Page 48 of Ashborne: Defiance

Gil—wearing full leathers, including his hood—slipped out of one of the doorways ahead, looking left and right, before turning up the corridor away from me.

I shifted my weight, about to follow, when the door swung open and a feminine voice whispered his name.

Gil stopped and turned back, a smile on his face.

I froze, unable to move if I wanted to remain unnoticed in the darkness. I was forced to watch him trot back two steps, pull the woman to him and kiss her deeply.

“You need to sleep,” he chided her quietly.

“So do you!”

“The dragons help. I’ll be fine.”

The dragons help. I smirked. It was the line he used any time he wanted to impress a woman.

While I’d stayed in the shadows and pretended to be a servant, we’d revealed Gil and his Furyknight status earlier, so he could accompany Bren to formal events, in an attempt to unnerve one of the men we’d been pursuing. Gil had a presence that could be unsettling.

“Will you return tonight?” she whispered, her hands dwarfed where she gripped his upper arms.

Grace’s hand, so small and fine in mine when I pulled her up, onto Kham’s back—

My stomach twisted uncomfortably and my chest panged again. It was an effort not to clear my throat and reveal myself.

“I’ll try,” he muttered. Then, to my shock, he touched her chin and smiled before he kissed her, then turned her around and sent her back into the room with a pat on her ass. She giggled, but he pulled the door closed behind her, then darted back down the corridor.

I was in pursuit in moments, grinning at his back.

I waited until he hesitated at an intersection of corridors, looking left and right, before I leaned into his ear. “What must a lady do to earn a smile like that?” I whispered in falsetto, chuckling when Gil leaped a foot into the air and whirled, before cursing at me.

“What the fuck, Vos! I told you, not when we’re working!”

I flashed him a grin, then started walking. He gaped for a moment, then hurried to fall in step with me, both of us striding quickly, but silently, and watching for unseen eyes.

“Where the hell have you been?” he murmured as he frowned over his shoulder to look for listeners.

“Long story, none of it good. But we can’t talk here.”

He nodded and we both picked up our pace. Then he sniffed and turned to look at me, his upper lip curled back from his teeth. “You stink.”

“I know. I need a bath, a change, food, and information.”

His expression became grim, but he tipped his head at a stairwell and I followed him without a word.

Moments later we were out of the castle and walking briskly along the pebbled road to the stables where I’d bunked since we arrived. There was no one nearby so we could talk easily, though we watched in every direction.

“You’re growing complacent, keeping a routine,” I chided him quietly, but without heat in my voice. “I shouldn’t have been able to find you so easily. I only checked there because you weren’t at the stables and you met her last week in the afternoons.”

“It’s only by God’s grace that you caught me. I hadn’t visited Emily since you left. But… God, Voski, I was leaving tonight. I thought they’d killed you all,” he said darkly. “There’s been no word—of anyone. Lord Hanson’s prowling the corridors like a wolf. Ruin’s gone as well. Lady Grace disappeared the following night, and—”

“She was with me.”

Gil’s brows shot up and he snapped his head to look at me. “You took her?”

“Of course not. She followed me and…” I trailed off, frowning, because I hadn’t realized until that moment that I’d have to tell him, but for a moment I scrambled for a way to tell the truth without telling all of it. “She’s not what she appears,” I said darkly.

Gil’s eyes narrowed. “An agent for the crown, or—”

“I’m not sure. I don’t believe so. But she is far from innocent,” I said dryly, then had to stop myself, squirming, as thoughts of her brought a new wave of thrill and pain in my chest.