A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(22)

Damn him, she thought as her belly tightened from anxiety and her heart fluttered nervously in her chest. She would not let him get to her. Whatever his goals, he would not succeed.

“Mariah you may leave us,” he said to the lady maid.

Mariah hesitated, leaning her body back toward her mistress. Ariana reached out and gave her hand a squeeze.

“It’s all right. I’ll be just fine,” she encouraged Mariah.

“No you won’t!” she said defiantly. “Not with him in here! I won’t let him hurt you!”

He scowled at that and, fearing he would become angry and take it out on Mariah, she gave the young woman a push toward the door. “Go on. I can handle this.”

Then she saw amusement flicker through his eyes. She frowned at him.

Mariah was torn between obeying her mistress and protecting her for several moments, but in the end she left the room, with one final worried glance in Ariana’s direction. The door shut behind her with a clang and Ariana’s heart sank below her belly.

Lifting her chin high, she faced down her jailor.

“Why have you done this?” was the first thing she wanted to know.

“I should think that was obvious,” he said, moving toward her. But he stopped when she rapidly backed up several steps. Unfortunately, that put her back directly to the fireplace. There wasn’t much further she could go.

“That you’ve captured me to rape me and force me to be your concubine?” She narrowed cold eyes on him. “I had hoped it was something less barbaric. But what can I expect from you?”

“There will be no rape,” he said as he studied her. “And you will not be my concubine.”

She looked confused. “Then why…?”

“There will be no rape because you will come to me willingly. And you will be much more than a concubine. You will be a wife. The mother of my children. You will hold a place of—“

“I will not!” she hissed. “I will never come to you willingly! You are a beast! And I most certainly will never be your wife! I am the leader of my country! I will not stand for this! The Sarens will not stand for this!”

“Think you they will go to war for you?” he asked mildly. “I don’t think they will. I don’t think you can afford another war so soon on the heels of the last.”

He was right but she wasn't going to let him know that.

“We are not so poor as that. After all, our coffers are full of Kiltian monies from the land sale.”

“Indeed? I would think you need a great deal of it to help relocated those who were ousted by the deal…and to pay your army which was woefully underfunded last my spies checked.”

“Spies. It figures you would have spies.”

“And you don’t?”

She didn’t reply. She folded her arms beneath her breasts.

“You have no power here,” he said to her softly. “And you are not the sort of woman who does well without having some power. But I could easily give you that power. As my raji…my wife.”

“I don’t need to be your trophy on your arm. Nor do I have any desire to be. I will be your wife when both hells freeze over.”

“Hmm. I see. You would rather be a concubine?”

“I would rather be home!”

“That is not an option for you. Your choices are between concubine and wife. I would give you the respect and power of wife. But if you prefer concubine then it can be arranged.”

“I loathe you,” she hissed.

“Do you? And what of the kiss?”

This made her hesitate and she felt a blush sweeping across her cheeks. She struggled to get the reaction under control but it was too late. He was well aware of it.

“Nothing was given. Like now it was only taken. I did not ask for it. Nor did I like it.”

He smiled with one corner of his mouth.

“I see. So someone else was in control of your tongue?”

She gasped and her blush grew more pronounced.

“I was just…it was just…I mean, there was no way for me to…deny you. You were completely running roughshod over me and I was just being…” She floundered.

“Polite?” he asked with amusement.

“Yes! I mean, no…I don’t know what I was doing. It was so long ago.”

“Two months is not so long as all of that.” He stepped closer to her and her pulse jumped into higher beats.

“It meant nothing to me.”

“I think you are a liar,” he accused her softly.

Another step.

She refused to back away. She held her ground though it took every ounce of her willpower to do so. Everything in her was screaming that she shouldn’t let him touch her. And she knew that was what he was working toward. Touching her.

“I am not a liar. You can fetch your little Jadoc friend if you like and he will tell you I am not lying,” she bluffed him.

He clearly wasn't fooled for a second.

“I do not need him. I know what I felt. And I know what you felt. And…I know you want to feel it again.”

Her heart was pounding at his words…because if she were being honest with herself, she might admit that that kiss had been the most alive she had felt in a long, long time. It had shaken her up. Right to her very foundations. And maybe she did want to feel that alive again.