“Sure.” He used his hand to move my head forward as the mare approached a massive ash where the roots had lifted from the ground, forming almost a cave beneath the thick trunk. “If you’re done admiring me, let’s take shelter beneath that tree.”
I bit my cheeks when they burned so hot they could have probably led the way through the system of roots the horse led us into.
Thirty
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed,” Darcke said as he sat down on the ground opposite me after making sure the mare had food and was tied down properly so she wouldn’t wander off in the night. “It’s not your fault. Everyone thinks I’m handsome.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” I squinted into the night, searching for the few stars that burned bright enough to peek through the canopy. Pulling my legs to my chest, I rested my back against a wide root of the tree we’d taken shelter beneath. “Also you’ve got it all wrong. You’re mistaking admiration for terror.”
“I doubt that. Either way…” He chuckled darkly. “I make hearts race.”
My eyes rolled to the moon, which made a short appearance before leaving us in darkness once more. We hadn’t tried lighting a fire. Even the thought of it had made the woods seem more threatening, the branches reaching farther down in warning.
After the huldra, I wasn’t taking any more risks.
The root I rested against thudded, beating like a steady heart pounding against my back, like Darcke’s chest had on the horse. The pulse continued up into the tree, into the heart that satsomewhere where the towering roots tethered to the trunk, thirty or so feet above the ground.
“Your refusal to yield isn’t as infuriating when it works in our favor.” Darcke leaned his head back so that his face was hidden in the shadows of the roots weaving above us. “You did better than I expected.”
My spine snapped straight. “Than youexpected?”
I couldn’t see them, but I felt his lips twitch. “One of us had to pass her test.”
“Youknew?” I hissed softly.
“Not immediately, but when you started snoring, I realized we were riding in circles—that she wouldn’t let us go on without a test.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So I followed her, and then you started acting all confused, forgetting who you were. That’s when I knew she was trying to see if you’d go where she wanted you to.”
“You made the decision without consulting me?” I asked, my arms wrapping hard around my legs so that I wouldn’t launch myself at him. My fingers twitched as I laced them together.
“You’re angry.”
“Great fucking observation,” I snarled. “What if something had gone wrong?”
What if I’d said something I shouldn’t?
“I wouldn’t have let it,” Darcke drawled.
My teeth slammed together, and I balled my hands where they rested around my knees. “We are supposed tocollaborate.”
“And we did,” he responded calmly. “Ikept you safe whileyoupassed her test so we were allowed out of her part of the woods.”
I felt his smirk when my urge to punch him in the throat found him.
A pulse of energy went through the dark.
“Should we fight?” Darcke asked innocently.
“Fight?” I whisper-screamed. “No, we shouldn’tfight.”
“But I think it would be so much fun.”
“You’re such a b?—”
A loud crack echoed through the night, and my words faded with the wind when several of the tree’s roots lifted from the ground, slicing through the air like whips before coming down around Darcke.
“Fuck,” the warrior cursed as he rolled, barely getting out of the way of a large root trying to crush him. Muffled sounds of struggle followed, and I sprang to my feet when more roots lifted, ripping through the rich soil and forming a tight cage around him.
Darcke’s eyes were wild as his hands wrapped around the bars.
