“You look fine,” Daere said. From the tone, Shea was betting Daere was trying not to roll her eyes.
Fallon, Braden and Darius came around the tree trunk, a low rumble the only warning of their approach. They, like the women, were dressed in Trateri finest. Their chests were bare and glistening, each wearing a sleeveless tunic. Gold torques similar to Shea’s and Daere’s were wrapped around their throats and biceps. Fitted leather pants completed the look.
Fallon’s hair was pulled back on the sides in tiny braids. The top had been slicked into a half Mohawk. Black paint streaked along his temples to the corner of his eyelids, framing those whiskey-colored eyes and making them even more intense than they were normally.
Fallon stopped dead at the sight of Shea, his eyes sweeping down her, pausing at the gold around her throat and arms. A small grin tugged at the corners of his mouth, his eyes heating before they swung to Daere briefly then returned to rest on Shea.
“I appreciate that,” he said.
Shea tilted her head, not quite understanding.
“I thought you might,” Daere murmured.
Fallon closed the rest of the distance between him and Shea, reaching down and grasping her hand. He raised it, pressing a kiss to her knuckles, not taking his eyes off hers. Despite some of the anger and hurt still lurking in Shea, she felt a stirring of warmth, flutters of desire at the surprising gesture.
“The gold suits you,” Fallon murmured, his eyes sweeping over her one last time in appreciation.
Shea blinked at him. That was such a strange compliment. Mentally she shrugged. Perhaps it was a Trateri thing. “You don’t look so bad in it either.”
There was a choked sound from Braden. Shea would have categorized it as a laugh, if it had come from any other person. She gave him a sideways glance, noting that his attention had already moved on. He was staring at Daere with an intense focus that Shea would have sworn was capable of scalding its recipient. Daere was made of stronger stuff though, determinedly ignoring his attention.
Shea waited, half expecting Braden to push the issue. Make a comment on how amazing Daere looked. He surprised her when he switched his attention back to Shea, noting her attention with a frown. She held his gaze for a long moment, determined not to be cowed or made uncomfortable for staring at what was probably a private moment for him. She felt like she’d spied on something she shouldn’t have, even if he’d been making eyes in front of everybody.
A slight furrow formed between his brows before he turned away, making a point of not looking in Daere’s direction again.
“Shall we ascend?” Fallon asked, holding his hand out to Shea.
Shea looked at it for a long moment, remembering the fight from the morning. She slipped her hand in his and offered him a small smile. “We shall.”
Two of the Anateri had already started up the ladder to the first resting platform. They moved fast as Fallon steadied the rope ladder for Shea. His hand was a warm weight at her back as she stepped onto the first rung.
She met his eyes through the ladder. He leaned forward and pressed a small kiss against her lips before resting his forehead against hers.
In a quiet voice only meant for her ears, he said, “I’m sorry for this morning and last night.”
Her eyes closed in relief. “I’m sorry too.”
“Forgive me?”
She nodded. His hands tightened briefly around her waist before they slid away. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Shea gave him a playful grin. “We’ll see.”
She didn’t wait for a response, scaling the ladder as fast as she could, leaving the rest behind. The rope swayed under her as Fallon stepped on and started climbing. She’d almost caught up to the Anateri above her when she had to slow down, not willing to crawl over them to get a further lead on Fallon. Not to mention, given how upset he’d been this morning, she didn’t want to push him too hard this soon.
Fallon wasn’t far behind her by the time they made the first platform. There, they took a brief rest, letting the rest of the group catch up. There were several strangers among them, four men that Shea recognized as Anateri and two others that she assumed were in the upper echelons of the clans. Witt was the last to join their group, his quiet calm suffusing his gaze as he glanced at Shea.
She took a deep breath and released it. She needed to talk to him about what he’d told Fallon, and why. The more pressing question was how he had known what he did. The pathfinders guarded any information about the mist and how to navigate it with a zealousness that bordered on mania.
The first of the strangers had hair that looked like someone had caught the sun and then poured its light into its strands. He was big, bigger than Fallon, and he walked with that perfect, self-aware balance that only warriors seemed to possess—the kind that said he was mindful of his surroundings and prepared to fend off an attack at any moment.
The other stranger was as dark as the first was fair. His skin looked nutbrown, and his hair had been tied entirely back from his face. His eyes were two pools of dark brown highlighted by streaks of amber. He was slight where the other man was muscled, and he moved with a dancer’s grace. He looked at the others in the group with a friendly caution, not fully suspicious, but not at ease either.
Shea didn’t engage with them, content to stay to her side of the platform and watch them from afar. The blond looked like he’d spent a little too much time training—she recognized him. He’d come out of several meetings that involved the clan heads. She was willing to bet he was one of those heads.
Trenton and Wilhelm moved to the next series of ladders and rope bridges and Shea followed close behind. There was a little chatter at this stage of the journey, but Shea knew it would soon drop off as the climb tested the group’s physical endurance, forcing them to save their breath.
Shea and her guards would be in a better position later, as she’d made a habit of taking this trip whenever possible in the past few months, and they had been forced to tag along with her.
