Dark, Devastating & Delicious!: The Marriage Medallion / Between Duty and Desire / Driven to Distraction

“So much bravado. Strange how it suits you.”

“Bravado? This is not bravado. This is me. Trying, against all odds, to get through to you.”

“And I have heard you. No more pleasuring. Not tonight.”

“Not tonight, not ever.”

“Ah,” he said, as if he understood. But he didn’t. He was absolutely certain tonight had been only the beginning of the pleasuring they’d share. He didn’t believe for a moment that she meant what she said.

And how could she expect him to? She didn’t believe it herself.

She pointed at the pallet where their things were piled. “You can sleep there. I’ll take the other one.”

“I am yours to command.”

Oh, yeah, right. “Go to bed then.”

“As you wish, so shall it ever be.”

* * *

The hawk dropped from the sky. Its eyes were dragon eyes, burning red. Flames shot from its beak, searing all in its path. She put up her arms to shield her face and a single cry escaped her.

Brit woke sitting up, arms across her eyes. Slowly she lowered them.

The fire was down to a low glow of coals. Her pallet was a mess, the furs and blankets wrinkled and lumped up beneath her.

And Eric was awake, lying on his side, his head propped on a hand… watching her. The medallion hung to the side. His gorgeous chest gleamed at her. His blankets were down to his waist. She’d made a concentrated effort not to look as he got ready for bed. And now, she couldn’t help but wonder…

If those blankets slipped a little lower, would she get a view of what she’d felt against her belly earlier?

She jerked her gaze—and her thoughts—away from where they had no business going.

His eyes were waiting, way too alert, unsettlingly aware. “Bad dream?”

She grunted. It was answer enough. And then she concentrated on straightening her bedding. At first, she tried to do it without getting up. She only made things worse.

“Allow me to help you with that.”

“No, thanks.” At least she’d had the sense—unlike some people—to keep everything but her boots on when she crawled beneath the blankets. She was showing him nothing as she stumbled to her feet and tugged on the heavy pallet until it was reasonably smooth again.

She was just about to slide back in, where it was warm, when he said with infuriating good humor, “Always such an angry sleeper.”

She shot him a look. Always, he’d said. That meant he must have watched her sleep, at Asta’s house….

“Not angry. Restless.” She lifted the covers, got under them and settled them over herself. “Good night.” She shut her eyes.

“Brit?”

Outside somewhere an owl asked “Who, who, who,” as she considered not responding. But in the end, she gave in and muttered, “What?”

“The blond warrior woman, the one called Rinda…”

“What about her?”

“She called you ‘cousin.”’

“Because I am.”

He was quiet for a moment. Finally he said, “She looks like you.”

Brit stared through the smoke hole above. The night sky was cloudy, a deep grayness, hiding the stars. “She’s the image of my mother at twenty-five or so.”

Eric made a low noise in his throat. “I have it. Brian the Blackhearted…”

Brit felt a funny little sadness, a heaviness near her heart. “They called my uncle that?”

“They did. And he was.”

“Blackhearted…”

“Yes. And was he Rinda’s father?”

She could see no reason—beyond a petty desire to goad him—to keep what she knew to herself. “Yes. He raped Ragnild.”

“Ah,” he said, as if that explained everything. And really, it probably did. “So Ragnild wished to meet you.”

“That’s right.” She believes that I’ll somebody bequeen, she thought. But she didn’t say it. Many, after all, believed that Eric would one day be king. If Brit were to be queen, then that would mean…

No. Better not even go there. And besides. Since Valbrand lived, he would most likely be the next king, once all this confusion got straightened out. No way Valbrand would be marrying his little sister. Even in Gullandria, they weren’t into stuff like that.

So much for Ragnild’s dreams.

And what, Brit wondered, was Valbrand doing right now?

Really, there was so much she wanted—needed—to know. “Eric?”

He made a noise that told her he was listening.

“How old were you when you first met my brother?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. But the silence was a musing one. Then he said, “So young, I don’t even remember a time when I didn’t know him. I was two when he was born. And it seems, in my memory, that he is always there. We played together, from the time he was old enough to crawl. And then, for a while, it was the three of us.”

“Kylan, too?”

“Yes. And then Kylan was gone. It was only us two again, your brother and me. From wooden swords to swords of steel. We shared the same teachers, in the classroom, in the training yard. We were blood-bound when I was twelve and he was ten—do you know what it means, to be bloodbound?”

She repeated what she’d read in one of the books she’d found in the palace library about life in Gullandria. “To be bloodbound is to share with another a blood oath of loyalty and commitment. It’s an oath that binds equals, makes them brothers in the truest sense—as opposed to bloodsworn, which binds one of lesser rank to a ruler or a leader.”