Page 125 of Fear the Flames
“You know how you’re looking at me,” he inches closer to my face. “You’re looking at me like you want to do exactly what I want to do.” I tighten my hand around the leather strap, recalling how good he made me feel—every single time. He begins walking us toward the door, “And if you don’t stop looking at me like that, we won’t be leaving this room for the next five years.” I lick my lips at the thought of that, arousal coursing through me. “Ten years,” he amends while glancing at my lips and turning the knob to the door. He swings it open while walking us into the hall and swiftly shuts it behind us. “Greedy little minx.”
“You adore it,” I smile. Just like how he adores my violent streak.
“More than you know,” he says as I take my first step down the stairs, and a cocky smile settles on my lips. We make it to the bottom level, which is much emptier compared to last night. Cayden already took care of the bill, so I keep my head down and walk toward the door with him at my back.
The cold is an unwelcome presence but surrounds me nonetheless. There’s a rickety barn at the front of the street; there will be horses in there. Cayden pulls me to the side, behind the buildings that line the main road. There are a few shacks littered throughout the muddy terrain, but there’s no structure to their pattern.
“What’s wrong?” I inquire.
He glances around with cautious eyes, “I don’t want anyone to recognize me.”
I spill the first thought from my head before I can think better of it, “Do you have family here?”
A stormy expression hardens his features while looking toward a dilapidated shack closest to the tree line. Only the foundation made of charred black wood remains. “No,” Cayden shortly states. His eyes stay glued to the burned-down shack, lost in a memory of some kind. I want to reach out to him, but I don’t know if that’s a boundary he would want me to cross right now. He breaks his gaze from the remnants that once may have been a home and picks up his pace, moving forward before I can grasp his hand in mine. My extended hand falls back to my side, and I take out one of my knives to ignore the empty feeling.
A horse chuffs from the tree line behind us. My head turns in the direction the sound came from but can’t make out the shape of anything in the distance other than trees. The trees surrounding the village resemble a regular forest, not like the eerie trees when we first crossed the river. Cayden reaches his arm out to stop me in my tracks. His stormy expression transforms into a calculative one. He gestures for me to take a step back and leans his back against one of the buildings we’re walking behind. He presses his boot into a twig lying a few inches in front of him. The snap sounds through the air. Not even a second later, a hand shoots around the corner and moves to grab him. Cayden grabs the wrist and pulls an Imirath soldier into view, twists his wrist behind his back, and presses his body into the building with such force that the shutters rattle on their hinges. I step around Cayden while he knees the soldier in the back, and crouch down to swipe my leg out, tripping another soldier. I crawl on top of the man to pin him down while holding my knife to his throat.
“So lovely of you both to join us,” I say with a smile. “It’s a bit pathetic how long it took.”
Cayden grabs his soldier by their hair and slams their face into the wood. I hear the crunch of bone and a cry of pain, blood pours from the soldier’s nose. “Start talking because my annoyance will only increase the longer she’s on top of you,” Cayden snarls.
“We’re not here to kill you!” the one beneath me shouts.
“How generous,” I deadpan.
“Your father said he wants you alive! He’s willing to form an alliance. He declared it a few hours ago.” I press the knife into his neck and glance toward Cayden as grin rises on my lips. Garrick is scared. He knows I’m going to come after him with my dragons, and he’s desperate, right where I want him.
Just as powerless as I felt.
But this is only the beginning.
“And if she refuses to go with you?” Cayden pinches a pressure point at the top of the man’s shoulder. “You’d slit her throat.”
“The next time I see my father will be on the battlefield,” I growl before slitting my soldier’s throat. Cayden snaps his soldier’s neck, letting the lifeless body crumble to the floor.
“Looks like we won’t be stealing horses,” I mutter while wiping the soldier’s blood on his armor.
I climb off him and flip him on his stomach. This is the second time I’m taking a cloak off a dead man on this journey. I fasten the tie around my neck and walk over to where Cayden waits for me. There’s no point in burying the bodies or carrying them to the forest; it’s a waste of time. We derail our original path from the stables to where we heard the horses chuffing in the woods. It’s better this way anyway, we avoid the town. Judging by how small it is, I doubt they get many visitors. Step by step, we leave this place behind and get closer to Vareveth, where my future remains.
ChapterFifty-One
The brutal temperatures thaw into a chill the further we ride through the forest. We rode through the night, as we planned, and are gaining on the border. We took a short break by a trickling stream. I clench the reins in my hands as I recall the way Cayden’s lips conquered mine.
I was walking back from taking a drink when he captured my face in his hands before laying me down on a soft patch of moss. He makes me feel breathless, but also like I’ll suffocate if he pulls away. He’s seen the dark things I can do, and yet he kisses me like I’m the only thing he wants to keep close to him. After seeing his stormy expression in the village, I would have given him anything to bring some life back into his eyes, but we mounted our horses before it could go any further. Though he gave me a very delicious promise, whispered against my lips, of exactly what he wants to do when we get back to Vareveth.
We make it down the steep hillside and onto a flatter forest floor. The greenery is still frost tipped, but there’s no snow on the ground like there was higher in the mountains. There isn’t as much terrain to focus on, and my mind begins to wander to less ideal thoughts. I can’t stop thinking about how Ailliard will react. News of the dragons would have gotten back to Vareveth; there were too many people at the ball to even think about containing the knowledge. Ailliard probably sought me out the second he heard about the dragons getting released, only to find an empty tent, with not even Finnian there to calm his worries. He’ll either be pleased or pissed, possibly both. He would have tried to stop me if he had known of the mission before we left.
Fatigue hasn’t hit me yet, not when we’re so close to the border. My heart pounds in my chest in tandem with the horse hooves clobbering the dirt, propelling us forward. Cayden cuts his horse to the left, and I follow suit. Excitement rises in me, knowing we’re getting close. I hear the distant sounds of the war camp, the chatter of soldiers, and the clattering of steel. I see the peaks of tents loom into my vision above the forest brush. My racing heart swells at the sight of them.
My boot nudges my horse in the side, encouraging her to pick up the pace. I can’t let myself feel the full extent of accomplishment until I know that the others are safe, but news about them would have trickled up the border from where they crossed. Still, I can’t fight the happiness that surges in me, knowing we made it back. At the fact that Imirath didn’t take anything from me again, I took something from them. Something that makes them scared, and I want to make them cower at the thought of my power and quake as they theorize how I’ll wield it.
Soldiers lock their arrows at the edge of the border. Cayden unsheathes the sword that lies across his back and extends it in the air, letting the sunlight glint across the blade.
“Hold!” I hear a voice rise from the distance.
Saskia.
A shot of relief sings in my chest.
