Vows & Ruins (The Legends of Thezmarr, #2)

by Helen Scheuerer

There was nothing in the midrealms as perfect as this, nothing so full of bliss.

Thea swung her legs off him. ‘Actually, there’s not enough time for all the things I want to do to you… Nor for all the things I want you to do to me.’ The brazen woman smirked. ‘So you’ll have to wait.’

Thea glanced at the Warsword beside her, who looked infinitely moodier than usual, and couldn’t help but smile. He answered with a scowl that only made her grin harder.

But Kipp had already swept her up in an eager embrace. ‘I knew I liked you for a reason —’ He dropped her at once and raised his hands in surrender beneath Wilder’s towering frame. ‘As a friend only, I assure you, Warsword.’

‘Thank the gods,’ Kipp said, reaching for one. But Wilder slipped into the booth opposite him and pulled the whole tray to his chest. ‘Who said they were for you?’ Thea bit back a laugh as Kipp’s jaw nearly hit the table. Wilder didn’t break eye contact as he downed an entire tankard and placed the empty vessel before her friend. ‘Are we going to bicker all afternoon, or is someone going to tell us why the fuck you’re all here ruining my day?’

Wren watched her warily. ‘I don’t know how you stand it,’ she muttered, looking completely miserable. ‘Stand what?’ Thea asked, frowning. ‘Living and travelling with a bunch of rowdy men.’ Torj stopped mid-sentence. ‘You don’t like men, Elwren?’ To Thea’s surprise, her sister sized him up. ‘None that I’ve met, Warsword.’

‘Wren, what say you and I give it a go, then? We’ve had something special since the moment we met. Don’t you think?’ Thea nearly choked on her ale, but Wren simply raised a brow. ‘I’m nobody’s second choice, Kristopher.’

But Torj simply raised a brow. ‘If there’s one thing that transcends time and distance and all else, it’s love.’

For as long as she’d have him, Althea Zoltaire was his. And he no longer cared who knew it. Maybe she should know it too.

It was Kipp who at last broke the shocked silence with a splutter directed at Wren. ‘Gods, I never would have spoken to you like that if I’d known you were a fucking – I mean, if I’d know you were a princess.’ Wren fixed him with a stern look. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t speak to any woman like that, you prat.’ ‘Good gods, a princess just called me a prat,’ he breathed. ‘I’ll call you a lot worse if you don’t cut it out.’ ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Kipp gushed, somehow managing to give a messy bow while still cross-legged on the floor.

Wilder looked to Cal, who still hadn’t said a word. The poor Guardian seemed to be struggling to process it all. Wilder hardly blamed him. When he’d found out, he’d fucked off for three weeks to hunt monsters.

Cal, on the other hand, looked panicked. ‘Gods… I mean, you’ve seen my cock —’ ‘And now you’re saying “cock” to a princess,’ Kipp chastised. Wilder let his gaze slide to Torj’s apprentice, a hint of threat lacing his words. ‘And why has she seen your cock, Callahan?’ Cal went bright red. ‘Not like that, I swear. I – I just…’ he stammered. ‘When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go.’ Wilder knew he was being cruel, but watching the poor bastard squirm was certainly entertaining. Kipp was shaking his head. ‘And now you’re talking about pissing in front of a princess. Two princesses. And to think, she’s seen you waving that dick around —’ ‘Kipp! I don’t wave my anything – for fuck’s – for goodness’ sake,’ he corrected himself, blushing a deeper crimson. ‘You can’t talk to her like that.’ Kipp folded his arms over his chest and turned to Thea. ‘Your Highness, can I talk to you like that?’ ‘Absolutely.’ He whirled back to Cal. ‘See? It’s practically a royal order to be ourselves.’

‘You didn’t think I’d let the lost heir of Delmira sleep with the riff-raff in this shithole, did you?’ Wren cleared her throat from the floor. ‘Uh… what about the other lost heir?’ Torj scoffed. ‘So now you’re a princess?’

She felt him not only inside her body, but inside her soul, inside the very fibre of her being, coursing through her like an unbroken tempest.

Power met power and bound together, two threads entwining, forging something new, something stronger.

Gods, he was beautiful, and gods, she was happy.

‘You won’t lose me, not until fate itself comes to claim me.’

With the strange blanket over her senses, and the impending doom, Thea felt that familiar instinct to turn inward, to shy away from those around her and revert to the quiet within, its silence louder than ever without the thrum of magic in her veins. But Wilder was there, Wren was there, her friends were there with her, and they wouldn’t allow her to do such a thing. As though sensing her unease, Wilder put an arm around her shoulders and tugged her to his side. Just the sheer presence of him was enough to settle the urge to run.

Noting the Warsword’s movement, Kipp exchanged a glance with Cal. ‘That’s still taking some getting used to.’ Torj snorted. ‘I thought walking in on them mid-fuck might have shocked it out of you already.’

A stupid gift, created by a stupid girl, for a Warsword who’d rather stay surly and silent than share his burdens with her.

‘I know what’s waiting for us, better than most. There are things from the past, from my time in Naarva, that make me question what I’ve seen, that make me wonder if I’ve got it all wrong, or if I’ve just scratched the surface of the truth…’

‘You fucked it up with her already, then?’ he asked, his gaze trained on Thea. ‘Something like that,’ Wilder muttered. ‘Didn’t take long.’ ‘No shit.’ Torj scoffed. ‘You gonna fix it?’ ‘If it were that easy, I would have done it already.’ A mild punch hit his bicep. ‘If it were that easy, it wouldn’t be worth it, brother.’ ‘Oh? Since when did you become an expert?’ But Torj wasn’t listening anymore. His attention was elsewhere. On the alchemist tending to the fire. Wilder shook his head. ‘Furies save us all.’

Wilder breathed in her presence like it was a drug he’d been craving. Every fibre of his being wanted to haul her on top of him, to fuck her senseless until they both forgot all that stood between them – not just the secrets he kept, but the fate stone resting between her breasts and the world on fire around them. But he didn’t move. There was a time for secret campsite debauchery, but this wasn’t it.

After a time, Thea nestled into him, tugging her blanket up over them both. ‘This is where I belong,’ she murmured. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Wilder’s arms tightened around her, and throughout the night, he didn’t once let go.

He’d held her all through the night, as though she were something precious he couldn’t let go.

‘I can hear you thinking from here,’ he said gruffly. ‘I wouldn’t have to think so much if you’d just tell me the truth of things,’ she said. ‘I doubt that,’

Thea’s eyes narrowed as she took in the warrior, fierce and unflinching in his saddle. Gods, she had never intended for him to mean so much to her, but he did. Wilder understood something deep within her, and somewhere along the way, he had become a part of her.

looked from the greying sky to her sister. ‘This you?’ ‘Yes,’ Wren said between clenched teeth. ‘Well, would you mind? I’d rather not arrive in Tver looking like a drowned rat.’ ‘I was trying to open it up just on the Bear Slayer.’

‘Because I fucking love you,’ he said.

Time slowed, stilled entirely. Because I fucking love you.

‘I’m terrified.’ Thea’s voice was raw when she asked: ‘Is that what it means to love me? To be terrified?’ ‘I think that is what it means to love at all,’ he said, brushing his lips over hers, the whisper of a kiss. ‘But it’s more than that, Thea. To love you… is to be free.’

She broke away, swiping at the tears that stung her eyes. ‘I wish we had met when we were younger, so we could have had more time together.’ Wilder smiled as he ran his thumb along the line of her jaw and seemed to stare into her soul. ‘When I was younger I didn’t know what it was to look at a woman and want to fall to my knees,’ he told her. ‘When I was younger I didn’t know a woman could make me feel powerful and powerless in the same breath. When I was younger, I didn’t know a woman could bring me back from the darkness.’ Thea exhaled shakily. ‘A woman can do all of that?’ ‘Not any woman. There is only one. There has only ever been one.’

‘What about Tver? What about the —’ ‘Fuck everything else. Nothing else exists but us in this moment, Thea,’ he said. ‘And I mean to have you now, here in this spring. For as long as I can.’

‘I need you,’ she told him breathlessly. ‘You have me,’ he said, his voice raw. ‘You’ve always had me.’ She reached for him, lining up the crown of his cock to her entrance. ‘You’re mine?’ she asked. He tensed as she sank down onto him, his eyes glazed not just with desire, but with deep, unending love. ‘Beyond reason.’ ‘Then I’m yours.’ She lifted herself, only to sink down on him once more, harder this time, allowing him more of her. ‘I asked for nothing in return.’ He tried and failed to stifle a moan as she moved against him again. ‘No, you didn’t,’ Thea allowed. ‘But you have me all the same…’ His throat bobbed, and he stilled them. ‘What are you saying, Thea?’ Emotion threatened to overwhelm her, to drown out the words she had wanted to say for weeks, the words she had wanted to echo back to him the second he’d said them to her. ‘I’m saying I love you, too,’

‘Furies save me,’ Wilder muttered in a guttural voice, watching. ‘I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight.’

Wilder’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of Thea. She was his. And he was hers. All the threads between them had been pulled taut, and there was no undoing what had been done, what had been said. They had claimed one another.

Torj got to his feet with a groan. ‘We’ve got a castle to get to, if you’re done fucking each other’s brains out…’ Wilder’s blood roared at the mere thought of what he’d done to Thea in the hot spring. ‘For now,’ he told his friend. The Bear Slayer shook his head. ‘Fucking insufferable.’

‘If you finally found the horses, then we’re finally leaving,’ Torj said. ‘You try finding six horses that have fled the scene of a wraith massacre,’ Kipp muttered.

The king looked between the two of them curiously, before nodding to Thea. ‘If anyone tries to poison me, you throw as many damn knives as you want.’

Night had fallen by the time Thea joined him in his quarters, and the smile she offered when she met his gaze from across the room had his knees buckling. Never in all of his life had he imagined someone would look at him the way she looked at him now. He’d do it all again, every wretched second of his existence, to wind up right here, with her.

‘Fuck me till the sun rises, Wilder. Until I can’t remember the war at our doorstep, the magic coursing through me, or even my own damn name.’ His blood ran hotter at her words. ‘I can do that, Princess.’

‘It would seem now, more than ever, the line between man and monster has blurred.’

‘When this skirmish is done, I’ll see to it that you don’t step foot back in Thezmarr,’ he growled. ‘Your days there are over.’ Seb’s legs kicked out in the air, his hand clawing at Wilder’s grip.

‘Then I pity whoever stands against you, man or monster.’

‘Gods, I love you,’ he murmured desperately into the damp crook of her neck, strumming her mercilessly. ‘This thing between us is endless. Nothing will stop me loving you.’

‘So I ask you: what is the measure of a Guardian? A warrior of the midrealms? I say it is to taste death and stand tall in the face of it. To defend those who cannot defend themselves. The measure of a true warrior is that they fight when others will not. And that they fight until the end.’

her light armour already smeared with black and red blood. It looked good on her.

He found himself shoulder to shoulder with Audra, who shot him a challenging glare. ‘Tell me to go back to my books, Hawthorne, I dare you.’ In spite of himself, Wilder laughed, a madman’s laugh. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he replied, cutting down an opponent. ‘Glad to have you. Sometimes I forget the warrior you were.’ Audra slayed one man, then another, blood spraying. ‘There’s no forgetting who we truly are, Warsword.’

She was exceptional; more than exceptional. His apprentice, his Guardian, his love, didn’t hesitate, didn’t hold back as she slayed enemy after enemy, moving like a dancer of death through the chaos, becoming chaos herself as she whirled her sword and dagger. She met his gaze across the fray, a manic grin splitting her blood-smeared face. He’d been right when he’d said to her long ago: ‘You’re beautiful as you are. And I’d wager even more so with steel in your hand and the blood of your enemies splattered across your face…’

Darkness exploded. Wilder didn’t pray to the Furies, didn’t plead with the unknown forces of the realms for Thea’s safety, as the shadows dispersed and revealed the warrior within. He simply held his breath and watched as his apprentice danced on the precipice of legend.