An Illicit Temptation Read Free

woman? Why her when he’d been indifferent to all
manner of beautiful women in the capital? She was a princess and the Emperor’s
niece. Most importantly, her arranged marriage was meant to ensure peaceful
relations between their lands.
    “Our progress is not as I had hoped,” he said.
    “You’re still upset that I wanted to ride today.”
    She smiled at him, amused. He amused her.
    “I have no objection to you. This, however—” He gestured toward
the impossibly long trail of wagons in the caravan.
    She frowned, affronted. “I didn’t ask for all this. I don’t
need people to dress and feed me.”
    He eyed her skeptically.
    “But I should have such luxuries…being a princess,” she
amended, lifting her chin haughtily.
    There was something very, very strange about Princess
An-Ming.
    “The princess must know how important it is to travel swiftly,”
he explained. “The Uyghur delegation has sent their own alliance bride to
petition for marriage. They may already be at the khagan’s central camp.”
    An-Ming paled. “Another princess? But I’m supposed to be the
khagan’s bride! He wouldn’t dare go back on his word.” She paused and looked at
him imploringly. “Would he?”
    Had she truly been locked away in some dark corner of the
palace? It was told that the princesses of the Tang Empire were formidable
women. An-Ming certainly upheld that reputation when it came to her
audaciousness, but she seemed to know nothing of the politics of the imperial
court.
    “This was why the journey was moved ahead several months,” he
explained, a bit impatiently.
    “But the Khitans asked for this alliance to our empire.”
    “The alliance is important to many of the southern tribes such
as mine, but Khitan is a confederation of many tribes. We have been caught
between the Uyghur and the Tang empires for hundreds of years.”
    Her usual airy tone vanished. “So there are other tribes that
support this other marriage.” She frowned and her expression took on a serious,
calculating look that he’d never seen on her before. “I thought everything was
already decided.”
    His mood darkened. “So did I.”
    At that moment, her horse faltered a step and the princess fell
slightly behind. She was inadvertently pulling back on the reins, signaling her
horse to slow. He started to remind her to relax her hold, but the section of
the caravan before them had come to a stop.
    One of the horses had become agitated. The rider worked to
steady the animal while the other Khitan horsemen soothed their mounts. Kwan-Li
scanned the area and saw the remains of a fresh animal carcass. Signs of a wolf
attack with the smell of blood still in the air. It should have been nothing
more than a routine distraction, but the princess was still fighting to regain
control. Her horse snorted, his hooves stamping the ground in agitation.
    Kwan-Li sensed disaster before it struck. The horse shook his
head defiantly and suddenly reared up. His front legs lifted from the ground and
the princess shrieked. The scream set the horse off and he bolted off toward the
open plain in a storm of dust.
    He cursed and set off after her. The beast was head down in a
full run. An-Ming was reduced to a small huddled figure clinging to the saddle.
As he came nearer, he could see her clutching on to the horse’s mane. She cried
out for help, but her distress only made matters worse.
    He hoped she could hear him above the pounding hooves.
“Princess!”
    Kwan-Li directed his mount alongside hers, edging gradually
into the path of the runaway horse. He crouched low and used his heels to push
forward. Faster. The earth rushed by beneath him.
    He had to try to slow the runaway down. The horses turned in a
wide circle, gradually matching speeds. An-Ming lifted her head to seek him out.
Her knuckles were bone-white as she held on.
    “Take the reins,” he shouted.
    The leather strap whipped against her knuckles as she grasped
blindly for them. She made another