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“Owned the land butting up against the Shepherds’.

She had yellow hair. A smile like sunshine.

I received word she tried to stop your men, and you drove a sword through her without remorse.

She was the only person I cared for in this world, and you cut her down.

Since then, every act of violence I’ve enacted on your people was to get to you .

I’d heard rumour of a love so great, you would cast off your own brother, your own people for her. ”

Ridley paled, his arm tightening around Yrsa’s waist.

A sickly feeling swam in Grahame’s gut, the fire in the room suddenly too hot.

The implication hung heavy between them: Yrsa was the way to harm Ridley.

Yet Grahame remembered the day of the raid.

How Merthe found him at his home, out of breath, tears streaming down her face, begging for help.

That her mother, Emma, had sent her to him for safety.

He rode as fast as he could to the village only to find the raiders gone, Yrsa and Emma doused in blood, his nieces cowering in the hall.

Murder sang in his blood for the one responsible.

Yet he’d tied himself to her all the same.

Grahame drummed his fingers on the table top to lessen the tension coating his limbs. He needed to stand, to run, to break free of the madness of the conversation. But he was trapped. They were all trapped in a prison of their own making.

“I know of whom you speak.” Ridley’s voice was hollow. “She stabbed one of my men, barely older than a boy, a good man, right through the heart. I didn’t hesitate. She met the end of my blade.”

A sheen limned Adara’s eyes, her lip trembling as he spoke.

And though he hated every terrible thing she’d done in the name of her revenge, he couldn’t let her soldier on alone.

So Grahame covered her hand on the table with his.

And, while Ridley’s eyes widened at the gesture, Branton’s narrowed in a way that promised suffering.

Ridley continued, though the words came slowly, as if he was unearthing a grave.

“I will have you know that your cousin’s death changed my path.

She was so resolute against our overtaking the land—land which has been in dispute for years and on which she could have likely remained—that she did not yield one inch to me, even in death.

I resigned as a knight after that. Took up as Hyrstow’s chieftain. ”

Ridley swallowed, the knot in his throat bobbing over the pain of the memory. Yrsa molded herself to him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.

“For all that you’ve done to us, Lady Clayton, I will have you know I regret taking her life. I always have.”

A shudder wracked Adara. Slowly, her head turned to Grahame, those grey eyes of hers pinning him to his seat. Anger lived in the slight jut of her chin, the flaring of her nostrils.

“Be that as it may, you slaughtered her at the behest of your earl. Well, I have been tasked with keeping you in check at the behest of mine.”

Branton inched forward in his seat, his mighty shoulders bunching as he leaned forward. “Your men killed a woman in our village. You stole our chieftain’s wife. Our friend. That will not pass without consequence.”

Grahame felt himself wind tighter. Something about the glint in Branton’s eye told him his friend would have no qualms ending Adara. Panic arched through him.

“We are married,” Grahame blurted. His voice rang clear and strong through the room. Every set of eyes moved to him.

Branton swore an oath, recognition splaying across the hard lines of his face. “You paid for word on her all this time, eh? Just couldn’t let her go, and now look at you.”

Beside him, Adara flinched. As if she wanted to question him but knew it was not the time.

“You’re married?” Ridley asked.

Grahame told himself the disbelief didn’t hurt. That he was more than the scoundrel everyone thought he was. Grahame waved a dismissive hand as Adara had done with Yrsa earlier.

“It’s merely a ruse for her father. The Earl of Bernira.”

Sir Langley leaned forward at that, scraping a hand over his scruffy chin. He had a straightforward countenance, one that Grahame would have trusted under other circumstances. “Aye, and how is that?”

Adara was steel and polish, ready with an answer. Grahame was surprised when she spoke the truth. “My husband died. My father wishes to marry me off in a northern alliance. The arrangement will give him more land, more men. I wish for no other husband to come and cause turmoil in my life here.”

“So you’ve taken a husband in the hope it will usurp your father’s bargain? Daring. And dangerous,” Sir Langley mused, thrumming his knuckles on the tabletop as he leaned back in his chair.

Adara’s answering grin did not meet her eyes. “Indeed.”

Ridley shook his head, his gaze moving to his empty place setting as if it held the answer he sought.

“Why, Grahame? Are you to walk into the bear’s cave with your new wife? To what end? Whatever she’s made you do, you shall come home with us. We have a host of men. You will be freed. The marriage isn’t even legal without a priest or bedding.”

Grahame’s gaze slipped to Adara’s. She was already staring at him, though he couldn’t quite read her stoic expression.

His heart stuttered with the realization that the time had come.

If he was to be her husband, to impress upon Adara’s father that their union was real, the test of its truth was now.

Grahame leaned forward on one arm, offering a crooked, conspiratorial grin.

“There was a priest. And a bedding.”

He turned to Adara as he pulled her hand to his lips. Her silver gaze flared as he pressed a kiss to the delicate skin on the back of her hand before he continued. “The men behind us witnessed the bedding to testify to her father. Oh, and, Rid: Oswald performed the ceremony.”