Page 15 of HeartTorn (WarBride #2)

ILSEVEL

I feel the great bulk of him shifting as he lies down in what is left of the small space we share. After a few moments, he begins to breathe more deeply, blessed with a warrior’s gift of being able to drop off to sleep anytime, anyplace where opportunity allows. I’m left listening to the rain pounding overhead and the tree groaning down to its roots.

Tomorrow night.

Moonrise.

This could all be over by this time tomorrow. Of course I’ll still be deep in enemy territory, at the mercy of this dangerous warlord; that much won’t have changed. But this bond, such as it is, will be severed.

Why does the idea fill me with such dread? Like the mooring ropes anchoring me to this world are about to be snapped, leaving me to float off into a dark atmosphere.

I grit my teeth, curling my body even more tightly into itself. It’s not as though I have no plan, I remind myself firmly. The Shadow King still presumably needs his bride. Vengeance is still within my grasp, if I can only keep my wits about me long enough to take it.

But what will become of Taar? Will he march with Prince Ruvaen’s forces against Evisar Citadel, only to be hewn down by my monster bridegroom? Will the retribution I crave encompass this man who has been my protector? In saving me, has he only fostered his ultimate doom?

“No,”

I whisper. The word is faint and phantomlike on my trembling lips. There must be another way. There must be another path before me, something other than selling myself in marriage. What if . . . what if . . . ?

What if Taar wanted me?

The thought flickers in the back of my mind, almost too dangerous to be acknowledged. I suck in a sharp breath, hold it fast, wait for reason to banish the idea entirely. Instead I find myself turning the question over, studying it from other angles. What if I were more to him than an inconvenience? What if I were more than a mistake?

What if I were to stay in this terrible world of hell-rent sky and hearttorn unicorns? What if I were to join my song with that of this man? This wild, dangerous, devastating man.

In the half-dark of the hovel, I roll onto my back, staring up at the little roots dangling from the ceiling. Beside me Taar lies huge as a mountain, his shoulders an impregnable wall. There is such a great gulf between us, and yet . . . I lift my arm. Around my wrist gleams a faint golden cord, not-quite invisible, not-quite real.

Tomorrow may be too late. But tonight we are still bound.

Tonight, he is my captor husband, and I, his enemy bride.