She wasn’t moving quietly. With no breeze stirring the leaves or rubbing branches together, she was making the only noise in the wood.
Because Mirian had promised not to pull, when she needed Tomas’ attention, she released her grip on his tail and waited for him to notice. Three steps and he turned.
“I can’t keep going.” Her grip on a branch was all that kept her upright. Her thighs trembled, her knees threatened to buckle, and the pain in her side felt as though someone had stuffed hot coals under her ribs. “You have to find us a place to hide.” She paused just long enough to check that the sounds of pursuit hadn’t stopped. If they’d already given up…
They hadn’t.
“It’s dark,” she added, “once we’re not moving, they won’t be able to find us.
It was too dark to read Tomas’ expression, but his body language as he stared past her was clear.
“I know you could kill them now they’ve separated. But they’re still using silver, and I still can’t get away without you.” And there’d been enough killing today. The younger Lord Hagen was Hunt Pack; he wouldn’t understand why she wanted four of the enemy to live. Mirian wasn’t sure she understood it herself, only that four more bodies sprawled limp and bleeding wouldn’t bring Lady Berin and the others back. “Please, just find us a place to hide.”
He shot her a look it was too dark to decipher—the shifting silhouettes of his ears the only indication he’d turned—then he snorted and disappeared into the underbrush.
Mirian flattened the black ruffle along the lapels of her jacket and pulled the edges together over the white vee of her shirtwaist. Shaking her hair down over the pale oval of her face, she leaned back against the tree and tried to become one with the night. It was a phrase from the last novel she’d brought home from the bookshop on Upper Cryss Road. The hero became one with the night when he hunted. Of course, in the novel, the hero hadn’t had to deal with a swarm of insects that tried to make a meal off any bit of exposed skin. Novels, she noted, wondering how much noise she’d make if she slapped at the back of her neck, were nothing much like real life.
Over the high-pitched whine of the insects, it sounded as though pursuit had slowed.
Give up. Give up. Give up. It was a sort of a prayer, although Mirian had neither faith nor expectation that either the Lord or Lady were listening.
Her head fell forward. She jerked it upright and bit back a cry as something large brushed past her legs. And again! Tomas was Pack! He was supposed to be protecting her! Where…
Oh.
Teeth in her skirt, Tomas jerked her away from the tree. Mirian stumbled and nearly fell, but managed to stay on her feet by clutching at a handful of fur. They danced like that for a moment, shuffling about together in a half circle before she found her footing and was able to let go, murmuring an apology as she slid her hand along Tomas’ spine until she could close it around his tail.
He led her on what seemed to be a stupidly long, looping path; through a clearing, around to the left, over two fallen trees…
Was he lost?
….to a low rock face, a sudden splash of pale gray rising knee-high out of the darkness. Tugging his tail free, he dropped to his belly, changed, and crept out of sight. Mirian had to move right up to the rock and collapse to her knees before she could find the narrow opening and then flip onto her side to inch her way in, arms over her head, fingers scratching for purchase. Even in her exhausted state, Mirian realized the rock extended both vertically and horizontally far beyond what was visible.
When her right hand finally flailed about in the open, callused fingers closed around her wrist and yanked, nearly dislocating her arm. A second yank with the same result. Tomas’ help wasn’t moving her any faster than she could manage on her own.
The moment her left hand came free, she slapped at bare skin until he released her, muttering something rude under his breath. Mirian ignored him and concentrated on freeing her head. Skulls didn’t compact and it felt like she’d lost more hair and scraped a line of skin off her forehead shoving past the last bit of rock. Once her shoulders were in the cave, she exhaled, dug in the toes of her boots, braced her hands, and shoved.
Her mother had always wished she’d been more buxom, like her sister. Mirian had never been more thankful her mother’s wishes could not come true. There was a limit to how far even squishable body parts could be squashed and more buxom would have jammed her in the crack like a cork in a wine bottle.
To be fair, her mother couldn’t have envisioned this situation.
When her hips came free, Tomas grabbed her under both arms and, this time, Mirian let him pull.
“Stay here!” he growled when she lay panting, half propped against a curved rock wall trying to decide if it was worth trying to count her new bruises.
And then she was alone. In the dark. A musty smelling dark—animal musty, not closed-up rooms under dust covers musty. Drawing in her skirt, she cautiously patted the floor around her and felt twigs. Very dry twigs. With no bark. Maybe bones?
Did they have bears in Pyrahn?
There wasn’t a bear here now. Tomas would have seen to that, but that didn’t mean a bear wouldn’t come back when Tomas was somewhere else.
Somewhere else killing Imperial soldiers?
“I was covering our tracks.”
Her thoughts had been so loud she hadn’t heard him return.
Tomas frowned. He could smell blood. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t…” A rustle of cloth. She was probably raising her arm. It was so dark in the old den, he couldn’t even see gradations of black. “It’s a scrape. From the rock. It’s nothing.”
He knew the Imperials hadn’t hurt her. Not the way soldiers took what they wanted from the conquered. Not even Best, who’d clearly despised her. He’d have been able to smell the evidence if they’d forced her and then he’d have killed them. She wouldn’t have been able to stop him no matter how much sense it made not to risk four-to-one odds and silver shot.
His shoulder ached, but the itching told him he’d healed.
“You shouldn’t scratch at it.”
Fingers flexed over the scar, he froze. “What?”
“I can hear you scratching at it. It’ll scar.”
“It’s already scarred. And it’s not my first.”
She sighed, the gust of breath warm against his chest. This close, this enclosed, her scent was intoxicating, and he felt himself begin to respond physically. By the time he realized he was leaning forward, his face was almost tucked in the curve between her shoulder and neck.
“I don’t think you should…”
He snapped upright, his fingers pressed against her mouth. When her teeth touched his skin, he leaned back in, mouth against the curve of her ear, not even wondering how he could find the curve of her ear so effortlessly in the dark, and said, “They’re close.”
“Anything?”
“No, sir. I’ve lost them.”
Lost her, Reiter corrected silently. They still had no proof Chard’s creature was with her. They could barely see broken branches and crushed greenery; it was far too dark to see actual tracks and the tangle hanging off his finger gave no indication she was near. “She’s probably heading back to the border.”