"Hmm." She stood and brushed the crumbs from her skirt. "We'd best be getting on to Dale's Peak. How much farther do you think?"
She ambled over to where Astrophel and Ramiel were munching on a bag of oats he'd set on the ground for them to share. This, too, had been stored in his saddlebag. Friedrich, or perhaps Grant, had thought of everything.
"Are you worried about returning to Dale's Peak?" he asked, stomping out the small fire with his boot.
He wrapped a portion of the rabbit in a kerchief of his own, knowing they'd need to make one more stop before they reached the town. He threw the rest away in the woods for the beasts of the wild.
"No." She stroked Astrophel's neck while the horse continued to munch on the oats. "As I said before, my mother and her new husband moved away years ago."
"But the memories are still there." He stashed the bit of rabbit in his saddlebag for her later and cinched it tight, then moved around Astrophel to her.
"Yes. But they don't haunt me as I suppose they should."
"How do you mean?" He gripped the horn of Astrophel's saddle and angled toward Sienna.
She stroked underneath Astrophel's pale blond mane, then glanced up at him. "I suppose there's something wrong with me, but I never fit in at the home of my birth. I was raised by a strict nurse who never showed affection." She continued to stroke Astrophel. "I only ever saw my mother for formal occasions or when she demanded I sit with her at tea to receive suitors. You know, I don't recall us ever even touching one another?" She frowned up at him, seeming to recall the shock of it. "Not once."
Nikolai tried to imagine this beautiful young girl raised in such cold isolation. Never receiving a gentle embrace at the end of the day. His own mother had been a nurturing woman. His memories were vivid-the gentle sweep of her hand across his brow, combing back an unruly lock of hair, the melody of her voice when she sang a lullaby. Her death in childbirth with his stillborn sister was keenly felt by him and his father. But they clung to one another in their grief, forging a tight father-and-son bond. He wondered what his father would think of his red-haired beauty. Actually, he knew quite well what he would think of her, the old bastard.
"What of your father?"
Sienna gave a sad little laugh. "My father was kind to me. But he died when I was young, leaving me in my mother's care. And she was more interested in the alliance a good match would bring her. I was certainly her greatest disappointment when I fled to live with Grandmother."
Nikolai's jaw tightened at the mention of her being sold off into marriage. He finally hit the reason for her absconding from wealth and luxury to confinement in the dark woods of Silvane Forest. A subject she seemed to tiptoe around.
"And so you did not favor the match your mother had made for you." A statement. Not a question. He wouldn't let her wiggle out of this before he had answers. Not this time.
Her hand stilled for a brief moment, then she began combing her fingers through Astrophel's mane, her long, delicate fingers untangling the mass. "No," she said quietly. "I was not in favor."
"What was this man like?"
"Rich. Handsome. Sophisticated. And arrogant. Cold. Brutal."
Nikolai stopped her hand by taking it in his own, gently rubbing his thumb along her knuckles. She watched the gesture rather than meet his gaze.
"Did he ever hurt you?" His question was soft, but the timbre of his voice rolled with menace.
"No." An immediate reply. And an honest one from what he could sense of her steady heartbeat. "I saw how he treated his servants. Once, on one of our weekly visits, there were Legionnaires staying in his home. I heard him speaking to them in the corridor as I waited in the parlor. The Legionnaires complained that they were thirsty. For blood. He told them to take two of the maids and do as they pleased." She paused and cast him a pitiable look. "You see, it's not just the vampires that the working class must fear. He is one of many humans loyal to the crown. Anyway, I couldn't help those poor maids, even if I had married him. The only thing I could think to do was … run."
"And so you did run. Into the woods where your grandmother lived."
"Yes," she answered with pride and a tilted smile. "I could never abide cruelty. The nurse always said I was too sensitive and should know my station. And that I gave too much time to the feeble animals in the barnyard than I did my lessons. She scolded me once for giving cream every morning to a stray kitten in the yard, saying I was being wasteful giving good cream to a creature on the verge of death. That the sickly kitten was too far gone and couldn't be saved."