The Queen's Consort

The Queen’s Consort

For my friends at Pikes Peak Romance Writers.

Thank you.

Other Books by Eliza Brown

Paranormal/ Urban Fantasy

The Vampire Hunter—A Changeling Story

The Vampire Shooter—A Changeling Story

Spellbinder—A Lost Boy Story

A Double Cross—the McClarens

A Howling Zombie with a Vampire Twist

Science Fiction

Spitfire

Mystery

SeaWitch

One

Ansel gripped his sword
tightly, sweated anxiously, and waited. Timing was everything, and he didn't trust his men. Every instinct he had—the instincts that he usually obeyed—told him that their reckless mission to catch a queen was doomed.

             
The chill of the mossy ground seeped through his jerkin and breeches as he waited. He could not fail. He was going to capture the Queen today or he was going to die trying.

             
The volunteers for this suicide mission were a mixed lot. Ansel could hear them rustling in the forest around him. It was cool and wet and unpleasant, and the men were tired of waiting.

             
The creak of wheels and the muffled tread of horses' hooves drifted between the trees. The plan was simple, as the best plans always are: the Queen's escort and carriage would enter the trap. A rain of crossbow bolts would decimate her Guard. Ansel and his swordsmen would slaughter the rest. They would grab the Queen and race for their waiting ship.

             
Thirty seconds, Ansel prayed, hoping that some dark god of assassins was paying attention. He needed thirty more seconds.

             
Ansel didn't get them. The forward Guard reached the entrance of the ambush and, perhaps sensing the trap, drew rein. His plumed helm swayed as he looked around warily, and his raised hand alerted the other Guards.

             
Wait.
Sweat beaded on his skin. This could still work—

             
With a manic cry, Ansel's inexperienced men leaped forward. Swearing bitterly, Ansel followed them.

             
The Queen's Guard were seasoned veterans and notoriously calm and vicious fighters. As the charge rushed toward them they brought their massive war horses into position. Part of the Guard formed rank around the carriage, but the rest of them spurred their horses forward. Despite the cover of the trees, half of Ansel's men were cut down within seconds.

             
Ansel dodged behind a tree and the Guard's sword bit into the wood instead of his neck. The Guard were fast, lethal, and eerily quiet. The woods around him echoed with screams, but every cry was wrung from his own men. A few crossbow bolts fell among the Guard, but Ansel's archers were not in position and their bolts went wild.

             
The mission. He couldn't focus on the screams or on the men dying around him. All that mattered was the mission.

             
The Queen's carriage was twenty feet away from him. Six Guard blocked his path. Dammit. Ansel plunged his sword into the ground and reached for a massive branch above him. He climbed the tree and leapt to another. The Guard, intent on the fight on the ground, didn't notice Ansel until he dropped onto the roof of the carriage. Before they could slice him to pieces he jerked open the door and swung inside.

             
The girl was beautiful. Her blue eyes were huge in her delicate heart-shaped face, and her ruby lips formed a perfect circle of surprise. Her long blond hair curled softly around her face and brushed the shaft of the bolt lodged between the creamy swells of her breasts.

             
Ansel ripped her dress open, hoping desperately to save her. There was very little blood. He leaned back, staring into her sightless eyes. The girl was dead.

             
Rough hands dragged Ansel out of the carriage and threw him to the ground. A heavy boot pressed his face into the dirt and angry voices filled the air around him.

             
He didn't care. Optimally, the mission would have captured the Queen. Failing that, killing her would have been second best.

             
A hail of blows rained down on him. He'd failed utterly. The mission had killed Princess Andromeda, the Queen's sister, the darling of her people.

             
And—even worse—Ansel himself had been taken alive.

*****

              Including him, nine men had been captured. He wished he could curl into himself and die of shame.

             
Seventeen men had been killed outright, their bodies tossed carelessly into a shallow ravine for the animals. That meant four of his crossbowmen remained at large, but Ansel had no hope of rescue. The four would never return to Beaumont to report their failure. Ansel hoped desperately that his father would never know of his disgraceful capture.

             
The Queen's carriage was now Andromeda's hearse. For three long days Ansel and the other captives trudged behind it as the procession wound through the forests that lined the western flanks of the Starlit Mountains. Three long days were made even longer as the people gathered and followed the hearse, weeping for their lost princess and heaping abuse on her killers.

             
The Guard limited the abuse, but not out of mercy. The lives and deaths of Ansel and his men belonged to the Queen. At least he'd be able to set eyes on the bitch before he died. It was cold comfort, but it was all he had.

             
At last, footsore, bloodied, and battered, they walked out of the forest. Below them, mere miles away, lay the port city of Southern Reach. Other roads converged on the port, and all teemed with people.

             
The road cleared for the Queen's carriage and the people fell silent as it passed. The princess's flag, draped over the roof, and the black armbands of the Guard turned the respectful silence to angry muttering. A stone bounced off Ansel's shoulder.

             
“They should die hard for what they done!” a woman shouted, and the gathering crowd roared in agreement.

             
Ansel ignored it all. He knew that none were brave enough to try the somber, silent Guard who protected him.

             
A horn sounded and the carriage rocked to an abrupt halt. Ansel heard shouts and the road behind them cleared suddenly.

             
“The Queen! The Queen!” A voice called, and other voices joined in. “Make way for the Queen!”

             
It couldn't be. Ansel strained at his bonds and turned to watch as three hard-ridden horses approached. For the Queen to have reached them this quickly she must have been very close indeed. It couldn't be her.

             
The horses drew nigh. Two of them carried Guards, and as they rode the men lifted and unfurled the Queen's colors. It was her, and she'd slipped through his fingers. Ansel gnashed his teeth.

             
The third rider, slimmer and smaller than the Guards, was dressed like one of those fey Highland women. She wore a long dresscoat over breeches and rode astride like a man.

             
“The Queen!”

             
The Queen's kin hailed from the high mountain aeries. She'd shed her formal wear and most of her Guard to ride to her sister's side. Ansel ducked his head to hide the snarl on his face. Why, oh why couldn't he have caught that bitch in the open with two Guard? He'd have had her trussed and halfway back to Kingsford by now.

             
And gentle, sweet, seventeen-year-old Andromeda would have the throne. The kingdom would have fallen into civil war. The powerful dukes the Queen held in check would have fought each other to be Andromeda's husband. Ansel smiled at the thought. The entire country of Vandau would have been ripe for the taking.

             
Those pleasant thoughts soured Ansel's mood even further. None of that could happen now. Because he'd failed.

             
The riders drew rein. The good Vandau citizens dropped to their knees. The Guard greeted the Queen with fists over their hearts and downcast eyes as she rode slowly forward. The prisoners shifted uneasily, glancing at Ansel. He stayed on his feet, shoulders straight, and they followed his lead.

             
The head of the Guard dismounted and approached her. “My Queen.” He dropped his sword and shield in front of her, then stripped off his helmet and gauntlets.

             
“It is true, then?” she asked softly. Her face was streaked with dust and weary from her hard ride, but her grief was obvious.

             
The Guard dropped to his knees, his hard, scarred face miserable. “I have failed.”

             
Ansel rolled his eyes. True, the girl was dead. But the sight of this warrior, shaming himself before a
woman—
and a Highlander, no less—was a disgrace to his entire gender.

             
“Rise, Tristam,” the Queen said. “I cannot blame you for this.” Her eyes fell on Ansel.

             
Recognition lanced through him like a blade. Nearly ten years before he'd purchased a wild girl from the hills at a fair on his side of the border. She'd escaped with his money and evaded his furious search, and now she swung down from her horse to stand before him.

             
Suddenly her Guard were everywhere. They knocked Ansel's feet out from under him. “Kneel before the Queen!” they ordered.

             
Ansel spit his blood at her boots. “She is not my Queen,” he snarled.

             
Her dark eyes, older and sadder than he remembered, studied him. “Ahh. Just so, my prince,” she said.

             
Damn. Despite the time and distance, she'd recognized him.

             
Her gaze shifted to the carriage. “Tristam,” she said. “I shall ride to Southern Reach with my sister.”

             
Ansel watched her climb into the carriage. He struggled to his feet as the door closed behind her and the procession started moving again. For the first time in this misadventure cold fury coiled through him, firing his blood.
She is mine!

             
The Queen was just a woman. But she was
his
woman.

             
No longer could Ansel settle quietly for his fate. No longer would he be content with merely capturing and killing the Queen. She was his, and he would have her.