Page 44 of Stolen Thorn Bride

Aureann’s death had been poisoning him for five years, and he’d welcomed it. Let the darkness and despair eat him from within and used it as an excuse to give up. Oh, never in any conscious way, but he’d long ago stopped hoping or even trying to hope for the future. There was nothing there for him, so why fight for it, or pretend it was even possible?

It was sobering to finally confront the reality of what he’d allowed himself to become.

But he could still choose. Did not have to let the pain of the past continue to fester in darkness. It was as if the wraiths had blighted all the way to his soul long before that final, near-fatal blow, and only now was he seeing how deep the shadows had grown. And only because the bright, unforeseen fire of his human bondmate had ripped away his pretenses, penetrated the night, and shown him the truth hidden in his own heart.

Kasia was young, and had never known the rigors of war. Had neither faced a wraith nor defended her home with a sword in her hand. But she was both fierce and wise, tested by the demands of a different kind of battle. Her strength was not the same as Aureann’s—but he would never again make the mistake of believing her weak.

She was not what he thought he wanted.

But she just might be everything he needed.

And he did not want to let another moment slip by before he told her.

* * *

Dechlanstrode from the stables into the bailey just as the portcullis came down behind an ashen-faced scout, who barely slid from his wolf’s back before the poor creature flung itself down in exhaustion.

“My lord!” The scout raced up and would have bowed, but Dechlan caught his arm.

“What’s happened?”

“A swarm, Lord Dechlan,” the scout reported, eyes wide with panic. “It’s not two miles out and moving this way like the wind is at its back.”

Hope shattered. Everything around him suddenly snapped into focus with unnatural clarity. A tear in the scout’s sleeve. The ragged edge of one of the stones underfoot. The shouts of his soldiers on hearing the news.

For the barest instant, the world raged around him as the implications of the moment sank in.

The wraiths were attacking his home. They’d finally brought the battle to the elves and made a decisive move to expand their territory.

He had few troops. Most of his best warriors were holding the front and had been for months. Beyond his bodyguards, many of the trained fighters who remained in the Keep were either untried, exhausted, or still recovering.

And yet, the Northwatch could not fall. The battle lines to the north would be surrounded. Caislan Daire could be caught unaware by an attack directly into the heart of the kingdom. Everything he’d trained for, everything he’d fought and bled for, now came down to this.

He could not fail.

“Sound the bell!” he cried, over the clamor around him. “Alert the keep! Captains, to me!”

It was a moment they’d hoped would never come, but not one that caught them unaware or unprepared. No elf came to adulthood without the fear that they would someday come face to face with their ancient enemy, and so no elf reached adulthood without some preparation.

Northwatch Keep was built for war, and when the alarm bell rang over the battlements, Dechlan watched with fierce exultation as his people rose to the occasion.

All windows were shuttered and barred with silver within moments. Animals were locked away. Every battle-trained wolf in the stables was harnessed and saddled, every warrior armored and ready. And as warriors found their mounts and prepared to ride out, the rest of the keep found their own places.

Gardeners, maids, cooks, and apprentices. They emerged from doorways and passages, armor donned hastily over aprons, smocks, or ink-stained tunics. Each carried a weapon painstakingly crafted with silver, and each wore the grim look of a man or woman who might not be a warrior, but who would fight to the death to protect their home.

And instead of feeling afraid—instead of falling to his knees beneath the crushing burden of despair—Dechlan found himself filled with pride in the unconquerable spirit of the Northwatch.

The wraiths might have come for them, but before this day was done, they would learn to regret it.

“Build up the watchfires,” he ordered the Captain of the Wall. “Station the archers nearby and place torches wherever possible.” Heat and light were not foolproof defenses, but the wraiths did not care for either, and any deterrent might mean the difference between life and death.

Garvan strode into view, the scales of his armor rippling in the sun, his wolf trailing behind him with an air of anticipation as if he, too, knew that battle was imminent.

“Do we go out to meet them?”

Declan nodded. “But only a small force, and only the most experienced. We will harry and distract them while the swifts are released, and riders make for the north.”

Nothing the wraiths had done thus far indicated that they would grasp the need to stop messages from getting out. They took territory and held it, but long-term tactics had never been apparent in their actions.