Fantasyland 02 The Golden Dynasty (29 page)

Oh man.

He called to someone and I looked away.

Diandra missed this, I could tell, when she
urged gently, “Take heed, my beautiful friend, to what I say.”

I nodded, turned to her to see she was sober
too, very sober and very serious.

And then I said, “I do not agree with the
way these people, now
my
people, live their lives but I promise you, Diandra, I vow
that I would do nothing that would bring harm to them.” I smiled at
her. Then I whispered, “They
are
my
people, you know.”

She returned my smile then she whispered
back, “Use caution, be watchful and stay safe, my queen.”

I nodded then I heard galloping hooves and
looked forward in time to see the warrior from earlier
returning.

“
What now?” I muttered as he passed me,
circled, came back and again, this time with a small cry (coming
from
me
), he plucked
me off Zephyr, grabbed her reins, she gave a
really
irritated whinny and he pierced Diandra
with a look and barked, “Vayoo!”

Then off we were again at a gallop but we
were heading straight to the front of the line.

Straight to Lahn.

Oh shit.

The warrior slowed us to a walk, got close
to Lahn and then
he
plucked me
off the warrior’s horse and planted me in front of him. And before
I settled, his arm got tight around me, my ass slid into his groin
and he looked to the side and said something.

I looked where he was looking and saw
Diandra next to us, the warrior gone, Zephyr riderless going with
him.

Yep. Oh shit it was.

“He wishes for me to translate for you both,
Dahksahna Circe,” Diandra told me.

Great. Just great.

Oh well, again, I had no choice.

“Okay, Diandra,” I said softly and aimed my
eyes forward.

Lahn spoke and thus commenced our
conversation with Diandra interpreting.

“You ride with me until we make camp,” Lahn
ordered.

There it was. We were making camp.

Damn.

“Okey dokey,” I replied flippantly (Diandra
didn’t translate that and it got me a squeeze from Lahn’s arm when
I said it probably because I said it flippantly).

Lahn spoke. “While we ride, I wish to learn
about your mother.”

All flippant disappeared, my back went
straight and my eyes went to Diandra. She tipped her head to the
side in an “I’m sorry” gesture and I turned to face forward
again.

Lahn’s arm gave me another squeeze and he
growled, “Circe.”

I gave in because I didn’t have any other
choice.

“Okay, what do you want to know?” I
asked.

“She was killed,” he stated but I shook my
head.

“No, she wasn’t killed. You can be killed in
an accident. She wasn’t in an accident. She was murdered.”

“By whom?”

“A robber, a thief. She walked in on him
while he was in the middle of stealing; he turned his weapon on her
and murdered her.”

“Was this during war?” he asked.

“No war, no one else died that day, he was a
petty thief. It was just an average day, bad luck, Mom being in the
wrong place at the way wrong time and then she was gone.”

Lahn was silent for long moments. Then, “You
had feelings for her.”

“She was my mother,” I replied.

“You had feelings for her,” he repeated.

Yeah. Shit yeah. I had feelings for her.

I sucked in breath then said softly, “I
loved her more than anything on this earth, except my Pop. She was
a good Mom. No, a
great
one. She
died a pointless death at the hands of a stupid, reckless man and
I’ve lived with that knowledge my whole life… or the length of it I
led when I didn’t have her.”

Again he was silent for awhile. Then, “And
who took your father’s life?”

I closed my eyes.

“A dream,” I whispered.

“What?”

I pulled in breath and opened my eyes.

“He died in his sleep,” I lied a lie that
cut me to the quick. “I don’t know how.”

“He commanded men?”

I smiled a sad smile. “Yeah, he commanded
men.”

“Was he a king?”

My smile got sadder. “Yes, of a very small
kingdom.”

“So you were princess.”

I pressed my lips together to bite back the
tears. Then I nodded my head and whispered, “Yes, I was definitely
a princess.”

“And now you are queen.”

“Yes, now I am queen.”

“Your father would want that for you, is
this not true?” he asked and I blinked.

Boy, he orchestrated that well, clever
bastard.

“Kah Dax –” I started but stopped when his
arm squeezed the breath out of me.

I felt his lips at my ear where he growled,
“Lahn.”

“Lahn,” I wheezed and his arm loosened but I
said no more.

This got me a, “I asked you a question,
Circe.”

“
No,” I answered. “No, he would not care if
I was queen. He’d be happy I married a peasant, just as long as it
made
me
happy. He’d
even be happy that I was a slave, just as long as I spent my days
doing something that made me content.”

“No king would want that,” Lahn stated.

“They would if they loved their
daughters.”

“You are wrong,” he informed me.

“I most definitely am not,” I informed
him.

“You are, my tigress. A man would want his
daughter showered with riches. He would want an army to be at her
service to keep her safe from harm. He would want her to have the
adulation of a nation of people. He would want her to be the
consort of a leader of men. And if he could not find that for her,
he’d want her to be in the bed of a free man, a strong man, a brave
man, one who provides for her and one who has the respect of his
brothers. I am a man, we may have daughters and this is what I
would wish for them.”

I blinked at the landscape.

Oh my God, God,
God.

How could I…?

Oh my
God, God, God.

How could I forget about birth control?

Oh my God!

“Circe?” he called on another arm
squeeze.

“What?” I whispered.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah.” I was still whispering.

“You have no response?”

“No, uh… you’re right. Showered with riches,
army at her service, adulation, consort to a leader. That all
sounds good. Pop would dig all that.”

“Dig?” Diandra asked and I turned distracted
eyes to her.

“Like. He’d like that,” I explained, Diandra
nodded and translated.

I looked forward.

“She jokes,” Lahn muttered (but Diandra
still interpreted).

“
No,” I said softly and shook my head once.
“No, I’m not joking. But, the truth is, Pop wouldn’t like that.
What he would like is that a man would wish to give his daughter
that and that that man would want the same for
his
daughters.”

Diandra hadn’t finished translating when
Lahn’s hand came up making his arm slant at an angle across my
chest so his fingers could curve around my neck and he could pull
me so my full back was tight against his chest.

“We will make warriors,” he told me quietly,
his voice deeper than normal.

Oh God.

“Right,” I whispered.

“But we will make daughters too so I can
find them kings who wish to hand them kingdoms.”

Oh fucking God.

“Right,” I repeated on another whisper.

“You have rare beauty the like I have never
seen but you will be more beautiful heavy with my seed,” he stated
softly.

At his words, my breasts swelled and my head
got light both at the same time. The combination was an unusual
sensation and one that I did not like.

Oh man, if he didn’t shut up, I was going to
pass out.

“I really need to learn the Korwahk language
so Diandra doesn’t have to translate conversations like this,” I
grumbled, Lahn chuckled then his lips went to my ear.

There, he murmured in my language, “Yes, my
Circe, you do.”

I blinked.

Jeez, was he some kind of language savant
or what? He was picking up English
way
faster than I was picking up Korwahk and he only had me and
Diandra to listen to.

“You’re freaking me out,” I whispered.

“Sorry, my dear, I didn’t catch that,”
Diandra said and I didn’t even have to look at her to know she was
fighting back laughter. And losing.

“He’s freaking me out, um… shocking me,
surprising me but in a not so good way. He’s learning our language
very fast and it’s not natural.”

“It isn’t surprising that he would pick
things up quickly. He meets often with ambassadors, dignitaries and
foreigners from many lands. It is important for him to hear and
understand them therefore it is known widely our Dax speaks seven
languages fluently, my dear,” Diandra told me, I whipped around so
fast Lahn had to jerk his head back and I stared up at him.

“
You speak seven languages?” I breathed,
Diandra translated and he nodded so I leaned in and kept breathing,
“
Seven
?”

His eyes roamed my face and one side of his
lips twitched before he replied in English, “Yes, Circe,
seven.”

“Then why don’t you know English?” I
shouted. “I mean, Valearian or whatever!”

He waited for the translation and then
Diandra translated his response. “Because it is spoken in Hawkvale
and Lunwyn, which are peaceful nations that do not cross the Green
Sea to make war or find trouble. And it is spoken in Middleland,
which is ruled by a tyrant who I would not honor by learning his
language.”

Shit, that made sense. Still, it was
annoying.

“Well, unlucky for you that your wife speaks
the one language probably in this world that you don’t speak.”

“
No,” he replied, “there are many lands too
far away to wage war on Korwahk whose languages I do not know. None
of them speak Valearian, which brings me to the question of what
small kingdom
you
are
from.”

Uh-oh.

I turned forward, mostly to buy time.

“Circe,” he called then Diandra translated
the rest, “look at me.”

I bit my lip and turned back to him.

His eyebrows went up with his question,
“What kingdom are you from?”

“Um…” Shit. Well, here goes. “Seattle.”

His brows descended but only to knit over
narrowed eyes. “Seattle?”

“
Yes, it’s a
very
small kingdom,” I told him.

“Like Bellebryn?” he asked.

Hell, I didn’t even know what Bellebryn
was.

Well, I had a fifty-fifty chance of getting
it right.

“Yes.”

He nodded.

Shoo.

“Where is it?” he went on.

Shit.

“Uh… over the Green Sea?” I made another
guess.

“
Are you
asking
me where it is, my tigress, or
telling
me?” he asked.

God, why was he so cunning and clever and
kingly and never missed a trick? The jerk.

“
Telling you,” I answered. “But, uh… I
can’t really say
exactly
where it
is because I’m not very good at geography. I never was.”

At least that was true.

His eyes narrowed again. “Tigress Circe, you
were on a ship that was overcome and looted by pirates and when
they docked you were taken by Korwahk scouts as they were moving
you to shore. How could you travel from a faraway land and not know
where you’d travelled to get where you landed?”

Uh…
what?

“What?” I whispered.

“Do you not remember how you came into the
possession of a Korwahk scout?”

No, actually, I didn’t. And actually, I
never thought about it.

Shit.

“Circe,” Lahn warned, I focused on him and
thought fast.

“
Well, uh, when we were, you know…
travelling
and uh…
sailing
, um… most of the time I was sea sick and
the rest of the time I was reading a book so I didn’t pay a lot of
attention and the, uh… pirates weren’t very chatty.”

He stared down at me. Then he looked over my
head.

Then he muttered, “I have never heard of
this Seattle.”

“
It’s tiny,” I told him and his eyes came
back to me so I lifted a thumb and forefinger with about a half an
inch of space, squinted through it to look in his eyes and
emphasized, “Teeny tiny.” I dropped my hand. “It isn’t even like a
kingdom, as such, more like a…
city
.”

He stared at me. Then he again looked over
my head and murmured, “Bellebryn.”

Whatever.

I needed to move us on.

“My mother looked like me,” I told him in an
effort to change the subject, his eyes came back to me so I kept
going. “It’s weird, um… strange. My Pop was dark, uh… like you. He
even had olive skin. But she was fair, very fair. Usually dark is a
dominant trait but I didn’t get anything from Pop. I got my Mom’s
hair, her eyes, her skin –”

He cut me off to ask, “Her eyes?”

I nodded and then suddenly he dipped his
face closer to mine and his hand came to my jaw.

I braced at this quick movements and it was
a good thing I did when he spoke.

“If you’re given the opportunity to look
deep enough, you can see a person’s spirit in their eyes but
usually, they are guarded, kept safe. Not you, my tigress, the
night of your claiming, even in the moonlight, I could see your
spirit shining from your eyes. You hold your spirit close to the
surface for all to behold and it is the most beautiful thing I have
ever seen.”