“Okay, Diandra,” I said softly and aimed my eyes forward.

Lahn spoke and thus commenced our conversation with Diandra interpreting.

“You ride with me until we make camp,” Lahn ordered.

There it was. We were making camp.

Damn.

“Okey dokey,” I replied flippantly (Diandra didn’t translate that and it got me a squeeze from Lahn’s arm when I said it probably because I said it flippantly).

Lahn spoke. “While we ride, I wish to learn about your mother.”

All flippant disappeared, my back went straight and my eyes went to Diandra. She tipped her head to the side in an “I’m sorry” gesture and I turned to face forward again.

Lahn’s arm gave me another squeeze and he growled, “Circe.”

I gave in because I didn’t have any other choice.

“Okay, what do you want to know?” I asked.

“She was killed,” he stated but I shook my head.

“No, she wasn’t killed. You can be killed in an accident. She wasn’t in an accident. She was murdered.”

“By whom?”

“A robber, a thief. She walked in on him while he was in the middle of stealing; he turned his weapon on her and murdered her.”

“Was this during war?” he asked.

“No war, no one else died that day, he was a petty thief. It was just an average day, bad luck, Mom being in the wrong place at the way wrong time and then she was gone.”

Lahn was silent for long moments. Then, “You had feelings for her.”

“She was my mother,” I replied.

“You had feelings for her,” he repeated.

Yeah. Shit yeah. I had feelings for her.

I sucked in breath then said softly, “I loved her more than anything on this earth, except my Pop. She was a good Mom. No, a great one. She died a pointless death at the hands of a stupid, reckless man and I’ve lived with that knowledge my whole life… or the length of it I led when I didn’t have her.”

Again he was silent for awhile. Then, “And who took your father’s life?”

I closed my eyes.

“A dream,” I whispered.

“What?”

I pulled in breath and opened my eyes.

“He died in his sleep,” I lied a lie that cut me to the quick. “I don’t know how.”

“He commanded men?”

I smiled a sad smile. “Yeah, he commanded men.”

“Was he a king?”

My smile got sadder. “Yes, of a very small kingdom.”

“So you were princess.”

I pressed my lips together to bite back the tears. Then I nodded my head and whispered, “Yes, I was definitely a princess.”

“And now you are queen.”

“Yes, now I am queen.”

“Your father would want that for you, is this not true?” he asked and I blinked.

Boy, he orchestrated that well, clever bastard.

“Kah Dax –” I started but stopped when his arm squeezed the breath out of me.

I felt his lips at my ear where he growled, “Lahn.”

“Lahn,” I wheezed and his arm loosened but I said no more.

This got me a, “I asked you a question, Circe.”

“No,” I answered. “No, he would not care if I was queen. He’d be happy I married a peasant, just as long as it made me happy. He’d even be happy that I was a slave, just as long as I spent my days doing something that made me content.”

“No king would want that,” Lahn stated.

“They would if they loved their daughters.”

“You are wrong,” he informed me.

“I most definitely am not,” I informed him.

“You are, my tigress. A man would want his daughter showered with riches. He would want an army to be at her service to keep her safe from harm. He would want her to have the adulation of a nation of people. He would want her to be the consort of a leader of men.

And if he could not find that for her, he’d want her to be in the bed of a free man, a strong man, a brave man, one who provides for her and one who has the respect of his brothers. I am a man, we may have daughters and this is what I would wish for them.”

I blinked at the landscape.