Until she raised an eyebrow just so, and teased that she would follow him even after the curse took her, making him into a living lantern.

  Then he could bear it no longer. Iarthil had not even finished his translation before Warrick hauled her up into his arms and strode to her tent. From behind him came flapping and fluttering of the attendants.

  Warrick roared over his shoulder, “Tell them I will undress her myself!”

  Elina was still giggling uncontrollably when he laid her on the bed. Then his body came down over hers and her laughter quieted, melting into a soft sigh against his mouth.

  “It is a gift,” she murmured decisively. “Just as you have been to me.”

  Again he was upended. But this time, Warrick understood it. Anyone from the Dead Lands would have understood this, the most basic of all lessons. For what was magic but an unseen power that changed the world? And of all true magics, love was the most powerful—so loving Elina had overturned his entire world.

  Just as he intended to overturn hers.

  He captured her mouth, and the faint bitterness struck at his heart. Lifting his head, hoarsely he told her, “Not until you are well again will I leave your side. This I swear to you, Elina.”

  She bit her lip, eyes searching his. “What did you just promise?”

  “To always love you.” He clasped her hand and brought it to his chest. “My heart is yours. My axe is yours. My last breath is yours.”

  Wonderingly she touched his face. “I know not what you say. But this is how I always dreamed someone might one day look at me. As if I were loved.”

  “You are loved, woman.” Warrick lowered his head. “I will show you how much.”

  With his mouth. With his tongue. With his hands. Until she screamed for him as she came, then whispered that she was dead. And he loved her even more when she pushed his head back down between her thighs and asked him to kill her again.

  Warrick awoke.

  Something was wrong.

  Not Elina sleeping in his arms. Not the moonlight faintly illuminating the tent. But the dull gleam of a blade, a shadow moving past the curtains—

  Warrick whipped around, grabbed his axe and hurled it at the shadow. The loud clatter of chain ended with a solid thunk.

  Elina bolted up to sitting. “Warrick?”

  “Shh. All is well.” Except for the bed curtains. The stains might never come out. He drew her into his arms and leaned back against the pillows. “I merely righted another wrong.”

  She hummed against his throat. Already sleeping again.

  He closed his eyes and joined her.

  Elina the Wedded

  Darcoth

  “I hardly know what to say.” Still flushed from the very thorough morning kiss that Warrick had just given to her, Elina stared at the assassin lying on the floor of her tent with Warrick’s axe embedded in his skull. “If I were Nanny Char, I might mutter that barbarians never pick up their mess. Or perhaps I should say how glad I am that my attendants no longer come in until I call for them. But all I can think is that I was not the only one you killed last night.”

  Warrick merely cocked an arm behind his head and looked arrogantly pleased with himself.

  “Is there a ghost in here now?” But a glance at his chest told her that there wasn’t. “I wonder if this is one of the bizarre things that Chardryn told me of. You kissed me quite ardently—everywhere—while knowing a corpse was lying there.”

  When he only looked even more smug, she snorted out a laugh. Then she crawled back onto the bed and kissed his mouth. “I thank you for protecting me, Warrick of the Ghost Clan.”

  All humor fled his expression. He clasped her nape and spoke roughly, fiercely. The same way he’d spoken to her last night. The same way he’d used his mouth and hands and tongue.

  Elina had begun to love it when he spoke to her that way. Even better would be understanding what he said. “Today I’m going to teach you two words in my language. Kiss,” she said—and demonstrated. “Kiss.”

  Warrick grinned. “Kiss.”

  She rewarded him with one. “I’ll decide on the other word later. But now I’d better let Serjeant Iarthil know that an assassin slipped through his defenses.”

  While riding with him that day, she taught him ‘axe.’ The next morning was ‘tongue.’ Then ‘horse.’ By the time they neared Darcoth on Midsummer’s Eve, Elina could almost speak to him a full sentence about kissing his horse with her tongue while eating a raspberry in bed, and Serjeant Iarthil had almost stopped apologizing for his “blasted selfish decision to keep our perimeter open after dark, simply so that I could satisfy our curiosity about what happened with the ghost and the village.”

  But it was while the serjeant was riding beside them, apologizing again, that Warrick said something that stopped him short. Which they then discussed back and forth without any translation until Elina was forced to break in with a sharp, “Serjeant?”

  He looked at her, abashed. “He says the issue is not the perimeter, but how they managed to find you.”

  They’d always managed to find her. “I assume my uncle lays out gold enough for the assassins to bribe people to talk.”

  “The barbarian thinks it is more likely the gold crown and paint. It causes a stir and makes it easier for an assassin to follow our route.”

  Which was something Serjeant Iarthil had said before, when they’d first fled Aleron and Tagdon. He’d argued that they ought to appear as wealthy merchants. Or lesser nobles, at best. Yet he’d been countered by Lady Faraine, who’d pointed out that they sought allies and protection, and most royal courts would never acknowledge mere merchants or lesser nobles. When the Radiant Queen arrived in their realm, however, they were eager to welcome her.

  Though she despised saying it, Elina told him, “Lady Faraine wasn’t wrong.”

  “She wasn’t,” he admitted. “Yet our circumstances are different now—you have already made allies in the realms we will be traveling through. And it is likely no coincidence that this assassin so quickly found you after you wore the queen’s face in Torrath. It had been quite some time since the last one found us…and it had been quite some time since you wore the paint.”

  “But we marry tomorrow.” Though she would give near anything not to be trembling under the weight of the royal raiments as she spoke her vows, Elina could not simply discard tradition.

  “Wear a gold dress, then—it will not be out of place amid the Midsummer festivities. Wear the crown inside Khides’ temple. But forego the queen’s face.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Do not forget he said you are more lovely without it.”

  Never would she forget that. She leaned back against Warrick’s chest, suddenly bubbling with happiness. “We marry tomorrow!”

  Smiling, Serjeant Iarthil translated her happy statement to Warrick. He bent his head to her ear, and rumbled an equally short reply in a voice that sent shivers racing over her skin and arousal heating everything within.

  “What does it mean?” she asked the serjeant, then repeated Warrick’s reply as closely as she could.

  Warrick began laughing behind her as Serjeant Iarthil turned quite red. “It means ‘We can’”—he mumbled something she didn’t catch—“‘tomorrow.’”

  “We can what?”

  And that was how Elina learned the barbarian word ‘fuck.’

  On Midsummer morn, barely a moment passed between Elina calling for her attendants and Chardryn charging into the tent with a battalion of maids armed with buckets of steaming water, lotions, and brushes. The nurse shooed a naked Warrick off to his breakfast, tossed his wrap and boots out after him, then seized Elina—who was bathed and buffed and plucked until there was not a single hair remaining below her neck and not a single curl astray above it. Then she was wrapped in gold silk, perfumed and polished—and finally declared ready to wed by the old nurse, who promptly burst into tears.

  But this was a day for laughing, not for crying. Elina soon teased Chardryn out of her tears, and was sent off to marry with her Nanny Char scowling in the way Elina had loved for so long.

  Armor shining and hair trimmed, Serjeant Iarthil met her outside the tent. “You are truly radiant, my queen.”

  She felt radiant. “I thank you, Serjeant. You are also looking very well. Your beard is charmingly tamed.”

  “Nanny accosted me when my defenses were down.”

  “She was on a rampage,” Elina agreed. “I wonder if she intents to oil my husband-to-be? I’ve noted her appreciation for the way his muscles gleam.”

  If Nanny Char had caught him, he’d already washed it away. Dripping from his bath, Warrick strode across the camp, leading his horse and wearing only his axe on his back.

  Elina could not take her eyes from him. “Do you suppose that is the traditional wedding attire in the Dead Lands?”

  “I hardly know, Your Highness.”

  “Perhaps he is merely eager. And efficient. Ask him if he intends to consummate our marriage before we even leave the temple.”

  “I beg you to teach him more words, my queen, so that you might ask him yourself.”

  “I might call to him with the word you taught me yesterday. If I say it enough, perhaps he will not even wait until we reach the altar.”

  Looking pained, the serjeant spoke in the eastern tongue.

  Warrick grinned at Elina, causing her heart to skip. Then he dropped his horse’s reins, apparently leaving the beast to stomp about the camp like a drunken mammoth, and vanished into the attendant’s tent.

  Elina eyed her man-at-arms curiously. “Did you truly ask him what I told you to? I expected some reply.”

  “I told him that you were admiring the swing of his mighty weapon and that you would like to see it oiled.”

  She gave a delighted laugh. “Well done, Serjeant!”

  A faint smile curved his mouth. After a moment, he asked quietly, “You will be happy?”

  “I am already,” she said. The serjeant nodded, then blinked and looked away, but not before she saw the glint in his eyes.

  At this rate, Elina would be the only one who did not cry today.

  Though perhaps Warrick would join her in laughing. He emerged from the tent carrying her tonic in one hand and a length of gold silk in the other. The cup he gave to her; the silk he knotted around his waist.

  Apparently Nanny Char’s rampage had continued. At least his wrap was still efficient. He only needed to lift it.

  Anticipation thrummed through her. “Ready, then?”

  Warrick’s dark eyes met hers. Without a word, he plucked the cup from her fingers and tossed it over his shoulder in the general direction of the tent. Elina was the next to be tossed, though he made certain she landed astride his horse. He swung up into the saddle behind her.

  “Onward,” she said—and they were off to be wed.

  Midsummer being the longest day of the year, when they entered the city many revelers were already in the streets, celebrating the full length of the day. Elina tossed to them the gold coins that Serjeant Iarthil and his knights had brought along for the purpose of sharing the Radiant Queen’s joy.

  She had plenty to share.

  Marble columns ringed the outside of Khides’ temple. The entrance was flanked by two stone statues, both ancient warrior-kings with the heads of wolves. The sun was high overhead, the shadows short. Midday on Midsummer—there could not be a finer time for the Radiant Queen to wed.

  As soon as they dismounted, Elina clasped Warrick’s hand and pulled him up the steps, abandoning the heat outside for the coolness within. The serjeant’s and the knights’ boots clapped rhythmically behind her. Ahead stood the priestess, garbed in a simple black robe.

  “Welcome,” said she in the southern tongue, then glanced at Warrick. She spoke what Elina assumed was the same greeting, but in the eastern tongue. Her gaze continued on to the knights. “You are here to wed or to invade?”

  Elina grinned and bounced up onto her toes. “Wed.”

  “So you shall. You have a red ribbon?”

  “I have it here, my lady.” Serjeant Iarthil produced the crimson length.

  “Then give to me your hands.” The priestess repeated the instruction to Warrick. Elina’s heart thumped wildly as he threaded his fingers through hers, his dark eyes locked on her face.

  “Your names?”

  “Elina of Aleron.”

  “The Radiant Queen of Aleron,” the serjeant emphasized.

  The priestess’s gaze flicked to his face and narrowed, but she said nothing. Only looked then to Warrick. Her brows rose when he spoke his reply. Yet again, she said nothing, and began winding the ribbon around their clasped hands.

  “Elina and Warrick are not yet bound together. So we gather to witness their joining, as two…be- become…one.” Her voice faltered as her fingers brushed over Elina’s rings. She drew her hands back. “You ought not wear such jewels when you speak your vows.”

  Face hardening, Warrick spoke harshly to in response.

  “He says that you cannot take them off,” Serjeant Iarthil murmured to Elina. “That they keep you alive.”

  The priestess glanced to Elina’s face, as if searching for the reason why.

  Sick dread boiled in her chest. “A curse,” Elina told her. “A wasting disease. Why must I not wear them?”

  “The power the jewels hold—you cannot know what such magic will make of the vows you speak, what spell it might cast…and what it might do if you choose to unbind.” She looked to Warrick and repeated her explanation.

  His brows snapped together upon the last word.

  “He asks what it means to unbind. The priestess says that it means to unmarry.”

  Warrick scoffed.

  “He says there is no such thing.”

  “There is,” Elina said and let the serjeant translate her reply as she spoke it. “Not in Aleron, but in other realms through which we’ve traveled. If a couple marries, and one of them unknots the ribbon, the marriage is undone as if the wedding never occurred. If one of them cuts the ribbon, each take from their home the possessions that are theirs alone, and thereafter they are as if dead to each other.”

  “Here in Darcoth, that is the way,” said the priestess.

  Warrick clasped her hand tighter, his gaze boring into hers. His words were sharp, fierce—but with a hint of uncertainty that pierced through her heart.

  “He asks if you intend to one day unmarry him. He asks if such a spell would matter at all.”

  “Even if I had long to live, it would not matter. I would never wish to unmarry,” she said, her throat suddenly clogged with a roil of emotions. Some sweet. Some painful. But she would not cry this day. She turned to the priestess. “Let us speak our vows.”

  “You are certain?”

  Elina nodded. As did Warrick, when Khides’ priestess repeated the question.

  “Very well, then.” She again took up the ribbon, threading it through their entangled fingers and around their wrists. “Elina of Aleron, do you pledge yourself to this man and vow to be his faithful wife?”

  Happiness began to rise again through the dread and fear that had been weighing heavily in her stomach. “I will.”

  “Warrick of the Ghost Clan”—she paused and switched languages to finish the vow.

  Warrick’s gaze burned into Elina’s as he replied.

  The priestess knotted the ribbon. “Then you are now wife and husband.”

  With a relieved laugh, Warrick dragged Elina forward by their bound hands and kissed her, so thoroughly that she would not have minded much if he did consummate their marriage right there.

  “The ribbon must bind your hands until dawn,” the priestess reminded them. “I suggest you take close care of it after.”

  In Aleron, the ribbon could be tossed away after dawn—though some brides kept theirs for the memory of it. But Elina would follow the priestess’s suggestion.

  “My queen.” Serjeant Iarthil bowed to Elina. Then to Warrick. “My king.”

  Behind him, the knights went down to one knee.

  Warrick laughed and shook his head at their display, then scooped Elina into his arms. He strode for the temple’s exit.

  “Keep up, Serjeant!” Elina called back to him, laughing. “We have songs to sing and wine to drink and a feast to eat! And you, my king—”She looked up at Warrick and twined her arms around his neck. “You need to take me to bed.”

  Though Elina wished to, they could not go directly to her tent. The songs and the wine and the feasts celebrated Midsummer Day, but also celebrated her marriage and welcomed her king consort. She could not deny her people the opportunity to do both—especially as there were so few here to celebrate with.

  Had she the energy, she might have danced. Had she not feared puking, she would have feasted. But she could sing and sip a little wine, and so she did until her voice was raw and her limbs were loose and warm. With her hand bound to Warrick’s, she could not leave his side—nor did she wish to. Quite frequently, he would kiss the breath from her, and she’d spent nearly the entire afternoon sitting on his lap and nestled back against his chest.

  It was nearing sunset when he abruptly lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the tent, accompanied by the cheers and whistles of her entire retinue.

  And so it was time.

  Arousal surged through her veins like warmed honey, sweet and thick. Each of his kisses struck her anew. It was her husband kissing her now. It was her husband setting Elina on her feet with his free hand searching her hair for pins, so that her curls tumbled down her back. It was her husband sliding the gold silk from her shoulders and pressing kisses to her throat.

  And it was her king who wrapped his arm around her hips, lifting her and carrying her to the bed. Her king who followed her down, groaning when she opened her thighs so that he could settle into the warmest, wettest part of her.