Quench the Day (Red Wolf Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Quench the Day

  Red Wolf Trilogy

  Book 1

  Shari Branning

  Quench the Day

  Copyright © 2017 by Shari Branning

  Cover illustration © 2017 by Abigail Rodriguez

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may not be copied into any form, print, electronic, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, events and places are a product of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events, or locations, is coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  “Curses? Good gracious!” Rowan was so startled she dropped her silk gloves onto the floor of the carriage and had to bend over to retrieve them.

  Her cousin, Dustan, who was seated across from her, grinned in triumph at finally cracking her bored façade. He shrugged. “It’s only a rumor,” he said. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “But aside from the ‘accidental’ deaths, there have been some things that people just can’t explain.” His sudden intensity testified that he wasn’t just making up stories to shock her this time.

  Rowan settled back into her seat and smoothed her skirts. “I had no idea the royal family had such violent tendencies.” Secretly she was once again questioning her decision to move in with her uncle’s household in West Talva. After two months, it was painfully obvious that the country out here was going to pieces. She frowned, afraid her next question might be another piece of common knowledge that easterners just weren’t aware of.

  She said it anyway. “I was under the impression that curses were…” she fished for something other than ‘make-believe.’ “That they were more a matter of legend.”

  Dustan didn’t pounce on her ignorance this time, instead pressing his lips together and glancing out at the prairie as their carriage left the outskirts of Skybreak, jostling them when it hit the rutted country road. He fiddled with his string tie for a moment. “The Shonnowan people can do strange things,” he said. “Sometimes their merchants will come to the city and sell magic items, for a high price. I don’t believe cursing someone would be impossible.”

  “But who could think it a good idea to…” Rowan let her voice trail off. The thought of anyone placing a curse of some kind on another human being smacked of unnamable evil. She had a hard time envisioning such a thing, and it bothered her more than she cared to show her teasing cousin, though she couldn’t hide the goosebumps that flashed up her arms.

  “Our Lesser King Ormand is known to be a man without a conscience,” Dustan said. “His face does spring to mind.”

  “I see. But if he’s already killing off his personal enemies in contrived accidents…” Why would he need to curse them?

  The carriage slowed, and she turned back to the window, catching a glimpse of half a dozen other carriages pulling up before they fell into line, and then the only thing she could see was a manicured lawn, flowering trellises, and a line of trees separating the estate’s front yard from the open prairie.

  Their driver stopped the horses long before they reached the front doors, waiting for the people in front of them to exit their carriages or buggies, and then for the drivers to move out of the way. They spent five minutes stopping and starting before they pulled up in front of the broad, shallow stairs leading to the mansion’s double doors. Neither Rowan nor Dustan spoke again as they waited. Political discussions had no business at a coming-of-age celebration, unless they took place behind a potted plant or in a closed study.

  Finally, their turn came, their carriage aligning with the entrance, and the Daws’ footman opened their door, standing aside for Dustan to step down. Dustan, in turn, offered his hand to Rowan, who ignored him and jumped down on her own. It was their little ritual. He offered his arm next, which she also ignored, then grinned and followed her up the stairs to the open door, where a crowd was working its way inside. The evening sun shone at their backs as they entered, and Rowan thought ruefully that it would make her red hair look like a bonfire blaze on top of her head, no matter how skillfully her serving girl had arranged her curls.

  She sighed as she stepped through the doors and directly into the ballroom. There were too many people pressed around them to be able to see much, so her gaze explored upward to the grand staircase that swept around the edge of the room in a flourish of curved brass railing. A few people stood talking on the lower steps to avoid the crowd, but her gaze caught on one man, and he was the only one she truly saw.

  His icy blue eyes locked onto hers at the same time, and he fumbled his conversation, making his companion turn to look as well.

  “Go on then,” Dustan said from behind her.

  She had paused just inside the doorway, with the crowd of young noblemen and women pressing in and flowing around her into the great open room. A young man bumped her elbow, and he turned to apologize, his gaze sweeping over her. His eyes lit appreciatively and he bowed.

  “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, my lady. May I introduce mysel—”

  Dustan brushed in front of him, interrupting his introduction as though he wasn’t there, and again offered Rowan his arm. “We’ll never make it past the entry at this rate, and I, for one, would like to find a beautiful woman who’s not related to me to dance with.”

  Rowan whacked him on the arm with her gloves, even as her gaze returned to the staircase where the young man with the dangerous eyes had been standing. He was gone.

  “Rowan!”

  “Annalie!” She turned, smiling, and let go Dustan’s arm, having to stoop a bit to return her friend’s hug.

  “That’s my cue that I’m no longer needed.” Dustan bowed in greeting to Rowan’s friend, then sauntered off.

  “I feared I wouldn’t know a soul here tonight,” Rowan said.

  Annalie laughed. “Yes, I know how you hate introductions.”

  “Your men out here like starving puppies. Honestly. It’s suffocating. Much worse here, in fact, than back east.” She glanced at another man staring at them as they walked, arm-in-arm, toward a quieter corner of the room. “Woe to the girl cursed with red hair and long legs.”

  Her friend gasped, then giggled. But whatever she said next was lost to Rowan as she spotted the blue-eyed stranger again, this time standing along the wall by himself, arms folded across his chest. His gaze swept over the room, then rested on her.

  He winked.

  “Rowan?”

  “Pardon?” She turned back to her friend.

  “Are you well tonight? You were staring.”

  “Who is that?” She nodded to the man who still watched them.

  “Oh. Him. Aaro D’Araines. Cousin to High King Heymish and King Ormand. Beautiful, isn’t he? And he has the biggest ranch in the area. And he can afford to carry two—two! guns. And he’s part of the royal family. Did I mention that?” She sighed. “He’s notoriously disinterested in dancing though, so don’t get your hopes up.”

  “That’s Aaro D’Araines?” Rowan could feel the beginning of a blush warming her cheeks, at suddenly coming to the attention of the very person that Dustan had been prattling about for most of the carriage ride, before he got on the subject of curses. Her cousin seemed to be a little in awe of the other young man, who, as Annalie had pointed out, could afford to carry two expensive pistol and also the ammunition to practice with them until he was deadly.

  “The man who should have been our king,” Annalie said quietly, unaware of Rowan’s discomfort. Then she jumped and looked around to see who might have heard her comment. They had the corner to themselves. Though there weren’t any pott
ed plants nearby.

  “I expected—not him.” Rowan said lamely.

  Annalie went on, while across the room Aaro D’Araines pushed off the wall and wove his way through the crowd toward them. Rowan panicked and elbowed her friend in the ribs, afraid she’d still be talking about him when he made it over to their corner. He must already know they’d been whispering about him, and that was bad enough. Though she noticed he wore neither his guns or a sword tonight. So perhaps he wasn’t quite the feral gunman Dustan made him out to be.

  A delicate tinkle of crystal filtered through the dozens of conversations going on in the ballroom. Mr. Daws, who was one of the noblemen whom Rowan’s uncle was friends with, stood in the arched doorway leading to the dining hall, pinging a knife against a crystal goblet. Voices died into polite quiet.

  “I want to thank you all for coming tonight to celebrate with us our twins’ coming of age,” Mr. Daws said.

  Polite applause.

  Rowan’s eyes wandered from him back to Aaro D’Araines, who had paused in the center of the room, arms folded once again, as he leaned casually on one foot. His eyes flickered back in her direction as well, and a faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. He began edging toward them again as Mr. Daws continued his toast. Rowan didn’t hear most of it. The closer those blue eyes came, the more they drew her. Chestnut hair curled wildly around his ears. He wore simple range clothes, though they looked new. A white shirt under a black vest, and black trousers. Somehow, he managed to look like a Western man and a nobleman at the same time.

  “Are you coming?”

  “I’m sorry?” She’d missed something.

  “It’s time to go to supper. Really, you mustn’t stare so! And at Mr. D’Araines. You’ll be the gossip of the town. Besides, as I told you, he doesn’t dance. And we are here to dance.”

  Rowan let her friend tug her along with the crowd filtering into the dining hall, until a hand on her arm stopped her. Work-roughened skin snagged on her lace sleeve. Her heart did a backflip even before she turned around.

  Aaro tilted his head in greeting, rather than give her a full bow. “May I?” He offered his arm.

  She felt heat flame into her face. She detested blushing. It made her look like a wretched tomato.

  “I’m sorry, have we met?” She pinned him with a look.

  His half smile tilted further upward. “No. But you already asked your friend my name. I have only to learn yours, but I’m not so stuck on formality.” He offered his arm again. She glanced down. His sleeve was rolled up past his elbow, baring corded muscles wrapped in deeply tanned skin. No society-conscious gentleman would be so bold as to offer a lady his bare arm to escort her. She snapped her gaze back up to his eyes. They twinkled, daring her.

  “Very well, Mr. D’Araines.” She settled her hand gingerly on his arm, feeling the warmth of his skin against her suddenly cold fingers as he led her toward the dining room. Her gloves were still clenched in her other hand.

  “What do you like to write?” He asked her.

  “Write?” Rowan was taken aback. She had expected a comment about her appearance. How her eye color nearly matched her hair, or how he’d never seen such an intriguing shade of auburn before (even though it was closer to the color of copper). Or how she looked lovely this evening. They always commented on her looks.

  “You have ink on your hands,” he replied.

  “Oh. Ah. I was writing to my father, back east, simply to let him know I will be continuing my stay here indefinitely. I have no great patience for writing, as a rule.”

  “I have a mother and a sister who wish I wrote more as well,” he said. “But ranching bores them, and I don’t practice needlepoint, so I don’t have much news, generally.” He cast her a sideways grin. They entered the dining hall, where a long table reached from one end of the room to the other. He pulled out a chair for her, and when she was seated, gave her a bow. “A pleasure to meet you, Red.” He winked before walking away.

  Annalie settled into the chair beside Rowan, her eyes all round with amazement. “Of all the… can you believe him? He didn’t even introduce himself. And his shirtsleeves!” She tugged at one of her own sheer pink cuffs. “You would have had every right to turn him down.”

  “I didn’t want to.” Rowan grinned. “My dear, I think I’m in love.”

  Annalie looked at her askance. “You?”

  She laughed. “No. But he’s…refreshing.”

  She had never been enthusiastic about formal dinners. They seemed to drag on and on, one course after another, and always so polite and awkward. The Daws twins, Rebecca and Korr, looked uncomfortable, seated on either side of their father and mother at the head of the table.

  “I wonder when King Ormand will arrive,” Annalie said as they waited for their dishes to be cleared and the next course brought out.

  “Is he coming, then? Dustan had mentioned it.”

  “Didn’t you hear anything Mr. Daws said?”

  “Honestly—no.”

  “It was very bold of him to invite both the lesser king—ah! I mean King Ormand—and Mr. D’Araines here tonight. Perfectly proper, of course, and exactly as it should be. I just hope it doesn’t become awkward. Or dangerous! The poor twins!”

  As Dustan had also already apprised her on the ongoing feud between Aaro D’Araines and his cousin, King Ormand, Rowan didn’t ask, instead glancing toward the head of the table. Korr halfheartedly tried to make conversation with the young noble seated beside him. Even from her place near the foot of the table she could see his discomfort. Meanwhile, Rebecca stared down at her lap. Aaro was seated directly to her right, and she cast timid little glances at him. He said something to her, and she ducked her head, her face flaming.

  Rowan bit her lips to keep from laughing. “I pity them already. Is this their first ball, or are they always so shy? They really are sweet, if they would not be so terrified of talking to people.”

  “Not everyone is blessed with your bold wit, Rowan, nor your ability to draw people out.”

  “Whether those things are a blessing I’ve yet to decide. They more often get me into trouble.”

  After the dessert course, Mr. Daws stood and gave another short speech, inviting everyone into the ballroom, where there would be music, and the opportunity to dance, since, “Of course that is what the young people have come for.” He smiled graciously.

  Annalie leaned over. “I fear I must agree with you in this instance. Our country barn dances are much more fun than these formal balls. Though each has their own merits, and this is nice. I haven’t had occasion to wear this gown in nearly a year!”

  Rowan laughed. They stood, preparing to follow the stream of young people headed toward the open floor, when Aaro reappeared at her elbow. Again, he saluted her with a nod and offered his still-bare arm.

  “May I? The musicians are starting.”

  Rowan rested her hand on his arm, hearing Annalie gasp quietly behind her. She steeled herself against further blushes, and met Aaro’s icy, twinkling eyes. “I have it from a reliable source that you don’t care to dance, Mr. D’Araines.

  He nodded, a sly smile stretching his mouth. “I’ve had no motivation to dance, until tonight.”

  “I see.” She tilted her head, letting her own eyes match the twinkle in his. “I would have to conclude then, that you must be a very poor dancer, since you lack any sort of practice.”

  “You fear for you pride?”

  “My toes, Mr. D’Araines. I’m a wild thing, and not used to wearing such flimsy footwear. A horse may step on my foot, and I care not, so long as I have my boots. But perchance a butterfly might bruise my toes, if it landed there now.” She glanced meaningfully down at the beaded tips of her silk slippers, peeking out from beneath her skirt.

  “Rest assured, your toes have as much regard from me as the rest of you.”

  “Ah good! So long as that’s settled.”

  They were one of the first couples to step onto the dance floor, and Rowan
could feel eyes turned in their direction. She willed herself not to blush again as Aaro rested a hand lightly on her waist, preparing for the first steps of the dance, where he would hold her hand and spin her away from him. She never truly expected him to dance badly. Somehow it didn’t seem a part of his nature—what little she’d seen of it—to participate in anything that he couldn’t do as well or better than everyone else. To her satisfaction, she was proved right.

  “You haven’t been in West Talva long,” Aaro said as she twirled back to him.

  “Two months.”

  “You started the journey during the winter, then?”

  “Yes, sadly. Not one I would recommend in terms of comfort, though it was lovely.”

  Another series of turns and twirls cut off conversation for a moment. Then Aaro said, “Most would wait for spring to make the trip.”

  “I had several reasons for coming when I did.” She smiled, but didn’t elaborate. She had no wish to narrate the long year that had led up to her coming to stay with her uncle Lance and his three sons, nor was there time, as the dance ended, and another young man approached, heading right for them. She turned away, pretending not to see him, and tugged her little fan out of her sleeve, snapping it open to fan her face. “It is certainly warm enough now, and I do hate it when my face matches my hair. Perhaps I shall sit out this next dance.”

  Aaro glanced over her shoulder, presumably at the would-be intruder, as he gave her his hand, proper etiquette for leading a lady off the dance floor. “We can find the refreshment table, if you’d like.”

  “Perfect!” she cooed.

  As soon as they were well away from the crowd seeking new dance partners she snapped the fan shut and tucked it away again. “And what’s worse than having red hair and a red face is being set upon by puppies.”

  Aaro snickered. “Am I not a puppy, then?”

  “I haven’t decided yet what you are,” she said as they reached the refreshment table, and he handed her a glass of water. She was flirting horribly, and he probably thought her completely shameless, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She was enjoying it too much.