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The Widow Queen sat on the throne, eyes half-closed, as she pretended to be interested in the man in front of her instead of the archer standing guard behind her. She could hear him breathing even over the words being spoken, and she knew it was not for her sake that he stood so close to her. His skills were best used at a distance, and he did not need to be near her to use them. If he did, it would be because it was personal. Lord Hawkeye would at last settle the debate within himself, the one that kept him only a moment from killing her.
The Hawk was a loyal man. He had heart. That was his undoing. He wanted to hate her for killing the tyrant that his brother had become, but he had been within an arrow's breath of doing it himself, too loyal to his country and its people to let them continue to suffer under his brother's rule.
Perhaps he would kill her someday. Perhaps today. She should run, should leave, but she did not run. She stayed, and she did not know why.
She held up a hand. “Enough. You have insulted me and my kingdom for too long already. If you intend war, you will have it, but you will not leave this room to see it.”
Lord Alexei snorted. “You are not a queen. You are a whore who stole a throne. None of this belongs to you.”
“Keep talking,” she said with a smile, knowing that Hawkeye would put an arrow in the man she had once obeyed, the one who found the idea of her in power intolerable. They had sent her to kill a king, not take a country. They wanted this land, had expected her to hand it to them with the chaos the king's death should have caused.
They had made one vital mistake. They had sent her to kill the wrong brother.
“Why do you not take the throne? It is yours,” she said, lifting up the sword and studying it instead of the man across the room. They did this dance often, a verbal one and a figurative one, for they would never dance in a way that the court approved of, the way the other lords and ladies did. Their dance was with weapons, and one of them always drew blood.
“Is it?”
She turned, meeting his blade with hers, aware of his movement before he reached her and not stopping him from getting close. “It was before your brother died. The people love you, not him.”
He snorted. “They love an idea. They assume I was better than him because they never saw me. They do not know what I have done, even with their stories of the war.”
She stepped back, using the techniques another man had taught her, forcing her feet over and over into the right step, until they bled. She had mastered the dance of swordplay, and she used it often. She had yet to meet anyone who came as close to matching her and her former teacher as Hawkeye did.
“Your brother died without children. You are the heir,” she reminded him with a quick attack that he easily countered with a parry. She would blame her skirts, but she was used to fighting in any manner of dress—or undress. The skirts were no hindrance. She figured that was half the reason he still fought her with them, something other men would have been too chivalrous to do, if they were even willing to fight a woman.
She liked that he would. That he did.
“The crown would not suit me,” he said, circling around behind her. She ducked under his arm and faced him again. “I have too much blood on my hands.”
She stopped, almost giving him too much of an advantage when she did. “And I do not?”
“It matches your hair,” he said, catching hold of the end of her mane, turning a curl around in his fingers. She had thought he watched it at times, fascinated by the color, perhaps, since it seemed rare in this country.
“Hawkeye,” she said, but he dropped the strands and left the room without another word.
She knew that Hawkeye would deal with Alexei if he needed to, knew that he would act if the man made another threat. Not because he was loyal to her, not because he was possibly attracted to her—if he was, he hated himself for it—but because it was for his country and would prevent or at least delay another war. He was a skilled fighter, a trained soldier, and a talented killer, but he had heart.
He would end the threat to his country and protect his people, not his queen.
“You will not win the war, Widow.”
“No,” she agreed, still smiling as she gestured to Hawkeye. “He will.”
Though she knew that Lord Alexei would deny it until he breathed his last, she reveled in the feeling she got when she saw that flicker of fear pass through him. She would not have thought that Alexei would fear anything, not anyone connected to her, but she was not the only one with a reputation. Hawkeye's battle prowess was half the reason they had sent her after his brother—they did not want to confront him directly, not in combat, but if they thought his brother's death had weakened him, they were mistaken.
Hawkeye had not yet killed her, but he was a harder, harsher man following the death of his brother.
“You cannot hide behind the bird forever,” Alexei warned. “Even you are not pretty enough to keep him loyal to the woman who killed his brother.”
“That is your mistake,” she said quietly. “He is loyal to the throne, not to me.”
“The throne that belongs to him.”
“Exactly.”
“You know killing him would actually have started the war.”
She smiled slightly, turning to look back at Hawkeye. “I knew. Alexei thought I did not care if one came, and that is all that matters. He will go back and try to push for it, but they fear you too much to start a war with you.”
He leaned against the wall, folding his arms over his chest. She could not see his bow, but the man was not unarmed, never, not around her. “Why did you kill my brother and not me?”
She turned her head, studying him. The crown should have fallen off, but this one was stubborn, not needing to tangle in her hair to keep its place on her head. “Your brother was fooled by what I seemed to be. You never were, never would have been.”
“And the reason you stayed?”
“You.”
He frowned. “Then why did you not kill me any of those times we have taken up swords against each other?”
She did not know why he had failed to understand her then. Most of the time, they did not need words. “If I went back, they would have killed me. If I did not go to them, they would hunt me. I would always have to run. I did not want to run.”
“You would rather have me be the one that kills you?”
“You would be quick about it.” Alexei and the others would give her no such mercy. They knew efficient manners of ensuring death, but they would not use them on her, not after she betrayed them. She reached into her sleeve and took out a small dagger, holding it out to the Hawk. “If you feel it is the time...”
“You will know when I do,” he said, not taking the dagger. He left her, his steps not sounding on the stones of the hall.
She returned the dagger to her sleeve, pulling the extra fabric over it. She knew there were some that believed that the titles of king and queen should be united again, that he should take up the crown and marry her, but she wanted only to know that the Hawk would be there at her side.
Even if he was there to kill her.