She felt a ridiculous urge to laugh. “I see. A prisoner with principles, then.”
He frowned. “My apologies. I know I shouldn’t have—”
She waved him to silence. “No. I should never have left those dunderheads in charge of you.” She turned to the sparring cousins—where Leif had gotten Ragnar down on his knees while she wasn’t looking, bearing him backward where their staffs were crossed and braced—and called, “Prince Leif? A word?”
Leif froze, tendon, vein, and muscle standing in stark relief, gleaming burnished gold as the sun’s first rays broke like the spokes of a wheel through the clouds above. It was a sight so striking she nearly forgot why she’d called out to him in the first place. But then he jerked as though struck, and stepped back from Ragnar, staff propped on his shoulder, heaving for breath.
Amelia felt Cassius’s attention on the side of her face, and ignored him. “The guards I left in charge of our Selesee guest are quite literally sleeping on the job. Have you a man or two to spare to get him back to his tent?”
Leif looked at Cassius, and the resultant scowl was of the sort that would send men stumbling over themselves in their haste to retreat. To his credit, Cassius held still and unflinching. Then Leif turned to Ragnar, who was climbing back to his feet and brushing road dust from his trousers, and the two of them had a silent conversation of lip twitches and eyebrow quirks. Ragnar titled his head and made a low chuffing sound that couldn’t have been made in a human throat. Leif shook his head.
When he turned back to Amelia, it was with his jaw set tight, the harsh line of it throwing shadows down his throat. “Leave him with us.”
Ragnar grinned, and Amelia rethought her inquiry.
“I want him to be closely watched,” she said, “but I want him to stay alive. And able to provide information.”
Leif frowned. “Of course.” He sounded offended that she suspected otherwise.
Ragnar’s grin, though, was dangerous.
“I can find someone—”
“No,” Leif said, firm. “Leave him here. We’ll watch him.”
She had the sense she would regret this, but didn’t want to walk back her decision in front of Cassius. “Very well. Thank you.” She nodded, Leif nodded back, and she turned to leave.
One last, darted glance over her shoulder proved that all three of them watched her departure.
4
Marching was insufferable.
Back home, Ragnar had traveled one of two ways: either on his shaggy, solid Northern horse, riding along the roads; or as the crow flew, cutting fresh tracks through clean, untouched snow, breathing deep the scents of forest and river. They’d made camp whenhefelt like it, whenhecommanded it, becausehewas the leader, then. If not on horseback, he’d traveled on his own four legs, in his wolf shape, flying across the fields and scrambling nimbly in the foothills, claws finding purchase on rock, on sand, on snow. He could run for miles and miles and never tire when shifted; each sight and each scent was a new delight, spine tingling with thrills over the simpleness of a blue sky overhead, and the beauty of a fresh kill, hot blood on his tongue.
But he couldn’t shift, now, the torq heavy on his neck, growing hot beneath the glare of the midday sun; and he’d been given no horse to ride, save that day during the roadside attack when he’d vaulted onto the back of Amelia’s stallion. Also, he wasn’t in charge of a bloody thing, which meant he walked—marched—on foot, until the whole endless, winding company called it quits at nightfall each day. His feet were sore, his back was tired, and he was bored out of his mind.
Most days, the rest of the pack stayed man-shaped save a few scouts, and he could pester Leif for entertainment. He was keeping track of the number of smiles and laughs he could coax out of his alpha, and they were increasing by the hour. There was a new lightness to Leif’s shoulders, a quickness in his smiles.
Today, though, as they entered what had been deemed a dangerous stretch of road, all the other wolves had shifted andwere sweeping wide arcs on either side of the army, searching for hidden threats. This left Ragnar to walk alone.
Mostly alone.
He would seek entertainment where he could, and today that came in the form of their Sel prisoner.
Usually, the pale fucker rode in the baggage train, shackled hand and foot, on occasion with a hood pulled over his head so he couldn’t report on their movements even if he wanted to or possessed the ability. But Ragnar didn’t feel like jostling around amidst rolled up tents and war chests, biting his own tongue each time one of the poorly-sprung wagons hit a rut. So they were walking. And thus far, he’d been unable to get a satisfying rise out of the foreigner.
“What about women?” he asked, as they trailed along in the dusty wake of the two mounted soldiers riding a half dozen paces ahead of them.
When the prisoner didn’t answer, Ragnar drifted sideways so he could nudge their shoulders ungently together, gratified by the way Cassius was forced over.
He didn’t stumble, though, the bastard. Took a lateral step, righted himself, and resumed walking with head held high and expression neutral, as though nothing had happened.
Ragnar wanted to shift. To feel the lightning crackle of power and magic down his spine; to feel his skin ripple and surge with fur, bones snapping and reforming faster than the sounds they made, until he stood on four feet with a mouth full of sharp ivory teeth to sink into Cassius’s flank. Just as it did every time he felt that urge, the torq seemed to tighten around his throat, until he was forced to swallow back a gasp, and shake loose the instinctual impulse to shift. The sharp darts of pain along his nerve endings faded far too slowly, as did the sensation of being strangled.
When he could draw a deep breath, he said, “That was a question.”
Cassius regarded him from the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry?”
