Stone frowned once more. “What do you have in mind?”
“I need you to align yourself with Queen Rosamunde. Actually, I need you to bond with her.”
He couldn’t help it, he laughed outright. “You’re kidding. But you and every other realm person in our world knows how I feel about our reluctant queen.”
“She needs you right now. Badly. All I’m asking is that you give her a chance.”
“In what way does she need me and why the hell should I care? She’s the only realm-person I’ve known who has enough raw power to stand up to Margetta. Instead, she’s holed herself up in her castle, enjoying her safe life, while so many of our people have died.”
The expression on Vojalie’s face bewildered Stone. For a long moment, she appeared as though she was staring straight through him. “There’s so much I want to say to you, but I can’t.”
“About Rosamunde?”
“Yes.”
He snorted. “I’ll happily run missions with Aralynn who I know to be a friend to the queen, but Rosamunde is out of the question. Are we done here?”
Vojalie’s lips parted as though she wanted to say something more. She closed them as quickly, then nodded.
Stone bid all three farewell, then headed to the front door. He had to dip low since Joseph’s front entry catered more to his short-statured clientele.
Joseph had followed him and as Stone moved up the path, the gremlin called out from the open doorway. “You’re wrong about the queen.”
A wet, fat raspberry followed.
Stone ignored the diminutive man as he set his feet toward Aralynn’s cottage, hoping he’d find her there. More than anything, he needed to talk over their difficult situation.
~ ~ ~
After leaving Joseph’s, Rosamunde had walked in the woods for a few minutes then finally headed back to Aralynn’s cottage. Once there, instead of remaining in her Aralynn form, she transformed back to her fae body, with her dominant fae thoughts. Aralynn, as a lusty wolf, wasn’t giving her very much peace.
And Rosamunde needed to think things through.
She still wore her bloodied battle clothes and she was more distressed than she could remember being in a long time.
Making love with Stone had been extraordinary and that alone had left her feeling as though her whole life had been turned upside down. But the other reality had sent her peace-of-mind to hell and beyond.
For the past several minutes, she’d done little more than pace the small three-room dwelling and every once in a while touch her throat where Stone had so recently broken her skin.
And taken her blood.
And made her feel as though being connected to his body in every possible way was heaven, and nothing less.
A blood rose.
Nothing could have complicated her life more completely than learning she was the very thing Stone needed most in his painful mastyr’s existence.
She’d meant it when she said it was a cruel joke because Stone despised her as the queen. Stone was a man of tremendous power and her fae instincts told her he had potential way beyond what he possessed right now. She thought it possible his opinion of her was based on his own self-knowledge rather than on an accurate assessment of her own essential power. She just didn’t know.
Or maybe he’d long since sensed that she was a blood rose without knowing it. After all, the women who experienced this phenomenon often increased in power and ability. Would she? Was this what Stone had intuited about her without knowing the real source? And was it possible she now approached a place where she could actually do battle with Margetta?
She took a moment to access her inner self-knowledge, but what returned was still a profound sense that the veil of mist surrounding Ferrenden Peace must still be her priority, that at all costs Margetta must be kept out.
These thoughts and perceptions began returning some of her peace to her.
As for the blood rose bond, Stone would never accept her as Rosamunde. Whatever affection and respect he felt for Aralynn would disappear the moment he learned the truth. Stone was a forthright man incapable of deceiving anyone. He’d never forgive her for playing the wolf when she was equally the Queen of Ferrenden Peace.
She heard a rapping on the wooden door and whirled to face it, but remained silent.