Page 37 of Knightfall
“Queen Matha was killed by a poisoned frog,” I shouted.
“Queen Matha was killed by her own idiocy,” Declan turned at the door. “Who kisses a frog?” He nodded toward Ryan. “You get our lovely wife for the afternoon. Watch out. Connor says she’s a walking disaster.”
“I’m not the one who flooded the palace.”
“No, you’re the one who was screaming her head off over a tiny reptile the size of a twig.”
I clenched my fists. I really wanted to grab the wine bottle and hurl it at his head. But Avia’s personal servants were already streaming in, silently and efficiently cleaning up the disaster. I could’ve hit one of them.
Declan disappeared.
“Ass.” I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose. It didn’t reduce my fury.
Neither did the sight of Ryan when I opened my eyes.
He was openly grinning down at me. “Afraid of a lizard?”
“Don’t,” I threatened.
Ryan smiled wider. He scooped me up into his arms facing him. One forearm became my seat as he used his other hand to drape my arms around his shoulders.
“I can walk, you know.”
“I know,” his deep voice rumbled. “But what if you see another flaming lizard? Or an ant?”
I smacked him. But his body was warm and I was soaked. Plus, I had a view of the top of his sculpted pecs peeking out from beneath his shirt. I decided not to argue too hard against this arrangement. Still, I had to say something. “Last time you had your hands on me, you were trying to kill me.”
“I was trying to stop you from killing me.”
I shrugged. “Semantics.”
He laughed, and the laugh vibrated against my pelvis. If I hadn’t been so cold, it would have done very naughty things to me.
“You’re angry a lot,” he commented.
“I don’t like idiots.”
“Declan’s a genius—”
“He’s an idiot. All the furniture in that room is ruined. If he’d used his power to dump sand on selected areas just to smother the fire, it could have been swept up. The few burnt items could have been taken out. He flooded the entire room, like he has no control over his blasts at all.”
“I don’t think he’s ever had to use his power for an emergency situation before,” Ryan shrugs.
“Really?”
“Unless a hoard of locusts is an emergency, he mostly deals with crops and livestock—”
“We should change that.”
“We?” Ryan shook his head. But he didn’t comment with all the servants surrounding us.
I knew what he was thinking though. I leaned in and whispered, “You’d rather lose an eye than work with me, right?”
“Exactly.”
I sighed, and Ryan began to walk with me in tow. Instead of going into the hall, he ducked into the secret passage that Avia had opened up. He shut the door behind us and proceeded to walk down the dark stone hallway with confidence.
“You know these passages well? Visit my sister a lot?” I asked, curiously. My mother hadn’t released these men from their contracts to me. But I’d been gone four years …
