Destined for a King by Ashlyn Macnamara Page B

draws it lives or dies by the king’s will.”
    He shook his head. “But Papa is the king.”
    “You are the king now.”
    He nodded as if he understood. Yet the question still remained. “Why, Mama?”
    She did not answer it, not directly. “I must keep you safe. One day you might reclaim the kingship that is yours.”
    Sometime later, he felt hands on his body. Soft hands, feminine hands stroking his chest, his arms, his shoulders, his legs. They left cold dampness in their wake. He reached out to capture them. To take away whatever was leaving him chilled. To replace them with her body’s warmth.
    He grasped at air. The hands returned, stroking, stroking, but never bringing the sort of relief he sought, and always they melted away when he reached. Fingers caressed his face, accompanied by words spoken in a soothing tone, but his brain was too muddled to untangle them into sense.
    He reached again, touched this time. Soft skin. A cheek. His fingers trailed down over a pair of lush lips. Traced a smile. The lips puckered beneath the pad of his thumb for the briefest of moments, and then the hands clasped his wrists and pressed them back to the bed.
    “Easy.” At last the voice penetrated. Soft, yet tinged with a note of desperation.
    Something cool and damp and slightly rough sloughed along his chest. A sponge. Cold water. Last he’d known, Calista was cuddled on the mattress with him, and now she was bathing him. Three Gods, how long had he been out?
    “How long?” he whispered, just like the first time he’d awoken in her chamber, his voice just as weak.
    “Too long, you’ve burned too long.” The desperation had taken over fully now. And no wonder. Her father’s life hung in the same balance as his. As long as Kestrel held Belwin, she’d take good care of him.
    He must remember that. She’d lain beside him, long enough for her reserve to thaw. He’d detected the beginnings of a response to him in the easing of her body, the touch of her hands. But it was all for her father’s sake, not for his. Not yet. One day, he might elicit that. But not before he got better. And not before he’d gained everything he wanted. Including their marriage.
    —
    “Who is Josse Vandal?”
    Torch’s eyes snapped open. Calista had asked the question in all innocence—or had she? He could no longer tell. One moment, she’d been spooning weak broth into his mouth like he was some toothless dotard, and the next she’d posed that question.
    He dodged the spoon. Damned broth was tasteless and not likely to bring his strength back any time soon. “Where did you hear that name?”
    “Vandal? It’s the king’s family name.”
    The Usurper had attached the Vandal name to his own, certainly. Not that he had a right to it. “No, the other. Where did you hear that?”
    “From you. You were fairly raving last night.”
    Damn. Damn, damn, damn. He recalled the dream now, his memory turning the pages of his past as through an ancient chronicle.
    At least his fever had broken, so he was unlikely to repeat that mistake. He’d awoken in the deep watches of the night drenched in sweat and shivering, but it had been real shivering brought on by true cold, not the false sense brought on by his illness. He lay now at Calista’s mercy, still, weakened from his ordeal. He’d been able to rise from the bed only for the time it took her to change his sheets, before he had to lie down and sleep again.
    “It is a name best forgotten.” He was so weak, he couldn’t even put the usual note of command in his tone. The Faceless One take it, Kestrel would have a good laugh at his expense. And not just Kestrel. The rest of his Brotherhood as well.
    “Vandal.” She spooned up some more of that damned broth. “Just like the king.”
    He couldn’t even reply to that. Magnus had taken the Vandal name to himself, but it wasn’t his, even if he had done his level best to erase that fact from living memory. As for Josse or Jaffe or any of the