Page 190

I shrugged out of it and handed it to him.

Lachlan pulled both pistols free. He slipped one into the outer pocket, where it would be easy to reach once he put me down, then tucked the other inside the main compartment on top of our supplies.

He handed the pack back to me and waited while I pulled the straps over my shoulders. Then he moved in front of me, turned his back, and crouched.

“Up.” He patted one shoulder.

I stared at him. “No. You’re too injured to carry me.”

“Keep your legs around my hips and away from my ribs, and I’ll be fine. You’re small enough that the extra weight won’t bother me much.”

I hesitated.

He looked back over his shoulder. “I heard what you said earlier. This isn’t me deciding you can’t walk. You can. I’m saying your ankle is getting worse, I can carry you for a while, and there’s no prize waiting at the bottom of this mountain for whichever one of us suffers most.”

“And if I say no?”

“I’ll think it’s a stupid decision, but it’ll still be yours.”

Well, he had been listening.

I stepped closer and rested my hands on his shoulders. “All right. But only for a little while.”

“Whatever you say, Mouse.”

I climbed onto his back, and Lachlan caught me beneath the thighs before straightening. My arms settled around his neck, my chest against his bare back, and I wrapped my legs snugly around his hips. My ankles crossed low in front of him, dangerously close to his family jewels, but as long as I kept my feet still, they were safe.

For the first few steps, I was grateful to have the weight off my ankle. Then I became increasingly aware of everything else.

Lachlan’s hands were spread beneath my thighs, holding me securely against him. Every step shifted my body against the hard muscles of his bare back, and the position kept my thighs spread around him in a way that made it impossible not to think about the way he’d kissed me.

I tightened my arms around his neck and rested my cheek against the curve of his shoulder.

For a while, neither of us spoke. The steady rhythm of his steps and the warmth of his body beneath mine made the silence comfortable.

Somewhere along the way, it struck me how very little I knew about the man carrying me.

Lachlan knew pieces of my life I had never expected to tell anyone. He knew about Mamá and Papá, Ciro, Marcela, the dungeon, the men I had been with, and the nightmare I’d spent years keeping to myself.

I knew he was Irish, that he and his brother ran a club, and that he belonged to The Syndicate. I also knew he would let someone torture him half to death before he betrayed the men he called brothers. But I knew almost nothing about the life that had made him that man.

“Tell me something about you.”

His head turned slightly. “Something about me?”

“Before Xyst. Before The Syndicate. Before any of this.” I rested my chin near his shoulder. “Where did you grow up?”

“Ireland.”

“I had managed to work that part out.”

A quiet laugh rumbled in his chest.

“On a farm,” he added.

I lifted my head. “A farm?”

“Aye.”