Ersan shrugged. “Collam will make an excellent Lord.”
“Collam?” Carys asked incredulously. They couldn’t be speaking of the same boy. Ersan’s younger brother was a gentle, artistic soul. He was a painter and a philosopher, not a politician. Carys hated that when everything had imploded between her and Ersan, she’d lost Collam too. She hated thinking that the boy missed her and their inside jokes and games. She’d abandoned him in some ways . . .
She cleared her throat. It wasn’t her fault. Ersan had kept the most important of secrets from her and had never bothered to explain himself in all the years since. Carys pulled Ersan closer only to shove him back again, banging his head into the beam and rattling his broad shoulders.
He only laughed, the sound grating against Carys and making her clench her jaw. He couldn’t even let her have the satisfaction of rattling him a little bit.
“Still got that fire, Car,” he said, his eyes trailing down to her mouth. “And it still makes you blind.”
Before she could respond, he released his cane and his hand shot out to her wrist that held her knife, immobilizing the weapon. He shoved off the beam, using his size and muscle to pivot Carys so quickly it felt like magic. In another breath, he had her chest pinned to the stone wall across the narrow hallway. He held her knife in one hand and her braid in the other, tugging on her rope of hair and making her stretch up on her tiptoes to arch her head back.
Clearly, she’d been wrong about the hindrance of his leg, and her hopes of his easy removal from the strength competition were now dashed.
His warm breath found its way to her pointed ear. “Do you still like this?” he rasped in a husky lover’s whisper.
Carys’s stomach flipped and her duplicitous core clenched even as fire filled her veins. “No.”
His soft breath brushed against the shell of her ear. “You liar.” His nose grazed up her neck. “You think all this perfume in your hair can hide your true scent from me?” He leaned in, his chest pinning her harder, until the rough stone bit into her skin and her body pulsed with traitorous desire. “I know you, Fated.”
Carys’s fingertips dug into the stone, fighting the urge to relent, to lean into his touch. She knew exactly how it would feel—how deft his fingers would be, how skilled his mouth. But then the pain and heartbreak flooded back into her, dousing her desire and filling her with an inky black rage.
“You don’t know me anymore,” she said, shoving backward and using the hilt of her sheathed sword to shove into Ersan’s groin—a trick she’d learned from Bri. He pivoted just in time, but she managed to knock him hard in the hip anyway. Without the stability of his cane, he stumbled backward a step. In one smooth movement, she twisted his wrist and snatched back her knife, sheathing it and storming away before Ersan could grab her again.
Carys tsked at the surprise she’d seen on Ersan’s face. Clearly, he didn’t know her anymore at all. She’d been a working soldier for the last several years, training with the most elite warriors in all the realm. She’d always been a good fighter, but now she had the experience to know how to outmaneuver an opponent with not only brawn but intellect. The Carys Ersan once knew had died the same day as her father. Ersan might be a trained fighter, but Carys was a warrior, and she’d never surrender to him, nor would she ever forgive him for the truths he’d kept from her.
“Go back to your flowers, Lord of Arboa,” Carys called over her shoulder, swishing her hips just to taunt him further. “You will never be anyone’s King, least of all mine.”
About the Author
A.K. MULFORD is a bestselling fantasy author and former wildlife biologist who swapped rehabilitating monkeys for writing novels. She/They
are inspired to create diverse stories that transport readers to new realms, making them fall in love with fantasy for the
first time, or all over again. She now lives in Australia with her husband and two young human primates, creating lovable
fantasy characters and making ridiculous TikToks.
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