Page 2 of Tarnished Crown
He sat up a little straighter. “While the other was just too asinine to avoid it. Do you think that’s better?”
My cheeks flushed with something between shame and fury. “I think anything is better than the sick games you play.”
“Which games would those be?” He raised his eyebrows in polite curiosity, and I shook my head bitterly.
“You knew all along about the blood debt, and you were perfectly happy to sit back while the Summit decided to kill me. So what was it? Did you just want to wait until I had the tiniest sliver of hope before you swooped in and crushed it?”
“Contrary to what you’ve obviously been brought up to believe, not everything is about you.” His conversational tone was worse than outright snark would have been. “Storms, is everyone from Lochlann this impossibly self-centered?”
My jaw dropped. “I think it’s fair to say that my being ripped away from my fiancé and taken as someone’spetvery muchisabout me.”
“At least you’ve come to terms with it. Forever is a long time for you to be in denial.”
“The hell I have,” I spat back. “And we both know forever isn’t on the table when my father finds out you took me.”
It gave me no pleasure to say that, not when the people I loved would be on the front lines. Not when I suspected Evander would just as soon kill me as hand me back over, if only to spite the people he so clearly disdained.
Instead of looking affected by my bleak prediction, though, he only sighed and leaned his head back against the carriage like he was bored.
“Ah, relying on papa to bail you out of trouble? You could at leasttryto be original, Princess, or do you enjoy being a walking cliché of a middle royal child?”
His words hit uncomfortably close to home, and I was scrambling for a response when the carriage came to a sudden halt in the middle of nothing but sparse, dead trees and steep hills.
My heartbeat stuttered in my chest.
Why were we taking a break already? Hadn’t he just said we weren’t stopping until tonight?
Fear tore its way through my shield of anger, long enough for me to realize that it was one thing to bait Lord Evander when we were at the Summit with strict no-bloodshed laws and Theo never more than twenty feet away.
It was another to do it here, now that heownedme, surrounded by his men who would never step in on my behalf.
Mila’s words came back to me, freezing me in place.
“Since the war, they’re...barbarians. No one is safe in their territory, with random raids to slaughter the villagers they deem ‘disobedient,’ and they attack the other clans at will. They’ve only managed the alliances they have because everyone is terrified of them.
“And Evander…Don’t let that pretty face fool you. He’s the worst one.” She trailed off, her face losing a shade of color.
For the first time, it truly occurred to me that I was completely at his mercy. What if I was wrong about what he wanted from me?
Steely resolve flooded my veins. However Lord Evander wanted me to be hispet, I sure as hell didn’t intend to make it easy on him.
CHAPTER3
There was a light rap on the carriage door.
Evander calmly buttoned up the top of his coat, adjusting the collar of his pristine black military outfit. Then he rapped back, and the door abruptly opened to reveal a similarly black and white clad guard nodding in Evander’s direction.
The lord narrowed his eyes before exiting the carriage and shutting the door behind him.
I peered through the windows, surveying the surroundings. There was no stream to water the horses, nothing else of any note. If this was a break to relieve ourselves, why call Evander out first?
Surely there was no other reason to stop here. At least, not one that boded well for me. Evander returned only a handful of seconds later, abruptly cutting off my macabre line of thought.
When he wrenched the door open, I resisted the urge to press myself farther back into the carriage.
To give them a reaction is to give them power.I repeated Fia’s words in my head like a mantra, sure it wouldn’t be the only time I needed to rely on them.
The arseling lord blinked impatiently, pulling a bundle of fabric from under the carriage seat and tossing it my way.