Page 138 of Ravenous
His heart gave a hard, defensive thud.
“I give you leave to annul it,” she said. “Your patience with Emilia has been noted. Berserker females will welcome your suit. You could father a cub of your own to grow up alongside Torben and Dagny’s.”
He had noticed the lingering looks. The veiled invitations.
The thought of filling his long table with laughter and the small, fierce energy of children struck him like an old wound reopening. For a heartbeat, he allowed himself to imagine it—the warmth, the belonging—and then confusion swept in. The ache in his chest deepened until he could hardly draw breath.
“Even your nymph friend would suit you better,” Yrsa said lightly. “When I made my decree, I didn’t consider the insult to you, but a vampire wifeisan insult.”
He’d thought the same.
“Your queen apologizes and thanks you for your continued loyalty. We can announce this tonight.”
Send Emilia back to Co?tin? Prey gifted to the predator?
Sensing his hesitation, she said, “You don’t believe Emilia wishes to remain wed to you, do you?”
No. He was not the vampire scholar of her dreams. But he believed she now understood the benefits of staying with him. “There are other considerations. Her brother is as evil as you can imagine. He believes she is his Bride, has abused her for years. I won’t send her back to that.”
“She told you this?”
“She confided it, yes. I only share it with you so that you fully understand the situation.”
In a low tone, Yrsa said, “Maybe sheishis Bride. Maybe they do things differently there. Are we to judge them for matters of the heart?”
Yes. Yes, we are.Arctos struggled to find his mental footing with her.
“If she is indeed Prince Co?tin’s mate, then she has shirked her fated and royal duty,” Yrsa continued. “Which no Berserker would do. Yet more evidence she doesn’t belong here.”
Was he hearing Yrsa correctly? On the tip of his tongue:Are you jesting?
“In any case, I know you wish to continue the life you led before Emilia, so I am freeing you from her.”
He’d wanted this so much!
Yet things were different now, weren’t they? Emilia wasn’t what he himselfhad dreamed of, but hadn’t she earned his loyalty? Above all the sounds in the raucous banquet, he heard her sweet laughter, could imagine her eyes shimmering in the candlelight.
“Well, shall we announce this and set the maidens free to woo you?”
He gazed at his queen’s upturned chin. She expected one answer, and more, he sensed she would be puzzled—and angry—not to receive it.
Was she a threat to Emilia?
Gods, he could hardly believe he was thinking in these terms, taking the side of a vampire he’d known for mere weeks over the queen who’d avenged the murders of his and Torben’s families.
Yrsa was the protector who’d helped him overcome his fear of the monsters that haunted the dark.
“Your offer is generous,” he said carefully. “But you know me. I am painstaking in all decisions. I need time.” She’d given him no choice before and had made a hasty mistake; now she would be forced to allow him leeway. He’d trapped her, and they both knew it.
She flashed him a cagey look. Then another forced smile emerged. “Painstaking. Judicious. Which is why you are my finest shield—the ideal foil to a queen’s follow-her-heart impulsiveness.” She tilted her head. “But I believe relinquishing Emilia to her people is the right course. Do you still trust your queen, Arctos of the Wintry Eye?”
The chamber seemed to tilt. The currents between them churned like the Ravinelun River in flood.
Lie and she would know. Speak truth and he might lose everything.
The ruler he’d served—the Yrsa of old—seemed a far distant creature. “My queen would never give me cause to doubt her. And she would want me to make a decision that would benefit my future. Perhaps your earlier decree wasn’t flawed.”
Thinned lips. “Very well, my gods-son,” she said calmly, even as her eyes flashed silvery with stirring Berserkerage.
