in the city.”

Vlerion tilted his head as he regarded her. At least he didn’t look like he was contemplating her swift death. No, he was probably contemplating how exasperating she was.

“I’ll send some to your mother,” Kaylina added. “She’s an unexpected fan.”

Bringing up Isla was a mistake. His faint exasperation switched to jaw-clenching hardness.

“She should not have called you to the manor. And Beatrada should not have said… whatever she said. She must have misinterpreted us standing together. I don’t know why. It is not as if we were doing anything.” There was that exasperation again. “Even if we had been, it’s none of her business. I can manage my… issue without my mother interfering.”

“I didn’t get much of a choice.” Kaylina didn’t want to pit Vlerion against his mother, but she wanted him to know she hadn’t triedto wheedle that information out of her. “Her chauffeur and strongman showed up at the castle and insisted I come.”

“Beatrada may have learned of Targon’s belief that you are an anrokk and thought I would be affected more strongly by you than by normal women.”

Kaylina shook her head, both at the term that now plagued her and the fact that yet another man didn’t consider her normal. Domas’s condemning words rang in her head again.

“But I am not an animal.” Indignation flared in Vlerion’s eyes—and that glint of savagery that she’d picked up on from the beginning, that promised he was… not normal either. Dangerous.

She tried to step back, but Crenoch was behind her, so she bumped against him. Finished sniffing, the taybarri regarded Vlerion. With wariness?

Vlerion caught the look and took a deep breath. For a moment, he closed his eyes and hummed so softly that Kaylina barely heard it. Now that she knew his reasons for doing that, it was far from reassuring since it meant he was on edge. How much emotion did he have to feel before the curse prompted him to change?

“I request that you tell no one of my… condition,” he said when he opened his eyes.

The glint was gone. He’d regained control.

“I wasn’t planning to. Who would believe me?”

“You will not speak of it to your brother?” His eyebrows rose.

“I…” Would she? Frayvar was her only ally here, the only person she could rely on. She didn’t want to keep secrets from him, but this shouldn’t affect him in any way. Unless Vlerion lost it in the middle of their kitchen and endangered Frayvar, she couldn’t think of a reason he needed to know. “I won’t.”

His eyelids drooped halfway. “And the Virt girl who wants you to deliver information on the nobility to her?”

“I wouldn’t tell her.” That Kaylina could say without hesitation.

Judging by the way Vlerion continued to gaze at her, her lack of hesitation didn’t matter. He worried it was a possibility. Because they were both working class and would be drawn to band together against the nobles? Against someone like him?

Kaylina spread her arms, not sure how to explain that she barely knew the girl and didn’t feel any loyalty to her. So far, the rangers and commoners had annoyed her equally.

“It is the kind of information the Virts want and that they could use against me and my family. Maybe the entire aristocracy.” Vlerion looked over the cliff toward the city. “Over the generations that my family has been cursed… the beasts have killed many. That is because you have no control over its cruel and savage instincts when you change, not out of any malice or evilness in you as a person. My brother risked his life fighting as a ranger. He never would have taken the lives of others who were no threat to him or the kingdom. Not intentionally. And it is the same for me.”

“I believe you.”

They stood close to the edge of the cliff, and she again hoped he wasn’t contemplating that it would be safest for him to get rid of her. Easing to the side a few steps, Kaylina picked out the river in the distance and followed it to the castle, imagining she could see the red glow of the tower from there, though it faced the wrong direction to be visible.

“They would come for me en masse if they knew what I was,” Vlerion continued, not commenting on her steps away from him. “They might come for my family and our lands too. Do everything in their power to end the curse—to end the Havartaft line forever.” His voice grew so soft she barely heard him add, “I can’t even say that it would be a bad idea, but I would have to defend myself and especially my family.”

“I understand that.” They’d discussed how much family meant to them.

His gaze returned to her. “Perhaps you do.”

“Hopefully, you won’t be offended if I don’t swear my obedience and loyalty to you, but I didn’t want to know that secret to start with, and I’ll keep it for you, okay?” Kaylina willed him to believe that. “That beast, uhm… you saved my life in the catacombs. I owe you.”

“As we’ve discussed, you were only down there because I took you.”

“You don’t think I could have been curious and gone down and gotten in trouble all on my own? You don’t know me very well. Just last night, I broke into the tower and threatened a sentient plant.”

“Oh?”

“Frayvar was in danger, and I thought the answer to how to pull him out of it might be up there.”

“Was it?”

“Not really. He came around on his own. But there’s a big gnarly plant in a pot up there, kept alive by who knows what. I sure haven’t been watering it. It’s the source of the red glow.”

“You should leave it alone. There’s a reason someone removed those stairs and boarded it up. It probably tried to kill them.”

Remembering the flexing vines, Kaylina deemed that likely. “There’s got to be a way to remove the curse though. And your curse. They’re tied together, right?”

“Many in my family have researched our curse.”

Yes, his mother had said that, but… “Have they researched Stillguard Castle?”

“I’m not aware. Perhaps not since it doesn’t belong to our family.”

“Well, I’ll research it. I’ll get my brother on it too. He loves books. Not good rousing romantic adventures but nonfiction.” She wrinkled her nose. “He’s weird.”

“You’ll involve your brother whom you’re not going to share my secret with?” His eyebrows went up again.

“Yeah. He doesn’t need to know about that part of the curse to do research. He’ll do research because he thinks it’s fun. Like I said, weird.” She tried a smile for him.

Vlerion only gazed back with somber eyes.

“I mean it.” She made herself meet that gaze. “I owe you. You can trust me with your secret.”

“I have no choice but to do so.” He didn’t sound pleased about that.

It stung a little that he didn’t trust her, but they didn’t know each other well, and she called him pirate. Why would he trust her?

“I thought you might have brought me over here to push me off the cliff.” Maybe she shouldn’t have said that and put the idea in his mind.

“No.” Vlerion smiled faintly. “Crenoch wouldn’t have allowed that.”

Hearing his name, the taybarri whuffed and swished his tail.

“He likes you more than me,” Vlerion added.

“Because you’re haughty, uptight, and don’t give him sweets?”

“Because…” Vlerion turned his palm toward the sky. “He senses what I am—what I can become. They all do. To the taybarri, I am a dangerous predator, not a simple rider.”

Crenoch nuzzled the side of Kaylina’s head.

“I understand, but it still…” Vlerion closed his open hand into a fist and lowered it to his side. “It is petty of me to be annoyed by that, but I always admired them. As a boy, I had a stuffed taybarri toy that I took everywhere. I wanted to be a ranger, partially to follow in my brother’s footsteps, but partially so I could ride the taybarri.”

“They are impressive animals.” Kaylina stepped away from Crenoch, not wanting to give Vlerion another reason to be annoyed with her.

Crenoch washed her ear with his tongue.

“Though somewhat exasperating.” She leaned away and wiped her ear.

“Indeed.”

Her movement brought the city back into her view, and she picked out black smoke that hadn’t been there before. It was coming from…

“The castle,” she blurted, pointing. Fear surged through her veins, not fear for herself this time but for her brother. “It’s on fire.”