Page 74 of A War of Crowns

“A fool?” She expelled a breathless laugh devoid of all humor. “And yet you want to marry me? So what does that make you?”

“Nothing at all,” he sneered, open disdain dripping from his every word. “I wouldn’t want to marry you even if youcrawledto me on all fours and begged me for it.”

Heat scorched its way across her cheeks at the imagery. “There is nothing at all I would ever beg from you, least of all a marriage—”

What was left of her words wisped into nothing when the Crow’s great stallion suddenly took another step forward and saw her pressed even more tightly against the tree behind her. Its bark bit into her bare back.

But she would choose the bark over King Edmund’s grasping fingers any day.

“If you don’t wish to marry me, then why is this your brother’s demand?” Seraphina asked, desperately searching the shadowed planes of Prince Aldric’s scarred visage. “If I do not want this and you do not want this, then why must it be so?”

The Crow had no answer for her that time—nothing beyond mere silence as he reined his horse away and retreated through the brush.

Seraphina thinned her lips and leapt in front of the man’s monstrously large destrier. “I am not finished speaking with you.”

“Get out of the way, woman,” he growled.

“We can help each other, can we not?”

The very idea of allying herself with such a man turned her stomach. But if such an alliance was truly the way forward, then perhaps—this once—the ends might very well justify the means.

Perhaps this was the true meaning of her vision.

Before the Crow could give his answer, a muted call of, “Your Majesty!” rang out into the night from beyond the safety of their copse. A louder, “Seraphina!” soon followed.

It was her godparents.

She called back, “I am here!” which earned a low scoff from the Crow.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he broke his prolonged silence to rasp. “Hurry back now to your keepers.”

Seraphina arched an eyebrow. “My keepers?” She let loose a disbelieving laugh. “Are you truly trying to mock me because out of the two of us,Iam the only one with someone who cares enough about me to wonder where I am?”

“No,” he contradicted in that slow, rumbling way of his. “I am mocking you because the reason there is someone worried about where you are is because clearly you can’t be trusted to be on your own for longer than two seconds.”

Her lips twisted into a frown. “Please, let us not pretend as if you know me at all—”

“I know enough to know that in the two days we’ve been together at this pointless summit of yours, I could have killed you at least thirty times over.”

Seraphina recoiled from the mounted man. Her fingers tightened on the hilt of her dagger yet again. But then she recalled the words of the bronze-eyed man who had been with the Crow the first time they met.

If he was to be believed, Aldric Hargrave didn’t make threats. He was but making an observation. He could have killed her many times over the past two days.

And yet he hadn’t.

“What is Edmund holding over you?” Seraphina whispered up to the man, desperate to solve this particular puzzle in what scant few moments they had left alone. Already, she could hear her people crashing through the brush and drawing in closer. “What is he threatening you with? Aldric, stop—” She grabbed his horse’s reins with her free hand when he tried to ride away from her again. “Let us help one another.”

His reaction was immediate and visceral when he snarled in reply, “I amnotyour ally, woman.”

And then their time was at an end.

“Your Majesty,” Duke Percival gasped as he finally crashed his way into their little patch of forest. Duchess Edith and the Queensguard were close behind. “Are you…are you quite all right? I heard…”

Her godfather trailed off as his eyes flicked across the scene. The realization of just how it all must look crashed down upon Seraphina all at once, leaving her releasing the reins of the Crow’s horse and taking a quick step back. She resheathed her dagger.

But even then, she still felt like a highwayman who had just been caught robbing a man in the bushes.

After a few more tense moments passed, Duke Percival shattered the silence with a brusque question of, “What in the name of the Lord is going on here?”

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