The crimson guard had said the same.
Mark my words.
A babe. Across the sea. Every emotionless word out of his mouth pushed my panic higher, my fork nearly bending in my hand. “I cannot mate with a human.”
“Of course, you won’t,” my mother said from beside me. “Should they agree to the betrothal, Elhn will accompany you to Castle Errin as your personal guard. He will see to that duty himself.”
Duty.
Dizziness swamped me. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want this or that I wasn’t ready for any of it. I couldn’t so much as fathom a time when I would be. They knew that. My parents were well aware of the fact that I was younger than many of our kind would deem appropriate to create another life.
But that was my role, my duty, and I carried no delusions. My existence, my father’s detachment, my mother’s stern worry, my inability to create a life outside of this castle—my purpose was clear to everyone. Most of all me.
I was loved, and I knew that, but I was alone. A princess but a replacement for a much-loved prince. A way to carry our family name forward into an uncertain future. Nothing more.
A tool.
I didn’t dare look over at Elhn, who I knew was standing in the doorway, hands behind his back, heavy gaze upon me. Older than my mother by at least a decade, he was handsome if not a bit cold, but he was also mated. To ask this of him… “And what if they don’t agree?”
My mother gave my father a look that said she’d asked that very same question. “They will,” my father said, then nothing else as he finished his wine.
The dark unspooled slowly as though time did not wish for me to leave the safety of our moonstone fortress and race through the kitchens and fields in search of the hidden sword.
Regardless, two nights later, I waited until the occupants of the castle were slumbering, and that was exactly what I did.
He was already there, and I wasn’t sure why I was both relieved and jittery at seeing his shadowed form seated upon the last link between our lands.
His voice was crisp and toneless as though saying something at all annoyed him. “I came last eve, but you never did.”
My palm nearly slipped as I hauled myself through the hole to take a seat on the other side of it, just as we’d done the other night. “Doesn’t your king need you?” The question might have been more dry than I’d intended, but surely, he had to know what a monster his ruler was if he hadn’t yet sought to take me to him or harm me.
Acknowledging that perhaps not all crimson creatures were heartless killers who wanted us dead wasn’t something I was comfortable with doing just yet, but I’d often wondered if that were indeed the case.
If perhaps there were some—just enough to turn the tide of this war.
The guard said nothing. When I settled over the moss-blanketed wood, my furred boots dangling mere feet from his own, which were pointed, knee-high, and black leather, I looked over to find him grinning down at a small dagger in his hands. “He is likely too busy with one of his many lovers to care about my whereabouts.” Plunging the dagger into the tree, tearing a hole in the skirt of my nightgown, he said, “I trust you can use one?”
“I can,” I said, though I hadn’t as much training with one as I’d had with a sword. Staring down at the dark hilt, etched and crusted with worn rubies, I shook my head. “Why did you come back?”
“Honest answer?”
“Always,” I said, tired of being kept in the dark until it was too late.
“You intrigue me, sunshine. Just a little.” He made to rise and jump down through the hole but paused and lowered when I looked behind him to the muddy wall of the cliff. “What is it?”
“How’d you get here?”
“A secret,” he said, and I knew he was smiling by the darker cadence of his voice before I allowed myself to look at him. “Tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine.”
Unsure why when I was only staring into his glittering blue eyes, I felt my cheeks heat. “Keep that secret, but tell me your name.”
His head tilted, the action entirely too lupine, and purred, “We’re nowhere near getting to know one another in that sense.” Jumping down through the hole, he continued, knowing I’d hear. “Fear not, I’ll let you know when it’s almost time so you can shout it to the stars.”
My cheeks burned hotter, and I was thankful he could not see. “Shameless,” I muttered, plucking the dagger free and following him down through the tree and into the cave.
His eyes widened when I stripped out of my nightgown and tossed it to the dirt near the entrance of the tree. I held my lips between my teeth, glancing down at my leather training pants and long thermal. “I thought it best to wear more appropriate clothing.”
The crimson male blinked, clearing his throat as he turned away and muttered something under his breath I didn’t catch over the sound of another dagger being unsheathed from his boot. “You returned my sword.”
“Of course.” I twisted the dagger in my hand, studying the fine art in the leather hilt that wound between the rubies. Vines, maybe, or they’d once been before aging beneath his iron-clad grip from overuse…
The dagger fell to the dirt.
The crimson watched me with raised brows. “Butter on your fingers, Princess?”
“H-how many of my people have you killed with… with that?”
The words were too soft for such ugliness. “More than you can dream. Now pick it up.”
I didn’t, couldn’t. I stared at it, remembering the screams I’d heard from miles away, the vicious roars, the pounding of horse hooves carrying my father and his soldiers to their aid, but too late.
Too late, the village decimated, flames giving ash to the night sky…
“Opal,” the enemy barked, snapping me from my trance. He was before me, so close yet I hadn’t seen him move. I’d been too lost to the nightmare, just one of many that he and his people had given to us. “Pick up your weapon.”
I had to leave. Clarity swept in far too late. I had no reason to linger in this place that once belonged only to me with this intruder. With an enemy who wouldn’t hesitate to capture or kill me if ordered to.
Shit. Of course. That could be exactly what he was waiting for… an opportune time to catch me unawares and maybe even steal me for his king to use as bait against my parents.
“Opal,” the crimson said when I walked around him, heading for the small mouth of the cave that’d brought me to him.
This odd male was wrong. I wasn’t just stupid. I was an idiot star-bent on ignoring the obvious—we were all headed straight for certain doom. My father had been right to make his plans, as ludicrous and unfair as they seemed. With our people being plucked off, village by village, city by city, and our land butchered beneath their dying bodies, it was no longer a matter of if the king would come for us but when.
About to break into a run, I nearly tripped over a boulder when he said, “Fang.”
Stilling, I slowly turned back to find him standing there, cloaked in night in the center of the passageway, tucked away from the moonlight’s reach.
“My name. They call me Fang.”
A peace offering.