Claiming Her

“Aodh,” she said in a cold whisper. “This is terrible. The queen will destroy you.”

“You’re concerned for me?”

“I’m horrified for you.”

With a twist of his wrist, he spun his sword and wrenched the blade from her grip. It tore free and clattered to the ground and he moved in, flinging his sword away as he came, driving her back to the wall. He drew up in front of her and put a hand on the wall on either side of her head, his arms stretched out straight.

“Aodh, this is madness.” She touched his jaw with trembling fingers. “Are you not even frightened?”

He skimmed a hand down her ribs, his hand catching on the damp chemise before he hooked it around her waist.

“I have been through fire, Katy. I have no fear left in me. It all burned away when I saw my father’s body torn limb from limb. Whatever happens will happen. I will not shy away.” He brushed his beard-roughened cheek across her soft one. “This, right here, now, between you and me, ’tis meant to be.”

She leaned her head forward until her forehead touched his. “I do not know what to do with you. You are mad.”

“Aye, mad. Join me.”

She gave a broken laugh. “I cannot.”

His head came up a bare inch. “You keep saying that, but most things are indeed a choice.” His voice was a low rasp. “Not a fine one, nor a pleasant one, not the one we thought we’d have, or that we wanted to have, but a choice, nevertheless.”

“And I am to thank you for offering me this one?”

“I am not offering it. It is. What you do with it is the choice. This moment may not be the one you sought, Katy, but it is here, before you. Choosing not to make it, that too is a choice. This moment, here,” he tightened the hand on her hip, “this is our life.”

“Oh, Aodh, you think I am not choosing you. I am not choosing treason.”

Aodh must have heard the tremble in her voice, for he moved in, no doubt sensing surrender. His other hand came to rest on her hip, and he pressed a kiss to her shoulder.

“Choose me,” he said, so simply it almost broke her heart.

“But, Aodh, does this all not mean you, too, have a choice?”

He stilled.

“You could choose something different. You could change this matter entirely.” Her words sped up as excitement grew. “You could admit you were wrong. Please, let us write the queen. I shall write her—”

“No. ” He slid his open hand from her hip up to the nape of her neck, where it hung, half a caress of affection, half a sign of warning. “My plans are the plans of generations, Katy, an entire people. My father, his grandfather, and his, and his. Rardove is four hundred years of waiting. I cannot lay it aside, nor have it endangered, not even for you.”

Her skin heated with the endearment. “What do you mean, even?”

“You must know, I esteem you.”

She shook her head angrily. “What would tell me so? Being locked in a tower?”

“Not being dead should tell you.”

She inhaled sharply. In the dim room, he was a force of nature.

“Not being sent away should tell you.” His voice was low and murmuring, coaxing her to see this his way. “The gifts should tell you.”

“Stop giving me gifts,” she pleaded.

“No.”

He bent his head and claimed her mouth, kissing her as if they were sinking, the land falling away beneath their feet, her mouth the only thing holding him up. She met him, lash for lash, her arms around his shoulders. He backed her to the wall and plunged his tongue deep into her mouth.

It was a dark, wild, unforgiving, primal, insanely arousing demand of a kiss. She returned it in the same fashion, reckless, hot, willing. He tore his mouth free.