Den withdrew his hand.

The Fey clucked in approval and began sharpening his blade.

Ellie was grateful for the intervention. The feel of Den's fingers squeezing her flesh always made her ill. Lauriana, however, wasn't impressed. She planted her hands on her hips and glared. "Now, you see here, sers. This is Ellie's fiancé. Her father signed the agreement just this morning. You've no business entering my home and coming between a lad and his betrothed”

"Betrothed?" Ellie gasped. The Fey shared looks and a patter of quick Feyan words. The young brown-haired warrior pointed at Den and laughed in disbelief. Then he grinned and shook his head.

"Nei, nei, little sausage," he told Den. "The Feyreisa is not for you.”

Obviously feeling a bit braver after seeing Lauriana stand up to the warriors, Den thrust out his jaw. "Ellysetta is my betrothed, and you demon-souled sorcerers have nothing to say about it. She bears my mark, her family has signed the agreement. We wed in a month's time”

"Your mark?" Ellie cried. Her hand flew to her throat. "Is that why you bit my neck, you horrid little toad?”

"Ellysetta Baristani," her mother snapped, "mind your tongue!”

Den's face turned purple at the insult. Without warning, his meaty hand slashed out towards Ellie's face. Never having been struck before in her life, Ellie was too stunned even to think of defending herself.

She didn't need to. Den's arm froze in mid swing, and the intended blow never landed.

Den's eyes went wide with surprise that changed quickly into fear, then terror. He clawed at his chest, mouth opening in a soundless gasp. It was as though all the air had been sucked from his lungs. He fell to his knees.

Ellie looked at Belliard. A faint white glow emanated from him.

"You may not touch the Feyreisa," he told Den. His voice was glacial, his eyes flat and lifeless. This was a man who would kill without a qualm. "I will not take a life in the Feyreisa's home unless I must, and so I let you live.”

The room echoed with the raw sound of air rushing back into Den's starved lungs. He coughed and his shoulders heaved. His mother rushed to his side, trying to hover over him, only to be batted away.

Ellie swallowed. Her innate compassion roused a twinge of sympathy, but her outrage at the way he had tried to trap her into marriage kept her standing where she was. Talla whirled on Lauriana. "How can you stand there and allow my son to be treated this way? No young man with any pride would have allowed his betrothed to speak so rudely without punishment. Most would have taken a stick to her rather than a hand, and you know it!”

Lauriana dragged her dazed stare away from the butcher's gasping son and faced his outraged mother. "Talla, please—”

"It's obvious your daughter is a creature of loose morals. Who else has put his mark on her that you don't know about? This Fey Lord perhaps? Is that why he sends his sorcerers into your house? To watch over her until he is done with her?”

"Now, just a blessed minute!" Lauriana's cheeks flushed at the insult. To accuse a girl of loose morals was to accuse her family of the same.

"I've a good mind to break the agreement and demand the bride bond, which I scorching well know you can't afford to pay!" By Celierian custom, all families bonded their betrothed daughters with a price three times the girls' dower. It gave the families of the suitor insurance against unacceptable brides and provided strong incentive for the families of the bride to guard the girl's virtue and ensure she behaved with modest circumspection until her marriage.

"Talla Brodson, that is outside of enough! Are you threatening me in my own home?”

"My son has no need of a wife who is unattractive, poor, and loose with her favors to boot!”

"Shut up, Mother." Den had recovered his breath and gotten to his feet. He glared at his mother, glared at the Fey, then settled a narrow-eyed look of promised retribution on Ellie. "The betrothal stands. She's mine. I want her. I will have her. And Rain Tairen Soul can go flame himself. The laws of Celieria are on my side." He straightened his clothes with a few sharp tugs and stomped towards the door. "Come on, Mother. We're leaving." At the door, he stopped to pin Ellie with a final hot look. "Prepare yourself for our wedding, Ellysetta Baristani. And our wedding night." The door slammed behind them with a resounding bang.

In the ensuing silence, Ellie began to tremble as shock set in. She clasped her shaking hands together and hid them in her skirts, then turned to face her mother. "Mama, I can't marry him. Surely you must see that.”

Lauriana sighed. "Ellie, your father signed the papers. You must marry him.”

"But, Mama—”

"But nothing. You let him put his mark on you. In this very house. That's the same as agreeing to wed him.”

"I didn't let him do anything, Mama! Besides, the mark's just on my neck! I thought it had to be someplace more"— she glanced at the onlooking Fey and blushed bright red— "intimate.”

Ellie knew very little about claiming marks. Both she and her best friend, Selianne Sebarre, had overhead Kelissande and her friends giggling about the marks a time or two; but Selianne's mother wasn't from Celieria and didn't know the ancient custom, and the one time Ellie had asked Mama about it, Mama's nebulous reference to "passion roses" and stern caution to "stay away from boys and dark corners" had shed little light on the subject. The suspicion and close maternal supervision Ellie had received for weeks thereafter ensured that she never dared ask again.