THIRTY-EIGHT
Rhona had seen death and destruction enough for a dozen lifetimes. She'd seen men die screaming, burning, and she'd enjoyed it. Prince Rudolf was the only man who dared stand at her side, or anywhere near her, and he did his best to arrange his face into an expression of battle-hardened watchfulness. But he was still a man, and sometimes he'd feared, sometimes he'd despaired, but more often he cheered in triumph as their growing army won yet another victory over the diminishing Alban army.
For he might be a Viken, but the Islanders treated him like one of their own. What Lord Lewis had told her was true – Rudolf had grown up on the Isles, Rhona had learned, fostered by Lord Angus, though none had known he was a prince then. And he'd fought alongside many of them as a boy, w
