Kissing him back, Ana drifted into the sweet cloud of arousal that always surrounded them, needing to be comforted by him, and now knowing he needed to be comforted too. For the first time, Ana could almost understand his need for her when his eyes were so dark.
As their kiss softened, Maddoc sucked on her bottom lip and nipped at her top as he pulled away. "Are we fucking today?" he asked bluntly.
Ana almost scowled at the coarseness of his words. He could have simply asked if she was speaking to him, but then she realized there was amusement in his eyes, and his beard twitched as he took in her expression.
She smiled and he kissed her again before turning away, chuckling. He left the tent, and much to Ana’s disappointment, did not return for the rest of the night.
Unfortunately for Ana's theory, the same thing happened for the next three days.
Maddoc dressed her like a commoner, and then they traveled into the Kingdom of Allandis to different districts to watch the abuse of commoners by members of royal houses. The first day she watched members of Goldfrost gleefully set fire to a house of a family who could not pay the increased tax; the family was still inside.
Maddoc showed her the family's request to the court to lower the tax, but their petition came back denied, signed by the king three months ago.
The next day she watched House Villemore tie two very young children to the back of a horse because they had been picking and eating fruit growing in the garden of a house that no one lived in. They couldn't have been much older than Trea, and their parents were begging on their knees. Ana hadn't been able to bear it and screamed that Maddoc do something immediately. Thankfully, he already had men intervene before anything happened, but it shook her to her core that anyone could do that. That was the first time she cried herself to sleep, angry and upset that these were people she knew committing these crimes, people she had sat across from in the court, people whose homes she’s visited, who she made small talk with, and who she’d studied and looked up to.
The third day, it was House Redcrest. A number of men and women arrived in a town to stone five men to death for getting into a brawl in the local tavern. Ana was shocked. Maddoc explained that the knights who reported to the crown had “sold” House Redcrest the opportunity to punish them. The Redcrest members turned up in their finest wear, as if it were some sort of entertainment event, and had brought their own hand-picked, jewel-encrusted stones to throw. Looking at their faces as they lined the commoner men up against the wall, it was clear the Redcrest nobles were excited about it. One of the men even had an erection. It was disgusting. Ana actually vomited on the way back to the camp this time.
There was no more reasoning or defending any of it, even the fact that her father had approved some of what was happening was extremely suspect, but she was still reluctant to believe it. Her father had been an upstanding man. How could he have approved this knowing what was happening, both him and her mother? It couldn't be possible that the kingdom was so grossly corrupt after everything her parents and Milly had taught her.
She clung to the fact that her father was now dead and she couldn't ask him, and that it was possible that all of this was a result of them having no king—the houses taking advantage of the lack of structure. This was what the monarchy was supposed to prevent, after all. She wondered if this was what her parents had been hiding from her, and if so, how they intended to keep it hidden? If the monarch was truly giving the royal houses opportunities to break the law and commit such crimes, she would have found out eventually. Both she and Ryden would have. Or, maybe Ryden had known? Maybe that was why he was insisting her father was unfit.
Each night, Maddoc came to the pavilion with his dark eyes and bloodied and scratched body, then kissed her like his life depended on it, and she started to look forward to that time each day. Even though the days were horrific, she wanted him near her, the strange comfort he brought, and she found herself agitated until he arrived. Part of her wished that he returned with her back to the base, but she was confused by her desire for him to be safe, as well as her deepening attraction to him. On the third night, after he left, she desperately wished that he hadn't been the one to kill her father. Or that he had been able to explain everything he was now showing her. She knew she wouldn't have believed him, but she wished things had gone differently, because with the way things stood, she couldn't let herself feel anything for him—his arrow in her father’s neck denied her the chance to ever confront her father.
She woke in a gloomy mood on the fourth day, and as Maddoc dressed her, he must have sensed it. He grabbed her chin and tilted her eyes up to his, searching them. "These horrors are hard to see, Analisa. You have done well. I only have two more things to show you, today and tomorrow, and then you don’t have to watch them again."
She nodded, but what use was that? Ana wanted to say. Not seeing them didn’t mean they weren’t happening.
He pressed his lips on hers, and she sighed with great relief and pleasure that she didn't have to wait until evening for his kiss. She kissed him back, eager for his tongue and the way it dominated her mouth, sending sparks of pleasure all around her body. Since he’d stopped touching her, the smallest things about him affected her greatly, and she took whatever she could.
She whimpered as he pulled away and pressed his mouth against her ear. "Talk to me, Analisa."
Swallowing, Ana battled with herself at the sudden request, but ended up saying nothing. Maddoc growled and lifted her into his arms.
Today they went to the central city.
Because of the quality of the gown that Maddoc dressed her in, Ana had already guessed they would be heading toward the nobles’ residences.
For some reason, being among the nobles again, especially now after what she’d seen some of the royal house members do, made her nervous. Everything in the central city was much closer together. It was harder for Maddoc and his men to navigate and if they were caught, it would be very difficult to escape. By the same token, if Ana wanted, she could scream and tell everyone who she was and whom she was with, and there was the possibility she could escape. But she had seen too much now, and didn’t know whom she could trust. She didn't even know what was happening between the royal houses and the crown. With her father dead, was she any safer among the royal houses than with Maddoc? He wasn't even touching her anymore, which was becoming bitterly annoying each day.
"The houses have now decided that I am too much of a threat to remain alive," Maddoc said, as they entered the upstairs room in a popular tavern visited by nobles and royals. "They have agreed among them that I must be killed and you must be recovered at all costs, and the house that is successful at doing so will marry you off and he will be the next king."
Ana nodded, her expression glum. That was the kind of plan that the houses would agree amongst themselves.
"They haven’t made any real effort to kill me over the years," Maddoc said. He sat down on one of the couches and pulled her into his lap. "They needed someone to blame for their crimes, and I and my people were the perfect choice—since those who join me are already people they have eliminated from society. They have no problem accusing us all for being outlaws and criminals. I will admit, some of my men are criminals. In the beginning I took whomever I could. But now, I do not abide senseless killing or men and women who only want to commit crimes no matter the cost to others. I gladly will kill any royal and noble who abuses their power, but I have no interest in senseless killing."