The King

FIFTY-SEVEN

As Anha sat at her dressing table, she had naught but a lingering tiredness leftover from her episode: With every night that passed, she was feeling more herself, her body rebounding, her mind resharpening.

But everything had changed.

In the first, the Brotherhood had moved into the chamber next door. All twelve of them. And they rotated their service such that the door to her and Wrath’s private space was never unguarded.

And then there was the food. Wrath refused to let her eat anything that he or the Brothers had not personally sampled first—following a wait period of quite some while.

And then there was the worry upon her hellren’s face, every time she caught him unawares.

Speaking of worry, wherever was he?

“Your King shall return very soon.”

She gasped and looked over her shoulder. Tohrture was sitting in the corner, “reading” from a book of sonnets. In truth, she did not think he traced the symbols a’tall. Instead, his eyes were on the blockaded windows, the door, her, the windows, the door, her. On occasion, he broke the rhythm by speaking with one of his Brothers or tasting food that was prepared at her hearth.

“Where has he gone?” she asked once again.

“He shall return soon.” The smile was meant to be reassuring. The shadow in his stare was most certainly not.

Anha narrowed her eyes. “He has not explained any of this.”

“All is well.”

“I do not believe you.”

The Brother just smiled at her in that way of his, giving her nothing to go on.

Anha put down her brush and turned fully about. “He thinks I was poisoned, then. Otherwise, why this protection. The cooking. The concern.”

“All is well.”

Just as she threw up her hands in frustration, the door opened—

She jumped to her feet so fast, her dressing table wobbled, bottles and pots falling over. “Dearest Virgin Scribe! Wrath!”

Jerking up her skirts, she ran barefoot across the oak floor to the horror before her: Suspended between the holds of two Brothers, her mate was bloodied everywhere, his simple shift stained down the front from his split lip and his contused face, his knuckles dripping onto the rug, his head hanging limp as though he could not lift it.

“What have you done to him!” she screamed as the chamber door was shut and locked.

Before she could stop herself, she flailed at the ones who held him, her fists making no impact as they maneuvered him over onto the bedding platform.

“Anha … Anha, arrest…” As they laid Wrath out, his left hand rose. “Anha … arrest.”

She wanted to clasp his palm and cling unto him, but he seemed hurt everywhere. “Who did this to you!”

“I asked them to.”

“What.”

“You heard me properly.”

Sitting back, she found that now she felt like hitting him as well.

Wrath’s voice was so weak, she wondered how he was still conscious. “There is a job that needs doing. By mine own hands.” He flexed them and winced. “No others will suffice.”

Anha glared at her mate—and then did the same to the assembled males, as well as the ones who were newly arriving, clearly coming in after they heard the shouting.

“You shall explain yourselves the now,” she barked. “All of you. Or I shall take my leave of this room.”

“Anha.” Wrath’s voice was garbled and he was having trouble drawing breath. “Be of reason.”

She stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Am I packing my things or is one among you going to speak unto me.”

“Anha—”

“Speak or I pack.”

Wrath exhaled a ragged curse. “There is naught for you to be concerned with—”

“When you come upon our mated chamber looking as though you have been struck by a carriage, it is very much my concern! How dare you exclude me from this!”

Wrath lifted his hand as if to rub his face and then grimaced when the contact was made.

“I believe your nose is broken,” she said flatly.

“Amongst other things.”

“Indeed.”

Wrath finally looked upon her. “I shall ahvenge you. That is all.”

Anha heard herself gasp. And then her knees went weak and she lowered herself back down to the bedding platform. She was not naive, and yet hearing confirmation of that which she had suspected was a shock.

“So ’tis true. I was made to become ill.”

“Aye.”

Tracing the injuries upon her hellren with fresh eyes, she shook her head. “No, I shall not allow it. If you must have revenge wrought, let one of these capable males do it.”

“No.”

She glanced over at the heavy carved desk across the way, the one they’d recently moved in here, the one at which he sat so happily for hours upon hours, ruling, thinking, planning. Then she regarded his misshapen face.

“Wrath, you are not fit for the likes of a violent duty,” she said hoarsely.

“I shall be.”

“No. I forbid you.”

Now he glared upon her. “No one commands the King.”

“Except for me,” she countered smoothly. “And we both know it.”

At that there was a soft chuckle in the room—of respect.

“They did the same to my father,” Wrath said in a dead voice. “Except they poisoned him to the point of his death.”

Anha lifted a hand to her throat. “But no … he died of natural causes—”

“He did not. And as the son, I am obliged to right that wrong—as well as yours.” Wrath wiped some of the blood off his mouth. “Listen to me now, my Anha, and hear this truth clearly … I shall not be castrated in this by you or anyone. The soul of my father haunts me the now, walking the halls of my mind, talking unto me. And you shall do the same if they finally succeed in putting you in your grave. I have been fated to live with the former. Do not expect me to do the same with the latter.”

She leaned in urgently. “But you have the Brotherhood. That is what they are for, how they serve. They are your private guard.”

As she implored her mate, the sheer heft and number of the males pressed in upon her—in the very best sense.

“Command them,” she begged. “Send them out unto the world to exact this due.”

His bloodied hand reached out, and she thought it was to clasp her palm. Instead, it rested upon her gown, below the bodice … upon her womb.

“You are with young,” he said roughly. “I can scent it.”

She too had been thinking the same, although for different reasons.

Wrath’s one working eye met hers. “So I cannot allow others to do what is my duty. Even if I could regard you knowing that I was so weak … I could never stare into the face of a son or a daughter with the awareness that I had lacked the courage to caretake for mine bloodline.”

“Please, Wrath…”

“What kind of father would I be then?”

“One who is alive.”

“For how long, though. If I do not protect what is mine, it shall be taken away from me. And I will not lose my family.”

Overcome, Anha felt tears fall down her cheeks, the paths burning her face.

Dropping her forehead to the bloodied black diamond of the King’s ring, she wept.

For in her heart, she knew he was right—and she hated the world that they lived in … and were, in time, going to bring forth a young into.