LITMIR.BIZ

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start over,” he said. “I am Prince Andres. It appears we are to be married.”

      Unease, followed by a rash of unexplainable heat coursed through her veins. “Is that so?”

      His words confirmed her suspicions. That he was the owner of this room. That he was now the owner of her.

      “I am informed.” He arched one dark eyebrow. “Perhaps you would like to continue this discussion in a more comfortable setting?”

      She nodded slowly and began to walk toward him. Then her stomach growled, the sound echoing in the space. “I’m hungry,” she said. She realized then that she hadn’t eaten since very early this morning.

      “Then I will arrange for you to be fed.”

      It didn’t take long for Andres to procure the promised food. He had a tray of meats, cheeses, fruits and breads sent up to the bedroom, which was how Zara found herself sitting on the bed again, her legs covered with a blanket, eating the spread that had been placed before her.

      She could feel his watchful gaze on her as she ate in near silence. He hadn’t interrupted her yet, but she could see that he wanted to. For the first time in a very long while she felt she might have the upper hand. A very slight upper hand, to be sure, but he seemed nearly as confused and put off by the entire situation as she was. Which was, in her estimation, why he was being so watchful. And why he was letting her eat undisturbed. He was circling her, as though she were a potentially dangerous creature and he was concerned about being bitten.

      The thought sent a pleasurable rush of power through her, joining the sated sensation in the pit of her stomach brought about by the cheese. Her needs had always been simple. At least, they had become simple once she was sent to live with the nomads at just six years old. They had been simple by necessity. But lately, her needs had shrunk down even further. Warmth, food, shelter. If she had those things, she knew she could keep on going.

      Good food and soft blankets were several notches more extravagant than she’d had in the past couple of months. And a bit of power? Very heady icing on top of this unexpected cake.

      So she continued to eat in silence, sensing his growing impatience, allowing it to feed her small, mean satisfaction.

      “How long has it been since you were fed?”

      His question surprised her. “Since this morning.”

      “You are too skinny,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. His words offended her, and she couldn’t quite figure out why. She had never given much thought to her appearance. The men who had taken her captive had assigned a woman to make her beautiful for presentation to the king, but Zara couldn’t say it had mattered much to her. They had put too much makeup on her, the gold around her eyes her own addition, a nod to the culture she had adopted as her own. Her beauty had never been a topic of discussion among the nomads. She had been under the protection of the leader, Raz, and he had forbidden any man from touching her, or even looking at her in a disrespectful manner.

      And now this man was telling her she was too skinny. And she was angry.

      “I will say that my captors did not overly concern themselves with the quality of my food.”

      “You are a captive?” he asked, his tone fierce.

      “I’m surprised you care. Your brother did not appear to be similarly concerned. He was quick to accept me as though I were a...a fruit basket.”

      He looked her over. “You are most certainly not a fruit basket, that much is evident.”

      “I have been passed around like one.” She sniffed, allowing herself a moment to fully revel in the indignity of it all. At one time, she had been a princess. A member of the royal family in Tirimia. Being in a palace such as this would have been her right. Before she had been wrenched away from the only home she’d ever known, robbed of her family. Her birthright. “I suppose I can only be grateful no one has plucked at any of my grapes and taken small samples, so to speak.”

      She looked up and caught his dark gaze, the sharp shock of heat piercing her straight to her stomach. She felt her face warm and she looked away. “Indeed, that would have been a shame. I’m glad your grapes remain...unsampled.”

      A muscle beneath her eye twitched. “Remarkable under the circumstances, I should think.” She had spent a great many years being protected, but that did not mean she was ignorant of the ways of men.

      “You were the princess in Tirimia,” he said, his tone vaguely accusatory.

      “I am the princess. I have been replaced. Not by another princess, but by a farcical government who pretends to care about the freedom of the people, when, in truth, they only care about their own power.”

      “I thought the entire royal family was killed during the revolution.”

      Her insides grew cold. That always happened when she thought of her parents. Of her older brother. Her memories of them were soft around the edges now, worn like old, weathered photographs. But what remained, as sharp and terrible as ever, was the coldness she’d felt when she learned of their fates.

      It hadn’t been sadness in its simplest form. It had been death itself. A chill that had stolen through her, replaced all of her blood with ice. It had taken months to thaw. Months for her to feel anything at all again beyond the frost that had taken up residence in her chest.

      “Obviously I wasn’t,” she said, the words strange, thick on her tongue. Because they’d never felt right. None of it had ever seemed right. “Everyone else...my mother, father, my brother, they were all killed. My mother’s personal maid had family living in the forest, people who practiced the old way of life. And she brought me to them. They have kept me, protected me, for years.”

      “Until now, clearly.”

      She picked up a piece of bread and tore a chunk from it. “Obviously not through any fault of their own. They were ambushed and I was kidnapped.”

      “And can you be returned to them?” he asked.

      She weighed that question and all of the possible implications. If she told him yes, would he help her? Or was he intent on...marrying her.

      The idea of marriage was ludicrous to her. Foreign. She was not in any way ready, or suited, to be a man’s wife. She had no interest in such things.

      The very idea was her worst nightmare. Wearing a crown again. Placed on a throne.

      A target would be on her back, and she would be up on a pedestal where she was an easy target.

      She had lived through that nightmare once. She had no intention of entering into it again.

      She should tell him to take her home.

       And have the only people on this earth who tried to protect you destroyed?

      That bitter, familiar cold lashed at her again. She couldn’t go back. It was too dangerous. It was selfish. They would protect her with their lives, and it was very likely their lives would, in fact, be the cost.

      She had lost too much already. Too many people who had believed deeply in their convictions cut down. To hear Raz speak of her parents, her father had been a man of conviction. Who had fought to change antiquated ideas in Tirimia, who had made a pact with Raz’s tribe to preserve their sovereignty within the nation.

      For that, he had been killed. Out of loyalty and respect to her father, Raz had risked the tribe to protect her, to raise her.

      She wouldn’t put them at risk again.

      This was something she would have to figure out on her own. She would have to rescue herself.

      “No,” she said. “I cannot be returned to them. It would be far too dangerous.”

      “Wonderful,” he said, his tone at odds with the word.

      “I will not be marrying you, of course,” she said, taking a grape

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