32 THE HUNTER’S SHIELING
DARACH KEPT HIS gaze on the ground as Rùn picked his way along the narrow deer track.
Hoofprints. Broken ferns. A scuffed stone where a boot had slipped on damp moss. The signs were there if you knew how to read them, and he did. He’d learned young, at his uncle’s side.
It seemed so long ago now. He’d been so different then.
Tracking was relatively simple; easy enough to learn.
Unlike women.
His gut tightened.
Ailsa’s arms were wrapped around his waist, as they had been for days now, yet the contact meant something different now. He felt her everywhere. Her breath feathering against the back of his neck; the press of her warm, pliant body against his spine with every stride Rùn took.
Studying the trail ahead, he forced his mind back to the task.
Five sets of tracks.
Just four warriors left to deal with, one of them injured from a pitchfork to the thigh. Moving fast, but not fast enough. They were pushing hard. He could see it in the uneven depth of the tracks, the careless breaks in the undergrowth. Fatigue had made them sloppy.
Rùn was nearly treading upon their shadows now.
“We’ll catch them tonight at this rate,” he said, more to ground himself than anything else.
“How will we approach them?” Ailsa asked. “Fern said we should come up with a better plan, remember?”
He snorted, his gaze flicking to a snapped branch at shoulder height. “We observe first … if they’ve made camp, they’ll have a watch posted. We take that man before the others … quietly.”
“And then?”
“We focus on freeing Kayla … and put a blade in her hand.” He paused. “Three against three is a fair fight.”
She didn’t answer immediately. He could feel her thinking, the slight shift of her against him. “They’ll be on edge … expecting trouble.”
“Aye.” His mouth flattened. “And it’s coming to find them.”
Another silence stretched between them, this one charged.
They hadn’t spoken about the night before, but it was there, shadowing every conversation, weighing every glance. Aye, he’d withdrawn from her today, deliberately, but it didn’t change anything.
Shit.
He only had himself to blame for this. If only he’d kept his prick in his breeches.
If only he didn’t ache for her right now.
He’d fucked her three times the night before, and he’d have continued after dawn if they hadn’t needed to move on. His hunger for her still pulsed in his gut. He was keenly aware of her hand where it rested low on his belly, fingers curled lightly into his tunic.
Her touch made his body light up.
Concentrate, damn you.
They rode on through a shallow pass where the wind funneled cold and sharp between the rocks. By midday, the land softened slightly, opening into a scrubby hollow where blackthorn grew thick and tangled.
Darach drew Rùn up. “We’ll stop here,” he said, swinging down from the saddle. “Not long though.”
Ailsa slid down after him. He felt her presence at his back as he moved to the blackthorn, snapping off a branch heavy with dark sloes. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her.
She took one, eyeing it before biting in. Her face puckered instantly. “The Hag’s tits … those are sour.”
He snorted a laugh. “Aye. They’ll wake you up though.”
She shot him a look—half affronted, half amused—and his breathing grew shallow.
There it was again. That ember that glowed between them, threatening to catch alight again every time their gazes locked.
He popped one into his own mouth, barely tasting it. He should be focusing on the trail, on the mountains rising around them, but all he could see was Ailsa.
Her hair was wind-tossed, her cheeks flushed from the cold and the ride. There was a softness to her now, a looseness he hadn’t seen before. Last night had shifted something within her—just as it had in him.
He dragged his gaze away, seeking distance once more.
“We won’t get another chance like this,” she said then, more serious now. “We can’t mess it up.”
“We won’t.”
Ailsa studied him, her expression searching. “You sound so certain.”
“I am.”
And he was—about that.
Some things had to be set in stone. Find Kayla. Kill the bastards who’d taken her. Get rid of the beast that lived inside him.
Only then could he hunt his brother down. Aye, he’d end him and take his fucking throne. His gut started to burn, not with desire this time, but with hatred that had festered for far too long.
Over the years, it had become a friend of sorts.
They finished the sloes in silence, wiping stained fingers on moss. Afterward, he helped Ailsa back onto the saddle.
His palm tingled at the contact.
They rode harder after that. Up through gorges, over slick stone and frozen turf, and through pockets of woodland where the light dimmed, and the air grew dank and close. The trail sharpened, fresher now.
His pulse quickened. So close.
By the time the light began to fade, the world had drawn in around them. Mist threaded through the trees. The cold deepened, biting through their layers of clothing, and their breathing clouded the air.
Darach slowed Rùn, his gaze sweeping the gloaming. “They’re near,” he murmured. “I can feel it.”
Ailsa tensed against him. “The beast … has it made your senses sharper?”
Her question gave him pause. “Aye.”
That was the least of it though. There was aggression in him that prowled just beneath the surface. Smells and tastes were stronger, birdsong louder. His gaze picked out details it never had before.
He tensed then. What if Ailsa’s circle of thorns had only slowed things?
What if the clag-doo would still take him?
“Darach.” Ailsa leaned into him then, a hand lifting and lightly covering his. “Once we find Kayla, she’ll fix you … properly.”
The moment stretched out.
Darach stilled under her touch. The feel of her, the husky timbre of her voice, and the simple gesture—it was all too much.
Fuck it, he wasn’t made of iron.
“Aye,” he ground out. “I hope so.”
Sliding off Rùn’s back, Ailsa turned and stepped into a wall of muscle and leather.
Darach.
She gasped, even as his strong arms encircled her. An instant later, his mouth crashed down on hers.
This was a surprise. He’d been careful with her all day, never letting his gaze linger too long. Whenever they’d had to touch, he’d severed contact quickly.
She wouldn’t lie; it had hurt. But at the same time, she’d understood. Kayla was so close; a fight was coming, and they needed to ready themselves.
He wasn’t keeping his distance now though.
His kiss claimed her.
Melting into him, she devoured his mouth with equal enthusiasm, her fingers threading through his hair.
He groaned, stepped in closer, and hauled her toward him, his tongue sliding against hers.
Her belly clenched.
All it took was one kiss, and she ached for him.
Tearing his lips from hers, Darach buried his face in her hair. His breathing was ragged, and she could almost hear the pounding of his pulse. “I shouldn’t be mauling you like this,” he rasped. “We need to stay alert now.”
She exhaled a shaky breath, closing her eyes as she enjoyed the heat of his body flush against her, the now familiar scent of leather, horse, and warm male invading her senses.
He was right, of course—even if she wanted nothing more than for him to haul her over to the nearest tree, lift her skirts, and take her against it.
In the fading light, with icy mist wreathing through a hazel thicket and their quarry so close, this wasn’t the right time.
Even so, disappointment tugged at her when he stepped back.
“I’ll scout on foot before it gets any darker” —he motioned then to the shadowy outline of a hunter’s hut visible through the trees— “in the meantime, you might as well take shelter out of the cold in there.”
Ailsa nodded, her stomach tightening once more, in nervous anticipation this time.
Not long, Kayla.
Darach led Rùn forward, and she followed. They wended their way through the spindly hazels to where a squat stacked-stone shieling with a sod roof in dire need of repair crouched in the gloaming.
“This hut is likely used by deer hunters,” Darach whispered as he drew the sword strapped to his back. “But let me check first that powries haven’t decided to make it home.”
Ailsa nodded, taking hold of the stallion’s reins while Darach moved stealthily forward. Reaching the door, he nudged at it with his foot, and it creaked open. He then peered inside.
His shoulders went rigid.
Ailsa frowned.
Something was wrong.
Darach didn’t move, his gaze held by whatever lay inside the shieling.
“What is it?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer, pushing the door open instead and slipping inside.
Frowning, she quickly tied Rùn to a tree and followed, even as her fingers itched to draw the blade in her boot. Darach hadn’t told her she was in any danger though, and no sound emitted from the shieling. Only a cloying silence.
Blinking, as her eyes struggled to adjust to the murk, she stepped inside.
The sharp iron scent of blood assaulted her.
Not fresh. A day old at least.
By the Gods.
How did she know that?
The table was still set with wooden cups and trenchers. Bones from a finished meal lay scattered across unsanded oak.
Five men sat around it. None of them looked older than thirty winters. Their leathers and tribal tattoos marked them as locals; Circines, most likely.
None of them moved.
One leaned back in his chair, head lolling. A dark slash gaped across his throat. Another slumped forward, chin on his chest.
Darach had stopped beside the nearest of the corpses and bent over it, taking a closer look. Ailsa moved forward. These men had indeed been hunters: their longbows were still propped up by the door.
“What happened to them?” she asked.
“They’re husks.” Darach’s voice held a tight edge as he straightened up and met her eye. “Something sucked the blood right out of them like a leech.” He paused then, glancing at the dead men once more. “I’ve only heard of bavaan doing that.”
Ailsa’s heart kicked. Bavaan?
She moved closer, drawn as if by an invisible thread. Stopping next to Darach, she stared down at where the grey light filtering through the open doorway illuminated the hunter’s ravaged throat.
A cold sweat beaded on her brow.
No blade had made those cuts. They were claw marks. Talons had sliced open these men’s throats.
The hunter that Darach had stopped before sat slumped in his chair, head tilted back. A cup lay on its side. Ale had dried in a sticky pool on the wood. Blood smeared his ashen skin. His dead eyes stared up at Ailsa, faintly accusing.
It was a cold evening, with a deep chill that would settle into the bones after dark, but sweat beaded on her skin, all the same.
“Fools,” Darach murmured, shaking his head. “They let themselves be seduced.”
Ailsa’s stomach lurched.
For a heartbeat, she wasn’t looking at the dead hunters.
Instead, she was back beside the fire with Darach’s pulse hammering beneath her fingertips, consumed by the frantic need to taste his blood.
She remembered the stories of the vampiric faeries who preyed on lonely men. Beautiful women with cloven hooves and icy breaths, who seduced their victims before tearing open their throats and draining them dry.
Feeling sick, she looked down at her hands. She stretched her fingers out, marking the way the murky light caught on the pointed tips of her nails. She’d meant to file them the night before, yet hadn’t.
And now they looked just like …
She glanced up to find Darach staring down at her hands.
And the look on his face made her breathing seize.
Slowly, he raised his chin, and their gazes met. “Have you been manipulating me all this time?”
His voice was quiet, yet Ailsa flinched.
She hadn’t seen that question coming.
She might have expected, ‘What are you?’, but he’d just accused her of playing him—of seducing him. Did he think she planned to kill him after this job was done … to slash his throat and drink him dry?
Her heart started to pound. She couldn’t answer. Her mouth wouldn’t move.
No, she hadn’t been manipulating him. The thought sickened her.
But had she known what she was?
Maybe, deep down. She hadn’t faced it, however, for the truth was too terrible to face. Or to name.
And as heartbeats slid by, a curtain fell between them.
Something flickered in his golden eyes. It was subtle. Fleeting.
Fear? Revulsion?
Or was it anger?
Darach blinked then, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “Time to go,” he said finally.
Ailsa nodded, following him on shaky legs out of the shieling.