But by the gods. He’d been underestimating her all this time. He’d known she was smart. He’d seen her marks on her lessons, but her cleverness had been revealed little by little, and he’d missed all the signs. He’d been too focused on trying to get her to submit to this bond. Too focused on his own means to an end. Too worried about having her completely bound to him before he let her in. It was the only way he knew how to protect all his carefully built plans and, more importantly, the people those plans were meant to protect.
