Of Coups and Cauls Read online

  Azaria smiled and fawned over my reaction, which only added to the discomfort at hand.

  “Right. Well met, ladies. If the house matron could point us to the patient in question…” I redirected.

  Judging from the reaction of the staff, the woman had well-earned her hush money. It was why I had placed her this far away. How many High-Country folk would recognize a former queen? Most of the women in this region had never been past the Dells let alone close enough to peek at Meadow Manor or Narelle.

  “Wait, Kais… as in Kais Loxley, Kallundre Loxley’s basta…boy?” A sea of pale faces parted until a girl in a ragged work dress was left staring at us. “I am so sorry, Your Majesty, to hear of your father’s passing. May the Seers bless his soul.”

  Azaria’s nails flitted against the top of my hand. Her fingers slid between my own and gently pumped.

  “I uhm… yes, I am Kais Loxley. What did you just say?”

  I stepped toward her, replaying her words in my head. Azaria refused to let go, trailing after me.

  “I, uh, oh.” The girl backstepped until my hand came up in silent bidding. It worked—she stilled and straightened her back the way any of my men would have.

  “Kallundre is gone?” I encouraged.

  The girl’s eyes found the tip of her shoes, leaving the top of her bonnet to stare back at me.

  “Kallundre Loxley took a spill from his steed this morning,” the matron said. “Most unfortunate. My condolences, Sir.” Her voice was still hollow and made her words seem meaningless.

  Goosebumps rushed down my arms, forcing me to bring them to my chest. I had spent my life being known as another man’s mistake. Now that he was gone, what the fuck did that make me? It was a disturbing thought, and the realization that I was focused on such a thing only shamed me further. I tried my best to focus on the conversation at hand and tried, for duty’s sake, to appear grieved.

  “King. He is the third King of Tauran, and the most capable defender of Her. He is to be addressed as His Majesty or His Grace, or I will personally remove tongues.” Azaria’s gaze swept over the dozen or so exhausted bodies with the ferocity one would a league of warriors. A lazy smile snuck across my lips, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder before steering her back to the matron.

  The stiff figure led us up the stairs one flight and then the next. The third floor was sparse, only four or five doors littered the hallway. At the end a dinette awaited the occupants. We paraded past all of this until we came to a door in the corner. The matron pulled out a heavy looking key. It took her a few tries to get the angle of the lock, and it made me wonder how often they truly checked on Ryver’s mother.

  We followed her up a dark narrow stairwell. The house matron paused at the top of the stairs, leaving me to hover in the musty darkness. I could feel Azaria in front of me, which only amplified the nothingness behind me. The walls threatened to hug me while the woman ahead seemed lost in gossip.

  I teetered, reassuring myself that I indeed had balance and a semblance of safety. The voices continued until I pressed past Azaria and marched my way up. The matron’s mouth opened, and she stepped towards the other voice as if she were offended.

  I erupted into a dimly lit room with nowhere to go. There was a wall ahead of me, floor to the left and right, leaving the stairwell entrance as little more than a whole in the floor. The space the matron had stood on was only a half a step wide. I wasn’t used to such design and instantly panicked.

  I instinctively grabbed, but nothing was there to save me. I sucked in air so deeply it hurt, and just that quickly, Azaria’s foot lodged against the back of my ass and I was propelled into the opposite room. She birthed into the room behind me, lowered carefully and pulled herself into my half of the room.

  Across the stairwell hole, Narelle set on a turned-down, peasant-style bed. Her quilt appeared to be made of retired garments that were no longer suitable for wearing. Portraits of Seers past hung from her slat walls.

  Her face no longer required the pasty powders. She had been stored away in the attic of the exhaustion home for so long that her skin was pale and sunless. No longer did her mouth pucker or spew wit. When I stepped over the hole and came to a squat beside the former queen, I was certain I saw her lip quiver.

  “Sadly, we do not have time for your preferred pretense and dramatics. Narelle, we came here to bring word of Ryett.” Azaria began behind me in a stately demeanor.

  She paused, and even I leaned back as Narelle’s eyes narrowed and her hands bunched in her lap. Her attention darted about rapidly, until Azaria snapped her fingers a few times to help her focus.

  “Your son is alive, Lady Narelle.” Her eyes met mine, a storm brew behind her gaze, and a tremble took the former queen’s limbs. “It is true. We would see you reunited.”

  Narelle’s hands flew for my chest. I grabbed her wrist, and we both toppled backwards, missing the stairwell by mere inches.

  “Tell him I perished with Ryver,” she growled, shoving her way off me.

  Confusion left me dumbfounded and staring. Azaria pressed past me, and Narelle cowered back towards her bed, bringing her feet up into a kicking stance.

  “No one is kissing your ass, woman. It doesn’t matter one way or the other to me how you spend your final days.” Azaria’s finger came out with her words and lunged occasionally to emphasize her points. “Ryver, by the way, has not perished. He is my father’s prisoner.”

  Narelle gasped and fought back a sob. “All the same,” she whispered. “Tell the people Queen Narelle was slain when the shores were stormed... please.”

  Chapter Five

  Azaria

  I stared out the carriage window, but it wasn’t the blur of fields or waving people that left me so deep in thought; it was Narelle’s strange behavior. What mother reacted so when told of her child’s survival? She didn’t even ask how we would retrieve him, or if we intended to for that matter. What ego-driven person hid away without admiration or wealth?

  “It makes no sense,” I mumbled.

  “Narelle has never made sense. Don’t drive yourself mad trying to make sense of a walking waste of air,” Kais replied.

  I turned to face him, and an ache settled in the curve of my neck, reminding me just how long I had fixated on the matter.

  “She denied an audience, Kais. Narelle Delucre. Denied. An. Audience.”

  He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Perhaps she is humiliated that no one looked for her?”

  After a bit of back and forth, I realized Nariyah was stuck in the crossfire. She was doing her best to hug the baby and focus out the window I had abandoned. I bugged my eyes at him and canted my head towards the baby.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled before tenderly tousling DeHaven’s hair.

  The hour was growing late. By the time we arrived at Meadow Manor, stars were winking down at us. It was beautiful, but something in the back of my mind wouldn’t leave Narelle be.

  “Take DeHaven up for the night, Nariyah. I’m going to find Ryett.” I stretched over and planted a kiss to Kais cheek. He didn’t seem to mind the dismissal. He likely hoped to put as much distance between himself and the topic of Narelle as possible. I couldn’t blame him--who knew how Ryett would react when he found out where Narelle had been, or who had placed her there?

  I made my way up the stairs, never wishing to dally on the plaza below. In my mind, it would forever be known as the place I had last seen Phaedra. Really seen her, anyhow, as a free woman. It was beneath the shadow of the cherry blossoms that she had been arrested and wrenched from my side.

  I blew away the memory and marched past the curtseys and expected greetings.

  The courtroom was empty; ours was a dynasty of the people, not for the people’s entertainment.

  I’d mastered the art of Faustlin heels, but they still clicked obnoxiously before the thrones as I made my way to the council room.

  Once upon a time, the council room doors had made me feel as small as Narelle
painted me. Today, however, they provide a moment of grounding as I place my hand on the finely crafted wood. The duel doors were twice as tall me but opened without a sound.

  Ryett’s nose was in a scroll, his hands gathered and rolled the further he read. His body instinctively leaned towards the hearth’s light. I didn’t need to see the parchment to know that it was my father’s missive. He had spent the past few evenings scoring over the lines as if he might will the words to change.

  I spread my fingers and curled them around his shoulders. His content deep breath wasn’t so different than Fury’s. I gathered the muscles and began to knead the tension from them. I almost lost myself to the act until a throat cleared behind us.

  I whirled around, nearly clearing the chair before I realized it was Kais.

  “Let it be me who tells him?” His brows chased the question, until I gave a permissive nod.

  “Tell me what? That I’m the spawn of betrayal? That people will forever say that it should have been me instead of Ryver. My brother should have never been in the Emperor’s crosshairs.” Ryett sighed, pulling away from my touch. He stood up and turned to face us.

  Kais looked as confused as I felt.

  “Spawn of betrayal, you dramatize?” I laughed. “How could any of this be your fault? You weren’t even here.”

  “That’s right. I wasn’t here. I was naïve enough to have my inheritance usurped by my own parents.”

  Kais pushed a drink into Ryett’s hand and settled into the chair he had vacated.

  “No one usurped you, you were missing, Ryett…”

  “I. Wasn’t. Missing.”

  The heels clicked louder than my pulse as I started around the chair. If he wasn’t missing, then why had he left me alone for all that time and at the mercy of Tauran and his mother?

  “My parents paid to have me taken captive. A silent exile, indenturing—call it what you will.” His deep voice boomed over the drink before he killed it in one swallow. When he lowered the glass, I reached around that strong jaw of his and pulled his face towards mine.

  “In that case, Kais has a gift for you…” I whispered over his lips. I kissed him, slow and lovingly.

  He pulled away hesitantly, almost anticipating the weight of what was to come. His gaze slowly travelled to the other man, and he tipped his chin in question.

  “Narelle was provocative, at times outright malicious, even before we lost you. After, she was unbearable. Her cruelty knew no bounds. Ryett, if you only knew of the sadistic pleasure she took in Queen Asena’s passing…” Kais rambled.

  “Asena is dead… your mother passed?” He juggled the empty glass in his hands before dismissing it to a shelf. In an instant I was plucked up and plastered to his side. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He pulled me back and stared into my eyes. I opened my mouth to speak, but I really didn’t know where to start.

  “So much has happened in the last year… We thought you dead. My mother passed shortly thereafter. Then it was King Ryver, and then… our Ryver.” My voice shook. I cursed myself for it, drew quiet, and resorted to simply sighing and shaking my head.

  “When Narelle set her target on Azaria and the throne of Tauran… we had to act. For the good of the people and the nation… and your wife.”

  His arm slowly loosened and fell to my hip. It absently lay there while he stared across the distance.

  “You executed my mother?” he quietly asked.

  “No. He placed her out of harm’s way,” I explained. “She is a threat to neither herself or anyone else now. Kais and I recently visited her at the exhaustion home, and she refused to leave. She asked us to let the people believe that she was slain when the shores were stormed.” I had intended to let Kais tell it, I really had, but the man had poor presentation when it came to sensitive subjects.

  Chapter Six

  Ryett

  “Leave us.” I couldn’t even look at Kais. Azaria, however, had no such difficulties. They traded suspicious glances for several unspoken moments, before he nodded and left the room.

  “You’re afraid to be alone with me now?” I wasn’t even sure what to make of the silent exchange, but it irked me. Even more so, when her brows stitched like she was confused

  “Ryett…”

  “Don’t do that. I saw how you looked at him just now… you wanted him to intervene. What do you think it is you need saving from?”

  She stepped away from me. Disgust and hurt fought over her features.

  “Actually, I was waiting to see if he was going to stand up for himself. It pleases me not, that you address him as a subject. He, too, is a King of Tauran, and yet you insist on ordering him about.”

  Her words stung, not because they were true; I’ve never treated him as lowly as his title. We had always shared a mutual companionship, as far as I knew.

  “He is. You’re right. I hadn’t realized or intended to demean him in any way. I adore Kais,” I assured her.

  Her eyes narrowed, and she walked in a slow circle around me. It felt like she was seducing me and sizing me up all at once. She was behind me and pressed her body against mine. I leaned toward her, playfully.

  “I have to tell you something, stop.” She laughed, before coming to a pause. “This is serious.”

  The nervous edge to her laughter damn near caused my blood to still.

  “DeHaven…”

  “I don’t care,” I cut her short. I wasn’t stupid. It was a matter of odds.

  “He is either mine or my brother’s and either wa…”

  “And if he is neither?” she whispered. Her hands reached for my neck, and she wrapped herself there, dangling and looking up into my eyes.

  “I don’t care,” I whispered.

  The hand ceased stroking my cheek, and her full lips pressed to mine. I claimed her chin before she could brush it off as anything chaste and tasted them again, savoring the faint hint of wine that clung to their surface.

  Her leg lightly roamed up mine, until her knee taunted the outside of my thigh. I knew what she wanted, and the fact that she was asking for it, even subtly, made my pulse race. I slapped her thigh and massaged the sting into the muscle beneath, capturing it in place against my hip.

  “So, the Queen of the Savagelands does beg to be fucked?”

  She had been so cute when she fought to be the one in control, but to see her beg? It was enough to make a man religious.

  My pulse had settled somewhere in the snugness I held captive against my crotch.

  When she leaned in to whisper against my neck, I wasn’t ready for the contact her pants allowed. There was no fluff of hem and conscience to wrangle with. It stole the breath from me so violently that I opened my mouth like I was about to offer up my soul.

  “No, but occasionally we command it.” Her finger spread and contoured to my throat before she blessed it with a modest hug. I’m pretty sure my eyes were as wide as my mouth. Never in my life had anyone spoken to me in such a brazen way, and to be honest… my cock had never been harder.

  She was a woman who knew how to get what she wanted. She knew how to manipulate like her father but played the game with the same fuck and fight tactics her mother was famous for.

  I took the provocation, placing her other leg in a vice that left me with two handfuls of ass and a queen completely at my mercy. Or so I thought.

  Her thighs gripped my hips, and she rose the way an archer might on the saddle. Her shirt slowly slid up, and her torso did the serpent’s dance before her braids spilled around us and two pert globes were presented for sampling.

  “Your Grace…” I drawled appreciatively. Fingers tangled in my hair. She lifted herself up high enough to graze her chest across my face. By the time her nipple met my lips, they were already tight little buds. I chased and conquered one, repaying the sweet torment that she had moments ago used against me.

  I reached between us, and with a little plucking, loosening, and a good solid tug, the tie of her pants slid free. She grabbe
d the waist of her riding trousers and began to writhe. The material shimmied down until it came to rest atop my thumbs. It offered the perfect opportunity to grab and massage again.

  When our tangled bodies prevented any further disrobing, I gave her bottom a parting slap and released her legs. She took the britches off before I could even blink. Which was all I could do when her palm stung my cheek as it had during our first romp in the garden. Its effect was just as shocking. Oblivious to the woman’s frantic efforts to rip away my shirt, I charged her back to the table. She slid atop the strategy table with ease, fully prepared, this time, for the primal energy she provoked.

  The hand that wasn’t ripping at laces tangled in my hair, and her foot slid up my pants like they were made of silk. I glanced down in time to see her plant the sole against my thigh. It knocked me back a few inches, but she didn’t release the grip on my hair. I twisted my neck and glanced up towards her with my cheek against the bottom of her rib cage. Her eyes danced with challenge.

  Using my hair like a natural leash, she led me down her stomach while the foot playfully pushed me away. Excitement mingled with the subtle dose of pain. Though I’ll never admit it in the mead hall, I entertained her game, kissing her belly and navel as if it were a privilege to do so.

  She pushed me away until I could scarcely graze the stubble of my jaw against the soft welcome of her inner thigh, holding me there, until I glanced up in question. Only then did she slowly tug my hair until I was positioned over her royal mound.

  The thought of dubbing it such caused a smile to twist at my lips.

  Her hips bucked, burying my face in the slick folds of her cunt. Her impatient shifting painted me with her personal liquor. She marked me as hers in a way that was nothing short of savage.

  “This is how you introduce yourself to a queen’s cunt.” She exhaled, dropping her knee over my shoulder.

  I devoted myself to her every twitch. Chasing the wave until she was arched and bilingual. My own breath heaved. I reached up, grasping both of her wrists and hauled myself away. She nearly came off the table. Her eyes flashed with outrage and her jaw set. I had no doubt if I had not been born of the same royal blood as she, I would have been exiled on the spot.