Mist and Memories: A Memoir of Lord Antlerdale
I began to smile. We’d found it. That wasn’t so bad.
But my smile was cut off when a door at the other end of the library was flung open so hard that the stained glass shattered and rained down and a voice boomed out, “Who in the fires of hell are you?”
CHAPTERFIVE
“I’mthe wife of the Arrow,” I said coolly, gesturing to the man himself who was passed out against my shoulder. He woke enough to murmur something.
“Tantalizing creature,” Bluebeard whispered his breath tickling my neck. I shivered but dared not linger on his sweet epigraph.
Antlerdale paused in the entrance to his own library, gaze flicking from me to the girl trailing me, to the heads on my pole. I had considered antler racks like his to be unwieldy and strange on the heads of bucks. On the head of a man, they seemed like a terrible curse, and maybe they were. One of these curses or geases everyone in the Wittenhame seemed to have, like an annoying skin condition shared by villagers in the same glen. If the antlers were a curse, it was half broken. Or perhaps doubled. Was it more of a curse to have half an antler crown?
I froze. Wait. That had been his bet, hadn’t it? His northern estate and one antler if he lost in the game of Crowns. I felt a chill of cold rush through me at the memory of what my husband had bid. His immortality.
If Antlerdale had lost his antler when Coppertomb won the game and claimed the crown of the Bramble King, then hadn’t my husband lost his immortality with it?
It seemed a silly thing to be upset about. After all, he was half-dead and strapped to my back, but I found I was still shaken by the idea that the bids had been paid and collected.
“Antlerdale, Antlerdale lost him a crown,” Grosbeak chortled. “Antlerdale, Antlerdale on his way down.”
Antlerdale glared at Grosbeak. The crown of antlers only seemed to enhance the width of his shoulders and the fierce beauty of his face as he strode into the room, fury in his eyes.
“Another man’s wife has no claim on my library. And her pets have no excuse to mock me within my own walls.”
“And a lord of the Wittenhame should not bring a mortal woman to his home,” I said, gesturing to the woman behind me. When I caught a glimpse of her, though, my stomach flipped and I felt a little ill. Her gaze was locked on Antlerdale, a look of such admiration in her eyes that I thought she might be forgetting to breathe.
“She’s here of her own volition,” Antlerdale said, a twisting smile curving the cruel set of his mouth. “And you’re a hypocritical little creature to mention it, don’t you think? Are you not a mortal standing where you have no right to stand, and speaking to those too high for you to address, and perhaps even … loving those no mortal ought dare to love?”
His eyebrow rose at that and my cheeks flared hot. This was different. Different and not different at all and the comparison was humiliating. But it wasn’t practical to be embarrassed about bare facts. Facts were cold and hard and did not change and I would not make them different if I had the choice. There was no point in letting my emotions run wild in doubting my choices.
“Is this love, then?” Sparrow asked acidly. “I’m glad I’ve never partaken of it. It agrees with none of you. You should all see a herb witch and have it purged.”
“Talk of love aside,” I said in my most courtly fashion. I’d better get on his good side and quickly. “I had heard you wrote a book of memoirs and I had hoped for a glimpse of it.”
He barked a laugh, circling me slowly as if he thought I were some kind of threat. Was that because I was standing beside his mortal prize and the glass dome over the rose and book? He could just cross the room to us, and yet he rounded me, looking for an opening. I turned my body to stay facing him as he moved. I had my own talisman to protect. One who was muttering into my ear unintelligibly, his lips occasionally grazing my flesh in drowsy kisses.
“My memoirs are very popular and found in every home. There was no need to come to the source.”
“Ah, but I am told that the original is unparalleled.”
“Death walks among us. The Hounds of Heaven hunt, and you are here to read about my life?” His cynical snort mocked me.
“You are here, too,” I reminded him.
“To retrieve my prize,” he said calmly and then turned to the mortal girl. “Why did you let a stranger into our home?”
I edged toward the rose and book while he was distracted.
“Antlerdale, Antlerdale, half man, half beast,” Grosbeak murmured, seeming to be enjoying himself enormously. “Antlerdale, Antlerdale, beg for release.”
“The castle is closed to visitors,” the other mortal girl said to Antlerdale, a tremble in her lower lip. Was she in love with him? She sounded afraid. Was I as pathetic as she looked right now? It made me frown in humiliation.
“Yes, that’s what I told you,” Antlerdale said in a low voice just as my hand hovered over the glass. “And what do I do when you break one of my rules?”
My gaze snapped back to him. I wouldn’t be having this.
“Try to harm her and I’ll take her back to the mortal world,” I said coolly. “I have the power to —”
