Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
Once they were outside of camp, a little upriver, Bill’s steps slowed. The look he gave Juniper was guarded, as if he expected Juniper to leap on him like a wild animal any moment. Which, to be fair, Juniper had been considering.
“We want to help you,” Phteven said.
“Well, Phteven does,” Bill said. “I think you’re a prick who can’t be trusted.”
The feeling was mutual. “Do they have Mo?” Juniper asked. “Give me one reason not to throw you in this river right now.”
Phteven sighed. “You trusted the wrong person, and so did we,” he said. “They sent half a dozen men into the woods this morning, and I heard them talking about it. They’re bringing Mo to Filleadh and then shipping him to the capital city from there.”
One moment, Juniper was processing this information, his chest heaving, his breaths short and sharp and painful, and the next, he was running for the river, no thought in his head but Not Mo.
A hand on his shoulder jerked him backward. Bill.
Juniper raised his fist.
Bill didn’t.
“I know,” Bill said. “But it’s too late, and you know that we’re telling you the truth. We could have just turned you in, back at camp. Or killed you, and had the prince thank us for it. So if you want to reach your man, come with us and find him in Filleadh.”
Juniper wasn’t breathing. “Oh, Bill,” he said with a gasp. “He’s going to think—”
Mo was going to think this was him. After Juniper had let him down—betrayed him, as far as Mo understood—and Bear had been captured, why wouldn’t Mo assume it was him? Mo was feverish and exhausted and hurt, and he was going to think Juniper had abandoned him to mercenaries and kingsmen.
Juniper shuddered. How could he have ever thought the prince handsome or warm or vaguely heroic?
Mo, worse for wear, in a splint and ragged trousers, with his beard growing a bit wilder than ever before, would always look ten times the hero the prince could ever be.
Bill snapped his fingers in front of Juniper’s face. “Are? You? Listening?” He accompanied each word with a finger snap, and Juniper remembered why he hated the man.
“We can journey together to Filleadh,” Phteven said. “If we leave now—”
Shouting in the distance interrupted them.
“They’re back.” Phteven’s voice was clipped. “Go.”
If they were back, that meant Mo was here, so Juniper shoved Phteven’s hand away and tiptoed back toward camp.
The prince’s people must have left to track Mo not long after Juniper had left Mo in the safety of camp. Juniper couldn’t have been gone for long when they’d shown up in camp, surrounded Mo, and—
Juniper shuddered.
When he peered through the greenery toward the camp again, he noticed that more than a few of their tents were ashy and burned.
Bless Bear for that. “Juniper, don’t.” Phteven sounded a little as if he were begging.
“They have him,” Juniper said. Nothing else mattered.
“And you won’t get him back this way,” Bill added, crouching on the other side of Juniper.
Juniper had never spoken this many words to Bill Bronson, consecutively, without swinging on him. Not a habit he intended to make, either.
And then he could think of nothing else, because half a dozen mercenaries—one with a black eye, and one with a bloody nose—were hauling someone Juniper’s body recognized before his mind could process it.
“Morn.”
He didn’t realize he’d screamed it until he was running across the camp, away from the safety of the river or the two coconspirators who maybe wanted to help him.
The prince was striding toward them all, sword drawn, and other mercenaries had bows drawn on them, and then—
“Juniper,” Mo whispered. His eyes were wide, flickering between Juniper and the prince.
Prince Edward stopped in front of them, the whole camp gathering behind him, weapons at the ready. Then the prince crouched in front of Mo so that they were eye-to-eye.
Edward was smiling, that bright, golden expression that pulled people in—well, had certainly pulled Juniper in. You could finally be something worth looking at, a little voice had told him, and on the way to that he’d gone and lost the only person he wanted looking at him in the first place.
“You little pest,” the prince spat at Mo. “You’ve been a thorn in my side since the day I met you and that little boyfriend of yours, and he was standing there with no pants.”
Now, was it necessary to put Juniper on blast this way in front of everybody?
Not important right now.
Well, a little important.
“And I’ll stand there with no pants again,” Juniper shouted back at him.
Ah, yes, he could hear it now, too. The prince’s people were staring at him as if they agreed: It was not exactly as inspiring as it had sounded in his head. Even Bill winced, as if he was cringing on Juniper’s behalf.
Mo lifted his head, meeting the prince’s eyes. Mo hated making eye contact, and that made it feel somehow more dangerous when his gaze met the prince’s and held it, the air crackling like dragon flame between them.
“You’ll lose,” Mo said. He was clear-eyed, despite the circumstances. Despite everything.
How had it taken Juniper O’Reilly this long to realize he was in love with the man?
“I have the dragon,” Prince Edward sneered. “And I have you.” He paused, his blue eyes settling on Juniper. “Did you know he made another deal?”
It took Juniper a moment to register the prince’s lie.
In that moment, cold realization settled in Mo’s look, like silt settling at the bottom of the river, and then Mo’s expression went blank and empty. But for a moment, for a stinging, awful moment, Juniper had seen Mo believe Prince Edward.
“We didn’t,” Juniper said. “Mo, if you think I would—”
The prince waved his hand, and the mercenaries began dragging Mo away, farther into camp. For the first time, Morn Elmthorn did nothing but let them.
Mo was gone a moment later, so Juniper whirled on the prince.
“Why?” he demanded. “You and I made no deal. Not after, uh, that first one.”
“No, we didn’t.” The prince eyed him carefully. “But if you play your cards right, we could have another deal.”
Was this just a plot to make Mo give up? In other circumstances, Juniper would probably be insulted that the prince only saw Mo as a true threat to making it to the capital city with Bear, but there were more pressing issues than Juniper’s ego.
“I’ve always been shit at cards,” Juniper said.
He looked around the clearing. Bear was nowhere to be seen, an absolute army of mercenaries had dragged Mo away—and they had not been careful of his ankle—and Bill and Phteven were flanking the prince now.
Bill and Phteven, whose loyalties were still uncertain.
“Seize him,” the prince said, waving to his remaining men. Bill Bronson surged forward, his steps blocky and uneven as if his body and mind were at war.
Juniper sighed. This part (where he ran for his life) was swiftly becoming the norm. In fact, by the time this quest was done, Juniper might even turn into one of those deranged individuals who ran for fun.
Oh, who was he fooling? This part was always going to suck.
Juniper turned and ran.