But a shadow behind an old oak tree startles me. An eager grin on my face, I spin around… and freeze.
The smile drops.
“Spoiled little princess.” Denruk spits on the ground and the puddle of wet lands near my feet. “I can’t believe you got your way.”
My taunt comes easily. I’m at home here. “You’re inmyterritory. What did you expect? For my godfather to give me to a loser like you?”
His grin is ugly and his eyes are beadier than I’ve ever noticed. “That’s the only reason I wanted you. Your connections to West Mountain.”
“Too bad it’s a done deal. I’m a happily mated female now.”
“To a prisoner.”
I shrug. “He’s still a West Mountain. Property, mayhap, but he still claims the name.”
“If I had known you were going to be available, I’d have put in my bid. But like daddy was once going away, maybe your new male can disappear, eh? Who can trust him to protect you when he’s gone?”
I refuse to cower. Instead, I make my way closer and lean up against the tree. Foolish move, mayhap, because he doesn’t back away, and now I’m trapped. But my father trained me and I can take on this sniveling fool. He doesn’t know all my moves, some were taught to me by West Mountain orcs.
Especially after I rode all the way here with my unconscious father tied across two horses a few years ago.
“Keep your bid,” I sneer. “I’ll never be interested in a fool like you, nor will any female ever be.”
“You’d choose an ex-Southpeak over one of your own males? And a prisoner, no less?”
“Definitely.”
“Your father spoils you,” Denruk snaps. “But he won’t be around forever. Mayhap another accident will take out both your males. It might look like they take each out separately.” He reaches out to touch my cheek, but I jerk my face away.
He stretches his arm out to place his palm against the tree, locking me in. Trying to intimidate me.
“They’ll be around long enough.” I smile slowly and his attention is drawn to the curve of my lips. “Are you making threats you can’t keep? I seem to recall my father besting you just two years ago.”
“But your father is two years older now,” he whispers. “He can’t watch himself all the time. Or you. I’d say you’re alone and vulnerable right now, Sweet Knees.”
A sharp whistle of wind makes us both pause at the piercing sound, then he howls in pain, jerking his arm, but the hand stays pinned. A handle of a blade sticks out of it, the knife impaled through the flesh into the tree. Not ten feet away, Varguk stands.
“Touch her again and you’ll lose the hand.”
“You missed,” I chide Varguk.
“Nay. ‘Tis only a warning. I deliberately missed severing at the wrist.”
“What is your warning?” Denruk hisses through his teeth. “I did nothing.”
“Never get that close to my mate again. Never try to intimidate her with your words or your size. And you will lose the hand that touches her.”
I slide out from under Denruk’s arm and approach Varguk, standing at his left side since Var is right-handed. “Whew. Good thing you have such excellent aim, my mate. My face was right there.”
He grins at me, then his face hardens as he turns back to Denruk, who’s trying to awkwardly turn toward us with his hand pinned forward.
“In my clan,” Varguk says. “Protection doesn’t only extend to my mate, but her family as well. Let’s see you raise that hand to her father now.”
“I’m right-handed! You son of abiernak! You’ll pay for this, prisoner!”
“What will you do, Blackheart? I’ve already been ordered to mate the bridge. Will you demand that I fill her with my seed too? Bear my brats?”
“She has to sleep sometime. Her father too—”
