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He shook his head, but he steered her back toward his tent anyway. “The lieutenants are doing some work in there, but we can reclaim it for ourselves.”

“Would you like to come to my side?” she asked. She would just have to sleep lightly, and listen out for someone calling for him, if he was needed.

“I’m expecting reports through the night. The Kassian scouts are venturing closer and closer, and it will be better if I’m in the main tent. Do you mind?”

She did, a little, but she shook her head.

She steeled herself for unfriendly looks from Massi as they returned to the tent, but she was simply ignored, which suited her fine.

Dak made an effort to be pleasant, and Revek was nowhere in sight.

It was a better end to the situation than she’d feared earlier.

The Venyatux lieutenants were much more interested in her, though. She mainly dealt with their colleagues, Raun-Tu and Heival, who gave her her orders each day, and she was sure she would be the topic of conversation the next time all four lieutenants got together.

She left Luc talking to them and disappeared behind the curtain to find a big bed of straw with thick covers, a wooden trunk and nothing else.

Her lover traveled light for the commander of a rebel army.

She wondered whether they had been allowed any possessions in the camps, and thought probably not.

She took off her cloak and boots, settled onto the bed and began casting on her yarn.

She already knew Luc’s dimensions from the shirt she’d made him, and she was happily a few rows in, thinking about the pattern she would weave with the cable tool, when the talk ended in goodbyes and plans to meet the following morning.

She would have to make sure to be out and doing something else.

She looked up when Luc stepped behind the curtain. He raised a brow at her, curled up against the pillows, knitting in hand.

She grinned, put the knitting down, and crooked her finger.

He walked closer slowly, and she watched him through lowered lashes.

“Alone at last?” she asked.

“Alone at last.” His voice was slightly rough. “You’re finally where you were meant to be two months ago.” He crouched beside her.

“I can’t regret going home. And I put plans in place . . .” She hesitated, unsure how much to admit about her plans of vengeance.

“Plans against the Queen’s Herald?”

She nodded. “Plans that will likely get him killed by the Queen’s own hand, rather than my own.” She worried her lip. “Is that cowardly of me? I probably won’t be there when it happens.”

“And how will you get the Queen to kill her own nephew?” He sat back on his heels.

“By making him admit he has plotted against her.” There were so many variables. She may not have gotten it right, but even at its least effective, her plan would do some damage.

“And how will you do that?” He had hold of her arms, his gaze on the place where her neck met her shoulder, and she couldn’t resist tilting her head to give him access.

He brought his lips down as she whispered: “I plan to use his own vanity and insecurities to get him to confess.” She swallowed as she felt the edge of his teeth.

“Perhaps you can tell me how another time.”

“Another time,” she agreed, and arched back against the pillows. And decided she needed to stitch a working into the curtain between the bed and the main tent that muted all sound.

Chapter 13

“You probably don’t have to do scout duty anymore.” Deni glanced back at her as they rode toward the head of the column.