Page 32 of Taming the Eagle

Fenella peered down at the shadowed street below. “What’s that noise?”

“It’s almost dark; the gates are closing.”

She marked that too.

They walked on, and when they reached the eastern wall, Fenella glanced at the Eagle’s proud profile once more. “I don’t understand why you stay,” she said, breaking the silence between them.

Aquila halted then and turned to face her. “I’ve been ordered to hold Ardoch, and I shall.”

“But Cruithentúath isn’t your home … you owe it nothing.”

The Eagle’s gaze narrowed. “Caledonia belongs to Rome now.”

Fenella lifted her chin, eyeballing him. “Men like Toutorix believe differently.”

“You admire that bastard, do you?” Aquila’s voice roughened.

“No,” Fenella ground out, heat igniting in her blood. She’d been wondering how long it would take for the Eagle to vex her. “But I understand what he’s fighting for.”

Aquila studied her face, curiosity upon his own. “How was it that you came to be wed to the Wolf?”

Fenella frowned. “Why do you ask that?”

The Eagle’s golden gaze grew limpid. “I’m intrigued by you,” he said, his voice lowering. “I wish to know your story.”

Fenella covered her discomfort with a scowl. She didn’t want him to be intrigued by her. She didn’t want him to look at her like that either.

It made her feel all hot and strange.

Her jaw tightened then.

If he made a grab for her, she’d knee him in the cods.

“My father promised me to him,” she admitted finally. “The Wolf saved his life in battle once … and in return, my father owed him a favor.”

Her belly clenched as she remembered that awful day when her father had betrayed her, when Lorcan had let her down, and when the Eagle had spared her life.

It wasn’t so long ago, and yet it felt like another lifetime.

“So, it wasn’t your choice?” Aquila asked.

Fenella shook her head. “I hate my husband.”

The general favored her with a wry look. “Since before or after he handed you over to me to save his own neck?”

Fenella gave a bitter laugh. “Before … long before.”

They continued walking, although it was Aquila who broke the silence this time. “How old are you, Fenella?”

She cast him a sidewise glance, wondering at his line of questioning. She sensed he was trying to lighten the mood, and she appreciated the gesture, for she didn’t want to talk further about the men who’d betrayed her. “Twenty-one winters,” she replied. “I was born at Mid-Winter … under the eye of The Hag … and you?”

In truth, she didn’t care to learn anything about this man. However, she had to play this game if she ever wished to taste freedom again.

Wits, not temper,she reminded herself.

“I’m thirty-three and was born upon the Ides of October,” Aquila replied. When this statement received a blank look, he smiled. “Around a moon before Gateway … under the guardianship of Mars. Every year upon the day of my birth, I make a sacrifice at his altar.” Aquila’s mouth lifted at the corners then. “As a child, my mother used to make me wear my best clothes on that day, but she’d bake me a special cake too.”

Fenella tried to imagine the Eagle as a child. Did the man actually have a mother? “And this ‘Mars’? What god is he?”