“Lady Sabine.” His voice rumbles like rough stones. “Lord Rian sent me to escort you to Duren. It’s an easy road, but given the nature of the ride, I anticipate we might have trouble. Obey my commands, and I will ensure your safety.”
Nature of the ride. He means the fact that I’ll be paraded around bare as a babe in the name of some sleeping god who couldn’t care less.
His eyes bore into me, and my jaw clamps in a feckless attempt to tame my anger. Obey him? He’s a stranger, and yet he thinks I’m his to command?
Overhead, the clouds shift, and a dark shadow swallows us.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been told to obey. I was taught obedience at the end of a heavy rod in the convent. Eyes down. Lips silent. Thoughts on the Immortal Iyre. Matron White’s sadistic voice still rings in my head like those damnable church bells.
Distracted, I slide my middle finger along the base of my ribs. They’re still tender, not yet fully healed.
A songbird swoops down from the rooftop to alight on my shoulder. It’s a nuthatch. As tiny as a plum with soft gray wings and a black cap of feathers.
Heart, it whispers to me. Take heart.
At its gentle reassurance, I remember to breathe.
Thank you, little one, I speak back in my thoughts, knowing it can hear them as clearly as I could ascertain its message in my own mind.
The bird’s presence reminds me that I’m not locked away anymore with a cadre of cruel-hearted women. And that I’ll have a friend on the ride, too.
Myst will be with me.
At the end of the courtyard, one of the stable boys brings her out. She’s been groomed to perfection for the occasion. Her white coat gleams the color of freshly fallen snow, her mane and tail as soft as a swan’s down.
The church bells chime again. Bong.
It’s time.
As the stable boy brings around Myst, I uncinch my robe’s belt and, forcing a steady breath, slide the fabric off my shoulders. My arms tremble, and not just from the chill. Suri takes the robe from me, draping it over her forearm, keeping her eyes averted out of respect.
After all her work to create the immortal crown braid last night, she unties it now and begins combing out the locks. She separates, shakes, and flounces each long curl like she’s unraveling the strands of a woven rug. Then she takes great care spreading out each curl in an attempt to cover my bare breasts and the hollow between my legs in a way that will uphold my modesty.
“See? I told you the braid would make nice thick waves. It’s practically like you’re still dressed!” she says with forced optimism.
Right. Nice try.
Lifting my chin, I fix a sharp look on Wolf Bowborn, the man who expects me to obey him for the next twenty-one days. “Don’t you dare look.”
Wolf is so busy gawping at the nuthatch perched on my shoulder that I’m not sure he hears me. But then the nuthatch flits away, and his eyes drag to meet mine, straight on and piercing.
He clears his throat in a gruff assent. “I won’t look, Lady Sabine.”
Chapter 2
Wolf
I look.
Of course I look. Even a blind man would take a good long eyeful at Sabine Darrow, though I permit myself only a single sidelong glimpse. And it’s entirely for her benefit, not mine. If I’m to keep her safe, I need to know this girl down to her bones—what she’s capable of, if she has injuries I need to make accommodations for, how men along the road might react to her naked body before my fist pounds the ogling out of them.
All it takes is one peek, anyway, to know that the legendary rumors of her beauty are true. If anything, she exceeds what’s whispered about her at Duren. She’s small and round, her skin like fresh morning milk. Her hair is the color of honey, flowing all the way to her toes in thick waves that, despite her stepmother’s best attempts, cover her nakedness about as well as a sieve holds water.
I snap for the stable boy to bring her horse closer. It’s a striking mare, with pure white coloring, a proud bearing, and flawless conformation. The horse is much too fine for the likes of this utter ass, Lord Charlin Darrow. I know a little about horses from the Valveres’ racing stables, and this pristine white mare must be worth a fortune.
So how did a daughter of a minor lord, who’s drowning in debt, come by such a horse?
The stable boy halts the horse beside Sabine and removes its lead rope. This is another one of Lord Rian’s conditions: Sabine must ride bareback, just girl and horse, the same as Immortal Solene. The requirement is a thorn in my side, making my job more difficult. If the horse bolts or Sabine decides to make a break for it, I have nothing to grab onto except the girl’s bare calf.
Still, I’m confident that the girl will be easy to manage. She can’t weigh more than a doe, and it isn’t like she has a lot of places to hide a blade on her.
As Lady Sabine swivels to face the horse, I spot something gleaming at the base of her neck and grab toward her throat. She sucks in a sharp breath as my fingers make contact. Ignoring her fear, my fingers curl around a cockleshell dangling from a cord.
“No dress,” I remind her. “No chemise. No slippers. Lord Rian was very clear in his instructions—you aren’t to wear anything, my lady.”
“It’s a necklace.” She speaks through clenched teeth as her flinty eyes glare. “Not clothes.”
“Just the same.” With a flick of my hand, I snap the cord and shove the seashell into Sabine’s open palm. “Get rid of it.”
The sound of her blood rushing in her veins jumps across the small distance between us, but she reins in her temper and faces the mare again, sliding a hand over the animal’s back.
I wrap my hands around her waist to help her up, fingers digging into her hipbones, but she starts writhing in my hands even before I lift her negligible weight.
“Put me down!” She squirms until I lower her, and then she spins on me in a way that makes her carefully positioned locks threaten to give everyone in the courtyard an eyeful. “Don’t touch me!”
I hear the fear in her voice. I smell it, sweet and pungent in her sweat. She’s scared of me—but not as much as she should be, or else she wouldn’t dare to give commands to Lord Rian’s guard.
I could bend her to my will, but the best way to handle a skittish girl is like a skittish horse—give it space to make it think it has power.
So I hold up my hands and take a step backward.
“There’s no mounting block,” I explain in painstaking slowness that strains my patience. “A little thing like you can’t climb on a horse that tall.”
“I don’t need your help.”
Pinning me with a distrusting look, she turns back around to the horse. Her soft hand goes to its neck, stroking the flawless white hair. Her lips move silently. She says nothing aloud, and yet I sense some form of understanding pass between girl and horse.
The mare lowers itself to one knee, then the other. It folds its hind legs in until it crouches on the flagstones.
Swinging a graceful leg over its back, Sabine easily mounts. She whispers, “Up, Myst,” and the horse lumbers back to its hooves.
I’m riveted, as is the stable boy and the gaggle of maids peeking through the manor’s windows. I’ve seen horses trained to bow at a whip’s crack, but this is something different. This is no trick.