Forbidden Warrior (Midsummer Knights)

For a moment they were aligned, comrades in their disbelief in the power of love for men like her father.

Men like Máel.

She tipped her head to the side, considering him. “But all this begs the question: why is my father mixed up with an outlaw to begin with?”

“And how do you answer?” His body was readying for passion, but his mind had been snared by the sharpness of hers.

He was curious to see where she would take this. How far.

“Clearly, he hired you,” she answered, her voice pitched low. “But why? The Lord of Ware has many messengers and servants. Why not use one of them for this deed? I can only think of one reason. Is this not clever of me?”

“I’m in shock.”

She tipped closer. “Because it is a secret. Something too dangerous to do himself, yet something that must be done, and must remain secret. Something that would ruin him if it were discovered.”

Not her father’s daughter at all. Too clever by far.

Her eyes were little sparks as she watched him. “Mayhap ruin you, too, Irishman,” she said softly.

“It will not ruin me.”

“Oh, but it might. For if you are involved in this thing with my father, and if it fails, it will indeed wreak havoc on you too. And if you are discovered with me, it will raise all manner of questions. Questions I suspect you would not want to answer.”

Hearing his own words cast back at him was akin to being splashed with cold water.

“That sounds like a threat, lass,” he murmured. “Are you threatening me?”

She leaned closer yet. “I am not threatening you. The last thing I want is anyone to know I was held by an Irish rogue, for then I would never get my knight.”

His gaze slid over her face. “Aye. Your chivalrous knight.”

Her eyes, heretofore direct, faltered. “Yes. Him.”

“Then you should take care, Cassia, how and where you spin your theories.”

“Pah.” She made an impatient gesture and shook her head fiercely. A few strands of hair, precariously perched in pins for the past hours, came sliding down. “No,” she retorted, staring at him through the amber-lit, shifting shadows. “I have ‘taken care’ my entire life, and you see what it has achieved me? Abandoned by my father, hostaged to an outlaw, drinking this—” She gave the flask a little shake, then tipped it to her mouth and tossed back a rather large swig.

Máel’s mouth twitched.

“No,” she said almost proudly, “I am done with care. I am no longer its keeper. Now tell me…” She pushed the mussed hair away from her face. “What say you to my spinning?”

“Naught.”

“You have no thoughts?”

“Oh, I’ve thoughts,” he drawled.

Her eyebrows arched. “Tell me.”

In that moment, he decided to aim for battle, as it was what she seemed to want. And by all the gods he no longer believed in, he wanted it too.

“I’m thinking about making a mistake,” he murmured.

“A mistake?”

“A mistake with you.”

“What sort of mistake?”