Page 30 of This Frozen Heart

“As you wish, lassie.”

I make it several more footfalls lower before my foot slips.

Fear rushes through me, colder than any ice, and I grip the rope with both hands. The force sends me flying out with it.

Kay hisses below me, and I glance down to find him plastered against the cliff face. The rope I’m dangling from sways from the loss of his grip on it.

As he struggles to keep his desperate grip, I slide down an inch.

“Kay,” I gasp.

He glances up as I slip down another inch despite how desperately I am clinging to the rope.

“Hang on another moment, lassie,” he grunts, sliding more tightly against the mountain. Then he reaches one hand toward the dangling rope.

I try to sway my body toward him, but that has me slipping two more inches. My heart nearly stops.

“Got you!” Kay calls, clutching the rope just beneath me. If I slide anymore, I’ll knock away his grip. “Easy now . . .” Kay slowly drags the rope closer to the mountain. “Can you find a grip?”

My heart is thundering so loudly I can barely hear him, let alone see a good grip. “If I let go, I’ll fall.”

“You won’t fall. I won’t let you.”

“Even captains of secret garrisons have to obey the laws of nature.”

“But wild women of Gaelia are free of such things. Keep your hands on the rope and find a foothold.”

Nodding, I have the inexplicable urge to cry. But all that will do is cause icicles to form on my face.

No, I must be strong. I won’t have my enemy fighting for my life harder than I am.

Ignoring the new angle at which I’m tilting over the world now, I reach out with one foot. It slides off the first foothold, but I reach again, doing my best not to be sick from all the swaying.

This time, I’m able to push it all the way in.

“Good,” Kay calls. “Now do your other foot.”

“I’m not a complete imbecile,” I mutter before slipping again, colliding with Kay’s hand that mercifully doesn’t lose its grip.

“You can yell at me about touching your arse in a moment,” Kay calls. “Find another foothold.”

Fear has banished every other thought, so I just mumble and use my one foothold to drag me close to the mountain again. Then I jam my other foot into the first available spot I see.

“Now your other hand.”

Fury fights the fear and is honestly the only reason I’m not immobilized. “I thought you didn’t manhandle your prisoners.”

“If you want to scold me, grab hold of the rope and come look me in the eye.”

Tearing my left hand away, I blindly grasp the cliff. The rope and I totter a bit, but I don’t fall away from it. I also accidentally send a handful of snow downward.

Kay sounds like he has to blow it out of his face.

My anger giving away to sheer terror again, I glance down and find a pile on top of his head.

He offers me an encouraging smile, that is startling to see for so many reasons. It is perfectly rehearsed, like he taught himself to smile based on others’ facial cues and doesn’t grin for his own purposes. “Excellent job, lassie. Now, compared to everything else, embracing me doesn’t seem so terrible, does it?”

Chapter Sixteen

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