Page 49 of Reckless
I’m shifting on my feet now. “I’d rather walk.”
“TheSilver Savior?” He’s smiling. “Scared of horses?”
Light laughter meets my ears, mocking me. I ignore the surrounding snickers and instead settle my gaze on the silently amused bastard before me. “Well, I was never privileged enough to ride one growing up, was I? So I think I’m allowed to find them… unsettling.”
“We all have our fears, Gray,” he murmurs, stepping closer for only me to hear. “Though I was beginning to believe you didn’t have any. Least of all horses.”
“I’m not afraid,” I say between the teeth I’m flashing at him. “Just in need of some exercise.”
I can barely make out the twitch of his lips in the darkness before he tethers my bound wrist to his horse with a long lead. “Try to keep up, Gray. I don’t want to have to drag you across the desert.”
I roll my eyes at his back but quickly avert them from the muscles straining against his shirt as he pulls himself up onto the saddle. At the sight, my mind wanders to the rooftop before I’m shaking my head and shoving the thought back down.
It’s not long until I’m stumbling beside him, trying to put as much distance between myself and the beast looming beside me. The Imperials scattered around us are cast in shadow, draped in the darkness we waited to fall before setting foot in the desert. Spending my afternoon with the prince and his entourage was equally as miserable as the blanket of heat smothering us. That is, until the sun finally grew tired of its torture and sank into its bed of clouds, allowing the moon to guide us as we began our trek across the desert.
Time ticks by, indicated only by the ever-growing pain pulsing from my wound. Every step burns, scorching like the sun we managed to evade for a few hours. It’s not long before a limp manages to slipinto my stride, despite my best efforts to smother it.
But when he clears his throat beside me, I force myself to straighten, biting my tongue against the pain. “You’re slowing down, Gray.” His voice is quiet, gruff from hours of disuse.
“Would you like me to run, Your Highness?” I manage, keeping my eyes on the shifting sand beneath my feet.
“I’d like to see you try. It would be entertaining, to say the least.”
I throw him a glance. “I live to amuse, Your Highness.”
A cough catches in his throat, the closest to a laugh he’ll allow himself. “Stop,” he commands, pulling his horse to a halt. I stagger beside him, almost tempted to lean against the beast. The parade of Imperials pull on their reins, stopping to circle us.
I watch the prince swing gracefully from his saddle before closing the distance between us. Swallowing, I trace the muscle that ticks in his jaw, the path his gaze trails down my body. And then he’s crouching before me once again, looking up with hands braced on either side of my injured thigh.
I ignore the prickle of a dozen prying eyes roaming over the scene we’ve created, unable to find a single reason to care. His eyes are on mine, and for a single, bittersweet second, it’s Kai I’m looking at—not the monster meant to hunt me down.
Then his brow is furrowed, his mind captured by the task at hand. With swift fingers, he’s tracing the jagged cut, threading skin and tissue together. I sigh, relief flooding me with every pass of his fingertips. He looks up at me then, eyes wandering over my face in a way that makes me feel stripped bare before him.
“Better?” His voice is barely more than a murmur.
“Better,” I breathe. Tearing my eyes from his, I look up to scan the Imperials, silently wondering which one of them is the Healer he’s drawing power from. “You couldn’t have done that twelve hours ago?”
The corner of his lips twitch. “Twelve hours ago we were in a bustling city I knew you’d be able to easily disappear into. That is, if you managed to get away from me.” He almost shrugs. “Call it a precaution.”
I mimic his shrug with one of my own. “You seem to be taking a lot of precautions for a mere Ordinary.”
“I think we both know that nothing about you ismere.”
We watch each other for a long moment, wary in the way that we know we are supposed to be. Everything about him is sharp and cold and piercing me with that glasslike gaze. Even crouched beneath me, he’s every bit the prince and creation of the king. A puppet of the crown disguised with a fancy title.
I wonder how often the Enforcer kneels before anything.Anyone.
“You’re afraid of me.”
He meets my statement with a stare, steady but drawn out like a sigh. “I’d be a fool not to fear something so fierce.”
I swallow. “And are you not? A fool, that is?”
He stands then, holding my gaze until he’s the one looking down on me. “Not anymore.”
I open my mouth, fumbling for words he doesn’t care to hear. With a turn and a nod to his men, the parade lurches to life once again, dragging me along with it. I watch as he mounts his horse, glimpsing the glimmer of hope on his hip.
My heart skips a beat, tripping over itself at the sight of a dagger decorating his side, though the lack of swirling steel on its hilt tells me it is not mine. I force my thoughts to be rational, force myself to think like the thief I had to become. Having maimed any chance for a morsel of trust, every move I make is annoyingly under suspicion. It’s a struggle not to mourn how easy getting close to him used to be, and how desperately I crave something not completely complicated.
