On her second morning in Arboriana, Yesenia woke and discovered she was alone. A quick check of the five rooms of their apartments offered no sign of Corin, until she noticed a small note scribbled on vellum sitting upon an ornately carved desk, which seemed more for show than use.
My father insisted on a hunt today. Expect my return by supper. Safest for you is here, in our apartments, until I return.
“As if you could protect me from anything,” she muttered, balling the note. She searched for a hearth in which to toss it but recalled Corin explaining that they didn’t have them at Arboriana. Lighting fires in their pretty little tree kingdom was too great of a risk.
She mused at the possibilities.
He wanted her to stay cooped here in the apartments where she couldn’t cause him trouble, did he?
Yesenia laughed to herself, searching for her trousers and vest. She’d slept in her tunic, the balmy air drafting in from the perches reminding her, despite the infinite differences, of home, where she’d always retired to her bed in the nude. She could never be so vulnerable here.
But her trousers and vest were gone.
There was no point in searching further because she already knew what had happened. Mariana’s girls had snuck into her room once more and taken what was not theirs. What bothered her more was that she’d not seen this possibility and been ready for it.
Yesenia had, however—she recalled now, sighing in powerful relief—slid her daggers under the mattress before retiring to bed.
What would her father think about her past two days? Would he admire her rare restraint or encourage her fire tongue? Would he tell her to hold her ground or wear the hideous dresses they’d prepared for her?
She wished more than anything that she could ask him, to hear his voice guiding her against her impetuous nature into calmer waters. She’d given him intense resistance since she was old enough to run, but she’d always been his lass. It was to him she’d always gone for comfort.
The only comfort he could offer her here was the same tough love, but without the balm of his presence.
Yesenia returned to the sitting room, and the rack she’d tried to ignore. At least ten gowns had been hung for her, all so bloated with fabric that they were stuffed in and overflowing like a pen of overfed pigs. Mariana had taken care to assign Yesenia the colors of the Easterlands, reds and golds and even purple, the favored color of the Rhiagains, of royalty. None of the warmer tones reminding Yesenia of home.
She filtered through them, wearing her disgust like a badge of pride. Not one was tenable, but none was not among her available choices, unless she intended to roam Arboriana bare-legged.
Remember who ye are, girl. Being a Warwick ’tis never about comfort. We are above such things. We need only our metal and our mettle.
Yesenia snatched a violet dress—swashed with cloth of gold of course—and forced herself to put it on. It took twelve attempts and some acrobatics she hadn’t employed since childhood, but she was at least clothed again.
She walked straight past the mirror intended for self-inspection and went to her bedchamber, where she recovered her daggers and one other thing. She’d nearly forgotten the gift Anatole had given her. Last night, perched at the edge of the too-plush bed, she’d rolled the vial around in her hands, wishing Anatole were still there to guide her. Anatole would know when to use it. When not to.
She slipped the poison vial inside one of the many pockets stitched into the inside of the gown. If nothing else, the Quinlanden women had an appreciation for the practical.
Yesenia couldn’t bend to reach her boots, thanks to the untenable restraint of her bodice, so she fastened her dagger belt over the frilled waist of her gown. Upon second thought, she removed it, unclipping the leather extender, and turned it into a thigh holster. Propping one leg up on a velvet chair, she strapped the daggers high enough to hide them under the gown’s thick fabric but low enough she could still get to them with a quick enough hitch of the hem.
Tossing a defiant look at Corin’s crumpled note, Yesenia left the apartment.
Corin studied his father’s intense squint as Chasten peered through his enhancers. Chasten had commissioned the double-lensed device for hunts, but Corin knew his father also liked to take them and climb to the top platform at Arboriana to survey his dominion. When his father was home, he spent a noticeable amount of time up there, often taking Aiden with him. Corin had been up there only once and then was never invited again.
The small tented podium Chasten’s men had propped up into the high branches of the Rushwood forest meant Corin was so close to his father, he could smell his veneer of sweat, tinged with the promise of blood lust that he’d ask others to spend on his behalf. Chasten no longer brought his own bows and daggers. He let his men handle the filthy work of hunting and dressing. Later, he’d present whatever kill they’d taken as his own, at the head of a table where no one would challenge his assertion. They’d consume the meat with the expected reverence, offering the Lord of the Easterlands an occasional awe-filled glance, never questioning that to eat meat was against their own code of ethics. As long as it was the lord presenting it, the table could be covered in human flesh and they’d smile, mouths and bellies full, gratitude and admiration overflowing.
Corin would be more focused on not retching.
“Do you see anything?” Corin whispered.
“A doe. Too small.” Chasten passed the enhancers to his son. “Would you like to look?”
“Me?”
“Is there someone else here?”
Corin accepted the enhancers, wary of the offer—almost as wary as he’d been of the choice to leave Aiden back in Whitechurch while Corin and his father hunted on Rushwood land. Chasten would be quick to remind him that all land in the Easterlands belonged to the Quinlandens. Corin pretended to not understand it was a reminder to the Sylvaines of Rushwood that he required no permission to take from them.
“I don’t see a doe. But I do see...” Corin lowered the enhancers and looked out into the woods without aid. “There.”
“What?”
“Elk-kind.”
“There’s no elk-kind, Corin. That’s a doe. They’re not remotely the same in size.” Chasten’s disappointment hit Corin in the gut.
But he had seen an elk-kind. He returned the enhancers to his eyes, and there it was again, but closer. Without altering his gaze, he handed the enhancers back to his father and pointed. “Right there, just beyond the patch of bluebonnet.”
Chasten’s skepticism became a form of anger, but he reclaimed the enhancers and looked at where Corin pointed. The sneer playing at the edge of his mouth dissolved. A more serious look passed over him. “I see it.” His arm extended to the side, the signal his men had been waiting for. “Easy,” he whispered, though only Corin could hear him. “Easy, boys.”
Corin glanced toward the shuffling in the bushes below. He averted his eyes, dizzy from the height. His father remained intently focused on the elk-kind, waiting for his men to strike.
Sharp whistles sounded in uneven tandem. Corin’s mouth parted as he saw four, five, six arrows sail from all sides, converging on the same spot. He couldn’t see the elk-kind without the enhancers, but his father’s energetic twitch, followed by an elated groan, confirmed the kill.
“Good eye,” Chasten said, and that was that. There’d be no mention of Corin’s contribution later, certainly not at evening meal. He dropped the enhancers in the basket. “Now, we wait.”
“For what?”
“They’ll dress the meat, leave the worst parts for the buzzards.” Chasten leaned into a more relaxed pose. “You weren’t there to send your sister off to university this morning.”
Corin balked. “Saoirse’s gone? Already?”
“I may keep her in Oldcastle longer than the requisite year, until she’s of marrying age. Perhaps...” Chasten seemed to speak his words to himself. “Perhaps it’s better that way. Keep Aiden away from her. She can come for visits in springtide.”
Corin sat back on his heels. He didn’t know which stunned him more: that he hadn’t gotten to say good-bye to his sister or that his father might actually take steps to protect one of his daughters. “I wish someone had sent word to me. I’d have liked to have seen her before she left.”
Chasten shrugged. “We’ve got another tick of the sun before the men are done, and I didn’t bring you here to talk about your little sister. I thought we might speak, the two of us, on the matter of your foreign wife.”
“We spoke yesterday.” Corin immediately regretted pointing this out.
But his father’s reply was composed, not venomous. “So we did, Corin. I worry I was too hard on you, that you are only trying to make the best of a troubling situation with the Warwick girl.” He wrapped his arms around his knees, breathing in the warm morning air. “Aiden has it easier. I recognize this. The Blackwoods are not our enemies, even if they are aberrant in the way they let their women lead. But only a few days in and Yesenia is already demanding she keep her own name? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“I’m not like Aiden. I won’t put my hands on Yesenia.”
“As if she’d let you.” Chasten snickered. “She’s a wild one. She is. I recognize it. I see the challenge ahead of you. No, you’re right not to compare, Corin. Laying hands on Yesenia Warwick will gain you nothing.”
Instead of easing at his father’s friendlier tone, Corin instinctively clenched, readying himself for the inevitable shift to something more familiar. “I’ll find my way with Yesenia, Father. You needn’t worry.”
“Spying on a Warwick, even under our own roof, will not be as easy as I led you to believe. But you will find your way, yes. I’ll help you find it.”
Corin didn’t bother explaining that wasn’t what he’d meant, for Chasten either already knew or didn’t care.
“Aiden is, as we sit here, making his own attempt with her.”
Corin’s spine turned to ice. “An attempt? At what?”
Chasten laughed. “Who can say with Aiden?”
Aiden’s absence in the hunting trip made sudden, sickening sense. “How much longer until we return?”
“In a hurry?” Chasten lowered his cool gaze on him. “Have somewhere better to be than here, with your father? Haven’t you wished I’d do more with you, as I do with Aiden?”
“It was only a question.” Corin’s imagination took over, presenting cruel images that veered too close to his fear of the truth. Aiden leering over Yesenia. Cornering her. Laying hands where they didn’t belong. Oh, she’d put up a fight, but it would be worse for her. Aiden fed off the suffering of others.
Chasten returned his gaze to the forest. “Be still, Corin. Enjoy the silence. For we both know, it never lasts.”
Yesenia had one hand upon the bark—the other, the dagger’s hilt—when she felt the shift. It started with the air, an almost imperceptible interruption in the wind’s direction. Even the careful nature of the steps could not disguise the intrusion, that way of knowing she was no longer alone, defying even her own senses.
Her fist swelled around the dagger, and she spun around fast enough to halt the intruder mid-stride.
“So angry,” Aiden goaded, circling her to the side. “Is violence the only language you know?”
Yesenia lowered her dagger but didn’t let up on the pressure. “Violence is the language from which you extract your own power. Though it’s decidedly less masculine when practiced upon a woman who cannae defend herself, aye?”
Aiden held out his hands with a practiced smile. “Welcome to marriage.”
“Real men donnae have to lay hands on their wives, for they already have their respect.”
“Why are you so concerned with what I do with my wife?”
“Why are you following me?”
“You’re in my forest. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
Yesenia thought of her second dagger, still strapped to her thigh. She couldn’t retrieve it quicker than he could be on her. But she only needed one.
“There’s something that’s been bothering me. Something I’ve wanted to ask you, but we can never quite find time alone together, can we?”
Yesenia tightened her grip. “I have nothing for you.”
“Did my brother satisfy you? Did he truly satisfy you? I heard you, from outside the apartments, but what I cannot decide is whether you enjoyed yourself or if you were simply putting on a show.”
There was no gain in either response. To say yes was a lie. To say no was a danger. “As I said. I have nothing for you.”
“There is one way to confirm.” Aiden’s arced path brought him closer to the tree—and to her.
Yesenia twitched her dagger. “Not a step closer.”
Aiden took another step. Yesenia released her held breath and cocked her elbow but found herself pinned, from the back, as Aiden grinned at her.
“Hold her there,” Aiden commanded. He reached behind Yesenia’s bound arms and pinched her dagger, then tossed it into the leaves. His breath coated the side of her neck, threats yet to be spoken. She thrashed only long enough to confirm she was bested, unable to see the face of the man strong enough to withstand her trained resistance.
Aiden traced his bottom lip along the line of her jaw. He edged closer so she could feel the hard press between his legs, a power move she would not allow to overtake her fear.
“Is this the only way you can get a woman into your bed?”
“Not the only way. Just my favorite,” Aiden said. He tossed a nod at the man behind her, and Yesenia was upended. Her feet caught the forest floor as the man dragged her off. “She has another dagger somewhere, Mads. Don’t let her go for it.”
Aiden dropped his sword belt near the tree and sauntered after them.
Yesenia plunged back to the earth, landing on her back. She arched at the pain, but she could see the man responsible for subduing her. Some of her fear left her at the sight of him. He was a large man but had enough idiocy in his face to betray that his size only made him strong, not capable.
She tilted her head back and spat in his face. As expected, he recoiled in disgust, dropping one of her arms as he swatted at the spittle. Yesenia pitched forward, ignoring the pain in her other arm as she nearly pulled it out of place to position the other to go for her second dagger.
Mads caught on right as she had it free of the holster, right as she kicked her feet up to arc her legs so she could land erect. Mads yanked her back, hard enough to send stars into her eyes but also to pitch her legs back into the air, where she found herself landing her boots on either side of his neck.
He fell back into the leaves, releasing her altogether in the melee, and when they settled, she had both thighs tightened around him in a headlock. He sounded his affronted grunts against her backside.
With a victorious grin, she pulled her head back up in time to see Aiden’s sword pointed at her neck.
Yesenia kept her smile, recalculating.
She rotated her dagger in her hand, pressing the tip to Mads’s belly. “Come any closer, I’ll kill him.” She twitched her thighs. “And I donnae require my dagger to do it.”
“Kill him then. I don’t care.”
Mads’s muffled wails were buried in the gust of wind that sent leaves swirling upward between them. He clawed at her with flailing swipes, but she tightened her grip, and his hands went dead.
She rolled her head back at the violation of Aiden’s sword tip, pressed into the top layer of her skin. “You’re unnatural,” Aiden hissed, bowing her even farther back until she was bent so far she almost snapped Mads’s neck with her thighs. “A heathen. But I’ll break you of these flaws, Yesenia. I’ll make you fit to walk our lands and feast on our resources.”
Yesenia thought of the poison. She might be able to go for it, but then what? Even if she managed to shove it down his throat, her victory would be short-lived. She’d ruminate on the moment for however long it took for them to burn her on a pyre in the middle of Whitechurch.
Aiden wiggled the end of his sword, driving it into her neck—only more of the tip, but it was enough to send a river of blood down into her the neck of her gown. Any deeper and she’d feel the steel when she swallowed.
Aiden, seemingly satisfied at her immobility, pulled his sword free but kept it close. He reached forward and tugged at the tulle of her gown, grunting at the thick resistance of the fabric. He dug his hand under it instead. His berry-strained tongue passing along his cracked lower lip was the moment Yesenia knew she’d die before she let him go any further.
If I let him best me here, it’s the death of me either way. He’ll never leave me alone, and I’ll never forget how he felt.
She rolled her dagger upward, pointing it at a hard angle into her ribcage, under her chest. “I’ll do it. They’ll all know why.”
“You’re lying.” He withdrew his hand.
Yesenia’s nostrils flared. She joined her other fist to the dagger and clenched her teeth. “Let’s find out.”
“Aiden! That’s enough.”
Maeryn.
Aiden spun around in a chaotic swirl of fury. He staggered off to the side, his eyes skimming the forest for his wife.
How long had she been there? What had she seen? Heard?
Yesenia exploited the diversion by rolling off of Mads. She dove for her second dagger and held them both close, backing away. She demanded a sense of calm from herself, but she couldn’t shake what had transpired, what had almost happened. She’d been prepared to take her own life, like a warrior cornered in battle. Another few moments, and she might have.
“Your mother has been looking for you. There’s some trouble in the courtyard, and your father is still hunting.”
The crisis behind her, Yesenia shifted her focus to searching for Maeryn as well.
“Where are you?” Aiden demanded. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
Mads swayed to his feet. He shook off the leaves, cutting a wide berth at the sight of Yesenia several paces away. “Let’s leave before these cows get any more ideas, Aiden.”
Aiden spun around again and again and then suddenly halted, swaying and drawing his attention back to Yesenia. “This is not over. You live here now. In my home. My domain.”
Yesenia was too dazed to respond.
When the men were gone, Maeryn stepped out from behind a nearby tree. Her placid look was a poor match for the fraught situation she’d stumbled into.
Or had she stumbled into it? Yesenia wasn’t so sure.
“Are you all right?” Maeryn asked, her tranquil tone conveying the practiced nature of her words.
Yesenia wiped the sweat from her brow with the velvet arm of her gown. She couldn’t wait to be free of the unbearable drapery. She’d burn this dress, bury the memory that came with it. “Another minute and I’d have had his balls in my palm, doing us both a favor.”
Maeryn’s grin was as quick as a blink. “Your toughness will not serve you here, Yesenia.” She pushed her blonde hair back to reveal a bruise that colored the left side of her face. “I know what you think of me. That I’m weak. That I allow it.”
“That isnae what I think of you,” Yesenia countered, distrustful of the woman’s intentions. “You’re married to a monster. I ken he’d treat any other woman the same.”
“Your toughness will not serve you here,” Maeryn said again. “He wants you to fight. They all do. They’re practically salivating at the mere thought of it.”
“Aye, and I should have let him rape me instead?” Yesenia asked. “That’s your plan, is it? Let them all do as they please, with no repayment for their crimes?”
“You wield your sex as a weapon. So next time, wield it.”
Yesenia scoffed, tossing her head into a laugh. “I meant what I said to your bootlicking husband. I’ll die before I ever let him near me.”
“You took his brother into your bed.”
“They are not the same.”
“Aren’t they?”
Maeryn was both right and wrong, but was Yesenia really going to defend Corin? “Aye, well, fortunately for you, your husband lives another day.”
“There is no fortune to be found here. Not for women like us.” Maeryn squinted toward the sun that broke through a patch of trees. “Coming to the forest alone is a bad idea. You’ll not do it again if you possess the wisdom I expect of you.”
“Any more advice, Lady Quinlanden?”
Maeryn twitched her mouth. “None that you’d take anyway.” She lifted her skirts and left.
Corin ran straight to his apartments upon his return from the hunt. He found Yesenia sifting through a small stack of vellums at the desk and fixed his eyes upon her shaking hands. She buried them in her lap and continued reading without looking up.
“How was the hunt?”
Corin shut the door and locked it. “Maeryn told me what happened.” He knelt by her. “Yesenia, are you all right?”
“Aye, ye really asking me that? I can handle your brother.” She rolled her eyes, but the bloom in her cheeks and the slight tics pulling at the edges of her mouth gave away her truth.
Corin placed both hands on her knees. He noticed two things: she was wearing one of the gowns, and it was covered in the dark stains of the forest. “I know you can handle him. I know you can. But...”
“Maeryn told you,” Yesenia said, nodding and adding a laugh at the end that lacked humor. “Ye wonder why that is? Catch the way she cannae stop ogling you when you’re stuffing your mouth with berries?”
“I have noticed. And I don’t care.”
“You say that as if you caring would worry me.”
He shook his head. “Forget Maeryn. I don’t care about Maeryn! I care that...” He made a play for her hands, but she withdrew them so quickly, he fell back. “You’re right to be upset. What he did... It’s atrocious. It’s untenable. Unforgiveable.”
“Deplorable, appalling, indefensible. Are we done?”
“No, Yesenia. We’re not done. I won’t let this go.”
“You think I cannae defend myself?”
Corin sighed. “I know you can. But you shouldn’t have to. This is your home now. He had no right.”
She drew away entirely and rose, moving upward, into the perch. He understood she went there because it was the one place he wouldn’t follow.
“When Father hears of this—”
“Your father encouraged it, you fool,” she called back, facing away. Her mahogany hair fell in tangles over her tattered dress. “Why do ye ken you were the one he took hunting?”
Corin nodded to himself, but knowing was not the same as seeing the aftermath. Of seeing what it had done to her.
“Let it go,” she said. The light tremor in her voice sent his heart to his boots. “I already have.”
Now who’s the terrible liar? He fought his careless desperation to go to her, to take her into his arms and insist that it was okay to be vulnerable.
She’d send him flying from the balcony, and he’d probably deserve it.
Corin glanced at the desk and saw a letter from her father. It had been read by several eyes before making it to Yesenia, a fact of which she was undoubtedly well aware. No matter where your boots strike, you will always be a daughter of the Southerlands was all he caught before forcing his eyes to avert. He would not contribute to the indignity.
“I’ll make an excuse for you, for supper,” he said, as a new idea took form in his mind. It wouldn’t erase what had happened, but it was something. Something real, something he could do, for her. “Would you like me to bring something up when I return?”
Yesenia shook her head but then half turned and said, “Just some bread. None of that...” She waved a hand.
Corin fought a smile at her small concession. “I understand. When I come back—”
“Leave it on the table,” Yesenia answered. She slipped down off the perch and made her way to the bedchamber. The door closed behind her. Locked.
Corin pressed a hand to the desk, still watching the closed door she’d disappeared beyond.
He might have enough time before evening meal to put his idea into action.