The Invisible Ring

“Wait,” Jared said. “If you were planning to let us go, why didn’t you tell us at the inn? Why did you buy the wagon at all? No, look.” He gripped her shoulders. Remembering her bruises, he lightened his hold. “If you’d told us then, there were five of us who could have ridden the Winds and you would have had plenty of marks to buy passage for the others.”

She searched his face and, after a moment, reached a decision. “There’s a ... wrongness . . . here. I can’t explain it better than that. I didn’t sense it until we were all together. In a way, Istill can’t sense it, but . . .”

“Go on.”

“At first I thought it was the illusion webs Thera and I were using, but it’s more, Jared, and I can’t pinpoint the source. It’s like catching something out of the corner of your eye but not being able to see it when you try to look directly at it. I couldn’t risk bringing that wrongness into Dena Nehele. I couldn’t risk having someone who might be full of Hayll’s kind of poison living freely among my people. So I decided to keep everyone together and let them think they were still slaves until I could find the source.”

Jared leaned back. ‘“You let Polli go.”

Lia took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I told Talon about the wrongness. He’ll take . . . precautions.” She smiled bleakly, her eyes so full of shadows. “Besides, the wrongness is still here.”

He didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Then he stood up. “Come on,” he said. “You’ll sleep better on a mattress in front of the fire than on a hard bench out here in the cold.”

“No.” Lia hunched her shoulders. “I’ll stay here.”

“No, you won’t.”

There was more snap than shadow in her eyes now. “You can’t—”

“I’m claiming Escort’s Privilege.”Checkmate, little witch , Jared thought as he smiled at her. When a Queen’s escorts weren’t available, another male could take on the duties of looking after the Lady. Since it was a temporary arrangement, Queens rarely refused a male’s claim—especially if his Jewels happened to outrank hers.

She muttered and sputtered while he bundled her up and carried her out of the wagon. Her comments about escorts poking their noses into personal concerns became more pungent after he asked her if she needed to use the privy hole.

“There were extra mattresses, so I put down a double thickness for you,” Jared said as he carried her to the building.

“I don’t need—”

“Thera got a double mattress, too.”

That shut her up so he didn’t mention Thera’s reaction to Blaed’s proprietary courtesy, or that Thera had tried to bite Blaed when the young Warlord Prince tucked the covers around her. No point giving the little witch ideas.

The men were all awake when he brought Lia into the building, but no one spoke, no one stirred. Subdued by their presence, she let him settle her on the mattresses and fuss with the blankets. Her only response when he snugged his mattress up to hers was to turn her face away from him.

The rejection stung a little, but he stretched out beside her and tried to ignore it.

A few minutes later, the slow, steady breathing told him everyone else was asleep.

Jared propped himself up on one elbow and watched Lia.

Knowing he would be free once they reached Dena Nehele felt like a different kind of slavery. He couldn’t run now, couldn’t escape, couldn’t go home. Her explanation had been fine as far as it went, but she hadn’t known about the wrongness when she bought him—which meant she had risked herself and the others to keep him from going to the salt mines of Pruul. How could he walk away when she needed his strength?

He couldn’t. As much as he wanted to go home, he couldn’t leave her now.

As he blinked back tears, he slipped his hand under Lia’s blanket, searching for her hand. She might have turned her face away from him, but her fingers curled trustingly around his.

Lying there, watching her sleep, he was torn between what he wanted to do and what he had to do. He no longer needed any tangible proof that the Invisible Ring existed, because the Ring no longer mattered. There was only one choice he could make now and live with. Until this journey ended and Lia was safely home, his strength, his maleness, belonged to her.

Sighing, Jared settled down and closed his eyes.

My father would say you haven’t grown into your skin yet.

He’d barely had time to get used to the feel of his Red strength when he’d been tricked into slavery. So maybe Blaed’s father was right about that. And if thatwas true . . .

Had being enslaved somehow frozen him in that transition between youth and man? If he’d remained in Ranon’s Wood, would he have eased into the more aggressive nature of an adult Red-Jeweled male, the change happening slowly so that what he felt inside was justmore instead ofother ?

Jared opened his eyes and stared at the dark ceiling above him.

Other. Like the wild stranger. The part of himself that had been suppressed for nine years, until rage had let it burst free. Theadult Warlord who kept pushing at him to embrace it, accept it.

He would have to embrace it, would have to accept it, no matter how much he feared it. He needed that strength and aggression if he was going to keep Lia safe.

Two nights from now, the full moon after the autumn equinox would rise. For a Shalador male, it was the night of the dance.

And the dance would be the right time to call the Warlord back to himself.

Chapter Twelve

Settled into one of the dainty chairs that were scattered around her sitting room, Dorothea SaDiablo sipped her morning coffee while she studied her Master of the Guard. She had one leg tucked under her, which made her red-silk dressing gown split enticingly high. Her hair flowed over her shoulders, creating a sleek, black frame for her half-bared breasts. She looked more like a whore in the most expensive Red Moon house than a High Priestess.

Then again, Krelis thought, all women were whores. Some were just honest about it.

“Have you any news?” Dorothea asked, setting her cup on the low table in front of her. She picked up a warm breakfast pastry shaped like a crescent, broke it in half, then delicately licked the torn edge. And all the time, she watched him.

It took effort not to shift his weight from foot to foot, but he reminded himself that he was no longer a Third Circle guard who didn’t understand the dangers of accepting an aristo witch’s sexual lures.

“Well?” Dorothea put .the half crescent in her mouth, closed her lips around it, pulled it out again. Slowly. While she watched him.

Krelis had to clear his throat before he found his voice. “No, Priestess, I have no news. But even riding the Winds, it takes time to reach Hayll,” he added quickly.

“Of course,” Dorothea purred. “I’m simply concerned that the more time it takes to complete this little task, the more chances she’ll have to slip away.”

He understood the threat beneath the pleasantly spoken words. “She won’t escape, Priestess. I swear it on my life.”

Dorothea smiled brilliantly. “I’m sure you do.”

Krelis’s legs turned to jelly. Before he could think of some way to respond, the door between the bedroom and sitting room opened.

The Warlord toy-boy didn’t look sulky or defiant this morning. And he didn’t have the sated look of a man who had spent a hot night in bed. He looked haunted, numb, as if he’d passed beyond fear sometime in the early hours and was only beginning to feel the tingle of reawakened emotions. The hunger in his eyes was focused on the coffeepot and basket of pastries, not on the barely dressed woman.

Krelis watched Dorothea’s expression change. She reminded him of a satisfied cat who had just remembered the mouse beneath her paw.

“It’s still early, darling,” Dorothea purred. “Go back to bed.”

Flinching, the Warlord obeyed.

After tossing the half crescent back into the basket, Dorothea raised her arms and stretched luxuriously. “There’s nothing quite like staying in bed on a rainy morning, don’t you think?”

For a moment, just a moment, Krelis pictured the three of them tangled in satin sheets and wasn’t sure if he felt revolted or aroused. Then common sense—and a healthy dose of fear—grounded him. Hoping she’d overlook his hesitation, he tried to smile. “It’s a necessary indulgence for Ladies. Unfortunately, the mundane tasks we males perform don’t disappear in rainy weather.”

“And I’ve kept you from your tasks long enough,” Dorothea said with a knowing smile. “I imagine your mother enjoys rainy mornings.”

The verbal knife slipped past all his defenses and left him bleeding. “I imagine so, Priestess,” he said weakly.

A muffled, pitiful weeping came from behind the bedroom door.

Turning toward the sound, Dorothea stroked her breasts.

Krelis fled.

He walked back to the guards’ quarters, completely unaware that he was getting soaked to the skin.

Aristo word games. Sentences with layers of meaning.

He remembered the mother of his childhood as a lovely woman content with her life; a woman who filled the house with her laughter and singing; a woman whose eyes lit up when his father was in the room.

He remembered the woman who fought with a witch’s passion when the Healer tried to refuse to help Olvan; the woman whose pride and courage had shamed the merchants when they tried to insist that she pay immediately instead of sending her a monthly account as was customary; the woman who looked her neighbors in the eye until they avoided her.

He remembered the woman whose courage finally crumbled after so many years of isolation; the woman who became emotionally bitter and brittle; the woman whose eyes were full of contempt for the man she’d loved; the woman who kept her distance from her son, as if he, too, would place a burden on her that was past bearing.

He remembered the woman who crept back to her family, leaving him to deal with the merchants and face the neighbors, leaving him with that soul-withered husk of a man who spent his days rereading beloved books and never going beyond the garden gate, leaving him to share in his father’s shame for no other reason than because he was male.