Page 29 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

I said it like it was simple. Like it wasn’t an enormous gamble for both of us. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to take it back.

“I wouldn’t need an alliance if you would just agree to the one I already had in the works,” she hissed.

Oh, she had an alliance in the works, now, did she?

“Hmm. It was my understanding you hadn’t yet agreed,” I couldn’t help but point out. “In any event, I’m not inclined to grant my permission when the end result is my enemy’s clan being strengthened.”

That part was true enough, at least.

“That’s why you let me go.” Her words were soaked in bitterness. “All this time, I wondered how you could risk me marrying into Clan Elk, but it never was a risk. You were never planning on letting it happen.”

I wished that were true, that I had taken the time to consider the possibility before letting her walk away from Bear, that I had considered the consequences, like someone responsible for an entire clan of people should, instead of being blinded by my own need to see her gone.

Safe.

Gone.

She clutched Korhonan’s hand tighter, and I declined to explain that to her.

“I told you before, there was nothing I wouldn’t do for my clan.”Except force you to stay when it might get you killed.

It would be different if she was a Clan Wife, but not without risk. She knew that, though. There was no need to bring it up in front of Korhonan.

“So once again, all of this is about keeping Elk from getting something you don’t even want.” Her words were reminiscent of another argument, a lifetime away in the cabin.

Had it been true then? Was it now?

It was hard to look at her and lie to myself enough to claim she was something I didn’t want, but neither could I deny a visceral need to keep her out of Elk’s hands.

“Do you honestly think anyone at this table would let Rowan go back to Bear after what you let happen to her?” Korhonan interrupted my thoughts before I could respond.

So much for not bringing up the risk, but that risk was sure as hell not exclusive to my clan. Iiro would just as soon see her dead as married, something everyone at this table knew.

I fixed Korhonan with a stare, letting every ounce of the rage I had felt since I got his letter show in my expression.

“Remind me.” My voice was like ice, and still warmer than I felt when I thought about Iiro. “Was itmybrother who trapped her in a tunnel where she could have died—nearly did, in fact—then brought her to a Summit that voted to hang her?”

“Iiro made plenty of mistakes,” Theodore said, as if endangering Rowan’s life was something as simple as that. “But last I checked, he didn’t have her tortured and humiliated, stripped half bare and bleeding in front of his entire regiment.”

His words echoed in the sudden silence, punctuated by the queen’s sharp inhale. My lemmikki’s face lost all color, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

Korhonan had always been an idiot, but had he honestly just thrown that day inherface to spiteme? His chest puffed up protectively, like he wasn’t the one grinding salt into her wounds when he hadn’t even been there to see the carnage.

Did he think he could picture the horror of that moment without seeing Rowan’s pale skin nearly translucent and covered in her own blood?

My fists clenched, fury at Ava and the massiveaaliowarring for dominance.

“It’s safe to say there is risk on either side,” Prince Oliver cut in, with all the diplomacy he had instilled in his son.

It was enough of a distraction for me to take a breath, compose myself, to respond to the legitimate concern, no matter who had posed it. Not for Korhonan’s sake or for the room’s, but because Rowan’s features were still drawn in an incredibly rare display of apprehension.

All at once, I remembered why I was never supposed to make this offer. But Oliver wasn’t wrong. There was a risk in Elk, too. At least this one, I could shield her from.

Whatever else we were to one another, she was mine to protect. My clan’s.Mine.

I thought about her vibrant kingdom and the bounteous food and the family that adored her, and another reason for her reluctance to marry Korhonan occurred to me—one that should have been obvious.

She had never wanted to be in Socair. Aside from vodka, what did my kingdom have to offer her?