Claiming Her

Ahead in the tilting yards, abutting the battlement wall, stood a group of young soldiers. Quite young. Were any above twenty?

They’d been disarmed and placed in the center of a ring of Aodh’s soldiers, who had their swords out. But despite the overwhelming odds and the fact that they’d been entirely disarmed, they appeared belligerent and unruly, not particularly willing to bend. But bend they would, if they cared for their lady.

“They are all yours,” said Ré.

“And I shall take them,” he said, striding forward. Soldiers required attention, but not a great deal. There were the swords and pikes and the occasional firearm, but all in all, soldiers were not a complicated lot.

Katarina, though…complicated.

In twenty-nine years of hard living, Aodh had seen much and done much. Little of it was pretty, much of it was brutal. As a child, his life had been a hedgerow of spears. His adult life had been much the same, except he was the one brandishing the weapons, and not all were wrought of steel; intrigue oft had the sharper bite. Queen Elizabeth expected nothing less from her most loyal men.

Little surprised or upended Aodh, and nothing, absolutely nothing, enchanted.

But Katarina had.

Granted, few men would find a woman laying a blade to their throat enchanting. But Aodh had always been the cross-grain, the thing that didn’t fit, and it had taken approximately two seconds in Katarina’s presence to know, without a doubt, she was just like him.

Katarina of the lonely castle. Katarina of the bright eyes and curving body, Katarina the flame, who knew very well she ought to have submitted but, in a moment of great passion, had not.

Lovely, reckless, hotheaded Katarina.

Aodh was hardly above a challenge.

Aodh craved a challenge. But the way to Katarina was not by breaking. It was by bending. Of her own free will.

Aodh’s specialty. Making people bend.

Chapter Seven

SHE HAD BENT. Dropped the only protection she had when the Irishman ran his tongue over her ear.

Katarina shivered again, even now, hours later.

Fool. Unbridled, hotheaded, reckless fool.

She stood in the exact center of the solar chamber where she’d been escorted hours earlier, her spine erect, chin up, gaze unmoving on the door, running through a list of self-recriminations, adding new and highly descriptive terms each time. It was a sort of paternoster.

It did not calm. Nor did it penetrate the true depths of her madness.

If one was going to be so precipitate and idiotic and reckless as to steal a man’s blade, one must then use it. Not be upended by his shiver-blue eyes and his…his tongue.

She stood motionless, gaze on the door. Motionless was the way to approach this thing. Akin to stone or steel. Untouched and untouchable.

It shouldn’t be difficult. She’d had a great deal of practice.

A single candle burned in the leaded glass window. Cold air moved in intermittent drafts, running through the castle like children, particularly here in the solar, which had been damaged in the fire. She hardly felt it. All her attention was pinned on detecting sounds from below.

Unfortunately, there were no sounds from below. At least nothing clear. Or human. Animals occasionally bleated or barked or whinnied, but the Irishman’s soldiers had clearly conquered, then gone indoors. The castle grounds were eerily quiet. The only sounds now were faint ones, creeping through the castle like winding vines, a steady low hum punctuated by occasional whoops and crashes.

Aodh’s men might be playing music, conducting races, or beheading people. There was no way to know. Until someone chose to tell her.

How…infuriating.

She shifted her gaze to the young soldier standing guard duty. He leaned against the wall, furs draped over his shoulders, arms crossed, hands shoved up into his armpits, watching her watch the door.

“You are an admirable guard,” she told him. “You have not once looked away from me.”

“Aye, well, my lord would have my head if anything happened to you, my lady.”