Claiming Her

“I… The papers.” She pointed at the table, inkpots and brightly colored sealing wax and long silk threads lying all about, a festive little documentary celebration of treason.

Still cupping her face, his thumbs by her temples, his fingers curled around the back of her head, he looked over his shoulder at the table.

“You never meant it,” he said in low accusation. “’Twas all a lie. You lied to me.”

Anger rose up in her then. Lied to him?

“And who are you?” she whispered fiercely, feeling quite mad. For she was coming undone. The restraint and rigid self-control of the past years were slipping away like ice in spring. She felt it sliding, slippery and wet, like a sheet of ice shearing off into a swift-moving river. Further proof she’d slipped off the ledge of sanity entirely, she put her hands on his chest and pushed him.

“Who are you, Aodh Mac Con, that I may not lie to you?”

He dropped his hands, shock on his face.

“You, a usurper? A warlord? A thief?” And as madness abounded this night, she pushed him again, forcing him back a step. “And I may not lie to you?”

His jaw worked, but no words came out.

“I would not wed you, Aodh Mac Con, not if all the kings in the world begged me. It would be treason. And I am not that woman.”

For a moment, there was nothing but his hard body, motionless, and the long, slow breaths coming out of it, and the fierce, penetrating gaze, growing harder, harder, harder yet.

“Are you mad?” he snarled.

“Reckless,” she said, her words and body shaking, but her will unmoved.

“Veering perilously close to stubborn.”

“So be it.”

A beat of silence. “You have already agreed.”

“I changed my mind. You cannot have my men, and you cannot have me.”

Fury burned in his gaze.

“I signed nothing.” Still, though, it had the whiff of a betrayal. Curse him.

A ripple moved through his jaw. Clearly, Aodh was not used to being told no. “This will be done,” he vowed, low and lethal.

“Over my dead body,” she whispered back.

“If it comes to it.”

“You did not do so before.”

“Do not use the past as a judge of what I am willing to do in the future.”

“Do what you must, Aodh Mac Con. I refuse.”

“You will bend to me, Katarina,” he vowed as he swept his sword belt off the floor.

“I will not.”

The gaze he snapped to her was like a lance, slicing through her. “Then I will break you.”

“I should like to see you try.”

He reached her in two strides, roughly cupped the back of her neck, and plowed her mouth open with a violent, unforgiving kiss.