He stopped jogging and faced us, a grin wide on his face. Only he would be smiling in a situation like this. “Yeah. Get out of here as fast as possible, and save your asses while doing it.” He stepped sideways, revealing an opening in the stone wall we had been running beside.
Rummy looked through and gasped, covering her mouth with a hand.
I fought the urge to do the same when I saw three massive horses waiting for us on the other side.
“How did you— What were you— You know what? I don’t even want to know.” I ducked under a low-hanging branch and quickly got to work saddling one of the horses.
Xavier laughed quietly behind me. “There was no way I was going to leave our fate up to you two. Rule number one of survival around here: always have an escape plan.”
“Thank the goddess,” Rummy mumbled. “You bring extra clothes, too? Or are we supposed to ride through the kingdom like this?”
“What’s wrong with how we look?” Xavier held his arms out on either side, widening his chest. His shirt was entirely unbuttoned now, revealing his chiseled stomach all the way down to his low-hanging pants and the sword that nearly blended in, sleek and tight against his waist. “And I happen to like that dress on you, Rum. Very flattering.”
I bit my tongue to keep from cursing him.
But he didn’t seem to notice. “There’s a bag of clothes behind that pile of wood there. Ladies first. Take whatever you like.”
I forced myself not to watch Rummy as she sauntered away. The second she was out of that dress and into normal clothing, I would think clearly.
With Rummy finally out of earshot, I took a step toward Xavier, who finished tightening the saddle on his horse. “They won’t like this. They won’t like that we’ve left.”
He let out an exaggerated breath. “They don’t have to like it. They brought us here to aid in their fight against the rebels, but they made no effort to tell us what was actually happening in this kingdom. What they did was messed up. We do not owe them anything, certainly not our presence in this kingdom, nor a notice of our absence.”
“What I don’t quite understand yet is, why would they bring us here if the rebels were already subdued? There was one minor attack in a handful of days, and I would consider that attack to be defense more than anything.”
Xavier shrugged. “Maybe he wanted us to bring our massive army of gifted fae and vampyres so he could steal all their power, too.”
The trees around us grew silent. The screams in the distance ceased.
Even the wind seemed to stop hissing through the leaves. “Rummy,” I called out. “Are you doing all right back there?”
Xavier stiffened as we both turned in that direction. She had walked off in the distance, but even with my heightened hearing…
“Stay here,” I whispered. “I’ll check on her.”
He gave me a nod before I crept away from the horses in the direction Rummy had gone. Every crunch of dirt beneath my boots sent my blood racing through my veins.
“Rummy? Are you over here?” I took a few more steps before I saw the bag of clothes on the ground. It had been opened and rummaged through, with Rummy’s ridiculous shoes from the ball tossed beside it.
I quickly shifted my attention to the forest around us. She wouldn’t have been able to slip past us and head back to the castle. Not the way we came, anyway. But there were certainly other ways to?—
“Stalk much? It’s called privacy.” Rummy stumbled from behind a thick tree to my right, tightening her new jacket around her as the moonlight illuminated over her skin. Her dress was gone—thank the goddess. In its place were a pair of heavy trousers and a button-up shirt that was much too big for her. Her blonde hair was still tucked into the collar of the jacket, and the sleeves ran past her fingertips, swallowing her hands in the material. “You’re staring.”
I tore my gaze away. “You got quiet. We were worried. Tonight’s not the night to sneak off in the darkness.”
“You were worried about me?” She cocked her head to the side. “Aw.”
Even on a night like this, this woman made my blood boil. I was a damn fool to think she was anything other than malicious. I was a game to her, that was it. The intimacy at the ball meant nothing to her. I was just another toy to distract her from the misery of her own life.
I’d forgotten that once. I wouldn’t do it again. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I spat, turning back in the direction of Xavier. “Wolf will kill me if I come home without you, and after the excitement on the way here, I’m not looking for any trouble.”
She pulled her hair out from beneath her jacket, and it fell like locks of pure sunlight down to her waist. “Not looking for trouble? Is that what you were doing earlier at the ball, too?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know precisely what I’m talking about.” She took a step closer to me and propped her hands on her hips. “You’re playing with fire, Jessiah. And you’ll only end up burned.”
She stood just a few inches away from me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from her body in the cool night air. “Are you supposed to be the fire?”
