Page 54 of The Prince's Captive

That realization shoved away all her thoughts of being as difficult as possible for Commander Gavril.

His head tilted and he stepped closer, brow furrowing and mouth opening at what she’d been certain had been a minuscule change in her demeanor. Before he could speak, the other commander was barking orders across the camp and directing his glare toward them.

Gavril sighed and took her by the arm instead of speaking and led her to his horse. He hefted her up onto his horse before swinging up after her like he did every day. They set off with the rest of the Inimicus, a slower pace than they had for the majority of the trip, but expected. Since they were back in Inimicus lands and had been for a little bit now, there was less for them to fear.

And all the more for her.

Gavril wrapped his left arm around her waist, sliding it beneath his cloak and pressing her back to his front as he took the reins in his other hand. His jaw brushed the side of her head, and he spoke softly, “Know you understand some of my tongue. How much?”

Marcella willed her tongue into lead and instead focused on the horse’s easy gait beneath her. The beast was probably sick of the extra weight it had been forced to carry.

When she didn’t respond, Gavril’s grip on her tightened. His fingers curled into her peplos and she startled when his fingers brushed over the beginning of her scar. He huffed. “Know you haven’t understood much. Silent act won’t help me help you.”

Did he expect her to believe he wanted to help her because she’d been so weak as to fall apart in his arms the night before?

He lowered his voice further, turning his head into her curls. His breath brushed her ear and her cheek.“Marcella.”

Still butchering her name even though he said it slowly and his tongue lolled over the ‘l’s.

There was no sound more abhorrent to her than the way he said her name. She wished she’d never given it to him.

“Words here or there,” Marcella snapped, shifting in the saddle, but there was nowhere to go to get enough space to think. He was all over her. He usually was, but now with her weakness from the night before haunting her, having him curled around her felt different. “Don’t worry, I don’t know much. Even if I knew it all, who am I going to tell?”

“Know… know what you’re called?”

“By your men? They call me a…lupa, I don’t know what that means.Sordidus, I assume comes from your word for my people, filth, so a filthy something, I get the gist. By you? No, your insults are a mystery to me. Or if you mean what my name would be in your runes? No.”

She could feel him press his wrist and the metal piece on it into her tighter.

“Will learn, eventually,” he said.

Marcella rather thought he needed to learn her language better because she had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

His fingers were still slowly brushing over the scar beneath her peplos. “Tell me, things you like? Your life?”

“Why?”

“Weeks stuck with these men.” He settled his head down, half buried in her curls. She could feel how close his low murmur was and every time he spoke it took her mind more time than it ought to comprehend the words in her own tongue. “Do not like them much. Nice to talk to someone else. Maybe I’m just curious. Maybe I just like your voice. Take your pick.”

She stayed silent.

He sighed. “Fine. I’ll go. I like learning new things. Before I left… I was... middle of book about Embrai Elemens. I—I—word for—” His hand twitched against her side as he seemed to search for the word. “Ascended from—learning house—became a commander earlier this year.”

She had a vague idea of what he was talking about. The Inimicus were strange creatures. They gave their young ones to a building full of their heretics and learned mages and put them on designated paths, one of those paths being commanders. Her people didn’t have that so they didn’t have words for it.

Marcella muttered, “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

She looked up at him out of the corner of her eye. “That you had to be a new commander. You are too young.”

He huffed. “Then are you not too young to be a soldier?”

“I’m too young to be ordering them about. I’m eighteen. I’ve been a soldier for years.”

He jolted against her. “They made you soldier when you were a child?”

“Hardly. Wait, how old are you?”

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