Page 42 of Tusk Love

“Enjoy this,” he warned her, ducking so she could lather soap into his hair. “This is your last bath until Trostenwald.” He’d decided that they wouldn’t stop in Alfield, which was the next settlement after Zadash. Alfield was a small farming town hardly equipped to deal with a rash of mercenary activity.

“I’m sure we can find another waterfall somewhere along the way,”she murmured, looking at him through lowered lashes, and he felt his face heat and his cock twitch.

While they were drying off by the fire, his gaze fell on her ripped dress. “I don’t know what came over me,” he said dourly. It was a waste of a perfectly serviceable garment.

Guinevere chewed on her bottom lip in a way that made him want to do it for her. “I found it rather exciting, to tell you the truth.”

“Well, it’s not going to happen again. My working-class heart can’t take it.”

“It shall remain a treasured memory, all the more special for its unique nature,” she vowed.

He laughed. He wasn’t the sort of man who just…laughed—but she brought that out in him. And he didn’t consider himself the sort of person who cuddled, either, but after they changed into their sleep clothes and went to bed, nothing was more important than curling around Guinevere, tucking her smaller body into his as they lay on their sides like spoons in a drawer, all sparkling and clean and snug.

Now that her magic was out in the open between them, it seemed easier for her to tell him things—things like how Elaras had told her to listen, and what she had heard when she touched the trunk.

“There’s something enchanted inside,” she said. “But the trunk itself contains an enchantment, too. Where did Mother and Fathergetthis? We don’t deal in magicked wares; there’s a whole other trade license you need to apply for.”

If there was one thing Oskar hated more than treehuggers and mercenaries, it was mysteries. But he didn’t have any answers for her, so he just held her tighter.

“Oskar?” Guinevere sounded worried, her fingers gliding frenetically along his arm wrapped around her waist. “What if the mercenaries find us in Nicodranas? Mother and Father…”

“Where are they staying?”

“At Lord Wensleydale’s manor.”

His stomach hollowed out at the mention of her betrothed. But she was in distress, and he had to fix that first. “That’s your problemsolved, then. A fancy lord has more than enough guards. You’ll be safer in his manor than you’ll ever be on this journey.”Safer than you’ll ever be with me.

It was no competition at all. Oskar had no armies, no piles of gold with which to hire them. It was up to him and him alone to keep Guinevere alive and unharmed until the Menagerie Coast, where he would turn her over to people better equipped to protect her and give her the life she deserved. He would see his duty through until the bitter end.

And then he would let her go.

They had a shockingly latestart the next morning. Oskar maintained that it was no fault of his.

“How can it not be!” Guinevere’s pert nose was the highest point in Zadash as they trooped out of the Song and Supper with all their luggage. “I did my part, didn’t I; I nudged you to wake you up and everything—”

“It’s not that you nudged me, it’swhereyou nudged me,” he patiently explained. “I thought it was…an overture.”

“I was aiming to elbow you in the ribs. I didn’t mean for my hand to touch your—your—” She faltered, then bristled. “Am I the sort of woman who would purposefully, without so much as a by-your-leave, grab someone’s—someone’s staff—”

He let out a bark of laughter. She glared at him as they entered the inn’s stables. “You could have inquired as to my intentions. There was no call to ravish me straightaway.”

“Would’ve been unsporting of me to stop once you started begging me not to,” Oskar cheerfully pointed out.

“Please, sir,” quailed the young stable hand who had been waiting by the doors, “that’s six copper pieces for the two horses’ keep and hay and water overnight. I—I brushed them down, too.”

Guinevere’s face could have fried an egg. Enjoying himselfimmensely, Oskar paid the stable hand, adding a little extra for the latter’s trouble.

On their way to Zadash’s southern gate, they came across a blacksmith’s shop. Guinevere had elected to walk with Oskar and help him guide the horses, but now she let out an excited squeal, grabbed her satchel of wares, and ducked beneath the hammer-and-anvil sign over the entryway before he could even blink.

Bewildered, he waited outside with Pudding and Vindicator. After all, he couldn’t justleavethe trunk there, despite the ever-present Crownsguard patrolling the vicinity. Guinevere skipped back into view a few minutes later, minus the satchel but looking inordinately pleased with herself.

“Go on,” she told Oskar. “I’ll watch over the horses and our effects.”

“What have you done?” he asked, alarmed. It was nothing against her. Not really. She couldn’t help the strange ideas that popped into that pretty, whirligig head.

“It’s a surprise,” she insisted.

Oskar went inside the shop full of misgivings. The dwarf blacksmith was waiting for him with the friendly smile of someone who had been paid very, very well.

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