Free The Dragon Legion Collection 9 by Deborah Cooke

she believed it to be. Was there a trick?
    “What god gave you this gift and at what price?” she asked.
    Alexander studied her, as if deciding what to tell her. He was so still that he might have seen the secrets of her heart. “You aren’t afraid,” he mused and her heart skipped. “You’re not even surprised.”
    Katina smiled, not ready to explain herself just yet. “You’re the man I love, and that doesn’t change, even if you have kept a secret from me.”
    Alexander studied her and she watched admiration dawn in his eyes, as well as pleasure. “My bold bride,” he murmured, then closed his hand over hers.
    “I knew there was something you weren’t telling me.”
    “How? I was so careful...”
    Katina laced her fingers between his. “Not so careful as that. You answered the door before anyone knocked. You lifted a pot from the fire before the food began to burn. You rose from a deep sleep to get Lysander for his feeding before he opened his mouth to cry. I thought you could see the future, but were afraid to admit it to me. I thought you were a kind of oracle.”
    He looked down at their interlocked hands. His thumb eased across the back of her hand, launching an army of shivers over her flesh. “A gift of prophecy would have been far easier to explain.”
    “Then how did you know those things?”
    “Our senses are sharper. We see farther and hear a greater range of sounds.”
    That made sense to Katina. She waited but he said no more, so she leaned against him to whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She knew the answer to this. It had to be the same answer she would have given in his place, but she wanted to hear it. She wanted him to realize that they had this fear in common before she shared her secret.
    “I was afraid to lose you, if you knew the truth.” Alexander swallowed and looked down at her hand in his. “Not all women would welcome such news of their husband.”
    “I think they would if that husband saved them from a beating.” Katina retorted. She’d meant to make him smile, but immediately saw that she had said the wrong thing. Alexander frowned, then released her hand and turned away. He looked over the valley now falling into darkness. He propped his hands on his hips and kept his back to her.
    Katina felt as if a wide cold rift had opened between them, then guessed why. “What happened to Cetos?”
    “What do you mean?” Alexander’s voice was carefully neutral.
    Katina swallowed. She didn’t wish Cetos dead, despite what he had done, but she did want to be with Alexander again. “Am I a widow, free to welcome you again, or not?”
    Alexander flicked a hot look her way. “I didn’t kill him.” He was so sure that Katina knew it was true.
    Her heart sank. She was still a married woman. “I won’t go back to him,” she said with resolve. “I’ll stay with you.”
    Alexander grimaced. “You gave your word to him.”
    “You invited me to go with you.”
    “That was before...” He frowned and fell silent.
    “He raised his hand against me.” Katina felt her lips set even as she folded her arms across her chest. If Alexander was going to be stubborn, she would be more so. “And if I tell him that I welcomed you, he’ll cast me out anyway. Do you mean to hold me to that marriage vow, even though he tried to hurt me?”
    To her surprise, Alexander said nothing, although his scowl deepened.
    “Don’t you love me anymore?” Katina demanded, needing to hear the truth.
    “I have no right to love you,” Alexander said.
    It wasn’t the answer she wanted, but it wasn’t the one she’d feared either. “You’d prefer that I went back to Cetos?” she asked, hearing the hurt in her voice. “You just came to seduce me, not to stay?”
    “No,” he said with force. “Never that.”
    “Then what?”
    “I won’t make a promise to you that I might not be able to keep.”
    Katina bit her lip and looked over the valley. It was possible that he was bothered by her