Obviously, humans brewed a stronger ale than the Kai did. Surely, it explained why she was seriously considering cutting the laces on the placket of Serovek’s trousers with her claws, crawling onto his lap and learning whether or not he lived up to the reputation of his nickname.
He didn’t try to stop her when she scooted even farther back. She pretended not to see the smirk turning his mouth up at the corners. Straw dust stirred up by her movements made her eyes itch, and she used that excuse to close them against the image of the Beladine Stallion once more reclined against the stable wall, all power, muscle, and grace.
“Don’t you have a nice comfortable bed to sleep in tonight?” she said. “Courtesy of the innkeeper and his wife?” Serovek could sleep in the saddle as easily as she did, but his men would expect him awake and alert when dawn came. Staying up all night with her here in the stables did no one any good.
Her heartbeat stuttered mid beat when he said, “I’ll be sleeping here tonight. I’ll feel better with two of us keeping an eye on him.” He waved a hand at Megiddo’s bier.
Indignation swamped her. Anhuset lunged to her feet to loom over the margrave and glare. “You don’t trust me.” The idea that, despite his assurances, he might not have faith in her ability to protect Megiddo stung. Badly.
He stared up at her, face bland and guarded, as if he had expected such a reaction from her at his news. “I trust you implicitly. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the monk.” The haunted look briefly touched him before flitting away. “I owe him my presence, my assurances that he isn’t forgotten or shunted aside as his brother did to him.”
Her outrage bled out of her like water from a sieve. She regarded him, sitting in the straw, looking for all the world like a man without a care. Until one looked deeper into the blue of his eyes and saw the shadow of melancholy there. “You said no one was keeping tally.”
The lines at the corners of his eyes furrowed deeper with his half smile. “I did, didn’t I?” He flicked a piece of chaff at her. “If you must know, there’s a running wager going on at this moment as to whether or not I’m swiving you or will be swiving you here in the stables.”
He’d danced away from the tangle of emotion the subject of Megiddo seemed to inspire and found steady ground in the irreverent teasing which so often drove her mad. This time Anhuset welcomed it.
“Is that so? And the odds?”
“Four to one in my favor.”
“Wait. There are six of you all together.”
“I want to live to see morning,” he declared. “I abstained from the wager.”
“Such faith your men have in your prowess.” Anhuset recalled the two tavern maids attached to him as he made his way to the stables. That faith wasn’t exactly misplaced. “Who wagered against you?”
“Ogran. He said if I had any sense, I’d spend my evening charming the prettiest alewives instead of chatting it up with a dead monk.”
Knowing what she did about Ogran in their short time on the road, Anhuset easily pictured him saying such a thing. She also heard what he didn’t say but certainly thought when she'd caught him staring at her. Why would the renowned Beladine Stallion want to spend his evenings with an ugly, sharp-toothed, eel-skinned Kai woman?
“I may not remember telling you I wouldn’t forgive you for having me stab you, but I do remember you boasting that if you survived the galla, I’d share your bed when you returned.”
Every speck of humor fled Serovek’s expression, and the blue eyes went black in an instant. He didn’t change position, but every muscle, relaxed just the moment before, fairly quivered with tension now. “I recall that boast as well.” He almost growled the words.
Anhuset crouched in front of him, allowing him to see her gaze touch on various parts of his body, lingering on his wide shoulders and trim waist, the muscled thighs and especially the impressive erection now ridging the laced placket of his trousers. Beladine stallion indeed. “I don’t indulge when I’m on guard duty,” she said in her most no-nonsense tones. “Nor am I a reward for your victory over the galla, though you have my greatest admiration for your bravery. Maybe one day instead, I’ll have you in my bed.”
He didn’t miss a blink, and the smile he turned on her was meant to slay. In that moment, Anhuset was very glad she was Kai and could focus on the strangeness of his looks instead of their seductiveness.
“You once said I wouldn’t survive you,” he teased. “While you were saying hello to my bits with your hand.”
She abandoned her crouch to take a seat in a spot that was a less tempting distance than the one next to him. “Keep that in mind should I ever extend the invitation.” She closed her eyes against the sight of him across from her and tried not to imagine him naked. “Since you plan to stay here and pester me, margrave, you might as well try to sleep and leave me in peace. Besides, I want to dim this lamp before I go blind.”
He caught the extra blanket she tossed him, gave her a salute and turned on his side away from her. “Goodnight, firefly woman,” he muttered before pulling the blanket over his head.
Anhuset shook her head. Silly nickname. Uttered in tones of affection. She dare not dwell on that too long.
She lowered the lamp’s flame a second time, sighing with relief at the returning darkness. Serovek stayed quiet, and she listened to the slowing rhythm of his breathing as he fell deeper into sleep, his ready willingness to embrace slumber wordless proof that he did indeed trust her. They still had hours before dawn, so she took the time to explore the stable’s interior before making a quick reconnoiter of the stableyard and the grounds immediately around the now dark and quiet tavern.
A rustling reached her ears, and she stilled in the shadows, lowering her eyelids to hide her eyeshine as two figures slunk around one corner of the tavern. They skirted the open space of the stableyard with its revealing shards of moonlight reflecting on the ground and kept to the darkness thrown by the inn and two outbuildings before stopping not far from the stables. They didn’t draw closer, only stared as if noting the placement of the doors and high windows shuttered for the night.
Their efforts at concealment were for naught. Anhuset got a good look at the two. Ragged men with the hard-edged mien of the scavenger about them, they wore knives on their belts and tucked into their boots. One was bearded, the other beardless, and both in desperate need of a bath. They used hand signals to communicate with each other, and while she wasn’t familiar with that particular language, she didn’t have to be fluent to understand the gist of the exchange.
The one without the beard tried to coax his companion into entering the stable. The other man shook his head, hands making slashing motions in the air as he argued against the idea. The slap of palm to palm for emphasis, an exchange of shoves, and the two came to an agreement before stealing away toward the town’s main road.
Now that was interesting. Either she’d just come across two horse thieves looking to help themselves to someone’s mount and trying to figure out the problem of her presence inside, or they’d seen Serovek’s party arrive and assumed whatever required an escort of six heavily armed soldiers was likely valuable and prized in the left-hand marketplace.
Fortunately for the thieves, they chose not to try their luck tonight. Anhuset would have dealt with them as nuisances. Serovek would have seen their thievery as insult. Hers would have been the more merciful punishment.
She scanned the area a final time before returning to the stable's interior. No thieves lurked in the corners, and every horse was accounted for. However, things were not as she’d left them. The animals nickered and tossed their heads, agitated. Their eyes rolled as she passed.
Her pulse surged when she came upon the stall where she’d left Serovek with Megiddo. The blue sparks of sorcery flickering earlier under the blanket covering Megiddo now encased the entire bier in a halo of luminescence. It spilled onto the ground, spreading in a pool that surrounded Serovek. The margrave lay on his back, face contorted into an expression of agony, jaw clenched. He breathed hard through his nose, and his eyes squeezed shut as if refusing to gaze upon some horror that faced him in the most terrifying of dreams.
He muttered a string of words, all of them nonsensical. Anhuset reached for him, intent on bodily dragging him away from the bier and out of the stall where the magic pulsed and swelled. She froze in mid-crouch, every hair on her nape standing on end, as laughter—insane, unnatural, and otherworldly—echoed throughout the stable.
Chapter Five
A Kai under a blue sun.
Demons danced in the maelstrom of Serovek's nightmare. He stood in a whirling darkness, hemmed in by a miasma of smoke that shrieked and gibbered. If evil had a voice, it sounded like this. Icy horror spilled over him. He knew that sound. It had filled his ears as he, a monk, a chieftain's son, an exiled nobleman, and a Kai king battled their way through the ruined streets of Haradis to reach the chamber whelping galla like a diseased womb. This wasn't the chamber from which they spilled; it was the womb itself.
Something slithered against his shoulder while something else flitted along his fingertips—thin, sharp, like the edge of a razor. He recoiled, jerking to one side even as he pulled away. A mad gibber abused his ear, and the smoke spun and whipped around him, tattered veils caught in a hard wind. Within the gloom, he spotted pinpoints of crimson and cerulean light that flickered and darted to and fro. Eyes, he thought. They were eyes, and they watched him with the predatory stare of the ravenous.
Laughter rebounded off invisible walls, echoing back and back until one peal faded only to be replaced by another. Serovek gasped at the unearthly, inhuman scream above the mad cacophony. An awful, agonized shriek of despair, it built and built until he thought its reverberation might shatter his skull into a thousand pieces.
Instead of running from the ghastly clamor, he raced toward it. Desperation roiled in his gut to reach the source of torment and stop it. He batted away unseen hands tipped in claws as pointed as any Kai's. Sinuous tethers wrapped around his legs and grasped his arms as he hurtled in the direction of the ungodly screaming. The hovering feral eyes followed, watching him with a palpable hunger.