Sam’s mouth fell open. After a few false starts, she sputtered, “Is this some sort of joke?” It would be a cruel jest, but it wasn’t as though she hadn’t earned it.

Tristan’s cheeks reddened. “A joke?” he snapped. He gave a slight shake of his head. “I’m completely sincere.”

“But Tristan,” Sam said helplessly, “you don’t even like me.”

His blush deepened. “That’s not true.”

“Tristan, be serious. I annoy the hell out of you,” she said. “You think I’m selfish and spoiled and disobedient. A day hasn’t passed where we haven’t squabbled.”

Tristan tightened his grasp on her hands. “It will be different now,” he said earnestly. “That was when you were my trainee. If I had known—”

Sam pulled her hands from his. “If you had known that I was Lady Samantha Haywood, you would never have allowed me to be your trainee. You would have returned me to my father with a scolding and a swat on the arse.”

Tristan flinched, and opened his mouth. She put her finger to his lips. “Don’t deny it,” she said. “You want a wife that you can come home to, who wrings her fingers while you’re gone. I’ll never be that woman, Tristan. It doesn’t matter if you put me in skirts, fix up my hair and call me Samantha—I’m the same Sam of Haywood you knew as your trainee. I’m willful and stubborn and I’m damned near as good as you with a sword. I’m not going to sit home and mind the babes while you wage my war.”

Tristan rose from his kneeling position and sat on the edge of her bed. He glared into her eyes, his expression fierce. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“I did no such thing,” Sam retorted. “You said as much yourself. Right after…” She forced herself to say the words. “Right after you found out Lady Samantha was dead.”

“You speak of her as though you are not one and the same.”

Sam turned her face from his. “I have not been Lady Samantha for a long time. Even before you knew me I had given her up.”

“I don’t understand it,” said Tristan, “but I have never had to hide who I am to be who I want to be. Would it be so bad to become her once more?”

Sam would be lying if she said she hadn’t asked herself that same question. She didn’t dislike being a woman, just the trappings that went with it. “Yes, if I can’t also be Sam of Haywood."

Even as she said it, Sam reconsidered—not the path she'd chosen, but the woman she'd become. Here, a marriage proposal had fallen in her lap, from a man who'd seen her true colors and still wanted to wed her. Must she only be Sam of Haywood, and never Samantha? And did Tristan—or any man—want a woman with her warrior heart? Pride made her say, “You don’t need to marry me because of some stupid promise you made to my father.”

Tristan shifted on the bed so that he was lying down beside her, his head propped up on his elbow. “I thought about it a lot over the past week,” he said. “I was angry, you know, when Braeden first told me. It was bad enough when you were just a girl, but worse when I learned you were Lady Samantha. You let me believe that someone important to me was dead.”

“Tristan, I’m sorr—”

Now it was his turn to shush her. “I wanted to yell at you, and I did, for a while. For lying to me, for not trusting me, and for having the damned nerve to get yourself halfway killed. Of course there’s not much point at yelling at someone when they’re unconscious. And once I realized you weren’t going to yell back—that you might never yell back—I got scared. You were barely breathing, Braeden was gone—”

“Gone? Is Braeden okay?”

Tristan gave her an annoyed look. “Aye, we were separated for a few days. He’s fine.” His frown lines smoothed. “As I was saying, it dawned on me—I’ve grown accustomed to having you around. Far too accustomed to lose you. I want you around.” With his free hand, he brushed his fingers over her knuckles. “Say you’ll be my wife.”

At his words, Sam allowed herself to observe Tristan openly. He was sinfully handsome, the golden prince of every girl’s dreams, with the hard muscles of a man who fought for his living. He was strong and brave and good, if not exactly kind. As a young girl, had she not fantasized about just such a man? “Wanting me around is not reason enough to marry me,” she said finally.

“Do you remember," Tristan asked, "the night we captured Sander?”

“Of course I remember.”

“You wore a green gown,” said Tristan, “the exact shade of your eyes. You were resplendent. Looking at you, I felt like a depraved man. You were my trainee, but…” Sheepishly, he scrubbed at his cheeks. “I wanted to kiss you when I saw you in that gown.” Tristan tucked his thumb under her chin and brought his face close to hers. “Will you wear it again for me, Sam?”

“I burnt it,” she whispered.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” he said, and kissed her.

Tristan’s lips were warm and soft, and for a moment, she leaned into their comfort, closing her eyes. Behind her lids, she saw the future she could have had, could still have—the handsome prince of a husband, the cherubic blond children, the beautiful, well-loved home. And then she saw him—silver and savage and alone. His hand, outstretched, held a dagger, hilt facing out.

Gently, she pushed Tristan away. “No,” she said. “I don’t want your gown.” She was no longer a girl in need of a handsome prince.

He blinked. “What?”

“I don’t want to wear a gown,” Sam said. “I want to wear clothes that can be soiled and a sword at my hip.” She laid a hand against his cheek. “Tristan, you don’t want to marry me. You want to marry the idea of me. This person you imagine me to be—she doesn’t exist.”

Tristan rolled on the bed, his back to her. “You won’t marry me, will you?”

“No,” she said. And then, more firmly: “No, Tristan, I won’t.”

***

As soon as Tristan left the room for the infirmary, Braeden collapsed back on his pallet, staring up at the cobwebbed ceiling. He peeled the sides of his robes apart and ran his fingers along the raised brand on his chest. The skin was swollen and tender to the touch—soreness always accompanied a new tattoo, but his efforts to remove it had done him no favors.

Six days ago, Braeden had woken up to find a swirl of vivid colors spanning the breadth of his chest. The scarlet and gold wings of a firebird fanned out from below his collar bone to over the tops of his shoulder blades. The tattoo was a majestic, fearsome creature, its swanlike neck swooping downwards so that the tip of its beak rested just above Braeden’s heart. Three times, he’d taken a knife to it, scraping off layers and layers of skin until nothing remained but raw flesh. And each time, his skin would grow back, the tattoo wholly intact.

Though Braeden had no memory of it, there was no question as to who gave him this accursed mark. The tattoo could only be the work of his master, though try as he might, Braeden couldn’t recall the sting of ink or needles. He’d lost a lot of time that night—his first blackout episode since he was a child. Even when he’d lost control with Sam, Braeden had retained some small part of his humanity. But the High Commander had goaded him beyond his limits.

“Don’t be a fool over a woman, Braeden,” said the High Commander. A line of demons separated him from Braeden—he was too close and yet not close enough. Their stalemate would last the night if they both refused to bend. That suited Braeden just fine—it would buy Tristan time to leave the Diamond Coast with Sam. His master continued, “Women are pathetic, as bad as the male of their species.”

“You don’t count yourself among them?” asked Braeden, genuinely curious.

The High Commander snorted indelicately. “Humans are ruled by their fear,” he said. “Me, I rule fear.” His master stretched his neck forward, the muscles straining. “I can show you how to take fear and shape it into living nightmare. Love, Braeden, is a fickle thing, but fear will never desert you.”

“I have already had a lifetime of fear,” said Braeden. “I have no interest in a lifetime more.”

The High Commander let his composure slip—“Fool!” he hissed—and then reigned it back in. “You will only ever know fear, Braeden, never love. Your own mother couldn’t stand the sight of you.”

Shock ran through him at the mention of his mother. “You knew her?”

"Knew her? Your mother was mine to play with—a lesson in the power of fear. Do you know what she was afraid of?" The High Commander let out a singsong laugh. "Me. Would you believe it? And so I fashioned a demon in my liking, or at least the relevant parts. I watched it rut with her until she grew round with you.” His laughter turned discordant. “Your loving mother tried to kill you as soon as you left her womb. And when that failed, she killed herself.”

Rage coursed through Braeden, and he felt himself teetering over the edge. “You killed her as surely as if you held the knife yourself.”

“Aye,” said his master. “And you, Braeden, were the knife.”

With that final push, Braeden tumbled over the cliff and fell into black.

Braeden could remember nothing of what happened after that, but the tattoo across his chest was a surety that the High Commander lived. Now, once again, Braeden bore his master’s stamp of ownership. If this tattoo held the same compulsion magic as his last, Braeden was a danger to anyone who crossed the High Commander’s path—doubly so to Sam.

He hadn’t dared visit Sam in the infirmary, not while she was so vulnerable—let Tristan think him an inconsiderate ass. A better man than Braeden would have put an ocean between them. But she was as safe as she could be in Luca, including from him; surrounded by Tristan and thousands of Uriel, even a large demon attack was doomed to fail. Still, Sam was a wanderer and a soldier at heart, and she wouldn’t want to stay in Luca forever. Selfishly, Braeden hoped she would stay for a while—when she left Luca, he would leave her.

He would allow himself this one happiness: Sam was awake. Whatever else went wrong—and so much already had—Braeden would be grateful for this one right thing. He desperately, desperately wanted to see her, to confirm with his own eyes that she was alive.

Braeden was weak, and it took only a few rhetorical questions before he convinced himself it would be okay to go see her. Consequences be damned, he retied his robes and climbed down the several flights of stairs to the Uriel infirmary.

A tall red haired woman stood just inside the sickroom—Addie Branimir, from Tristan’s description. Hiding in his chambers for the past five days, Braeden had yet to meet her. She held his gaze without flinching, and that in itself was a marvel. “So the other one finally shows up,” she said. “Do you also plan to interfere with my work?”

“No, Lady Branimir,” Braeden said, “I’m just here to see Sam.”

“Call me Addie or Doc; everyone else does,” She jerked her head to the right. “Sixth bed on the left. You’ll find her in the company of her meddlesome betrothed.”

The word betrothed dug into him like the cut of a knife. “Thank you, Addie,” he said tightly, offering her a slight bow.

The sixth bed on the left was roped off by a velvet curtain, and as he crossed the room, Braeden could hear muffled voices. He gripped the curtain, prepared to pull it open…And then he heard the squeak of a mattress, and Tristan’s voice, loud and clear: “Say you’ll be my wife.”

Her answer would kill Braeden quicker than any poison. He shut his eyes, and when he opened them again, his face was a controlled mask. He turned from the curtain, walked down the room past the five rows of beds, and nodded politely at Addie. As soon as he was outside of the infirmary, he ran.