Hunter's Season (Elder Races #4.7)(34)

“Why do you look sad?” he asked gently.

Niniane bit her lip as she stared at her plate. “I’m going to miss her.”

Silence fell over the table. Children were, after all, rare enough gifts to the Elder Races. For Niniane and Tiago, the possibility of having children was nonexistent as long as she was Queen.

Aubrey set down his knife and fork as he looked around the table. Not so very long ago, he felt utterly bleak and betrayed, and so alone he would have welcomed death. Now sitting at the small table were the three people who meant the most to him. Blessings come in all ways, he thought, and they are always a surprise.

He raised his wine glass. “To new beginnings,” he said as he looked at Xanthe. Her gaze lit until she looked luminous. “And to peace.”

The others raised their glasses to clink with his.

Tiago said, “At least to peace for now.”

Epilogue

The seven shrines of the gods were scattered all over Adriyel. Inanna’s shrine lay four days’ ride from the city.

Xanthe and Aubrey took the trip several moons later when the leaves started to turn in the autumn. Travel was pleasant in the cool, quiet days, and the nights had not yet grown unpleasantly cold.

They argued the whole way, even as they drew near to their destination.

“I wish you would listen to me when I say that I am content,” Xanthe said.

“You may be content, but I am not,” he said. “I do not see why you won’t marry me.”

“It’s not fitting,” she said stubbornly.

“Xanthe, you are the biggest snob I have ever met.” His face was grim, and he looked quite forbidding. She found it almost unbearably sexy.

She glared at him. “Unfair! You know very well the more traditionally minded nobility would shun you if you married a commoner.” She grimaced. “They are every bit as snobbish as I am, if not more.”

“Fuck them,” he snapped.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, not wanting to laugh. It was always so shocking whenever he cursed. He did it so seldom.

He was continuing. “Seriously. I don’t care if it turns me into a pariah. If anybody is going to judge us on the merits of being married to each other, I don’t want to socialize with them anyway.”

“You have a point,” she admitted with reluctance. She blew out a frustrated breath. “But I don’t know how to be anything except a guard or an assassin.”

He gave her a heated glance. “And now my lover.”

She could hardly look at him and stay upright on her horse. He rode with immaculate, confident grace.

When they had returned to Adriyel, she had resumed her duties as one of Niniane’s attendants and he as Chancellor, but they spent every night together at his house, and when she had her two days off, they went together to the cottage. Nights had become a golden time of enchantment and intimacy. Some days she could barely wait until the sun had set.

She whispered, “And that.”

They rode in silence. Then he told her, “You would make a perfectly ferocious wife.”

She widened her eyes. “I know! I would never be able to stop guarding you. I would be a social calamity.”

“Did you ever stop to think,” he said between his teeth, “that I might actually want and need a perfectly ferocious wife and social calamity. That is why I keep proposing to you.”

She scrubbed at her forehead. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

“The only thing I am going to give up are my guards.”

Incredulity sliced at her. She pulled her horse to a stop. “You can’t.”

“I absolutely can.” He pulled his mount to a halt as well. His expression had turned hard and ruthless, and damn him, it made him even sexier than ever. “My guards don’t do anything but follow me around and doze in the hallways when I work. At any rate, that attack on me was an aberration and it happened moons ago. Besides, I’ve got to find a way to blackmail you somehow.”

“What are you talking about?” she shouted.

His eyebrows rose. In that moment he actually looked haughty. “If you won’t marry me, I won’t keep my guards. End of subject.”

She exploded. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”

He nudged his horse forward, a smile playing around the corners of his lips. “It is so satisfying to dig underneath that calm façade of yours. I think it has become my second favorite pastime, my most favorite being when we make love, of course.”

He kicked his horse into a canter, and she followed. “Get back here!”

“Darling, it is no use arguing about this any further,” he called over his shoulder. “You know I will do exactly as I say, and Niniane will be so angry at you if I dismiss my guards.”

“Aubrey!” Sending her own horse into a gallop, she caught up with him easily. “You leave Niniane out of this.”

He looked entirely ruthless. “In fact as soon as we return, I plan on telling her how unhappy your refusal makes me. Her sympathies will not lie with you on this, Xanthe. Not when you are free to marry me if you would only choose to do so.”

That struck her into silence, as he had known it would, for as long as Niniane remained the Dark Fae Queen, she and Tiago might be mated but they could never marry. Xanthe fumed and brooded as they rode into a small valley that was dotted with copses of trees crowned with the fiery colors of autumn.