My fists tighten on the reins. Just thinking about that bastard, Fredrick, trying to strap her into that chair makes me want to hit something. “That was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “A mistake? That’s a pretty big gods damned mistake. Do you have any idea how terrified I was?”
“Yes, I—”
“I killed a man. I ripped his throat out with my teeth. I’ve never hurt a soul in my life, and I killed him like an animal. That alone should get me hanged.”
“You were defending yourself.”
She doesn’t respond and, thinking the conversation is over, I kick the horse up into a trot. Katya bounces hard, and even the death grip she has on Balor’s mane isn’t enough. She starts to slip to one side, and I wrap my arm around her waist and haul her back against my chest. Defeated, she gives in and sags against me. Gods, she feels good. Her body is warm and subtle and fits against mine like she was made for it. The urge to trace her neck with my lips is overwhelming, and I settle instead on resting my cheek against her head. Her hair glides like silk against my skin and her scent—like strawberries and cream—reminds me of winter nights hiding out in Troi’s room, gorging ourselves on strawberries we nicked from the kitchen. I sink into the memory, absently brushing my cheek back and forth.
“Quit it,” she says, delivering a stinging swat to the side of my face.
And it’s back to reality again.
23
By the time we find a nice little clearing to set up camp for the night, my butt hurts so much, I’m afraid I won’t be able to walk. Aemon catapults off the horse like six hours in the saddle was nothing, and I really think I kind of hate him. Hate might be the wrong word: loathe. I loathe him and his always perfectly wind-swept hair, pristine white teeth that never get food stuck in them and all those muscles. It’s like his muscles have muscles. And, of course, I had to feel every single one of them flexing every which way as we rode, which made it very hard to pretend he didn’t exist. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it on purpose just to mess with me.
Even worse, I felt histhingytwitching against my backside the entire way. By the size of it, I’d say it has its own muscles too.
He reaches up and grabs me around the waist. I consider swatting his hands away, but I have to concede that the indignity of him helping me down doesn’t even come close to the humiliation offalling. He lifts me like I weigh nothing and sets me on my feet carefully, not releasing me until I’ve found my footing.
I really hate it when he acts all considerate. It makes me want to like him, and I really don’t want to like him. That makes sense, right?
Aemon clears his throat, and I come out of my mental fog to realize at some point I laid my palm against his chest, and I have yet to remove it. It’s deliciously warm against my numb fingers, and I can feel his heart pumping a steady beat. Is it thumping a little more rapidly than normal?
More likely, his heart always works double time to keep blood flowing through all the muscles. Reluctantly, I lift my hand and pull it back against my own chest. Now, that’s a heart that’s really chugging. My face heats. I quickly push around him and begin untying Miss Horse to hide my embarrassment, but I can feel his eyes watching me.
I glance back, and he immediately looks away and scratches at the back of his neck like a child caught at some mischief. “So, uh, I’ll go get wood for a fire. Why don’t you go through our packs and see what you can put together for dinner.”
“Why do you get to get wood, and I have to do dinner?” I say, cocking a hip and resting one hand on it. “I’m perfectly capable of collecting wood, you know. Just because I’m a female—”
He throws his hands up in surrender. “Woah, woah, woah, settle down. You want to get wood; you are more than welcome to get wood. I can cook. I’m actually a very good cook, if I do say so myself.”
I harrumph loudly. “Yeah. I’m sure you had a ton of practice living in a palace all your life, servants catering to your every whim.”
His expression shifts from warm to ice cold in an instant. “You don’t know the first thing about me and living in that palace, so why don’t you do us both a favor and cut the jabbering and get some gods damned wood.”
“Fine,” I shout, then I spin around and stomp through the line of trees and back into the forest.
“Fine,” he snaps back.
I ignore him and keep on, the dead leaves and twigs blanketing the ground crunching beneath my feet. He’s such an utter asshole. Just when I start to think, maybe, he isn’t quite so bad, he has to go and prove me wrong by being an intolerable prick.
Whatever. He said he wants wood, so I’ll get him his damn wood. I’m afraid of going too far and getting shocked again, so I just snatch up whatever fallen limbs I can find nearby and pile them in my arms much higher than I did when I was only building fires for myself because I refuse to give him more fodder to tease me with.
A few minutes later, I return to the clearing and drop the wood into a pile in the center. Aemon’s bent over something I can’t quite make out in the dim light. “Your wood, my lord.”
He turns around, eyes my wood pile and starts laughing. Not just a little snicker either, a full-blown, belly laugh.
I look at him, then the pile and back at him again. “What?”
“I said wood, Katya. That’s not wood. Those are twigs and”—he flicks a few pieces aside—“leaves. Bac himself couldn’t get that sorry pile to light.”
“Then Bac doesn’t know how to light a fire because I built fires like this the whole time I was on my own, and it worked just fine for me.”
Aemon pushes to his feet and wipes dirty fingers down the legs of his pants. “That may have been enough for the crickets and worms you were cooking, but I’m going to need an actual fire if you want me to cook this rabbit.”
