Free Lady of Conquest by Teresa Medeiros

secret passages off the main hall. Nobody cared what we did anymore. We heard a banging at the main door so fierce I thought it was thunder. The door burst open and hundreds of men ran into the hall. The man with the laughing blue eyes had returned. Only his eyes were not laughing anymore.”
    She hugged herself, fingers digging into the tender flesh of her arms until it reddened and began to purple. Conn did not move.
    “We watched. You forced our father to his knees, slapped him, said terrible things. Then you left on your big black horse.” Her words fell like chips of ice in the silent room. “Rodney held his hand over my mouth so I would not scream when they beheaded my father. The men . . . hurt my mother again and again. Then they embedded a sword in her breast. The one jester that remained was tortured and hung from the rafters until his legs stopped kicking. When the men fled with my father’s head hanging from one of their bridles, we took his sword and ran until we came to the cave.”
    Conn sat unmoving, his head still buried in his hands. Mer-Nod stood mesmerized at her bitter words. Gelina continued to stare, eyes focused on a dark fog in a distant cave. The fresh pain of Rodney’s death pounded over her in waves.
    Conn stood and went around to face her, placing his hands on her shoulders until the spell was broken and she looked up as if in surprise at his presence.
    He spoke, his voice low and firm. “I want you to listen to me. While I speak, I do not want you to reject or accept what I tell you. Just listen. Will you do that?”
    She felt unbearably weary. Her wound began to ache, and she gave in to the firm pressure on her shoulders. She nodded, seeing for the first time through her haze of exhaustion the lines of laughter and kindness on his face.
    “Your father was a traitor,” he said. Her eyes darkened, and he squeezed her arms, silently reminding her of their agreement. She did not speak. “It was true that he was a dear friend to me at one time until I came to realize that to leave your back unguarded to Rory Ó Monaghan was an open invitation for his sword to dine on your backbone. His own men deserted him when they found his promises empty and his protection inept. He betrayed me more than once. I accepted his stammered excuses for as long as I could. But the time for retribution had come and gone.”
    Gelina looked away, but he took her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his gaze. “I never said he was not a good father. I did not order him killed or your mother . . . hurt and killed. I wanted them taken and brought to me. But this was before the days of the Fianna, and the men I left that day were a little careless and very bloodthirsty. The men under my charge now would never have committed the atrocities you describe.”
    Her eyes met his unflinchingly. “Were they punished?”
    It was his turn to look away. “ ‘Twas a less civilized time. Many brutal acts went unpunished.”
    The gleam of triumph in her eves reminded him eerily of the look he had seen glittering from underneath the cowl of the cave fiend. Anger tightened his jaw.
    “Do not forget you are a murderess yourself, my precious little princess. You killed innocent men, some with wives and children. You killed them in unfair fights, cutting out their hearts and leaving them to rot in the woods. Do you know that Kyle MacRuairc was found with his hand still clutching his sword? But the hand was not attached to his wrist anymore.”
    Gelina shook her head, eyes glazed. “I did not ... I could not . . .”
    Mer-Nod cleared his throat meaningfully, and Conn took his hand off her face, leaving two angry spots where he had gripped her.
    He swallowed his anger and took her hands. “Then your brother did it. I know what he meant to you, but he is dead and you are free of him. You can go on with your life, Gelina.”
    Her confused eyes fixed on his face in a mute plea.
    He stood abruptly and began to pace again, unprepared