Immortal Warrior by Lisa Hendrix Page A

have struck out with a fist rather than words and laughter.
    “As you wish, my lord. Truce.” She thought once more of what would come after supper and added, “For now.”
    “For now,” he agreed. “But we must seal our pact.” He hooked a finger under her chin and leaned close. “With a kiss.”
    No, she wanted to say, but in the spirit of truce, she once again closed her eyes and waited for him to take his kiss.
    And waited.
    She opened her eyes. He was still there, inches away, his finger still under her chin, grinning at her, clearly expecting her to kiss him. This was no truce. This was another demand for surrender.
    He waited her out, and she felt every eye in the hall waiting with him.
    “Come, Alaida,” he murmured. “ Pax. ”
    Seething, she leaned forward and pecked the briefest possible kiss on his mouth. “There. And pax upon you.”
    His laugh shook the air. “By God, woman, your kisses may lack, but as quick as that tongue is, I will enjoy teaching you better.”
    When she thought of it later, she wasn’t sure what made her do it. All she knew was that in that moment, suddenly, she was tired. Tired of being at the disadvantage. Tired of being the butt of his humor. Tired of him being . . . him. She wanted that smirk off his face. And she wanted her hall back.
    “Your lessons will not be necessary, my lord.” In one motion, she snatched her knife from its sheath and drove it into arm of his chair, inches from his thigh. Instinct brought his leg up to protect his groin, and in the eyeblink he was off balance, she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to her lips. His mouth opened in surprise. She slipped her tongue in, found his, and taunted him with a slow, circling, in-and-out until a growl of pleasure rumbled up beneath her hands. As soon as she felt it, she pushed him away, retrieved her knife, and turned back to the table, leaving Ivo hanging there, a stunned look about him.
    Much like she must have looked in the solar, she thought with satisfaction.
    “I said Neville had not kissed me,” she said lightly as she cut herself a bit of mutton. “I did not say no one had.”
    The hall erupted in laughter, Sir Brand’s loudest of all. This time, gratifyingly, she found it didn’t bother her.
    As Ivo continued to gape, Alaida crooked a finger at the varlet who stood by to serve them and pointed at the mazer.
    “See this stays full,” she commanded. “And bring that pie back.” She turned and gave her dumbfounded groom a scathing look. “My lord husband may not like pigeon, but I do .”
     
    WHAT MAN HAD taught her to kiss like that?
    A thousand questions churned through Ivo’s head as he sat bemused, watching Alaida eat her pigeon pie, but most of them amounted to the same thing. Who had kissed her? Why had she let him? Where could he find the whoreson, and how much would he scream as he died?
    Some small corner of Ivo’s mind was grateful for the skill the unknown knight—he’d better be at least a knight— had taught Alaida, but the rest of him wanted to rip the man’s lungs out and fly them from the gate as pennants. Strangely, none of that fury spilled over to his thoughts of Alaida. Jealousy, yes, that some other man had tasted those lips before him, but not anger.
    She was a puzzle, this wife of his, so changeable he couldn’t predict from one breath to the next what spirit possessed her. First she’d been angry, then resigned, then fearful, then outraged, and now . . . what?
    Confident. That’s what it was. Confidence.
    There she sat, enjoying her meal, ignoring him so thoroughly, he could be another servant. Somehow, that kiss had given her back a measure of the spirit that he’d admired in those first moments last night.
    That made it a good kiss. One he could work with. One he just might parlay into a new armband.
    That decided, Ivo settled back to watch his wife and figure out how best to approach her. How to woo her. How to make her laugh.
    How, precisely, to make her moan.
----

    CHAPTER 5
    IGNORING THE