Chapter 8
Perhaps someday, it would feel less foreign to feel the sun on his face, tightening his skin.
The first summer after freeing himself, Kaden had tanned his skin to the point of blistering because he simply couldn’t keep himself inside when there was the option to simply leave a room whenever he chose. The following winter, he had overindulged in that same thing.
It was a mercy that he had slowed himself after that.
“Why are ye doing this?” Peter asked him as they trailed behind Emily out into the yard behind the keep.
The ground seemed level on this side for as far as the eye could see, with plants leading through a clearing just to their left, where Emily seemed to be heading. Marching, really.
Kaden had to suppress a smile as he trailed after her, half-stretching all the while.
“I’m indulging the lass,” he answered, as if it ought to have been obvious.
“And that’s the only reason?” Peter sighed and shook his head. “If she’s been riding for a long time, then ye are likely to have yer arse handed to ye. We both ken that ye only have a few years of riding behind ye.”
Kaden hesitated, almost missing his next step. Peter barely caught himself before barrelling into his back.
“What are ye tryin’ to say? Ye daenae think I’ll win?”
Peter hesitated before answering.
A lot of times, people tried to only tell Kaden what he wanted to hear. They would rarely speak to him about what had happened. It was far more frequent for those nearest to him to pretend that it had simply never happened, that he had never been kidnapped.
Kaden hated that the most. Peter was one of the few people who still chose to think of him as human.
“I just mean that ye cannae be expected to keep up with an experienced—” Peter sighed and waved him off. “Never mind.”
“Have a little bit more faith, eh?” Kaden teased with a flat look.
He tried to ignore the conversation that Emily was having with her parents.
He chose to focus instead on trying to make the horse feel comfortable, raising a hand in greeting and attempting to get acquainted with him before he had to mount him.
He was almost too big for a horse this size, but he supposed that he would have to make do with it.
“Ye will behave yerself,” Hamish hissed at Emily.
She seemed rather committed to ignoring him entirely.
Kaden watched as her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides before she turned away from her father and grabbed the reins from the lad holding them.
She didn’t look at a single one of them as she tied up the side of her skirts in a way that almost made him feel indecent for seeing the knee of her stockings, and up she went.
Kaden’s eyes widened in awe. She moved so easily.
“Are we doing this?” She called over her shoulder without looking at him.
She didn’t even wait for him to mount his own horse before galloping off toward the opening of the forest.
Hamish called out after her, clearly frazzled, judging from the way he glanced over at Kaden to ensure that he wasn’t cross. But what choice did Kaden have but to quickly mount his horse and ride after her?
Emily had the advantage in every possible sense of the word.
This was her territory, this was her home, and she had likely grown up riding these trails.
She would know where there were fallen branches or sharp twists and turns.
She would certainly know what she should not be doing and where the best stretches were to make up speed.
Never mind that she was fast.
Kaden wasn’t too proud to admit that keeping up with her was a challenge. He was losing the race and then some. More than once, the only way to see which fork she had taken was by the heavy gallop prints that her horse left in the soft earth.
His legs were starting to burn from the strain; she must have been cut from a wholly different cloth than him. Though to say that he wasn’t enjoying the hell out of himself would have been a lie.
The sun had moved in the sky by the time Emily’s horse started to slow down. Not much, but it had to have been at least an hour of riding at top speed. They would have to stop sooner or later, if only to water the horses.
He wasn’t going to just let her win, however.
Another fifteen minutes or so passed before he realized that he had seen the same fallen trunk of the side of the path four times now.
The little minx was leading him in circles! She was playing him for a fool, and he was just letting her do it.
Two could play at that game.
Kaden pulled on the reins, slowing his own horse to a slow walk, waiting for Emily’s quick pace to bring her right back to him.
He could hear the moment she tried to rein in her horse, as if there was a way to avoid him, but this trail was far too small to be able to comfortably turn around. She had no choice but to pass him or join him on the slow walk that he had started them on.
He couldn’t hold back the smile stretching his lips as she chose to join him.
“What are ye doing?!” she huffed, her pretty chestnut-brown hair coming loose from the updo it had been in earlier.
She still had the same dirt clinging to the hem of her skirt from whatever she had been doing before he had arrived, and now there was a pretty pink flush on her face.
“Leveling the playing field?”
Her brow creased in irritation.
“Did ye think that ye would be able to win with cheap tricks?” Kaden shook his head, unable to tear his eyes off her.
The horse could have guided him right into a tree, and he wouldn’t have even noticed until he woke up from whatever blow to the head he would have received. “Ye’ll have to try better than that.”
“Are ye trying to call me a cheater?!” Emily gasped, affronted.
Not that he bought that for a second.
“I think that ye are a woman who will do what she needs to do to get what she wants.”
At least their pace was slower now, like they were out for a comfortable jaunt. What would it have been like to grow up here? Wandering these woods when he was tired or stressed. It would have been soothing to have a place to go to think or just to be alone.
“Did ye spend a lot of time in these woods growing up?” Kaden asked, hoping to catch her off guard.
Emily turned to glance at him and brought herself up short. “Ye are bleeding!”
Kaden’s eyebrows pinched. What was she talking about?
He glanced down to see that the exposed parts of his forearms were slightly scratched in places. No doubt from the branches and brambles that he had zipped past earlier. Only one of them was bleeding. It was such a negligible amount that he doubted he would have noticed it at all.
He half laughed and shook his head. “This? It’s a scratch, me Lady, nothing at all.” He wiped the blood with his free hand.
She reached over and grabbed him. “Daenae!” She shook her head. “Yer hands are filthy! Ye cannae touch it!”
Kaden lifted an eyebrow. “Seriously, daenae fash lass.”
She wasn’t easily dissuaded. “Follow me.”
“Are ye giving me orders? Is this a glimpse of how our marriage is going to be?” he called.
But Emily chose to ignore him as she rode ahead.
He followed, and it wasn’t long before he heard the sound of water rushing over stones. He arrived in the clearing just as Emily was dismounting from her horse and wrapping the reins around a knot in the closest tree to her.
“Get down,” she snapped, motioning for him to join her by the water’s edge. No doubt so that she could have him clean his arms or tend to his wounds.
How was he supposed to tell her that it was so minor that he honestly couldn’t feel it? But he indulged her anyway.
He dismounted and tethered his horse. “Now, what?”
Emily gestured to the small pond and waterfall. “Well, this was supposed to be the finish line… I guess we both lose.” She sounded like she was pretending to be saddened by the news, but didn’t seem actually bothered by it in the slightest.
She took a seat on a large rock by the water’s surface and pointed at the one beside him. He heaved a sigh and moved over to join her.
“Perhaps ye should look for a better bride,” she concluded with a shrug.
She snapped her fingers for him to offer his arm. She dipped her free hand into the water and then tapped it to her chest and sides of her neck to cool herself off, letting those stray hairs cling to her dampened skin.
“Nay, lass, I think we both win,” Kaden countered, watching her carefully as she rested his forearm across her knees. Never mind how much he had to bend over to let his arm rest there.
Wordlessly, she lifted the upper layer of her skirt to expose the soft white layer underneath and tore off a strip of linen with some difficulty.
Then, she tore off the bit that had mud on it and dipped the clean part into the water.
She twisted it around her index and middle finger and began to dab at the torn skin on the top of his forearm.
He said nothing as she worked, liking the attention but wishing she wasn’t putting herself through the effort of any of it in the first place.
She worked quietly, but he could see her gaze shifting to the other scars on his arm and hand. She could see the deep indentations around his wrists that would never heal from all his years in chains.
Her breath caught. She hadn’t noticed them before because she hadn’t had any reason to shift the strips of leather that he chose to wear on each wrist. Kaden called them part of his attire, even if he hated wearing them.
But he hated the stares, the pity and fear in the eyes of those who looked at him, but that wasn’t pity on her face.
Without asking permission, she untied the leather laces holding the bracer in place, loosening it just enough to fully see the scars and mangled skin.
She hissed in a breath that stayed lodged in her chest as she shifted his arm, pushing up his already rolled up sleeve to see the tails of deeper scars.
That was when he pulled away from her grip. He pulled his sleeve back down and tightened the bracer back into place. He wasn’t going to explain himself to her or anyone else.
“H-how do ye mean?” Emily asked, picking up the conversation where they had left off. Her voice was thick and strained. It almost sounded like she was pained.
Kaden didn’t allow himself to ponder that.
“Can one truly be the winner when she cannae even participate in making the decisions that affect her own life?” Her gaze traced his bracers as he pulled his arms back toward himself.
She swallowed hard, as if realizing that perhaps he might know a thing or two about not being able to make choices regarding his own life.
“If—if ye force me to marry ye, then people are right, and ye are cold, and cruel, and—” Emily bit down on her bottom lip and shook her head.
A single tear rolled down her cheek that she quickly dashed away. The next moment, she had pushed herself up from the stone she had been sitting on and was stomping back toward her horse.
Whatever conclusions she had just come to, Kaden wanted to know.
What had just happened?
He rose and followed her, his longer legs making it far easier to close the distance between them and step around in front of her to stop her from reaching her horse.
“I told ye.” He swallowed thickly. The tension in his throat made it hard for him to speak clearly. “I understand ye just fine.”
It was the closest thing to an admission that he was going to make.
He wasn’t going to stand here and pretend that he had a life that was as restrictive as hers likely was, but he wasn’t going to pretend that he didn’t know restrictions of a whole other kind.
Apples and oranges, and he was not going to compete with her on that.
“I think we both ken of rumors, and we both ken that they are formed somewhere, but that doesnae make them true.”
Emily lifted those beautiful eyes to his, leaning in to close the distance between them.
Once more, her hands landed on his broad chest, her touch impossibly soft.
As if he pushed too hard, she might disappear.
His hands found her waist, pulling her closer and wishing that he could feel the heat of her skin through the fabric rather than the ribbing of her corset.
Kaden’s hand then lifted and moved to trace the underside of her jaw, the pad of his thumb resting on the point of her chin to tilt her face up further and better see every one of her breathtakingly perfect features. He could get lost in those emerald-green eyes for hours.
It should worry him how quickly that could become a problem for him.
If they weren’t compatible, then she would pull away from him. She would stop him when he lowered his head to hers, capturing her lips with his own.
Her body melted into his, and it was confirmation that while he could tell himself that this was just business, nobody had ever felt the way she did as he wrapped an arm around the small of her back and pulled her flush against him.
A soft moan escaped her lips as she came up for breath.
If he could swallow that sound just to commit it to memory, then he would do so.
His fingers slipped from her jaw to the curve of her neck and cupped the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her soft tresses.
He knew that he was pulling more of the strands loose, but she wasn’t stopping him, so he didn’t stop.
He could drink in the taste of her soft lips for hours. And oh, did he want to.
The rustle of something moving in the trees drew his attention, and the hands that had been resting so gently against his chest were suddenly shoving at him, pushing him away like she had only just remembered herself.
Her breathing was erratic, and her eyes were wild as she scanned the tree line. Whatever had just happened between them shattered as she stepped away.
Was his one chance slipping away from him?
Emily’s wide eyes were trained on the forest that they had just come from. Her hands were trembling when she grabbed her skirts.
“Did ye hear that?” she whispered.
The sound came once more, and she took off straight into the thicket of trees.