33. Saige #2
Warm, ringed fingers cover my mouth and I jolt awake.
“Are you ready?” asks a familiar deep voice that reverberates through my bones. Archer removes his hand and in the light of the guttering fire, I can see that he’s dressed to ride, donning his usual leathers and black cloak, the hood raised up over his head.
“Do you always wake people up like this?” I hiss, my heart threatening to break my ribs as it pounds.
“I needed you quiet,” he says, his palm outstretched offering me a hand up. “Daemos sent word about the mirror fragments. We need to move. Who knows who’s close by.”
Reluctantly, I slide my hand into his and allow him to pull me to my feet.
All the questions I have for him come flooding back, every one of them urgent on my lips, desperate for answers, for an explanation.
But from the way he’s moving silently about the camp and leading his horse to the edge of the clearing, now might not be the best time for such things.
“Leave the bedroll. Get dressed,” he tells me in a clipped tone.
“Fine.” I feel around for my breeches, shoving my legs through them before finding my boots while Archer checks the stallion’s tack.
I lace my vest tightly over my shirt and make sure my tool belt is safe and sound inside my satchel before I loop it over my shoulder.
Who knows what state this book will be in, but with any luck it won’t take much to fix and then I can finally be on my merry way, bidding the engaged Azkari general farewell.
“You done?” he all but growls.
“I didn’t think it was possible for you to get any moodier,” I say, furious that he’s still got such an attitude when he’s the one who’s been lying about having a fucking fiancé.
He’s bouncing his knee as he waits by his stallion. “What can I say, Grayson, I exist to challenge the status quo.”
“I’m not riding with you.”
“Unless you want to be swept away and drown in the river, that’s exactly what you’re doing.” He motions to the horse pawing the ground, apparently as tetchy as his master. “Are you going to mount up or do I have to throw you over the saddle myself?”
Before the conversation with Daemos, I would have challenged Archer, I would have pushed him to do exactly that.
But with what I know now, I simply fit my boot to the stirrup and haul myself up.
The sooner we get to the temple, the sooner this will be over.
I can go back to my life at the bindery and put all manner of Azkari dealings firmly in the past.
Something flashes across his face, but it’s gone before I can recognize it and he swings himself into the saddle behind me.
We’re moving before I can get over the shock of having his hard, warm body pressed up against my spine again, his heart beating against my back, his muscular thighs cradling mine.
My physical response to him is instant and completely out of my control.
I hate that the air catches in my throat, my nipples harden and my core tightens.
I hate that it’s all I can do not to lean into him and breathe in his scent, to push back and seek out that hard length I felt when he kissed me.
He’s tense as he holds the reins in front of me, dangerously close to where I crave his touch most—
Isindrel.
Even her name is beautiful.
I inch forward in the saddle and try to sway my mind elsewhere. “What did you find when you scouted ahead?”
“There are parts of the Eldergrove that aren’t safe for mortals, more than I expected. But ahead, there’s an enchanted river called the Wanderer’s Tributary. If we cross it, we’ll only be an hour’s ride from the temple and we’ll avoid the more dangerous areas of the forest.”
“Enchanted how?” I ask, ignoring the way our bodies rock together in the saddle.
Archer’s breath tickles the crook of my neck. “You’ll be safe with me, but if you follow its current, you end up right back at the start, over and over.”
“So the Prince here likes his tricks, then?”
“You have no idea…” he mutters. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?” I feel like a child feigning ignorance, but it seems wildly unfair that he’s the one with all the secrets and yet it’s him who is trying to wrangle inner thoughts and feelings from me.
“Grayson. We’ve been traveling together for days now. You think I don’t know when something’s bothering you?”
The accusation forms on my tongue and I ready myself for a fight.
I won’t be the woman who stands by and let’s a man treat her like this, or treat another woman like this.
I don’t know what it was about the Azkari that made me think he was different from the others, but it’s clear he’s playing some messed-up game with me, with his fiancé.
Just as I’m about to unleash my wrath upon him, we reach the sandy banks of the Wanderer’s Tributary, and though at first glance, it looks like an ordinary river, there’s something about it.
Above its foaming rapids, what look like dust motes drift through the air, gleaming in the beams of moonlight peeking through the canopy.
But it’s not dust. There is something otherworldly about the particles dancing in the non-existent breeze, something mesmerizing.
“What are you doing?” Archer growls in my ear.
I pay him no heed as I wriggle down from the saddle and stroll towards the water’s edge.
It’s so beautiful, the surge of the river, the magic floating above like starlight.
I push my boots off at the heel, needing to sink my toes into the cool wet sand.
And I reach for the buttons of my breeches, peeling them down my thighs, needing to feel the kiss of the icy water on my skin.
It’s like I’m watching myself from afar, my hands moving of their own accord.
“Grayson.” But my name on Archer’s lips is distant, and the river’s song is loud and clear, beckoning me towards it—
A yelp escapes me as I’m seized, roughly grabbed and thrown over the saddle on my belly. Water surges all around us as Archer urges the horse across the river.
It is cold. But it’s not enticing in the least.
Swearing, I kick my legs in protest, embarrassment setting my cheeks ablaze as the rest of me damn near freezes. Archer grips the back of my shirt in a strong fist.
“What in the realms are you doing?” I shriek.
“Me?” he exclaims. “What about you? What the fuck were you doing? Stripping down to your damn undergarments and nearly drowning yourself in the fucking river?”
That’s when I realize my legs are bare, covered in goosebumps as the cold air hits exposed skin. The Azkari general has me hanging over the saddle half naked. “Archer!”
But he ignores me, the water splashing all around us as we cross, and when at last we reach the other side of the river, he gathers me up in his arms and drops me unceremoniously in the wet grass.
“What the fuck, Grayson?” he rounds on me, nostrils flaring. “You could have died—”
I scramble to cover my legs with the hem of my shirt, the soaked material sticking to my skin and leaving little to the imagination. “I didn’t do it deliberately! The current, it—”
But Archer’s gaze has dropped to my thighs, his expression morphing to a different kind of fury as his eyes land on the mottled bruising there. There’s no hiding the violet and green contusions at the tops of my legs.
It’s barely a whisper, but his words are laced with the promise of violence. “How the fuck did you get those?”