Claiming Her

He glanced up at the castle walls. His castle walls.

The battlements loomed over the surrounding countryside, forty feet of stone to the top of the walls, the towers rising higher yet, all painted a vibrant cobalt blue and white. Pennants snapped wetly at intervals along the battlements.

Still, nothing like the mythic images his father had drawn in his mind. It was just a wall. Not the castle of Finn MacCumhail, or the fortress of Conchobor Mac Nessa. Nothing great, certes nothing out of the mists of legend. Just rubble and stone with frightened people inside.

Except Katarina. No doubt she had been frightened, but she’d come at him like a warrior. Like a berserker in a coif. A beautiful, nay, carnally made woman who, in a moment of great fear, had attacked instead of fled and made his heart beat more fiercely than it had for many a year.

At his side, his captain walked in companionable silence. His proper name was as simple and unfitting as his origins: John. His father had been a poor peasant farmer, but even at thirteen, he’d held ambitions higher than dirt in furrows, and Aodh had rechristened him after he’d dragged Aodh’s broken body out of the sea, pumped the water from his lungs, and saved his life, then latched his plow to Aodh’s ambitions and followed him up. Shor

tened to Ré most of the time, it was as succinct as his English name, but it meant a great deal more.

Now, after sixteen years of a friendship that had included bloody flashes of battle, interspersed by the low-burning flame of courtly intrigue, there was little that needed saying. Each would watch the other’s back, be there when needed, and say a thing only if it needed saying.

“By any chance, did the lady of the castle have a blade at your throat?” Ré asked, breaking the companionable silence.

This, then, apparently was a thing that needed saying. “Aye, she did.”

“By any chance, was it your blade?”

“I believe it was.”

“Ah. Because that’s what it looked to be. Your blades. Saw them both.”

“Your eyesight is remarkable.”

Ré grinned. He was not one to resist many things, neither danger nor dare. It had been thus since the moment they’d met, and was partly why they were so close—both of them saw the edge of the cliff as a thing to skirt very close. Occasionally to dive over.

And so, Ré stepped closer to this particular cliff. “What I can see, friend, is that we’re in for trouble if you cannot keep your blade out of a woman’s hands.”

Oh, the innuendoes. They looked at each other as they walked.

“So, how did she—”

Aodh blew out an impatient breath. “I was distracted.”

Ré looked delighted by this. “Were you? That is fascinating.”

“By Cormac,” Aodh explained, dispersing blame.

“Is that so? For I did not see him—”

“He had been there, a moment earlier. Stuck his head through the north door.”

“I see. So you were chatting with Cormac, and the lady of the castle put a blade to your throat. Entirely understandable. Could have happened to anyone.”

Aodh looked over. “Must we?”

Ré considered him with a happy grin. “We must.”

Aodh sighed. “She surprised me.”

“Right. And how did a lass in a gown do that?”

“She punched me in the jaw. Then kneed me in the bollocks.”

This granted him a full minute of relief, since that was how long Ré spent laughing, rendering him incapable of posing any more questions. Aodh took the respite to debate whether he actually required Ré’s services any longer.

Finally Ré composed himself, but after a long examination of Aodh’s profile, all he said was, “Clever.”