and she couldn’t manage to give in to it.
Sometimes being too stubborn for her own good turned out to be the best thing for her.
So she broke things down into words of one syllable, since that was apparently what she could handle at the moment.
Fuck it then. Kill the bitch, have some great sex, go home.
She counted backward. Yep, all one-syllable words. That’d do.
While she deconstructed her life, Quentin eased off of her and stretched out on his back again.
Somehow, something had shifted when she hadn’t been paying attention, and the part of him that was feline no longer bothered her. She simply enjoyed his animal grace.
He tucked one hand behind his head with a sigh. “Are you going to come over here or not?”
She decided that it sounded like a great idea, so she edged close to settle against him, putting her head on his bare shoulder. Fitting herself against his body felt incredible, her leg hooked up over his. She shook out her tablecloth/blanket over both of them and draped her arm across his chest. He put his arm around her and pressed a kiss to her forehead. He seemed to be more demonstrably affectionate than she was. It took her outside of her comfort zone, but she … liked it.
Sleep stalked her, but she fought it off enough to mumble, “I bet you act romantic with every female you’ve ever dated.”
His response was a long time in coming, more of a grunt than a real word. “Yup.”
Not that they were dating, but … “You talk like shit to me.”
He grunted again. “Can’t tell you what a relief that is.”
Tucked in between pockets of decency and a conscience, he was still a bastard.
One corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. She let sleep take her.
The pale light of predawn woke her.
Adrenaline flooded her system, bringing with it a wash of nervous energy. Her body ached all over. Caerreth had closed her wounds and started them on the right path, but they were still healing. She needed more rest. She needed real rest and recuperation, but she couldn’t relax enough to let sleep claim her again.
She eased her head off of Quentin’s shoulder and looked at him. He was sound asleep, his lean jaw covered with more pale gold beard. His face wore the marks that the last couple of days had put on him. Even asleep, it made him look edgier and more dangerous than he did back in New York, and she had thought he’d looked dangerous then.
Then, he’d looked like a sleek, well-fed predator cruising through a crowd of unsuspecting pussycats. Now he looked more like what he really was, a man who would do anything he had to in order to survive.
A man who tried to be good in spite of himself, but who was really bad enough that she wanted him at her back in a tough fight.
She hadn’t told him that she liked him too, when he wasn’t driving her batshit crazy. It wasn’t any of his business how she felt about him.
But in the predawn silence, in the privacy of her own mind, she admitted a truth. Maybe she more than liked him.
The crowd in her head woke up and tried to riot again. She rolled her eyes and eased away from Quentin, trying not to disturb him. He had not been as injured as she had, but he needed more rest too, and he didn’t stir as she sat up.
She tucked the tablecloth around his torso, crawled over to the food they’d left strewn over the floor and ate a weird but filling breakfast. Actually, pickled eel and apple brandy weren’t so bad together. Then she went into “her” cell, where the blood on the floor had dried, used the crude latrine in the corner and splashed her hands off with water from the wineskin. A proper wash and clean clothes were high on her list of needs that day.
Second only to finding weapons and Elven armor.
When she went to peek out of the window, Linwe was keeping watch by the cell block door. She nodded to the young Elf and looked outside. The sky was cloudless, the wide expanse of water calm. It was going to be another scorcher of a day.
She went around to the other side of the cell block, gesturing to Linwe to follow her. The other woman did, her fine-boned face sparking with curiosity. “Let’s wake the other two,” Aryal said to her quietly. “We need to make some plans and act on them.”
“Okay,” said Linwe.
Together they shook Aralorn and Caerreth awake. The males sat up readily enough, wiping at their tired faces. Despite the short night, they all looked miles better than they had before.
Aryal sat back on her heels, testing her thigh wound. It held. The other three were watching her expectantly. She said, “Here’s the plan. You guys are leaving as fast as you can.”
“Wait, what?” Linwe said. The two males looked confused.
Aryal told them, “You need to take enough food to get you through a two-day run, harvest water on the go, and leave Numenlaur. On the other side, one of you needs to hike out of the forest to update Ferion, and make sure that Ferion updates Dragos. The other two will stand watch. Don’t let anybody into Numenlaur. If the witch and her wolves are the first ones out, the news about us won’t be good. If that happens, don’t do anything. Hide and let her pass. But neither Quentin nor I are planning on letting that happen.” She looked at the three sober faces. “Who has magical aptitude aside from Caerreth?”
“We all have some,” said Linwe. “Caerreth has the most aptitude, but Aralorn has more offensive Power. I know some basics like how to spell a light, but my strengths are more physical.”
“She’s killer with a bow and arrow,” Aralorn said with a small smile. “A little like Hawkeye in the Avengers.”
Dear gods, he was talking about comic superheroes. They were so young.
Aryal rubbed her tired, gritty eyes. “Okay,” she said. “If I were Galya, I would have sent one of the shadow wolves back to the passageway to stand guard, so we have to expect that. I doubt it will try to follow you back over the passageway, because if there is one there, I think its purpose is to bring back word of someone crossing over. Plus it might not be able to travel that far away from Galya. There’s something that connects her and the wolves, and that connection might be a magical one. If it is there, it might not attack you. Then again, it might, so you need to be prepared. If you don’t know how to throw a simple repel spell yet, Quentin will teach you when he wakes up. You’re going to have learn it fast, because I want you out of here by midmorning.”
All three of them argued. They had heart, she’d give them that.
Aralorn said, “But you need us.”
She leaned her elbows on her knees and gave him a level look. “No, we don’t,” she said. She’d never been one to mince words, and now was not the time to start just to save this young man’s pride. “We need each other, we don’t need you.
Something happened then, a shift of their eyes, a change in the air. Even though she hadn’t heard anything, she looked over her shoulder.
Quentin stood behind her, arms crossed, leaning one bare shoulder against the frame of the cell door, and she was struck all over again by the differences between him and the others. He looked mature, muscled and mean, and his steady gaze met hers.
She didn’t know the words to describe his expression. All she knew was that his regard was so intent, it caused her to flush hot all over. He nodded to her. Then he looked beyond her to the other three.
“Who needs a magic lesson?” he asked.
Caerreth raised his hand. Aralorn said, “I know the spell.”
Linwe said, “To be honest, I won’t learn it fast enough. I’ll be of more use helping with something else.”
“Okay, Caerreth,” said Quentin. “It’s you and me, buddy. Let’s go into my office.”
He led the younger Elf away to the other side of the cell block. Aryal called after him, “Unlock the door as you go, will you?”
He raised a hand in acknowledgement just before he disappeared. She turned to the other two. She
