Page 28 of When the Sky Breaks

“You summoned the cat?” Ansel asked as we ate and Sorcha stared at her mug of piñon tea.

“I think so,” Sorcha replied.

“That happen often?” Ansel pressed.

“I can consciously use the magic easily. Bigger animals are harder. Animals that don’t form bonds with humanoids? Essentially impossible,” she replied. “If I get sick enough or scared enough I seem to summon large cats unconsciously. At least that’s what Nokona always told me. Most notably? Apparently the night my mother died I summoned a jaguar. Glen tried to scare it off, but it wouldn’t budge. Slept in my bed for a month. I was a kid—thought that’s just what happened when you lost somebody important. A big cat came to try and apologize. Haven’t been able to call a jaguar since though.”

“That’s a fun little skill set.” Ansel chuckled. “Maybe it’ll come in handy.”

“I can keep the snakes away too,” Sorcha added. “I can’t get them to do anything. But I can keep them off the path. Notice how there hasn’t been a single rattler giving us trouble since we left Santa Fe?”

“Revising that to definitely come in handy,” Ansel said.

I banked the fire and washed the dishes, insisting Sorcha sit back down any time she got up and tried to help. Her side of the conversation remained as curt and professional as ever, but her posture was softening, just a bit.

“Why are you being nice to me?” she finally asked.

“You look like you’re about to pass out,” I deflected. “Can you get on the horse?”

“Probably,” Sorcha muttered. “Do I have a choice in the matter?”

“I can help you?” I offered.

Sorcha looked me up and down, brows knit together. “Fine.”

So I helped her into the saddle and tried not to think about how good she smelled even through the dirt from weeks on trail, letting my hand linger on her body just a few seconds longer than strictly necessary. She didn’t comment. She also didn’t pull away.

“It’s the altitude,” Ansel repeated for what felt like the hundredth time as we set off. “You’ll adjust.”

“Aren’t we lower than when we started?” Sorcha snapped.

I pulled Ansel aside. “Either she’s really not adjusting or something else is wrong.”

“It’s just pregnancy, boy,” Ansel said. “She’ll be fine.”

“Are we absolutely certain about that?” I hissed.

She made it until four o’clock, and honestly, I was impressed. We’d just come down onto a set of mud-rutted switchbacks down a low grassy hill when Sorcha reined her horse to a stop, slid out of the saddle, and vomited into the dirt, not bothering to step off the trail. She whimpered between heaves, hands pressed flat on the dirt, eyes screwed shut.

Ansel—on the trail ahead of me—pulled up his horse beside her.

“Rough day?” he asked. “We’re getting into mesquite country. Maybe your stomach will like that better than the piñon pine.”

“Do you want help, Sorcha?” I offered, dismounting and crouching behind her.

She sat back on her heels as I glanced at the mess in the dirt—mostly clear, entirely liquid. Water. She was throwing up water, in the Texas heat, ten-days’ ride from anywhere, and with no actual plan to get a roof over her head or a healer any time soon. We were flying dangerously close to the sun.

“We kiss next time,” Sorcha said suddenly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Excuse me?”

“Next time we sleep together,” Sorcha continued. “We kiss. We take off our clothes. We leave the lights on.”

“Sorcha, of course,” I said quickly. “I already told you that was a mistake. Sorcha, I just want to help. Please. Darling . . .”

And apparently that was what did it. What she needed to hear before she’d forgive me. Calling her darling.

“Help,” she said, voice cracking. “Everything hurts. And, Neal, I am so scared. Please help. I love you. I forgive you. Just please make this stop!”