Page 164 of The Duke and the Disciple

“Don’t know the name,” Kilgore said hotly. “Don’t know the man.”

“Aye? Ask Steward Wynter. We’re mates. Go way back.”

The tension began in her toes, but it shot to her shoulders like a combustible. She’d chosen the battlements because it was the one place no one in the keep ever went if they didn’t have to. The one place she’d figured Owen Strong, a salt and sand Southerlander, would not venture.

Only Imryll and her mother knew about the strange night she’d spent with Owen, but neither of them knew the full story. The worst of it.

“If Syr Strong wishes to enjoy the storm, he’s welcome to it,” Tasmin said, her head down, and started for the metal door leading back into the keep. Owen’s thick fist curled around her arm and pulled her to a jarring stop. She looked down, in disgust, but he relented only a little.

“We’re overdue for a palaver, you and me,” Owen said. His breath warmed her neck, rocking her with a shiver.

“Lady Tasmin?” Kilgore’s hand readied to draw his sword.

“You needn’t stab him, Kilgore,” she said, wincing in pain as she tore out of Owen’s thick grasp. “Unless he follows me.”

“Tasmina.”

Her shoulders pinched back. That nickname. How it had awakened her once. How she hated it now. “You shouldn’t have come here,” she said and pushed through the door.

Once safely ensconced on the other side, Tasmin lifted her arm and screamed into it.

Rahn could hardly sit still,watching Aesylt enjoy the bread-and-fig pudding he’d spent hours learning to make in the kitchens. But it wasn’t the food he was nervous about; it was everything he had planned after.

She was only faintly dubious that he’d borrowed use of a Petrovash cabin at the forest’s edge for what he’d sold as a romantic nameday dinner, but she had accepted his thin explanation about privacy.

“Well, Adrahn. You continue to be an unraveling mystery to me,” she said, holding her belly with a stuffed look. “Now you’re a chef? What will you reveal next, that you’re secretly a gilded blacksmith? A ravener?”

Rahn grinned and, for a moment, forgot how fast his heart was racing. “I may have turned on some charm with the kitchen staff.” He chuckled at her narrowing eyes. “Or they took pity on me.”

Aesylt’s cheeks were flushed from the aftermath of an enormous meal. The fullness might slow her in the hour ahead, but it would give her energy too. Stamina. She’d need it. “They’re a hardened bunch, so if they took pity on you, you musthavereallyleft an impression.”

“Tears often work in a pinch.” He grinned.

She grinned back. Would she still be smiling if she knew what was moments ahead?

She asked for it.

It was time to find out if she meant it.

Aesylt groaned in contentment, sliding back in her chair. “Thank you. It was surprisingly so delicious. I hope you enjoy cooking, because you may be doing more of it.”

“Don’t get too comfortable.” Rahn blotted his face with his napkin and pushed to his feet.Now. Or never.“Listen closely. I’m going to give you a head start, Aesylt. Ten minutes, not a second more. I wouldn’t squander a single one of them, because I’ve had months to think about my strategy.”

She corrected her posture. “What?”

“A ten-minute head start. You can go anywhere in the woods. You just can’t leave them.”

A slow, sly grin spread across her face as she caught up. Her eyes twitched. “And then what?”

“You have one hour to evade me.” He meticulously undid each button on his vest, waiting until he was done to finish speaking.

She followed his every move, her eyes slowly dilating with interest.

“If I catch you before the hour is up, I decide your punishment. Nothing is off-limits.”

“And when I evade you for the full hour?”

“You decide mine. Same rules—that is... There are none.” He pulled an hourglass out of his pocket. It dangled on a chain he’d had made, and he slipped it around his neck but kept the glass steady. “You asked for intensity. You asked for violence. Once you leave this cabin, your consent to everything thereafter is implied and will not again be sought. Unless your life is at risk, I won’t stop until I’m done with you, and I’ve had months to think about everything I want from this night.” He tilted the hourglass. “Decide.”

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