I swallow through a dry throat. “I saw the way you looked at the bruises on Lalah’s face. You would have done it yourself.”
“No, I wouldn’t have.” He jabs a finger at me. “I did that foryou.”
“Why.” I arch a brow. “Why was my request so important.”
Merc tosses up his free hand and sets to muttering. “I’ve had enough of this conversation. Follow me or don’t through this maze of cliffs. But I’m going ahead and there is going to be no more talking—”
“Why can’t you say it!”
“Say what!” he hollers back at me. “Are you looking for some declaration of love? Just because we had sex? Once? Surely your experience in your chosen profession tells you that it doesn’t work like that between men like me and women like you—”
“You are the first man I have ever been with.”
There’s a heartbeat of silence. Then with the way he rolls his eyes, it’s as if someone is trying to sell him a dead horse. Instead, I’m clearly beating one—and yet I cannot seem to stop.
“It’s true,” I protest as my head begins to pound. “I’m untouched. Or… was.”
Now he seems bored. “You forget I saw money changing hands between you and a man old enough to be your father the first night I met you. Are you suggesting all he was paying for was holding your virginal hand? And I’d also like to point out that it was a well-plowed field I slid into last night, smooth as silk.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
Rubbing my temple, I remind myself that this is neither the time nor place for this confrontation. In fact, we are two people who should never have such an intimate conversation. At all.
We’re more than incompatible. We’re strangers in a foreign land, set upon different, if for the time being parallel-once-again, courses.
Abruptly, Merc blows out a tired breath, and looks to the way forward. “I urge you to stop wasting energy on what you think about me, and get down to the job of traveling to our destination. And if you insist on pressing the issues of your good friend and lantern tender, Thale, I assure you, I am utterly incapable of jealousy.”
“And why is that.”
There is but an instant’s pause: “Because I am utterly incapable of love.”
A cold spear goes through my heart. Yet I shake my head. “That’s a lie.”
His head cranks in my direction, and his eyes are so bleak, they are like pits. “Don’t confuse our proximity with who I am at my core.”
“I saw you cry when you looked over that field at the settlement.” When he goes absolutely still in the saddle, I question why I’m saying any of this. And then press on with, “And you left your journal open in the window seat. What’s on those pages showed a soul-deep yearning. The picture you drew of that gate was—”
“Shut up.”
His voice is no longer angry. It is dead.
And that is when we hear the grunting from above.
Sixty-EightInto a Battle.
We both look up at the same time—and see the shadow that’s affixed to the vertical slant of the spire on the right. Except… it’s not a dark spot thrown by a cleave of the stone or a discoloration in the vein of rock. It’s a creature that’s the size of a horse, with skin that has the texture of bark on a tree. With its splayed hands and feet, it sits in place as if it’s on the ground, and as it shifts its position to stare down at us, a strange fluctuation in coloring makes it blend in perfectly with the bands of black and brown.
This is what I sensed, but did not see.
The predator has been with us all along, and as its black tongue comes out and licks around jagged black fangs, lunchtime appears to be nigh.
“Ogre,” Merc says softly. “I’ve heard about them. That skin is nearly impenetrable—but they’re slow.”
The beast’s flanks are puffing in and out, and though it’s hard to track the precise position because of the chromatic phenomenon, I think the back end of the thing is quivering. Like its muscles are engaging.
Because it’s going to jump on us.
“We need to go,” Merc warns. “Now—”
