Page 9 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

A hedged bet at best, and a bald-faced lie at worst, but she took it.

Joyce eased back and wiped at her face before she gave me a firm nod. “I’ll see you later, you little pain in my arse.”

I could only nod back and return her small smile, for fear of how feeble my voice would be. And I waited there as she turned, wiping at her face and cursing, and trekked back down the corridor. Once Joyce had finally vanished from sight, I emptied every ounce of air from my lungs and pushed open the door into the stables.

I, of course, was very late.

Across the expansive space, the external doors were already pulled wide open, and my entourage was gathered outside, all mounted and pacing on impatient steeds. With a curse under my breath, I hurried across the packed earth of the aisle, tugging my cowl up around my ears.

I couldn’t help clutching my arms tight to my body too—goddess take me, it was brisk.

With it being only a few months into the turn of the year, most of Odessa would still be cool, but the fortress was its own frosty beast to contend with. Being so high in the mountains gave us the blessing and curse of frigid, relentless gusts of air, no matter the season. We suffered a little in the winter months, sure, with ice so thick it needed to be chipped off doors and chimneys or melted away by a fire-blessed amplifier.

But what were a couple of extra layers and an excuse for sharing body heat at night? Better than living out the sweltering heat in the lowland border villages. I’d served enough cavalry assignments in them to know there was little worse than rivers of sweat in every bodily crevice.

“Well, well,” came a drawl from one of my brother’s bundled-up envoys as I exited the shelter of the stables and a familiar but jarring gust of wind pummeled me. Weston, or Wesley, maybe, but I really wasn’t sure. “She finally graces us with her presence.”

Even though my brother was nowhere in sight, I hitched dramatically at the waist. “I live only to serve, as I’m sure you know.”

He scoffed and pointed at a lone, riderless steed. “Saddle up, Wynn. We need to get moving.”

Figuring it was in my best interest, I didn’t dally further and set about rigging up my saddlebags while I took a sidelong glance at our group. To my surprise, the party making up my escort was better than I thought it’d be.

An almost even split of Odessans I’d seen kiss my brother’s proverbial feet, and ones I’d seen the wrong side of sunrise with countless times. Of the members clearly picked by my brother, there were a handful of faces I was less familiar with, but that wasn’t surprising, with the sweeping changes our fickle king made daily.

An entourage of twenty to escort me to my new home seemed excessive, but I opted to look on the bright side. It meant we had a fighting chance over the next few weeks of holding some measure of entertainment. There was one face in that crowd I was exceptionally relieved to see, especially when she started weaving her way over to me—Streja.

Her father was an esteemed merchant and a close friend of my own sire, which meant we spent much of our youth being shoved together and told to occupy ourselves while the grownups conducted business. It blossomed into a lifelong friendship that never faltered, no matter the distance or time.

That we resembled sisters—or cousins, at the least—was just a bonus; we were the same in so many ways it was eerie, while still contrasting each other endlessly.

Both sandy, sunny blonde, but Streja’s hair had never touched her shoulders. Where I was well built through my hips and thighs, her full bust was a thing of envy. We had matching hazel eyes, though, and skin that freckled in the summer. We were even born in the same year, just a few months apart.

She would make this entire trip infinitely less painful, even if I wanted to wipe the amused smirk she was watching me with off her face.

I took a measured breath and hoisted myself onto my steed. “Do I want to know, Stre?”

Streja’s eyes roved over me, and she quirked a neat, dark blonde brow. “Odessan rows? Very fitting, princess, but no wonder you’re so fucking late.”

I smoothed my hand over the dual rows of braids—woven under, never over—that pulled my hair back from my face and scoffed, “These were nothing. It was the hour in the bath that did me in.”

“A bath? Goddess. Only you would on a day like today.” She shook her head and chuckled before slipping out a thoughtful sigh. “How are you feeling about everything? You don’t look as shaken as you should for someone who’s, you know…”

Well, it was only a matter of time before that was all we had to talk about.

Before I answered her, I took a lengthy glance back at the fortress as our entire party moved in a slow wave of clopping hooves. The fortress in which I was born and only left when my cavalry assignments dictated it. The same fortress I’d likely never see again.

I should have drunk in the last sight of it, soaked in the immense expanses of expertly carved pale stone and the thirty-one years of memories held within.

But I forced my attention away from it all faster than I had any right to.

“How am I feeling being married off to some old, flaccid-cocked dark fae king I’ve never met before?” I let out an indignant scoff. “Just thrilled about it.”

“Fuck me,” she chuckled. “When you put it that way, princess.”

We earned a pointed glance from our party lead—Wendell, I finally remembered—so I dropped my voice to a mumble, “How the fuck else am I supposed to put it?”

Streja’s nose wrinkled, and she turned her attention out onto the roadway as we filed down it, falling into a formation that saw us tucked square in the middle. With no reasonable escape, of course.