Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
“No,” she said shortly—and to her own surprise, it was the truth. She caught sight of Bannin’s relief followed by his brilliant grin before turning away from him, too unsettled by her own realization to ponder his response.
She wasn’t in love with Crase anymore. Though she had been once. But now it was just…gone.
She hadn’t thought love—strong and true love—could fade away like that. So maybe her love hadn’t been as true or as strong as she’d thought. But if it hadn’t been, would it have hurt so much? So maybe the pain she’d suffered had smothered it instead…or knowing that his love hadn’t been as true and strong as she’d believed had killed it dead.
Or maybe Sarya was no longer the girl she’d been then.
She liked that explanation best. She wasn’t the girl who’d turned to stone and awakened to an altered world. She was someone new. But more importantly, someone with enough experience behind her that she could choose who the new Sarya would be.
Of course, that part would be easier if Sarya knew exactly what she wanted to be.
At least she didn’t need to hurry and figure it out. Sipping her cider, she settled onto the stone bench in front of her hearth. The fire was banked for the night but still gave off a mellow warmth.
For the first time since entering the cottage, Bannin’s eyes weren’t on her. Instead they were examining the open trunk sitting atop her table. His broad fingertip traced the rune carved into the trunk’s seal—a symbol well known to everyone in Galoth as belonging to the elite team of soldiers who protected the realm.
“You were in the Horse Guards?”
“Once upon a time.” Before the stone curse struck Galoth. Before she’d spent ten years as a statue. Before she became new.
Bannin cast her a quick admiring glance before returning his attention to the trunk, moving aside the small wooden chest containing her medals to uncover a steel pauldron with the insignia of her rank upon the shoulder. “A captain?”
“Yes.”
“You hauled all this out intending to fight the demon?”
“I don’t need the armor.” She gestured to the weapon propped beside the table. “Only the sword.”
Both new Sarya and old Sarya loved a good sword.
Bannin eyed the jeweled hilt and gleaming blade appreciatively but said, “You said the demon resembled a tree. An axe might be better.”
“And burning it might be best.”
His brows rose and he shot another glance at the sword, focusing on the ruby embedded in the pommel. His eyes narrowed. “A fire charm?”
Sarya only smiled and sipped her cider.
He drank deeply from his, giving her a long, appraising look over the rim of his mug. Sarya thought that Bannin must possess his own fire charm, for that gaze scorched her right down to her toes. Then she all but melted when he set down his cider, licked the foam from his upper lip, and with a husky note roughening his deep voice said, “If I wasn’t already mad for you, Captain Sarya, I would be after knowing what’s in this trunk. And that’s not helping matters any.”
A lift of his chin indicated her person, but Sarya didn’t know whether it was the thin nightshirt that barely reached mid-thigh and did nothing to conceal the hardness of her nipples, the long unbound hair that cascaded over her shoulder, or the smile curving her lips—or all of them.
He sat back in his chair in the widespread way that so many warriors had, clearly accustomed to taking up space with his size…and sporting a substantial bulge at the front of his breeches. Sarya’s gaze only flicked down to measure the size of that thick erection once—or two or three times—as he said, “So that’s why you won’t sell your horse.”
“Hmm?” That bulge really was quite distracting.
“Your horse. It’s said that the Guards are loyal to the mounts they ride into battle with from the horse’s birth to its death.”
That wasn’t true of all the Guards but it certainly was for Sarya. “I raised him from a foal,” she confirmed. “Did all but let him suckle my teat.”
Bannin grinned. “I’ll suckle your teat if you keep me as long as you have him. You can ride me, too.”
“I suspect Foggy is far better trained than you are,” she said dryly.
“Likely true.” Idly he retrieved the small wooden chest from her trunk, lifted the lid. “Who sold him while you were stone?”
Sarya stiffened. “What?”
“When you came looking for him, I figured he’d been stolen from you. But even the stupidest thief isn’t going to take a Horse Guard’s mount. So he must have been sold in the ten years you were a statue.” When she only looked at him, her body a tight line of tension, Bannin said, “You think I forgot the first time I ever saw you? You came into the village looking for your gray stallion.”