Black Moon Draw(23)

“I had begun to think you were no battle-witch, as you claim,” the Shadow Knight says.

“What if I really weren’t one?” I ask. “What would you do then?”

His gaze sweeps down my body deliberately enough that I blush. He appears to be considering his answer. “Sell you to the slave traders.”

“You would sell me?” I echo. “Not . . . instead of . . .” I drift off, embarrassed that my thoughts are going in a different direction under his sizzling gaze. I’m not sure what I expected. He’s got a fiancée and is more concerned with chopping off heads than anything else.

“You have large breasts and ass. You would fetch more than the horses.”

“Large ass?” My mouth drops open and a pang strikes my heart. Jason used to say the same. This guy’s a total *, no doubt comparing me to Disney Princess. Finally, I manage some sort of comeback. “Awesome. Glad to hear I’m worth more than a stupid horse.”

“The horses of Black Moon Draw are the best in the realm. Merchants pay gold for them. ‘Tis not an insult to be compared to one.”

“Where I’m from, it is,” I say, dismayed. Does this dress make my ass look bigger? I never thought to check, maybe because I had hoped to have a new start here in this world. Anger builds inside me, along with hurt and embarrassment, both of which are scars from three years with Jason. “We also don’t sell people or chop off hands to prove a point.”

The Shadow Knight is wearing a trace of a smile and considers me as if he’s trying to figure me out. I start to think he’s teasing me, but it doesn’t make much sense that a man this intense has a sense of humor.

So much for a romantic interest. I can’t even get a man in fiction. I really do hate my life sometimes.

“Anyway.” I read my hand with a sigh. “I guess Green Dawn Cave is going to launch an attack from the east in . . . what is a candlemark?” I look up at him. “Is that time or distance?”

“East?”

I nod.

He ducks his head out of the entrance. “Horses!” he belts to the nearest soldier. Retreating to the depths of the tree, he opens a trunk and snatches a small sword before turning to me. He holds it out.

“You don’t want me in battle,” I tell him, refusing the weapon. “I’m uh . . .”

He’s glaring at me, eyes turning gray.

“. . . not really sure how to use that thing.”

“You will learn.”

“No, no I won’t,” I reply. “I would rather not kill people and just go home.”

“You will not leave this kingdom and you will learn.” There’s an edge to his voice that scares me.

I’m afraid to move when he approaches, the tension of his body warning me of how serious he is about battle and me never going home. It makes me want to run or cry or eat two pans of brownies to get him out of my system.

He stops too close to me and I stare at his chest once again. Without any sort of ceremony, the Shadow Knight reaches around me to wrap a belt around my hips and attaches the sword to me.

I can’t even fathom the idea of hurting someone.

The sense I had in the field when staring at the blade of grass – that this is more real than anything I’ve experienced in my life – is back. Standing in the presence of the most powerful man in this world, breathing in his clover-brownies scent, and realizing how determined he is to prevent me from returning home . . .

I have to get out of here.

Back pedaling, I put space between us then step towards the entrance.

“Where do you go, witch?” He plants his large hands on my shoulders, their weight enough to keep me from getting far.

I hunch and wriggle, but he’s not letting go. “To climb a tree.”

“What is this obsession with trees?” he asks, genuinely puzzled.

“It’s where I go when I’m upset.”

He releases me with one hand and pulls me back into the middle of the trunk with the other before releasing me. “We have no time for trees,” he says, all business. “Green Dawn Cave comes for our heads. We go to battle.”

“I don’t . . .” My frustrated refusal fades under his glare.

“You don’t what?” he asks dangerously.

“I don’t know how to fight. I just want to go sit in a tree until it’s over!” I’m almost at a wail.

He says nothing and I peek over my shoulder to see what he’s doing. He’s got some sort of leather belt, about five feet long, with loops at either end. He’s strapping one loop around his belt. As I watch, he straps the other around mine.

Shit.

“So you do not run off to a tree,” he says, meeting my gaze briefly. “Because you are not of this world, you receive a reprieve instead of punishment for not following my laws. Can you ride a horse?’

I shrug. “Can’t be that hard.” I can also get away faster if I’m on a horse.

“Good.” He dips down to grab the boar head.

The countdown draws my attention. “Can I ask you something?”

“A battle-witch is the only person in my armies who may speak openly to me.”

“That’s good, I think. What happens in nine days?”

He goes still, the boar mask halfway to his head, and then lowers it.