Merc comes over to me, and even through the muck that covers him, I can smell the cedar fragrance I’ve become so addicted to.
His scarred hand reaches out and touches the veil over my face. “Did he kiss you? I might have to kill him, you know.”
“He has an army,” I hear myself say.
“That hasn’t stopped me yet.” I sense Merc’s eyes narrowing. “Is that all he wanted of you? Sex.”
I lift my chin and stare off over his shoulder, noting how the blue veil changes the colors of the landscape. “Yes.”
“You’re lying to me.”
After a long, tense moment, Merc backs off with a curse. My deflation is immediate, as if both my heels have been punctured and all of my strength funnels out into theconeyneedles underfoot. I hate the lie, but the truth is so much more complicated—and so much worse.
“The Badlands are a full day on horseback if we don’t sleep,” he says brusquely. “On foot? We’re looking at two without any breaks. So we need to find some of what your noble charge just left on.”
When I don’t respond, he shoots me a glare. “Don’t tell me you can’t ride.”
I take a deep breath, and say with resignation, “Okay. I won’t.”
Twenty-FourSomething to Ride.
“What in the gods’ damned fate have you been doing with yourself? You can’t swim, you can’t ride, what the hell can you do—”
Merc stops himself and puts his palm out. “Never mind. I can guess.”
I’m too weary to correct him. The reality, though, is that when you have no one to teach you the ways of the saddle, and nowhere to go, and no money, traveling is not a priority, and swimming is not something you do unless you’ve fallen in the moat and are trying to save your own life.
As for that vision of the ocean I had? Like so much else, I can’t explain it, and don’t really care right now. Real problems await, once again.
“I’m willing to try,” I offer lamely. “Riding a horse, that is.”
With another curse, Merc puts his hands on his hips and stares at the messy ground the knight’s stallion chewed up before its departure. Then he looks out toward the road Julion disappeared down. I can just imagine what he’s thinking.
“No one’s keeping you here,” I tell him. “You’re free to go.”
“You won’t survive even the daylight hours without me.”
“Maybe that’s true, but you’re volunteering to do this.” I almost want him to leave—just so I don’t have to worry aboutwhenhe’s going to desert me. “And anyway, aren’t you the one talking about letting go of emotion? Stop feeling sorry for me and proceed forth on your own destiny.”
As he swivels his head in my direction, I drop my gaze to the ground just before our eyes meet. “Pity isnotwhat I feel for you.”
His voice is that low, velvety one, and instantly, I remember what he looked like going for the tie on his britches, his sex hardened for me.
Or… hardening for any woman. He doesn’t even know what I look like.
“I don’t understand it,” I say under my breath.
“How you’ve managed to stay alive this long? Neither can I—”
“Sex must be easy to find for a man like you.” I almost keep the bitterness out of my tone. “Why barter this mess with me in return for what you could so readily have in any number of beds?”
When there’s only silence, it’s clear he thinks that’s a rhetorical—
“You’re different.”
My breath stops in my lungs. “Why.”
Merc turns away, and I measure the breadth of those shoulders, the tightness of his waist, his spectacular…
