After a stunned moment, Shea threw her head back and laughed. “You are a warlord.”
The laughter faded and her gaze was soft as it landed on him. A small smile played on her lips.
Her choice was an easy one. It had been made a long time ago. Perhaps as long ago as that day she had looked up at the platform and seen a pair of whiskey colored eyes staring back at her.
It wasn’t in her nature to give everything so easily, however.
“I’m staying,” she informed him before turning her back and making her way over to her blankets.
“As my Tolroi,” he bellowed after her.
“We’ll see,” she called back.
A grin overtook her face as she headed for their sleeping area. Cocky bastard.
That was the last moment of levity that night. After that, the men were busy with preparations. Everyone knew an attack was imminent, but not where it would come from or what odds they faced. Caden dispatched scouts following a conversation with Fallon. Shea tried to volunteer to show them where she had encountered the enemy, but Fallon said no and once the warlord decided something nobody was willing to argue.
After that, there was nothing to do but wait.
Fallon joined Shea where she had bedded down for the night, scooping her up and pulling her with him under his blankets.
“My Tolroi sleeps with me,” he informed her.
He arranged her so her front was pressed to his side and her head on his chest. He cushioned his head on one arm and looked up at the starry night sky peeking through the trees.
“Is this going to become a thing? Where you make a statement of what your Tolroi does and expect me to follow it?” Shea asked, drawing her fingers in a light caress on his chest.
“It is not a statement. It’s fact.”
Shea smiled. In their past interactions, she hadn’t noticed how funny he was. He’d always struck her as serious.
This thing between them felt so new and yet old at the same time. She pressed a kiss against his skin. She hoped they lived long enough to explore it further.
Chapter Twenty Three
Shea stirred when her pillow shifted under her. A rumble under her ear and a voice speaking quietly over her head brought her fully to consciousness.
“What’s going on?” she asked sleepily as Fallon carefully slid out from under her, lowering her to the ground.
“The scouts have returned.”
Shea sat up.
“Go back to sleep,” he told her.
“Listen, you. If this thing between us is to work, you’re going to have to treat me as a partner or I walk. Not in everything.” She held up a hand to forestall the automatic refusal she saw coming. “You’re the warlord. I get it and I have no interest in being involved with every little thing you do, but when it concerns me and my wellbeing or a skill I excel at, you will involve me and treat me as an equal.”
“I do not respond well to ultimatums,” he informed her.
“I don’t respond well to being pushed to the side or patted on the head.”
The man who had woken them left as they had a mini stare down. In this, Shea was not budging. She knew that in many things she would have to compromise, but this was one thing she knew to be essential to her happiness and continued well-being. He either learned to live with it, or she would take him up on the other choice he’d offered her last night.
“Fair enough,” he said grudgingly.
Shea held back the relief she felt, knowing that at the first sign of smugness he might recant.
“It won’t always go your way this easily,” he told her.
“I’m counting on it. What’s life without a little challenge?”
A flash of teeth in the darkness should have warned her. He grasped her behind the neck and hauled her to him, pressing his lips against hers, consuming her in a passionate kiss that left her panting afterwards.
He buried his face against the side of her neck as they both struggled to catch their breath. She felt his lips curve in a smile as he pulled away. “Well, let’s go, my fire.”
Caden, Trenton and another man waited for them near the fire. Shea looked around, picking out the outlines of the rest of Fallon’s men in the dark. Though it was the middle of the night, very early morning to be precise, all were awake. Either sitting, standing or in the process of packing their gear.
A map was spread out close to the flames and pinned to the ground with small rocks. Colored pebbles were placed where Shea estimated their current position to be. Different pebbles were placed a fair distance further down the map as a representation of their enemy.
“We’ve managed to locate their force and believe they plan to attack once we reach this point.” Caden indicated the spot on the map.
“Why there?” Fallon asked.
“They’ll be able to place archers on the cliff here.” Another pointed finger. “Since our way narrows up ahead with a thick forest of trees and brush on one side and the hills closing in on us behind it. There’s no way we’d be able to veer left. If they cut off both our way forward and to the rear, they could potentially deal heavy damage even with a small force.”
The area Caden had shown on the map was several miles further north and west of where Shea had traveled the previous evening so she didn’t have firsthand experience with the territory. It seemed a fairly accurate assessment from the information laid out before them.
“How did they even get in front of us? We were riding slowly, but not that slow,” Trenton said.
“We only told this route to one person. The rest of our suspects were given an alternate route.” Caden said with his eyes firmly fixed on the map. “We have a traitor, someone high up in the ranks.”
Fallon sighed heavily. “You mean my half-brother.”
Shea’s head lifted in surprise. She’d met him. The half-brother had been Fallon’s polar opposite. Convinced of his own superiority but without Fallon’s charisma and force of presence to back it up.
“You know he’s been jealous of you for years,” Caden said softly.
“Jealousy is a long leap to assassination,” Fallon said. “No, until we have concrete proof I will not accuse him. The information could have leaked another way.”
“Fallon-”
“Enough. No more on this subject,” Fallon snapped. “We’ll learn one way or another in a short time.”
“Unless the mastermind slips back to the main camp,” Shea said. When all three pairs of eyes came to rest on her, she shifted. Perhaps she should have kept her observation to herself. She shrugged, “It just seems he or she has been good at covering their tracks up until now. It would be an unnecessary risk to stick around to make sure the deed is done when you’ve slipped from their trap so many times before.”
“That’s exactly why I think the involved party will be here,” Fallon told her. “They’re growing frustrated. They’ll want to make sure nothing goes wrong this time and to gloat at finally having my neck under their sword. You attribute a level of intelligence to them they simply do not possess.”
Shea didn’t know about that. Their plans seemed pretty clever to her. It was pure dumb luck she interfered on two separate occasions.