“Yes.”
I was going to murder him. The conscience and indecision that had plagued me for centuries were quickly evaporating. Fuck my supposed gentle heart and its refusal to die within my chest. I dragged my hair forward over my shoulder with one hand. “You are the most infuriating man—male?—”
“I am a man.”
Because he was half-human. That was the side of himself he chose to identify with. I might loathe and lust after him in alternating breaths, but I could respect that choice.
I snapped the cloak from my shoulders, draping it over my arm. “You are the most infuriatingmanI have ever had the displeasure of knowing.”
I still had to carry the weight of the cloak, but the cool air around my shoulders and on the exposed back of my neck was divine. I could even feel the faintest breeze tickling the nape of my neck as I started forward again.
“I thought we were resting.”
I spun without thinking, shards of ice flying from my palm as I swept it behind me. The daggers embedded in the ground several feet short of Garrick.
Pity.
“You want to fight, witch?”
Damn him. On his tongue, it did sound like an endearment. I could not even chastise him for choosing to use the epithet, because I’d approved it. Not a nickname, but a statement of fact. I was a witch.
Garrick’s eyes were doing that thing again, where they caught the light and seemed to glow. His canteen was nowhere in sightto account for his gruff voice. But he could have stowed it in his pack while my back was turned.
He stared me down, one hand hovering near the hilts of the blades in his leather bandolier, waiting for a response. Apparently, I did not give him one quickly enough for his liking.
“The sooner you learn to defend yourself, the sooner I can actually get some restful sleep,” he taunted.
“I am exhausted. If you want to keep hiking, then let’s go. Never mind that we could be walking along the base of the mountains, rather than trudging through them.” A point I’d made a dozen times in the eighteen hours since we’d left the Sacrifice Gate. To the north of the mountains were thick forests—and the coven lands. But to the south were the once-fertile valleys of the human lands. We could be walking through rolling hills instead of trudging up and down literal peaks.
The corner of his mouth quirked into a smile. Not a smirk. A fucking smile. “But you are not as exhausted as you were a week ago.”
“What in the Dark God’s frigid hellscape do you mean by that?” I enunciated the last few words carefully, each one laced with an unspoken threat that I would make good on, reckless or not.
“You are getting stronger every day. Initially, I was worried it would diminish those delicious curves of yours, but your body seems determined to hold on to them.”
Had Garrick fallen down and hit his head? If he had, how had I missed it?
The man had taken complete leave of his senses. He could not actually mean that the reason he was dragging me through the mountains was to build my endurance. Just like there was no plausible way that he had just used the worddeliciousto describe my body.
I’d seen myself in a mirror plenty of times.Iknew I was fucking delicious. But it was something entirely different when Garrick said it.
I had two choices. I could either drop my pack, strip off my clothes, and take up the implied offer in those words. Or I could pull one of the daggers from my waist and stab him with it.
I sucked in a breath, decision made.
I dropped my pack.
CHAPTER 39
“You wantto teach me to fight?” I kicked the pack to the side, tossing my cloak over it as I palmed the dagger Garrick had given me. “Fine. Do your worst.”
His brows drew together, an almost imperceptible sigh slipping from his chest. He could not be disappointed that he’d finally gotten what he wanted. I braced my feet, readying my stance as best I knew how as he selected a blade from his bandolier and started circling.
I rotated with him, determined not to allow him any unnecessary advantage. He had plenty already. But he simply circled, pausing now and again to test the terrain beneath his feet before continuing on.
When he spoke, his voice was smoother than it had been before, but there was an undertone that had not been there before. “Attackers will not care if you are sleeping.” Nash. “Or if you are tired.” Rilk. “You have to be prepared to defend yourself in every scenario.”
“But isn’t that why I have you?” I said with mock sweetness.
