She struggled to ignore how his breath tickled her neck and made her feel as she untied his wrists and then bent to untie his ankles.
“Ada?”
“What are ye sorry for? For using me or for lying to me about desiring me?” she asked in low tones.
“For both,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for both. I did what I had to for the king and to find and save my brother.”
Her breath hitched painfully in her lungs, and she grimaced at the ground. She supposed there had been the tiniest part of her that had hoped he would deny that he’d lied to her, that he might say he truly did desire her. A tear slid down her cheek, and she swiped it quickly away, eternally grateful she had turned her face down.
“Ye did what ye must, I suppose.” A sudden horrendous thought occurred to her. “Did ye have to sacrifice much? Were ye set to wed a woman ye love?” God above, would he take the woman as his leman, his mistress, keeping Ada as his unwanted wife simply because the king wanted him to control her?
“Nay,” he said, his voice tight. She undid the ropes at his ankles, and he shrugged out of them. He started to step away, then turned toward her and grasped her fingers with his own rough, sure ones.
“What are ye doing?” she asked, surprised he would take her hand. The gesture seemed intimate, meant for someone who loved another.
“Keeping ye near, lass. Ye’re too valuable to lose,” he replied, tugging her toward the cave exit.
His words pricked her pride and slashed at her heart. She jerked her hand away and batted at his when he attempted to reach for her once more. “Have ye stolen many a woman’s heart with those flowery words?” she snapped.
“Nay,” he said, his tone now equally as terse as hers. “I dunnae have any interest in possessing a woman’s heart, Ada.”
As his revelation hit her, she bit her tongue on her acerbic reply and turned from him, taking a step toward the cave exit. But he stopped her forward progress with his hand on her arm. “I’ll go first to protect ye,” he said.
“I dunnae need yer protection.” She tried to tug her arm away and frowned. His grip had become unbreakable.
“Ye do,” he answered, his voice brooking no argument. “How did ye get close enough to the guard to disable him?”
“I kissed him,” she slung out, perversely happy to be able to say that to this man who’d just wounded her so. “And then I hit him on the head, which knocked him out, and then I tied him up and stuffed his mouth with cloth.”
William’s fingers twitched around her wrist. “We will talk about the kiss later,” he growled, moving in front of her to tug her out of the cave, but when he reached the entrance, he stumbled on the guard she’d left there, who now was awake and moaning into the cloth. William released his hold on her as he righted himself, and when he turned to her, his face was illuminated by a slash of moonlight and she could see that he was glowering at her. “Ye might have told me ye left the man at the entrance.”
She scowled back as she felt Freya rub against the side of her leg to come to stand by her. “What did ye think, William? That I picked up the guard twice my size and carried him? Mayhap I slung him over my shoulder.”
“Cheeky wench,” he growled.
Thomas, Esther, and Maximilian came out of the cave. “We need to flee,” Thomas said, almost as if scolding the two of them for bickering.
“Aye,” William agreed. “They took my sword.
“Mine, as well,” Thomas said.
“These swords?” Ada asked, grinning and motioning to the pile of weapons it had taken her two trips to bring down to the cave.
“I could kiss ye!” Thomas declared.
“Thomas,” William said, the one word a lethal warning.
Thomas grinned, bent down, and picked up his sword. “I said Icould, nae that I would.”
And then, quite unexpectedly, William turned to her and pulled her close, his lips descending upon hers. Warmth infused her. Her belly tightened, her heart fluttered, and her hands went to his neck of their own volition, and just as yearning gripped her, he set her away, leaving her feeling adrift in a sea of longing and confusion.
Why did Ada have to be so alluring? And now that he knew she supported the king and had not purposely sent Bram to his doom, it was hard—so hard—to keep a distance, but that’s exactly what he needed to do. The king had said William’s mother had left his father because he was always off on missions, and William’s life would take the same path. Would Ada one day leave him? He shoved the thought away. Not only did he need to concentrate on escaping and what needed to be done but wondering if Ada would one day flee meant he was forming an attachment, and he did not want that. God, but he wanted her. She was worse than the apple in the Garden of Eden; she was the Garden if the whole thing were forbidden and dangerous.
Concentrate.He forced his gaze from her lips, which were beckoning to him to kiss them again, and met her confusion-filled eyes. He supposed he’d caused that. He suddenly felt like the worst sort of scoundrel. He had told her that he didn’t desire her, and then he had kissed her. He needed to keep his hands and his lips to himself. “Ye did nae get my bow and arrow perchance?”
She smirked at him and motioned to his left. “Perchance, I did.”
He glanced down to find Hella with his bow clutched in her mouth. He laughed and patted the hound’s head before relieving her of his bow and picking up his arrows to stash them. “How did ye come to get the weapons?” he asked, looking around for the best route of escape, which appeared to be to the left of the cave where the land rose to the woods. That would set them in the direction of the cave where Lannrick and Grant were waiting for him and Thomas to return.
