While she ate, the men took down the tents and rolled everything into neat bundles attached behind their saddles.
Damn, they’d done all the work again. Should she have done it? Or offered to help at least? No. Since they were abducting her and forcing her to go north, there was no reason why she should have to help them.
Mathos had a particularly grumpy look on his face, his hair standing up in spikes as if he’d run his hands through it too many times. He also hadn’t shaved, which was a pity. The rough beard made him look even more attractive than he had the night before, and thinking he was remotely good-looking was the last thing she needed.
He also had his sleeves rolled up again, and the way the light glinted off his scales as his muscles flexed was really quite distracting. He moved around the campsite with a fluid, predatory grace that she couldn’t help noticing.
If only he wasn’t a lying, kidnapping bastard.
By the time she was finished eating, there was nothing to show that they had camped there the night before.
“Why are we leaving in such a rush?” she asked Tor as he tightened the last pack behind his stallion’s saddle.
“We told you last night. You have the Blues from the manor out looking for you—Lucilla, I mean—as well as the new Lord High Chancellor. We can’t take the risk that they find us. We need to get away from here as quickly as we can.”
“Okay.” She nodded slowly. “And where is it exactly that we are going?”
Tor turned to face her properly. “We think you should come north with us to Eshcol and see Alanna and the rest of the Hawks. Then we can all sit down and talk about the best way forward.”
Well. She hadn’t expected him to admit it. “Why?”
“We need to plan for you to take the throne, or at the very least figure out what to do if you refuse.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m—”
“Claudia,” Mathos said with a disbelieving snort from behind her, startling her. Ass.
She turned and gave him her best death glare. “I don’t want to go north. There’s nothing for me there.”
“I thought you wanted to see the kingdom?” Mathos said with a mocking glint in his eyes. “What’s wrong with starting in the north?”
There was no way she could explain it to him. She cast around for another option instead. “I want to go to… Kaerlud.” There. That made sense. Not that she had any plans to go to Kaerlud. Not with the palace there and however many hundreds of Blue Guards. But that might throw them off the scent.
“We’re not going to Kaerlud,” Mathos said, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes.
“That’s okay.” She ignored Mathos and smiled at Tor instead. “Please can you just drop me at the nearest village, and I’ll find my way there.”
Mathos replied, despite the fact that she was obviously speaking to Tor. “It’s not safe.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“We don’t know where Dornar is, and there’ll be men looking for you.”
“Looking for Lucilla,” Lucilla corrected.
Mathos rolled his eyes without bothering to reply.
It was true; Claudius might well have guards looking in the villages, and possibly this Dornar person too. But she wasn’t actually planning to stay in the village. All she needed was to buy some supplies, get hold of a map, and then she’d be gone. “I’m not going north. Either you can take me to the nearest village or you can leave me here.”
Mathos shrugged. “Or we can stop listening to this idiocy and simply take you to where you should be.”
Lucilla glared at him in outrage, but before she could think of a sensible reply, Tor frowned at his friend. “We talked about this.”
Mathos shrugged and raised his eyebrows innocently.
“We’re not kidnapping the queen,” Tor said casually.
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Mathos snarled, ignoring her completely. “Going to a village is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”
