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No. It was what they’d done to her hair that made him see red.
Bronze approached her not with the speed his heart commanded him to but with the gentle tenderness of freeing a wounded animal from a hunter’s trap. “Oh, sweet Clara. What did they do to you?”
On the right side of her head, her beautiful white hair hung wet and limp over her shoulder. The left side, however, had been shorn close to her scalp, revealing patchy silver peach fuzz that, despite its lack of concealment, the rain didn’t touch. It was as if her own body, mutilated as it was, refused to bow even for the storm’s sake.
Bronze’s soul shattered, jettisoning into a million fucking pieces for what she’d lost and what he’d failed to prevent.
He removed her gag first, then her bonds, and welcomed the weight of her slim frame as she fell into his arms. After entire centuries passed just holding her, convincing himself that she was well and alive and, mages willing, capable of healing just like he was, he finally heard the whispers spoken against the column of his neck.
“I agreed to it.”
He tensed. “What?”
“The shearing. I agreed to it. My father was going to kill you if I didn’t consent to marry Lord Raff and take part in the final game and whatever else my father wished me to do. Him cutting my hair . . . it was my penance for the trouble I caused him. The price I had to pay for publicly refuting his selection of my would-be mate and forcing him to enact the games. For a lycan female, their hair is very important, symbolic even. A sign of our lineage and bloodline. Our power. He knew that, knew what it would mean for me to willingly have him cut it, and so did I.” Then she pulled back to look at him, a sad strength shining in her eyes. “And I’d do it all over again if it would save your life.”
“Don’t say that, princess. Don’t ever say that to me again. I’m doing all I can not to storm back there, rip out the entrails of the male you call a father, and use them to string him and this asshole up by their boots so the coyotes could have a decent meal.” He clenched her tighter to him with desperate relief. “Do you understand, Clara? I can’t ever see this happen to you again. It wouldn’t just kill me. It would break me. Mortals have no sense of how truly mad a male could go if his female was taken away from him. Death is not a kindness often granted to beings such as me.”
The corners of her mouth lifted slightly. “Am I that female to you? With all the ones available in this realm and the others?”
Bronze didn’t hesitate. “They’re not you. Never could be. Never will be.” He didn’t want thoughts of Polina entering this private, panicked space with his princess, but when they did, for the first time, they didn’t linger, nor did they track tendrils of guilt over his soul like muddy footprints.
Damn, it felt good. And freeing. Finally.
Clara bent down and picked up the discarded blindfold, inspecting the severed fastening thread at the back of it. “My father will use this as justification for not declaring you the winner, despite Lord Raff’s death. The king is a vicious man with no end to his machinations and manipulations.” She placed the fabric in Bronze’s hand.
He couldn’t explain why he did it, but something about that earlier warmth on his arm, which had led his fingers to locate the perfect-for-bludgeoning branch next to him, urged his thumb to swipe across the torn thread.
The brief pause in the rain Bronze had noticed earlier had rolled into a full-blown precipitation lockdown, taking with it the slight sprinkles of heavy mist. And when something drew Bronze’s attention northward, the barest patch of blue sky appeared through the thick canopy of elm trees. The sun—bright, golden, and damn insistent—shone through the opening and focused its honeyed rays on the back of Bronze’s hand right where it covered the thread.
I know that heat.
It had fled as fast as it arrived, however, pulling the dreary cloud cover back into place like a blanket over one’s head. But when he moved his thumb away from the severed fabric fastener, a bundle of intact golden threads took its place, just poised for the tying.
Clara gasped, but Bronze could only smile.
Saulé.
“Someone up there likes me. Here, put this over my eyes and secure it. I’m ready to win you good and proper.”
When Clara was finished, Bronze swept her into his arms and walked—way fucking slower, thank you very much—out of the forest, holding the most precious prize of all.
He didn’t put her down until well after they cleared the tree line and the crowd’s cheerful shouts had toned down to a joyous murmur. Behind his blindness, he waited . . . and waited . . . and yup, there it was.
“No! Impossible! This cannot be! Broderick, inspect the blindfold. He could not have bested a lycan at scent without removing it from his eyes. Where the hell is Lord Raff?”
Broderick’s thick fingers examined the fastener and then went stock still. Yeah, the dude totally knew that someone else’s grease had been under the hood of his handiwork. The question was, how would he play it? “All is secure, Your Majesty. Bronze has successfully retrieved what has been hidden in the forest under the rules of the match.”
Bronze whipped off the blindfold and appreciated the guard’s subtle nod of approval.
Yeah, he’s a good egg. I hope Clara keeps him around.
“Oh, and to answer your question,” Bronze said, “Lord Barf is dead. He kind of met with the pointy end of a tree branch. You might want to go get him before the animals do. That’s a whole lot of grade-A muscle meat to go around.”
Pascal stepped in front of the king, a note of restrained exuberance tugging at his features, as if he was finally allowed to say the words of his heart. “I hereby proclaim Bronze the demigod as the official winner of the Betrothal Games! I will, henceforth, update the records and document his place in the official line of succession.”
God bless that little lycan. There weren’t enough ill-mannered jokes in the world to get King Halpin as swollen in the chest as Pascal’s proclamation had just done. Maybe there were a few yo’ mama’s so thigh-slappers Bronze could have resurrected, but none of them would have gotten the color of the king’s beet-red fury just right. Ah, well. He couldn’t win them all.
But he could make it very fucking clear what he and Clara thought of his ability to rule and how badly his daughter wanted him out of the picture.
