Royal House of Shadows: Part 6 of 12
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Jill Monroe
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Chapter 1
Princess Breena has been training with a berserker, knowing the time is coming when she will avenge her family. Osborn has the same goal: avenge his people. The problem is, his thirst for vengeance will bring him against the kingdom of Elden—Breena’s people. It appears that these two lovers are going to be at odds very soon...
Breena ached everywhere. Even her ears seemed to hurt, and she didn’t know how that was possible. Her shoulders dragged, and it took her longer than usual to make it to her knees and roll up her pallet and shove it out of the way.
The sun shone brightly through the window. Well past their usual practice time. Osborn must have suspected she wouldn’t be much use with a sword today. Especially as he was the one who made her this way.
The bedroom door opened, and Bernt and Torben slunk inside the main room, looking not much better than she felt.
“I don’t want to be an Ursan warrior anymore,” Torben said.
“Yes, you do,” she told him with a smile. “Grab some apples and bread. We can take our breakfast outside. The sunshine will do us some good.”
Once outside, Breena raised her face to the sun, allowing its warm rays to heat her cheeks. She stretched, relieving the tightness of her aching muscles. A blue bird flew over their heads, and she smiled.
“You seem different today,” Bernt remarked. A small frown formed between his brows. “You’re not wanting to leave us, are you?”
It had never really occurred to her that the boys would begin enjoying her in their lives. She’d felt more like an intruder, one who’d broken their furniture and stolen their food. But now she realized they’d miss her when she left, and she’d miss them.
Would their brother?
“I’ll have to go sometime. This isn’t my home.”
“But it could be,” Torben told her. “I saw Osborn clearing out some old furniture and crates out of the storeroom. I think he’s wanting to make it into a bedroom.”
“He doesn’t like you sleeping on the floor.”
The thought of Osborn caring about her comfort, trying to find someplace better for her to sleep, made her heart leap.
“I do like sleeping in front of the fire,” she assured them. “At home, I had a fireplace in my room. And besides, I’m too tired to do anything but just fall down on the floor and go to sleep.”
The boys laughed.
“I like it with you here,” Bernt informed her.
“Osborn does, too,” Torben added. “I can tell.”
“He’s a lot nicer. He doesn’t yell nearly as much.”
Really? Because she thought he yelled a lot. All the time.
“And he finally began our training.”
“He was already a warrior by the time he was our age, I think.” Torben bit his lip. “He doesn’t talk much of what happened to our parents and the rest of our people.”
She squeezed the boys’ shoulders. “I can imagine what he’s suffered. Is still suffering. Remember, he wasn’t much older than you when he took on the responsibility of two little boys. When you lose those you love, it changes you. But every day seems better than the last.”
That was a lie. A comforting adage she so wanted to believe, wanted these boys to believe, but suspected it would never be true. Each day didn’t diminish the hurt, only added more time and distance so that it would be easier to forget.
Avenge.
Breena couldn’t forget. Something inside wouldn’t let her.
The man who was the topic of their conversation entered the clearing. Osborn never failed to make her breath catch. He looked different somehow. Less grim, and with an added resolve. She hoped that didn’t mean more balance practice. He’d tied his hair back, and wore the town clothes from just a few days ago. In fact, he carried several large packages in his massive arms.
“Didn’t know if you crew would make it this morning,” he told them, something similar to a smile curving his lips.
Bernt and Torben quickly scrambled to their feet.
“Ready for more?” he asked, but his eyes were squared on her. “Get your swords, and head out to the practice field. I need to talk with Breena.”
The boys raced to get their scabbards and then flew around the corner of the cottage, leaving her alone with Osborn. He carefully placed his packages on a crate that stood next to the front door, and the dream of last night hit her full force. The pain of it. The anguish. Every vivid detail. But mostly the comfort given as she cried.
Osborn had given her that comfort. Wiped her tears. Breena knew that now. He’d soothed the ache in her heart. If only for a few moments.
Avenge.
Only she could not be truly consoled. Not until the need planted in her consciousness had been relieved.
For the first time, Breena felt uncertain around him. Not sure how to act or where to look. Something in their uneasy relationship had changed in the night while she slept. She twisted her hands, then quickly thrust them behind her back.
“I’ve been to the village,” he told her.
“I can see that,” she replied, eyeing the packages.
His eyes narrowed, and his gaze scanned her face, brushed over her every feature. He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck, a gesture she’d seen often enough now to know something heavy weighed upon him.
“I think I found a place where you can go,” he finally told her, his gaze dropping.
“Go?”
“There’s a woman in the village. She fell last winter and has trouble taking care of her home now. You’d have the entire second floor to yourself, and a little spending money.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You can’t continue to stay here, Breena,” he told her with a shrug. “It’s not right. Not a woman with three men.”
Breena made a scoffing sound in the back of her throat. “Are you actually going to talk to me about appearances? Propriety?”
He tugged loose the rope that held his hair in place, freeing the strands. There was her Osborn. Wild and untamed. “I’m trying to do what’s right for you.”
She marched toward him. Breena wasn’t about to let him get away with making decisions for her. “By sending me away? We had a deal.”
Breena watched him swallow. Then his gaze turned to hers. “You cried last night, Breena. You cried in my arms.” His voice sounded raspy and strained.
A lump formed in her throat. The warrior who’d tried not to care about her worried for her. A lot.
“This isn’t good for you. You’re not meant for this life.”
And she was not meant for him, he was saying.
“I don’t want to see you grow cynical and so consumed with vengeance nothing will ever be right for you again.”
“I’m consumed with vengeance now.”
“And it will eat away at you until there’s nothing left but hate. I don’t want you to end up like...me.”
Breena shook her head. “I can’t turn it off. My parents are dead. I saw them die. There was so much blood.” She covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t even get to bury their bodies. Something calls out to me. I can’t let it go.”
“How do you know this? Your memory—”
“My memory came back,” she interrupted.
* * *
She met his gaze, and what he saw in those green depths made him pause. Made his breath hold and his chest constrict.
“Last night I put myself in a dreamhaze. I went back to the night my parents...” She swallowed. “I went back to the night my parents died. I saw the blood. Their blood. The wounds to their bodies.”
Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears he knew she fought not to shed. “So you see, I do know the pain of losing something. Someone.”
He understood that pain. Lived it.
“I know that I can’t do anything with my life until I somehow fix this. Vindicate the memory of my family. Keep helping me, Osborn. Please,” she urged.
Osborn had left the village with plans and so much anticipation. He wanted Breena to follow a different path than the one he’d followed all his life. He was tired. Tired of his own pain and regret and thirst for a revenge he’d had to put off to raise his brothers. The weariness seeped down to his bones, and the little emotion he had left inside ached.
He didn’t want Breena to feel this way. To carry the burden of avenging the dead alone. To live what he lived.
He rubbed his hand at the throbbing muscles bunched at the base of his neck. He didn’t understand until this moment how much like him she actually was. She’d always burn with her need to make right what had happened to her family, because he always burned. “I’ll help you.”
Breena squeezed her eyes tight and her shoulders slumped with relief. “Thank you.”
He doubted she’d be thanking him for long.
* * *
The rest of the afternoon they spent in training, and Breena didn’t utter one complaint about pains or aches or stiffening muscles. She had survived. She’d convinced Osborn to continue helping her and she was grateful. Her magic had drawn her to the man who’d teach her how to fight who or what had killed her parents.
She’d have to dream her past again. Her body began to shake at the idea of revisiting that night of death, but it was the only way she could find the truth. Would Osborn hold her again tonight?
That evening the boys showed her how they prepared dinner while Osborn closed himself away in the storeroom off the side of the tiny kitchen.
“I can’t believe we’re having to show a girl how to make us dinner,” Bernt grumbled, but it was all in good-natured fun.
“Yes, I thought you would want to cook for us,” Torben added, and they all laughed.
“I’ll just show you how to dance in exchange.”
Two matching horrified expressions crossed their faces.
Osborn opened the door of the storeroom, and stuck his head out. A faint smile crossed his features when he saw her. “Breena, come here.”
There it was. An order for her to move toward him. She’d almost begun to miss them. Almost. But she was too curious about what exactly Osborn had been doing in that tiny space. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and moved toward where Osborn waited.
“I, uh...” he began, and stopped.
Was Osborn nervous? Breena hid a smile and angled her head inside the place Osborn had kept himself so busy. The store area was small to be sure; four of these rooms would fit inside her bedchamber at Elden. The walls stretched bare and there was nothing on the floor except a tiny blue rug, the color of the blue flowers that grew around the cottage. Not the kind a man would choose for himself, but exactly what a man would buy for a woman. Now she knew what had been inside one of those mysterious packages.
“Nothing much will fit in here but a mattress, but it will be private and all yours, Breena. If you want it.”
Osborn’s voice was solemn, and she knew he offered her more than just a tiny space inside his cottage. He was offering a place in his life. She nodded her head. “I do want it.”
“I have something else for you.” There was that smile again. Who knew her berserker warrior was such a gift giver? He came back carrying a small package. She hadn’t noticed this one earlier today. She untied the twine and the rough cloth fell away to reveal two glass bottles containing mysterious liquids.
“It’s shampoo and soap,” he told her.
Breena would have expected cleaning oil for her sword or a new knife, not something so distinctly feminine. She quickly popped off the cork, and inhaled the delicious scent of vanilla and alluring spices.
“Thought you might tire of smelling like a man.”
She replaced the cork, and hugged his gifts tight to her chest. “I can’t wait to use these. Tonight.”
Heat and hunger for her sharpened the features of his face. She lifted up on the tips of her toes, and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” And there was a promise in his voice that made her stomach quiver.
After dinner, she raced to the small clear spring not too far from the cabin. It wasn’t the lake, but it was certainly private. A fact she’d announced to all the berserker men earlier. The spring was hers.
She grabbed the washbasin and filled it with the clean spring water warmed by the sun and wet her hair. At home, she’d always used the floral soaps and scents her mother preferred, but what Osborn had chosen suited her infinitely better. She popped the lid and breathed in deeply of the scent he’d purchased for her. The soft sweet smell of the vanilla combined with the zest of faraway places. This was what Osborn liked, and she poured a small amount in her hand, and cleaned her hair. Did he view her as sweet with a touch of spice?
She ran the soap over her breasts, and the tips puckered. Her nipples did the same when Osborn kissed and licked her there. Breena ran the soap over her skin the way he caressed her breasts. She slipped a soapy finger between her thighs, touched where Osborn had kissed with his lips. Licked with his tongue. She gasped as she imagined him doing that again. Of her licking and kissing him.
Breena wanted that again. And more. He’d barred her from his dreams. Would he still?
* * *
Osborn hadn’t meant to spy on her bath. He’d only needed to grab more firewood but then he heard Breena’s gasp. The berserker in him roused, and he raced to ensure her safety. But Breena’s cry wasn’t that of a woman frightened, but of her deep arousal.
How much agony did one man have to endure? He leaned against the trunk of a tree, forcing his body to relax. Minutes passed, and she rounded the corner, stopping when she spotted him. Her cheeks were flushed, her bottom lip fuller. A fine sheen of water filmed her skin, and she wore only a towel held together loosely over breasts.
Her face reddened further, and he knew. Knew that when she’d gasped earlier, she’d been caressing herself and thinking of him.
He had an answer to his earlier question. Apparently a man had to endure a lot of agony.
“Osborn, the soap you bought for me was...wonderful.”
Her voice was husky, like a woman not yet fulfilled. He imagined her sighing to him in those low tones as he drove into her.
She’s not yours.
Breena was loved and protected for another, certainly never a man like him. He was once destined to be something better than he was, an Ursan warrior. With all the honor and distinction that rank held. All he could offer her now was a legacy of shame and a life filled with the need for vengeance
Breena’s own steps were aimed squarely at that same path. He’d tried to dissuade her earlier.
Try harder.
But how could he when she was reaching out to him? Lifting her shoulder right under his nose? “It smells different on my skin than it does in the bottle.”
The scent of the soaps he’d bought smelled good, but Breena the woman smelled better. He was so close. Too close. He could nip at her shoulder. Run his tongue along that tantalizing curve of her back.
“I have a favor to ask.”
Gods, anything...if he could just keep breathing in her scent. Prolong the torture by imaging how he could curve his hand around her hip, drawing her backward to cup his erection.
She took a deep breath. “I have to go back to dream of my past, to the night of the siege.”
He shook his head, and she gripped his bicep. Hard.
“There’s still more to learn about that night. I couldn’t continue after, well, you know how you found me.”
Crying in her sleep.
“When I put myself in a dream, I always envision a door and then I walk right through it in my mind. There’s only ever been your door in my mind.
A possessive satisfaction settled into his chest.
“But last night there were two doors. My past and, next to it, yours.”
Osborn stiffened.
“They have to be side by side for a reason. I think it’s because when I go through your door to be with you...nothing frightens me.”
“It should. I should frighten you.” What he wanted to do to her body, what he wanted from her, that should all frighten her.
“But it doesn’t.” She ran her fingers along his jaw. “You would never hurt me. I’ve known that for a while.”
He didn’t know it. In fact, she could almost count on him hurting her. It was inevitable. His past. His decisions. Those would hurt her. When his brothers were ready, he’d leave this cottage and seek those who killed his family. His plans were not those of a man who would make life easy for a woman. He gripped her fingers to still her touch.
“Remember how we are together in my dreams?” she asked, refusing to let him push her hand away. “How perfect?”
He could make love to her in that fantasy world she created as they slept. His cock hardened at the thought. Yes. He could caress every part of her body. Brand her with his touch. Drive into her as his body demanded. And he could hold her.
Yet no matter how amazing their coupling would be in the dream, Osborn knew he would wonder and crave the real thing until he was mad.
“Those dreams were lies,” he told her, his teeth clenched.
“Aren’t you even curious?”
Hell, yes, he was curious. Curious if she’d meet his gaze when he joined his body with hers. Ached to learn the feel of her softness as she welcomed him into her. Dying to know—
“Lies,” he said again. Just to stay sane.
Her hand dropped and her expression turned sad. “If it makes you feel any better, sometimes those lies I shared with you were the only thing I really looked forward to.” Breena turned on her heel to walk away from him
The blood pounded in his head. Those dreams were the only thing that brought anything even approaching happiness into his life. Until he found her sleeping in his bed.
All she wanted was to dream with him. Be with him in a dream. How could he refuse?
He reached for her shoulder, his fingers curving into her skin. “I’ll do it.”
* * *
Bernt had given up his bed for Breena. He and Osborn would begin building a new frame for him the next day. It was a tight fit in the storeroom, but after some shifting and one banged-in corner, the bed finally sat in the storeroom for Breena’s use.
She kissed both their cheeks. “Thank you so much,” she told them, her voice as happy as if Osborn had bestowed on her the rarest of jewels. Somewhere out in one of the realms there was a man who would be giving Breena gifts with gems and gowns and all the things women liked.
But she was his for now.
Breena quickly dressed the bed in warm blankets and pelts. They wouldn’t be sleeping before the fire, and she’d need more coverings to keep warm. There also wasn’t nearly the kind of room for the two of them on Bernt’s old bed. Breena lifted the blankets and crawled to the edge of the bed, which was pushed up against the wall.
“How do you want to do this?” he asked.
Her lips turned up in a grin. “Not a lot of space for you,” she said, eyeing the broadness of his shoulders and the length of his legs. When she looked at him like he was the strongest, most powerful man in the world who could best anything, he wanted to be exactly that for her.
“I like it when you stretch against my back,” she told him.
And cupped her breast. And fit his cock against her curves. He liked it, too. A lot. And it was starting to show. The bed creaked under his weight as he settled in beside her. Osborn wanted to bury his face in her hair. Lose the nightclothes that separated her skin from his. He settled for draping his arm over the rounded curve of her hip.
He closed his eyes. Forced his muscles to relax. Imagined smelling rotten food to chase away the erotic scent of her. Anything so that he could doze.
“I can’t sleep,” she whispered to him after a few moments of silence.
“Nor can I.”
“Talk to me. Tell me a story.”
She wiggled against him, and he quietly groaned. Every one of her soft curves cupped his body. Osborn concentrated on her request, but could come up with nothing. “I don’t know the kind of stories you do. No fairies. No wolves hiding in the woods with their eye on a girl in a red cloak.”
“Then tell me something real. From when you were a little boy,” she suggested.
Osborn tried not to think of those times. Warriors didn’t feel sad. They pushed those emotions to the side. Obliterated them. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“What about a grand party? Tell me about one of those times when you wore fancy clothes and musicians played.”
He breathed in the scent of her hair again, and tried to remember. His people preferred a simpler way of life, where time moved slower than in other realms. Little politics, few dignitaries and lords. They were all just Ursan. They prepared for battles, for when their allies called. Few dared to go to war directly with the Ursans. At night they built large fires. Their entire village would talk and sing along with the drums. A smile played about his lips. He’d forgotten about those nights when the elders pointed to the skies and taught how to use the stars for navigation. He’d forgotten about the songs. Osborn should carve a drum and teach his brothers some of the old Ursan songs. Maybe one day his brothers would marry and teach those songs to their daughters and sons, and hope flooded his chest.
For the first time, guilt and pain didn’t rush right behind the memories.
“No banquets,” he told her, “just families around the campfire.”
“Not even marriage feasts? At home we took every opportunity to host a celebration. My father told us the work in the fields and in the trades could be rough and sometimes bleak. It was our responsibility to provide as much joy and brightness as we could to our people.”
“He sounds very wise.”
Breena nodded. “He was,” she said, her voice quiet and low.
“We didn’t celebrate marriages openly,” he told her, trying to pull her away from thoughts of her dead father...until she forced herself to dream of him tonight.
“You didn’t?” Shock and a trace of scandal laced her voice, and Osborn couldn’t help smiling again.
“When a man wished for a woman, he’d ask her to seal her life with his. On a full moon, they’d go, just the two of them, into the woods that surrounded our village. There, with only the stars to see, they’d share the vows they’d written for each other.”
“That sounds beautiful. And meaningful.”
The yearning in her voice made his gut ache. “That’s not the kind of marriage you would have?” he asked, needing to remind himself she was for someone else.
“No,” she said on a heavy sigh. “My marriage will be of alliance. It will be an honor to serve my people that way.”
“And just how many times have you been told that?”
Breena’s muscles relaxed against him. “A lot,” she confessed. “In fact, my father was to do the choosing the weekend of the attack.”
“Do you think that had something to do with it? An angry suitor?”
“More like a disappointed negotiator. I’ve never even met any of the potential husbands. Less for them to object to that way.”
“And what could they possibly have to complain about with you?” He was incredulous at the thought. Breena was perfect. Perfect for hi—
She only laughed. “I seem to remember you complaining a lot about me. The danger I brought. The added expense.”
“My socks are nice.”
Breena laughed again, the sound of it thrilling, like he wanted to make her laugh again and again. Forever.
“Stick to fighting, Ursan. That kind of compliment will never suit you at court.”
Another warning. He’d never belong in her world.
After a few minutes, Breena’s breathing deepened, and he knew she’d soon be entering her dream. And then his.
