Page 32 of Sweet Briar


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“Sir Ironheart will be here to escort you when you have finished. You will either be in your rooms, alone, or he will accompany you anywhere you need to go. You are not to leave his side until the wedding. Understood?”

My lips part in surprise. “Why him?”

“Considering what happened to you the last time you were about to be married, Rose, it’s safest to keep you under guard night and day until we can be fully united.”

I suppress the urge to snatch away my hand when he presses a lingering kiss to my palm. Yuck. “That doesn’t answer my question, Your Highness. Isn’t there anyone else who could protect me?”

“There is no one else I trust with your life.” Alistair’s eyes narrow fractionally.

“What’s the matter, my sweet? I thought you had a fondness for Sir Ironheart.”

It’s more than fondness. It’s an ache that scrapes me hollow. But shoving us together like this is a test. He’s looking for an excuse to condemn his own friend.

That’s good enough reason for me to leave Killian alone. I won’t, though I should.

What if I can tempt him?

I shouldn’t do it. The cost of being caught would be excruciating for both of us.

Yet as I stare into the abyss of a marriage I don’t want, I know I’m going to try in spite of Killian’s stark resentment toward me and the potential consequences for us both. This is my life, and if I don’t do something to change its course, I will have to live with the fact that I sleepwalked into a fate I never asked for.

Perhaps the reason the monsters are drawn to me is that inside, I’m not the meek little princess everyone expects. There’s a streak of darkness inside me that’s pushing me toward the knight.

I’ll have three days to show Killian that I don’t desire a prince. I want the dark knight who slayed monsters to reach me. Part of me still lies dormant, and I want him to be the one to awaken me in every way.

13

Killian

Three days of forced proximity. Then I’m free.

I’ll have everything I ever wanted. Property. A title. I can hunt the monsters on that mountaintop and sell their parts for income.

I’ve never needed much in the way of luxuries. Never cared to have servants trailing after me. I’ve been taking care of myself and my belongings since I was in the orphanage, where any possessions you didn’t keep close track of went missing. It’s a habit so ingrained that it’s apparent in the way my dragon scale armor hangs clean and gleaming dully in the afternoon light. My freshly shined boots sit beside it.

Quarters for the royal guards are spartan at best, but at least I have this cell to myself instead of a bunk in the barracks. The cramped space contains everything I could possibly need.

A bed. A trunk of clothing. A change of boots. Hooks to hang my array of personal weapons, selected and honed until they feel like extensions of my own body.

And then there’s my official uniform, which, for once, I’m expected to wear.

White leather. Who chose that, for fuck’s sake? Impossible to get bloodstains out. Which is one excellent reason why mine ispractically brand-new. I’ve worn it maybe three times in all the years I’ve been the black sheep of the royal guard, and never in battle.

I tug the stupid hat over my still-damp hair and sigh. At least all the white leather is offset with a maroon and navy jacket and trousers. There are enough gold buttons to tempt a pirate and more gold braid than any self-respecting man should have to wear, but at least I don’t have to sport this getup every day like the rest of the guard does.

In three days, I’ll never have to don it again.

Flexing the hand on my injured arm sends unease slithering through my middle. If only I’d been a split-second faster, that damn bird wouldn’t have scored my flesh. And hers. It nicked her, too.

If only I’d rushed over to Briar’s coffin-bed, I could have been the one to awaken her with a kiss. Not that it would have changed a damn thing. Alistair wanted her, and as prince, he gets to claim her.

There’s no point in dwelling upon what might have been. I almost hope Briar does get attacked so that I have something to do instead of following her around the castle watching Alistair’s flailing attempts to seduce his wife-to-be.

I take deep, disgusting satisfaction in the fact that she isn’t interested in him. If I can’t have her, then I at least want the man who does to be denied, too.

I am, undoubtedly, the worst friend that ever existed. No wonder I don’t have any others. Alistair and I are two hard-hearted, arrogant, selfish, horny, peas in a pod. We deserve one another.

And yet our longtime friendship is coming to an end. I should resent Briar for its destruction, but I don’t. I’m only disgusted with myself for wanting the same thing every other man in thiskingdom does—to bury myself between Briar’s thighs, damn the consequences of doing so.