Claiming Her

That sounded forbidding and utterly believable.

He watched her warily. He was only just coming into his youthful strength, and a rough spray of facial hair dusted his jawline. His gaze swept down her briefly, taking in her somewhat threadbare cloak and exceedingly hard, good boots.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked, sounding doubtful.

“Oh, very,” she assured him.

The tip of his nose was red-tinged. She supposed hers was as well. They examined each other’s noses.

“You should take my furs, my lady,” he urged with a sort

of quiet desperation.

“So you have suggested.” Repeatedly. But Katarina’s old wrap was sufficient, and the thought of being indebted to Aodh Mac Con, or his men, for anything at all—even a wrap—was, well…infuriating.

“I think not,” was all she said.

“A fire, then.”

“There is no need.” Fuel must be kept for even greater need, which was always coming; he’d learn that soon enough.

He regarded her morosely. “My lord will not be happy.”

“That I will not take your wrap?”

“That you’ve been made cold.”

“Why ever should he care about such a thing?”

He shrugged. “You’re under his protection now, my lady.”

A terrifying thought, that. “And how would he know of our failed treaty over the furs?”

He looked at her red-tipped nose.

She touched it lightly. “Of course. And for this, he will have your head?”

“He might,” he replied grimly.

The terrifying thoughts continued to pile up, did they not? “So, he does this often, this collecting of heads?”

Surprise crossed his face, then was swept away, shuttered beneath a soldier’s mask. He rolled his shoulder slightly and definitely away from her, perhaps to distance himself from any more of her heresy. A gust of cold wind bore through the gaps in the stone around the window.

After a moment, he said quietly, “I’m sure he’ll call for you soon, my lady.”

She nodded in agreement. “But how will that help?”

To that, he had no reply.

Steps sounded outside the room, and a muffled voice came in through the door. “Bran, my lad, open up. He wants her.”

Pure, cold fear shot through Katarina. He wants me.

Her young guard swung the door open. One of Aodh’s older captains stood on the landing, clad in his disguising English armor, but the shaggy hair spilling down over his shoulders was entirely Irish. He looked foreign and terrifying, standing on her landing.

His gaze flicked to her briefly. “Bring her down, Bran. To the lord’s chambers.”

A disconcerting buzz started in Katarina’s head, the sort that accompanied faints and watery knees, or so she’d been told. It was ridiculous and unnecessary. Katarina’s knees were made of steel. One did what one did, and then dealt with the consequences. She’d taken her captor’s blade and used it against him, in front of his men, and in the end, he’d prevailed.