Alina’s sob stuck in her throat and shewhipped around and dropped to her knees beside Roark, who laywatching her with a quizzical expression on his face.
“I though you dead,” she cried, her tearsflowing freely.“We all thought you dead.”
“Dead?”he rasped.He started to raise hishead and stopped, put a hand to his bruising throat, and another tohis ribs, which Alina had been pounding on.He turned his gaze toBryce, Logan, and his mother, all of them kneeling around him, andAlina knew the moment he remembered where he was and why by thepain reflected in his eyes.
“Help me sit up,” he croaked to Logan, whostood and lifted him by the shoulders until he could sit on hisown.He lifted an arm and Alina scooted under it, nestling into hisside.“I don’t know how it is you’re here and I’m alive,” hewhispered hoarsely, “but I’m glad on both accounts.”
“As am I, my love.”Alina exhaled, her voiceas shaky as her body all of a sudden.“As am I.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder andbecame aware of her father’s Northmen holding Roger’s men and thefew villagers who hadn’t fled at sword point.The two men who’d cutRoark loose from the noose stepped down from the gallows, theirshort swords in their hands, their long swords still sheathed.
“Niels, Grant,” she said.“It’s good to seeyou again.”
“Princess Alina.”Niels tipped his shortsword to her.
“Help me stand,” Roark said, and she scootedout from under his shoulder as Bryce and Logan pulled him to hisunsteady feet.He leaned on their shoulders as Alina’s parentsapproached, flanked by three Northmen bristling with swords and waraxes.Roark’s father stepped over to stand by Roark’s mother.
“Roark,” her father said in the Northerntongue.“It’s a good thing you have a strong neck.”
“So it would seem,” Roark answered in kind.“Thank you, King Jerrik, for coming, for saving my life.”
“Thank our daughter.”
Roark nodded and stepped away from Logan’sand Bryce’s support to stand before her father.“I owe her morethan my life, King Jerrik.I owe her my soul.”He looked at Alinaand smiled, slow and melting.“She already owns my heart.”Heturned back to her father.“I owe you an apology and anexplanation.”
Her father held up his hand.“All of which wewill deal with later,” he said.He turned toward where theMacKinnons stood, perusing Roger, Lynette, Donald, Myrna, andGwyneth one by one.“Rigil Fenrirson,” her father said in the GreenIsles tongue for all to hear.He lifted his chin toward Donald.“Delling Fenrirson.I told you both if you ever came after me or myfamily again, I would kill you, did I not, cousins?”
Alina’s jaw dropped as a great buzzingswarmed through the crowd.
“Rigil is Roger?”she asked Roark, who didn’tlook half as surprised as she felt.
Roger drew himself up.“You have no powerhere, Jerrik the Usurper,” he declared.
Alina’s father simply raised a brow andglanced around the square, where his men held Roger’s at swordpoint.He turned toward the dock, where one of his warships wasbeing pulled up onto the shore by four Northmen.The secondlongboat had stayed with theSea Eaglewhere it lay anchoredat the port’s mouth, which was where they’d interceptedTheRoveras she was heading out to sea and boarded her, sailingher into the North Shore port with Alina, and twenty armed Northmenhidden aboard.
“You, Rigil, are the one with no power here,”her father said.He turned to address the gathering.“These men areRigil and Delling Fenrirson, my cousins.Sons of a dead fatherkilled by my hand twenty years ago for murdering my father, mymother, my two brothers, and my wife’s brother, and for attemptingto murder me and my wife, all to sit on a throne not rightfullyhis.”He paused for breath and effect and Alina smiled.Her fatherknew how to capture a crowd’s attention.“I banished Rigil andDelling and their families for their parts in their father’smurderous schemes on the condition they never return or bother myfamily again.”He glared at Rigil and shook his head.“In returnfor my letting them live, he had my only daughter kidnapped, not toransom her, but to sell her as a slave.His revenge on me and hermother would be to let us think her dead the rest of ourlives.”
“You lie,” Rigil spat.
Alina’s father looked over to where CaptainMurtaugh stood with Kerry and Kerwin.
“It’s true,” Murtaugh said.“We were to sailto the desert lands with Princess Alina, but then she escaped withRoark.”
“So what?”Rigil sneered.“Even if true, noneof this changes the fact I am laird and Roark a convicted killer,sentenced to hang for the murder of my son.”
The rage that had been simmering in Alinasince Leif had pulled the hood over her head boiled over.Shequickly closed the distance between her and the man whose twistedsense of vengeance had caused all of this and stood with her waistblade to Rigil’s throat before he or anybody else could react.
“Nobody’s going to hang Roark again,” shegrowled.“Especially not for the murder of your rapist son.A crimeRoark did not commit.”
She held Rigil’s impotent glare as Han andBors stepped to her sides, long swords drawn.Alina smiled.Shecould slit Rigil’s throat right here and nobody could stop her.Hecertainly deserved to die for all his lies and deceit, for all thetrouble and grief he’d caused.
Roark’s big, familiar hand reached out and helaid it on her forearm, gently wrapping his fingers around herwrist.“Don’t do this, my fierce little owl,” he said, his voicelow and steady.
“Why not?”she asked, never taking her eyesfrom Rigil’s, which had grown wide with real fear.“He tried tokill you.To sell me into slavery.”
Roark placed his other hand on Alina’sshoulder and leaned in so that only she could hear him.“You don'twant the memory of thrusting your blade into his throat hauntingyou the rest of your life.In this world, where all our actionshave consequences and repercussions, I need you, Princess Alina,King Jerrik’s daughter, to trust me on this.I need you to let me,Roark MacInnes, deal with Roger MacKinnon, laird of North ShoreKeep.”
Alina glanced at Roark.He’d called herprincess and used the other’s titles for a reason.She didn’t knowwhat that reason was, but she trusted him.She lowered her bladeand wagged the tip at him.“Don’t you dare die on me again.”
