Page 15 of Hollow Court

With a sigh, I continued with the most important part. “I need to go as your betrothed.”

He blinked several times, his arms dropping to his sides. The last time I had seen him this surprised was…well, the last time I had shown up at his door in the middle of the night, albeit for very, very different reasons than the ones I had tonight.

Looking at his disheveled black locks and his open shirt laces, I realized that was the absolute last thing I needed to be thinking about right now.

“You want to get married?” he finally said.

My head throbbed from its earlier contact with the wall, from this conversation, from everything about this storms-damned situation. That was the only excuse I had for my uncharacteristic bluntness.

“Of course not.” I couldn’t quite keep the irritability from my tone. “You’ve made it quite clear you don’t want to marry anyone, and I don’t want to marry you.”

He almost looked offended.

“Well, then,” he said with a shake of his head, stepping further into the room and taking a seat near the fire, gesturing for me to do the same. “What is it that you do want?”

Once I was seated, I took a deep breath and launched into an explanation of the law, the caveat, and my plan to find another arrangement in Lochlann. He listened without interruption, waiting until I was finished to speak.

“You spoke of the treaty laws, but what about your uncle? Isn’t disobeying the clan duke punishable by death?” he asked.

It was. Or Unclanning, which was arguably worse, between the forehead brand and the life spent starving, ostracized from your family and your people. Rowan had made strides in that direction, but the reality was still bleak.

But, in the hours since my father had left my room, I had thought this carefully through.

In the incredibly unlikely event that Uncle Mikhail would ever forgive me for this, he couldn’t be seen supporting my decision to break my betrothal contract, not without serious consequences to the clan.

“Well,” I said with more confidence than I felt, “he can’t kill me if I’m not here.”

Davin eyed me for several precarious moments before finally asking the question I had been dreading the most.

“Why would you risk that?”

Fortunately, I had spent the last several hours concocting a believable reason. The truth was out of the question. I had no proof and no desire to be even more vulnerable with Davin than I already was.

“I want to study medicine. But the noblewomen here don’t do such things, as you know. And Alexei”—I forced myself to say his name casually—“is very old fashioned.”And an aalio.“He would never allow it. Even if he did, there isn’t anyone here who would consent to teach a lady. But I understand that things are different in Lochlann.”

I clamped my lips shut before I could oversell the lie. Though, it wasn’t entirely untrue. My dream right now was a life free of Alexei. A life with any freedom at all, really. Beyond that, learning more about herbs and working with them did sound nice.

Davin eyed me while I kept a guileless expression pasted to my features.

“And you’d risk your life for that?” His voice was lined with disbelief.

Though it was a fake dream I was defending, I found myself bristling, all the same. It could have been real, and would have been just as far out of my reach.

A bitter huff of air escaped me. “I realize that you have lived in a world that bends and stretches to accommodate your every need,LairdDavin, so it must be difficult for you to understand what it is to be denied the opportunity to study or, hell, exist in a world outside of what’s expected of you. You can’t possibly know what you would or wouldn’t do for that chance.”

He clenched his jaw. “Perhaps not, but I do know what it is to be trapped a kingdom away from your family and wonder if you’ll ever see them again. So I’m asking if you’ve thought this through.”

No. I haven’t had the luxury of time to think this through.I tried not to let him see how affected I was by his words, by the fact that I hadn’t even gotten to tell my mother goodbye.

Davin and I had never had honesty between us, though. So I took a deep breath, willing the words to ring true as I spoke them.

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”

SIX

Davin

The first timeGalina came into my life, she was an unexpected savior.