Fallon’s caress stopped and Caden moved around front, watching her carefully.
“Continue,” Fallon said.
“I overheard two men talking out there about looking for someone. I think they were looking for you, and I don’t think they planned to be very friendly when they finally caught up to you. They were planning an ambush.”
“Did you know them or see what they were wearing?” Caden asked.
Shea shook her head. “No, I heard them coming and hid since they were coming from the opposite direction of camp.”
The two men shared a look, but neither seemed surprised. As if they were expecting an attack.
Shea thought back to Darius’s concern over Fallon leaving with only a hundred men, seeing it in a different light. Had he known even then?
If so, why? As bait, maybe? A way to draw out the traitors hiding in Fallon’s ranks?
This whole excursion could be one giant trap. A counter ambush that took care of Fallon’s opposition in one fell swoop.
Shea looked around the clearing with new eyes, seeing things she had missed before. There was none of the ease the men would typically have at the end of a day. Instead of playing cards or bones, men polished swords and fixed what little armor they wore. There was an alertness about them that said they were prepared for an attack at any moment.
Shea had thought nothing of it earlier, attributing it to behavior befitting an elite group of warriors. The best in the army if camp fire gossip was to be believed. Now, she saw it as something else entirely.
“You knew about the attack,” Shea said, a little dazed at the astounding risk he was taking.
“We hoped our enemies would take advantage of our situation,” Fallon told her.
“We never thought it would come this soon,” Caden groused. “We’re barely a day out from the main encampment. Considering slow poke’s pace today, we didn’t make it nearly as far as we would have normally.”
“Hey!” Shea exclaimed. “You gave me a pony that was half as tall as your mounts.”
Caden scoffed and turned back to Fallon. “We can send scouts to pinpoint their position. It might give us an idea of where and when they are planning to attack. Might even tell us who is behind everything.”
“Their leader is a woman from the sound of it,” Shea chimed in, tired of being on the periphery of the conversation.
“What do you mean? I thought you didn’t see them. You couldn’t have seen if they were wearing clan covers if you didn’t lay eyes on them.” Caden sounded suspicious.
“I didn’t say I saw them. However, they kept talking about a lady. Said Fallon was an oath breaker who led her on and broke her heart.”
“Indra,” Fallon spat out.
“I told you that woman wouldn’t take your refusal of her bed lightly.” Caden groused.
“I never made her promises or indicated she would rule beside me as Telroi.”
“Aye. I know it, and we know she’s not in this alone. There has to be at least one other feeding her information and helping her plan,” Caden said.
When they both looked at Shea, she shrugged. “Don’t look at me. That’s pretty much the extent of what I heard out there. Anything else and you’ll have to figure it out on your own.”
“You’ve been very helpful,” Fallon observed.
Caden cleared his throat hiding what sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. “I’ll see to the men while you tame your mouse.”
With Caden’s departure, Fallon focused solely on Shea, pinning her under an intense gaze that saw through her every defense straight to the person hiding inside.
It was a heady feeling, imagining he knew her every secret, her every desire. For someone whom loneliness was practically a state of being, it made her feel wanted, cherished even.
“You have a choice to make,” Fallon said, stepping close and bending his head towards her. “You either become my Tolroi or you leave, tonight. Where you go, I don’t care as long as you’re gone from here.”
Shea’s breath stuttered and she blinked. Then blinked again. She’d expected him to yell. Castigate her for taking off alone. Maybe, if she was lucky, thank her for the intelligence she had happened across. Offering to let her go back to the Highlands was not even on the list. It was nowhere near the list and in fact would be the very last thing she ever thought to hear from his mouth.
“You’d do that. You’d let me go back to the Highlands?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
No thoughts showed on his face, no hint as to his feelings. He was every inch the untouchable warlord in that moment.
He reached behind her and undid the rope binding her hands.
Shea couldn’t help the feeling of uncertainty. As recently as that afternoon, she would have taken the second option without a moment’s doubt. Her inner struggle on the ridge had thrown all of that off center. She had decided to come back, to give this life a chance, to see if it held what she’d been searching for since the moment she could walk.
Now he was telling her she had a choice.
It was easy to stay when there was no choice. It was even easy when a person’s life hung in the balance.
But this choice would be different. She would have to choose it willingly. Eyes opened and accepting of any consequences that might come.
She had warned Fallon. He and his men wouldn’t be surprised by any ambush. Eamon and the others’ lives were no longer in the balance. She could walk away free and clear and never suffer a crises of conscience.
“What if I stayed as a scout?”
“No. You’d have to be my Tolroi.”
Shea wanted to stomp her foot like a three year old. She settled for a grimace. “You’re being absurd. Let me stay as a scout, and I’ll consider becoming your Tolroi.”
“You already know my answer to that.”
“Why? Why is this so important to you?”
He moved then, grabbing the front of her shirt and pulling her up to his face before wrapping one arm around her back to support her. “Because you have already made your choice whether you’re willing to admit it or not. Because when you were gone I knew fear such as I have not known since I was a boy watching my father die, and my mother take her own life rather than face dishonor, not because I thought you had run to my enemies but because you were out there somewhere on your own, perhaps hurt or scared or in pain, and I wasn’t there to help you. But mostly, because you are mine, and I crave the same commitment from you.”
He snarled such sweet words in such an angry voice, as if he wasn’t thrilled with these reasons but accepted them none the less.
The most profound words Shea had ever heard, the kind that etched themselves deep into the soul. She knew if she lived a hundred years she would remember them.
Slowly, inch by slow inch, she slid out of his arms until she was fully supporting her own weight. He straightened and stared impassively down at her. An outsider looking in would never have suspected the depth of emotion he’d just given her seconds ago.
Arching one eyebrow, he told her, “You should also know, should you choose to return to your Highlands, that once I have dealt with the traitors in my midst, I will march my army into the heart of those lands and not stop until I have you again.”