Amaskan's Blood, Raven Oak [read me a book .TXT] 📗

Catherine was not. Strength to a flaw, impertinence in her honesty, and a passion that burned long after the sun set.

His thumb froze at the shift in her breathing, and he peered down to find blue eyes staring up at him. Instead of their usual humor, the deep, blue pools were haunted by shadows, and the smile fell from his lips. “Your sleep was troubled,” he whispered.

She sat up, pulling the blanket with her. Her shoulder twitched, and he reached out a wrinkled hand to touch it before he leaned forward where he could see her face. When a few tears decorated her cheeks, his hands tightened on her shoulders.

“What is it, Ida? What’s bothering you so? Was it something in Sadai?”

“I begged ya not to send me.” The scar across her throat jumped when she spoke, and her voice resembled gravel.

“Since when has my sepier been afraid of anything?” The former captain of the royal guard didn’t answer as another tear slid down a cheek more gaunt than it had been a few months before.

Has it only been four months since I sent her to her homeland? There was more bone beneath his fingers than he was accustomed to.

“Ida, love, I know you hate Sadai, but we all must make sacrifices for duty.”

Her body stilled while long pale fingers gripped the bed sheets. “You know nothin’.”

Leon didn’t know what shocked him more, that she was angry with him or that she was afraid. “I know the healers in Sadai saved you—” He ignored her gasp and continued, “—and that you fled your homeland for Alexander. But you worked your way to the top of my army because you were fearless.”

Unlike now.

Instead of pushing further, he waited and wrapped the blankets around them both as his arms encircled her waist. She gave in to her emotions, and Leon bit the inside of his cheek. In ten years as his mistress, he hadn’t once seen her lose her composure, much less cry, and her weakness left knots in his gut.

“’Twas a mistake to return to Sadai,” she whispered.

“I sent a woman I trust into that country, a tenacious spy who feared nothing, and she’s returned to me broken. I was going to wait until the sun rose before asking for your report, but considering your tears, I have to ask. What happened? What brought you back early and afraid?”

Ida rose from the bed, her bare feet picking their way across clothing strewn haphazardly on the floor from a few hours before when she’d returned. Near midnight, she’d crept into his chambers, her return from Sadai just shy of a week early.

The look on her face had led him to ask no questions, but as she stood in the sprinkling of sunlight the morning brought, dread seeped into Leon’s bones. Her fifty years did little to mar her body, but a decade of leading battles had left scars aplenty across her frame, and Leon frowned to see a fresh mark across her thigh, its scab already sloughing off and healing.

“I’ve failed ya, Your Majesty.” Her shoulders slumped forward before she faced him.

“Were you not successful then in finding the location of the Order of Amaska?”

Her lips trembled. “I—I was successful, Your Majesty.”

King Leon sucked air through clenched teeth much too fast, and the ever-present congestion in his lungs leapt forth. Another coughing spasm whipped through him.

Stars danced before his eyes, and Ida’s footsteps sounded nearby. Shortly after, she pressed the mug into his waiting hands. Some of the medicine sloshed out of the cup before it found his lips, and several swallows later, the spasm passed, leaving hope in its wake. “Where is the Order located?”

“Sire, there’s more—”

“Where are they?”

“They’re near the coast, near the town of Haif—”

He was two feet out of bed and halfway to the door before he remembered the need for clothing, and despite his bruised lungs, he quickly dug through his clothes chest. Leon seized the first clothes his fingers touched: an old pair of breeches a touch too loose at the waist, and an undershirt that bore a hole from a moth.

He didn’t care what he looked like. After thirteen years, he had finally found the men who had massacred his family. His giddy footsteps carried him across the room where he rang for a page. When the boy appeared, his face flushed at the sight of Ida’s nudity as she stood near the window. Leon grabbed the boy’s sleeve, pulling his attention into line. “I need Captain Fenton brought to my sitting room immediately.”

When the door shut behind the young page, Ida wrapped a robe around her and knelt before Leon, who gestured for her to rise. He haphazardly dug through a box of letters. “Once Michael arrives, you’ll tell us both about their location. We have plans to make.”

“There’s more, and ya must hear it alone.”

When he faced her again, she still knelt on the stone floor, and her shoulder length hair spilled limply across her face. “What more is there? After thirteen years, I finally have the location of the bastards. Today is a good day, Ida. Today I will have my revenge.”

“Will ya march across Sadai’s borders to take it?”

“If necessary.”

“You’d bring the wrath of the Boahim Senate down upon us? Would ya rip this land apart again for ’nother pointless war?”

King Leon took her hands into his own as he knelt down beside her. “I thought you would understand this. Those bastards killed my wife. My daughter. What else would you have me do? The Boahim Senate has done nothing to stop the Amaskans. If they won’t seek justice, then I will.”

The knock at the door interrupted them and as Leon rose from his knees, Ida seized the edge of his shirt. “Ya think you’ve the whole of it, but ya must hear me out. Please. Send the good captain away ’til you’ve heard the truth.”

King Leon sighed, and when the page knocked on the door a second time, he opened