Why did I bring her? She wants to bog us down with all these questions I do not wish to answer.
“Ask again.”
She huffs. “Did you know it was me? At my engagement party to Rendel?” She stumbles as her boot snags on a rock again.
“How did you manage to trip again? That is the fourth time in ten strides.” Sigvid grumbles as he snaps a branch under his boot.
They trudge alongside a cliff face with the river running at the bottom of a shallow canyon. Eventually, the geography will shift, and the river will level out with the path.
“How could I have known you were the princess about to marry Rendel?” He finally answers. “I was investigating Ceowald’s study when someone interrupted me.”
If only you had shared your name and the type of man Rendel was.
“But why were you in there to begin with?” Her tone suggests she will not relinquish this line of questioning. “You once said my father took something irreplaceable from you. Did you mean your father? About his murder?” She pauses, bent over with her hands resting on her thighs.
The frigid air and higher altitude are getting to him, too. He pauses on a stump to regain his breath before speaking. “Yes, I searched his desk to find information about what transpired that evening when my father fell from the high garden.”
She leans against a boulder with beads of sweat forming along her forehead. “Did you find anything interesting that night?”
“I did not have enough time to look. Again, I was interrupted by a princess.” He undresses her with his eyes, their heated touch still burning in his mind after all this time. “I should have taken you on that desk.”
“You mean, had my cousin not been such a prick?” Her rhetorical question holds a sharp edge—a warning for him to tread carefully.
“If he had not disrupted us, yes.” A crooked smile forms on his lips as she meets his gaze.
“Even knowing who I am?” She turns her head away as if scorched by his stare. “Your enemy. The Timber Queen. The one who would send you to the Arena. The daughter of your Thord’s killer.”
“Especially knowing who you are.” Sigvid grabs her chin and forces her to meet his eyes.
What is causing her anger? She has been irate with me since we left Blackwood this morning.
“To claim me as your plaything earlier in our lives?”
“You are the most delicious plaything I could have ever discovered naked outside my cell.”
And I will never share you with anyone.
Her nostrils flare as she scrambles away from under his touch. With her whole body quivering, she jabs a finger at him. Even with the vicious timbre to her voice, he finds the flash of her eyes and scrunch of her nose adorable.
“What am I to you?” Her tone is pained as her choked words pour out. “I cannot take this anymore!” Her voice breaks, and she sobs into her hands.
“You almost stole my womanhood that night. Why? A conquest to tick off somewhere on your body like all of those you’ve slaughtered?” Her fingers grasp at her curls as if they will offer some form of comfort. “You and everyone else threw me to Rendel. He forced me into terrible things I may never be able to talk about!” She is now shrieking.
“Why can’t you let me go, Sigvid? Am I your whore, your trophy, or your little Queen? Ever since I found that marriage contract as a child, I dreamed for so long you would be the one to save me from the horrors that stalk me.” Her head hangs onto her chest.
Marriage contract?
“You have no idea how long I have clung to the notion that you may be my hero, but you’ve only ever been my villain.”
Before he can respond, the ground-shaking rumbling of rocks draws them both to the ledge above, where a landslide of rocks and mud rushes in their direction.
“Move!” Sigvid yells as he charges her.
He tackles Avina, his arms wrap securely around her body as they roll to safety. Her screaming has him more unnerved than the actual rockslide.
Their bodies hardly skid to a halt when Avina slides out of his embrace to the cliff’s edge.
“Hold on tight!” He orders over her screams.
