Oria's Gambit (28 page)

“Your words are but sand on the breeze,” Yar
returned. “You have no idea of the power I wield, Destrye. Run home
to your pitiful forests and ruined crops. Plant more. I’ll simply
burn them again. I care not for your fate.”

With a snarl of rage, Lonen stepped around
her, axe at the ready. Yar met it with a blast of grien that made
the Destrye stagger. Snapping out of her fog of stunned grief, Oria
put herself between them, creating a wall of grien of her own to
protect them.

Yar clenched his fists and howled in
frustration. “Gallia! Feed me sgath. We cannot allow this renegade
abomination to escape.” He reached for her, but Gallia stepped
back, releasing the sgath she’d replenished in the interim, sending
it to Oria through a path so subtle only another woman would be
able to detect it.

“I’m sorry, my husband,” she answered in a
thready voice, as if terribly weakened. “I hate to fail you, but I
have nothing to offer. I cannot help.”

Yar rounded on her, fist upraised, but she
knelt in apology. Her mind-voice whispered into Oria’s, astonishing
her.
“Run, sister. Take your life and go. Survive outside the
walls. Bára and Lousá await your return.”

“That’s our cue.” Even as Lonen spoke the
words, he swept Oria up, tossing her over his shoulder and taking
off at a run, axe still in hand. Had she been able to appreciate
the irony of it, she would have laughed at the image they must
make. Straight out of the illustrations. Except for Chuffta
faithfully winging behind them, fierce and ready to burn anyone who
tried to stop them.

“But where will we go?” she gasped, the words
stuttering out with his pounding strides. Even in his haste, he
carefully didn’t touch her skin.
Survive outside the walls. Bára
and Lousá await your return.
Was it possible? Did she have any
choice?

“Anywhere but this place,” he snapped back.
“Just hold the cursed wall so he can’t follow. You do your part,
I’ll do mine.”

It was, she supposed, what they’d agreed to
all along.

Look for the next book in this series –
The
Tides of Bára
– coming September, 2016

About Jeffe Kennedy

Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works
include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. She has
been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council
Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday
Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications,
including Redbook.

Her most recent works include a number of
fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of
A Covenant of Thorns
; the contemporary BDSM novellas of
the
Facets of Passion
, and an erotic contemporary serial
novel,
Master of the Opera
. A fourth series, the fantasy
trilogy
The Twelve Kingdoms
, hit the shelves starting in May
2014 and book 1,
The Mark of the
Tala
, received a starred Library Journal review was
nominated for the
RT Book of
the Year
while the sequel,
The Tears of the
Rose
was nominated for
the RT
Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of
2014 and the
third book,
The Talon of
the Hawk
, won
the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015
.
Two more books will follow in this world, beginning with
The Pages of the
Mind
May 2016. A fifth series, the erotic romance
trilogy,
Falling
Under
, started with
Going Under
,
and was followed by
Under His
Touch
and
Under
Contract
.

She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two
Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome
Doctor of Oriental Medicine.

Jeffe can be found online at her website:
JeffeKennedy.com
, every
Sunday at the popular
SFF Seven blog
, on
Facebook
,
on
Goodreads
and pretty much constantly on Twitter
@jeffekennedy
. She is
represented by Connor Goldsmith of
Fuse Literary
.