Page 43 of Bride of Mist
Despite the cold, Feiyan’s brow was dotted with sweat. Hot and breathless from his ground-swallowing pace, she tried to force him to a slower walk, dragging her feet.
“I’ll carry ye if I have to,” he warned.
Feiyan scowled. “Nay.” She’d been slung over a warrior’s shoulder once already this month, helping her cousin Jenefer win a castle. She had no desire to be packed around again like a sack of grain.
“Then keep up. We don’t want to get caught in the storm.”
A few heart-pounding miles later, she realized she had to slow him down. Once they reached his castle, once he realized his clan wasn’t in danger, he’d have no reason not to get rid of her.
So she exaggerated her fatigue. When they reached a grassy glen in the wood, she yanked away from his grip and sank onto one of the bare boulders in the middle of the expansive meadow.
“I have to stop,” she wheezed.
“Here?” He cast a nervous glance around the clearing. It was risky to be so exposed. The woods at the perimeter were deep and dark enough to harbor hungry wolves. But he was probably more worried about vengeful clansmen.
She said breathlessly, “You intend to use me…as a hostage…aye?”
Ofcoursethat was his intent. Otherwise, he would have abandoned her by the trailside and made better progress on his own.
“If it comes to that,” he muttered.
“Well, if I take another step…I’ll collapse…and I’m no use to you dead.”
He seemed to hear the wisdom in her words. “Fine.” He hunkered down beside her and uncorked his costrel of ale. “Only a few moments, though, aye?”
She nodded. She didn’t want to be left behind either. She still had a mission to finish. If she let him go on without her, she’d lose his trail in the rain.
He offered her the first sips of ale, tipping her chin back with surprisingly gentle fingers. It tasted like ambrosia, wetting her dry throat. If her hands had been free, she might have snatched away the costrel and guzzled the entire contents in one thirst-quenching gulp.
“I don’twantto harm ye,” he murmured as she drank. “Ye know that, aye?”
She almost choked on the ale.
He said, “But I may have no choice.”
Choice. Choice? His words made her blood simmer.
“No choice,” she echoed bitterly. “Just like you had no choice, going after my kinsmen at Creagor?”
“Shite.”
His lips compressed into a grim line. He popped the cork back into the costrel and drilled her with a dangerous gaze of warning.
But she was too stirred up to heed it. “You attacked men who were armed with blunted weapons,” she snarled.
With a growl, he stormed to his feet and wrenched her up by her arm.
Uncowed, she spat, “Some of them were children.”
His grip tightened.
“And you almost killed my cousin Hallie.” Her voice broke.
“I never meant…” Then he stopped with a subtle intake of breath. His grip abruptly loosened. His eyes searched hers with a curious intensity. “What did ye say?”
As she opened her mouth to reply, the heavens opened, loosing their store of rain all at once in a pounding downpour that drowned out all other sound.
Pulling his hood over his head, he tugged her forward at a run. The rain fell with a roar, thrashing the grass and bouncing on the muddy trail. Fat drops pelted Feiyan, peppering her face, drenching her hair, soaking her woolen cloak.
