“My what? How dare you! Like you can talk. I heard Callum: you shouldn’t be anywhere near her. There is no chance for you and her, yet you took her from me. When we were out in the borderlands, you said you wouldn’t touch her again. I don’t know why but I’m pretty sure you’ll never be allowed to be with her. So who and what I get up to isn’t something you get to have any say in.” By the time he had finished, there were mere inches between them, each daring the other to strike the first blow.
“Is he right?” I asked into the charged room. I had hoped it was just a temporary thing while we were with Callum, but he had remained distant.
I was so tired of being in the dark. I knew that Briton society was much more strictly hierarchical than the society I had grown up in. I didn’t know where I fitted into that society because Devyn still wouldn’t tell me, insisting it was safer for me not to know. From the glimpses I’d seen of this world, I thought Devyn was in the same class, a nobleman, so why would they not allow us to be together? Whatever the reason, Devyn clearly knew it. He had tried to stay away from me from the start and he continued to push me away.
“Is that true?” I demanded again.
Devyn tore his macho eyeballing away from Marcus to give me a tormented look. His walls were still up so I couldn’t sense his emotions, but they were writ loud on his face: pain, shame, truth. The same emotions that had run through him after we had been together that first – and until last night, only – time.
“Right,” I said to no one in particular. I needed a minute to process this. Or rather, I needed more information to fight whatever it was that would keep Devyn and me apart.
Marcus shoved against Devyn as he collected his pack and exited the barn into the morning light. Devyn stood unmoving, never taking his eyes off me as I processed this new information.
“You’re not going to explain any of that, are you?” I asked. It was all I could do to keep my voice from breaking.
He pushed his fingers through his dark curls. “Cass, I can’t. I—”
He broke off, his attention caught by something outside. His voice rose to carry out to Marcus.
“Where are you going?”
I couldn’t hear Marcus’s reply, but it gave Devyn an excuse not to answer my question. “We need to go. Marcus is halfway down the road already.”
“Of course he is,” I huffed in annoyance as I gathered my pack. How convenient.
I drew the hood of my cloak over my head as I stepped out into the pouring rain, wrapping my scarf as high up on my face as I could. Devyn preferred us to travel like this. That way, if anyone asked, we were just three nondescript travellers on the road. Not a fair-haired woman with two darker-haired men. Even during what little interaction we had with people on the road, Devyn did all the talking, a scarf wrapped around his lower face, for while he spoke with a more pronounced Briton accent out here, he was also the one who was most likely to be recognised. Devyn was from here and those who chased us knew what he looked like, so he took extra precautions to remain concealed.
I knew nothing about them, these shadowy figures who were pursuing us across the countryside. I sighed as I trailed after Devyn, who ensured he stayed a few steps in front so I couldn’t engage him in conversation. Marcus also kept quite a way ahead of us as the path wound through the woods, and I only occasionally caught glimpses of him before the trees obscured him once more.
Chapter Ten
We had lost sight of Marcus after he crested a hill ahead of us when suddenly we heard raised voices ahead. Devyn indicated that I should stay quiet and then we hurried up the hill. As ever, to my annoyance, my efforts to make as little noise as possible were substantially less successful than I wanted them to be. Arriving at the top of the hill, we could see Marcus in a clearing below surrounded by half a dozen men on horseback.
The smaller man at the front dismounted and strode towards Marcus.
“I told you, I’m a Shadower looking to trade.”
We couldn’t hear what the man said as he was facing away from us but he was making a big show of looking around.
“I don’t have anything with me. I’m scouting,” Marcus protested in response. “If your bed was cold this morning, I’ll be happy to warm it again when I come back this way.”
Not a man. His lady friend from last night. Perfect.
Devyn’s eyes narrowed as he learned more of Marcus’s escapades of the night before, and he muttered under his breath at Marcus’s arrogant ham-handed answers. He indicated that I should stay hidden while he dealt with the situation. I shook my head; I wanted to go with him. But he glared me down and I retreated behind a particularly wide tree trunk as he wound his scarf higher around his face.
“Ho, friends,” Devyn hailed the group as he walked into the clearing.
Spooked by his unexpected appearance, the riders drew their swords, their horses skittering at the charged atmosphere. The dismounted cloaked woman pointed hers directly at Marcus while the rider closest to Marcus nudged his horse forward, blocking Devyn’s route.
“Good day, friend,” he responded sardonically. The warrior’s hood was down and his long hair tied back, revealing, even from this distance, that he was exceptionally handsome despite the scar that tracked down his right cheek. “Can we help you?”
Devyn looked up at him and alarm pulsed through the connection. Whoever he was, Devyn recognised him, and he was most certainly not someone he considered a
