Chapter 65: Sharing The Night 2
Lara barely hesitated. What choice did she have? Sleeping beside a man was nothing new to her.
On her last mission, when her father sent her to rescue his trusted aide, captured by that general, and imprisoned in the island prison of Fengsel, she spent three nights under the open sky, shoulder to shoulder with her father’s men, wrapped only in a thin sleeping bag. She had learned to ignore the closeness of bodies, the scent of sweat and leather, the rhythmic rise and fall of breath in the dead of night.
"Alright," she said, her voice steady.
Agilus, standing beside her, grinned. "Then can I have your mat?"
Lara shot him a glare that could have split a boulder, but in the end, she tossed it over.
A gold ingot. That mat was nothing.
Agilus laid it out on the floor, carefully avoiding the spot where Alaric’s urine had soaked the floor. The other room was already crammed with injured soldiers. The loft, where the able-bodied ones slept, was packed tight. The only space left was here—inside Alaric’s room, the one, no one but Agilus dared to enter.
Lara moved to the farthest edge of the bed against the wall, turning her back to the man beside her. The moment her head hit the pillow, exhaustion swallowed her whole. She lacked sleep from the night before, and the search had drained her; sleep was a luxury she had no strength to resist.
Alaric lay rigid as a drawn bowstring.
Damn it. Why did he feel like a foolish boy sneaking glances at his first love?
Women had never interested him. His father had forced concubines upon him—two of them, in fact. He had left them untouched in his castle. To him, women were nothing but distractions, players in a ceaseless game of schemes and favors. He had seen his father cycle through six concubines, one for each night of the week, while the queen sat in cold silence.