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Our guests had arrived.
“Dammit,” I muttered, growing peeved about their interruption. Farrow seemed to want me—me, with all my weird, crazy, cracked parts and everything. It was the first time he had softened toward the idea of an us, so these assholes breaking into our perfect moment and killing the mood set me off on the wrong, freaking foot.
“Excuse me a moment,” I told my mate from between clenched teeth.
It was time to show these irritatingly rude men some manners.
Grabbing the blood-soaked arrow from the ground next to Farrow, I stood and slowly faced the newcomers. Five riders sat atop their horses, surrounding us in a half circle. They sneered arrogantly as if they thought they were so superior. All of them had bows slung over their shoulders in a lazy show of force.
I gifted them with a hard, angry smile. “I’m sorry, but was this meant for us?” After holding up the arrow to show it off, I gripped each end, then I hiked my leg up from between the slit in my skirt to snap the shaft over my knee and break it in two. Then I tossed it aside with a sniff. “Hmm. Too bad you missed.”
“High Cliff bitch,” one sneered. “Looks like you need to be taught a lesson in submission.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“I’d like to see you try.”
Accepting the challenge, all five riders dismounted as one, four of them tossing aside their bows to brandish new, different types of weapons. The one who’d kept his bow, however, nocked an arrow and pulled the string back, aiming it straight at my heart.
I glowered just before Farrow stepped in front of me, blocking me from the threat. Irritation made me scowl at his back and start forward to step up to his side, but he must’ve sensed my move because he held his hand back toward me in a stay kind of gesture, cautioning me to keep put.
Tipping his face to the side so he could remain watching the others but also address me, he murmured, “I’ve got this.”
I paused, letting him have his way, since these were his countrymen.
It was obvious who the leader of their merry little band was. He stepped forward, towing a lazily swaying chain mace at his side. Instead of one ball studded with sharp spikes hanging from it, however, this mace had three chains, containing three spiked metal balls.
Totally overcompensating, if you asked me.
I winced when I focused on one of the balls, though. Was that a chunk of flesh and hair still impaled on one spike? Eww. I had a bad feeling it was.
He really ought to clean his tools more often. That was most unsanitary.
“So, who do you think you are?” he asked Farrow as he lazily began to swing the mace-and-chain in a circle as I’d seen children do with jumping ropes down in the village outside our castle.
Farrow didn’t seem intimidated by the man’s show of force. “I’m none of your concern, friend,” he answered. “Now, I suggest you look the other way and forget you saw us.”
“Oooh,” their leader crowed as if impressed by Farrow’s speech. He glanced at his followers, and they sneered as well, easing in on us and tightening the circle.
I unconsciously moved closer to Farrow, not sure how apt he was in combat. I mean, the Donnelly army had just captured him when we’d first met. That never left a person sparkling in a good light. I touched his back to let him know I was there and wouldn’t let anything untoward happen to him, and he opened one of his hands to reassuringly touch my side as if trying to reassure me of the same thing.
I grinned, happy to see he cared, and ran my fingers over his knuckles.
The ruffian dropped his gaze to our linked hands.
“You may be dressed in the war gear of a royal palace guard,” he said, “but we’re not fooled. No one wanders around the Vast Desert as if they’re coming from Donnelly with a whore bearing a High Cliff mark and calls us friend.”
“Well, that’s where you’d be wrong,” Farrow replied mildly. “Because I am a palace guard. And I’m currently on assignment from the king himself.” He hitched his head in my direction. “This isn’t a High Cliff chit either, you idiot. She’s the princess of Donnelly, and I’ve been tasked with the duty of kidnapping her from the Iron Castle and escorting her back to the king himself, where he plans to hold her for ransom until her brother pays a tidy sum to get her back. Now…” He waved a hand as if to shoo our harassers along. “Step aside and let me on my way or answer to King Torrance himself for your treasonous behavior.”
For a spur-of-the-moment lie, I was quite impressed with Farrow’s ability to slap such a quick fabrication of a story together. And it was so very detailed too. I squeezed his fingers encouragingly. Cutthroats like these would have no mercy for the truth about his mother; they’d respect violence and brutality much more.
Brilliant thinking, love, I wanted to cheer him on.
In front of us, the leader blinked before glancing back at his friends. Together, they burst out laughing.
Damn, they weren’t going to swallow the lie.
