The silence unnerved Shea as did his steady, unwavering gaze.
She held her tongue as the silence grew, determined not to ask again. That would make her seem unsure and possibly desperate. Some instinct told her that was a dangerous thing to be in front of this man.
He set his glass next to him and crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles in his biceps thrown into sharp relief, as he ran his eyes thoughtfully over her.
“Tell me what happened once you escaped Darius,” he finally said. “How did you end up a scout?”
“Why?”
He snorted before smiling lethally at her. “That is not what I want to hear.”
That smile, those words. Pushing him right now would end badly for her.
“I was being chased by your men so I hid in a tent where I stole some clothes, cut my hair and rubbed a dark oil in it to disguise its color.” She stopped and watched as he settled himself in a chair. He gestured for her to continue. “I never made it out of camp. Eamon spotted me as I was trying to slip past your sentries and assumed I was a scout because of my clothes. We ran into trouble on that first mission, and I was able to help. After that, well you know the rest.”
“Why did you stay with them? I’m sure you had plenty of opportunity to leave.”
She shrugged. “Meant to. Just never did.”
“And now you’re here.”
His gaze was inscrutable as the silence fell between them. Shea was beginning to settle. With every moment that passed where nothing bad happened, she began to believe her unmasking wasn’t that big of a deal. Maybe the only reason he’d chased her was because she kept running.
The distrust with which she had regarded him since their first meeting had faded sometime in the past few months. As conquerors go, he wasn’t the blood thirsty savage the Lowlanders painted him as. He kept his men in check. And, while there was plenty of looting and pillaging, there wasn’t the raping there would have been had another man been in charge.
In all these months, Shea had never heard even a whisper of him forcing someone to his bed. Oh there were plenty of women in it. Just, they were all there voluntarily. Even some Lowland girls. So the rumors went.
He was honorable. To an extent. As long as the villages he conquered obeyed the rules he set in place and didn’t try to get out of paying their tithes, he dealt fairly with them. If they didn’t, well, nobody wanted to go the way of Edgecomb.
“Did your men know you were a woman?”
Shea started and said forcefully, “No!”
He arched one eyebrow and ran his eyes down her figure, telling her clearly he didn’t believe that for a moment.
Stung, she glared. “You didn’t realize I was a woman either. Not last night and not when we were dealing with the revenants.”
Of course he also hadn’t dealt with her closely day in and day out for months.
The guys might have suspected something was off but hadn’t asked, and she certainly hadn’t told.
He surveyed her from under half closed eyes. She folded her arms across her chest.
The question of what was to be done with her hung unspoken in the air.
“Trenton,” he called.
A moment later Trenton walked into the room. He must have been standing right outside the whole time.
“Watch her. Don’t take your eyes off her. Not even for a moment.”
Fallon stood and strode out of the tent without a backwards glance.
Trenton surveyed her before pouring himself and her a glass of water out of a pewter carafe. He picked up the cups and made his way over to where she was standing frozen.
She watched him come, unable to act one way or the other. He frowned and then held out one of the glasses. She took it and then just held it as she watched him warily.
“You should drink,” he told her. “Then you should eat.”
It was good advice, and she found herself lifting the glass and taking a long gulp. The cool water slid down her throat. She savored the feeling before forcing herself to take a seat at the table where she fixed herself a plate and ate mechanically. It tasted good. A feast fit for a king.
Trenton let her eat in silence for which she was grateful. It did, however, leave her entirely too much time to think and worry.
Fallon watched the entrance of his tent as if it held the answer to a mystery that had been plaguing him for months. The scout, Shane. No, Shea. Even now he could scarcely believe the deception she had pulled on not just him but most of his army as well.
A part of him was beyond furious and wanted to make a painful example of her as a warning of what happened when someone deceived him. Another part, this one larger, admired the ingenuity and strength that allowed her to hide in plain sight. What better place to seek shelter than in the very stronghold of the enemy.
After those first few days, none of his men had even thought of continuing to search within their own army for the woman.
It was madness. It was brilliance. And now he had to decide what to do with her.
Now she was in his grasp, and he was just as confounded as before. He didn’t like it.
“I never imagined she would be hiding right under our noses all this time,” Darius mused from his side.
Fallon grunted.
“It’s rather genius. You have to admit.”
“No doubt the clan heads have already begun to spread this story.” Darius continued the one sided conversation, used to the way Fallon got when he was trying to figure out the answer to a problem. “Bunch of gossips that group is. Worse than a gaggle of women.”
By nightfall, the story of the female scout would be all over camp.
Fallon really ought to make an example of her. If it wasn’t for the fact she had saved his life twice and looked so damn delicate, he would have.
“What are you going to do?”
Fallon gave Darius a dark look.
“You have no idea, do you?” Darius said softly as he watched Fallon disappear into his tent.
Fallon gave a sharp nod to Trenton. The man nodded back and excused himself quickly, leaving the two alone. Fallon loomed over Shea half surprised to find her where he’d left her.
She looked peaceful in sleep. She rubbed her chin against the hand under her cheek as if she was snuggling down for the night. She’d curled up in one corner of the room on a pile of rugs.
Her face was bonier than the first time he’d seen her. Her wrists were too. It wouldn’t take much strength to snap them. It was hard to imagine she had the ability to keep up with a scouting party, much less have the strength to free him from a spinner web.
She was much shorter than the shortest Trateri. Even the women were several inches taller than her. She was slimmer too, lacking the muscled bulk of the women he was used to. Despite her slender limbs and bony features, he still couldn’t understand how he had ever thought her a boy.
There was a fine boned femininity about her face. Her lips were full and kissable and when he looked closer he could see the curves of the hips and thighs she tried to hide with loose clothes.
No, when looking now, it was nearly impossible to see how she had hidden for so long in their very camp.
It was inconceivable, enraging and not to be tolerated.
He could have her whipped in front of his men. That would set a nice example. If he did that, however, it might make her hesitant to bed him.