Chapter Ten The Cleary Wood #2
She shivered. Exhausted, cranky, and hungry though she was, she knew she needed to keep him talking.
The most dangerous enemy is the one you don’t understand, Lennox whispered like a ghost in her ear. For now, they had an accord. But things could change quickly, and she wouldn’t be able to best him by strength, nor could she outrun him. She needed a card to play. Information would be the key.
“Tell me, Caelan Halcyon, what is it you do for a living?”
He waited a long time before answering. “What do any of our kind do for a living?”
She didn’t bother to tell him she did not consider herself one of their kind. “Blackmail thieves?” Her attempt at levity fell flat. “What then? Farmer? Baker? Politician? Tailor?”
He chose his words carefully. “I’m a problem solver.”
It was the closest thing to a lie a truth had ever been. Caelan was keeping secrets. And she had a feeling they were the kind that could get her killed so long as her fate was chained to his. “Whose problems do you solve?”
“That, thief, is the first question you’ve asked that matters.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Reya sighed. “You know, it’s a very long way to Port Talluah. At the very least, you could offer me some stimulating conversation.”
“All-Gods spare me,” he muttered.
Now she was getting somewhere.
“Which All-Gods do you favor?” she asked.
“That’s my business.”
Reya shrugged. “I suppose it is.”
Caelan gave her a once-over, then said, seemingly despite himself, “I didn’t take you for All-God-fearing.”
Her smile was serpentine. “Everyone needs faith, fire fingers—thieves included. We even have our own patron All-Goddess.”
“Tika is the All-Goddess of tricks, not larceny.”
“That’s what thievery is,” Reya said. “It’s just smoke and mirrors and quick fingers. I take what I want in this world like everyone else. I’m just better at it than most.”
“If that helps you sleep at night.”
She rolled her eyes, which he didn’t like one bit. “I sleep just fine.” Only not lately.
Reya tipped her head to the sky, as if she might see her parents’ stars shining even in the sunlight. “I have to believe in something. If none of it’s real, then those stars up there are just flecks of light, and my parents aren’t up there in that beautiful place. I’m not sure I could bear that.”
Something flickered in the timbre of his voice. “They’re gone then.”
She didn’t know why she’d told him. It was all she could do to keep air in her lungs as the memories threatened to drown her. “Yes.”
The skies melted into orange, then pink, then blue as the moons rose high, caressing the wood with a cold silver light.
Reya was staring unashamedly—well, maybe she was a little contrite—at Caelan where he stood facing away from her, stripping off his spectacular armor one piece at a time.
When he withdrew a fresh shirt from his saddlebag, Reya knew it had gone too far and she needed to look away before he peeled off the sweaty black tunic that was currently plastered to his form.
Don’t do it. That’s something you can never unsee, she warned silently. Before she could win that argument with herself, those forearms were flexing over his shoulders to tug the fabric up and over his head.
Holy Mother above.
Caelan Halcyon had been born to wage wars. Rigid scars peppered the golden skin of his back and waist, tokens of countless battles fought and won. Every curve and dip and contour was corded with muscle around the deep groove of his spine. And this was what he looked like from the back.
His marks were more intricate than any she’d seen. The whorls of emerald started at his shoulders and pared down to his wrists and along the sides of his torso.
“See something you like, thief?” he asked coolly.
Apparently, he also had eyes in the back of his head. Only bravado would save her now. By the time she’d sauntered over to him, he’d already donned the fresh shirt and begun snapping his armor back into place.
Reya leaned against the tree opposite him and crossed her arms. “I can take watch, you know. I see, hear, and smell almost as well as you.”
He didn’t even bother looking at her. She tried not to be insulted that he was so uninterested in her when she was currently engaged in combat with a fantasy of her licking the ravine along his spine.
The enemy on the other side of this battlefield was herself, and she was harder to strike down than Reya cared to admit.
“You’re in no danger of my killing you, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” she said with a wicked grin. “At least not while you’re actively extorting me.”
“You’re very talkative for someone who hasn’t slept or eaten in almost forty-eight hours.”
Thank you for the reminder, asshole. “I’m not tired.”
When he finally looked at her, she knew he didn’t believe her. Those eyes trailed up and down her leather-clad form. Voice full of promise, he said, “If you need to take the edge off, thief, all you have to do is ask.”
“Excuse me?”
Where Caelan’s scent was woodsmoke, leather, and cedar, hers was honeysuckle and a northern wind beneath the faint aroma of her rose oil.
And it changed when she was aroused just as it did when she was frightened.
It turned sweeter, riper. And she could do nothing about it.
Everything she was feeling, and everything he wasn’t, was on display for anyone with a preternatural sense of smell.
Caelan’s nostrils flared, and her face burned. She wasn’t used to being around other magic-born who could detect and understand the shifts. The amused curve of his mouth was downright sinful. “Your magic. I can feel it from here. Sparring will help with the sickness.”
Oh. Right then. Well done, Reya.
She’d never sparred with magic in her life, and was sure she’d be more likely to kill Caelan than knock him on his ass. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
His glance to the sky was quick, as if looking to the All-Gods for a boon as he tightened the buckles on one of his vambraces. The leather armor shifted enough to reveal a glint of silver tucked beneath his collar.
She pressed her lips together to hide her smile. “Tell me about your armor.”
Caelan didn’t miss a beat. “No.”
“I’ll tell you about mine if you tell me about yours.
” He went as still as death as she dared to trace her fingers along the plated leather once again secure across his chest, even as the heat of the warrior’s golden stare bored into her.
This was bold. Maybe too bold. “I’d pay good money for equipment like this. ”
“Stop that.”
Her lips pulled at the corners. “You must have had it specially made. I can’t imagine anything else would have fit—”
He grabbed her wrist so fast and hard her stomach clenched. He backed her up a step, his face a breath from hers. They stayed like that for longer than was necessary, his eyes a conflict of color. “Do you enjoy courting death, thief?”
“I’m quite good at it.”
Reya couldn’t tell if he was trying to decide whether to end her life or turn her ass red. The latter she wouldn’t have minded.
“You would be unwise to push me. You won’t like what you’ll find.”
She was starting to fear he might be wrong about that. “Wisdom is for priests and old women, of which I am neither.”
His irises turned a molten gold. Reya chuckled lightly, breaking the spell, and he let go.
“Fine. Don’t tell me.” With a shrug, she stepped back and lifted her pinky finger, revealing the ornate silver ring that now rested loosely there. “I’d much rather hear about this.”
His eyes moved from hers to the ring between them, and his hand flew to the empty, unclasped chain around his neck.
At last, she’d found the Earth Star.
It hadn’t been a ruse, after all. Her eyes glittered.
This was her failsafe. This and the letters she’d located in his bag the first time Caelan had gone to relieve himself.
She was unlikely to escape with something of his a second time.
But if he died before she could save him, she could take them both as compensation for her losses.
“Trick of the trade,” she said, taking in every facet of the stone. “Give a mark something more interesting to look at, like my pretty face, for example, and they’ll never notice what you’re doing with your hands.” She batted her eyelashes.
Caelan closed the space between them and took her wrist again. With a gentleness laced in anger, he plucked the Earth Star ring from her finger, slid it back onto its chain, and tucked the stone inside his tunic.
“Lift this off me a second time, thief, and you’ll never lift anything again.”
Reya opened her mouth to make a snappy retort, but the flicker of emotion in his expression, there and gone in a blink, stopped her.
“Old habits die hard,” she said instead, wanting to pull them back to lighter territory, put him at ease.
When he wasn’t talking, she wasn’t learning.
Her ability to both assimilate information and pick apart the truths had made her career.
Trying to steal from Caelan before she knew anything about him had been her fatal mistake.
She’d gambled because she’d been desperate, and it had bitten her in the ass.
But she knew better. If she had to give up a small piece of herself to keep Caelan Halcyon talking, then she would.
“I can see I’m not going to get something for nothing.
All right then. I’ll go first as a sign of good faith.
” She slid her fingers down her plated leather bodice.
“My armor was the first thing I ever bought for myself. It took four months to make.”
The masterpiece of engraved steel, chainmail, and brown and black leather had more hidden pockets than she could count and a double-buckled weapons belt with enough holsters to equip a small army.
Yet it allowed her far more movement than the average metal suit while emphasizing rather than hiding her curves.