Edge of Control: (Viking Dystopian Romance) (25 page)

Next to him, Eiryn let out one of her silvery little laughs—wicked, dark, and rare—that poured all over him like her hands against his skin and made his cock stand up in his trousers besides. “It’s creepy as fuck.”

The woman was going to be the death of him, and the worst part was, he didn’t think she was trying to mess with him at the moment. If anything, she seemed to have taken her role a little too much to heart these last few days. She’d been acting as if she really was soft and breakable and pointless like all the other women.

Riordan hated it.

Because he liked her ferocious. Blood on her hands and battle in her dark blue eyes. That made the times she was helpless beneath him, spread open to receive him, that much better.

God knew Riordan was tired of quiet, compliant sex. He liked what happened after, the falling off into oblivion with her spread over him and his cock still deep inside her, getting her sweet, sticky cream all over the both of them, but he wanted more. He wanted to get his hands on her without any barriers. He wanted her naked again, and for a much longer time. Completely naked, inside and out. He wanted uninterrupted private time to work out a few things with the ghost who’d been haunting him all these long years. He’d gotten a glimpse of what was going on beneath her surface four days ago and now he was . . . whatever
desperate
was when a man was a goddamned raider, not a cringing little bitch.

But the Cathedral rose up before them, their job on the mainland was only beginning, and there was no privacy in sight, whether he liked it or not.

He tried to pull his shit together, like he was the clan’s best tracker sent out on a critical mission instead of some weepy-ass pansy with nothing but complicated pussy on his brain. Now that he and Eiryn had made it here, he had to put that same old crap between them aside. He needed to focus on how the hell he was going to get inside the Cathedral and even better, get a little face time with the Bishop.

Novices do an extra
-
long penance for the September equinox,
Maud had told them back in the Catskills, during their long afternoon’s discussion on the beach.
Usually they’d cane us, so we could turn our thoughts to god as we contemplated our virginity, that glorious gift we would bestow upon the church when it was time. But every other year or so, if the watch
nun was feeling benevolent, we got to contemplate these things on the roof of the convent. That meant we could see how those not as blessed as we were readied themselves for winter.

Nothing you say ever makes me think you were at all blessed,
Helena had replied.

That’s blasphemous, obviously.
Maud had tugged on the ring in her collar as she’d sat there, cross legged and smiling, as if she didn’t even realize she was doing it.
People come from all over the mainland to pick someone for the winter and have their winter marriage blessed at the Cathedral. Everyone agrees that a blessed winter
marriage leads to increased fertility, which is of course the only goal.
She’d waved a hand.
Everyone knows someone who knows someone else who got pregnant with twins two winters running.

Eiryn had sighed.
That sounds like the usual crock of shit
.

Also blasphemous,
Maud had replied merrily.
The equinox celebration lasts a few days. Ample time for pairing up with the perfect winter husband or avoiding the one you don’t want, I’d imagine. Not that I ever did either.

It can be fun,
Lyla had interjected, with a husky little laugh.

Helena had made a rueful sort of face.
Or not.

Maud had folded her hands in her lap.
There are always different tiers of celebrations. Anyone can show up and enjoy whatever’s happening in the streets, but if you want to get close to the Cathedral, much less inside, you need to either be invited or be a high
-
ranked person from one of the western kingdoms.

Which western kingdom?
Riordan had asked.

Maud’s smile had been dreamy.
All of them. They traffic in their daughters, and the Cathedral ceremonies are the place to do it.

Oh good,
Eiryn had murmured, her attention on the last of her braids, which she’d been combing out herself.
That will make it so much more fun to kill them.

Royalty is different,
the former nun had continued in her serene way
. The western kings can have as many wives as they like, and they like quite a few, as wives who fail to produce children either take very ill and die or mysteriously run away from their responsibilities, never to be heard from again.

Are you saying they kill their own wives?
Eiryn had looked around as if she expected the other women to react to that, but they’d only shrugged.

No one can prove that,
Lyla said after a moment.
But no one can prove they don’t, either.

They treat the September equinox celebrations as their own wife markets,
Maud had carried on,
and they handpick the girls they want in that role. But they also trade their daughters among themselves. The princesses of the western kingdoms are bargaining tools.

You think of princesses as being so grand,
Helena had said softly.
Wrapped up in furs and riding around in ornate carriages on a snowy February day, haughty and rich and warm. But no. Not so much.

There’s an art to it,
Maud had said, as if in agreement
. A princess is expected to have a proper introduction to society, of course, with the most highly
ranked man she can find, to settle her worth. Her worth is very important.

By
introduction to society
she means princesses sell their virginity to the highest bidder,
Helena had clarified.
They don’t look at it that way, of course. The buyer is usually another royal, in very fancy, invitation-only ceremonies. There is the proof of virginity part, the losing the virginity part, and then the feast. Very sophisticated stuff, I’m told.

Each princess is expected to have a certain number of winter marriages to shore up alliances, but not too many or her worth is diminished. And they’re all expected to make brilliant, permanent marriages to another royal or aristocrat when their winter marriage days are over.
Maud had shrugged, wrinkling up her nose in the sunshine.
It’s all very political.

Riordan had let out a sigh. It had as much to do with his newly shorn head and the reappearance of the Eiryn he’d last seen spread out beneath him on his bed in the Lodge, taking his cock in those last moments before she’d cut him.

And I care about the political aspirations of western mainland princesses why?

Maud had met his gaze, her blue eyes dreamy and strange, as ever.

Because there will be a lot of them at the equinox celebration, and they can wander almost anywhere they like on the Cathedral grounds. They’re your best way in.

Riordan moved to the side of the flow of traffic as they hit the crowded streets around what had to be Cathedral Square. He waited for Eiryn to twist around two squealing teenaged girls, then come over to join him at the mouth of a clean alleyway that snaked between two tall, also very clean and neatly maintained buildings. No illicit sex deals
here.

It was beyond creepy.

“Do you have a strategy in mind?” she asked, coming to stand next to him in that way she did on the mainland, with her hand resting against his side so he could feel it like a brand and her body much too close to his. It had amused him in Louisville. Here in the shadow of the Great Lake Cathedral it made him predictably hard and something far more dark and muddied and complicated at the same time.

“I’m thinking we find a princess and her trusty guard, as suggested.” He scanned the street in front of them, but no one stood out as dripping with wealth and privilege, or not in the way Maud and Helena had described it, anyway. Despite how clean and
satisfied
they all looked. “Knock them out, tie them up, and then pretend to be them. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“Delightful.” She said it with the suggestion of her old edge, but no real bite. He didn’t like that either. “Or maybe we can sidestep the princess thing altogether. Maybe in this round of make believe I can shave my head.”

Riordan studied the sun in the sky. He thought of her hands stained with his blood and that searing pain in his back. How it hadn’t diminished his hunger for her at all. Quite the opposite.

He’d spent a decade forgetting that scar was there. Now it was all he could think about.

“Only if you you’re jonesing to become a nun.”

“Why not? It’s basically the high-octane version of compliance. Might as well go in all the way if I’m going to go in.”

“Eiryn.” He waited until she tilted her head up to look at him, and he was sure he could feel his scar light up as if her blade was still stuck inside him. “Please. You’re only compliant on the surface or from a distance. There’s not a single thing about you that works here.”

He’d meant that as a compliment. An acknowledgment of what they’d been through and who she was, all at once.

So he had no idea why she looked at him as if that troubled her. As if he’d hurt her again. But she blinked and it was gone, leaving Riordan to wonder if he’d imagined that expression on her face. If he was letting his unease at this fake, plastic-coated bullshit city work its way a little too deep inside him.

“We need to find a place to stow our stuff.” Eiryn’s voice was gruff. As if she was concealing heavy emotion—but he had to stop this. If she didn’t want to get into anything on a crowded, public street, why was he pushing it? Why couldn’t he stop pushing? Why did he want to push anything in the first place? He was still who he was. “I somehow doubt we’re going to find any princesses wandering around with the rest of the unwashed masses.”

They started walking again, skirting their way along the outer ring road that surrounded the square, doing a little recon as much as looking for the temporary housing Maud had mentioned the church provided for equinox celebration attendees. Even that was far more regimented and clean than Riordan would have expected. It was nothing like a raider encampment, sprawled out wherever the fuck they felt like it. Here there were tents set up in neat lines in every park they passed, with careful Campground at Capacity signs at every entrance.

They ducked around a thick scrum of men who looked rough enough to be miners, all chanting something together. Eiryn melted against him as they moved around the loud, heaving group of them—but Riordan saw the gleam of violence in her gaze as she did it. It was a relief. He was getting the impression that the more she wanted to kick a few asses, the more she forced herself to act even more compliant and helpless than before. He couldn’t say he blamed her, really. It went against every instinct he had not to knock a few heads together, just for fun.

They were clinging to each other like the very people they’d always hated and nearly tripped onto the wide front steps of the building nearest them when one of the miners spun out a little too wildly, mid-chant. Riordan felt Eiryn tense, but he reached out and broke their fall with his hand against a metal railing.

“You two look bonded,” a sweet voice said from above them.

Riordan pulled Eiryn upright and kept his arm around her because, what the hell, he could do that here. And he didn’t feel like interrogating himself about it. Eiryn cuddled up with his side again, which he couldn’t deny he liked. He more than liked it. He just wished it didn’t come with a personality transplant.

An older woman sat on the top step, her white hair in a bun on the top of her head and both of her pale gold chins jiggling as she smiled. “Let me guess,” she said, her dark eyes sparkling as if she was secretly delighted about something. Riordan didn’t think he wanted to know what that
something
was. “You’ve had a winter or two, but no babies, so you’ve made a trip here to receive a blessing.”

They both stared at the woman.

Riordan couldn’t imagine the expression on his face, and tried his best to lock down any thoughts of Eiryn with his baby. He didn’t particularly like the fact he didn’t instantly hate that notion. What the hell was
that
? He was never going out that way. He was never passing on his bullshit, much less mating with anybody. That shit had been set in stone when he was ten years old.

Beside him, Eiryn smiled—and then leaned in even closer, so she was pressed up against him so tight there was no air between their bodies and he could feel the press of her tits against his ribs. He hooked his arm around her neck and didn’t exactly hate that either.

“How could you possibly know that at a glance?”

Eiryn’s voice was so husky with suggested emotion and quietly delighted besides that if Riordan didn’t know better, he’d have easily believed the old woman really had read the two of them correctly.

“We have a few rooms left for believers,” the old woman said. “I like to keep one or two open for good, church-fearing folks who are here for the right reasons.” She wrinkled up her nose as she looked past them into the street. “People these days have forgotten what the equinox is all about. It’s all a big party.”

“It can get a bit selfish sometimes,” Eiryn murmured, sounding delicate and vaguely put off at once. It was masterful. “It makes me wonder where it will all end.”

“Nowhere good,” the old woman agreed, running her tongue around her teeth so her lips seemed to bubble. “That’s my fear. Things don’t happen in a vacuum, you know. We might as well roam outside the city walls in the dark of winter and pray the raiders get us before the wolves do!”

How neither he nor Eiryn reacted to that, Riordan would never know.

The old woman stood with some difficulty, then slowly led them into her building. She nodded to the men standing there, who Riordan supposed were guards in this alternate fantasy world where such soft-handed, sleepy-looking men could possibly ward off a goddamned thing that came at them.