Page 40 of Cadell the Dragon

“It’s too complicated…”

Complicated? It was anything but complicated. “It’s not. We are supposed to get married this morning. And that is what will happen.”

“No. It’s impossible. You must leave. I’m sorry.”

“Yes. So you said in your letter. Twice. So very sorry, apparently.”

He clenched his jaw, anger returning fast when he remembered reading the hurtful words. Did she really think the pitiful letter she’d sent would be enough to placate him? Didn’t she think he deserved an explanation? She should be making her way to the chapel at Castell y Ddraig even now, where he should be waiting for her. No doubt the guests had started to arrive and the priest was wondering where he was. Instead, they were here in her room, arguing about the reason behind her sudden and inexplicable defection.

“Care to explain why you’re sorry, though? Why you can’t marry me all of a sudden?”

“I-I can’t.”

A movement behind him caught Cadell’s eye, coming from the place where he knew a door was hidden, leading to a secret passage Old Cadwgan had told them about the other day. Someone had entered the solar. Was that why Johanna was nervous, reluctant to tell him what the problem was? Because she’d known their conversation was being spied on? Was she being held in the room against her will? It would explain a lot, why her letter had betrayed agitation, why the door had been barred, why she could not go the wedding and why she had not explained why yet.

He turned, ready to draw his sword against the intruder—and thunder fell at his feet. A dark-haired man he had not seen in more than a decade was standing by the open passage. A man he should never have seen ever again.

“Rhun,” Cadell said, barely able to believe his eyes.

“Hello, Cadell.”

11

There was a moment of silence while the three people in the room looked at one another. Then Cadell’s temper, which he had managed to keep under control until then, finally exploded.

Johanna’s heart exploded with it. How betrayed he would feel… It didn’t bear thinking about.

“What the hell is happening here?” he roared, looking at her and Rhun in turn.

She could tell he was bewildered, hurt and horrified at the same time—just like she had been the night before, when she had seen the husband she believed dead walk into the room, shattering her life a second time. When she had come to, lying on the pallet where Rhun must have taken her, she had, for a moment, believed that she had dreamed up the whole scene.

She had not. Her husband was alive and well.

And he had come to claim her.

A terrible idea crossed her mind. Did Cadell think she’d been aware of Rhun’s deception all the while and played him for a fool, pretending they could get married, before breaking his heart at the last moment? Surely not, surely, he knew that she would not have accepted to marry or even tried to seduce him if she’d known her husband was still alive?

Besides, he’d seen how hard she had found her life without Rhun at Bryn Glas. Why would she have put herself in that position if she’d known all along that her husband was still there to see to his people?

She shook her head, powerless to think. This really was an impossible situation.

“Calm yourself,” Rhun answered, stealing a glance at the door that had remained ajar. Johanna was grateful to him for taking the initiative. She was so distraught by the turn of events that she could not have uttered a single word. “No one must know I’m here.”

“Don’t tell me to calm myself,” Cadell said, starting to pace around the room. Never had he put her more in mind of a fierce dragon. “You’re dead, you’re supposed to be dead. What the fuck are you doing here, then? What is this? Some sick jest?”

“It’s not a jest.” Rhun went to close the door. He was talking very quietly, so as not to be overheard—and recognized—by the people around. “I had to fake my own death to avoid capture in the future. No one looks for dead people, do they?”

No. She certainly had not.

“Who else here knows about this?” Cadell hissed.

“No one. I arrived in the solar last night, using the secret passage, only to find Johanna here instead of her chamber.” He glanced to the door again as if he feared someone’s interruption. “No one knows I’m here. And no one must know. My life depends on it.”

“Your life!” Cadell snapped. He was beside himself with rage and not trying to hide it. She could not blame him, even if she herself felt more dejected than furious. “What life are you talking about? Aren’t you supposed to be dead already?”

Johanna’s breath caught in her throat when Cadell ran a hand through his hair, throwing her a desperate look. At least he was no longer angry at her. Not that it was any consolation because the situation hadn’t changed. For the second time in the space of a few months, her life had been turned upside down. She wasn’t sure how she would handle it, how she would bear to be without Cadell after all they had shared, and go back to a husband who spent his time away from her when she had been about to marry a man who actually loved her and had sworn to be with her at all times.

Writing the letter to tell him she could not marry him had almost killed her last night. It had been too abrupt, she knew, but she had been unable to see through her tears. Sending the rider this morning to Castell y Ddraig had required all her inner strength, but what other choice had she had? A married woman could not take another husband. She and Cadell could no longer marry, there was no going around that fact.