Claiming Her

How in God’s name had it come to this?

She’d been facing a small query from one of the queen’s interrogators about a faint rumor regarding a minor crack in the loyalty of Rardove—almost entirely unfounded—and now she was being offered full-on rebellion in its stead.

She wanted to sit down, shut her eyes, catch her breath, compose herself somehow.

But that time had passed. There was no composure, no consideration, only falling, as if she’d been pushed off a cliff and was tumbling into an unknown future all alone. Even the small, stern counseling voice inside her was silent—doubtless rendered incoherent by recent events—and everything, absolutely everything, was now in her hands.

She lifted her chin a miniature inch, an infant inch, the smallest lift one could give a chin in a tight situation, swept her skirts out to the side, and sat down.

“What do you offer in consideration of your suit?”

Chapter Nine

AODH BURST OUT laughing.

“Lass, you’ve got bollocks,” he said as she lowered herself into the chair.

“I have been told that,” she replied with the same liquid grace she’d evidenced in everything thus far: greeting him in a cold bailey; handing over the keys to her castle; holding a blade to his throat.

He wanted to push her back on the bed and make her stop being graceful, become just heat. Roaring flames.

He pushed the heels of his boots harder into the ground and maintained his seat. Ravishing her would not encourage her to bend of her own free will.

Accursed free will.

To give his body something to do besides ravishing her, he grabbed the wine jug and tipped the spout her direction in silent query. The fire reflected in her dark eyes as she looked at him for a long, silent moment. Then she reached out and took the wine.

A small surrender, but Aodh was on a path. Small accessions, small agreements, accumulating like snow.

He waited until she finished pouring, then said without preamble, “I can think of half a dozen persuasive reasons to join me.”

“By persuasive, do you mean ‘mad’?”

He shrugged. “Some might call it that.”

“Sane folk might call it that.”

He sipped his drink. “On the other hand, folk who down an entire bowl of wine in a single swallow might see merit in the notion.”

She settled back in her seat. “I see. You do think me mad.”

“I think you reckless and bold. To the arguments, Katarina: firstly, we are already here.”

She inclined her head in a regal nod. “I had noticed.”

“To some, that alone would be sufficient motivation.”

She smiled thinly. “So now you think me easily swayed.”

“The dagger at my throat suggested otherwise,” he said briskly. “Secondly, I have sixty-odd men who can commandeer a castle in less than ten minutes.”

She settled back in her seat, wine cup held between the fingertips of both hands. “Yes, we were all appropriately awed.”

“They were,” he said. “You were not.”

“I was entirely awed, Mac Con. One might even say awestruck.”

“Might one?”