Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) by Charity Santiago Read Free Book Online

had left Toryn in the middle of the night, and
rather than chastising her for her stupidity, Drake had come after her. He’d
not only rescued her, he had also healed her, an act of magic that took far
more skill and concentration than she herself possessed. It seemed awfully
petty to beat him up over his lack of romantic interest in her.
    Besides,
you’ve already got a man interested in you, a little voice in her head whispered to her, and
Ashlyn stifled a smile, her cheeks warming as she once again recalled the
passionate kiss that she and Vargo had shared before she’d sneaked out of Toryn
yesterday. It was hard to believe that her feelings had done such a turnaround
regarding the red-haired Spartan- a man who had, three years ago, been her
sworn enemy. But things had changed since Lord Angelo’s defeat. The Spartans
were working for Jackson now, in support of the Free Lands Democracy. And Vargo
had made no secret of his interest in her.
    No, if Ashlyn was being honest
with herself, in the grand scheme of things, if one had to suffer rejection at
the hands of Drake Lockhart, then getting kissed senseless by Vargo immediately
afterward was probably the best consolation prize anyone could ask for. She
still wasn’t quite sure how to label her feelings for the assassin, having only
just moved on from ambivalence to genuine affection, but she supposed there was
plenty of time to figure that out after the war was over.
    A flash of movement caught
Ashlyn’s eye, and she quickly halted her horse and murmured a command to the reveal stane, extinguishing the trail of
fireflies. Drake drew up beside her, staring intently in the direction that
she’d seen the disturbance. The only significant hiding place was a large
cluster of bushes, big enough to hide several men, but a little too obvious for
Ashlyn’s taste.
    “It would be very easy for Toryn
ninjas to spring an attack on you right now,” a familiar voice came from behind
them, and Ashlyn relaxed, recognizing Skye’s even tone.
    “Not all of them are as stealthy as
you are,” she said, turning to meet the swordsman’s obsidian eyes. He smirked
up at her as he stepped out from behind a tree, but the jerkiness of his
movements as he walked towards her belied the gesture. She could tell he was
angry.
    His clothes were torn. The fabric
was too dark to see any stains, but there was dried blood smeared on his arms
and the exposed bits of his torso. Ashlyn swallowed, a lump in her throat. She
knew she had to apologize, but she wasn’t exactly eager to do so.
    Skye led his horse out from
behind the bushes they’d been looking at earlier, and mounted up quickly. “Your
father’s army is sure to be regrouping,” he said to Ashlyn. “They’ve lost at
least a quarter of their forces- perhaps more. It’s very likely that they will
relocate, and even more likely that we will lose them if we don’t start
tracking them now. How are you feeling?”
    “Fine…thanks to Drake,” Ashlyn
said quietly, and sighed. “Skye, I’m sorry. I thought if I could get in and
challenge my dad, I might stop the war without any further bloodshed…” She
trailed off, uncomfortably aware that this was the same speech she had given
Skye when she’d run away from Cosmea. That hadn’t gone according to plan.
    Frustrated, she shrugged and
smiled awkwardly. “I’m not going to apologize any more. I wasn’t thinking, and…circumstances
being what they were last night, I felt I had a better chance of sneaking in
and challenging my dad to a Leadership Duel myself.”
    “What circumstances?” Skye
demanded. “You came up with the plan to leave this morning. What changed
between the time I left your house and the moment you decided to sneak out of
Toryn?”
    “Nothing.” Everything. Blame it on hormones and misguided thoughts of romance.
She’d tried to confess her feelings to Drake and he had summarily refused her,
and even after Vargo had swooped in to save the day, Ashlyn’s heart