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ground, Dillon shoved aside her admirers and stalked her into a corner. He told himself what he was about to do was for her safety. An unattached female flaunting a figure built for sin in a colony full of males—she might as well have struck a match and tossed it onto a powder keg. Someone was going to blow. Spectacle over, the crowd’s easy camaraderie evaporated. A shove here, a sharp word there as they packed into the stable. Dillon reached her first. He hesitated for a split second when she stepped back slowly. Too late to walk away now.
    “Don’t run,” he warned. She wouldn’t get far.
    After backing her against a stall, he lowered his head and gave the crowd time to take notice. They did, and shouts rang out until she twined her tentative fingers through his hair. He waited for common sense to kick in or an alternative to present itself, but her chin shot up and her lips parted sweet as any dream. He should have backed off, but the race fired hot in his blood. Marking her as his was a bad idea, a very bad idea. One he would regret any minute now.
    “Thank you.” Isabeau stared up at him. Her scent wrapped him tight, choked oxygen from his brain.
    Cupping her jaw, he angled her head how he liked and took what he wanted.

Chapter Three
    Braced for a claiming to match the hard set of his jaw, I sighed into the gentle press of Dillon’s lips on mine. He made a hungry sound in his throat, and I answered. In response, he slipped his tongue into my mouth, and I shivered. Relaxing my grip, I slid my hands down his neck to his shoulders and fisted his collar, bending him to me. His pleased growl turned into a low snarl as he caught my hands and tucked them to his sides. His eyes were blind, unfocused.
    I flattened myself against the wood, hands pressed against him. “Dillon?” After glimpsing the crush of bodies packed in the stable, heat sparked in my palms. Remain calm. Regain control .
    “That was a mistake,” he said softly. I wasn’t sure if he meant my arrival or the kiss, but I could guess. He searched my face. Gone was any sign our kiss had affected him. I supposed I deserved that, but I had a limited time for causing effective distractions. “Why did you come?”
    I licked my lips. They were full and tasted of him. “I came to see you.”
    Bitterness suffused his tone. “My leg you mean.”
    Dangerous curiosity compelled me to ask, “Had you rather I said this was a social visit?”
    He rolled his shoulders. “It wouldn’t be the truth.”
    “You left the consulate, I didn’t release you.” I should have kept the reminder to myself.
    He wrapped his arm around my waist and trapped me by his side. “I was needed here.”
    “I’m sure you were.” As I was sure his reason for leaving was to escape me.
    After weaving through the thick of the crowd, his arm slid past my hip and fell to his side. His long strides ate up the ground, and I scurried to keep pace. I couldn’t afford to lose him now.
    When a gust of wind tangled my legs in my skirt, I cursed my foolishness.
    Any mistress could master seduction of a particular male after a relationship as longstanding as mine and Roland’s had been, but he’d forgotten I was no sthudai from his stable. I was a priestess whose vows of celibacy lay broken at his feet. He’d plucked me from my mother’s temple and taken me as his. He had chased me, seduced me. Dillon was all but running from me.
    Whatever sparks of interest I imagined he had felt for me were snuffed out the day I chose Emma’s friendship over Harper’s safety. Dillon thought my interest in him was the lie when it had been the only grain of truth in my fabrication. Too late I realized I’d cost myself something of value—Dillon’s good opinion of me. What pittance of tolerance I’d earned back during his convalescence depended on my playing the part of impartial healer. One lingering glance, one hint of my interest in him, and our truce would crumble. But after tasting him, how