Page 10 of A Mountain Man Christmas

“You’re lying,” she said.

Tristan wanted anything but to be here right now with this woman. If they weren’t bound together, he would stillbe running downhill. He glanced around. Where were Angus’s men? They should have reached him by now. Perhaps they had stopped a while back and set up camp for the night. That gave him something of an edge. Or at least it would have if this…this thorn in his side hadn’t crossed his path.

“I do not need to lie to you,” he told her. “I have been nothing but honest ever since you attacked me out of nowhere.”

She ignored his jab. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Tristan,” he said quickly, then changed the subject. “No one who arrived on Frost Mountain has ever left.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

He groaned inwardly, wishing the shackles that bound him were not so durable. A shifter as powerful as him should have little trouble breaking out of their hold, but these were no ordinary binds.

This wasn’t at all how he’d imagined he would be spending the rest of his year. Just days ago, Tristian had been resting in his cabin after a successful hunt, mostly prepared for the approaching festive season. Christmas was one of the few periods when he and his nephew, Lewis, spent time together. He’d been looking forward to it this time.

And then the curse had reared its head.

No, it couldn’t be the curse. It just…couldn’t be. But as much as he tried to deny it, he couldn’t help but wonder whether he was right about that. He was only a wolf shifter, not a bloodthirsty monster. And as much as he’d disliked Benedict and Midas—a sentiment most other villagers openly shared—he would never in his right mind attack the sons of the village chief, much less murder them.

But he hadn’t been in his right mind then, had he? Even now, he still didn’t remember much from that night. Curse or no curse, it was no surprise that fingers were being pointed at him.

Now, he was on the run for a crime he could neither truly claim to be guilty nor innocent of. What was worse? He’d ended up in the clutches of a woman who seemed like she wouldn’t hesitate to turn him over to the men who were after him.

“What do you mean I can’t get off this mountain?” she demanded.

A thought flickered in his mind then: She was just like him in a way—unable to return to her home, hardly sure of what to do next. Like him, she must have been glancing over her shoulder every day since she got here, scanning her surroundings for any signs of danger. Like him, she wanted to survive.

Like him, she was afraid. He could hear the rapid thrum of her heartbeat as she glared up at him. Underneath her irritation lay terror.

“I need to keep moving,” he told her. He started to turn away, then froze when he remembered they were still bound together. The shackles were cold against his skin. He suspected she was even more so. “It won’t be long before Angus Denning and his men find me. I have to get to Ariadne before they get to me. If they do…” He trailed off, swallowing.

By now, he knew Elorn must be in turmoil. The death of not one but both sons of the village chief was enough to plunge the village into chaos. The hairs on the back of Tristan’s neck rose to attention suddenly. What had happened to Lewis? Had Angus had the young man captured, or worse?

He cast the thought to the back of his mind, where other worries sat. For now, he had a single goal. And there was someone in his way.

“You won’t be getting very far tonight, Tristan,” she told him, lifting her gloved hand so he could see the gleaming bracelets on both their wrists. “We’ll have to wait until morning—”

“I don’t have time to waste,” he protested.

“You don’t have much of a choice, either,” Lyla shot back. “We can only move as quickly as the slower person, and I don’t think I’ve got much strength left in me tonight. We’ll have to wait until morning to find a way to shatter the cuffs so we don’t break our fingers by accident or something.”

Tristan scowled. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. His body needed all the rest it could get. If he ran any more, his legs just might give out. While they were bound together, they couldn’t cover much distance tonight.

“We should find someplace to camp for the night, Tristan,” she added.

He wished she would stop talking, and not merely because she was proving to be a pain in his backside. She had a soft, sensual voice, and something about the way she spoke his name made him somewhat less willing to argue. He knew he despised this woman. She was aggressive and no doubt obstinate.

Yet he couldn’t seem to forget how, when he’d had her pinned beneath him, his body had come awake in places that hadn’t been aroused in a long time. For someone so fierce, her body was rather soft and curvy and had fit his perfectly. If he hadn’t been so desperate to get away, things might have turned out differently. He’d been so caught up in his own fears that he hadn’t even realized his reaction to her until he eased himself off her and noticed the tension in his aching groin.

With any luck, she hadn’t noticed it at all. She hadn’t mentioned it.

Not that it mattered. They were only stuck together until morning. After that, he’d head for Ariadne’s and hope he made it to his sister before he was caught.

“Fine,” he snapped, “but we move at first light.”

***

“I still find it hard to believe you’re not messing with me.”

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