“Yes. He is my captor. Or guardian, if you ask him. I prefer captor. I am told I must attend the prince’s revel with him at my side. His sour disposition frightens away all the suitable…well, suitors.”

“Gods.” The woman pressed a hand to her heart. “Poor girl. Whatever did you do to be taken?”

“I fear I had the gall to exist.”

From the corner of my gaze, I watched Emi draw her bottom lip between her teeth, the way someone might if they were fighting back a laugh. By her side, her fingers ticked off to a count of three. In the next moment, heavy steps approached and Roark curled his hand around my arm, tearing me away from the crowd.

“Pardon me,” I said over my shoulder to the stunned woman. “My captor has need of me, it seems.”

What are you doing? Roark’s gestures were harried and angry.

“Making new acquaintances. Is that not what I should do since this place is doomed to be my fate?”

You want her to report you to her father? A tale of a captured woman?

My skin heated. Perhaps my moment of what I thought was cleverness was not so cunning after all.

He took a moment to write on the parchment.

It seemed Roark did not wish for me to miss a single word.

The Sentry leaned in, our noses nearly touching, and the grin he wore was colder than mine.

He did not pull back, not even when I read the scrap of parchment.

Let me tell you of Jarl Hendrikson. He would send a summons to King Damir. If you were not the melder, and the king gave you leave, Hendrikson would take you as a wife. When he tired of you, he would give you to his horrid sons to bed as they pleased.

I swallowed through a new thickness. “You are making assumptions, Sentry Ashwood. And they are wrong. I was not trying to leave.”

His cold grin grew colder as he spoke with one hand. I doubt that.

This close, I could make out the bits of black in the gold of his eyes. I hated him—tried to hate him—but was undeniably pulled into the fury and violence of the Sentry.

“You also assume I would allow such a man to touch me,” I said, voice low and rough. “I learned long ago to sleep with a blade beneath my head.”

The corner of Roark’s mouth curved. That I believe, though I doubt you know how to use it.

“Pray you never find out.”

Roark’s eyes darkened. You are understanding hand speak well.

I took a step back. “Another of my talents. I have a knack for studying the movements of bones.”