Anne Bishop - The Invisible Ring

“What in the name of Hell were you thinking— if you were thinking?” Talon roared as he jammed his tunic-filled fists under Jared’s chin. “You’ve been staggering around in a hostile Territory like a drunken landen! If we hadn’t come across that slaughter and followed the tracks, we’d still be searching.”

Jared bared his teeth. He clamped his hands around Talon’s wrists. “Maybe your tracking abilities are at fault.”

“I’m the best tracker around!”

“Then think how much trouble the second-best tracker has had.”

Talon’s eyes glazed with fury.

Remembering how easily a Warlord Prince rose to the killing edge, Jared leashed his own anger. “Talon—”

Talon just shook him and roared.

“What do you care?” Jared snarled. “You got your niece back. Lia’s not your concern.”

Talon slammed him into the wall again. “ I’m the one who taught her to ride. I’m the one who taught her how to use a bow. I’m the one who taught her how to fight with Craft. Don’t you dare tell me she’s not my concern.”

Jared stared at Talon. Finally, he said, “Have you ever played chess with her?”

“What’s—” The glaze of fury slowly faded from Talon’s eyes. Releasing Jared, he stepped back. After a minute, he shook his head, and said dryly, “I think I just did.”

Now that Talon’s anger had passed, Jared felt the sting of the accusations. “If you were so concerned, why didn’t you stay to escort her to the Tamanara Mountains?”

There was no way to describe the look in Talon’s eyes. “Warlord,” he said quietly, “even a rogue knows when to yield to a Queen.”

Jared squirmed a little, like a boy chastised by an elder. “But you came back. You’ve been searching for her.”

“Well,” Talon said with a genuine smile, “I am a rogue.” He gave Jared a rough clap on the shoulder. “Let’s go see the witchling. She deserves a good scolding.”

“Can I watch?” Jared asked, falling into step beside Talon.

“Of course,” Talon replied, laughing. “How else will you learn how to do it right?

Jared knocked on the bedroom door but didn’t wait for Lia to answer before he slipped into the room.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked, studying her with some concern. She seemed subdued and a little pale. He understood her feeling subdued. Talon’s skill at scolding far exceeded any instructor he’d ever had. “Are you feeling well?”

“I’m fine,” Lia murmured, twisting the bottom of her sweater. She wasn’t quite pacing, but she also couldn’t seem to stand still. “Jared, I have a favor to ask.”

“All right.”

Lia pressed her lips together and stared at the floor. Finally, she sighed. “One of the reasons—the main reason— I haven’t had my Virgin Night is that I never wanted to ask one of the males in the court to do something so intimate out of a sense of duty.”

Jared thought the males in the court would be appalled to hear her say that, but he could understand how Lia might think of it as some unwanted “duty.”

“I—” Lia took a couple of deep breaths. “Would you do it?”

Jared’s mind went blank. To have this much. To give this much. To know that she trusted him this much.

Lia flicked a nervous glance at him.

Jared ran a hand through his hair. “Yes. Of course. When we get to Dena Nehele—”

“No.” Lia scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. “It has to be now. Before sunset.”

Jared took a step back. His legs hit the edge of the bed. He sat down abruptly. “Now? Right now?”

Lia nodded. “Thera says if I don’t have my Virgin Night before sunset, I never will.”

Jared opened his mouth, sure that he’d been about to express a reasonable opinion, but nothing came out.

If only it hadn’t been Thera, who had heeded a similar warning and had survived because of it. That he couldn’t dismiss.

“Lia . . .”

“If you’re not comfortable with it, I can ask Talon—”

Jared shot to his feet. “I’ll kill him first.”

Lia blinked. Frowned. Finally said, “If you kill him first, won’t that make the rest of it . . . awkward?”

“It will make it impossible,” Jared replied, spacing out each word.

“Oh.”

Jared rubbed his hands over his face. His body remembered what it felt like to hold her, kiss her, and it wanted . His heart yearned to make love to her. His mind kept squeaking the words “Virgin Night” like some terrified mouse.

Jared lowered his hands. “I’ll be back shortly. You stay right here.” He gestured toward a chair. “Sit down. Relax. Concentrate on breathing or something.”

He bolted from the room.

Out in the corridor, Jared sagged against the wall.

He’d have to find Talon and ask him. Hell’s fire, he had to ask someone . Being a pleasure slave didn’t qualify him for seeing a witch through her Virgin Night. He’d seen plenty of witches who’d been broken during that first intimacy. They all had a lost, slightly vacant look in their eyes. Any fire that had burned in their hearts had been snuffed out under a man’s body.

If something went wrong, he didn’t think he could bear seeing Lia’s eyes filled with that lost, vacant expression.

Oh, witches adjusted to the loss of their Jewels and their Craft. The ones from aristo families were sent into arranged marriages. He wasn’t sure what kind of life the others endured. They adjusted. But they were never again whole. Many of them just faded away until there was little more than a husk left going through the motions of living. Some of them slipped into madness. None of them could be seeded more than once after being broken, and more than half of those pregnancies ended with an early miscarriage.

When he was younger, he thought it was unfair that broken witches should be stripped of their ability to have children as well as being stripped of their Jewels. But after having lived in the Territories that stood in Hayll’s shadow, he doubted any of them regretted that barrenness. It was not in a witch’s nature to become a breeder for the gender she would consider as the enemy.

Jared pushed away from the wall. He and Talon had spent the early afternoon removing the seats in the two small Coaches so they could fit more people in, while Yarek oversaw packing the storage spaces—and finding a safe place for the six honey pear trees Lia insisted come with them.

Thank the Darkness, some of Talon’s men knew how to handle a Coach, so there was no problem now about finding drivers.

With luck, Talon would be checking on something else that had to be readied for their departure, and it would take some time to find him. Maybe by then, Lia would have reconsidered.

He shook his head. Not with Thera’s warning riding her.

Before he took two steps, Talon turned the corner.

Groaning, Jared sagged against the wall again.

“She still upset?” Talon asked, eyeing the bedroom door.

“Not exactly,” Jared muttered.

Talon’s eyes narrowed. “She feeling all right?”

“She’s doing fine.” Jared looked Talon in the eyes. “She wants her Virgin Night.”

Talon gaped at him. “Now?”

“Yes. Now. I was just coming to look for you.”

Watching Talon sag against the wall made Jared feel better.

Talon rubbed a hand over his chest. “She wants me to—”

“No,” Jared said too quickly.

A slow, wicked smile curved Talon’s mouth. “In that case, Warlord, since the woman and the bed are in there, why are you out here?”

Jared’s face heated. He shifted so that his back was fully pressed against the wall. “I’ve been a pleasure slave since I was eighteen.”