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“Your heart?” Sarya echoed, while hers beat wildly. “You hardly know me.”
Or he hadn’t before yesterday, when it seemed her tongue had been eager to tell him every bit of the grief and humiliation she’d known these past three years.
“I knew everything that I needed to that first day when I learned you’d been searching all over the realm for your horse. If you hadn’t found him here, I’d have gone searching with you. If you hadn’t stayed here, I’d have followed.”
Her emotions reeling, Sarya didn’t know what to say. In many ways, she’d also learned all that she needed to know of Bannin that first day, too, when he’d been caring for his nephew and helping his sister. Though admittedly, discovering that he’d been away from Galoth so often because he’d been hunting these demons and not simply seeking adventure had filled in many of the pieces still missing.
“Let me court you,” he said huskily, his thumb brushing over her lips. “Whatever you’re afraid of, I’ll—”
“I’m not afraid!”
“Then whatever it is you don’t trust. I’ll prove myself to you.”
Her breath hitched. “It’s just…been so fast.”
“Fast?” His eyebrows shot upward. “For three years, I’ve been after you. Flirting with you every chance I got. I know you weren’t ready for me all that time, hurting and healing. But my interest can’t be a surprise.”
“Yet it is. I’ve had one day to understand that you aren’t joking when you flirt with me. That I’m not just a distraction while you visit your sister. That you’re serious.”
“So you aren’t certain of me?” His jaw clenched, and hurt deepened the green of his eyes. Seeing his pain gripped her with the urgent need to take back her words. Yet before she could speak, his expression cleared and he nodded decisively. “That’s what courting is for. To be certain. You aren’t making me a promise. Just…trying me out.”
His face had darkened as he spoke the last, as if it had taken a great effort to acknowledge that a courtship might not lead to something permanent.
“Clearly that’s not what you want,” she said softly.
“I want you standing in front of a priestess, your hand wrapped up in a red ribbon while you vow to be my wife. But if you aren’t ready, I’ll wait. I’ll wait forever for you, Sarya.”
No words could have touch her more deeply. Sarya’s heart lifted, and her voice lightened. “Will your courtship include more of what we just did?”
“Woman,” Bannin said gruffly, his mouth lowering to hover above hers, “you’ll be lucky if I ever get my head out from between your thighs.”
“Well, then,” she said breathlessly. “Let the courtship begin.”
Chapter 6
Bannin the Battering Ram
The finest morning of Bannin’s life began in Sarya’s bed and with her mouth wrapped around his cock. And the sweetness of her cunt was still on his tongue when he stepped outside.
Suddenly, it was no longer the finest morning. Bones littered the clearing around Sarya’s cottage. All human…and far more than one human.
Her face pale, Sarya stared at the horror the demon had left. “Who?”
Word reached the village quickly enough, answering the question of “who”. It had been a merchant caravan that had ignored the warning signs they’d posted along the forest road…as if the demon taunted them by killing travelers in the very same area they’d searched for it the day before.
Not merely taunting them, but spitting in their faces.
Their hunt that morning was tense and silent. Luncheon began the same way, as they sat back-to-back on a fallen log. And although the anger and sickness of what the demon had done would not ease until they’d killed it, feeling Sarya against him helped diminish the immediate intensity.
And Bannin was glad she welcomed the battering ram, because he’d been brooding over something she’d said the previous night, and he’d rather not be subtle about asking.
“Why did you think I wasn’t serious?”
“Hmm?”
“Three years, and you thought I was only flirting?”
“Oh.” She leaned back more fully against him, as if to reassure him of her presence even as she said, “Well, most of your stories were ridiculous.”
“But all true.”
“Yes, but…I suspect—now I suspect—that you left out the hard parts.” Her voice faltered a bit. “No one wants to hear about the bones outside your home. They don’t want to hear the parts that hurt, and make you feel as if you’ve failed everyone you hoped to protect. They just want to hear about the monster’s blood and guts, and about the victory. They don’t want to hear the parts that haunt you afterward.”
That was true. And he had left those parts out, figuring she wouldn’t want to hear them, either.
Not that it was easy to share those parts. But for her, he’d begin making the effort.
“And,” she continued, “you always mentioned someone who was so overwhelmed by your heroics that you were able to charm them into bed.”
