The Irish Warrior

Every man in the room strode forward and unslung his sword. The sound of sharp steel hissed against hardened

leather, then shattered the air as blades sliced across the metal clasps atop their sheaths. Alane pushed off the wall. Liam de Valery got to his feet.

He reached out his hand to Finian. “I’m in on the hunt.”

Alane shut his eyes briefly. Thank God Finian did not know how fast his heart was beating, or how icy was his blood. He’d never live it down.

De Valery turned to shout commands. Alane stepped forward. “Could you have pushed him any further, O’Melaghlin?” he asked quietly.

Finian grabbed his gauntlets off the table. “Aye. He’s young though, and I felt pity.”

Alane snorted as their swords were brought over. “Your sympathy is a frightening thing, my friend.”

They started restrapping the sheaths and buckling blades around thighs and arms. “Ye’re about to see my rage.”

Chapter 54

De Valery’s one-eyed captain was summoned forth. Half of his not-insignificant force was dispatched to the stables to ready itself for the sortie onto the Irish countryside. The others were told to hold at the manor, until de Valery sent word. Then the three of them strode to the stables, weapons slung and belted across their bodies.

“Tell me about Senna,” de Valery asked as they crossed the courtyard. “How is she?”

“Reckless. Resilient. Startling.”

De Valery looked over, his eyebrows raised. “I meant, is she hurt? She’s bewitched you, has she?” They reached the stables and began saddling their horses. “Not many see the charm. But then, she terrifies them with her stylus. Wields it like a sword. Very dangerous.”

“Yer sister is a force of nature. Most men hunker down.”

Liam considered him. “How did she get recaptured by Rardove’s men, anyhow?”

Finian shrugged. “She was out on her own.”

De Valery glanced at Alane, then back. “How’d she manage that?”

Finian scowled. “How does yer sister manage anything, de Valery?”

Liam looked at him in surprise, likely at the vehemence of his reply. “By saying she’s going to do it, then doing it. That’s how Senna does everything.”

Finian tested the cinch of his horse’s saddle by slipping a finger underneath, just behind the gelding’s front leg. “Aye. That’s her.”

“So,” Liam said, his tone contemplative. “She left.”

“Aye.”

“What did you do, to make her leave?”

Finian returned his gaze with a level look of his own. He could almost feel Senna’s presence under his skin, her heated touches, her roiling spirit. The eyes that peered at him were so much like her own they tugged at his heart. Do? God save him if he did anything but her bidding if he could only get her back.

“Whatever yer sister and I did, Liam, we did together.”

Another suspicious slant of the hazel eyes. “What exactly did you do together?”

“Everything.”

A pause. An arched blond eyebrow. “Everything?”

Finian swung up on his horse. “Everything she wanted to do.”

“Mother of God,” her brother muttered.