To Buy A Wife

Chapter One

"The whole world's on fire, Lakie."

And it was.

Lake walked over to her brother, Vonn, and peered through the stone, cut-out window at the view that desolated her soul and sapped the strength from her limbs. Fire burned the night, blocking out the stars while thick billows of smoke rose to the pale, gray, sky—like heaven-bound prayers. Except they weren't her prayers. Or if they were, they weren't the ones being answered because all their plans had failed. Every. Single. One.

Bang. Bang.

Was the thudding from her heart or from somewhere else? It was getting harder and harder to piece together realities when her whole world was a nightmare.

She turned to watch the door rattle against the frame as the iron bar across the jam continued to hold. The Elders were close, in her house, right outside her bedroom. It wouldn't be long now. The ramming log they made would make quick work of the solid wood that stood between them and their enemies.

Hudson, her husband, fell to his knees before her. Blood caked his face. One ear hung by torn skin. His shirt covered in the gore of enemies and friends alike. His sword, dulled and red, propped up by his side. Exhaustion weighed heavy on him. It had settled into his features, hung along the downturn of his mouth, in the hollowness of his eyes. He'd fought so valiantly. They all had, and yet, all their plans had come to nothing. They'd been outnumbered and out supplied.

Lake turned her attention back to her brother's slight, eight-year-old frame, standing on tip-toes on a stool, white hair shimmering from the light of the flames that was burning their home to the ground. She stroked his ruffled hair back in place, her nails black-rimmed with soot and dried blood. She brushed some fallen ash from his blonde curls, wishing she could brush the next terrifying moments away as easily.

"You scared. Lakie?" Vonn asked, his big blue eyes wide against a drawn face that used to be rosy and full from days spent working outside the farm.

"Not anymore, baby. Not anymore." And she wasn't. All her scared had been used up the day her husband's men had sounded the alarm. The day the Elders had set a two-week siege against Hudson's house and farm. The day Syon had come.

The livestock never had a chance. The Elders had set fire to the barn and fields first. Their men had held their own for a little while. Hudson's home was an old fortress built out of stone and brick, a perfect stronghold in a land of thatched huts and wood cabins.

But even stone could be destroyed.

Bang. Bang.

The earth rocked with each rhythmic pound, not unlike the loud thud of her heart.

Lake reached out to comfort her husband of six short months, but the exhaustion of a two week, day and night, battle had her hand dropping to her side. There was no point. Hudson was beyond any comfort she could give. They all were.

"It won't be long now, Lake." He said, his shoulders drooping with fatigue and defeat.

And it wouldn't. The wolves were at the door. There was no escape. So much death. All their men had died. Most of the servants too, if they hadn't run away at the first sign of the Elders. She hoped most of them had made it past the open fields and into the partial cover of the tree line.

"When they come," Hudson said, his voice bringing her back to the present, "I'll make my last stand."

His words lost their power as he rested his head on the upright sword looking as if he was swearing fealty or praying. She preferred neither.