Free Wicked After Midnight (Blud) by Delilah S. Dawson Page A

am expected to challenge him for leadership, but everyone knows I would be horrible at it. The obvious choice would be for my brother to challenge me, but he knowsit would kill my father if something bad were to happen to either of us. So we’re all bound by ridiculous traditions, and no one can do what he wishes.” He reached back to help me over a little avalanche of broken stone. “But he is still a nasty little bludweasel.”
    “So run away.”
    Vale snorted. “Everyone half hopes I will. But that’s the thing. As much as I don’t wish to be responsible for dozens of families and a hundred mares, I love my father and don’t care to disappoint him. So I abide, getting on everyone’s nerves and mucking things up, hoping the slavers will just shoot me with a flaming arrow so the whole damned thing will be over.”
    I turned and put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in mid-step. “There’s no shame in being unsuited to your expected role.”
    He cocked his head, considering.
    “At least, that’s what my guidance counselor told me once when I disappointed my parents in high school. Wouldn’t it be better to just make the choice and leave and have it be over with?”
    Vale looked down, face lit by the green glow. “Not if I have to see my father’s heart break when I tell him.” He motioned forward with his chin, and I obliged him by continuing along the ledge. After a few footsteps, he went on, voice low and sad. “When I was ten, I asked him if I could go stay with my mother, learn more about her people and their ways, and he turned me over his knee and whipped my arse until I bled. Not only because no Brigand of Ruin had ever asked to leave the tribe before but also because it showed the people I would one day lead that I didn’t feel proper responsibility for their safekeeping. ThatI would leave my duties and go to stay with foreigners, giving up my place as a man. It was the worst thing I could have done to him. Emasculated by a weak son, disappointed in his firstborn, and then the poor man had to make me cry to save face.” He snorted softly, sounding much like his mare. “I don’t think either of us can withstand a repeat of that night. No amount of freedom is worth that price. Not that he could whip me now. I’m much faster than he.”
    I tried to imagine a tiny version of Vale going through the regular preteen rebellion. I couldn’t help smiling, just a little.
    “How were things, after that?” I asked him.
    “Ah, yes. The fallout. You see, after that, I had to prove myself, do something to save even more face on behalf of myself and my family. It was simply understood. So when my father and his men galloped away on their next raid, I took up my bolo and an old man’s neglected gear and slipped away to capture my first bludmare. I returned that evening missing a chunk of my arm and riding Odalisque’s mother, Olympe, leading a wobbly little filly behind me. Men of my tribe are supposed to go through careful training and ritual before they bring home their first horse, and I skipped all that and just took what I wanted, times two.” He laughed and rubbed the back of his head, the rasp of skin on stubble the only sound in the tunnel and one I already recognized even though I couldn’t see it. “Best mares in the camp, and I’d pulled it off four years before tradition allowed.”
    “And then?”
    “And then he beat me again for breaking the law. And complimented my horsemanship. And told me he’d done the same thing at my age and my grand rebellion had justconvinced the camp that I was the one who must lead them one day.”
    “Is there no other choice? No other role you could fulfill?”
    He held up his fingers, counting them down. “Target? Eunuch? Laughingstock? Stew meat? Bludmare bait? Sadly, nothing appeals.”
    “But what do you want to do? With your life?”
    He exhaled raggedly, leaped over the water, and ricocheted off the far bank and back to my side, landing in front of