Prized by Caragh M. O’Brien

Author:Caragh M. O’Brien [O’Brien, Caragh M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857074966
Publisher: Simon and Schuster

CHAPTER 14

Riding Double

GAIA FALTERED BACK a step, registering his undisguised bitterness, and then she turned and strode back into the house. She didn’t stop until she’d gone out the front door and down the stone steps. Her inner compass had turned upside down. She’d thought she was a compassionate person trying always to do what was right, but one conversation with Leon had exposed her for what she was: ungrateful, disloyal, weak, and mean.

She let out a laugh of disbelief and pressed a fist to her heart, where a crushing sensation made it hard to breathe. She felt a fierce, sudden longing for her mother, who would be nice to her and understand her and let her hide. How she longed to hide.

“Mlass Gaia?”

She glanced up. Chardo Peter was dismounting from Spider with a second horse trailing on a lead rope. The last shadows of dawn were dissolving with the mist, and sunlight touched the russet oak treetops behind him.

“Are you all right?” Peter asked. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t see how she could talk to him.

There was a noise behind her, and Leon stood at the top of the porch steps, carrying a pair of boots.

“What did you do to her?” Peter asked him.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Leon began shoving his feet in the boots.

“Nothing,” she said quickly to Peter. “He didn’t do anything.”

“If he touched you—” Peter began.

“No. I said. He didn’t do anything,” she insisted.

“Then why are you upset?” Peter asked.

Gaia sent a look back toward Leon, who lifted his eyebrows slowly, mocking her. He stomped his heel in the boot, twisting his foot.

Peter looked back and forth between the two of them. “I don’t understand,” he said.

Gaia felt her cheeks turning a deep, guilty red.

Leon came down the steps and reached for the second horse. “What’s its name?” Leon asked.

“Hades,” Peter said.

“Nice.” Leon swung into the saddle and pulled at the reins with natural command.

“You won’t get lost?” Peter asked.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Leon said. “I’ll meet you at the shore in an hour, Gaia. That should give you enough time to chat with your boyfriend. Hey!” he said, urging his horse forward with a sharp movement. They took off across the meadow.

Gaia watched his brown shirt catch sunlight once, and then he disappeared in the trees. She slowly turned back to the porch and sat on the steps, sweeping her cloak beneath her to avoid the geraniums. Wearily, she dropped her face into her hands and pressed her cool fingertips against her warm eyelids.

“What’s going on?” Peter asked quietly.

“He just reminded me of some things. Some true things.”

She sensed him standing just below the steps, watching her, yet she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

“Does the Matrarc know he was your lover?” Peter asked.

That brought her head up. “He wasn’t my lover.”

“You can tell me.”

“No. He was never even my boyfriend,” she said. “We just went through a lot together,” she said. “You can’t think— Peter, I’ve never slept with anyone.”

Peter sat slowly beside her on the top step.

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