Page 74 of Bloodguard

Little by little, the room goes quiet as everyone leaves. I swear Soro lingers. It’s like I can feel his presence, patiently waiting like a coiled snake. The slightest bit of movement, and he’ll strike.

Seconds stretch to minutes. Maeve’s breasts rise and fall against my chest with every intake of air, hardening her nipples further. I rub my face against the side of hers, intending to bring comfort. “It’s all right,” I whisper.

My lips graze the side of her neck, sliding over a scar until soft skin is all I feel. Not quite a kiss but close, and closer yet. She leans into me, breath hitching. My mouth is almost on hers when I realize what I’m doing. I’d slap myself upside the head if I didn’t need my arms to hold us up.

We’re wedged in a chimney right now, far from her home or any reinforcements. At least a dozen guards and one very vicious lord general could still be searching for us. No. This isnothow I keep Maeve safe.

I crane my head away from hers. “Climb up,” I tell her.

Her gasp this time isn’t one of pleasure but one of hurt. Then she’s moving, as agile as a spider, climbing over me and scaling her way to the rooftop. Soot and who knows what else fall as she goes. I wait for her to flip the cap. It gives easily, but it’s still louder than I’d like. Thankfully, there aren’t any other sounds from the house. No one coming. No one going.

My arms are trembling from holding us up for so long, and my leg—the one shredded by eels—is shaking so bad I’m not sure it’s going to hold my weight on the other side of this.

Soro and his guards could still be in the house. If it was me in his place, I’d continue to wait.

“I don’t see them,” Maeve whispers down to me.

That doesn’t mean they haven’t laid a trap. I inch my way to the top and pull myself out. I’m too tall and too big to bend a leg, so it’s awkward dragging myself up to a sit and then working each leg, one at a time, out of the chimney. The only upside is it gives me a minute to rest, so when I do land, I don’t collapse.

“Go,” I tell her. “Don’t look back. I’m right behind you.”

She doesn’t hesitate. Maeve runs along the rooftops, nimbly leaping from one to the next. I’m not familiar with this part of Arrow, and I follow her, hoping she’s leading us toward her home or a busier section of the city where more people will provide a distraction or at least bear witness to whatever Soro was plotting.

I grab her hand when we’re at the last house closest to the market. From here, we can see the hitching post where we tied the horses.

They’re gone.

Maeve curses.

I consider our options. We could circle back and find a rooftop to hunker down until morning. We could take our chances and head toward the castle, relying on Maeve to rally the troops and all those still loyal to her family. Or we could try to make it back to Jakeb’s manor on foot—

A hulking cyclops comes into view, holding the reins of both our horses. It’s Uni. He pauses and looks up as if to say,What are you waiting for?Maeve jumps right off the roof.

Damn it, woman!

She leaps toward the house beside this one, catching onto the second-story window ledge, then stretches down with her toes to balance on the top of the first-floor door casing before dropping quietly to the street in a crouch, her sooty skirt billowing around her as she lands.

I’m strong and agile, but I don’t possess that kind of balance. I lower myself over the side and straddle the walls between the buildings, dropping and catching the walls with my hands and feet to slow my descent.

Maeve mounts and waits for me.

“Is the road clear?” I ask Uni.

“Go,” he bids us. “May the phoenix keep you safe.”

chapter 27

Leith

“I didn’t get to ask Uni… Do you think Neh-Neh and the baby are safe?” she asks.

I hope so. Soro and his guards were mere blocks away when we reached the city limits. “He wouldn’t have waited for us with the horses if she wasn’t.”

She nods, and something of a burden seems to lift off her shoulders. Her horse, Knight, trots silently next to Star and me. For such massive animals, moon horses can be shockingly stealthy.

“You seem close with them and their community,” I say.

Maeve grows quiet. “When a family of wolf shifters from Tanlita arrived, an odd infection plagued them and many in the surrounding area. I’ve never seen such an illness—fever with these odd patches of stripped skin. With knowledge from Neela’s people, I was eventually able to brew an elixir that helped them heal. But the shifters didn’t make it.”

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