Free Wild Blood (Book 7) by Anne Logston

gave her a sort of childlike air. She carried a large platter of food, which she placed quietly by the fire before she turned to speak to him.
    “Lahti asked me to come to you,” she said, her voice as always a soft murmur. “I was honored to accept. Does her choice please you?”
    “Very much,” Val admitted, ashamed of the quiver in his own voice. Of all the women in the village who might have come to his tent on this night, he would never have expected Doeanna. She was a dancer of exquisite skill and had borne two children; at least six men had asked her to be their mate, but Doeanna was a solitary creature and content to live alone. Despite her love of solitude, however, rumors of Doeanna’s skill in the furs were such that Val had no doubt that Doeanna never lacked companionship when she wished it.
    “Here is roast fowl, venison stewed with fresh herbs, some of the boar you killed, acorn meal cakes and honey, and the season’s first berries, and Sun Flower Nectar in celebration,” Doeanna murmured. “Surely you are hungry after your fast and the other rigors of your passage.”
    “Uh—” Val swallowed hard. Only moments before, his stomach had been grumbling its hunger; now he was sure he couldn’t swallow a bite of the finest food the Heartwood could offer.
    “Ah, you hunger indeed, but not for food,” Doeanna said softly, smiling. Her large, dark eyes shone softly in the firelight. “So impatient, as the young always are, so ready to bolt down their wine before they can truly savor the full richness of its flavor. Well enough, sweet Valann. There will be many hours tonight to teach you patience.”
    She tied the side cords of the door flap to the door frame so the flap could not be lifted, then turned back to him, drawing her tunic over her head. Warm firelight flickered over her willow-slender, moon-pale body as she knelt beside him on the furs.
    Val thought fleetingly of Lahti, smiled nervously, and reached for the lacing of his tunic.

Chapter Three—Ria
     
     
    Lush green plains rolled by the wagons. For a few days Ria had seen fields thick with green-gold grain or planted in rows of vegetables as they passed through Cielman’s outlying farmland. Often there were peasants working in the fields. Gradually, as they moved farther south and west, the farms became fewer and the fields gave way to these endless grassy plains.
    Ria, however, was not bored despite the seeming monotony of the scenery around them. No matter how similar the view each day from her place on the wagon seat, it was a different view from the one she’d seen every day of her life from the walls of Emaril’s keep. When the jolting of the wagon tired her, Ria ran beside it or climbed up behind one of the guards on their horses, or rode the patient draft horses pulling the wagons. Sometimes as she ran through the grass, she’d stop to chase butterflies or watch small snakes and become so engrossed that one of the guards would have to ride back to reclaim her. Lady Rivkah, however, did not chide her; Ria wondered whether her foster mother found it less trouble to let her do as she pleased than to try to keep her in the wagon, or whether her newfound liberty was merely because she was supposedly the bride-to-be of the future High Lord of Allanmere. Whatever the reason, Ria was fully prepared to enjoy it.
    Ria found the plains endlessly fascinating. Small animals she’d never seen lived in the tall grass, and colorful butterflies and rainbow-hued flowers dappled the green-gold plains. Every night when they stopped to camp, Ria had new prizes to show her foster parents and the utterly disinterested Cyril. She pestered the guards, cook, and mages to show her which of the roots, berries, mushrooms, and young green plants of the plains were good to eat, and every night she’d present sacks full to the cook, together with a dozen other plants and two dozen questions. Lord Sharl joked that she’d see them all poisoned, but Ria could