I tense against it, my jaw tight in the dark as I turn my cheek to the chilly feel of the warrior.
There is no response from him. No tug of the tether, as if to let me know he’s bothered by me, which he’s making a habit of in this eternal trek. There’s no curt sigh that tells me I’m getting on his icy nerves, no move to stop on the road to change out my sock, no nothing.
And so, I hate him the most.
I hope a pothole is covered with snow, and he steps in it, mid-lean, and it breaks his fucking shin.
Agh.
Fuck.
The tug of the tether.
It yanks my wrist, hard, and I stumble into his solid arm.
The glare I lift up at him is shrouded in darkness.
His grip on the tether remains, a fist that I picture in my mind, coiled with rope, and that feathered muscle in his jaw as he looks down at me with frozen apple eyes—like he reads my thoughts, felt my sudden spark of murderous rage towards him.
I right myself, boots finding balance on the snowy ground. The tip of my tongue rolls over my teeth as I turn my glare ahead, at nothingness.
Still, his grip on the tether is too tight.
He doesn’t loosen it, doesn’t allow me the extra space to walk. I’m too close to him, the shoulder of my rain jacket crinkling with every step as it brushes against his arm.
The proximity doesn’t ease, not so much as an inch, for the next long while.
Hours.
Hours upon hours upon hours—
Until, ahead, crimson light starts to flicker.
Thank fuck for that.
The torches with flames of another world are being lifted, starting at the fae on the hairless steeds, then down in a ripple to the end of the unit.
I blink against it, the rise of light.
As my sight adjusts, more flames are lifted, more torches rise, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut against it again.
My cheek turns to the glare, the peak of the marching unit, and the tip of my nose brushes over the arm of the ice fae.
He tenses, a current of bolting muscles running up his leathers. I feel the bolstering of his bicep against just the tip of my nose, a ball of steel against a feather.
The squinting look I aim at him is a blur of darkness and firelight and marble. But, with each flutter of the lashes, I make out the leathers wrapped around his bicep like a second skin.
I lift my gaze, up and up, over the fine drape of chain armour that curves over his shoulder, along the smooth marble hue of his neck, to the cut of his jaw.
He faces straight ahead, but his eyes are low, an ice-gaze angled down at me, and his lips are twisted, as though fighting the natural urge to snarl at me, a human much too close for his liking.
But, as I cut my gaze down to his hand, a fist wrapped in a thin, silky rope, I realise I was right—he holds it too tightly.
He’s the one who gives me no space to step away. It’s his fault I’m this close, so fuck him.
Still waiting for that pothole.
The sigh that sags me is fed up, but the roll of my eyes is risky.
