Forbidden Warrior (Midsummer Knights)

She tore her arm free. “I am a hostage, I am told.”

“A noble one.”

“Indeed. A noble, bankrupt hostage.”

This time her father put his hand on her shoulder, and spoke close to her face. “Hush, you fool, and regard me well: this Irishman is not a man to trifle with.”

“I do not trifle,” she snapped, but her legs felt unsteady, as when she’d been a young child and gone without food for days. Once for a week.

But that hadn't happened for years and years. Her father had promised the hunger would never come again, and so it had not. Still, her knees wobbled and the sun, so golden and balmy, felt as if it was burning against the ice that had lodged in her heart.

“You trifle regularly. It is your biggest sin,” her father retorted, and pressed his heavy hand down on her shoulder. “Now heed me. Be still and silent and just go along easy.” He glanced over her shoulder at the evil Irishman.

“Do not fear.” Her father's hand squeezed her shoulder painfully tight, then he said in a low voice even Cassia could hardly hear, “I will get out of this.”

He turned away fast. As his hand was still on her shoulder, he pushed off of her. She stumbled back a few steps.

Stone-faced, he walked away, head down.

One might see in him a beaten man, but Cassia knew him too well; he was a political man, a maneuvering man. He had served King Richard for many years, and knew the intrigue of politics and power. Just now, he was thinking, planning, strategizing. It was never a pleasant thing for anyone who was the target of his strategizing.

Cassia usually had sympathy for anyone who bore the brunt of her father's schemes, but this time, she hoped only that he would be more vicious, more brutal, more scheming and conniving than ever he had been before.

She watched him disappear into the sea of brightly clad bodies, then balled her hands into fists and turned to face the Irish beast.

His blue eyes were impassive, arms crossed over his chest. He'd seen everything: how they'd argued; how her father had pushed off her; how she'd stumbled backward over the ruts.

She lifted her chin, trembling with fury. She wanted to strike at him, lash him with her fists and feet as a thing unleashed. Stab him with her nails, bite him with her teeth.

She composed herself and all the wild urges and looked into his arrogant face. “You must be pleased,” she said coldly.

“I'd not describe it that way.”

“If not you, then whom? You are the architect of this moment. I surely do not know how it happened.”

“Did your father not just explain?”

“My father said words. That is hardly an explanation.”

“He took something that did not belong to him.”

“My father has taken many things that do not belong to him,” she snapped. “None have hunted me down in his stead.”

Cold and remote, he met her gaze. “Be assured, lady, I hunted him down. He gave me you instead.”

“Then you neither of you have got what you wished for. What a sad world.” She averted her eyes to ensure she did not scratch his out. “Where am I to be kept?”

He pointed to the far meadow. A sea of colorful tents dotted across the meadow around the castle, which served as a campground for combatants and merchants who did not have lodging in the keep or the town below.

“Wear this.”

He was holding out a light cloak. She stared at it in confusion.

“Tug up the hood and keep your head down,” he said. “Unless you wish everyone to witness you going into the tent of a brigand.”

She snatched the cape, flung it on and pulled the hood far forward, to shield her face.

“Are we ready?” he asked.