“Pray, tell me,” he drawled, “have you come to bed me or murder me?” His eyes lit with wicked laughter. “Do not fear. I am prepared for either.”

Fury swept through her. “I am no murderess!”

“Then bed me, it is.”

Her cheeks flushed hot as he strode toward her.

She backed up a step. “W-what are you doing here?”

He stopped before her.

“Do you not have business elsewhere?” She winced at the squeak in her voice.

“Aye,” he replied distractedly.

“What sort of business?”

Deryll reached behind her and lifted her braid over her shoulder. “The kind that does not concern you.”

“What sort of business does not concern me? Sir Gewain is—”

Deryll’s head snapped up. “Nothing I cannot handle,” he finished.

The heat in her cheeks spread through her belly as, his gaze glued to hers, he lifted the end of her braid to his nose and breathed deeply. Airin’s heart pounded against her chest. Hands, calloused and brown from years in the sun, held the braid as if it were a fragile flower. He breathed deeply again, as though to inhale her very essence.

“Is there any battle you can not handle?” she asked.

Deryll shifted his gaze to her face. “I am a man, Airin. No man is invincible.”

Her girlhood hero was invincible. The hero who always saved his lady from all harm, who knew when to bestow a kiss, and never pressed her into an uncomfortable situation. This man was anything but those things.

Deryll’s gaze dropped to her mouth. Would he kiss her?

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