AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Leave.” She was the stern chatelaine now as she’d never been before, cold and regal.
Bran got to his feet, staring as if she was a wild thing. Which she was—wild and distressed and cornered and dangerous.
Bran joined his captain on the landing. Their gazes met, then slowly, the door swung shut with a thud. She heard a soft, heavy metal click, and the boots retreated.
She’d been locked in.
The thing she loved so desperately about Ireland—her freedom—Aodh Mac Con had taken away.
She took a wild turn around the room, roiling with energy, furious, wanting to fling herself at Aodh, to hurt him, to ruin him as he was doing to her.
Her boots rang out loud on the floor as she circled endlessly through the night.
*
“SHE WILL NOT submit.”
“I noticed,” Ré said.
Down in the jousting yards, with moonlight to light their swordplay, he and Aodh circled each other, blades out. Ré was accustomed to such things; Aodh was an engine of movement in the best of times, and when he’d stormed out of the castle a few hours ago, venting a fury the likes of which Ré had never seen before, he’d assumed they were in for a night of…this.
Ré smashed Aodh’s sword away and spun in a circle, coming around again, blade up.
The bailey was dark. Slivers of light from the castle windows broke the shadows cast by the surrounding buildings. Candle glow and soft sounds spilled from the hall. The barracks and gatehouse towers added some illumination. Tiny stars glittered here and there behind the scuttling clouds from a clearing storm.
“Are you asking my opinion?” Ré said.
“Have you one?”
“Perhaps you should send her away,” he said as he slid his boot to the side, watching Aodh’s sword in the moonlight. It moved in a wide sweep, and Ré leapt back. “As planned.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I am not yet convinced she cannot be of value.”
“In what way?”
“Contacts, networks, alliances. She has lived here for years. She knows these people, these men.”
They parried for a moment, then Ré said with deep suspicion, “So you want her for her…political connections?” Skepticism put a faint drag on the final words.
Aodh shrugged. “If I win her, we win those.”
They both swept forward. Their swords met and held in the air, crossed like steely wings. “And if you do not win her?”
Aodh looked at Ré over the swords. “I will.”
“That is good to hear.” With a sharp squeal of metal, they separated and stepped back. “Perhaps you did not ask properly.”
Aodh stared at his heretofore loyal captain and friend. “Am I to take some meaning from that?”
“Something happened in the hall, Aodh.” Swipe right, swipe left. “Something that made her unwilling to sign, when she had been ready.”
Aodh ground his teeth. Katarina had not been ready to sign. It had been clear as anything, which was why he’d sent them all away. To seduce her. And by it, convince her.
The former had worked. Not the latter.
