Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) (27 page)

“And I am to thank you for offering me this one?”

“I am not offering it. It
is
. What you do with it is the choice. This moment may not be the one you sought, Katy, but it is here, before you. Choosing not to make it, that too is a choice. This moment, here,” he tightened the hand on her hip, “this is our life.”

“Oh, Aodh, you think I am not choosing you. I am not choosing
treason
.”
 

Aodh must have heard the tremble in her voice, for he moved in, no doubt sensing surrender. His other hand came to rest on her hip, and he pressed a kiss to her shoulder.
 

“Choose me,” he said, so simply it almost broke her heart.
 

“But, Aodh, does this all not mean you, too, have a choice?”

He stilled.
 

“You could choose something different. You could change this matter entirely.” Her words sped up as excitement grew. “You could admit you were wrong. Please, let us write the queen.
I
shall write her—”

“No. ” He slid his open hand from her hip up to the nape of her neck, where it hung, half a caress of affection, half a sign of warning. “My plans are the plans of generations, Katy, an entire people. My father, his grandfather, and his, and his. Rardove is four hundred years of waiting. I cannot lay it aside, nor have it endangered, not even for you.”

Her skin heated with the endearment. “What do you mean, even?”
 

“You must know, I esteem you.”

She shook her head angrily. “What would tell me so? Being locked in a tower?”

“Not being dead should tell you.”

She inhaled sharply. In the dim room, he was a force of nature.
 

“Not being sent away should tell you.” His voice was low and murmuring, coaxing her to see this his way. “The gifts should tell you.”
 

“Stop giving me gifts,” she pleaded.

“No.”
 

He bent his head and claimed her mouth, kissing her as if they were sinking, the land falling away beneath their feet, her mouth the only thing holding him up. She met him, lash for lash, her arms around his shoulders. He backed her to the wall and plunged his tongue deep into her mouth.
 

It was a dark, wild, unforgiving, primal, insanely arousing demand of a kiss. She returned it in the same fashion, reckless, hot, willing. He tore his mouth free.

“Should I stop, Katarina?”
 

She leaned her shoulders against the wall, pushed her hips out to receive him, drowning in want.
 

“Do I stop?” He kicked her legs apart and stood between them, ready to take what she so clearly wanted to give. “Do I stop?” he said again, in his rough, perfect voice. He rocked his hips into her.

She forgot how to reply.
 

“All you need to do is say stop.”

She did not say stop.
 

He bent to her ear. “Do you not see? We are fated. What more proof do you need? You cannot say no, and I cannot stop coming for you.”

His vision of their union scorched her heart, because she
did
care, and she could
not
say no, and still, she could not give him what he wanted.
 

Coldly, he stepped back, his gaze at once burning and distant. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode out, leaving her standing, bereft against the wall, the sword at her feet.
 

But it mattered not at all, for she’d already been disarmed.

Chapter Twenty-Four

AODH BARRELED down the stairs into the hall. Soldiers lounged on benches and played games of dice and cards, while servants drifted in and out. The pretty maid Cormac seemed smitten with was sitting with him and Ré and a few others at a table by the fire, talking quietly. All heads lifted as he entered.

No doubt his expression was darker than whatever Bran had seen the other day when he stormed out of the bedchamber, for most of the men got to their feet instinctively, then swiftly retook their seats and averted their eyes. All but Ré, who, once again, just shook his head.
 

Aodh passed Walter, who stood in conference with Tancred, pointing to something in a book. As he went by, Walter’s gaze drifted to the stairwell, then the clerk shook his head.

“She always was defiant, my lord,” he murmured in sympathy.
 

Aodh’s hand flashed out and closed around the man’s throat, pushed him back to the wall, arm flexed straight.
 

Walter’s eyes flew wide as he began to choke.
 

Aodh leaned in close. “Do not speak to me of Katarina again, viper.”
 

Ré was there by then, and Cormac. They pulled him off the steward, who stumbled away, hand to his throat.
 

Aodh stalked to his chambers, leaving the hall in shocked silence.
 

A moment later, Ré and Cormac appeared at the door. He waved them in and reached for a whisky jug. Splashing drink into three glasses, he dropped them unceremoniously on the table before his friends and dropped down into the lord’s chair. He lifted his cup.
 

“
Sláinte
,” he said dourly, and stared into the fire.

Cormac and Ré exchanged uneasy glances. Looking at Ré, Cormac lifted his bushy eyebrows as high as they would go, then his shoulders, then put his hand in a fist and wiggled it back and forth, tipping his head ever so slightly in Aodh’s direction.
 

Ré blew out a noisy breath and turned to Aodh. “Did we hear swords upstairs?”
 

The flames danced bright red and blue. “Aye.”
 

Cormac sat forward, grinning. Ré made a sound of disgust. “What the hell are you doing, Aodh, using swordplay as…prologue?”

“Epilogue,” Aodh muttered, then sat forward and lowered his forehead to the table. “Betwixt.” He lifted his head an inch and banged it back down on the table, once, twice.

Ré leaned forward on his elbow, staring at Aodh. “Betwixt?
Betwixt?
You took her
after
the swords?” He smashed his hand over his face. “Whatever the hell you’re doing up there, Aodh, you need to do it faster. And much, much better. We haven’t much time now,” Ré said grimly. “The queen is coming, and we need allies.”

Aodh threw himself back in his chair. “Sent out more riders.”

Ré and Cormac exchanged a glance. “Have you considered the O’Fail?”

“No O’Fail.”

*

AODH SLEPT a few brief hours, in the chair in front of the fire. It was a hot, hazy sleep filled with dreams of Katarina, her knees parting for him, her eyes half-lidded with passion as she reached for him.
 

A touch on his shoulder ripped him from his slumber with a jutting erection. He sprang to his feet, sword drawn.

Bran leapt backward, hands out. “My lord, I am sorry!”
 

“Jésu, Bran,” he muttered, resheathing his blade with a shove. “How many times have I told you, do not
do
that.”
 

He unbuckled his sword belt and threw it on the bed, then plunged his cupped hands into the stone cistern.
 

Over the fire, a bucket of water warmed, and he washed with it, dressing as Bran reported on the nighttime developments.

“…fully stocked, so we can do a late slaughtering, and Tancred reports the Coward has gone over the accounts fully now, and most are in arrears, but there is a cellar full of wool fells that will be worth a great deal, and there are other reserves that should be …worth…some…thing…”
 

Bran’s recitation stuttered to a halt.
 

Bent over the bucket, water dripping off his face and chest, Aodh looked up.

A small figure stood in the doorway, grimy hands clasped in front of an even grimier tunic.
 

For a moment, he stared, uncomprehending. Then a shot of satisfaction went through him. Katarina’s little page.

Bran glanced at Aodh as the penitent scraped his toe across the floor. Voice rough as if it hadn’t been used in awhile, he muttered, “I’m to turn myself in, my lord. And…be nice.”

Aodh straightened. “Upon whose orders?”
 

The urchin lifted his head, a derisive twist to his mouth. “My lady’s, o’course, milordsir. There ain’t no one else’s orders I’d listen to.”

“Right,” he agreed slowly, then reached for a towel. “What is your name, boy?”

“Dickon.”
 

“Richard, is it?”

“Dickon, sir.”

“Very well, Dickon.” Aodh began toweling off his head, then threw the towel aside and gave his head a shake. “Where have you been for the past several days?”

“About,” came the vague, defiant mutter.
 

“Mm. You’ve run my men a merry chase. That is difficult to do.”

A faint smile touched the boy’s downturned face. “They’re awful big,” came the reply.

“Indeed they are. I’ve reprimanded them on the matter several times.”

The boy’s gaze lifted, but not his head.

“Still, ’tis quite a feat, what you did. Commendable.”

The boy paused. “Sir Walter’d beat me for it, milordsir.”

“Well, fortunate for you, we do not adhere to Walter’s dictates.”

The boy’s eyes came up at that, but Aodh had dragged a tunic over his head and was unavailable for scrutiny, so he turned his regard to Bran, half a decade his senior and clearly the next rung on the ladder in Aodh’s world. He took Bran’s measure for a moment, then turned back to Aodh.
 

“What
do
you adhere to, milordsir?” he asked impertinently.

“Horses.” Aodh reached for his sword belt. “I can think of several ways a man like yourself can be useful, Dickon.” The boy’s head lifted as if pulled by a thread. “Know you much of horses?”

“Horses, milordsir? I’m not allowed near the horses.”

“Are you not?”
 

He hesitated. “I race about too much,” he admitted in a low voice.
 

Spirit shone in Dickon’s eyes, as did defiance and intelligence. He could be trouble, but once won, he could be invaluable. Aodh crouched down. “Come here, lad.”
 

The boy tossed Bran an enigmatic look, then, dragging his feet, he came. He arrived in front of Aodh, head still hung low.
 

“Look at me.”

He did.

“We must have out on one matter.”

Guilt flashed across the boy’s face. “Sir?”

“Did you bring your lady a sword?”

His head dropped so far, his chin rested on his chest. He said nothing. Aodh waited a moment, then said quietly and firmly, “You cannot do anything of that sort, ever.”

The boy shook his downturned head. “No, sir.”
 

“Neither bring things, nor take them away, nor put a nail in a post, without my leave. Aye?”
 

He nodded his chin into his chest. “Aye, sir.”

“Very good, then. I’ll need your pledge of loyalty. You know your lady’s garrison is locked up?”

Suspicion clouded the boy’s gaze and made his eyelids rise to half-mast. “Aye.”

“And you know why.”

“Aye.” He hesitated, then added in a low voice, “I know you could do the same to me.”

“Then it was brave of you to come. But I do not lock up boys.”

This drew a swift, almost bitter grimace. “Thought I was a man,” he muttered.

“In matters of loyalty and honor, we shall proceed with you as a man. In matters of prison, you are a child.
D’accord?
”

He studied the lord suspiciously. What the hell did
dahcour
mean? “Aye, sir.”

“Heed me now, Dickon, for I shall expect the same of you.”

“The same, sir?”

“The garrison is loyal to her. I expect the same from you. If you are here, now, you are pledging to me. As my man.”