Chapter 2 #3
Green Isles burr decided for her. “There’s a lake behind the
compound,” she said. “We could go there and talk without having to
yell over all these people.”
The corners of his full lips lifted and his
cheeks rose. “Lead the way, my lady owl.”
The light of a waxing quarter moon shone down
on the reflective surface of the lake, and contrary to Alina’s
nerves, the waters were calm and still. She led Roark to a little
cove on the eastern shore with a bench made from a fallen log.
“So,” she said as they sat next to each
other, close, yet not touching. “Tell me about you and Leif.”
Roark put down his headdress on the ground
and ran both hands through his hair. “Yeah,” he chuffed. “Me and
Leif.”
“Would you be friends with him if you weren’t
obligated to his family?”
Roark stared at the lake for a long moment
and then shook his head. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “Leif’s
not all bad. I mean, he has his faults.” He gave Alina a quick,
sideways glance. “We all do.”
“But?”
“But he really can be an arrogant,
overbearing ass.” Roark laughed as if he’d surprised himself by
saying this out loud, and then he turned and faced Alina, his knee
touching hers. “Don’t get me wrong, he can be funny and sometimes
generous. Life with him is never boring. He’s a good man to have
your back in a fight, and in truth he’s more a brother to me than
my blood kin. I love him, but I don’t always like him.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Alina
said. “I love my twin, Anders, yet we are nothing alike.”
“What about your younger brothers?”
“Aaron is ten and four, and wants to be a
sailor like our father and my mother’s brother, his namesake, were.
My father would let him sail tomorrow, he’s already two years older
than my father was when he joined the crew of the Sea Eagle,
but my mother, who cannot bear the thought of losing her son as she
did her favorite brother, has made him promise to wait another two
years.”
“And your youngest brother?”
“Aleksandr,” she said with a fond grin.
“Aleksi is ten and the spitting image of our grandfather, King
Aleksandr, in looks and temperament and horse craziness according
to our mother.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“You must swear never to tell anyone else this,” she said. “He’s my
favorite.”
Roark lifted a hand in solemn oath. “I swear
it.”
Alina laughed, her heart light and happy. She
took off her mask and met and held Roark’s smiling gaze. He reached
out and gently lifted the gold pearl from her chest, her skin
tingling where his fingers had touched.
“Tha a braegha,” he said, twirling the
pearl in his fingers. He gazed into Alina’s eyes, his own warm and
soft as a summer rain. “Tha thu braegha.”
Alina’s heart stopped, stuttered, and beat
triple time. “You think I’m beautiful?”
Roark sat back and his jaw dropped. “I do,”
he said after a moment. “I think you’re beautiful and intelligent
and kind. You can ride a horse like the wind, and sing like a
nightingale. I’m impressed, yet somehow not surprised you
understand the Green Isles tongue, and, damnation, woman, you
really wear that gown.”
Alina’s heart beat even faster, and almost
jumped out of her chest when Roark let the pearl drop from his
fingers to the hollow between her breasts.
“How many languages do you speak?” he asked,
his voice low and intimate.
Flustered by his voice, his nearness, his
presence, Alina had to concentrate to answer him. “I, ah, well, my
Northland, your Green Isles, my mother’s native Rus, my
great-grandfather’s Desert tongue, and my Uncle Han’s Far Eastern,
so, five?”
“Is that all?” he said with a teasing
grin.
“My father learned even more from his travels
and always thought it a good thing to know the language of the
people he trades with. It turns out I have a knack for it as
well.”
“Apparently,” Roark said with a low chuckle.
“Will you say something in the Far East tongue?”
Alina stared at the strong line of Roark’s
jaw, his full lips, high cheekbones, and broad brow. “Ni ye hen
piaoling,” she said in the singsong cadence that could mean the
difference between a compliment or an insult.
“What did you say?”
“You’re beautiful too.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not.”
Alina tilted hers. “I think you’re a handsome
man,” she said truthfully.
“You don’t have to say that.” He flicked his
fingers at his cheek. “I know these freckles don’t appeal.”
“They do to me.” Alina lifted her hand and
hovered it over his cheek. “May I?”
He nodded and visibly braced himself. Alina
touched her fingertips to his cheek and down to the edge of his
cropped beard. His skin was warm and his beard soft. She grinned
and met his watching gaze. “Why would you think you’re not a
handsome man?”
“Because women have been shuddering at my
marked face and crawling over me to get to Leif since we were
boys.”
Alina scoffed. “Men like Leif are as common
as grains of sand on the beach,” she said. “You, with your
earth-kissed skin, hair of fire, eyes of rain, and soaring mind,
you’re as rare as the pearl I wear, Roark.”
“You called me Roark.”
“It is your name.”
“Yet never have I heard it spoken so.” He
smiled slow and easy, and melting. “Thank you,” he said. “For your
words. How you see me.” He laughed, short and harsh. “If only I
could trade Gwyneth for you. It would be like trading the poorest
weave of burr-ridden linen for the finest of worm weave.”
Alina’s heart skipped a beat, or three. “She
doesn’t think you special?”
“She thinks me ugly and above myself.”
Alina laid her hand over his on the bench.
“I’m sorry for you then. Is there no way out of the marriage?”
Roark shook his head. “Not without destroying
the alliance between my family and hers, an alliance responsible
for the peace, wealth, and well-being of both our families and
hundreds of others. Our alliance requires me to do many things
against my will and better judgment.” He turned his hand and twined
his fingers through hers, then he lifted their hands and placed his
lips on the back of her fingers. “I’ve never wished it otherwise as
much as I do now.”
Alina’s fingers warmed where his lips had
touched and her heart had yet to resume anything near to a normal
rhythm. “What if you could say or do whatever you wanted right
now,” she asked him earnestly, “without consequence or
repercussion?”
Roark held her gaze for an eternity, his rain
eyes pouring into hers, and then he held their entwined hands to
his chest and lowered his mouth to hers.
His kiss was hungry and demanding while
giving, stoking Alina’s hunger and causing an insatiable need to
surge through her veins. She moaned into his kiss and he let go of
her hand and scooped her up onto his lap, one large hand cupping
her backside and the other roaming the length of her back, pressing
her close.
He kissed her as if he couldn’t get enough of
her, and she held nothing of herself back, clasping his arms and
kissing him with everything she had until they were both panting.
He took her head in his hands and broke their kiss.
“Marry me, Alina,” he said, his voice as
ragged as his breath.