She’d found one not far away.
A person looking directly at the pile ofboulders would assume they butted right up against the canyon wall.It wasn’t until you walked to the far right side that you could seea narrow gap where a small group of people could remain unseen byothers passing by.
Best of all, the rock slide had createdenough of a hill that a really determined person could probably usethe resulting debris to climb to the top of the ridge.
Shea jumped back down and ordered Dane andWitt to join the other two. For once, they obeyed withoutarguing.
“Wait here until I come back. I’ll try todraw them off.” She pointed at the two strangers. “You’re comingwith me.”
She started wiping away the tracks leading tothe hiding place. There were two thuds as the strangers hopped downbeside her. In seconds, they had done a hasty but reasonablythorough job of wiping the dirt clean of all traces of passage.
Just in time too as the noise of pursuitbegan to rise.
She really hoped this worked, that she wasn’tleaving her people cornered.
Shea and the other two darted down the path,turning the corner just as the first villager burst into sight. Thestrangers kept pace as Shea hurtled away from the others.
A knot in her chest loosened slightly as thevillagers poured after them, leaving the others undisturbed in thehiding place.
Shea followed the twists and turns of thecanyon, hastily scanning the area for a break in the rock walls ora weak spot she and the others could use to scramble to safety. Ifthey didn’t get out of this confining space, they were dead.
Shea rounded a corner and slid to a sharpstop, nearly falling on her ass as she lost her balance.
A horse pawed idly at the ground whileanother shook his head, ruffling his mane as riders watched herimpassively.
“Crap,” Shea whispered, backing away slowlyas a rider’s horse broke from the group to take several stepsforward.
She bumped into a large body and jumped. Sheturned with a warning to run on her lips when a pair of handssteadied her before tugging her to the side.
“Behind us,” Whiskey barked.
Shea tilted her head to look up at him. Hiseyes were hard, and his voice held a steely thread of command.
Shea flinched back as the men unsheathedtheir weapons. The riders thundered past, leaving the triountouched.
Shea exhaled shakily. May the mist take her,but she’d thought that was the end.
She nearly swallowed her tongue when shenoticed a man had remained behind.
He kicked his horse forward into a slow trot.Stopping next to Shea and Whiskey, he unbuckled the sword attachedto the pommel of his saddle.
“You took your sweet time, Fallon.”
“One of our party was injured. It slowed usdown,” Whiskey rumbled from behind Shea.
The man on the horse tossed the sword toFallon, the whiskey-eyed man, who caught it easily. He releasedShea to buckle the sword onto his belt.
“We’d almost given you up for dead.” Therider’s lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “I could practicallyhear the clan heads fighting over your successor.”
“They’ll just have to wait a little longer.I’m sure they have many plans for my demise. It’d be a shame ifthey never got to put any of them into action.”
The rider chuckled.
As the three men conversed among themselves,Shea edged slowly away, trying not to draw attention toherself.
The villagers were no longer a problem, butthat didn’t mean much, only that she now had to contend with anunknown element with unknown motivations. All this talk of deathwasn’t giving her a warm, fuzzy feeling.
She froze when Fallon pinned her with hisgaze, giving her the full force of his attention. This man was on awhole other level than the one she had saved. That man had beenintense but ultimately nonthreatening. This man in front of her wasa leader of warriors. Strong. Commanding. Forceful. Used to gettinghis way.
