Queen Sized Page 4

  I place the strawberry rhubarb pie on the table in front of me, giving the panel of male judges my most winning smile, when what I’d really like to do is smash their faces right into it. That my ability to be a good wife should come down to the taste of my pie is galling, to say the least. This pie, baked at home two nights ago and brought to the Joining, has nothing to do with my personality. It does not speak to my determination or strength.

  Still, though.

  It’s a damn fine pie.

  I know, because I ate two just like it while perfecting my recipe.

  The eligible men watch in the audience trying to decide which oh-so-lucky lady to wed and I hate myself for comparing them all to Corbet. Sure, many of these men are warriors. Fit and healthy and well able to help provide for my sisters. But they do not shake the earth with their steps. They are not big and commanding and impossible to ignore.

  They don’t look at me the way he does, either.

  As if the stars have been hung from my eyelashes.

  None of them fill my stomach full of butterflies or arouse me in any way.

  But one of them will take me as their wife nonetheless. And I will accept them as my husband. Because it’s the only option I have at my disposal. The only good one, anyway.

  Stop thinking about the king.

  “The judges will now taste the pies!” calls the man who has organized this contest.

  At least a hundred woman are taking part in the wife auction, but the judges are tasting a dozen pies at a time, meaning I’m competing against the eleven women in my bracket. They shift nervously, eyeballing one another’s pies.

  There is one woman, immediately to my left, who seems more nervous than the others and it’s easy to guess why. She is a pretty woman, fair-haired, though she is much older than the other competitors. Her dress is frayed at the bottom. There are three children standing in the audience—twin girls, one of them holding a toddler on her hip. They watch the fair woman in such an anxious way, they obviously belong to her. They are skinny and barefoot and I know at once, some terrible misfortune has befallen this family.

  Her hand is shaking as she cuts a slice of her pie.

  I wince at the sparse contents revealed by the opening of the crust. The color of the fruit suggests it was old when she baked the pie and still, still it must have cost everything she had.

  In short, this woman needs a support even more than I do.

  It’s why she’s in this competition, but there is no way she’ll succeed.

  Not when she’s up against pies with the best ingredients, heaped with cream.

  I’m distracted from my troubled thoughts when a huge shadow is cast over the table. Before I even glance up, I know who is responsible, but the stirring and shuffling of the audience confirms that King Corbet has arrived to watch the proceedings.

  I only last eight breaths before I glance up and find him watching me from the dead center of the crowd. Unlike last night, he wears his crown, his eyes storming with intensity and appreciation beneath the golden band. And jealousy. There is quite a bit of that, too. He only removes his attention from me for a matter of moments and he uses the time to rake every man in attendance with a death glare, before settling back into his rapt perusal of me.

  Resolutely, I look away, focusing on the competition.

  The judges have already tasted the first six pies and will reach me very soon.

  There is a terrible gnawing in my stomach, though. My attention continually strays to those children hovering on the outskirts of the observers. My own sisters aren’t too far away, their cheeks covered in chocolate from the desserts I bought them before the contest, so they would be occupied. At least I can afford to occasionally buy sweets for my family. The fair-haired woman might not even be able to feed hers at all. If she gets low marks during this contest, she doesn’t have a hope in hell of attracting a suitor. Whereas I can make up for a bad showing in the water carrying round…

  With a quick sleight of hand, I switch my pie with hers.

  She gapes at me and I put a finger to my lips, trying not to cry when her features transform with gratitude. Honestly, I am not a crier, but the Joining seems to be turning me into a soppy mess. It’s horrible. I’m supposed to be the tough one.

  “Thank you,” she whispers, just as the judges reach us.

  “Dear God,” the first one says, recoiling from the pie.

  They all have varying degrees of the same reaction, one of them even refusing to try a bite, but I accept their criticism with my chin raised and wait for them to move on. My pie, which now belongs to the fair-haired woman, receives top marks and I exhale with relief, warmth flooding my chest at the overjoyed smiles from her children. After that, it’s time to move on to the next round—water carrying—and I’m collecting my things when my spine tingles and I know Corbet is standing behind me.

  “I saw what you did, woman.”

  With a flip of my hair, I turn to face him and am momentarily tongue-tied by the affection on his battle-scarred face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Ah, you do, though. You might have a tongue as sharp as my sword, but you’ve a soft heart, Gwen. She never would have succeeded without you. Such a sacrifice should be celebrated, but you ask for nothing in return.” I try to ignore the stirring in my chest brought on by his praise, but it’s impossible when his voice is so low and passionate. “You’ve acted nobly. And I’ll have you know it.” He moves closer, which panics me, because my body apparently wants him closer more than anything. Delight races up my skin, leaving goose bumps behind. “I won’t pretend I’m not relieved. Now that you’ve sabotaged your chances in the auction, I don’t have to worry about another man thinking he can have you.”

  “Sabotaged myself?” I raise an eyebrow. “There’s another event, Your Majesty.”

  Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crows. We are alone now, the crowd having roamed toward the hillside where the next event will take place.

  A vein ticks in his cheek as he regards me, a storm gathering in his blue-gray eyes. “Surely there’s no point in continuing after your pie was the worst of the bunch.”

  “There are men who value hard work over a woman’s skill in the kitchen.”

  His nostrils flare. “Gwen, I forbid you to carry buckets of water for these cockheads who need to buy a wife instead of wooing one properly—”

  “Properly. You mean, like dragging them to the loch?”

  He growls at my interruption. “I had need of your mouth. Only your mouth. As I do now. There will be no water carrying. For one thing, they should be carrying water for you. And second…” He draws me up against his chest roughly, tipping my chin up with his opposite hand. “You belong to me. I can think of nothing else. You’re my woman, goddamn it to hell. I will bring you back to my castle and you will remain there with me for all time.”

  “In your dreams, perhaps,” I breathe, unable to keep my gaze from dipping to his lips.

  Corbet visibly reins himself in and says calmly, “I came here to have an important discussion with you, Gwen. There are things you do not know about my upbringing. Once I’ve explained, you will understand why I am against marriage.”

  I’m already shaking my head. “I cannot talk now. I’ll miss the event.”

  “I’ve told you. It’s not happening!”

  “I’ll only allow this discussion if you let me leave presently for the event—” I hold up a finger when he starts to interject. “And if you don’t interfere.”

  “Gwen,” he growls, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. “These men ogling you is driving me mad. I want my claim on you. Now.”

  There’s a good chance he might already be mad if he thinks a conversation about his past is going to miraculously make me want to be his mistress, but I keep that pretty little fact to myself. “There’s a chance we won’t have a harmonious outcome to our discussion. As such, I have need to keep my options open,” I say, reasonably.

  H
is upper lip curls. “How about I cancel the whole thing?”

  “Then the only way you’ll get me to sit down and talk is bound and gagged.”

  “That’s beginning to sound like a good plan.” He lets go of my chin in favor of dragging a hand down his face. “Christ. I thought being a king was going to be easy in comparison to battle.”

  “You hadn’t met me yet.” I pull out of his hold. “Good day, Your Majesty.”

  I make it two steps before he snags my wrist and spins me back around to face him. My lips open to give him hell and he presses that advantage, stamping his hot mouth down over mine. Yanking me up onto my toes like a child’s doll and pillaging my mouth with savage sweeps of his tongue. And heavens, I’ve never been more aware of the flesh between my thighs, but it’s impossible to ignore the desperate clench of my inner walls. How my folds moisten with an immediacy that makes me gasp into the next joining of our lips. Because yes, yes, I’m participating now—greedily—I can’t help it. Can’t help arching my body against the wall of muscle that is his chest. Offering my tongue with halting whimpers. And when he draws up the front of my skirt in his hand and takes rough hold of my sex, I should slap him across the face, but instead I bite his jawline and whine my approval.

  “You listen to me now, Gwen. I’ve tried to be patient, because there is something important at stake here.” He squeezes me tighter until I’m gasping in need, outrage, excitement. “But this sugary little cunt belongs to the fucking king and the king means to have it. If you want to prance off and pretend I’d let another man take what’s mine, then so be it. Just remember I don’t have the reputation for being ruthless for nothing.”

  “L-let go of me,” I whisper into his neck, contradicting my command by closing my thighs around his hand and rocking into his huge palm.

  “Forget this nonsense about carrying buckets and come to my tent, woman.” He tugs down my underthings and strokes my damp, naked flesh with his middle finger, running the pad in circles around my clit and making me moan. “If you thought my tongue got a rise out of you, just wait for this warrior’s cock between my legs. I’ll go at you raw and hungry and by the end of it, you’ll be begging to warm my bed.” He presses his finger inside me, pumping it once, twice, and I can’t manage to draw oxygen, the pressure is so perfect and right. “You’ll be begging to wait for me in my chamber, thighs soft and open, at the end of every day.”

  His words riddle me with lust, even while giving me immense pause.

  Think, Gwen.

  He wants me to warm his bed.

  But not his heart.

  Nothing else.

  Despite the connection I feel growing between us, I have to remember he isn’t offering me anything but his body. Not his love or even the respect of his name.

  I have to resist, incredibly hard though it may be.

  As much as it hurts to walk away.

  “I’ll speak with you later, Corbet,” I say in a rush, pushing his hand from between my legs and stepping back, my legs unsteady. “But know this. I will not lay with you.”

  His features harden. “Make no mistake, Gwen. Your virtue is mine.”

  “No. It belongs to me, first. And then my husband.” I turn on a heel and stride away before he can reach out for me again. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a water carrying competition to win.”

  6

  Corbet

  Cheers echo through the valley, bouncing off the mountain face.

  Spectators form a huge pack at the top of the steep hill, some of the more brazen among us gambling on who they think will win. The tenth or so time I hear Gwen’s name uttered by one of these fools, I grind my back teeth and vow to carry her off as soon as this infernal competition has come to an end.

  The water carrying competition has garnered the attention of the entire Joining.

  But it’s not only my presence at the event that has stirred interest.

  It’s the fact that both kings have come to watch.

  Thrones have been carried over for each of us, though sitting still is killing me.

  I regard the king of Lavere thoughtfully, wondering why he has chosen to attend, instead of languishing in his tent and drinking wine, as he’s wont to do. He leans to one side and speaks to his advisor, his eyes sharp on the women who wait at the bottom of a hill for the challenge to start. Is he interested in one of the women, too?

  He has only recently taken the throne, like me, and does not have a wife.

  But surely he is not thinking to purchase one from the auction.

  Tightness creeps into the back of my neck and I begin to rise from my seat, determined to solve the mystery, when two young girls begin a loud conversation just behind me.

  “Gwen is going to smash them all,” says one. “Just you watch.”

  A sniffle, followed by a sob. “But I don’t want her to marry one of this smelly lot, Viola. Why can’t it just stay the three of us?”

  “Because we had bad luck with the crops,” explains the first one, patiently. “Now we have to join someone’s coin with our own, so we don’t have to sell the farm.”

  “Can’t we just get jobs?” says the girl who is obviously younger.

  “I suggested that, but Gwen wants us in school, Sadie. So we don’t have to depend on anyone but ourselves when we’re older, she says.”

  A long sigh. “I love Gwen.”

  I clear my throat several times but can’t seem to rid myself of the lump.

  When I asked—or demanded, rather—that Gwen become my mistress, I didn’t really take her sisters into account. What of them? Would their judgment of Gwen change if she takes the position I’m offering her? What will they think of me?

  I force some steel into my spine and sit up straighter in the throne.

  These are not problems for a king.

  I have combative forces to contend with. Power-hungry enemies. Crops of my own. An army to build. Kingdom walls to reinforce. I have no time for these worries.

  Two dirty faces peer past the arm of my throne and I immediately see the girls’ resemblances to Gwen—the same stubbornly set chin and black hair—and something odd moves in my chest.

  Again, I clear my throat, but it remains crowded. “Can you see from there?” I ask the children. “Or would you care to stand in front of me for a better view.”

  The little one looks petrified, staring up at me, utterly frozen.

  The older one nudges her sister, though, getting her moving. “Yes, please. Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  “He’s feckin’ huge, isn’t he?” whispers the younger one. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Watch your mouth,” hisses the older sister, Viola, face turning red. “Where on earth did you hear those words?”

  “From the men over there.” The poor thing sounds woeful. “One of them is going to be living in our feckin’ house, so we should get used to it now.”

  The bigger sister smacks her hands over her face. “Language, Sadie!”

  I have the oddest urge to laugh.

  God, they are kind of charming, aren’t they?

  They settle cross-legged onto the ground in front of me and I find myself scowling at anyone who gets too close, lest they accidentally step on one of the tiny girls. A moment later, someone happens by peddling sweets and I signal for two, pointing at Gwen’s sisters. When the man hands over the chocolate pops, I experience a certain satisfaction watching their eyes grow round as saucers, faces breaking into smiles.

  When Gwen comes to live with me, they will come, too, of course.

  What young girls wouldn’t be thrilled to live in a castle?

  I nod with confidence I don’t necessarily feel and settle back into my throne.

  For some reason, I can’t seem to relax, though. Some unnamed dread is needling me in the back and all too soon, the competition is beginning. It’s almost more than I can fucking stand, watching this woman I seek to spoil beyond her wildest dreams with a board balanced across her shoulders, two buckets of water d
angling on either side of her. She takes an easy lead, speed walking calmly up the hill while others fall by the wayside. Her chin is up, eyes ahead. Graceful as hell. Almost like…

  Like a queen.

  There’s no denying it. She is regal. Even in the face of these men shouting and cheering, she does not lose her composure. Doesn’t even break sweat. She is easily going to win…

  But then I see her lose focus.

  Her step slows and she turns back, noticing the fair-haired woman is about to give up. She does not have the strength to get the buckets up the hill, her reed-thin frame shaking under the weight. I know what Gwen is going to do before she even does it.

  The crowd quiets as Gwen retraces her steps back down the hill.

  She exchanges a few words with the woman who she is meant to be competing against. Then she dips her knees and hooks one side of her apparatus beneath the woman’s, thus transferring the bulk of the weight to her own shoulders. And they continue on, the fair-haired woman gasping in relief at her newfound lightness.

  It takes me a moment to realize I’m standing.

  My muscles coil and shudder with the need to go help Gwen, because the added weight is obviously not easy for her. She stumbles a little and my heart almost throws itself out of my chest, but she rights herself and keeps going, twice as determined than before.

  God almighty. I’m in love with this woman.

  Not even on the battlefield have I encountered a human being with more heart or compassion or perseverance.

  Something in front of me catches my eye and I manage to drag my attention from Gwen momentarily, noticing that three other children have joined Gwen’s sisters at my feet in the grass. Two older ones holding a toddler, unkempt but smiling, fair-haired.

  Gwen’s youngest sister puts an arm around the slight shoulders of the toddler and all five of them kind of scoot together, like one big support unit, and honestly, I don’t know what is taking place in my chest, but it’s not…comfortable. All I know for certain is that the values Gwen has taught her sisters are on display. She’s led by example. It’s obvious.