Briana walked for a few paces and whipped her hand out at a passing branch, holding up another long thread. “Well, we’re going the right way at least.”
Horland was struck with a thought. The child couldn’t talk but she heard well enough. Therefore, she would have known the ruins were Horland’s destination, so why leave signs when it was all too clear they were on the right path?
“Hey, look.” Briana left the path and trotted past a line of shrubs, plucking something from each one as she passed.
She stopped and faced Horland. “Come here.”
Horland joined her and took the threads from her. “Why has she left the path?”
Briana pointed to the ground.
The dirt was scuffed but there were more than one child’s footprints there. “Someone is obviously with her.”
Horland peered at the footprints and nodded. “Someone with small leather-clad feet. It looks like she and whoever she is with decided to make a new path.”
Briana continued to follow the line of shrubs and every time she picked up a thread, she held it up so Horland could see.
Horland looked back at the path, frowned, and followed Briana.
Chapter 14
Bree collected the threads and shoved them into the pockets of her cloak. Something about the number of them and the way they skirted the path had her wondering.
After about fifteen minutes, they emerged out of the trees back onto the path.
“There has to be a reason they avoided the track. Got any ideas?”
Horland gazed back on the path and rubbed his chin. His eyes widened and he let out an angry puff of air. “Wait here.”
Bree tried to see whatever was making him so full of ire, but she couldn’t see anything.
Horland withdrew his sword and held it up in both hands. He was going to strike something but when he placed one foot ahead of the other, he didn’t have time to lower his blade. Ropes sprang out of the tree’s foliage on either side of him and wound around his wrists, tying them together.
Bree gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth as Horland twisted and turned and used his body weight to try to pull his hands out of the ropes.
Bree trotted up beside him and grinned. “That’s some trap.”
“Get back. There could be more.”
“I think this one worked really well, they wouldn’t have needed more, but you’re lucky, you have me to get you out of the bind you’re in.”
She laughed and moved to stand in front of him but before she could do anything, a net of ropes enveloped both of them. With Bree falling forward hard against Horland’s chest, they rose into the air.
The trap was obviously only meant for one, because Bree was smashed against Horland and unable to move even the slightest distance away.
She looked up at his face, only a hair’s breadth away from hers, and was struck with the depth of emotion in his eyes. Not anger which she would have expected, but something else. His eyes were stormy gray, and, she was certain, full of desire.
He bent his head and before she knew it, he was kissing her, hard. His passionate need lit her own and she moaned.
He grunted and pulled back but kept his lips close to hers. His dark gray eyes beheld her gently as if asking permission. Without conscious thought, she opened her mouth and taking that as an invitation, he pressed his lips to hers and deepened the kiss.
Bree’s body tingled and shivered; his salty taste and the warm breath from his nose against her cheek had her melting into his body. She didn’t care or even think about the fact they were trapped like sardines in a net hanging high above the ground; all she cared about was the many sensations flying through her body, sensations she had never felt before. Oh, she got a taste of the feelings when he kissed her the first time and even more so in her dream, but this was so much more. All thought fled her mind, and she pushed her chestagainst his, wanting to get closer, wanting to feel the quick rise and falls of his breathing, the rapid tempo of his heart against hers.
A moan sounded and Bree was only slightly aware it came from her throat. He answered with a low throaty groan. The passion in that sound made her heart flip and she broke off the kiss. Seeing his passion-filled, glassy eyes, she dropped her gaze and tried to gain control of her panting breaths.
He chuckled and she snapped her gaze back to him.
“You are quite safe. I cannot move. If you would like to continue our kiss, you have to come closer.”
