The Silvered (17 page)

They hadn’t.

“It’s dark,” she added, “once we’re not moving, they won’t be able to find us.

It was too dark to read Tomas’ expression, but his body language as he stared past her was clear.

“I know you could kill them now they’ve separated. But they’re still using silver, and I still can’t get away without you.” And there’d been enough killing today. The younger Lord Hagen was Hunt Pack; he wouldn’t understand why she wanted four of the enemy to live. Mirian wasn’t sure she understood it herself, only that four more bodies sprawled limp and bleeding wouldn’t bring Lady Berin and the others back. “Please, just find us a place to hide.”

He shot her a look it was too dark to decipher—the shifting silhouettes of his ears the only indication he’d turned—then he snorted and disappeared into the underbrush.

Mirian flattened the black ruffle along the lapels of her jacket and pulled the edges together over the white vee of her shirtwaist. Shaking her hair down over the pale oval of her face, she leaned back against the tree and tried to become one with the night. It was a phrase from the last novel she’d brought home from the bookshop on Upper Cryss Road. The hero became one with the night
when he hunted. Of course, in the novel, the hero hadn’t had to deal with a swarm of insects that tried to make a meal off any bit of exposed skin. Novels, she noted, wondering how much noise she’d make if she slapped at the back of her neck, were nothing much like real life.

Over the high-pitched whine of the insects, it sounded as though pursuit had slowed.

Give up. Give up. Give up.
It was a sort of a prayer, although Mirian had neither faith nor expectation that either the Lord or Lady were listening.

Her head fell forward. She jerked it upright and bit back a cry as something large brushed past her legs. And again! Tomas was Pack! He was supposed to be protecting her! Where…

Oh.

Teeth in her skirt, Tomas jerked her away from the tree. Mirian stumbled and nearly fell, but managed to stay on her feet by clutching at a handful of fur. They danced like that for a moment, shuffling about together in a half circle before she found her footing and was able to let go, murmuring an apology as she slid her hand along Tomas’ spine until she could close it around his tail.

He led her on what seemed to be a stupidly long, looping path; through a clearing, around to the left, over two fallen trees…

Was he lost?

….to a low rock face, a sudden splash of pale gray rising knee-high out of the darkness. Tugging his tail free, he dropped to his belly, changed, and crept out of sight. Mirian had to move right up to the rock and collapse to her knees before she could find the narrow opening and then flip onto her side to inch her way in, arms over her head, fingers scratching for purchase. Even in her exhausted state, Mirian realized the rock extended both vertically and horizontally far beyond what was visible.

When her right hand finally flailed about in the open, callused fingers closed around her wrist and yanked, nearly dislocating her arm. A second yank with the same result. Tomas’ help wasn’t moving her any faster than she could manage on her own.

The moment her left hand came free, she slapped at bare skin until he released her, muttering something rude under his breath. Mirian ignored him and concentrated on freeing her head. Skulls
didn’t compact and it felt like she’d lost more hair and scraped a line of skin off her forehead shoving past the last bit of rock. Once her shoulders were in the cave, she exhaled, dug in the toes of her boots, braced her hands, and shoved.

Her mother had always wished she’d been more buxom, like her sister. Mirian had never been more thankful her mother’s wishes could not come true. There was a limit to how far even squishable body parts could be squashed and more buxom would have jammed her in the crack like a cork in a wine bottle.

To be fair, her mother couldn’t have envisioned this situation.

When her hips came free, Tomas grabbed her under both arms and, this time, Mirian let him pull.

“Stay here!” he growled when she lay panting, half propped against a curved rock wall trying to decide if it was worth trying to count her new bruises.

And then she was alone. In the dark. A musty smelling dark—animal musty, not closed-up rooms under dust covers musty. Drawing in her skirt, she cautiously patted the floor around her and felt twigs. Very dry twigs. With no bark. Maybe bones?

Did they have bears in Pyrahn?

There wasn’t a bear here now. Tomas would have seen to that, but that didn’t mean a bear wouldn’t come back when Tomas was somewhere else.

Somewhere else killing Imperial soldiers?

“I was covering our tracks.”

Her thoughts had been so loud she hadn’t heard him return.

Tomas frowned. He could smell blood. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t…” A rustle of cloth. She was probably raising her arm. It was so dark in the old den, he couldn’t even see gradations of black. “It’s a scrape. From the rock. It’s nothing.”

He knew the Imperials hadn’t hurt her. Not the way soldiers took what they wanted from the conquered. Not even Best, who’d clearly despised her. He’d have been able to smell the evidence if they’d forced her and then he’d have killed them. She wouldn’t have been able to stop him no matter how much sense it made not to risk four-to-one odds and silver shot.

His shoulder ached, but the itching told him he’d healed.

“You shouldn’t scratch at it.”

Fingers flexed over the scar, he froze. “What?”

“I can hear you scratching at it. It’ll scar.”

“It’s already scarred. And it’s not my first.”

She sighed, the gust of breath warm against his chest. This close, this enclosed, her scent was intoxicating, and he felt himself begin to respond physically. By the time he realized he was leaning forward, his face was almost tucked in the curve between her shoulder and neck.

“I don’t think you should…”

He snapped upright, his fingers pressed against her mouth. When her teeth touched his skin, he leaned back in, mouth against the curve of her ear, not even wondering how he could find the curve of her ear so effortlessly in the dark, and said, “They’re close.”

“Anything?”

“No, sir. I’ve lost them.”

Lost her
, Reiter corrected silently. They still had no proof Chard’s creature was with her. They could barely see broken branches and crushed greenery; it was far too dark to see actual tracks and the tangle hanging off his finger gave no indication she was near. “She’s probably heading back to the border.”

“The beast could be leading her,” Best acknowledged thoughtfully.

“She’s a mage.”

“Yes, sir.” Clearly, in Best’s mind, a potential beast outweighed an actual mage.

“Let’s head back. We’ll try again at first light. She’s exhausted, she can’t have gone far.” If she’d collapsed under a bush, or in a hollow behind a fallen branch, they’d never find her in the dark. Once she’d stopped moving, they’d had very little chance. Even given the small amount of time he’d spent with her, he should have known she’d keep her head and not flail about in panic, allowing herself to be recaptured.

He checked his compass bearing—the dot of luminescence on the magnetic needle proof Imperial army scientists weren’t completely
useless—and led the way back to the camp. As he slipped the compass into his tunic pocket, his fingers touched the strand of hair he’d pulled from the tangle.

“They’re gone.” Tomas kept his fingers pressed against her mouth for a moment longer, withdrew them hurriedly when her lips began to draw back. She wasn’t Pack, but that was a Pack reaction and even blunted teeth hurt. Given her previous reactions, he had no doubt she’d bite if he pushed. He guessed he liked that about her although she’d be easier to rescue were she more compliant. “We’ll rest here until dawn. Even if they keep hunting, they’ll never find us. Not in the dark and probably not in the light.” The lingering scent of its previous occupant had led him to the cave; no one in the Imperial army had any kind of a nose.

He could hear her breathing. She didn’t sound panicked, or shocky. She sounded tired.

“I’ll escort you back to Aydori in the morning,” he continued when it became clear she wasn’t going to speak. As soon as she was safe, he’d pick up the trail of the four Imperials and hunt them in turn. They were the enemy. They were part of the army who’d destroyed the Hunt Pack, killed his brother, and forced their way over the border into Aydori. They were only alive now because the girl needed him.

The girl who smelled so, so
good
.

He inhaled the scent along the soft curve of her neck, nuzzled into the hollow of her jaw, rutted once against her leg, unable to stop himself and…

…and…

“I’m moving outside air in through the bottom part of the entrance and pushing inside air out the top. Better?”

It hadn’t been
bad.
His skin so hot he knew he had to be flushing a deep red, Tomas shuffled back until they were as far apart as the small cave allowed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t far. If she hadn’t been able to disperse the scent, he was horribly afraid he wouldn’t have been able to control himself. “My apologies. I’ll…It might be better if I…” He changed and curled up into a miserable ball, trying not to think about Ryder’s opinion of such an appalling lapse into
instinct. Willing to take the cuff he deserved if only to be able to hear Ryder call him an unthinking cub one more time.

Mirian eased herself down onto the floor of the cave until she lay curved around Tomas, her head on her folded arm, her other hand resting on thick fur near where she’d removed the piece of silver. Stretching out her thumb, she could feel the scar. The Pack healed quickly.

He wasn’t asleep.

If she had to guess, given how rigidly he held himself, she’d say he was too embarrassed to sleep. She supposed she should be embarrassed as well, after all, a young man she’d never been formally introduced to had just gotten intimate with her thigh, but after a moment’s consideration, she realized she didn’t
feel
embarrassed. Exhausted, in varying amounts of pain, emotionally stretched to the point where kindness would bring involuntary tears, but not embarrassed. After the day she’d had, she was almost grateful to have a problem so easy to deal with. Lady Hagen had adjusted the airflow to ease the Pack response to the promenade at the opera, so Mirian had done the same. She may have been stuck at first level, but air moved when she used mage-craft to blow out a candle, so, logically, she knew how to move air. In order for Tomas to regain reason and stop thinking with his nose, she did nothing more than move a little more air than usual. And if she had to visualize a candle to do it, no one needed to know.