Moira didn’t think, she didn’t wait. She didn’t take her place back in the royal box to speak to her people again. As she rushed away, she could hear Larkin’s voice lifted, strong and clear. He would stand in for her, and that would have to do.
She still carried her bloody sword as she sprinted after Cian.
“How dare you! How dare you interfere!”
He continued, reaching the courtyard now, moving across it. “I don’t take orders from you. I’m not one of your subjects, not one of your people.”
“You had no right.” She spun ahead of him to block him from entering the castle. And seeing his face, saw cold rage.
“I’m not concerned about rights.”
“Couldn’t you stand it? Watching me fight one of them, torment it, destroy it. You couldn’t stand by and see me beat down a second.”
“If you like.”
He didn’t push past her but changed direction to continue across the courtyard and through an archway.
“You will not turn from me.” This time when she rounded him, she laid the flat of her sword on his chest. Her rage wasn’t cold, but hot, bubbling through her like the wrath of gods. “You’re here because I wish it, because I permit it. You aren’t master here.”
“Didn’t take long, did it, for you to drape on the mantle. But understand this, princess, I’m here because I wish it, and your permission is less than nothing to the likes of me. Now either use that sword or lower it.”
She threw it aside so it clattered on the stones. “It was for me to do.”
“For you to die in front of a roaring crowd? You’re a bit small for the gladiator title.”
“I would—”
“Have given a hungry vampire his last meal,” Cian snapped. “You couldn’t have bested the second of them. Maybe, just maybe, you’d have stood a small chance against him if you were fresh and not wounded. But Blair chose the smaller of them to begin with because it was your best chance at proving your point. And so you did, be satisfied with that.”
“You think you know what I can do?”
He simply squeezed a hand to the cut on her side, releasing it when she went dead white and swayed back against the wall. “Yes. And so did he. He’d have known exactly where to come at you.” Cian lifted the bottom edge of her tunic, wiped the blood from his hand. “You wouldn’t have lasted above two minutes before you were as dead as the mother you’re so hell-bound to avenge.”
Her eyes went from fog to smoke. “Don’t speak of her.”
“Then stop using her.”
Her lips trembled once before she firmed them. “I would have beaten him because I had to.”
“Bollocks. You were done, and too proud, too stupid to admit it.”
“We can’t know, can we, because you ended it.”
“You think you could have stopped him from sinking his teeth into this?” Cian skimmed a finger down the side of her throat, barely lifting an eyebrow when she slapped his hand aside. “Stop me then. You’ll need more than a peevish slap to manage it.”
He stepped back, picked up the sword she’d tossed down. Smiled grimly when she winced at the pull in her side as he threw it to her. “There, you have a sword, I don’t. Stop me.”
“I’ve no intention of—”
“Stop me,” he repeated, and moved quickly to give her a light shove back against the wall.
“You won’t put your hands on me.”
“Stop me.” He shoved her again, then simply batted the sword aside.
She slapped him, hard across the face before he gripped her shoulders, pressed her back against the wall. She felt something that might have been fear, that might have been, as his eyes held hers transfixed.
“For God’s sake, stop me.”