Claiming Her

Simple, then. Say no. Get to her feet and decline this treasonous offer, close the strange, unforeseen door he’d thrust open with his coup and his eyes that heralded ice and sadness and his offers of marriage and I do not disapprove.

Just say no.

And then, through the long skein of the rest of her days, what then?

A jagged-edged chill cut down her belly.

“Katarina, regard,” he said quietly. “Whether you wish it or no, I have uncovered the truth. You hold Rardove with ten men. I cannot fathom how you did it, but that time is over. People are going to come for this place.”

“Yes, Bertrand of Bridge.” A tragically, violently well-suited man for the task of subduing anyone.

“And you wish for that?”

The question disrupted her tenuous composure more than anything else that ha

d happened since entering this room, and a great many things had already blown against that thin veil. This detecting of her inner thoughts was most unnerving.

“What does it matter what I wish for?”

“Right now, it matters to me.”

A sensation fluttered up in her like birds taking flight. She brushed her fingertips over her cheek, unnerved by the way he’d upended her life. Her lonely, windswept life.

I do not disapprove.

A ribbon flicked inside her, hot and low in her belly, raising paradoxical little chills across her skin.

She got to her feet, but could not look away from him.

He sat watching her, the power of him flickering in shadow and light. Dark hair, pewter eyes, warrior’s body, weapons hanging across him, he was everything she knew to fear. And did fear.

That must be fear, rushing through her in hot, shaky sweeps.

“Is that an aye?” he said as the silence extended.

One beat, two. His eyes never left hers.

Then he pushed to his feet.

She half-turned away. She was breathing too fast; her head spun. She could not think straight. She heard him coming, the silvery jingle of spurs, the soft tread of boots on plank floors. She curled her hand around a hairbrush on the dressing table, its gilt silver handle a cool thing of solid sanity, for this thing happening now, it could not be real.

But it was. He came up behind her, stood at her back, not touching, emanating. He was a fire burning in the room.

She parted her lips to inhale, trying to slow her racing breath, her spinning mind, her thundering heart.

“I cannot,” she said. It was more breath than word.

To her horror, she realized it sounded like a question: Can I?

He bent his head beside her hair. “Your people are frightened, Katarina. Their lives have been disrupted. They need you to calm them, guide them. You and I have armies to integrate,” his dark coaxing went on. “My men…they have been too long amid the fight. They need civilizing.”

She gave a broken laugh. “They will hardly find that here.”

“And you.” His body was heat and hard power, a bare inch away. “You must ache for a husband.”

She meant to shake her head, deny his words, deny everything. She moved nothing.

“On occasion, aye?”