The Invisible Ring

watching her. Shadows filled her gray eyes as her gaze moved from Eryk to Corry to Cathryn and, finally, lingered on Tomas.
    “At least one of them is safe now,” she said so quietly Jared almost missed the words. Then she looked back at him. “A mile or so down the road, there’s a lane on the right-hand side. Follow the lane for another mile. On the left-hand side, there’ll be an entrance to a clearing that has some kind of a shelter. We’ll camp there tonight.”
    A lot of orders were implied in those words, the main one being that he would lead them to the shelter. If he was going to force her to acknowledge the enslavement instead of pretending he was serving her as if he were a free man, now was the time to make it clear she was going to have to give specific orders for each action.
    The pain and weariness in her face, the shadows in her eyes, and the anxiety he could sense in her stopped him as much as the Warlord Prince’s condemnation.
    “I’ll take care of it,” Jared said quietly, making sure his voice remained neutral and in no way implied loyalty. He wasn’t certain she deserved loyalty, no matter what that rogue bastard thought, but he was cold, wet, and hungry, and no defiance right now was worth delaying the moment when they could eat and rest. But, Hell’s fire, seeing her in pain chewed at him until he wanted to lash out at something, anything, until her pain went away.
    Leading with her left leg, the Gray Lady climbed the steps into the wagon. Thera glanced sharply at Jared and said nothing as she followed the Gray Lady inside.
    If the other men noticed an edge in his voice when he gave the order to move on, no one mentioned it. They didn’t question his insistence that Cathryn and Corry sit on the driving seat and Eryk and Tomas ride the saddle horses tied to the back of the wagon since it was the most sensible way of keeping an eye on the children. Nor did they question his order that Brock and Randolf take up a rearguard position. And one look at his face made them swallow any comments they might have made about the oddly protective way Garth walked beside the wagon instead of rambling ahead as usual. He had made the decision that, at least for the time being, they weren’t going to act like slaves, and no one was going to challenge that decision.
    Taking point, Jared walked ahead of the wagon, trying to sort through his conflicting emotions. He’d seen the Gray Lady hand a slave over to a pack of rogues, and he couldn’t ignore the bitterness it produced in him any more than he could ignore the way his protective instincts kept pushing at him. But that Warlord Prince kissing her hand, making that deliberate gesture of respect. Was there a hidden reason for handing Polli over to that rogue bastard? Maybe not hidden, just not obvious. There were things about the Gray Lady that he didn’t understand—yet. That made him uneasy.
    And where were the rest of them going if a pack of rogues was considered the safer choice?

    Blaed had been walking a couple of steps behind him for several minutes. Jared waved him forward, no longer able to ignore the younger man’s unhappiness or his own curiosity.
    “Thayne knew about you,” Jared said, keeping his voice conversational.
    Blaed shrugged, an action that seemed more resigned than unconcerned. “We’ve been friends since we were boys, even though he’s a couple of years older than me, so he would have known.”
    And had been enough of a friend to say nothing. “How did you do it?”
    “I didn’t,” Blaed said quickly, his hazel eyes holding a plea for acceptance—and a hint of defiance that was more in keeping with his true nature.
    You can’t help being what you are , Jared thought as he looked at the young Warlord Prince, any more than men like Brock and Randolf can help being wary of what you are . “Someone else put a spell on you to hide your . . . ?” His voice trailed off as he tried to think of some way to phrase it that wouldn’t sound insulting.
    Blaed bit his lip and nodded. “He said a Warlord Prince my age, being used as a pleasure slave, would be twisted out of all recognition or have the heart torn out of him.
    He said I hadn’t come into my strength yet and had too much potential to be wasted that way.“ Blaed gulped. ”So he put this spell around me. He said it would mask what I was as long as I was around Warlords, but another Warlord Prince’s presence could break it.“
    He. A male who could create a spell so subtle no one had realized it