He slid his knee between her legs. “I’m missing a swordsmanship lesson for you.”
“So you think you’llsheath your swordhere and now, is that it?”
“If you’ll have me.”
They’d made love twice before. The first time was on the beach after the Autumn Equinox bonfire, on a moonless night when they’d both drank too much mead. The second was a few weeks later when Trei had come to her cottage under the pretense of delivering a message from the head falconer and had ended up with her skirts bunched around her waist, thrusting into her against her dresser.
Their lovemaking might be new, but the truth was, he’d loved her for years.
She’d been an orphan when they’d first met and a scrappy one at that. She had been ten to his twelve years of age. He’d caught her in the castle kitchen stealing raspberries. He’d let it happen because he’d assumed she was hungry—but then she had smiled wolfishly at him and taken a whole ham hock and wheel of cheese, too, green eyes daring him to tattle on her.
Over the years, he’d caught her pilfering everything from his mother’s satin ribbons to herbs from the mage quarters. He’d never told anyone about her minor crimes. And then, as they’d grown older, he would find her waiting for him in the room he shared with his two brothers. She would pointedly steal some trinket of his—a button or a coin or a handkerchief—defying him to stop her. And when he didn’t, she would reward him with a featherlight kiss on his cheek.
For years, her bad habit had been a game between them—until Trei had decided they were too old for games.
“I’ll have you,” Saraj whispered into his ear.
Trei needed no more encouragement. He tugged on the remaining bodice laces, freeing her from the dress. Both of their other lovemaking times had been performed in the dark or mostly clothed, and he was eager to see her bare curves. He pulled on the dress until it pooled around her feet in the straw. She wore only a thin cotton chemise beneath.
He took the time to step back and let his gaze rake down her body. She was even more perfect than he had imagined—and he’d spent plenty of nights fantasizing about the lithe falconer. Her dark hair cascaded down her shoulders. At least a dozen hexmarks graced her chest and shoulders. Her hipbones curved out like handles that he very much wanted to grip.
Fingers coiling in her chemise’s hem, he pushed it up around her waist. Saraj gave a soft moan.
“Moan like that again,” he rasped as he fumbled with his belt. “I want to hear it again and again.”
Just as he was freeing his cock from his pants, something cawed sharply outside the stall. Before Trei realized what was happening, a storm of fluttering wings and a sharp beak descended on him through the open doorway.
He barely had time to shield his face with his arm before a falcon attacked him.
Chapter2
Valenden
“You’re drunk, my lord,” one of the wenches across the tavern’s table pointed out. “Again.”
Valenden Barendur gave the girl a wicked grin.Maira. She worked in Barendur Hold’s goose pens and always had at least one delicate down feather caught in her amber hair. Unlike the girl sitting next to her, Shusana was always impeccably coifed.
Valenden—Val, as everyone from peasant to lord called him—might have been the second son of King Aleth and the late Queen Anathalda of the Baersladen, but he was unsurpassed when it came to royal gossip. If it got back to his father that he’d been drinking again in The Whale tavern with a gaggle of village girls, King Aleth would roll his eyes and order a bucket of cold water thrown on him when he returned.
But ale was the only thing that drowned out the pain he’d felt since his mother’s death. His two brothers had loved their mother, but Valenden and Queen Anathalda had always had a unique bond: they both had felt the darkness calling. He’d been stronger when she was alive. Now, he felt utterly lost—except when blinded by pleasure.
“And what of it?” Valenden countered Maira, sloppily propping up his chin with his hand. “It isn’t as though anyone needs me sharp-witted for anything. I’m the spare prince, lovely Maira. My family has Trei to be the steadfast heir.”
“If anything were to happen to Prince Trei, you’d be next in line,” Shusana reminded him.
Valenden balked as he searched the tankards on the table for a full one. Then, not having any luck, he waved to the bartender.
“Winter. More ale.”
Winter was a pretty girl, though you wouldn’t know it from her unbrushed locks or bare cheeks without a spec of rust powder on them. She flicked Valenden an annoyed look as she headed back to the bar.
Well, that was nothing new. He’d disgraced himself in her tavern plenty of times to have earned her ire.
Turning his attention back to the girls at his table, Valenden explained, “If something were to happen to Trei, my father would deem me unfit to be heir and pass that honor down to my little brother. And don’t think I’d be torn up about it, either. Rangar has the right temperament for ruling, always brooding around, thinking of everything that could go wrong. No, crowns aren’t for me. I haven’t a kingly bone in my body.”
Maira leaned across the table so that Valenden got a good look at her plunging neckline. “I don’t know about that, my prince. I’d say you’re well known among the ladies of this kingdom—and a few men—for at least one impressive bone.”
While the other girls tittered and snorted, Valenden leaned back in the wooden chair, spreading his legs as he reclined. “It would be inelegant of me to either deny or confirm rumors—though if any of you want a peek at my kingly bone later tonight, I might happily oblige.”
