Page 82 of Rising

My top lip curled at the insinuation. “First of all, ew. Second of all, and you let him stay?”

“You literally share a tent every night, so yeah, I did. Also, let’s not play blind. I don’t even like men, and I know he’s delicious.” Her face held nothing but genuine confusion. I couldn’t even be mad.

I smacked her arm weakly. “Reina, come on. Seriously though, it’s … it’s too soon to move on. Love is the last thing on my mind right now. That’s two fiancés. I’m practically twice widowed and I’m not even thirty. And if Iwasready to try again, the last person would be the man who can’t decide if he wants to kill me, or be my friend. Honestly, the feelings mutual.”

“Who said anything about love? I just said he’s delicious,” she teased, eyebrows wiggling as I buried my head into the pillow. “Lust and hate can go very well together. Remember that one girl who—”

“Anyway,where’s everybody at?”

They’d been given two rooms; I’d been placed in one of their healing homes. A place where the injured could go to recover without taking up space in the hospital. Alexiares had stayed here through the night. Reina had slept in luxury in a king-sized bed, making sure to inform me how comfortable the mattress was compared to what we had back home. Alexiares was now with Seth and Moe in their room, deciding on our next move.

Seth had met with Garcia and Lee last night, briefing Alexiares this morning to help him start thinking about possible routes. For now, Elko’s territory was secured, but it’d been a rough couple of months, things could change quickly.

They’d agreed with Alexiares. Best to loop around Salt Lake. There hadn’t been any official conflict between them or anyone living in their borders outside their walls, but they’d noticed most of The Pansies had come from over that way. The settlements in Idaho had been facing the same issues from Wyoming as well.

Alexiares and Seth were ready to brief me the second I felt up for it, but Reina insisted I ate first. The sun blinded me, brighter than I’d expected as I raised my fingers to the sky, a quarter to three in the afternoon. It’d truly been almost a full twenty-four since I’d lost consciousness.

She escorted me to a modest house. Seth, Moe, and Alexiares’ heads jolted up as I entered the living room before continuing their debate. I settled onto the couch, nibbling on the sandwich Reina had provided, listening to the pros and cons of each path ahead.Turkey,Reina had said in warning. It wasn’t something I’d choose to consume in my own time, but food was food. That didn’t stop every bite from being choked down.

I watched Alexiares in his haughty, infuriating glory. Gone was the gentleman who’d calmed me not even an hour before. I’d become accustomed to Seth’s larger size having been around him for so long, but Alexiares took up nearly the same amount of space, without the help of magic. They glowered at each other, protesting each option the other spoke of, frustration simmering off the both of them. The sharp angles of Alexiares cheeks pointed like daggers as his emotions lined his face.

Reinacouldhelp ease the situation, but that would be a waste of her magic, and it was low-key entertaining to watch their pissing contest. Moe had joined me on the couch, staring off into the distance, here but not here all the same.

An hour later, they’d arrived at a decision. After Montello, we’d cross into Utah and immediately round north. Twin Falls was still too far out the way, but we’d trail along the Idaho/Utah border until around mile eight-hundred, move through the mountains and pass through Lewiston, Utah at a campsite. Laketown would allow us to stop and get in a good protein meal for the night before pushing into Wyoming.

“You good with that?” Alexiares asked, pulling my thoughts back to the present.

What he was genuinely asking, and the question everyone had in their eyes was,Are you okay to keep going?

“Yeah, I’m good. Nothing a night’s rest can’t fix. There’s too much light lost for us to make any meaningful ground today. We’ll leave at first light.” I meant it.

I was extremely fatigued and my body was stiff but I could keep going. Reina had done a good job healing me. Her power still kissed over the surface of my skin, helping with the fatigue and joint pain from laying in the same spot for over twenty hours.

The morning air was brisk, dawn guiding us back out the pathway we’d come. Garcia instructed the soldiers to redirect us to a shortcut through the mountains to cut down on some of the mileage of the day. I felt good as new, stopping to advise Garcia and Lee on improvement points to their structure, to which they happily took to my surprise. The horses seemed well fed and rested as we crested through the mountains, pain in my side no longer.

* * *

To Reina’s mortification,we spent her twenty-fifth birthday on the run through Montello. We’d made it ten miles from dropping the horses before realizing the random herds we’d seen off in the distance could no longer be considered random if we kept stumbling across them. Ultimately deciding it was best to jog out the final eighteen to a mile marker on Emigrant Trail Road.

A week later, we arrived outside Laketown, exhausted, dehydrated, and covered in filth. If we weren’t running from Pansies, we were running from straggling units, patrolling the mountains and wilderness beneath it. Alexiares hadn’t exaggerated.

It appeared they’d chosen to use most of their human resources to protect their homes. I wasn’t privy to their numbers inside the city, but if it reflected anything like their numbers on patrol, they were a force. Seth had been checking in with Riley every other day and I’d made sure he’d relayed the message to add to our records.

It’d been tough making it to each marker night after night, but we’d made do. We hadn’t come across anyone, dead or alive in over a day, deciding to take advantage of the daylight and risk a fire to enjoy any fish we’d caught. I sat around the fire, belly full and thankful for the protein, as Alexiares sat on a stump less than a foot away.

Reina had gone downstream to bathe and Moe and Seth disappeared in the other direction, though they’d all kept short of a shout away.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked. A fleeting moment of boldness taking over.

The tone of my voice caught his attention. His mouth parted, opening for the flaky flesh of the fish, his stare fixated on me as he licked the flavor off his finger before sighing.

“Been waiting for you to say something.”

“About Elko?”

He nodded. “Ever since we left, you look like you want to word vomit every time you look at me. You want to know why I stayed with you that night.”

“Yes.”

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