Page 61 of Held
Wick grunted. He had been shockingly quiet as they crept through the dark village of Yedzeva. Hadn’t bumped into anything. He had even stopped Briar before she stepped into anoisy child’s toy—one of the many advantages to being able to see in the dark.
Briar waited until they were further down the path before dropping back to her usual volume. “Are you sure you don’t need to rest? Give us an hour, and we should be safe to camp.”
“I can keep going,” Wick said.
Briar eyed his wounds. They had run out of bandages the night before, so the burns stood out clearly on his skin. They were calming down much faster than they would on a mortal, and his most recent arrow wound was already growing new skin. And his wing…
Briar cleared her throat. “We’ll see how you feel in an hour. Do you want any more rabbit?”
Wick gave her an amused look that Briar took to mean,I barely need to eat once a month, mortal. Stop offering me food.
“Just being polite,” Briar muttered. She took a strip of cooked rabbit meat out of her pocket and bit into it.
The moonlight was brighter up ahead. The further Briar walked, the more she realized that it wasn’t a trick of the light: the moonlight cut off in a sharp line.
She looked up. The cliff looming over Yedzeva stopped directly above them.
“Still standing,” Wick said.
Briar nodded. “Guess the ritual worked. The mountain’s wrath won’t strike them down this year.”
She meant it as a joke. But Wick stayed there, staring up at the cliff with that same strange look he had adopted several times when they talked about the mountain.
Briar shifted nervously. She wanted to get away from the village. She wanted to get back to Marigold and hand over the flower. She wanted their curses gone so she could stop worrying Wick was going to go feral and rip her throat out every time theyhad sex; there had been some close calls, the amulet flickering so hard she worried it would fail like it had in the ravine.
She cleared her throat.
“Any voices?” she asked, dreading the answer.
Wick shook his head. After one last lingering look, he turned back to the path and continued walking, only a small limp in his step.
It was light outside when they finally set up camp on a mountain edge.
Briar yawned, staring out at the land below. If she squinted, she could almost see Marigold’s cottage through the distant trees.
She pointed. “How long do you think it’s going to take us to get down there?”
Wick gave her a long look that she eventually translated as,Any long distance I’ve ever traveled, I have flown there. I have no reference for long-distance travel on foot.
“Right,” Briar muttered, ignoring a stab of guilt. “Never mind. I’ll set us up a nest.”
“You do not have to,” Wick said. “I have slept on the ground many times. You have watched me.”
“Yes, but still.” Briar took the pack Wick had been carrying and dumped the stolen clothes out on the ground and piled them into the best nest she could construct. It still looked awful.
Wick sat down in the middle and held out an expectant hand. “Do you want to mate first? It is another day.”
“Charmer,” Briar said. But despite her tiredness and her sore hole, she wouldn’t say no to a nice fuck right now. She deserved some reward for all that walking.
She took off her pants and started to climb on top of him. But Wick caught her waist and lowered her into the badly made nest.
“I will take you with my tongue first,” he said firmly.
Briar let out a surprised laugh. “If you say so.”
Wick nodded. But Briar could see how slow every movement was, how careful he had to be with anything that might pull his shoulders, where the deepest burns were.
Briar closed her eyes, forcing herself to focus on how his huge hands dipped underneath her shirt to explore her breasts.
