Chapter 4 KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOUR

"What..."

The knights of Camelot hit Garrick's forces like a hammer blow from the gods themselves. At their head rode a figure on a massive black warhorse, moving through the enemy lines with the casual efficiency of Death taking inventory. His sword was a blur of silver and crimson, and men fell before him like wheat before a scythe.

One. Two. Five. Ten.

He killed ten soldiers without even dismounting, his horse responding to the slightest pressure of his knees while his blade did its brutal work.

Adrienne found herself staring.

The rider's armor was dark steel chased with gold, his helm shaped like a lion's maw. But it was the way he moved that caught her attention...fluid, precise, utterly devastating. He made killing look like an art form.

His gaze swept the battlefield, sharp and assessing. Then stopped on her.

Even across the chaos and carnage, Adrienne felt the weight of that stare. The rider's head tilted slightly, and she knew he'd recognized her. The only woman on the battlefield. The royal crest blazing on her breastplate.

His attention moved on, but not before she saw something that might have been a smirk beneath his helm.

Arrogant bastard.

"The knights of Camelot are here, my lady!" Lancelot appeared at her side, breathing hard, blood streaming from a cut above his eye. They fell into their back-to-back formation automatically, moving in the deadly dance they'd perfected over years. "Your father must have sent word to them!"

"Damn that old man." Adrienne blocked an overhead strike, twisted, brought her elbow up into her attacker's face. Bone crunched. She followed through with her blade, and he crumpled. "I don't need a knight in shining armor to save me."

She ducked under a spear thrust, grabbed the weapon's shaft, and used the wielder's own momentum against him. A quick twist disarmed him. Her sword flashed, and he learned what mercy looked like in its absence.

The Camelot forces were turning the tide. Garrick's soldiers, finding themselves suddenly trapped between two armies, began to break. To flee. The battle raged on for another brutal hour, but the outcome was no longer in doubt.

Finally...finally...the last of the enemy forces retreated over the hill, leaving only corpses and moans behind.

Adrienne stood in the center of the carnage, chest heaving, her armor splattered with blood that was mostly not her own. The cut on her arm burned, but it was shallow. It wouldn't scar if she was careful.

Around her, the survivors of both armies were checking for wounded, stripping the dead of anything useful. The ugly practicality of war's aftermath.

"Gather round!" Her voice cut through the relative quiet, commanding attention even hoarse with exhaustion. "Check for wounded. Strip the dead. We return to Silvara before nightfall."

"My lady." Leon appeared, somehow looking relatively clean despite the carnage. "You should speak with the knights of Camelot. Thank them for their assistance."

Adrienne's jaw clenched hard enough to make her teeth ache. "I never asked for their interference. They can get off my face before I slay one of them as a message to their silly prince."

"Really?"

The voice came from behind her...deep, calm, with an edge of dark amusement that made her spine snap straight. "That's how you show appreciation for help?"

Adrienne turned slowly, her hand still on her sword hilt.

The man who'd led the Camelot charge stood a few feet away, his helm now removed and tucked under one arm. He was tall...gods, he was tall built like a siege weapon wrapped in muscle and barely contained violence. Dark hair fell across his forehead, still damp with sweat. His eyes were the color of smoke and steel, and they were fixed on her with an intensity that felt almost physical.

A thin white scar cut across his jaw. Battle-earned, obviously. And despite the blood spattering his armor, despite the exhaustion that should have been dragging at him after that fight, he stood there looking almost bored.

Arrogant. Definitely arrogant.

"What?" Adrienne met his gaze without flinching. "Should I lie down and worship you for interfering?"

One dark eyebrow rose. "Worship might be excessive. But 'thank you' is traditional."

"Your Highness, he's the pri...." Lancelot started, voice urgent.

"Shut up, Lance, and get my horse ready." Adrienne didn't break eye contact with the stranger, something hot and defiant burning in her chest.

"And you tall ugly thing...whoever you are...can tell your prince that he'd better fight this betrothal nonsense. Tell him he'd better not show his ugly face to me, because I'll use his blood to paint my room."

She turned on her heel and stalked away, her spine rigid, every line of her body screaming defiance.

"Did she just call me ugly?"

Orion stood rooted to the spot, watching the princess disappear into the chaos of her troops, and tried to process what had just happened.

She didn't know. She had no idea who he was.

And she'd just called him ugly. To his face. Well, technically to what she thought was his subordinate's face, but still.

"My Lord." Sir Greene appeared at his elbow, his second-in-command and closest friend since childhood. Greene's armor was somehow even bloodier than Orion's, but his weathered face showed only mild concern. "The horses are ready. No wounded among our men. We can reach Camelot by noon tomorrow if we leave within the hour."

Orion barely heard him. His gaze was still locked on the spot where the princess had vanished. "A little thing just called me ugly, and you're standing there calling me 'my Lord,' Greene."

Greene's mouth twitched. "Well. You did just rescue her without asking permission. Some people find that presumptuous."

"Some people should learn gratitude."

"Some people," Greene said carefully, "looked like they were handling themselves fairly well before we arrived."

That was... unfortunately accurate.

Orion had expected a spoiled princess playing at being a knight. What he'd found instead was a warrior who fought like a wounded tigress...vicious, skilled, and utterly fearless.

He'd watched her take down men twice her size with a combination of speed and brutality that would have made his training masters nod in approval.

She'd grabbed a spear mid-battle and used it to lift a fully armored soldier off the ground before finishing him. Brutal, efficient and Impressive.

And then she'd looked at him with those hazel eyes...currently more gold than green, lit with fury and exhaustion...and told him to get out of her face.

"Too much energy and sass," Orion muttered, "for that tiny body."

"My Lord?"

He shook himself, pulling his attention back to the present.

"Nothing. Let's move out. The sooner we're back in Camelot, the sooner I can figure out how to get out of this marriage."