“He was sent away, Gaela, for the same reasons our mother was murdered. As heartlessly, as carelessly, as if so easily discarded.”
If he did not confess to his part in Lear’s death, it would never be known. The king died of age, of a lack of breath. It was none of Ban’s doing. Yet he also greatly wanted the credit, to be included in the heat of their regard. And they needed to know it was done, that their way was clear. That Elia’s hopes were already in ruins. “I have had my revenge,” Ban said huskily.
Regan’s nails bit into his hand. “Ambitious fox,” she whispered, eyes stuck on his face, as if she would drown without him.
Before he could explain, Gaela said, “Do you swear to my cause, Ban the Fox, that which is my sister Regan’s cause, as well?”
“I swear,” he said, both believing it in that moment, and knowing it would not matter.
Neither woman knew how fickle Ban’s oaths were.
Regan said, “You should marry me.”
The air went still and heat spiked all through Ban, then Gaela snapped, “What?”
Regan detached herself from her sister and faced Ban. Though her hair was unadorned, and there’d been no trace of paint on her lips for days, that wintry beauty remained. “You are Errigal now, by our word. Become Connley, too,” she said, cool and gracious. “Ban the Fox, general of Innis Lear’s armies, all of them, beneath Gaela Astore of Lear. United by marriage and the roots of the island. Three impossibly strong lines of power between us. Our blood and our roots are suited.”
Ban could hardly breathe. Elia had refused to run with him, to leave the island, to choose him for nothing but love itself. And here her sister wouldchoose him so boldly, proposing that their partnership would make the island stronger, that his presence would makeherstronger.
Gaela studied her favored sister with narrow eyes. “You would have no mourning time. It might be seen as desperate.”
“Itisdesperate,” Regan answered, her gaze all for Ban. “But I will not let our father win now, even under Elia’s aegis. I will do anything to end their bid, to end them. Connley is dead, but we will be queen, Gaela. He died for it, and there will be nothing can stop me now.”
She drifted nearer to him. “Don’t you desire me, Ban Errigal?” Regan whispered.
He parted his lips to answer—something, Ban did not know what—and then Regan kissed him.
Ban gasped against her mouth. He lifted his hands and found her elbows, then her ribs, as Regan seduced him with this slow, sensuous kiss. Cool shade and a slender, crystal waterfall; she was a refuge from bruising sunlight and battering wind, from the hungry salt sea and cruel constellations. It stirred him, but not like Elia. He thought of her, and it hurt to do so, more even than he had expected.
Gaela’s deep laugh echoed, in the room and in Ban’s gut.
Regan ended her kiss with a delicate lick, a taste of his teeth. Her hands lit upon his jaw, but her eyes remained dull and quiet. Ban could see her disaffection, despite the prowess of her kiss. She cared not for him, not nearly as she had for Connley.
“Connley would have approved,” Regan said with a hush, as if she heard Ban’s thoughts. She let her fingers stroke him as she lowered her hands. “I would marry you, Ban, and we would be well matched, though you are young, and in love with Elia.”
Ban felt frantic, all at once: the terrified, cornered rabbit, not the fox.
“When it is all over, perhaps,” Regan continued, glancing at her sister, not for permission but only agreement.
Gaela snorted. “Win this battle for us, Fox, and perhaps you’ll be a duke for it, and shortly after a king.”
“I will win it. For myself, and for you. But I will never be a king, nor even—a duke.” Ban backed away from both, clutching his trembling hands at his sides as he bowed.
He remembered the messy passion with which Elia had kissed him. Insisting, making a home for him inside of her. Then the equally impassioned certainty with which she’d chosen against him, afterward.
Gaela returned to the table and poured them all more wine.
Ban took his cup from her hand. He drank it fast, and though Gaela smirked at him and made to speak, he was quicker.
“King Lear is dead.”
“What?” growled Gaela. “What did you say?”
“The—your father. Your father is dead.”
Regan grasped his jaw. “How do you know this? When?”
“I killed him,” Ban said hoarsely, pulling free of the two women to stand as tall as he could, apart so that he might have a chance if they leapt to kill him. “The night Connley died. You raged and wept so thoroughly. I had Lear’s breath in my hand, and I took it from him forever.”
