“Come on up,” he said, saluting her with theskin.“What shall we drink to?Our safe return?Our near escape?Our chance to prove the world wrong about bastards and women?”
Sahar reached for the wine and took a swigfrom the half-empty skin, and then another, and another whileAleksi watched with an amused smile on his half-drunk face.Thewarm liquid spread to her hands, her toes, and her tongue.
“Munir said you have agreed to stand for himat his wedding.”
“I did.”
“My father says you have sworn to stay hereuntil the threat of the Ox is dealt with.”
“I have.”
She took another drink and handed the almostempty skin to him, wishing the spirits had loosened his tongue asmuch as hers.At the thought of his tongue and all the delicious,tantalizing sensations it had brought her, her nipples hardened,her core melted, and her cheeks flushed.She licked her achinglips, and Aleksi drained the wineskin.
“How did you know?”she asked, her throatalmost closing before she got the words out.
His throat worked as if he were swallowingaround the same stricture.“By the way you looked at suppertonight.”
“Which was...?”
“Pale, somber…sad.”
She said nothing.Her throat closingcompletely.
“That, and you had taken to your chambers thepast three days.”
She nodded, still unable to say anything.Besides, what could she say?That she wasn’t sad she didn’t carryhis child, she was bereft.Her narrow escape felt more like a trapof regret and grief.As glad as she was to have proven a womancould ride in and win a race, she was tired of showing the worldthat she was more than a pretty princess in need of a husband.Theprincess didn’t need a husband or a man to complete her, but Saharthe woman wanted Aleksi in her life.
She couldn’t tell him this.Not now.Now thatthe life he wanted and had worked so hard for was about to come tofruition.
She stood on shaking legs and gave him a wansmile.“You’re right,” she said.“I’m not pregnant.We are free togo our own way.You to return to your home a self-made man, tobuild your stables and find yourself a wife of easy temper and meto…”
Aleksi stood, his spine as stiff as his jaw.“To what?”
She swallowed her tears and pain to meet andhold his gaze.“To live my royal life.”
Aleksi hunkered low over Z’s neck, thestallion’s hooves churning up earth as they galloped at full speedacross the river delta with no destination in mind other thangetting away from the palace.Aleksi needed air and open space tothink.
In the past ten days, ten and two moreemissaries had returned to the palace, all with pledges from theirkings to ally with King Asad against the Ox, which left onlyanother two still to return.Word was, the Ox had been doing thesame, with much less success.In fact, four of the kings the Ox hadsent emissaries to had sent their own to King Asad with oaths ofalliance to him.Which left the Ox’s armies outnumbered four toone.
The riders Asad had sent to King Maksimillianhad returned this morning with the message that Maksimillian was onhis way and was expected to arrive at the palace in three days withtwenty horsemen.
Aleksi’s father was coming here.
To ally with King Asad, Aleksi told himself,though if that were the case, Maksimillian would surely havebrought more men.He had an army of five hundred horsemen, and twothousand yeomen and foot soldiers at his command.King Asad hadto’ve sent his missive when Sahar had first gone missing and Aleksihad gone after her, weeks before Asad knew of the Ox’s plan.
Aleksi couldn’t puzzle why his father wascoming now with no more than a traveling guard.To forceAnastasia’s portly prince to marry her perhaps, but he could’vesent a proxy with her dowry, unless Theodesia had insisted theirfather come himself to ensure his daughter an advantageous match.That didn’t seem likely, especially for a second marriage.Anastasia had her prince slavering at her heels, and she could’vemarried him any time she chose.Not for the first time, Aleksiwondered why they hadn’t left to complete their nuptials.When,over breakfast, King Asad told Aleksi and Anastasia of theirfather’s missive, it was as much news to her as him.
So why was his father coming?The questionreverberated in his brain to the pounding rhythm of Z’s hooves asthey galloped across open fields and meadows.He slowed Z as theyreached the wooded river course and gave the stallion his head,content to let the horse pick their way along the river path asAleksi laid back on his saddle, his face to the noon sun, soakingup the last of autumn’s heat, giving himself up to Z’s rolling gaitas the sound of birdsong and rushing water filled his racingmind.
Step by rocking step, Aleksi’s breathingslowed and his jaw unclamped and his shoulders dropped down fromhis ears.Zolotoy stopped, and Aleksi sat up and opened his eyes tothe vision of Sahar sitting on a boulder with her cheek on herknee, facing downriver, her loose hair falling in black waves downto her waist.
It was the most he had seen of her in thepast ten days, other than at supper, where she would sit with herfamily, as beautiful and untouchable as a statue.The rest of thetime she’d been like a ghost, slipping in and out of the stableswhenever he was least likely to be there, flying past him in theracing kraal, her face buried in Lasair’s mane, or pacing herbalcony at night, a haunted spirit in a flowing whitenightgown.
Lasair whinnied at sight of them and Saharwhipped her head around, her hands on the boulder, her long legsbunched up beneath her, a tigress ready to spring.He nudged Zforward and dismounted, then tied off his horse next to Lasairunder Sahar’s guarded gaze.
Aleksi walked over to the boulder, climbedup, and sat beside her, his shoulder barely touching hers.They satsilently, and he hated not hearing her sultry voice.
This, he knew as surely as he was sittinghere, was the boulder she’d lain on, belly down, hanging over theedge holding on to Ommar’s hand, unable to pull him up out of theswift running current below until Ommar had let go.This was whereshe’d watched helplessly as her beloved cousin had been swept awayto his death, unable to do more than scream his name.This was theplace she’d found her outer strength lacking and vowed never to befound lacking again.To prove to the world that she was more than agirl, and to prove to herself that she would hold on, no matterwhat.
