“What are you doing?” Teryn asked, voice low, calm, steady. His eyes, however, revealed a tinge of fear.
“What wereyoudoing?” she said, her words uneven, frantic. “You had your hand over my mouth.”
“You were screaming.”
She shuddered, reminded of her dream, the shadows that had tried to strangle her. “You had no right to touch me.”
The fear left his eyes, replaced with indignation. “You wouldn’t wake. Your screams nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought you were being murdered.”
“So you decided to smother me in my sleep.”
“I called your name a hundred times. The last thing I could think to do was muffle your shouts while I tried harder to wake you. Would you rather I let you carry on? I’m sure the hunters we’re supposed to be sneaking up on would only be too happy to follow the source of a distressed woman’s cries. And not to aid her, either.”
That sent a spike of alarm through her. She lifted her chin, staring down at him with a glare. “Don’t you dare touch me like that again.”
He scoffed. “Do you think I wanted to? Do you think I took pleasure from it?”
The word pleasure sparked the memory of how his palm had felt on her shoulder. Her heart thumped heavily in her chest and sent a wave of heat to her cheeks.
His eyes landed on the very shoulder in question. When his eyes returned to hers, his lips quirked with a suggestive smirk. “Trust me, if I wanted to touch you, you’d know. And if I took pleasure from it, so would you.”
Her breath caught, and something trilled low in her belly. She was stunned silent, her knife trembling in her hand. Without her permission, her eyes dipped to his lips, taking in their sensuous curve, the dimple at one corner. His smile slipped, an uncertain expression crossing his face. She was entranced as his lips parted, some word poised on them—
“Oh, for the love of the seven gods, get a room.” Lex turned over on his bedroll.
Cora’s eyes flew to the other man. Valorre stood off to the side, rippling with something that struck Cora like a snicker.
“No canoodling,” Lex muttered, back facing them. “If I hear gasps or moans or even kisses, I’m going to throw rocks at your heads.”
Cora returned her gaze to Teryn. She stiffened, realizing the impropriety of their position. He was on his back. She was on top of him. Sure, a knife’s blade was between them, but…
She had to stifle her gasp of surprise when she realized where his hands were—at the base of her waist. Had they been there the whole time? He could have shoved her off him, and perhaps that was what he’d been prepared to do. But also…
Also…
It looked like so much more. For the tiniest splinter of a moment, it had—maybe—felt like more too.
She pushed off of him as fast as she could, nearly stumbling in the process. He rose much slower, his eyes never leaving hers. Then, trembling with rage, she stomped off, feeling his gaze follow her every step.
29
Teryn wasn’t entirely sure why he followed after Cora. He told himself it was to spy, to see where she went and ensure she wasn’t plucking poisonous berries to shove down his throat in retribution. But that wasn’t the full truth. He was concerned. He’d heard the pitiful pitch of her cries that had roused him from sleep, had seen beads of tears clinging to her dark lashes as she’d held her knife to his throat. For a moment, it had been like she was somewhere else, trapped in her mind. He’d had every intention of pushing her off of him at the first chance, but instead…
He blushed as he recalled the look in her eyes when he’d brought up pleasure and touch. Seven gods, he’dflirtedwith her. With a woman who would sooner butcher him than bed him.
I only said what I did to shock her into calming down, he told himself. That too was a lie. He’d said it because he’d wanted to get a rise out of her. Wanted to taste her rage and test the bounds of her anger. Did he have a damn death wish? Who flirts with a woman he’s planning to betray?
He shook the thought from his head as he trailed her. Valorre trotted past him, following after her too. They both disappeared into the dark. Still, he followed.
He spotted Valorre first. The unicorn stood at what Teryn realized was the edge of a rounded cliff. His white coat shone beneath the light of the moon, the ridges of his spiral horn glittering with reflected starlight. Teryn’s heart leapt into his throat as he considered that Cora might be on the other side of the cliff’s edge. She could have run blindly and taken a fall.
Then he saw her. Not far from Valorre, her small form was curled at the base of a tree, knees to her chest, shoulders heaving with quiet sobs. Teryn suddenly regretted coming after her. Her grief was not his to witness.
He took a slow step back, but Cora’s face whipped up, stopping him in his tracks.
She rose to her feet and crossed her arms. “What are you doing here?”
“I…” He searched for words, his throat dry. “I just wanted to see if you were all right.”
