She chewed her bottom lip, her pace slipping to his relief. Her voice was as thin as a spider’s web when she finally spoke again. “Is that important to you? I can return your money if you want someone else. Well, not the amount I paid Brantley. I already gave him his money, and I’m sure he paid bills with it. He’s in a bad way.”
He grunted. “It’s only important to me if there’s something I should know. Some other motivation for you doing this.”
“Other motivation beyond money?” She worked her jaw, her pace increasing again. “Like what?”
He gave her a loaded look.
“Are you worried I’m in it to try to snare you into marriage?” The sharp edge of her voice cut deep, and she narrowed her eyes over a scowl. She mumbled something under her breath that sounded a lot like “Not you too.”
Suddenly, his lungs were on fire, and Marius realized that in her mounting anger she’d again sped up to a pace he wasn’t sure he could maintain. Hobble Glen was coming up fast. He hadn’t run this distance this quickly since he’d come back from the dead. He’d offended her, and she was punishing him for it.
“You have to admit it wouldn’t be… unexpected,” he said between pants. “You’ve lost your social status.” Huff, huff. “You live in the Swilton district.”
She growled at him, bared her teeth, and ran faster. His thighs protested as he tried to keep up, and his breath sawed in and out of his lungs. He could no longer talk. He could no longer think. Only when she reached the far side of the city did she finally slow to a stop.
It was all he could do to keep himself from flopping onto his back on the grassy patch at the edge of the city. Instead, he leaned forward and caught himself on his knees, wheezing toward the packed-dirt trail that led toward the mountains.
“While you’re remembering how to breathe, let me calm your fears,” she said through her teeth. “I’m not looking for a husband, Marius. I’m not using you to improve my social status. I’m in this for two reasons: my love of pit fighting and the money.”
He met her glare. Marius’s nightmares featured hideous monsters and brutal landscapes, but the menace in her eyes was as unsettling as any of them. Still, her words didn’t completely ring true to him. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he said, “The other day, you were going to—”
“What?”
“Kiss me. I thought you were going to kiss me.” He hadn’t invented that moment. There’d been something between them. He was sure of it.
She squeezed her lids closed and gave her head a little shake as if she was warring with herself. Her mouth opened, then closed again. When she opened her eyes, their usual spark was gone. “I won’t deny it. But just because I wanted to kiss you doesn’t mean I want to marry you—or anyone else, for that matter. It’s not on my agenda right now, so you can pack those worries up for another time and another woman. It won’t happen again.” She folded her arms and looked away from him.
“But you wanted to…”
The look she gave him was laced with daggers.
“I’ve offended you,” he said.
“Brilliant deduction.”
“Why?”
She scoffed, jutting her chin. “Because you assumed that just because my family is currently down on its luck, I would intentionally try to seduce you into marriage for personal gain. That doesn’t reflect well on what you think of my character.”
Now she was just pissing him off. “Sorry, but were you not an aristocrat’s daughter?”
“Of course I was. So?”
“I’d venture to say you might be the only one in all of history not interested in bettering their social position through marriage.” He was right, and she knew it. It was no leap for him to assume this of her, not given the current social environment in Paragon.
She popped out her hip. “That’s not— Okay, maybe there is some truth in that.”
“That’s settled, then. You’re a unicorn. My mistake for assuming you shared the predilections of the class in which you were raised.” He gave her a shallow bow. “I’m sorry my inquiry offended you.”
Silence unspooled between them. He could practically hear the gears of her mind grinding on whether she should let it go as she pondered the situation. Hardheaded woman.
“Fair enough,” she finally said. “Forget about it.” She wiped her hair out of her face. “How’s the leg?”
He did a quick assessment. “Better.” He glanced toward the palace and back at her. “I’m not sure if it was the distraction or something else, but this is the farthest I’ve run without resting, and we did it in half the time it usually takes me.” He didn’t admit that he’d almost collapsed from the effort.
“It’s the balance exercises,” she said with surety. “You’re getting stronger. Before, you were overcompensating for your weaker left leg with your right and prematurely tiring yourself out.”
He bent and straightened his left leg. It ached in an equal degree to his right, which was an improvement. “You know, I think you’re right.”
