Maybe he’d woken up to find her gone, and he’d come after her. She definitely had some explaining to do, but a flutter of relief filled her chest at the thought that he’d followed her.
Then, a pang filled her gut as she realized that the man making his way toward her was not Lance. Because the last time she checked, Lance hadn’t been wearing a coat. And Lance didn’t walk around clutching his blades. And Lance didn’t have a bushy beard.
Or green eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
Predator and Prey
Three thoughts were raging through Lance’s mind as he sprinted across the mountainside. The first thought was that Mallory had abandoned him. Lance had woken up naked and tingling all over from last night’s experience with the fae woman, only to find her missing. Just as he’d feared, she’d gotten up and left him.
The second was that he was an idiot and a blithering one at that. He’d made the same mistake he’d made two years ago. Ignoring his instincts, he had trusted another fae woman, and where had that gotten him? It was the same pattern all over again: Help the fae woman and endanger your life in the process. Oh, and get abandoned right when he was in the thick of it.
The third thought was that perhaps Mallory hadn’t abandoned him. Perhaps she’d been taken by Boris. How Boris was still alive if that was really the case, was beyond him, but a single understanding stuck with him: Mallory was gone, and that was a bad thing.
It was this thought that had driven him out of the cave several minutes ago. He’d scanned his surroundings for a moment and followed the quickly fading tracks in the snow. It was hard to tell whether the footprints belonged to Boris or Mallory. He could only hope she was still breathing by the time he found her. An image crept into his mind, sending a sudden chill along his arms.
She’s still alive,he told himself.She’s got to be.
The terrain grew steeper as he moved, but he managed to maintain his balance, driven forward by a mixture of worry and rage. Worry because Mallory was most likely in danger right now. Rage because the most dangerous threat to her was Boris, the Fae Hunter.
“Mallory!” he called. If she were nearby, she would respond. “Mallory!”
But what if she couldn’t? What if she’d been bound and gagged or was lying dead in a valley? Or, worse, what if she was ignoring him? The possibilities swirled about in his mind like flecks of snow in a blizzard.
“Mallory!” he yelled again, knowing he could be risking an avalanche with his voice but too agitated to care. “Mallory, where are you?”
Still no answer. Lance followed the tracks, which seemed to be fading too quickly to be of any help. How far away could she have gotten?
“Mallory!”
“Lance!”
Every muscle in his body seemed to freeze at the sound. “Mallory?”
“Lance!” The voice was coming from farther around the mountainside, just out of view. “Lance, I’m—”
She was cut off suddenly. Lance’s eyes widened.
“Mallory!” He took off in the direction of the sound, his heart in his throat. He leaped over a rock, lost his balance, rolled in the snow for a few seconds, and sprang back to his feet, desperation coursing through his veins.
Where are you?he wondered.
A pair of figures appeared in the corner of his vision, barely thirty feet away. The first thing Lance noticed when he turned in their direction was the figure standing, blades drawn, over a form sitting in the snow.
Mallory. It wasn’t hard to figure out who the person standing over her was.
Boris raised one of his blades.
No!
Lance acted without thinking. His hand moved faster than he could blink, and the next thing he knew, one of the blades that had been strapped to his thigh was sailing through the air atBoris. The Fae Hunter dodged just in time, the blade zipping past his face.
Lance ground to a stop in the snow, ten feet away, drawing his second blade as Boris turned to face him. Both men stared at each other, Lance’s chest heaving. Mallory sat in the snow, apparently unhurt but clearly terrified out of her wits. Her eyes were wide, darting from Lance to Boris and back again.
The sight of her like that made Lance’s vision turn red. With a roar that was unlike him, he charged at the Fae Hunter, blade extended, his intent impossible to miss.
But Boris merely sidestepped him, striking at him before Lance could grind to a halt. Pain flared in his thigh, and he nearly went down in the snow. Boris had cut him. The wound didn’t seem deep, just a slash across the thigh, but it stung.