Chapter 9: Dorian's Camp

I walked into Dorian's camp alone, at sunset, with my hands open at my sides.

Three hundred of his father's border wolves stood in rows between the tents.

Not one of them spoke.

Two men took the knife from my boot and ran their hands over every seam in my clothes.

I let them.

The ring was on my thumb, and they did not ask for it.

Dorian waited at the far end, at a long table set with bread and wine.

He stood when I came near and pulled out the chair beside him.

"Rhiannon," he said, as warmly as he had said it on my birthday. "You came."

"Where is Garrick?"

"Alive. Sit."

"I'll stand."

He shrugged and sat down again.

The wolves of his father's camp closed in around us, row after row.

I turned my right hand so the red stone faced the table, and I kept it there.

"I'll make this simple," Dorian said. "You give me the ring."

"No."

"You sign the paper beside it."

He slid a page across the table, thick cream paper with the royal seal already pressed into the corner.

I read the first line.

I, Rhiannon Courtenay, name my husband Dorian Hartwell regent of Wilton and heir to my crown.

I laughed.

I couldn't help it.

"You had my whole heart for a year," I said. "You'd have had my crown in another. Why shoot my father?"

His smile slipped.

I had never seen it slip.

"You think I wanted to shoot a man who ate dinner with me every Sunday?" he said, low. "I liked him."

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